Checks and Balances

by orphan_account

Summary:

When Thomas's aunt told him she was going to be cutting off his allowance, he thought she was joking.

When he moved to New York and started working for his ex-boyfriend, he thought he would be able to teach himself how to be self sufficient.

When he entered into an increasingly complex series of deals with Alexander Hamilton, he thought he was getting his life under control.

Thomas was wrong.

Chapter 1: Thomas Goes to Work

Notes:

Welcome to the overly complicated coffee shop AU you probably didn't ask for.

Note: I have no idea how inheritance and being rich really works, so please just accept the specific situation I made up to create conflict.

It had been a beautiful day, the day Thomas’s aunt had decided to ruin his life.

They were out in one of the gardens, eating finger sandwiches and sipping iced tea. They were sitting in one of her gazebos, the soft May breeze heavy with a lazy sort of threat of the approaching summer. He was wearing pastels. They were the very picture of old money.

“As you know, Thomas,” Aunt Shannon said, tossing an impeccable blonde curl over the shoulder of her Lily Pulitzer dress, “you are currently receiving an allowance from what will eventually be your inheritance, as per your father’s wishes.” She paused to take a sip of her tea, rubbing the condensation from the glass between manicured fingers. “As executor of your father’s will, I have complete control over your allowance until you reach the age of twenty-five. How much you receive, when you receive it, et cetera. Your father decided that this would be the best way to ensure you were able to support yourself.”

Thomas nodded. Of course he knew that. He’d spent the last seven years of his life the weird financial limbo his father and Aunt Shannon had created for him. A sizable monthly bank transfer and regular visits to his many relatives’ many estates stood as a constant reminder that one day Thomas would be a very wealthy man. He didn’t think about money often (that, he’d been told, was the true luxury of affluence — not having to think about money) but when he did, he did so with a sense of anticipation. Four years, and he would be his own man. Four years, and he would be free to do what he wanted without having to consult Aunt Shannon or Uncle Andrew or any other member of the Randolph Clan.

“Your cousins all have trusts set up on this side of the family, but due to your… unique situation, your allowance comes from your father, completely independent from all Randolph family finances…” she trailed off, looking out at the gardens. Thomas couldn’t remember ever seeing his aunt this uncomfortable. She looked like a high schooler trying to negotiate for a later curfew, not the matriarch of one of Virginia’s most prominent families.

Thomas’s brow furrowed. He leaned forward, forearms hitting the table a little too hard, ice in the pitcher clicking against the glass. “Aunt Shannon, I know all of this. Why are you telling me? Has something changed? Has my mother…”

Aunt Shannon fixed him with a pained look. They didn’t discuss his mother often. “She hasn’t contacted us, no. This isn’t about her.”

Thomas flinched at the bite in his aunt’s words and tried to ignore his slight disappointment. Of course she hadn’t. His mother hadn’t been in contact with the family since she’d decided to remove herself from the picture all those years ago. She hadn’t said a word when her parents died, hadn’t called when Thomas’s father passed. A family newsletter was sent to the estate she’d chosen to hole herself up in every season, but nothing had come out. It had complicated things for everyone, particularly for Thomas, the mixed-race half-orphan of the family abandoned by his only blood link to the Randolphs. If his father had placed him in a financial limbo, his mother had placed him in a familial one.

“So why are you bringing this up?”

She sighed, rubbing her eyes. Her bangles jingled as she set her hand back down on the patio chair’s arm rest. “I’m telling you this to remind you that your money is coming at you from a different direction than your cousins, but it is still under my control until you reach the age your father and I agreed upon before his death. I am going to be having some version of this conversation with each of your cousins.”

“Does the conversation have a point?” Thomas asked, his increasing nerves getting the better of him.

“Young man, you will watch your tone with me,” Aunt Shannon snapped.

Thomas’s eyes fell to the table. “Sorry, ma’am.”

She waved it off. “I know I’m being roundabout, I just… this isn’t something I’m taking lightly.”

Thomas contemplated the sandwich on his plate, but his stomach wasn’t feeling up to the challenge. Not until his aunt finally got around to telling him whatever it was he needed to drive all the way out to her house for. “Please just tell me whatever it is. Right now I’m thinking either we’re filing for bankruptcy or someone’s house caught fire.”

Aunt Shannon’s lip twitched. “If only. Then maybe Charlie’s wife would leave him and we could get rid of that Pomeranian. My parlor still smells a little bit like pee, no matter how many times I have the carpet shampooed.”

“So no one’s died, no one’s homeless, and we’re still rich. What’s happened?”

“Have you heard about the… incident your cousin Brandon had last month?”

Thomas cocked an eyebrow and sat back in his chair. “You mean the incident involving a Lamborghini, two hookers, a pool, and the mayor of West Palm Beach?”

“Yes,” Aunt Shannon said, “that one. It has come to my attention that some of the beneficiaries of the Randolph trusts are not being terribly responsible with their money.”

Thomas laughed. “You don’t say.”

Aunt Shannon raised an eyebrow, giving her nephew a look over, no doubt taking in the sleek lilac button up, the designer shorts, and the immaculate leather sandals. “And you, Thomas, with your miserly habits, are surely one to talk.”

Thomas felt heat pool in his cheeks. “So… the incident?” he redirected.

“Right,” Aunt Shannon said, leaning forward. “The incident. I’ve decided that I will be cutting off allowances to all of the cousins… including you.”

“I’m sorry… what?”

“I have decided that you will all be forced to support yourselves for one year, to learn how to handle money effectively. Once the year is up, the allowances will resume.”

“But—” Thomas was starting to regain feeling in his extremities, and the feeling wasn’t good.

“Now,” Aunt Shannon continued, “I understand that your position is less than ideal, since you are about to move to New York and start a graduate program. I’ve decided that I will cover your school expenses, since your academic performance would no doubt have earned you substantial financial aid if you had not come from money. Everything else, though — transportation, food, housing, all that — that will be up to you. You will receive next month’s allowance, but after that, you’re on your own. I hope for your sake you have enough saved, otherwise… I’d suggest looking for a job.”

“This… this isn’t fair,” Thomas protested, hoping he sounded less like a child to her ears than he did to his own. “You’re punishing us all for what Brandon did!”

His hopes were in vain. Aunt Shannon let out a harsh laugh. “Life isn’t fair, darlin’. You were born into more money than most people will ever see in their life, that wasn’t exactly fair. I just want to know that you can take care of yourself. You’re a smart kid, I’m sure you’ll be able to figure it out. I’m going to head back into the house, come in whenever you feel ready.”

She made a quick retreat, no doubt to give Thomas time to fume. He wanted to flip the stupid table over, and that probably wouldn’t have helped his argument that of course he was a mature adult.

That evening, in his apartment in Williamsburg, he called the only person he knew in New York. Laf was sympathetic to his situation, and offered him his spare room and a job at his bakery. Thomas was so panicked that he took him up on the offer immediately. It wasn’t until later, when he was staring sleepless at his ceiling, that he realized he’d just accepted a food service job from his ex-boyfriend.

If someone had told Thomas Jefferson, recent graduate of the College of William & Mary, violinist, trust fund baby, track star, and all-around southern motherfucking gentleman that he’d be spending the morning before his first day of grad school leaning against a counter and taking someone’s coffee order, he would have laughed.

And yet, there the fuck he was.

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“I am not putting eight shots of espresso into your drink. I’m not even sure eight shots of espresso would fit in the mug.”

Hamilton smirked. The fucker. “I know for a fact that size mug will hold sixteen.”

“Please tell me that you did not drink a full sixteen ounces of espresso.”

“You’re very judge-y for a barista. Aren’t you supposed to be upselling?”

“You don’t pay for coffee,” Thomas said.

“Still.”

“Aren’t you afraid it’ll stunt your growth?” Thomas asked, eyebrow raised.

Before the bespectacled, manbun-ed, over-caffeinated gremlin could respond, Laf intervened.

“Give the man whatever he wants, mon ami,” Laf said as he lovingly arranged a display of pastries with a shiny set of silver tongs. “Alex needs caffeine to survive. To deny him his espresso is like to murder him.”

Hamilton smiled at Laf. Thomas rolled his eyes. If the dumbass wanted to put himself into an early grave, that was none of his business. He started on the potentially lethal brew as the typing resumed. He nearly flinched at the sound. The speakers had just shit out (again) and Angelica had left early for a dentist appointment, so the incessant clicking of Hamilton’s typing and the almost alarmingly loud fan of Hamilton’s laptop sounded even louder than usual. And they usually sounded quite loud.

Thomas started making the shots for Hamilton’s coffee (if you could even call it coffee at that point), the growling hiss of the espresso machine briefly breaking up the sound of the non-stop typing. He poured shot after shot into the mug, then topped it off with some of the drip coffee.

What do you even call a red eye with eight shots? he wondered as he brought the mug over to Hamilton. The Evil Eye? The Eye of Sauron? The Eye of the Hurricane? The All-Seeing Eye?

“Enjoy your death juice,” he said as he set it on the small patch of table not covered by furiously scribbled notes or the wheezing computer.

Hamilton took a sip. “Aaaaaaah,” he sighed. “It tastes of the void.”

The Eye of the Abyss, Thomas decided. If you were to look into that coffee, it would look back.

He started wiping down the tables and heard a loud thunking sound as Laf smacked the sound system with his pastry tongs. The hipster acoustic Pandora station he’d selected that morning started flowing out of the speakers.

Hamilton calmly sipped his drink as he continued to work. Thomas wondered how the hell he was still alive. His heart was probably like a hummingbird’s, beating so quickly that even the most advanced monitors couldn’t record it. It probably just sounded like a continuous buzzing.

Actually, come to think of it, Hamilton had quite a bit in common with a hummingbird. He was tiny, hyper, aggressive, surprisingly loud for his size… hell, he even wore a hummingbird green jacket most days despite the hot late August weather.

Thomas chuckled at the thought, and Hamilton turned around. “What is it?” he snapped.

Over his shoulder, Thomas saw three full lines of text appear on the word document Hamilton was hacking away at, like it was still catching up to his typing.

Fucking a.

“Nothing,” Thomas said. Then he noticed something strange. “Why don’t you have letters on your keyboard?”

“Huh?” Hamilton turned back to the laptop as if just now noticing it as a physical object and not a portal to whatever circle of Hell it was the compelled him to type until his fingers bled.

“Your keyboard doesn’t have letters on it. No… wait,” Thomas leaned in closer. “Holy shit your wore the paint off.”

“Oh,” Hamilton said, looking down at the blank buttons beneath his fingers. “Guess I did.”

Then he started typing again, and Thomas went to refill the sugars.

He couldn’t believe there was a time when he was attracted to the stupid fuck.

Because the first time Thomas had seen Hamilton, he’d actually thought he was cute.

He wasn’t Thomas’s usual type, but there was something appealing about his swarthy complexion, his longish black hair, his slight build. There was a sort of elegance to him, Thomas had thought, then still tying the string of his apron for the first time on his first day of work at the shop — first day of work anywhere, actually.

“Hey, Alex,” Angela had said, bleary eyed but smiling as they opened the shop. “The usual?”

Hamilton had smiled. “Yes, please.” He had a strange sort of accent — almost American, but not quite.

Thomas watched as he went to a table in the corner. “Do the customers pay after we give them the coffee?” he asked, confused.

“No,” Angelica said, pouring two espresso shots into a mug and then immediately making more, “but Alex doesn’t pay for coffee.”

“Why?”

“Ask Lafayette.”

When he did, Laf explained that it was because Hamilton had helped him considerably when he first moved to America. Laf’s English had been horrible and Hamilton spoke fluent French. He had essentially been the reason Laf was able to graduate from Columbia, so when he decided to open a bakery and coffee shop, he guaranteed Hamilton free coffee forever.

But it turned out that promising Alexander Hamilton an unlimited supply of coffee was less like returning a favor to an old college buddy and more like signing a Faustian contract with a Prince of Hell.

Hamilton was always there.

Every day, Hamilton arrived five minutes after they opened and stayed in his spot until five minutes before closing, with regular breaks to order another ungodly concoction or visit the small bathroom he sat near. The whole time, he was writing.

At one point Thomas had muttered something about Hamilton freeloading off his friend while Laf was a little bit too close.

He’d just laughed. “Ah, but I love it. He is like a guardian protecting our little shop. Alexander, Patron Saint of the Sleep Deprived. God of Caffeine. May he forever bless us with his grace. May he keep our eyes ever open. May all who pray to him meet their deadlines!”

Hamilton apparently had no problem with the spontaneous religion that seemed to have formed around him. “Amen,” he said as he raised his coffee in a toast and downed it all in one gulp.

Then he started typing again.

And Thomas had to admit (because Thomas was a fair minded sort of fellow, as he would tell you) Hamilton wasn’t exactly an inconvenience. Sure, the monthly cost of his coffee habit was probably somewhere close to the annual GDP of a small European principality, but at least he always took the crappiest table in the shop, a wobbly little number stuck in the corner by the bathroom. On the rare occasion some super early customer took his seat, he would sit somewhere else without fuss until the spot was vacated, at which point he would quietly move over to his usual perch. Though his orders were likely unsafe for human consumption, they weren’t hard to make. And he always tossed a few crumpled bills into the tip jar.

The problem wasn’t that Hamilton was an annoying customer. The problem was that Hamilton was an annoying person.

He had opinions on everything. Everything. He had given what was objectively too much thought to every possible aspect of politics, the social order, science, philosophy, economics, history, literature, pop culture, food, wine, theology, poetry, astrology, gardening, the weather, plumbing, types of pens, brands of scented candles, publishing houses, breeds of dogs… fucking everything. And he would be happy to tell you all about each and every one of those opinions in an hours long rant featuring a surprising number of references and statistics he apparently had memorized.

And God save your sorry soul if you were talking about something he happened to have notes on.

It was a wonder to behold, really. He was possibly one of the most intelligent people Thomas had ever met, a skilled debater, and a motherfucking force of nature when he got into a rhythm.

But the problem was, all of his opinions were wrong.

Of the maybe twenty-five million personal opinions of one Alexander Hamilton Thomas had been made privy to in his four or so months working at Laf 's bakery, he’d agreed with maybe six. Not six million, six.

It was fascinating. The man had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of everything, one to rival Thomas’s own, but he had no capacity for examination.

Thomas felt like he was watching a math whiz do a complicated calculation correctly until about half way through, then come to the dumbest possible conclusion, then throw his chalk at the audience if they started to question him. Hamilton was willing to die defending every anthill he stood on.

Most of the time, though, Hamilton was just typing away at his laptop. Thomas had no idea what he was writing. He once asked Laf about it, but the French fuck just wiggled his eyebrows.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he had said with a smirk. “Why don’t you go ask him?”

Thomas owed Laf a lot — a whole lot. There weren’t many people on the planet willing to let the man they’d dated for three weeks live with them for free. There weren’t many bakery and cafe owners willing to let the clumsy new hire burn coffee, pastries, and himself for the first month of his employment. There weren’t many friends willing to let their ex-aristocrat roommate/employee mope about and feel sorry for himself because he wasn’t getting his monthly allowance anymore.

So if Thomas sometimes got the feeling that Laf was trying to set him up with Hamilton, that was fine. It wasn’t going to happen, of course, because any chance of him finding the man attractive went out the window the second the stupid fuck decided to inform him of his 47 point plan to resolve the recession in Finland. Even if he was willing to admit to himself that the mystery accent was sorta sexy.

Because really, Hamilton was practically furniture. He was as much a part of the shop as the crack in the tile of the bathroom floor of the half peeled-off “I voted” sticker they’d been unable to completely remove from the large mirror on one of the walls.

And if Thomas had an annoying and confusing habit of staring at him during moments of idleness, well, that was probably just because he was more interesting to look at than the unimaginative abstract art Laf had allowed his painter friends to display on commission.

Hamilton was background, a vague annoyance. Nothing more. And today was his first day of classes, so Thomas would finally have something to do with his brain besides read fanfiction under the counter and argue with Hamilton about whether or not sprinkles improved cupcakes.

And since his classes didn’t start until the evening, he would be living in the strange little ecosystem he'd been inhabiting since he’d moved to New York: spending every day with his sexy French ex-boyfriend, a few coworkers he was slowly convincing to like him, and an argumentative foreign elf-like creature who appeared to be participating in some sort of year-round NaNoWriMo.

This was his life now, and he was trying so very hard to like it.

He still laid on his cheap lumpy mattress (covered in the expensive Egyptian cotton sheets he’d brought up with him) in the tiny spare room above the cafe every night staring at the ceiling and resenting the fuck out of his aunt for putting him in this situation. He still grappled with the fact that he couldn’t afford most of what used to be essentials for him. He was still trying to figure out how to feed himself properly, refusing Laf’s offers to help out.

So life was mostly Kraft dinner and ramen, trying not to think about his account balance, and trying not to be too much of a bother to Laf.

Like hiding in his room whenever Laf had his boyfriend (a tall and surprisingly loud tailor named Hercules) over for date night. Like trying to keep his complaining about how loud New York was and how annoying New Yorkers were to a minimum.

And like avoiding Family Dinner. Laf would have his friends over every other week for a big meal. Though Thomas was always invited, he opted out. He didn’t want to ruin their fun, especially since Hamilton would be there and he knew they’d likely get in an argument. He would either wander around city until it was so late all of Laf 's friends had left, or he would go to a bar and get laid, trudging home in the wee hours of the morning — feeling tired and hungry in ways that had nothing to do with food or sleep — to shower and get ready for his morning shift. Laf would give him a sad sort of look those mornings. Thomas tended to avoid his eyes.

He knew he needed to get his shit together. He knew that he wasn’t handling his situation well. One day he’d be panicking about money, obsessing over every little way he could cut corners and convincing himself he could live off of broccoli and water for a year, the next day he’d be handing his credit card to some cashier or waiter or bartender because he was getting his paycheck tomorrow and he’d earned this and he would be able to pay it off later.

And there wasn’t a single aspect of his situation that he hated more than the fact that he knew his aunt was right. He did need to learn how to handle his finances. Because Thomas had known being poor was going to suck. He just hadn’t expected it to suck so much. And he hadn’t thought he would suck at it.

But whatever. The semester was starting and he could forget about his misery and focus on his studies.

Hamilton slipped out the door as Thomas started to close out the register. Thomas rolled his shoulders, both exhausted and excited. He’d just spent the last three hours of his life arguing with Hamilton about whether The Nightmare Before Christmas was a Christmas or Halloween movie. They’d actually started yelling at one point and had only stopped the argument when it was time to close up.

Thomas sighed and put his headphones on as Laf locked the door behind him and waved him off. He was free. No more stupid, inane arguments with Hamilton. He was going to go to his class and enjoy intelligent discourse about topics that mattered with mature adults. He’d fucking earned this.

He was maybe a block down the street when someone yanked his headphones off.

Thomas let out a little squeal of surprise and looked around for whoever was trying to steal his headphones.

“What the fuck Hamilton?!?!”

The gremlin was standing there with a smirk on his stupid face, holding Thomas’s extremely expensive headphones with his stupid grubby callused fingers. Passers by changed their course subtly to avoid the two men.

“I cannot believe that someone would be so demented, so depraved, so sick that they would think it’s a Halloween movie.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

“And how is it a Christmas movie?” Thomas asked, snatching his headphones back and wrapping them around his neck. He started to walk again. He wasn’t going to be late for his class. If Hamilton wanted to follow him around the city to continue this stupid conversation, he was gonna have to keep up.

“Jack takes over as Santa Claus but fucks everything up and learns a valuable lesson at the end about respect and friendship and all that shit. Halloween movies don’t have morals because Halloween isn’t a moralistic holiday.”

Thomas tried to used his height advantage to get ahead of Hamilton, but the shorter man was surprisingly fast. “The moral of the movie isn’t the true meaning of Christmas, you stupid fuck. The moral is about minding your own fucking business and staying in your fucking lane.”

“And that’s another thing!”

There was always another thing.

“What the fuck sort of messed up caste system do they have going on in this movie?! Everyone is just stuck in their fucking tree with no chance to go anywhere else? You don’t get to make any decisions about what holiday you live in?” He flailed as he argued, and Thomas watched with amusement as he almost smacked various innocent bystanders as they made their way down the sidewalk.

“They don’t even know about the other holidays until Jack stumbled upon that grove,” Thomas pointed out. “That’s like saying we’re oppressed because we don’t get to live in whatever alternative dimensions may or may not exist.” He started walking down the steps into the subway and sighed as Hamilton followed him.

The conversation ceased out of respect for the unspoken (literally) rules of underground transportation. Thomas and Hamilton were separated as they found spots in the overcrowded car. Thomas leaned against the bar he’d grabbed a hold of, relishing in the brief respite from the argument (and mentally writing out the rest of it). He had no clue what stop Hamilton was going to be getting off at. Strange, really, that he followed him down into the subway in the first place. As Thomas recalled, they lived in the same neighborhood. He caught a glimpse of Hamilton’s reflection in the blackened window. The man had this brooding expression on his face, and was almost vibrating. Like he was charging or something.

Thomas got off at his stop and allowed himself to be swept away with the crowd. Free of Hamilton at last. Off to class. Now, was it a right turn or a left…

“There is no fucking way that no one had ever seen that place before.”

Thomas jumped, nearly tripping over a trashcan. The fucker had materialized beside him while Thomas was looking up the building on the map he had on his phone.

“Don’t you think Jack would have known about it if it was something that someone had been to before?” he replied once he managed to regain his footing.

Hamilton shrugged. “It was less than one day’s walk from the place where everybody apparently lives. Do you honestly expect me to believe that no one ever found that place before? And also why does that place even exist? Like, who made a bunch of portals to alternative dimensions out of trees then made cutesy doors out of… I’m assuming tree bark? Who thought that was a good idea? What sort of trickster god decided to twist the laws of reality to create this fucking motel of holidays?”

“Tim Burton,” Thomas replied wryly.

“Can you imagine what sort of dystopia those characters are living in? For the two worlds we saw, it didn’t appear the seasons ever changed. So are the residents stuck in a perpetual ice age? Where do they get food? You know, that supports the theory that someone must’ve known about the portals. I’m sure there’s a massive smuggling network. Like 4th of July World and Labor Day World are just churning out agricultural product.”

“I can’t imagine anyone works in Labor Day world,” Thomas mused.

“But aside from that, like, what sort of police state are they stuck in? I’m so confused about their system of government. Jack’s been in power for thousands of years, how does that make sense? What exactly is the power of the Pumpkin King?”

“Maybe he’s like the King at Mardi Gras. It’s just a ceremonial thing.”

“But he seems to have more authority than the elected Mayor. Also, is the Mayor always the Mayor? Like, do they just keep having mock elections to keep him in power? But he’s always bowing down to Jack. Jack is in charge, no question. For thousands of years. If that isn’t a dictatorship, I don’t know what is.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Thomas said as he swiped his key card at the door. Hamilton followed him in. Good. Maybe security would grab him. “He’s been running the show for thousands of years. Everyone in town respects him for his abilities, so if anything it’s a meritocracy since there’s no indication he inherited power from his father or had some sort of violent take over. He asks to borrow the mad scientist’s equipment and he lets him. It’s played as more of a friendly favor than an order from some sort of Supreme Leader. Have you considered the possibility that he’s the Pumpkin King because he’s good at his job and they like him?”

He pulled his schedule out of his pocket and checked the room number. Hamilton followed him into the elevator.

“Are they all as old as him? Do they remember a time when he wasn’t in power?”

“Probably,” Thomas replied, pushing toe button for his floor. When was this bastard going to leave?

“So where did they come from in the first place?”

“I don’t know. It isn’t important to the plot of the animated children’s movie you’ve been fixating on all day.”

They stepped out of the elevator and Thomas found the room.

“Alright,” he said. “I need to go further my education now so I’m stopping this pointless conversation here.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes.

Thomas slipped into the room and grabbed a chair. A very small collection of men surrounded the sole table in the middle of the room. Thomas took a deep breath as he pulled out his notebook.

When he looked up, Hamilton had taken a seat opposite him in the table.

What the actual fuck?

The professor stood up. “Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, I presume? Welcome to my class.”

The realization, cold and terrifying, spread across Thomas’s body.

Hamilton tossed his head back and laughed.

Notes:

Comments are to me what shots of espresso are to Hamilton. It's impossible for me to have enough and I probably have an unhealthy addiction to them.

Thanks for reading!

Chapter 2: Alex Goes to Dinner

Notes:

Warning: This chapter contains some anxious thought spirals. Just wanted to let anyone who might not be comfortable reading those right now know.

“You absolute fuck,” Alex said, standing so rapidly his chair fell to the floor behind him.  “You can’t honestly think that’s a reasonable request?  What the fuck sort of school did you go to?” 

“Language, Alexander,” Jefferson drawled.  “You can’t honestly think that’s a respectful way to talk to your classmates.” 

Alex had always hated the word “drawled.”  He never got why the word got such special treatment — it isn’t “the Irishman brogued,” why is it “the southerner drawled”?  The  word was a noun, not a verb.

He didn’t understand it, that was, until he met Thomas Jefferson.  He knew perfectly well that the fucker could speak without any hint of an accent when he wanted to, and usually he wanted to.

But every once in a while, he drawled.

And when he did it, it was a verb.  It wasn’t just his voice, either, every bit of him drawled.  His sardonic, heavy-lidded eyes drawled.  His well-trimmed stubble drawled.  His expensive aftershave drawled.  The swell of his biceps drawled.  His tight curls, shiny at the ends with some sort of product, drawled.  His stupid fucking magenta shirt with the stupid fucking sleeves rolled up to reveal his stupid fucking forearms drawled.

And Alex was having none of that shit.

He bent down to retrieve his chair, a cheap plastic thing that was the last available when he’d arrived, and Jefferson smirked as he swayed gently in his stupid fucking swivel chair.

Professor Washington, who was surprisingly tall, surprisingly handsome, and surprisingly tolerant cleared his throat.  “Thank you, Alexander, for your… enthusiastic defense of my attendance policy, but I can take it from here.  Thomas, attendance represents such a large portion of your overall grade because this class is largely discussion based, so if someone were to miss a substantial portion of classes, they would not have effectively done all of their ‘classwork,’ so to speak.  Does that make sense?” 

Jefferson didn’t look too happy with that explanation, but he nodded.

 “Good,” Washington said.  “Let’s move on to page three of the syllabus then.”

There was a general fluttering as the small group of students turned their packets over.

There were only four people in the class.  Aside from Alex and Jefferson, there was a friendly looking guy with a double chin who introduced himself as Henry, and some dude named Edmund wearing a William and Mary sweatshirt.  Which meant that he and Jefferson were immediately, like, best friends and gushed about their alma mater and good old Virginia for the first five minutes of class.

And then freaked when they learned that Washington was from Virginia, too.

Alex turned to Henry.  “Please tell me you aren’t also from Virginia.”

Henry shook his head, eyes amused.  “Boston.”

“Thank fuck.” 

“Where are you from?”  Henry asked, and it was a totally normal question and he was just being nice and making conversation and so Alex shouldn’t have shot him a cool look.

But Goddamit it was such a force of habit and Alex did.  “New York,” he said in a tone that invited no further conversation.

Henry’s eyes widened slightly at the shift of mood.  Before Alex could apologize, Washington started the class.

If Alex had thought that he and Jefferson were going to be able to conduct themselves in a calm manner in class, he was relieved of that assumption pretty much immediately.  The fucker was even more annoying (and even more wrong) in an academic setting.  Sure, it was funny as hell seeing the dumbfounded look on Jefferson’s face when he realized that he was stuck with Alex for a whole semester.

But mirth vanished almost immediately when Alex realized that it also meant he was stuck with Jefferson.

By the end of the first class, Alex and Jefferson had already violated four of the “classroom etiquette rules” that had been enumerated on page two, and Henry and Edmund looked like they were contemplating dropping out of Washington’s class.  And possibly grad school.  And maybe leaving the state.

Washington, however, looked amused.  “Well, it appears we’ll be having a very interesting semester.  Have a nice evening.”

Edmund and Henry shuffled away as quickly as they could, but Jefferson stayed behind for a “quick word” with Washington.

Kiss ass.

Alex pretended like he wasn’t going to do the same and made his way home, ruminating over the arguments he’d had with Jefferson that day.  He pulled out his phone and wrote a few short paragraphs about in the little log he’d taken to keeping.  If nothing else, the class had given him some good ideas for blog posts. 

He was considering starting a whole new blog dedicated to his experiences with Jefferson… maybe he’d put it in the context of regional differences between Americans. 

Jefferson was just so… southern.  And maybe it was a bit strange for him to be saying that, since he spent his childhood far closer to the equator than Jefferson had likely ever been… but… but… southerners.

Because there was a difference between being somewhere far south, and being from the South and that difference deserved close examination.

He got on the subway and stared at his reflection in darkened glass, a quick glance around the car confirming that Jefferson was absent from his day for the first time since six that morning.  He took a deep breath.  He could just think about something else…

… the course load looked very manageable.  Washington wanted a lot of writing from his students, but Alex had put aside the first two weekends of the semester to bulk write his essays.  It didn’t look too different from his normal personal workload.  He’d have to schedule his blog posts early.  Maybe if he shaved a few hours off his sleep schedule that night, he'd be able to edit the posts for the next week and free up that time.  The presentation really looked like it would be the most annoying bit.  Henry looked chill.  He’d probably be grateful if Alex just handed him his script…

 ... today had been one of his good days, come to think of it, he’d barely thought about John at all.  Of course, now that he noticed that the anxiety wasn’t there, it was all just waiting for it to arrive and fuck and breathe and breathe and think of something else... 

… Really the most annoying thing about Jefferson was probably that he was not at all what Alex was expecting him to be.  And Alex hated surprises.

When Laf had told them that his ex boyfriend would be moving in with them by the end of May, they all told him that probably wasn’t a great idea.  Now Alex wished they’d slapped him across the face.

“He is desperate,” Laf had said, sipping his wine.  “He is in a… how you say… sticky situation and I feel it is my job as his friend to help him out.  He is very smart.  Quite handsome.  An excellent lover.  You will like him.”

Alex hadn’t really thought about him much after that.  Usually he imagined him as some southern frat bro Laf had fucked because he did yet know what American cock tasted like.  Other times (usually late at night) he imagined him as some archetypical (because an archetype is a stereotype with class… gotta write that down that could be an interesting article…) southern gentleman… like Rhett Butler without the mustache… or the dad bod… who maybe looked more like Ryan Gosling.

What ever he had been expecting, it wasn’t… him.

The first time he saw Jefferson, he didn’t know it was Jefferson he was seeing.  He’d stumbled into the cafe at his usual time and saw Angelica behind the counter with a vaguely Lafayette-shaped man.  She acknowledged his presence and he knew that there would be coffee coming, so he no longer needed to interact with outside stimuli.  He’d been behind that day.  He worked through the morning without really ever looking up and slipped out the door early for a meeting.

The next day was when he realized that something was up.

While waiting for his computer to work its way through one of its episodes, he pulled out his phone and started scrolling through Instagram.  He frowned when he encountered a picture of what looked like Laf, but from a weird, stalker-ish angle, which definitely wasn’t his friend’s Instagram style.  He glanced up at the username.

Ah.

NewYork’sSexiestBaristas.  An Instagram account dedicated entirely to scouting out the hottest person possible to make you a latte.  It was a pretty fucked up account, really.  It objectified people in the service industry.  It creeped on people who had no clue they were even having their picture taken.  It was super immoral and wrong and gross.  Alex followed it religiously.

But it didn’t make any sense that Laf would be featured there again.  He’d opened the bakery a year ago and was listed then.  They never posted the same person twice.

He looked down at the description under the picture.

Don’t worry, loves.  You aren’t seeing double.  This hottie isn’t Lafayette, the delicious French owner of @CaféLiberté.  No, this newcomer is all American— recently transplanted to the city from VA. Why does this fresh eye candy bear such a striking resemblance to our dear Laf?  Your guess is as good as mine.  Long lost twin?  Sexy clone?  Leave your thoughts in the comments ;)

Well, now Alex felt dirty and… holy shit that isn’t Laf.

He knew this for three reasons.

One, Lafayette would never be caught dead wearing a maroon silk shirt.

Two, Lafayette knew how to operate an espresso machine.  His doppelganger was currently getting half-steamed milk all over his apron and cussing.  Angelica was making vaguely helpful sounds while also taking some sneaky photos with her phone.  Alex made a mental note to check her Snapchat story later.

And three, Lafayette was standing at his table.

“Good morning, mon ami,” Laf said, a slice of quiche in one hand and a coffee pot in another.  “Would you mind testing this new quiche for me?  I’m not quite sure I got the recipe right.”

(Which is Laf for, “I’ve been talking to John and am worried about you.”)

“Thanks,” Alex said, accepting the plate with a forced smile.  He took a bite.  It was delicious, of course, rich and full of vegetables, which Laf probably assumed he never ate unless directly under his supervision.  “So… the new guy… is he the friend you were talking about?”

“Ah yes, my Thomas.  Have you had a chance to meet him yet?”  He cast a loving glance back at the man in question, who was toweling something off of the floor while Angelica made apologetic bobbing motions at a few customers.

“No,” Alex said.  “I’ve been busy.”

“You are always busy,” Laf replied, setting the pot down.  “Each breath you take must set up an appointment seven months in advance.”

“Eight if it’s booking it around a holiday,” Alex said.  “So how’s he doing?”

“Oh, he’s the shittiest barista I’ve ever seen.  I’m fairly sure he could burn water.”

There was a crashing sound coming from the kitchen.  Laf didn’t bother to turn around.

“Then why are you keeping him on?”

“He will learn.  My Thomas is a very quick learner.  Also,” he leaned in very closely, “can you not see how gorgeous he is?  I wish I could get my hair to do that.”

Jefferson emerged from the kitchen like a fantasy hero bursting into the main hall of a castle. He gripped one of the kitchen doors in each hand.  Whatever had happened in there had left him soaking from the neck down.  He’d discarded his apron and his shirt was clinging tightly to his body.  There was a sort of murmuring among the customers in the cafe, and a few phones were tilted subtly in his direction.  One poor soul had forgotten to mute the shutter sound on her camera.  She retreated quickly, a half eaten muffin left abandoned on a nearby table.

Jefferson scanned the crowd for Laf, his arms still spread out, sodden fabric of his shirt hugging his biceps like a lover.  “Uh, Laf?  You should probably come back here.”

Laf let out a sigh, picking up the muffin and the coffee pot.  “If nothing else, he is good advertising.  If he burns the building down, though… maybe then I will fire him.”

So Alex’s expectations moved from “stupid frat bro” to “attractive but incompetent newcomer.”

Then they actually talked.

Alex had been having a chat with someone about his ideas on how Finland could improve its economy, and he was only halfway through when Jefferson decided to butt in.

“Are you serious?” he’d asked as he refilled Alex’s mug.  “I thought you were trying to help the economy, not establish some totalitarian regime." 

“Excuse me?”  Alex asked, looking up at the barista, who that day was wearing red and pink plaid shirt.

“Next you’ll be telling me you want to dissolve the parliament and split power between the President and the Prime Minister.”

“Of course not, I’d simply…”

This bled into a long argument about Finish politics.  And of course Jefferson was completely wrong about just about everything but he did have a talent for picking apart the finer details of his argument. 

And if that meant that Alex ended up contacting his editor and submitting a few last-minute edits to the think piece he’d done on Finland’s economy, well, no one needed to know about that.

So every once in a while, Jefferson sort of helped with something.  Most of the time, though, he was just a distraction.

Because Jefferson was wrong about things.  And he needed to be informed of that.  And for some fucking reason, he seemed unwilling to learn the error in his ways. 

And there was also the fact that Alex sort of really wanted to have sex with him.

Which was weird, because as much as Laf was a beautiful Frenchman with the body of a Greek god, Alex never really thought of him that way. 

Well, except for the occasional errant thought during some late night session with his right hand, but that hardly counted.  Alex’s subconscious had a little black book so thick that if he stood on it he probably would have been able to look Jefferson right in his stupid eyes whenever he told him to fuck the fuck off. 

Because Jefferson made him feel things.

Annoying things.  Boner in the middle of the day things.  Halfway through an argument and both desperate to make my point and completely obliterate you but also wishing you’d bend me over this goddamn table and fuck me until I didn’t know what I was even arguing about things. 

The more he wanted to hate Jefferson, the more he wanted Jefferson.

And that did not make for a productive day at the coffee shop.

The day after that first class, Alex slipped into the cafe at 6:05, like usual, and asked Jefferson for a red eye with some arbitrary number of shots.  Jefferson made a wordless sound that nonetheless sounded sarcastic, but started working on the drink.

Alex opened his computer, tapping the trackpad like a nurse looking for a pulse.  He felt the usual creeping dread as the laptop seemed to contemplate whether that day was the day, but eventually it sputtered to life.  The fans started cranking and the screen slowly brightened.  Alex pulled up the word document he had going and started plugging away at it. 

Jefferson came by with his coffee.  He looked like he was about to say something, but the bell on the door rang and he went to tend to the new customers, who he greeted with the utmost politeness and a wide, bright smile that did confusing things to Alex’s chest.

What the hell did it mean?  And what about John?  He tried to hold a picture of each of them in his mind, switching back and forth quickly, trying to gauge how he felt. 

He felt heat pooling low in his body.  He closed his eyes.  Throat constricted, thoughts speeding up.  So does this mean I’m over John but no I think of John and it still makes me feel like my chest is going to explode but this is different this is lust but what if what if what if…

He took a deep breath.  Just work, just focus on your work and you’ll calm down.

He wasn’t one of those creepy assholes who get mad at people for being attractive (he wasn’t… he wasn’t… he wasn’t…).  That wasn’t it (it wasn’t… it wasn’t…it wasn’t…).  It was more that his work had been just about he only reliable thing he could use to keep his head above water on the bad days, and he was so caught up in whatever his thing was with Jefferson that he couldn’t do the work.

And I can’t go to another coffee shop because I drink too much to ever be able to afford it and Laf would be hurt and wonder why and I can’t tell them I can’t I can’t I can’t.

Breathe.

Work.  

Alex reached back and tugged the elastic out of his ponytail.  His hair fell in a curtain all around him, and he pushed it forward until it cut out pretty much all of his peripheral vision.  He probably looked like some emo piece of shit, but he needed to get his work done and focus and not think and work and breathe and work. 

At some point someone tapped on his shoulder.

Alex jumped. 

“Sorry, mon ami.  I did not mean to startle you.  Family dinner tonight?”  Laf cast a suspicious sideways glance at Jefferson, who was steaming some milk and chatting with two very attentive customers. 

“Not Wednesday?”  Alex asked, his eyes also resting on Jefferson.

“My Hercules and I are going to his parents’ for his mother’s birthday, so Wednesday will not work.”

Alex smiled.  It had been a great day, when Mom Friend and Dad Friend finally got together.  Months of longing looks and drunken phone calls (“But Alex there’s no way he could possibly like me, he’s so… perfect.”) had culminated in one glorious moment.

Okay, not exactly glorious, more like Alex walking in on Herc leaning against the kitchen table with Laf on his knees in front of him.

But still.

“I’ll tell John,” he said.

He wished he’d looked away from Laf quickly enough to miss the pity in his friend’s eyes. 

“I’ll see you tonight, then,” Laf said, going to help Jefferson with some new customers.

Alex managed to make it through the morning with only one large and two medium fights with Jefferson.  He had a class that afternoon, so he left the cafe early, earning a satisfying double take from Jefferson.

Good, let the fucker wonder where he went.

 

-/-

 

“So how’re you liking your classes?”  John asked as he locked their door behind them.

Alex shrugged, adjusting the bottle of wine under his arm.  “They look fairly easy, I’ve got most of my essays done for one.  Oh, and Jefferson’s in the other.”

“As in Thomas?  Laf’s ex?  The guy you can’t stop bitching about?”  John looked amused, his eyes bright and crinkling in the corners.

“I don’t talk about him that much,” Alex said. 

John just raised an eyebrow and smirked.  “Sure, honey.  Whatever you say.  Feels like we started some sort of trend, the whole living with your ex thing.”

Yeah, Alex thought, and look at how great it’s going for us.

“They seem to be doing fine,” Alex said.  “Hercules doesn’t mind.”

“I also just can’t imagine Hercules telling Lafayette he didn’t want him to do something.

Alex gave a shrug of vague agreement.  John had a point.

Laf greeted them at the door, pecking their cheeks and cooing over the wine label.  They were ushered into the small dining room, candles already lit and the table set for five.

Alex was about to ask about the setting when Herc came in with a very artfully arranged salad.  “Hey, could you help me bring the stuff to the table?”

Dinner was simple but beautiful.  Hercules had roasted a chicken with some sort of spice rub that turned it a beautiful reddish gold color.  There was fresh bread from the bakery and some sort of special butter spread.  Green beans cooked with sesame seeds were arranged on a platter like models waiting for the camera to flash.  Alex was so occupied ogling the food that he completely forgot to ask about the mysterious fifth guest. 

He was fighting with the corkscrew when Jefferson came out of his room.

He was the most human looking Alex had ever seen him.  An old hoodie was left unzipped over a William & Mary Track t-shirt.  Bare feet stuck out from under the hems of a pair of flannel pajama bottoms.  The headphones he was wearing barely concealed the pink headband pushing his hair away from his face, just like how his thick black-rimmed glasses really only emphasized the pore strip he had on his nose.  He also appeared to be eating Cap’n Crunch directly out of the box.

“I, uh… sorry.  Didn’t know you were doing your… thing tonight,” he said, eyes wide, a slight flush spreading across his cheeks.  He’s adorable, Alex thought, stomach twisting.  This didn’t feel right.  He was invading Jefferson’s privacy.  He shouldn’t be there.

“It’s alright, mon ami!  Join us!”  Laf had his arms spread wide in welcome, a bottle of wine in each hand.

“Uh…” But Laf was already on him, removing the headphones and the glasses.  Jefferson let out a little yelp when Laf pulled off the pore strip.  Laf tore the headband off, casting it rather dramatically into some corner of the room, and pushed him down into the empty seat.  His glasses were handed back to him as his glass was filled. 

Alex, trying not to act like the addition of the new guest was having any effect on him, turned to Herc.  “So what did you get your mom for her birthday?”

“Uh… I don’t know yet.  Her birthday isn’t until April.  Why?”

Alex frowned, but then he saw how Laf doted over Jefferson and understanding clicked.

Laf wanted them to all be friends.  That wasn’t new.  He wanted everyone to be friends.  Then he wanted everyone to come over to his place so he could feed them and fill them with wine, then he wanted to sent them home with a kiss on their cheek, their soulmate on one arm, and four or five days worth of leftovers in a bag dangling from their hand.

Unfortunately for him, his ex was easily one of the most annoying, argumentative people on the planet.

Not that you would know, watching him then.  He was all shy smiles and charm at the table.  Making John laugh, chatting with Hercules about fabric or… something.  Reminiscing with Laf about France.

Ignoring Alex. 

Which was fine. 

Alex didn’t participate in the conversation much.  Mostly he was trying to get his breathing back to normal as he nibbled at his food.  He was certain his friends all noticed.  Bless them, they didn’t say anything. 

“So Alex was telling me you’re in the same class?”  John began when there was a slight lull in the conversation. 

“Yeah,” Jefferson said with a winning smile.  Alex wondered where the term “winning smile” came from.  He wondered what the competition was.  “Looks like it’s going to be an interesting one.”

“If you bother to show up for it,” Alex said before he could stop himself. 

Jefferson’s eyes narrowed.  “I was only questioning the attendance policy because it seemed unduly harsh to students dealing with chronic illness or family emergencies.  Failing a class because you missed four meetings is hardly fair.”

“And did you honestly think Washington was going to change his policy because it hurt your feelings?”

“No, but I felt that it was too strict a policy to go unquestioned.  There’s no point in having rules if the rules don’t make sense.”

They were seated across from each other and had leaned in closer over the course of the exchange.  Alex was about to reply when he realized just how close he was to the candle flame.  He leaned back.

“There’s a difference between something not making sense and you just not personally understanding it,” he said.

 “I understand it, it just didn’t strike me as fair.”

 “Then you don’t actually understand it.”

“Are they like this all the time?”  John asked Laf.

“Pretty much,” Laf replied, amused glint in his eyes.

“Huh,” John said.  There was something almost searching about his expression, and Alex had to look away.

“So why’d you chose this masters program?”  Hercules asked Jefferson, and the conversation was steered towards less treacherous waters.

 

-/-

 

“That was… nice,” John began as they walked home. 

Alex made a noncommittal grunting sound.

John laughed.  “Never thought I’d meet someone as intense as you.”

Alex gave him a look.  “I’m not intense.”

“No, of course not.  Not with your five blogs—”

“Four, technically.” 

“Three columns—”

“They’re bi-monthly, John, that’s barely any work.”

“Three book drafts.” 

“I finished two so there’s only one going.”

“Not to mention the brutal discourse you maintain on tumbler, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram… YouTube comments… oh, and your news letters.  And the editing company you run.  And the tutoring.  The financial advising.  The book keeping.  Remember when you cussed out the CEO of Macy’s that time?  Oh right, and the court cases!”  He clapped his hands and pointed at Alex with glee, like a kid remembering the words to an old schoolyard rhyme.

“I’m not intense,” Alex replied lamely.

“Riiiiight.  and you don’t want to fuck Thomas.”

Alex felt an unwelcome heat spread across his body.  “I don't want to—”

“Yeah, yeah, say whatever you want.  I saw you two at dinner.  There’s chemistry there.”

John sounded excited.  Animated in a way Alex hadn’t heard in a while, at least not around him.

“Oil and water count as chemistry, I guess,” Alex said.

“You’re in denial.” 

“You’re delusional.” 

“Alex?” 

“Yeah?”

John had stopped walking.  In the glow of a nearby streetlamp, Alex could see his somber expression.  “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

Alex bit his lip.  The gnawing anxiety he usually felt around John had settled down into his bones by then.  A familiar, dull ache.  “Of course, John.  I tell you everything.”

They both knew it was a lie, but John just smiled.  “Good.” 

They arrived at their building.  Alex slipped away into his room without another word.  He pulled out his laptop, closed his eyes. 

Breathe.

Work.

Notes:

Welp. Hope those of you who came for snarky Thomas don't mind that this update is mostly neurotic Alex. Next chapter we will resume your regularly scheduled sass.

Comments are to me what bottles of wine are to Laf.

Chapter 3: Thomas Makes a Deal

Notes:

Another update, because I have no self control.

 “Hey dude, you still listening?”

“Huh?  Yeah, of course.  You were talking about your new contract, right?”

There was a slight pause on the line.  “Yeah,” James said, “a few minutes ago.  Did you not get much sleep last night or something?”

“Uh... yeah.  Working on a paper all night.”  Because James was Thomas’s best friend, but he wasn’t about to tell him that he’d pulled an all-nighter because he’d found one of Hamilton’s blogs and had been obsessively reading all of the posts.  And he most certainty wasn’t about to tell him that he’d created a new email so he could leave anonymous three sentence TL;DR summaries of each and every 5,000 word article in the comments.

“I was asking how the semester’s going, now that you’re a few weeks in.”

There was a banging sound as Thomas’s favorite baker, Dolley, set up some cooling racks.  She gave Thomas a wink, her full skirt (with a floral and skull design, he noted) twirling as she turned to open the convection oven.  She started pulling out sheets of cookies.

“What was that?”  James asked.

“My coworker’s being loud.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Dolley said, hip checking a drawer shut dramatically, long metal spatula in hand.  The table shook with the force of the movement.  “Am I interrupting your chatting with my work?”

“Sorry,” Thomas said, rubbing his eyes.  God, he needed more coffee.  “I’m talking to my friend James.  Our schedules are really out of sync so we don’t get to talk often.”

“Mmmm,” she hummed as she started moving cookies from a pan to a cooling rack, “is your friend James hot?” 

“What did she just say?” came James’s voice from his cell phone.

“She wants to know if you’re hot.”

“... choose your next words very carefully, Thomas.”

“He’s gorgeous,” Thomas said, waving his hand superfluously.  “He’s got the physique of a slightly jacked anatomical model, eyes that sparkle like the sky during a power outage, and the midnight complexion of an African god.”

“Why, Mr. Jefferson,” James exclaimed, voice high-pitched and decidedly more southern than normal. “I didn’t know you felt that way.  Now, the much more important question is, is your coworker hot?” 

Thomas handed Dolley his phone.  “He wants to know if you’re hot.”

Dolley smiled, tucking a black curl that had escaped from her red bandana behind her ear.  She took the phone.  “Hi, Thomas’s friend James?  Essentially I’m an inked Puerto Rican cross-fitter who dresses like it’s 1954, but you know, like the cool version of 1954.  I am pierced to perfection, own too many corsets, and am covered with an impressive but nonetheless classy array of tattoos.  Like, I’ve got a half naked women on my thigh, but she’s wearing a naval uniform, so it’s empowering, you know?  Yeah.”  She laughed.  “If you’re into that — and I don’t see how you wouldn’t be — you should visit New York some time.”  She glanced at the clock.  “And as much as I would love to continue this discussion about how sexy I am, our dear Thomas needs to return to work.”  She smiled over at Thomas.  “The only thing that could possibly be worse for his health than these triple chocolate Heath bar cookies is making Angelica Schuyler late for her break.” 

She handed the phone back.

“… So, I’m thinking of coming to visit New York soon,” James said.

Thomas chuckled.  “Look, I gotta go, Dolley wasn’t kidding about Angelica.  I’ll text you later.”  He ended the call and reached for a cookie. 

Dolley smacked his hand with her spatula.

“Hey!”  He yanked his hand back. 

“You may be the boss’s former boy toy, but when I’m running the kitchen you will eat from the reject pile like all the other peasants.”  She gestured at the plate of small, deformed, partially burnt cookies.

Thomas took one and saluted her as he returned to the cafe.

They were in a lull.  The only customers other than the gremlin were two older gentlemen arguing about smartphones by the window.

Angelica saw him and smiled, undoing her apron.  “Watch out for Alex,” she stage whispered as she headed to the kitchen. “He’s in a mood today.”

Thomas looked over at Hamilton, who was leaning into his computer at a sharper angle than usual.  He was typing away furiously.

Eh, Thomas thought, what the hell.  He hadn’t poked the dragon yet that day.

He took out the coffee pot and topped off the cups of the two men by the window, then swung by Hamilton’s table.

“Whatcha doin’?” He asked in a song-song voice. 

“Replying to comments,” Hamilton replied.  “Some fuck decided to comment on every post I ever made with a motherfucking summary.”

“Really?”  Thomas asked. 

“Which would be annoying enough,” he continued, “but they were also wrong about everything.  Their analysis is all convoluted and they didn’t prioritize the right things.  So now I’m stuck replying to all their comments instead of doing the million things I haven’t done today.”

“No,” Thomas deadpanned.  “That’s awful.”

Hamilton didn’t reply. 

Work passed by slowly.  Hamilton kept typing the whole time.  Thomas and Angelica chatted, crafting experimental drinks with the various syrups and milks and spices at their disposal.  Thomas checked his phone every once in a while, new notifications continually appearing telling him Hamilton had responded to his comments.  He decided against replying in real time.  Hamilton might get suspicious.  By the end of his shift, Hamilton had replied to all 58 of his comments.

“Ready for class?” Thomas asked as they walked away from the cafe, trying not to think about how eager he sounded as he started talking to Hamilton again.

“Of course I’m ready for class,” Hamilton snapped, trying to walk ahead of Thomas.

Well, that’s no fun.

Thomas stepped in front of Hamilton and put his hands on either side of his face.  Hamilton froze up.  Thomas was so close he could see where the black of his eyes ended and the deep brown— almost amber in the afternoon light— began.  He was so close could see the rich color disappear as Hamilton’s pupils dilated.  Reflexively, almost against his will, he glanced down at Hamilton’s lips, which were red and swollen and pretty due to his habit of chewing on them when he typed.

Thomas realized he could kiss him.  Thomas realized he sort of wanted to.

He leaned in closer.  Hamilton’s breath hitched. 

Then he said, breathy and seductive as a lover: “Snape deserved his redemption arc.”

Hamilton blinked.

Three...two...one...

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?   That piece of shit death eating asswipe didn’t deserve a goddamn thing.”

Thomas smiled, let go of Hamilton’s face and resumed his walk.  Hamilton followed.

“He’s the definition of a fuckboy who doesn’t understand why girls don’t like him.  Lily tries to help him and he calls her a fucking slur and is somehow surprised she doesn’t want to have anything to do with him?”

“But he apologized to her after,” Thomas said dispassionately, shrugging his bag up higher on his shoulder.

“And when she was still mad — because obviously she would still be mad— he went all Broni Friendzoni on her ass and became a fucking Death Eater.  And when he heard the prophesy he ran off and told Volemort.  ‘Oh but don’t kill Lily because I love her.  Just kill her husband and her infant.  Then I’m sure she’ll come running back to me.’  What the fuck?”

“But he protected Harry,” Thomas prompted. 

“He also bullied his students.  Neville was so scared of him that he  was his fucking boggart.  Can you imagine being such a piece of shit human being you’re a teenager’s greatest fear?” 

“But he really did love Lily.”

“So that excuses him being an abusive asshole?  I didn’t realize wanting to bang Lily Evans was all it took to qualify for sainthood.”

“No ones calling him a saint.” 

“‘Bravest man I ever knew,’” Hamilton replied in a sloppy British accent.

“I mean besides that.” 

“‘Always’ has become the big phrase for the Harry Potter fandom.  People keep acting like it’s an expression of true love, when really it’s some creep who thinks he owns a woman who rejected him twenty years ago.  For some reason our society likes to romanticize men acting like they have a stake on women.  They don’t.”

He was starting to get really loud and people were staring.  Thomas gave a few passers by apologetic smiles.  “Maybe we should finish this discussion later.”

“Maybe if my mom’s shitty ex hadn’t thought he fucking owned her, she wouldn’t have died.”

Thomas stopped walking.  “I’m sorry... what?”

Hamilton’s eyes widened as he realized what he’d said.  “Forget it,” he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

He started to charge away.

“Alex!”  Thomas shouted after him.

“Forget it!”

They didn’t speak for the rest of the way to class. 

Edmund and Henry shined that day, primarily because they didn’t have to compete with Thomas or Hamilton, who were both more quiet than they’d ever been.  Thomas almost felt guilty about how little time they usually had to talk.  Or he would have, if he wasn’t so focused on Hamilton.

Was his mother like... murdered or something? 

Fuck.  Now he needed to know.  And that was a problem, because he didn’t want to have to start worrying or worse… caring about the stupid gremlin.

He’d always figured that something had happened early in Hamilton’s life (the prickly personality, caffeine addiction, and unhealthy work habits didn’t precisely scream “happy childhood,”) but murder?

That was a bit extreme.

He was staring at Hamilton, he knew.  Everyone knew.  But Hamilton refused to meet his eye, even to glare at him or tell him to fuck off.

At the end of the class, Washington made an announcement. 

“As you know, it’s almost time for you to begin work on your presentations.  I’ve selected the pairs.  Edmund will be with Henry.  Alex with Thomas.  You’re dismissed.”

“Sir,” Hamilton said, his voice almost scratchy from the recent disuse. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to pair us up?  We don’t agree on anything.”

Edmund and Henry gathered their things and left without a word.

Washington shrugged, a small smile playing at his lips.  “Then I suppose you’ll have to find a compromise." 

“But sir—” Thomas began, already dreading the idea of having to work with the fucking gremlin, tragic childhood aside.

“If I paired you with the other students, you would try to control every aspect of the presentation.  This way I know you will both be working on it.  My decision is final.”

He packed his bag and left.  Thomas and Hamilton stood, eyes trained on his retreating figure, in the quiet room. 

Hamilton glared at him.  “There is no way in hell I am putting my name on anything you think up.”

Thomas raised an eyebrow.  The relief he felt at the return to normalcy was almost embarrassing.  Of course, normalcy for them was fighting.

“Well, if we’re going to be working together on this thing, we should exchange numbers,” he said.

Hamilton pulled out his phone, sighing.  “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

 

-/-

 

Giving Alexander Hamilton his phone number was the worst idea Thomas had ever had in his entire life.

By the time he got home, there were five texts from Hamilton, each several paragraphs long.

“Oh what the fuck,” he said as he closed the door behind himself.

“What was that, mon ami?”  Laf said, poking his head out from the kitchen.  “Did you say something?”

“Hamilton just wrote me a novel about how shitty Snape was.”

Laf chuckled, leaning against the doorframe, stirring his tea.  “He does that.  So you have exchanged numbers?" 

“Yeah,” Thomas said, starting to type his reply.

They stood in silence for a moment, and it took a while for Thomas to look away from the screen and see the smirk Laf was giving him from over the rim of his tea mug. 

“It’s for a project,” Thomas explained, maybe a bit too quickly.

“A project about Harry Potter?”

“No, that’s just him being an argumentative little shit.”  He got a new text and started typing as fast as he could.

Laf laughed.  “And you would know nothing about that.”

Thomas let that comment slide.  As Laf started to leave the room, Thomas called out to him.  “Hey, how much do you know about Hamilton’s childhood?”

Laf frowned.  “Alex does not like to talk about his childhood very much.  I do not think he would want me to share the little I know.”

Thomas’s brow furrowed.  That wasn’t helpful.  “Do you know how his mother died?”

Laf bit his lip, silent for a moment.  The he said, “I think she died of an infection when he was young.  Please do not press him too much.  He really doesn’t like to talk about it.”

Thomas nodded.  So not murder, that was good.  Well, not good, but not quite as gruesome as some of the imagined scenarios he’d come up with that afternoon.  Still, it begged more questions than it answered.  “Okay. Thanks.”  Then he got another text.  He scoffed, and resumed his typing.

He almost didn’t hear Laf’s chuckle as he slipped out of the room.

In the following weeks, arguing with Hamilton became even more central to Thomas’s life than it already was.  He’d argue with him off and on at work all day, then argue with him in class, then argue with him over text until eventually he rolled over in bed (inevitably waking up to some essay about how completely and utterly wrong he was about what they’d been arguing about the night before).  Even at family dinner (which Thomas started attending with regularity and not in is comfy clothes), he’d usually be stuck at the end of the table with Hamilton, and they’d inevitably get in an argument about something.  Should ketchup be allowed on hotdogs?  Did Kristen Stewart deserve all the shit she got for Twilight?  What really ought to be done about global warming?

Thomas couldn’t remember a time he’d been more glued to his phone.  He was constantly tapping away angrily.   He’d walk down the street hunched over the screen, bumping into pedestrians left and right.  He’d have his arm wrapped awkwardly around the greasy ass poles on the subway so he’d have both thumbs available to digitally yell at Hamilton. 

Even at the grocery store, he was tucking himself into the corner so he could get a message out before Hamilton finished his reply. 

He was so furious and unaware of his surroundings that he almost fell over when someone ran into him.

“Oh my god I’m so sorry, I... wait, it’s you.”

Hamilton was hovering over Thomas, phone in hand and body awkwardly angled to support the heaping shopping basket hanging from the crook of his elbow.  He helped Thomas up.

“Thanks,” Thomas said, rubbing the sore spot on his ass.

“I cannot believe I’m sharing oxygen with someone who thinks it is anything less than a sin of the highest order to put pineapple on pizza,” Hamilton replied.

“Why do you think you have the right to tell people what they can and cannot eat?”  Thomas asked, bending to pick up his basket.

“Because some people are fundamentally wrong and need to be told the error of their ways.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you’re the one who’s ways are errored?”

“Pineapple on pizza.  Pizza.  That’s a fundamental violation of pizza.” 

Thomas sighed and moved to the next isle, not bothering to check if Hamilton followed him.

He did.

“Pizza is not sweet,” Hamilton continued.  “It’s savory.  Fruit has no place on it.”

“Tomato is a fruit." 

“Sweet fruits, you pedantic fuck.  God.  You’re one of those people, aren’t you?”

“What?  Educated?" 

“Obsessed with technicalities and.... mac and cheese?”  Hamilton looked down at Thomas’s basket.  “Are you seriously buying that much Kraft dinner?”

Thomas pulled the basket towards himself like a woman pulling a blanket over her chest.  “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

“You don’t know how to cook, do you?”  Hamilton asked, readjusting his basket on his hip.

“I know how to cook,” Thomas snapped like someone who did not know how to cook.

Hamilton bit his lip again, and Thomas turned away.  Goddamit, arguing with the fuck was much easier over text.

They found an empty checkout lane and Hamilton piled his purchases on the conveyor belt.  Thomas watched them with barely concealed interest.  Hamilton never seemed to eat much when he was at the cafe, but he was buying quite a bit: rice, sweet potatoes, broccoli, frozen veggies, tortillas, a few cans of beans.

He hung around after he was done, which Thomas thought was a little strange, but he tried to ignore him.

The card machine made a strangely aggressive beeping sound.

“I’m sorry,” the clerk said in a monotone, staring off with blank eyes into the depths of the windowless, overly-bright grocery store, “but your card didn’t go through.”

Thomas felt a nervous heat spread across his body.  “That doesn’t make sense.”

She shrugged.  “Try it again.”

He did.  It was declined.

“Here,” Hamilton holding out his card.  “I’ll get it.”

“You don’t have to—”  Thomas began.

“Of course I don’t.  You can pay me back later,” Hamilton said, taking his receipt.

Thomas didn’t like the sound of that.

“So anyway,” Hamilton continued as they left the store, “pineapple on pizza is an abomination for fifteen reasons—”

Thomas groaned, but was barely listening.  His account balance should have been fine, he thought.  He’d checked it… a little while ago.

He always got nervous when he went to check it, and avoided it.  But… usually he had a good idea of what it was.

And fuck, when was his credit card bill due? Dammit, he really needed to look in on this stuff.  But the second he did, he always got a panicky.

“Uh,” he said as he approached his building, “I’m going home now.”

Hamilton smiled.  “I know, I’m coming with you.”

“Wha—”

But Hamilton was already pressing past him.

Hercules and Laf were snuggling on the couch, some animated movie playing.  “Alex!”  Laf said.  “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I’m here to teach Thomas how to make poor people food.  We’ll stay out of your hair,” he said, hurrying on into the kitchen.

Thomas stood dumbly by the couch, grocery bags in either hand. 

“Cooking classes?”  Hercules asked, the bluish glow from the screen illuminating his amused face. 

“I—”

“I’m waiting!”  Alex shouted.

“You can wait a second more, shitdick!”  He turned to the couple on the couch.  “I did not consent to any of this.”

“Safe word’s albatross!”  Alex shouted through the kitchen door.  There was a metallic banging sound, like he was going through the pots and pans.  “Get your stupid ass in here!”

“I’d suggest you don’t leave your date waiting,” Hercules said, fingers toying gently with the curls of Laf’s ponytail.

“He isn’t my date!”

“I’m gonna count to three then I’m coming out with the wooden spoon.”

“You’d better get in there,” Laf said, eyes wide and fake-concerned.  “He’s not one for empty threats.”

Thomas groaned and entered the kitchen.  “Fucking what?”

Hamilton was measuring out rice.  “Welcome to Alex’s cooking academy!  Today we’re making black beans and rice.”

Thomas put his bags down.  “Why?”

“Because if you keep eating that shit, you’re going to be dead by the time you’re thirty,” he said as he started going through Laf’s spice rack.

“And why would you have a problem with that?  You’d think you’d like it if I went into an early grave, you wouldn’t have to worry about my depraved ideals infecting your work.”  Thomas stuffed his boxes into the cabinet and closed the door before Hamilton could comment on the contents.  He sat on one of the benches by the island.

“Because if my partner dies I’ll probably get a free A and the victory will be hollow,” Hamilton fixed Thomas with a wicked smirk leaning over the island.  “I want my win to be hard-won, overwhelming, and undeniable.  I want you on your knees before me admitting defeat.”

Thomas felt a heat gathering in his nether regions.  Part of him wanted to get on his knees right then.

He cleared his throat.  “So you’re going to teach me to make... rice and beans?”

Hamilton nodded.  “Yup.  Ramen and easy mac are for people who don’t know how to be poor.  Those of use who are experienced with poverty make stuff like this.”

He lined up spice jars on the counter and started chopping up the broccoli.

Though he’d called it a cooking class, Hamilton didn’t narrate what he was doing or provide any instruction, he simply moved through the motions of making food, and Thomas observed him in silence.

Most things Hamilton did, he did in a hurry.  He typed like there was a gun to his head, he walked like a bomb was about to go off and he didn’t want anyone to know, he drank coffee like the world was running out of it, and he read like the book was about to be ripped from his hands and thrown in a bonfire.  Every movement always had an undercurrent of unease or panic, like he was always sensing some sort of threat no one else was aware of.

But he cooked slowly, almost meditatively.  His hands moved with confidence, his face was the calmest Thomas had ever seen it. 

He was reminded of when he first met Hamilton, when he saw some strange sort of exhausted beauty in messy hair and weary eyes.  A lock fell out of his sloppy ponytail and Thomas was tempted for a terrifying second to gently tuck it behind Hamilton’s ear.  The man himself did it before Thomas could do anything.  Thomas ripped his eyes away, staring at the small collection of colorful magnets on the fridge.

No.  Being attracted to the gremlin was a terrible idea.  There was no way for that to end well.  Wasn’t even worth thinking about.  So he wouldn’t think about it.

The kitchen was starting to smell incredible.  Whatever Hamilton was doing, he was doing it right.  Thomas’s stomach growled angrily in response.

Hamilton arranged the food on two plates, the broccoli’s bright green contrasting beautifully with the reddish brown of the rice.  He placed one of the them in front of Thomas, who was about to attack it with his fork, when Hamilton yanked the plate away.

“So I’m curious,” he said, voice languid, “how is it someone who comes from old Virginia money on one side and new Virginia money on the other finds himself working at a coffee shop in New York and unable to afford twelve dollars worth of ramen and easy mac?”

Thomas blinked, fork still poised in the air.  “You fuck,” he said.

Hamilton just smiled.

“Laf didn’t tell you?”

 “No.  I asked him but he just said it was your business.”

“And instead of just asking me you decided to hold my dinner hostage?”

“It isn’t your dinner.  You can’t afford food, for some unexplained reason. It’s my dinner and depending on your answer I may or may not be willing to share it with you.”

Thomas groaned.  “Fine,” he said.  “If you must know...” and he launched into a quick summary of the events leading to his present financial situation.

“You’ve been on your own for five months and your already $8,000 in debt?!  What the fuck have you been buying?" 

Thomas made a noncommittal mumble and Hamilton set his plate back down.  He took a seat beside him. 

“That’s almost... impressive.  Do you know how you’re going to pay it off?”

Thomas, suddenly not quite as hungry, batted a piece of broccoli around his plate with his fork and made another inaudible mumbling sound.

“So... no?”

Thomas sighed.  Fuck it.  “No, alright?  I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Hamilton was quiet for a moment.  He looked pensive.  It made Thomas nervous.

“I have an idea,” he said at length.  “I help you straighten your finances out and we go with my interpretation of the text for the presentation.”

Thomas’s head shot up.  Was this fucker kidding?  “And why should I trust you to be able to do that?”

Hamilton smiled.  “I’m actually a professional financial advisor.  It’s my side gig.  Well, one of them.  I run a financial blog and have a column in the Wall Street Journal.”

“Bullshit.”

Hamilton pulled out his phone.  He typed something in and slid it across the counter to Thomas.

It was an author’s profile on the Wall Street Journal’s webpage.  For Alexander Hamilton.  With a surprisingly professional headshot. 

“How old are you?”  Thomas asked.

“Twenty-two biologically, but chronologically more like seventy-six.  Used to date a physics major who wrote a paper on how my average work day proved quantum theory because she believed I existed in a rift in the time-space continuum.”

“Bullshit,” Thomas replied, though it almost sounded more like a question.  With Hamilton, you never really knew.

Hamilton laughed.  “Yeah that bit was bullshit.  But the offer still stands.  What do you say?”

Thomas considered it for a moment.  “We’re halfway through September.  The project is due in three months.  Between the two of us we can get it done in less than a week.  If by the time we hit the two and a half week mark, you’ve helped me get my finances on the right track, we’ll do it your way.  If you aren’t able to get it sorted by then, we do it my way.”

“Define sorted.”

“Demonstrably adult-like.  My aunt needs to see I can take care of myself.”

Hamilton nodded.  “I can’t promise to get you in the black in that short of a time, but I can definitely get you started on a budget and maybe put a bit of a dent in the debt.  But you have to do what I tell you to, at least in terms of money.  Are you willing to do that?”

Thomas paused, but eventually nodded.  As much as it pained him to rely on Hamilton for anything, the idea of someone helping him get his shit together made him feel almost physically lighter.

“It’s a deal,” he said, extending his hand.  Hamilton took it.  His fingers were warm, but dry and callused.

“So I’m going to need your credit card bills, access to your bank info.... any receipts you have.  Checking...  oh and I’m gonna need your laptop.  We’ve got lots of spreadsheets to make!”  He clapped his hands, eyes bright with some sort of excitement, or maybe hunger.

Thomas gave him a weak smile, wondering what the hell he just signed himself up for.

Notes:

It appears the plot has arrived.

Comments are to me what Alex's home cooking is to Thomas.

Chapter 4: Alex Takes a Shot

Notes:

Warning: This chapter contains vomiting. And way too much drinking. And general irresponsibility. Do not attempt at home.

As he watched the curtains sway gently in the late morning breeze, Alex tried to reverse engineer the previous night and remember how he ended up in Jefferson’s bed wearing one of Jefferson’s t-shirts with Jefferson’s morning wood digging into his back.

It had started with budgeting, if that was the right word.  More specifically it started with Alex yelling at Jefferson about various offending lines on his credit card statement.

Alex stretched slightly.  Jefferson groaned behind him, tightening the arm he had around his waist.  Apparently at some point in the night they started spooning.  The strange, layered, spicy scent of Jefferson and his stupid skin care products wafted around him in a perfumed haze.

The belly of the beast, he thought with an ironic chuckle.

Alex pressed back into the body behind him experimentally.  Jefferson let out a little sigh and rolled his hips against Alex.

The feeling of his hardness pushing into his back send a thrill of arousal through Alex’s body.  Briefly, he played with the idea of waking the man up with a blowjob… if only to see how he reacted.  But Alex let the idea pass.  He’d probably get his head ripped off.

He gently removed the heavy arm and slipped out of the bed.  Jefferson hugged the pillow Alex’s head had been on moments before with a satisfied, sleepy sigh and turned over in the bed, revealing the expanse of his muscular back.

Alex allowed himself a moment to admire the physique of the man laying in bed, but eventually the call of nature pulled him away.

He waded through the wreckage of the previous night, his memory not being jogged so much as taken for a lazy stroll.  Jefferson’s laptop still open, sleek form looking delicate as a flower petal, tilted at a weird angle.  Alex ran his fingers along the trackpad, summoning the spreadsheet he’d worked on the night before.  He saved it and closed the computer, setting it on Jefferson’s desk.  Paper was strewn about the small room: credit card bills covered in various colors of highlighter, the crumpled balls of rejected budget plans, piles of notes around where Alex had been sitting, a single page with a handful of bulletpoints where Jefferson had been sitting.  A fallen desk lamp by the door, beside it the throw pillow Jefferson had put to its nominal use when Laf had poked his head into the room and asked how their date was going.

And then Alex stayed the night.  He couldn’t remember why.

He set the lamp back on the desk and padded out towards the bathroom, scoffing at the ridiculous collection of products lining the counter.

After he flushed the toilet, he looked at his reflection in the mirror.  He appeared strangely well-rested.  The dark circles under his eyes weren’t as prominent as usual.  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept in this late.

Out of habit, he did a little self-check… anxiety had gathered, heavy as a stone (or maybe a second heart) in his chest.  One of those mornings where he just felt full of dread, for no particular reason.  What could he possibly be anxious about?

No.  Nope.  Don’t go there.  Just breathe and think about other stuff, and eventually it’ll go away.

Oh.  That had been why.  It was getting late (late for Jefferson, anyway).  He’d started making sounds about sleep.  Alex, who’d been caught up in the high of a new project, hadn’t thought about John for hours.  The mention of home led immediately to thoughts of John and Alex felt a wave of panic wash over him.

fuck fuck fuck breathe breathe breathe….

Jefferson, seeming to sense his discomfort, made a half-assed suggestion that he could stay the night if he wanted to (one, Alex suspected, that was born less out of Jefferson’s own will and more out of two decades of lectures about Southern Hospitality).  Either way, Alex had jumped on it.

Jefferson lent him something to sleep in (another William & Mary t-shirt, how many did the fucker own?) and when they’d realized there wasn’t really any spare bedding for the couch, Alex ended up in the bed with Jefferson.

That had been a time.  They got under the covers, laying as far from each other as possible.  Alex was trying not to feel uncomfortable, comfortable, aroused, or repulsed by the strange forced intimacy.  He failed on all four accounts.

“You’d better not be a cover hog,” Jefferson said, turning his back on him.

“You’d better not be a bed hog,” Alex replied, also turning away, though it was hard to stop looking at Jefferson, since he slept shirtless.

Alex woke up at one point.  Jefferson was rolled up in all the covers like a burrito, and Alex had starfished out to cover the majority of the mattress.

Most of the night, though, Alex slept very well.  If this night had accomplished anything, it was reminding him of one of his least favorite things about himself: Alex hated sleeping alone.

He checked the clock in the kitchen on his way back to Jefferson’s room: 11:30.  The man himself was sprawled across the bed when Alex returned.

He had no clue how someone who seemed to live off of mac and cheese managed to be so fit.  But there he was.  Dark skin that seemed to stretch on for miles.  Smooth pectorals brushed lightly with hair.  Abs for fucking days.  A treasure trail of black hair and a defined ‘v’ feeding into low slung flannel pajama bottoms.  The tent in the front.

Alex’s mouth felt dry.

“Like what you see?”  Jefferson asked, voice husky with sleep and not quite as sarcastic as he’d probably hoped.

“I’m not the one with a boner,” Alex observed.

Jefferson glanced down at his junk.  “Welp.”

“Want help with that?” Alex asked, 75% joking.

“No, thank you,” Jefferson said after a brief pause.  “I need a shower.  Don’t poke around in my shit.”  He slid out of the bed and left the room.

Briefly, Alex considered going through Jefferson’s stuff just to spite him, but the siren’s call of his phone, charging on a spare chord in the corner, was too great.

He was halfway through answering the comments he had on his latest blog posts when Jefferson returned with a towel wrapped around his waist.

Alex looked him up and down — smelling of something Alex once passed at some department store he probably didn’t buy anything at, shoulders relaxed, hair back in a ponytail (looking more like Laf than ever, to be honest.  Though Alex wasn’t sure if that was because he was sporting Lafayette’s usual hairstyle or just because he looked a little less like an uptight prick than normal.)

“You jerked off in the shower, didn’t you?”

Jefferson smirked.  “You can’t prove anything.”

Alex was trying not to imagine Jefferson naked and touching himself… the water running down his skin, his fingers wrapped around…

Nope.  Not going there.  Not today.  No.

Jefferson threw open the door of his closet and Alex was treated (subjected?) to a menagerie of textiles in every imaginable shade of pink, purple, and red.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered before he could stop himself.

“What?”  Jefferson asked, glaring over his shoulder.

“We’re going to have to redo your entire budget to account for the income from the chocolate factory you’re obviously running.”

“Fuck off.”

“Okay, but seriously,” Alex continued, running his fingers along the expensive materials.  “Why do you need this much clothing?  How did you even get all of this shit over the Mason-Dixon line?  I’d imagine customs must have stopped you at one point.”

“There’s no customs along state lines, dumbass,” Jefferson said, shuffling through the tightly packed pieces.

“There should be,” Alex mumbled, toying with the hem at the end of one shirt sleeve, “if people keep smuggling muppets out of Virginia.”

“Ha ha.”  Jefferson adjusted his towel.  “I like this stuff, okay?”

“Half of it still has the tags.  Holy shit, did you seriously pay $1,000 for this?”

Jefferson groaned and grabbed some clothes.  “I’m gonna go get changed.”  He strolled out of the room, one hand holding the towel firmly in place.

Curiosity overtook Alex.

“Are all of your boxers silk?”

“Get out of my underwear drawer you pervert!”

Jefferson came back wearing a conspicuously muted dark purple oxford and a pair of tightly fitted jeans.

“You know,” Alex said, “you can probably get pretty good money for this stuff if you bring it to a consignment shop.  You may be able to shave a decent amount of your debt off with this clothing alone.”

Jefferson eyed his wardrobe like he’d never considered the possibility before.  “Really?”

The papers were all shuffled aside and they started pulling apart the cramped New York City closet.  Alex tossed various pieces to the bed, and Jefferson laid them out neatly (“no one’s going to want to buy the damn thing if it gets all wrinkled, asshole.”)  They sorted it into piles, a handful of fights breaking out in the process (“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Jefferson.  No one needs four fuchsia sweaters.  No one even needs one fuchsia sweater.”)  Slowly they worked out a system, and within a few hours they were out on the streets, carrying four large shopping bags each.  Alex scrolled through the list of good consignment shops Hercules had texted him.

Alex did most of the haggling, hitting shop owners with a storm of fast words, eBay screenshots, name drops, long and half-educated rants about seams, vague threats, white lies about offered prices at other shops, allusions to trends in the fashion industry, suggestions about company algorithms, selective compliments about haircuts, off-handed comments that could or could not be perceived as flattery, and his five or six most charming smiles.

Jefferson hung back, wearing what strangers would probably see as an aloof look, but which Alex recognized as his I-feel-really-uncomfortable-but-am-too-well-bred-to-show-it expression.  Though he wasn’t doing much besides standing around with his arms crossed, Alex figured he probably helped considerably.  Nothing like a tall, muscular guy hanging back in silence to subconsciously urge the shop owners to give Alex whatever he wanted.

Either way, by early evening, Jefferson had a single bag with the only article of clothing they hand’t been able to sell and handful of checks totaling somewhere around $2000.  Alex had several business cards, two potential bookkeeping clients, and four new blog post ideas.

He checked the time on his phone.  “We’ve got like an hour before the thing, want to grab some dinner?  I’ve got a friend who owns a burger joint nearby.”

“You’re going to Angelica’s gig too?”  Jefferson asked.  He was hugging the bag close to his chest.  Alex remembered how he’d been holding him that morning.  Alex decided not to think about that.

“Of course,” Alex said, hitting the button by the crosswalk.  “Angelica’s my friend.  Besides, Dolley said she would personally rip my dick off if I didn’t come.  Then she said she would freeze it, wait several months for me to recover, come over to visit with a pie in apology, then cackle as she watched me eat the dick-and-kidney pie she’d cooked for me.”

“You know, my friend James still wants to meet her,” Jefferson said.

“Your friend James would be lucky to have her,” Alex noted.  “It’s that place, with the red awning.”

“Alex!”  Ryan exclaimed as they entered, the smell of cooking burgers and fry oil heavy in the hot air of the diner.  “How’ve you been?  Ooooh, who’s your date?”

“I’m not—”  Jefferson started, but Alex grabbed his arm.

“Thomas,” Alex said.  “New import from Virginia.  Thought I’d show him the best burger joint in New York.”

“Grab a seat, then!  I’ll whip up something special!  On the house, of course!”

Alex guided Jefferson into a booth.

“What the fuck?”  Jefferson asked.

“Rule number six hundred and seventy-three of being poor.  The best flavor of food is free.”

A waitress swung by with a vanilla milkshake.  Two striped straws jutted out from the whipped cream.

“Seriously?”  Jefferson asked, glaring down at the drink in disbelief.  “I thought those only existed in movies.”

Alex shrugged, taking a sip.  He sighed as the thick, sweet drink hit his tongue.

Jefferson relented after a few minutes.  A small drop of the milkshake caught on his lip.  Alex held his breath as he watched Jefferson lick it away.

“So how did you end up on free dinner terms with the guy?”

“Hmm?”  Alex was still staring at Jefferson’s mouth.

“Ryan, or whatever his name is.  Why is he bending over backwards to give you free food?”  Jefferson looked over at Ryan, who was handing some plates to a waitress, probably taking in his relative youth, good looks, awareness and comfort with Alex’s queerness… he wasn’t jealous, was he?

No.  That couldn’t be it.

“He’s my cousin, actually, on my dad’s side.  We’re the only two members of the Hamilton family tree in New York.  He found me on Facebook a few years back.”

Okay, yeah, Alex definitely hadn’t been imaging things.  The word “cousin” made the glint in Jefferson’s eyes turn much more friendly.

“So where are the rest of the Hamiltons?”

“Scotland, mostly.”

“You’re Scottish?”  Jefferson asked.

“Yeah,” Alex replied, taking a sip of the milkshake.  “You can’t tell?”

“No,” Jefferson said.  “I couldn’t tell.”

Alex shrugged.  Ryan came by with two plates, each bearing a massive burger and a generous heap of steaming fries.

“By the way,” he said, “Mum was wondering if you knew what Uncle James’s number was these days?  Her calls aren’t going through.”

“Oh, yeah,” Alex said.  “He changed it a few months ago.  I’ll text it to you.”

“Thanks.  He still in Barbados?”

Alex glanced over at Jefferson, who seemed very interested in the conversation. 

Motherfucker.

“I think he’s in Mexico now, actually.  That’s why he switched carriers.”  Meanwhile he was chanting go away, go away, go away in his head.

As if summoned by the patron saint of avoiding awkward conversations, one of the waitresses called out to Ryan.

“Gotta run,” he said with a smile.  “Enjoy.”

Alex tossed a fry into his mouth.

“So…” Jefferson began.  “Your dad lives in Mexico?  That’s cool.”

“Uh huh,” Alex took a bite of the burger.  It was juicy and perfectly cooked and Ryan had slathered it with some sort of sauce that was fucking amazing.  He’d only sort of been laying it on thick when he called the place the best burger joint in New York.

“So what does he do?”  Jefferson asked after a little while.

Alex glared at him.  “Why do you care?”

“Because I want to see if your childhood was actually as Dickensian as it seems.  Don’t want to have to feel any undeserved sympathy, you know.  Laf said you don’t like talking about your childhood,” he added as an afterthought.

“And so you thought you’d confront me about it in a public place?”

Jefferson gave him a guilty little shrug.  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

Alex bit his lip.  Usually, his family was a topic he avoided, but he felt like he should just get the facts out.  Better that than an endless stream of questions from Jefferson.  “My father is Scottish, charming, friendly, and one of the world’s truly useless people.  He left Scotland when it became apparent that being the son of a laird wasn’t going to make up for his complete lack of natural talents.”

“Laird?”  Jefferson repeated, the word rolling uncomfortably off his tongue.

Alex nodded, wry smile tugging at his mouth.  “You may not know this, but you are dining with the bastard son of the fourth son of minor lowland Scottish nobility.”

Jefferson raised an eyebrow.  “I did not know.  Should I have worn a tie?”

Alex glanced down at Thomas’s throat.  He’d undone the top few buttons of his shirt over the course of the day, and under the harsh glare of the diner light Alex could see a small patch of skin and the shadow of his collarbone.  “Nah,” he said, looking down at his plate.  “Anyway, he emigrated and met my mother.  They made a couple of babies.  He lived with us until he realized fatherhood was yet another thing he had no skill for, and he left.  I was ten.”  He almost didn’t recognize the story when he told it then, flippant and sarcastic, like it was a movie or a book… or simply something that had happened to another person.

He looked up at Jefferson, expecting to see pity or discomfort.  Instead, he saw a sort of gentle sadness.

“I was eight,” Jefferson said after a moment, picking sesame seeds off the bun of his burger, which he’d barely touched.

“What?”

“I was eight when my mom left my father and me.”

“You trying to one up me or something?” Alex asked, chest tight.

“No, dumbass,” Jefferson said, shooting him a look.  “I’m being empathetic.  I know it sucks.”  A little smile spread over his face.  “And technically, it would be two upping you.”

“Fuck off.”

Jefferson laughed.  “But you're still in contact with him?”

“One of us picks up the phone a few times a year,” Alex explained, taking another bite of his burger.

Jefferson didn’t say anything for a moment.  “You still bitter about him leaving?”

Alex considered whether he wanted to reply.  He finished the milkshake, the loud gurgling sound as the straw drew up air sounded the way saying fuck off felt.  But eventually he decided to keep going.  “Not anymore.  I hated him when I was younger, but I think I understand him a bit more now.  He just isn’t the sort of guy who can handle responsibility.  He’s a good enough person, but… I don’t know where I would have ended up if he stayed.”

Jefferson nodded, face pensive.  “Did he find you when your mom died?”

“No.  Mom died when I was twelve, I didn’t get in contact with him until I was sixteen.  I was actually the one who told him she was dead.  I just… I got tired of being mad, you know?”  He was sort of lost in himself then, savoring the strangely comforting taste of feelings long since felt, old anger that had simmered away to virtually nothing.

“But you didn’t talk to him for four years?”

Alex shrugged.  “Took me a while to stop being mad.  So do you ever talk to your mother?”

“No,”  Jefferson said, surprisingly sharp.  “She fucked off to this huge estate of hers called Monticello and never talked to me or my dad again.  My family pretends like she doesn’t exist.”

“Oh,” Alex said.  That was no good.  He really didn’t want to have to feel sorry for the fuck.

Jefferson squished a french fry between his fingers, the mushed potato falling to the plate.  “Never found out why she left.  Just did.  So I lived with dad until he died.  That’s one place where you two up me.  My dad didn’t pass until I was fourteen.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex said lamely.  Jefferson hadn’t mentioned his father when he’d told him about his allowance situation.  He guessed he should have figured he was gone.

“Whatever,” Jefferson said, not meeting his eye.  “It’s in the past now.  We should probably leave soon.”

Alex checked his phone.  “Shit, yeah.  We’re going to be late.”

 

-/-

 

The place was a fairly typical indie hipster joint.  Exposed pipes and Edison bulbs were arranged artfully to give off the feeling that the patrons were sipping their craft beers and artisan cocktails in an abandoned warehouse.  One corner was reserved for a stage a generous observer would have called “cozy.”

“Dolley said she’d snagged a table towards the back,” Alex said, reading her text off his phone.

Jefferson nodded.  “I can see her.  She’s wearing a flower the size of her head.”

Dolley was lounging in a large booth worked into the corner.  Her hair was down and a massive red silk rose was sticking out from behind one ear.  A neon green cocktail rested by her hand and there was a tray of shots and lemon wedges on the table in front of her.

“You’re late,” she said.  The warm smile on her bright red lips cut through any harshness she may have been trying to convey.  “You’ll have to take a shot in punishment.”

Alex knew better than to say no to Dolley, but Jefferson apparently hadn’t learned yet.  “I have work tomorrow,” he protested.

“So do I,” Dolley replied, sipping her drink.  “So does Angelica.  So does Alex, really.  Not stopping any of us.”

Alex licked the salt off his hand.  “Just give in,” he said, tossing back the tequila.  He bit the lemon.  “The headache you’l have tomorrow is nothing compared to the one she’ll give you tonight.”  He set the rind down. “The sisters here yet?”  He asked, the sharp burn of the drink spreading across his chest.

“Sisters?”  Jefferson asked, shaking the salt out onto his hand.

“The Schuyler Sisters,” Dolley explained.  “That’s the name of Angelica’s band.”

Jefferson’s face twisted as he swallowed the shot, but he trained it back to normalcy quickly.  “They actually sisters?”

“Eh,” Dolley shrugged, tossing a lock of hair behind her shoulder.  “They say they are, but the jury’s still out.”

Jefferson frowned.  “Jury’s still out?”

“They don’t look anything like each other,” Alex said.  “And apparently they aren’t adopted… after we learned that it felt sorta weird to ask.”

Jefferson nodded.  “So who else is coming?  That can’t just be for us.”

Dolley smiled down at the platter of shots.  “We play a drinking game whenever we come out to see Angelica perform.  We take a shot whenever Dave, the base player, checks out Peggy’s ass.  Oh, by the way, I left my tab open, get yourself whatever you want.  My treat.”

“You don’t have to—” Jefferson began.

“Rule number two hundred and thirty four,” Alex interjected.  “The only thing better than free food is free booze.  I’m gonna go get us some bitch drinks, be right back.”

“Hey, everyone,” came Angelica’s voice over the mic as Alex made his way back to their table with a fruity drink in either hand.  “How’re we all doing tonight?”

The crowd cheered as the three sisters smiled behind their matching mics.

Alex slipped back into the booth, placing Jefferson’s drink in front of him.  Thanks, Jefferson mouthed.

“I’m sorry,” Angelica said, leaning into her mic.  “I was wondering how we’re doing tonight?”

The crowd cheered louder.

“Ooh,” Dolley said, picking up a glass.  “Looks like Dave’s starting early tonight.”

They all dutifully took their shots.  Jefferson seemed to be over any reservations he might of had.

For a while, they watched the show in silence, only noting when it was time to take another shot.  Dolley and Alex each caught him twice, and Jefferson called it once.

Alex lounged back in his seat and relaxed into the comfortable haze of the alcohol.  The girls were particularly good that night, he noticed.  The crowd was loving them, cheering between songs, whooping when Peggy would belt or Angelica would grab her mic and start rapping.  They lost their shit when Eliza started beatboxing.

“Thank you everyone!”  Angelica said when the set ended, and the crowd jumped up and clapped for the trio, who worked their way through the crowd in three separate directions.

“Wow,” Angelica said as she approached the table.  “Dave must have been in rare form tonight.”

Most of the shot glasses had been emptied.  There was a small pile of spent lemon rinds sitting on the plate beside them.

Angelica slid into the booth beside Jefferson and took one of the shots.  “So how’d you like the show?”

“It was amazing!”  Dolley exclaimed, tossing her arms wide and almost hitting both Alex and Jefferson in the face.  “You were a goddess!  If it wasn’t for all this glass, I’d spread myself out on this table and let you have me now!”

A waiter came by with a drink for Angelica.  She thanked him and raised her drink.  “What shall we toast to?”

“Do the groom!”  Dolley shouted, holding up her glass, which was nearly drained.

“Who’s getting married?”  Angelica asked, her eyes darting to Alex, then to Jefferson.

“I am,” Dolley proclaimed proudly, “to Thomas’s friend James!”

Jefferson giggled — legit giggled.  There was no other word for that sound.  “Does he know yet?”

“No, but I have a talent for these things.  I’m psychic, you know,” Dolley returned with a wink.

“He’s still bothering me to get your phone number, you know,” Jefferson replied, easy smile on his face, cheeks flushed.

“Don’t give it to him,” Dolley said, twisting the glass so the remainder of the drink swirled around in a little green cyclone.  “We’ll find our way to each other, if its fate.”

“Mmmm,” Alex hummed.  “So if you marry James, what number husband would that be?  You’re fated to end up with a lot of guys, as I remember.”

“Let me build my harem in peace, Alex.”

“To the groom, then!” Angelica said, raising her glass.  “Whoever he is, may God have mercy on his soul.”

They toasted to Jefferson’s friend — whoever he was.

“Hey, can you let me out?” Jefferson asked.  “I need to go to the bathroom.

Angelica slipped out from Jefferson’s side of the booth and into Alex’s.  “So,” she asked, eyes on Jefferson’s retreating form, “you two fucking yet?”

Alex laughed at her question, eyes trained on the strong lines of Jefferson’s body.  “Of course not,” he said, sipping his drink.

“Do you want to?” Dolley asked, leaning forward conspiratorially.

“Of course,” Alex replied with a chuckle, the words falling out easy as breathing.  He examined his glass, now empty.

“Then why don’t you?” Angelica asked.  “He obviously wants you, too.”

“Does he?”  Alex pushed his glass away and rested his chin on his hand.

“Oh my god, yes,” Dolley said.  “Have you not noticed?  He’s always staring at you!”

“And when you fight, I feel like you two are seconds away from ripping your clothes off and fucking on the floor.”

“And you’re always checking him out.  I mean I get it— he’s hot, but Jesus.”

“Anyway, you two need to screw.  For the good of humanity.”

“You have to!”

“Maybe,” Alex said, chewing his lip.  He felt warm and happy, flushed with a pleasure he hadn’t felt in years.  One that reminded him of whispering on playgrounds about crushes.  Which he guessed he still sort of was.

Jefferson came back, glass of water in hand.  “I should probably go home soon,” he said.

Dolley and Angelica exchanged a look.  “There’s this new bar we’ve been meaning to check out that’s close to your place.  Wanna come with?”

Jefferson didn’t stand a chance.  Within half an hour, they were stuffed into an uber headed towards Alex’s neighborhood.

They stopped in front of a place with a giant rainbow pride flag hanging out front.  Angelica greeted the bouncer at the door with a hug and they were ushered in.

“New place, huh?”  Jefferson teased as Angelica and Dolley dragged them to the bar.

A rum and coke appeared in Alex’s hand without him quite understanding how it got there.  Jefferson was also staring down at his drink in confusion.

“Eliza came here with her girlfriend a little while ago,” Angelica shouted over the club’s brutally loud music.  “She can watch our shit.  C’mon.”

Eliza and Maria were in the back, making out over a set of identical untouched pints.  They waved them away, making vague promises about keeping an eye on the bags and returning to their previous activity immediately.

Alex barely had time to throw back the rest of his drink before Dolley was dragging him towards the dance floor.

His hands fell to her hips and they started moving to the beat.  Dolley was a naturally showy dancer.  Alex spent half his time as her partner standing back and watching her swing her hips and sway up, down, and in every other available direction.

Jefferson and Angelica looked like they were having fun.  They were laughing and swinging each other around as much as the cramped dance floor would allow.

As more patrons arrived, they had less room to work with, so the dancing became more intimate.  Dolley started grinding playfully against Alex and he returned the favor.  They were exactly the same height, so he mostly just ended up with a face full of hair, which smelled like a fruity hairspray. 

As song after song blared through the club’s speakers, the dance floor only became more packed, and the four were pushed into a sort of dancing circle.

When the beat shifted to a slow, grinding R&B situation, the two girls reached for each other, and Alex was pushed into Jefferson’s arms.

He’d been wondering when that would happen.

They made eye contact, the challenge clear even in the low, ever-shifting light of the club.

I dare you to pussy out.

In your dreams.

Alex wrapped his arms around Jefferson’s waist, their height discrepancy never more evident than it was in that moment.  He felt like he was giving a lap dance to a wall.

A wall with a really good sense of rhythm.

It became apparent that they were both excellent dancers.  They were both also determined to prove they were the best dancer.

Alex ground himself back into Jefferson’s hips, moving within the iron grip Thomas had on him in perfect time with the music.

Clearly, the muscles that strained against every shirt Jefferson owned weren’t just for show.  The fucker was strong.  One second Jefferson was down on the floor, moving against Alex, and next thing Alex knew he was being picked up like an acrobat and lifted a few feet off the floor.

Alex tried not to let his half-embarrassment, half-arousal at being manhandled like he weighed nothing show and rolled his body into Jefferson’s.  He wrapped his arm around Jefferson’s neck, bringing their faces close.  The air between their mouths was sharp with the alcohol on their breath.  With some sort of divine timing, a flash of magenta light ran across the dance floor, illuminating Jefferson’s face: the heavy-lidded, lustful eyes trained on Alex’s mouth; the parted lips, his tongue darting out to wet them, leaving them glistening in the pinkish glow.  Alex leaned in closer, until he couldn’t see Jefferson anymore, only feel him.  He felt Jefferson work to close the gap.  He pushed his fingers up into the thick curls, softer than he’d expected.

And then he moved his face a few inches in whispered in Jefferson’s ear: “Let me down.  I have to piss.”

He drew back, savoring the confusion on Jefferson’s face.  He set him down after a second and Alex started pushing his way through the crowd.

Alex flinched at the bright florescent lights of the bathroom.  As he reached for the knob of the sink, his movements were heavy and unfamiliar. 

The bathroom was empty save for a couple making use of one of the stalls.  He could hear their moans as he ears slowly adjusted to the relative quiet.  He chuckled, splashing water on his face.

The unholy trifecta of drunkenness, light, and solitude hit him as he looked at himself in the small bathroom mirror.  His hair was a mess.  He yanked the tie out and ran his fingers through the locks, the scent of his cheap shampoo washing over him.

He got the feeling he was supposed to be unhappy— why?  He examined his eyes in the mirror, frowning.

Oh, right.  John.  Fuck, was that was he was supposed to be thinking about?

No.  Not tonight.  God he missed the old days, before his was afraid of his own mind.

He wasn’t going to think about that.  He was going to think about Jefferson, who definitely wanted him.  He’d do something about that.  Just not tonight.  Whatever weird thing was going on between them wouldn’t be helped by a drunken makeout session on a dance floor.

He used the disturbingly discolored urinal and washed his hands, running his wet fingers through his hair in a desperate attempt to get it to calm down.  He checked his phone out of habit.  “Fuck,” he whispered as he as he saw the time in the corner.

Alex found Jefferson and the girls dancing together towards the edge of the crowd.

“It’s like two,” he shouted over the music.  “I’m going to head home.”

He had to repeat himself a few times and gesture at his phone for them to get what he was saying.  Then it took some sign language and Dolley shouting directly into his sensitive ear for him to understand their response: “we’re going with you.”

Getting a large group of drunk people to gather their shit and leave a club is like herding cats who’d gone for a dip in a swimming pool full of catnip through a maze of empty boxes, but eventually they were all leaning against the bar’s facade and waiting for Angelica and Dolley’s uber.

“You cold?”  Jefferson asked.

“No,” Alex said, shaking.  “I’m vibrating, you have a call.”

“Wanna wear the coat?”  Jefferson held out the bag.

“I’m not wearing magenta,” Alex replied, running his hands over his arms.

“You’re outside a fucking gay bar, no one gives a shit.  And I didn’t know you were that insecure in your masculinity.”

Alex grumbled and snatched the bag out of Jefferson’s hand, ignoring the smug look on his face.  The coat was dumb looking, but it was really well made and warm.

“Holy shit,” Dolley laughed.  “That thing is brighter than my future.”

The car came around then, and the girls said their goodbyes.

“Nice coat, man!” the driver shouted as he pulled away in his stupid fucking Prius.

Jefferson and Alex started stumbling down the street towards their respective apartments.

Alex sort of leaned against Jefferson as they walked.  His body was finally registering the fact that Alex had spent the last several hours filling it with toxins.  Jefferson didn’t say anything, he just put a steadying arm on Alex’s shoulder or waist as needed.

“See you in a few hours,” Jefferson said as they parted ways.

Alex just gave him a flailing sort of wave as he all but crawled up the steps to his apartment.  He reached out for the light switch but realized halfway there that the room was already lit.

“John?” he asked.  “Why’re you still up?”

John was sitting on the couch in his bathrobe.  A book rested on his lap.  He looked so much like a jealous wife from a sitcom that Alex almost laughed.  All he was missing was a green face mask and curlers.

“I was worried about you,” he said, a cute flush on his cheeks.  “You aren’t usually out this late.  And uh… there’s something I need to tell you… I got kinda nervous and then you didn’t come home and uh… hey, man you okay?”

Alex had been half listening, but the rising sensation in his throat had him darting out of the room before John could finish.  He barely made it to the toilet before he was bent over, the evening’s libations making a surprise return.

“You okay?” John asked, approaching.

Alex kicked the door closed.  “I’m fine,” he croaked between volleys. “Can we… ah… can we have the talk tomorrow.”

“Uh… okay.  Goodnight.”

Alex rested his head against the wall.  Fuck.  Timing.  His brain started offering up suggestions as to what John may have wanted to talk about, but Alex pushed them away.

No.  Not tonight.

He rinsed his mouth out and noticed something in his reflection.

“Fuck.”  There was a giant puke stain on the front of Jefferson’s stupid coat.

He groaned and brushed his teeth, then he stumbled over to his bedroom.  As he went to plug in his phone, he noticed a missed call from Jefferson.

“Bitch, you better have my money,” Jefferson slurred as he picked up the phone.

“What… oh fuck.  Wait a second.”  He walked out into the living room.  The bag the coat had been in was by the door.  “Yeah, I’ve got all the checks here,” he said, shuffling through them and going through the mental list of stores in his head.  “I’ll bring them to the shop in the morning.  Oh,” he continued conversationally, “I puked on your coat.”

“You whaaaa— the fuck, dude?”

“I think it makes it look better.  Less pink.”

“Fuck off.  That thing was worth money.  I don’t know why it didn’t sell.”

“Look dude, it’s not my fault you’re the only person in New York who would want a floor length magenta velvet coat.”

“There are at least two other people in this city who want that coat, I’m sure.  But now you’ve barfed all over it.  We’ll have to give it a viking funeral.”

“Yeah, I’m all for setting it on fire.  We’ll send it out on the East River.”

“I don’t want to set the East River on fire.”

“Oh ha ha, polluted river joke.  Very original.”

“I’m drunk, leave me alone.  I need to go to bed if I want to be well rested for my shift in… two and a half hours.”

Alex laughed.  “G’night, fuck face.”  And if it came out more affectionate than he’d intended … well, whatever.

Notes:

You know you're getting too serious about writing fanfiction when you do it with an 800 page biography next to you.

History fun facts:

Alex's dad actually was the fourth son of a Scottish laird. And he was one of those generally useless people, at least as far as historians could tell. He moved to the West Indies because that was the best way to get rich quick back in the 18th century but... that didn't go so well.

The historical Alexander Hamilton did forgive his father for abandoning him, and they maintained a sporadic correspondence for the rest of his father's life. On the rare occasion when Hamilton did talk about his father, it was usually with affection and a sort of pity.

Dolley Madison and Alexander Hamilton were the same height (5' 7'').

Comments are to me what shots of tequila are to Dolley. I don't even need salt or lemon.

Chapter 5: Thomas Has a Visitor

Notes:

This chapter took longer than I thought it would to finish because I kept having to rewrite bits of it. I'm still not 100% thrilled with it but I wanted to get it out. Besides, imperfection and roughness are sorta in keeping with the themes of the chapter.

I'm also probably going to be moving towards more of a once weekly posting schedule to give myself some breathing room. The writing process for this fic is sorta labor intensive.

Warning: This chapter contains an anxiety attack and smut... not at the same time, though.

“Laf?” Thomas asked.

“Mmmm?” Laf was piping rosettes on top of a cupcake.

“What’s the deal with Alex and John?”  He closed the lid on the box and started gently loading cupcakes into the next one.

Laf shot him a smug look.  “Why do you need to know?”

“Just curious,” Thomas said, casually as he could, eyes trained on the task Laf had given him.

Images of the other night ran uninvited through his head yet again.  Hamilton had almost kissed him.  He'd been certain of it.

But Thomas also thought of all the strange looks he’d seen Hamilton give John.  The pity in his friend’s eyes, the strange tinge of unfinished business in the air whenever the two were in the same room.

Thomas was willing to admit that he found Hamilton attractive.  But he wasn’t quite ready to let anyone — including himself, really — think he really cared whether or not he was single.

Laf raised an eyebrow, but didn’t press Thomas further.  “They used to date,” he explained, examining a cupcake before setting it down on the tray.  “Got together… oh… midway through sophomore year?  They dated for a while, but things started to change between them.  They were not so much like lovers as like friends.  They broke up a year ago and they said it was — mutual?  That is the word, yes?  For when they both—”

Thomas nodded.  “Yeah, mutual.”  If they broke up, then…

“Well, it was fine for a while, they even decided to keep living together.  Then, maybe eight?  Nine? months ago, he — Alex — he started acting…weird.”

“Weird like how?”  Thomas asked, leaning forward, cupcakes forgotten.

“Uncomfortable,” Laf said.  “Awkward… weird.  He’d avoid John, he would get nervous.  And when we tried to talk to him about it, he would not want to talk.  We sort of accepted that it is how he is now, and only hoped he would start to feel better with time.  Alex does not like to talk about his feelings.”

Thomas nodded, frowning.  “But why do you think he’s gotten weird?  Like, do you have a guess?”

“We do not know.  Probably he realized too late that he is still in love with John.  But I do not know.  John doesn’t know what to do.  He has a new lover — Ben, is his name — and he’s been scared to tell Alex about him, because he does not know how he will react.  Though I believe he plans to do it soon.  Ah, please do it this way,” he rearranged a few of the cupcakes Thomas had put in the box.

Thomas finished the arrangement and helped Laf tie a ribbon around the boxes.  He waved Laf off as he went to deliver the order, trying to ignore the uncomfortable feeling that had sunk down into his stomach.

-/-

 

“So how’re the other cousins doing?”

“This isn’t a competition, Thomas,” Aunt Shannon said, the slight distortion of the phone line doing nothing to hide her disapproving tone.

“Of course it is,” Thomas replied, glancing at his nails mostly because it was the point in a movie when someone would glance at their nails.  “So my guess is Brandon is couch surfing with all his friend and getting them to buy him stuff.  Michelle has a new boyfriend who just happens to be rich.  Emma had some money saved up and is using her Instagram influence to stay at resorts for free.  Will has gone full martyr and is off with the Peace Corps or something when whenever you talk to him he gives you some super detailed account of all the bugs he’s eating in Africa.”

There was a pause on the line.

“Wait,” Thomas sat up on the couch, his surprised smile reflected in the darkened window across from the couch.  “Am I right?”

“I mean… he’s in Central America.”

Thomas laughed.

“Oh, and you’re one to talk.  Aren’t you living with your friend?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said, “but rule thirty five of being poor is to never make things unnecessarily difficult for yourself.”  He gave his reflection a self aware little grin as he repeated something Hamilton had said to him the day before.

“Mmmm, can’t fault the wisdom there.  So how’s New York?  Making any new friends?”

Images of his coworkers and the gremlin flashed through his mind.  “Uh… yeah.  Sort of.”

“Meeting any girls?”  Aunt Shannon’s tone made it very clear what she meant.

“Uh… not yet.”

“It’s been a while since you’ve had a girlfriend, hasn’t it?  Last one I can remember is Hannah during your sophomore year.”

“Yup,” Thomas said, stomach tightening.

“Pity we never got to meet her.”

“Yeah… hey, Laf just came in and he wants me to help him put away groceries.  I’ll talk to you later, yeah?”

“Okay, sweetie.  Have a nice night.  Love you.”

“Love you, too.  Night.”

Thomas tossed his phone onto the coffee table and fell back on the sofa, groaning in the empty room.

Thomas didn’t want his family to know he was gay for a variety of reasons.

A big part of it was just past experience.  Being the black cousin was more than enough fun for him to really have any interest in trying his hand at being the gay black cousin.

He closed his eyes, the childhood memories seeping into the silence.  Cousins grabbing at his curls and commenting on how fluffy they were.  Michelle pulling the family photo onto her lap and playing “let’s find Thomas.”  The adults weren’t much better.  Thomas was probably thirteen by the time Uncle Charlie stopped making “guess who’s coming to dinner” jokes every Sunday evening.

Thomas figured their discomfort and shittiness was partially because of the tacit racism of the Old South, and partially because Thomas made it impossible for the family to not think about what they did not want to think about.  His skin was a constant reminder of where the family money came from, harder to ignore than the quaint little cabins dotting the estates that were deemed too historically significant to tear down.  His position, standing alone on his sad little twig off the family tree, meant that they couldn’t pretend his mother, the runaway eldest sister, the family hermit, didn’t exist.  They resented him for it.  And in his more magnanimous moments, he could understand, maybe even forgive them.

On the other hand, they could also just go fuck themselves.

The only family member who’d accepted him from the very beginning was Aunt Shannon.  The only way she’d ever made him feel different from his cousins was when it became clear he was her favorite.

Unmarried, unintimidated, and unwilling to let her younger brothers take over, the second sister slipped gracefully into the position of family matriarch after his mother’s abandonment.  She was the one he’d spent holidays and gaps between summer camps and boring schools with after his father’s passing.

She’d never spoken about homosexuality, never let her stance on it be known.  Whenever a family member would bring something up, she’d either remain silent or steer the conversation in another direction.  And so, he couldn’t tell her he was gay.  He just didn’t know how it would go and he didn’t want to risk ruining the one good familial relationship he had left.

He couldn’t tell her his last boyfriend had been named Dillion, and that the break up had been so messy they hadn’t talked since Thomas had slammed a door in his face.  He couldn’t tell her that he had no problem getting laid but had a horrible time maintaining relationships because he had intimacy problems and abandonment issues and probably a slew of other pop psychology hang ups.  He couldn’t tell her that he was desperately lonely and that gay guys his age were expected to want to sleep around but he just wanted someone he with whom he could watch dumb movies and eat comfort food and cuddle.  He couldn't tell her that he wanted to fall in love and stay there and sometimes he’d sleep in an empty bed and he would feel like he was falling through space and he just wanted someone to be there.

That was the overarching theme of his life, he guessed.  He just wanted someone to be there, and inevitably they weren’t.

He wanted Aunt Shannon to be there, on the love seat by the couch.  He wanted to tell her all about his life.  He wanted to hug his pillow and rant about how he’d become hopelessly attracted to someone who was apparently still in love with his ex-boyfriend.  He wanted her to rub his back and tell him it was okay like she did after his dad died.  He wanted to smell her expensive French perfume and sip the hot chocolate she made just right with those tiny marshmallows he never thought to buy for himself.

But she wasn’t there, she was in Virginia and he was alone in New York and if he told her he was gay he might lose her too.

He turned over on the couch, pressure in his eyes and a lump in his throat.  Maybe he could just go to bed, it was getting late anyway—

There was a knock on the door.  Thomas sat up.  Shit.  He wiped away at his eyes, panicked.  Who would be there this late?  Fuck, did he look like he’d been crying?  He grabbed his phone and turned on the camera function, checking his eyes for redness.

The knocking got more aggressive.

“Just a minute!” he called.  He looked down at the screen.  He looked… okay… good enough.

The knocking got louder.

“I’m coming!”

Hamilton was leaning against the door, looking the way Thomas felt.  His eyes were gleaming, his cheeks were flushed, his jaw was tense and uneasy.  Hamilton always sort of looked like he was about to die, but never more than in that moment.

“Is Laf here?” he asked, voice rough, almost forced.

“Uh… no,” Thomas said.  “He’s spending the night at Herc’s.  Are… are you okay?”

Hamilton stared at him for a moment, chest heaving.  “No,” he said, stepping past Thomas.  “I’m not okay,” he sounded distant, and his breathing was getting shallow.  “Look— I know we sort of hate each other — but— but — I really shouldn’t be alone right now.”  His arms were wrapped around himself.

A nervous tingle ran up Thomas’s neck.  “Okay.”

Hamilton started pacing.

“What… happened?” Thomas asked after a moment.

“John has a new boyfriend,” Hamilton said.  “He’s had one for a month… and he just told me, so what?  Is he scared of me?  Did I scare him?  He shouldn’t worry about me… I wanted him not to worry he can’t he shouldn’t I— I —”

“Alex?” Thomas began, stepping closer to Hamilton slowly.

Hamilton turned, facing Thomas.  “Do you find me attractive?” he asked, voice so sharp it sounded like an accusation.

Thomas’s skin felt hot.  “What?”

“Do you…” the flush on Hamilton’s face and chest reddened as his own words seemed to sink in.  But this was Hamilton, he didn’t backtrack.  “Do— goddammit— do you want to have sex with me?”

Thomas took a step back.  “Why do you want to know?”  This felt like a trap.  This wasn’t right.  This wasn’t how this was supposed to happen.

Hamilton laughed.  “Why do you think?  I want you to fuck me.”

“I—” the words caught in Thomas’s throat.

Fortunately, Hamilton had plenty.  “I ju—I just need something right now, alright?”

“You were gonna come over to ask Laf for sex?”  Thomas asked.

Hamilton groaned.  “No, dumbass.  I — I — I don’t know I just needed to get away from John and I’m so tired and I don’t want to think and I can’t — I can’t — I ca—” his speech started to break up as his breathing became more labored.  Hamilton doubled over and started dry heaving.

Shit.

Thomas darted over to the kitchen and grabbed a big metal bowl, running some water over a clean dish cloth.  When he made it back to the living room Hamilton was on all fours, his breathing fast and shallow.

“Hey,” Thomas said, sitting a few feet away from him on the carpet and trying desperately to remember all the tips Google and his schools’ councilors had taught him.  “You’re having an anxiety attack, my friend James gets them all the time.  Usually he needs something to cool down with, do you want this?”  He pushed the bowl with the wet towel over to Hamilton, who shook his head furiously.

Okay, guess that didn’t work.

“Have these happened to you before?” Thomas asked.

Hamilton nodded, breath still unsteady he started coughing again and pulled the bowl closer to himself, but nothing seemed to be coming out.

“What usually helps?” Thomas asked, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible.

Hamilton was still struggling to breathe.  “Can… ca-can you ho… ho… hold me?”

Thomas was a little taken aback by that.  One of the first things he’d always been told was not to touch people when they’re having an attack.

But he guessed Hamilton was always the exception.

“Sure,” he said, and he crawled behind Hamilton.  He leaned against the couch behind him, dragging Hamilton along like a rag doll.  Hamilton fell into a sort of fetal position, so Thomas settled him between his legs and wrapped his arms around him.  “Is this okay?”

He could feel Hamilton nodding against his chest, his breathing still too fast.

“Can you breathe like I’m breaking?” Thomas asked, keeping his breaths as even and slow as he could.

“I can’t,” Hamilton gasped.

“You’re Alexander Hamilton, of course you can.  Just try.  Does counting help?  Like counting to ten?”

“Sometimes.”

Thomas got an idea.  “Une, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf,” he counted in a sing-song sort of voice.

“That— that’s only nine, dumbass,” Hamilton said, his voice labored but more steady.

“Then count with me, because I’m a dumbass who doesn’t know what ten is in French.”

“Une… deux…” Hamilton began, struggling to keep his breathing steady, but he took a breath and kept going, “une, duex, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix… fucker.”  He had another coughing fit, and Thomas rubbed his back through it.

“Good,” Thomas replied.  “Une, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf…”

“Une, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix.”

“Sept, huit, neuf…”

“Dix… dick.”

“That was lame, even for you.  Une, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf.”

“Une, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix.  I’ve been doing this since I was three.”

“Oh I’m sorry that I chose something simple and reassuring to help the great Alexander Hamilton through his anxiety attack.  How about we count to 4,700 by 47s in Swahili?  That good enough for you, your excellency?”

“I thought you were supposed to be nice to people having an anxiety attack.”

Thomas rolled his eyes, but pulled Hamilton a little closer to his chest.  “How are you doing?”

“Peachy.”

“Do you want me to let you go?”

“…no.”

“Okay, then I won’t.  Even though you smell like drugstore shampoo.”

“Anyone ever tell you your bedside manner is shit?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

They stayed like that for a while.  Thomas was holding Hamilton so tight he could feel his heartbeat, could feel it start to slow as he gently rocked him back and forth.

“Oh my god you have a boner,” Hamilton said, breaking the silence after a stretch of time Thomas wouldn’t have been able to quantify if he tried.

“Way to ruin the moment.”

“Oh I’m sorry, it was a moment?  Did they dry heaving get you in the mood?  This some sort of Florence Nightingale thing?”

“That’s me.  Nurse Tommy with my puke bowl and my sweat rag and my French numbers.”

“Now I’m imagining you in one of those sexy nurse costumes,” Hamilton said.  “Not something I’m going to be a able to unsee.”

“My calves look amazing in stockings.  You’re fucking welcome.  Also, I think it’s time for bed.”

“You kicking me out?”

“No, I’m tucking you in,” Thomas said as he gathered Hamilton in his arms and carried him across the living room bridal style.

“I can walk, you know,” Hamilton said, though he showed no signs of putting up a struggle.

“I know,” Thomas replied.

He placed Hamilton on the other man almost automatically pulled his shirt off.

Thomas couldn’t help but give him a bit of a once-over… lean frame… trim hips… trail of dark hair leading down to…

“Hey dipshit, you have a boner too.”

Hamilton gave him an unapologetic grin.  “Your point?”

“And you gave me shit for it?”

“Yeah… well, whatever.”

He crawled over to the top of the bed and Thomas pretended real hard like he wasn’t checking out his ass.

Hamilton tucked himself under the covers.  “You gonna join me or are you just gonna stand there jacking off?”

Thomas rolled his eyes and started unbuttoning his shirt.  He shucked his jeans and slid into place beside Hamilton.

“But seriously,” he asked, “how are you?”

“Miserable,” Hamilton replied.

“So the usual.”

“Yeah.  The usual.”

Thomas clicked the light off.

“Thomas?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“Wait, can you repeat that?  I didn’t have the recorder app on my phone going.”

Alexander chuckled.  “Fuck off.”

“Don’t need to record that.  It’s like every other thing you say to me.”

“Now who’s ruining the moment?”

“Good night.”

“Is it?”

“It’s just a saying.”

“Always sounded more like an order.”

“Go to sleep you stupid fucking gremlin.”

“Now that was an order.”

Thomas didn’t bother to reply, and with time he drifted off to sleep.

He woke up at one point, and became suddenly aware of the empty space beside him.  Thomas sat up a bit too quickly, and jumped at the chuckle coming from the corner.

“Miss me already?” Hamilton asked.

Thomas was about to snap back when he noticed how Hamilton was curled in on himself.  He was by the window, the yellowish light from a streetlamp outside half-illuminating him.  He was hugging himself tightly.

“Do you need…”

He paused.  “If… if you don’t mind,” he said, almost shy sounding.

Thomas slipped out of the bed and pulled Hamilton into his arms, rocking him slightly.

Hamilton relaxed into the embrace.  “Thanks.  I know it’s a weird request.”

“It’s not that weird.  When James is working through his attacks he gets me to compose limericks about our surroundings.”

“Seriously?”

“No.”

Hamilton laughed, and it sounded timid, vulnerable.

The words started pushing up out of him on their own accord, moving without him really noticing until they were just on the tip of his tongue, weighting it down.  Heavy but desperate to jump out of him.  And for a moment, Thomas tried to push them back.

Because he should have been thrilled.

Having this dirt on Hamilton, knowing his weakness, his tender bits.  Having that sort of upper hand without having to give up anything about himself… it should have appealed to him.  The eternal debater in him.  The part of him that had set itself up as Hamilton’s intellectual nemesis.

But there was another part of him — a deep, old part of him given neither to pettiness or politics — that didn’t like the imbalance.  He didn’t like the easy win, Hamilton’s unwilling vulnerability.  Whatever victories he had against him, he wanted them to be on an equal playing field.

So the words fell out, after his brief fight, out into the darkness and the silence and the warmth between their bodies.  “I do.”

“Do what?” Hamilton asked.

“Find you attractive.”

“Yeah… the boner sorta tipped me off there.”

Thomas’s cheeks grew hot.  “Fuck off.”

Hamilton chuckled.  “Thomas?”

“What?”

And then they were kissing.

Hamilton’s lips were rough— not just in the way he moved them, but also in texture.  His constant gnawing on them tore the skin up, and the felt chapped and abrasive.  Skin so thin it tasted like copper.

It took Thomas a while to react — long enough that Hamilton started to pull back.

But eventually his brain caught up and he started kissing back.

He threaded his fingers into Hamilton’s hair, yanking the elastic out of his ponytail.

Hamilton let out a little whimper as the movement tugged at his hair.

“Sorry,” Thomas gasped against his lips.

“Whatever,” Hamilton whispered, arms wrapping around Thomas’s neck and mouth returning to his.  He pressed himself into Thomas, elbowing him slightly in the process.

Thomas decided it was time to relocated.

He stopped Hamilton up again and set him down on the bed, moving on top of him.

“Is this okay?” he asked.

“It’s more than okay,” Hamilton breathed back, pulling him down for another kiss.

The change in angle meant that his hardness was pressed against Hamilton.  He groaned at the friction as their bodies moved, rolling his hips into the man beneath him.

Hamilton gasped and pressed his hips up.  Thomas worked a leg between Hamiltons’ and started to kiss down his neck so he could hear the hot little sounds the man made as he shameless humped Thomas’s thigh.

Because of course he was loud in bed.

Not that Thomas was complaining.

He thrust against Hamilton’s leg, leaving wet kisses and love bites along Hamilton’s throat.  Briefly, he considered pressing further, taking their boxers off and moving against Hamilton skin to skin.  But he knew then wasn’t the time.  Besides, he liked the sloppiness of it, the friction between them, the drag of the fabric against his cock as Hamilton clawed at his back and moaned in his ears.

The fingers went from scratching down his back to grabbing at his sides.

“Ah… Thomas… I’m so… I’m so close.”

“It’s okay darlin’,” he found himself drawling in Hamilton’s ear, “let go.  Come for me.”

Hamilton let out a gasping moan that sent a fresh wave of arousal down to Thomas’s achingly hard cock. His hips started to stutter against Thomas’s leg and Thomas felt a warm wetness seep through the fabric between them.

Under him, Hamilton seemed to quake silently.  Thomas fell to his side and wrapped his arms around him, holding him through it like he had earlier.  After a moment or two, Hamilton’s breathing slowed.

“You haven’t come yet,” he observed, pressing his ass back into Thomas’s aching hardness.

Thomas groaned at the contact, pushing his hips forward.  He was close, and the friction was too good.

Hamilton turned around.  “Can I?” he asked, his hand snaking down Thomas’s front.

Thomas nodded, breath heavy.

Hamilton’s hand slipped under Thomas’s waistband.  Thomas groaned as callused fingers wrapped around his length, a thumb sweeping over his tip just a little too hard, and spreading his precum around.

It was still too dry, and too rough, and his grip was too tight, and Thomas loved it.  The roughest skin on Hamilton’s body tugging at the softest skin on Thomas’s.  God it fucking hurt.  He’d never liked it when it hurt before.

He let out a pathetic sort of sobbing sound and thrust into Hamilton’s hand, the harsh movement pushing him beyond words.

Hamilton started twisting his hand as he reached the top, and Thomas whimpered at the sensation, one arm reaching around to pull Hamilton closer.  All he wanted was to get him closer.  To disappear into him.

Hamilton’s hand sped up on his length, and Thomas felt the familiar tightening, the sweet anticipation…

And just as he was about to climax, Hamilton’s fingers wrapped around his base like a cock ring.

“Oh,” he gasped, “you fucker.”

Hamilton laughed.  “Couldn’t help it.”

His hand started moving again.

“You… you gonna do it again?” Thomas asked, hips jerking desperately into Hamilton’s hand.

“Mmmmm… maybe…”

“You absolute… ah…” words left him and he buried his face in the crook of Hamilton’s neck.

He was close again, and half expecting Hamilton to stop him again.

But he didn’t.

Thomas groaned as pleasure seared through him.  Everything was blurry as his senses gave way to the release.

Hamilton kept pumping him, either because he didn’t notice or because he knew it was the thing to do.  The overstimulation sent thrills of fuzzy, pleasurable pain through Thomas’s body.  He gasped at the feeling, limbs too weak to move.

Before it got to be too much, Hamilton’s hand was gone.

As his breathing returned to normal, he opened his eyes, glancing down to see what mess he’d made of the sheets, but it looked like he hadn’t gotten any cum on them.

He glanced up at Hamilton, who was licking his fingers in the glow of the street lamp.

“Aw fuck,” he whispered.

“Mmmmm,” Hamilton sighed.  “Don’t remember the last time I came in my pants.  Must’ve been a teenager.”

“Heh.”

Does nurse Tommy still have the sweat rag… or jizz rag, as it were?”

Thomas groaned at the prospect of moving, but eventually he went to get a warm cloth.

He pulled Hamilton’s boxers off gently and cleaned him off, smiling at the surprised but contented sigh he got in return.

He tossed his own boxers aside and spooned Hamilton again, wrapping the blankets around them.

He pressed small kisses to Hamilton’s shoulders and cheeks and hair, listening as his breathing slowed and he drifted off to sleep.  Thomas let himself enjoy the tenderness of the moment.  He didn’t let thoughts about how Hamilton was probably just using him for sex or to forget about John linger in his head for long.  He held Hamilton and felt his warmth.  His presence.

Eventually he fell asleep too.

When he woke, Hamilton was gone.

Notes:

Comments are to me what middle of the night make out and dry humping sessions are to... most of us, probably.

Chapter 6: Alex Orders Out

Notes:

Warning: This chapter also contains anxiety and thought spirals. Because Alex. Poor Alex. I should stop being so cruel to him...

Alex tapped his pen against the cheap table, staring down at the blank page.  He’d done it.  He'd wrung his brain out.  His mind had that pleasant, tired feeling.   The mental equivalent of the rush a runner gets after doing their morning jog.  Only took about — he checked his phone, ignoring the many notifications spawning on the screen even during the half second he spent glimpsing at the clock — seven hours.

He flipped back to the front page of the notebook, an index he’d made in a desperate and likely overly optimistic attempt to organize his thoughts.

 

INDEX

INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS 1-3, 26-33, 83-90, 101-105, 181-185,

ANXIETY AND MENTAL SPIRALS 4-17, 34-40, 67-72, 93-100, 167-170,

RELATIONSHIP WITH JOHN 40-45, 77-83, 105-107, 131-140,

CHILDHOOD TRAUMA 18-25, 117-120,

THOMAS JEFFERSON 45-66, 72-76, 90-92, 107-116, 120-130, 141-167, 171-180, 185-190

 

He turned to the next page, to the story as he wrote it, as he’d written it so many times before.  He wasn’t sure why he felt the need to keep rewriting the story.  Maybe it was some callback to his earliest schooling, when, if he did something wrong, he’d have to stay in for recess and write something out a hundred times.  By the end of the exercise, the words lost their meaning.  Maybe some small part of him still wished that continuously recounting what happened would take away the sting of it.  It hadn’t, but maybe eventually…

February 5th.  I remember the day.

I had one thought.  One stupid thought that ruined my fucking life.

We were watching some movie, me and John, friends and former lovers.  I was wearing my fuzzy socks, he was wearing his Columbia hoodie.  Life was good.  Then I had this one thought out of no where:

“I could kill John.”

I’d heard of intrusive thoughts before.  Hell, I’ve had them.  “What would happen if I pulled the fire alarm?”  “Maybe I could just walk off the building.”  “I’ll just stop swimming and see what happens as I sink down into the water.”  I’ve taken Psych 101.  I know they’re normal.  Usually I can just ignore them, like most people do.

But that moment — that day — it just hooked me.

That night I lay in my bed, thoughts spiraling—

Did I want to kill him?  What did that feel like?

How do you even know what wanting to hurt someone feels like?  I’d try to imagine how I’d feel if I had killed him.  But I couldn’t.  I couldn’t imagine it, and I couldn’t conjure that hypothetical feeling.  Not guilt or pleasure.  So what, did that make me a psychopath?

Intellectually I know it’s probably not true.  But there was always some anxiety asking, what if?  What if?

What if?

And I’d feel weird around John.  He went from my friend, one of my favorite people in the world, to my biggest fear.  What if I wanted to hurt him?  What did that even feel like?

I’d feel this weird tingling sensation in his direction when we were both in the apartment, like a hyperawareness.  What did that mean?  Did that mean I wanted to kill him?

Truth is, I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of the crazy ex.  How could I not be?  The specter of my mother’s husband haunted my whole childhood.  I’d lay on the pullout sofa on the bed in St. Croix, AC cranking, staring at the ceiling as Jamie snored beside me, wondering how someone could become so obsessed with a former lover they would be willing to ruin that person’s life.  Chase her all over the islands.  Make her life a legal hell.  What sort of person would do that?

What a cruel yet poetic irony that years later I would be alone in my bed in New York, radiator clanking, wondering If I was that sort of person.

What makes someone evil?  How do you know whether or not you’re evil?

Alex sighed, rubbing his temples.  Written out, the ideas all looked stupid.  Of course he didn’t want to kill John.  Or hurt him.  Or do anything.  He just wanted to go back to being his friend, to the ease and comfort that existed between the two of them.  He wanted John to stop worrying about him.  He wanted to feel normal and safe and okay in his own apartment again.

But he’d ruined that with his anxieties, with the way his thoughts marinated in his brain and the spiraled all night.  How whenever he was around John he felt like he was pushing his mind against sandpaper.  He wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to save his friendship with him, even after whatever this bullshit was passed.

But what if it doesn’t? he thought What if this goes on forever?  What if it’s true?  What if I really am some deranged psychopath?  What if I’m like Lavien?  What if I am obsessed with John?  I think about him all the time.  What if I’m actually still in love with him and I become obsessed with him and he hates me and I go crazy and and and…

Breathe.  Breathe.  Alex closed the notebook.  Enough of that.  He shoved the thoughts aside.  Time to deal with the other mess.  The newer mess.

His empty venti quadruple shot red eye rolled on its side, swaying slightly in the breeze.  The sky was overcast, everything looked as washed out and tired as Alex felt.  Patrons milled in and out of the Starbucks behind him.  A few times throughout the day, he knew, a green-aproned employee had glanced outside the windows to see if the man who’d been scribbling furiously in a cheap spiral bound notebook all day had left.  Alex hadn’t.  And he hadn’t bothered to order another drink, either.

If he had no other indication of how fucked he was, his lack of initiative in getting coffee would have been the surest sign.  Time to fix that.  The caffeine headache was getting to him.

He picked up his phone and shot off a text before he could think better of it, thinking two birds, one stone. He closed his eyes, leaned back.  Remembered.

Last night.  Damn.  Last night.  It all started with a short exchange…

Can we talk now?

… yeah.  Of course.

Look… so… there’s this guy I’ve been seeing for about a month now.

… why did you wait a month to tell me?

Because I didn’t know how else to tell you.  I… Alex?

I need to get some air.

Alex, wait!

It had been a cool night.  Alex didn’t really like cool nights.  He also didn’t know where to go, but he knew himself well enough by then to know he shouldn’t be alone.  Laf was probably his safest bet.

But Laf wasn’t there… just Jefferson.

And the fucker did everything right.  He helped him through his anxiety attack.  He held him when he just needed to be held.  Fuck, he made out with him and then dry humped with him like a fucking teenager, then he wiped Alex down and tucked him in.  And he could carry him around like he weighed nothing and fuck.

And so here Alex was, sitting alone at a fucking Starbucks with a notebook he’d bought first thing that morning, a coffee cup that had been empty for nearly seven hours, and a whole shit ton of motherfucking goddamned feelings.

Not emotions.  Emotions he could handle.  Emotions were the heat of the moment.  They burned up.  They didn’t leave residue, at least not the way Alex handled them.

No, feelings.  Those fuckers.  Feelings weren’t like emotions.  They stuck around.  They were things like daddy issues and mommy issues and suicidal cousin issues.  They were anxieties and insecurities and hopes and dreams and bullshit.  Feelings.  Like, maybe I should go to therapy feelings, maybe the anxiety attacks are a problem I should address feelings.

Old, deep seated feelings that came with being a queer orphan immigrant.  Deep, physical, psychological, and sexual needs that Alex was perfectly fine ignoring until some stupid motherfucking southerner showed up and started fulfilling all of them.

Alex had lots of kinks.  Some of them he had no problem with, others embarrassed him a little.  But the thing he was the most ashamed of was his need to be taken care of.  Sometimes he got more pleasure from aftercare than he did from sex, and that had always been something he hated about himself.  He wished it had died with his mother.  He hated the idea of relying on anyone, ever.  Never mind someone like fucking Jefferson.

There was a loud banging sound on his table.  Alex opened his eyes and was greeted by a livid looking Thomas Jefferson, who had just slammed a large coffee cup down on the table.  Dark liquid had spilled in every direction.  “Bitch I know you did not just make me walk half a mile to deliver a coffee to a fucking Starbucks.”

“Is being wrong something you do professionally, or is it just a hobby?”  Alex took the half-smashed, half empty coffee cup and took a sip.

“DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW WORRIED WE WERE ABOUT YOU?!?!?!?!?!  We all thought you were fucking dead!  John has been freaking out because he thinks you threw yourself off the Brooklyn Bridge or some shit and no one had heard from you and we’ve been calling your sorry ass all day and fucking nothing!  We contacted your professors, they hadn’t heard from you.  You didn’t make it to class.  Motherfucker, do you know how close we were to calling the cops?  Then out of no where I get a text from you saying, ‘hey bring me some coffee I’m across the street from the Walgreens’ and so I have to tell everyone that you’re still alive and they're all wondering why you texted me of all people and what am I supposed to say?  ‘Oh, he spent the night at mine?’  And you didn’t even spend the night because when I woke up you were gone and I know we aren’t together or anything but fucking ouch, okay?  And so I just shrugged it off and made you your stupid fucking death coffee and hauled it all the way over here.  What the fuck do you have to say for yourself?”

Alex folded his knees up against his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs.  “I’m sorry I left without telling you where I went,” he said quietly, and it felt sort of good to say.  And he hated that it felt good and that he felt the need to apologize to Jefferson.

Jefferson deflated slightly.  Clearly he hadn’t been expecting an apology.  His response came a moment too late, just out of rhythm with the rest of the conversation.  Just enough for Alex to know he wasn’t quite okay.  And that felt like… goddamit he didn’t want to have to feel guilty anymore.  “Just a text, that would’ve been enough.”

“I know,” Alex continued.  “I’m sorry.  I just needed some time.”

Jefferson rubbed his eyes, sinking into the chair opposite Alex.  “So… how are you doing?”

Oh yeah, great.  Be all concerned and friendly and shit.

Asshole.

“Shitty, but like, better?  Sort of?”  Alex finished the coffee.

Jefferson looked at him.  “Are you ready to go home?”

“Maybe in a bit.  They all know I’m not dead, right?”

Jefferson nodded.

“I’ll go home tonight… but I just… they tend to smother, you know?”

Jefferson collected the two empty cups and tossed them in a nearby trashcan.  “Yeah, friends to that sometimes.  All that love and affection and caring and shit.”

Alex remembered how Jefferson had held him the night before.  The soft kisses as he fell asleep.  Feeling so safe in that bed.  Feeling so cold and dirty and empty walking away from it.  He stared down at the table.

“Well…” Jefferson said after a minute, “now that I’m out… I need to go and pick up a book.”

Alex looked up.  “Seriously?”

“What?” Jefferson asked, eyes open and innocent.

“Wait here,” Alex said, darting away from the table (and clutching the notebook tightly to his chest).

Jefferson was still there when he returned a few minutes later, looking confused as Alex approached with an empty water bottle in one hand, and something wrapped in a Walgreens bag in the other.

“Whaa— aaaagh stop that you fucker!”  Jefferson recoiled and threw up his hands in defense as Alex started attacking him with a spray bottle.  “I’m not a fucking cat!”

“Does the budget say you can buy books?”  Alex asked, still spraying him.

“At — the — library… dipshit!”

“Oh, shit,” Alex said.  “Sorry.”

Jefferson glared at him, fingers gently shaking out his curls.  “You fuck up my hair I will throw you off the Brooklyn Bridge myself.”

Alex put the spray bottle back in the bag and handed it to Thomas.  “You can spray me back, if you want.  Make us even.”

Jefferson snatched the bottle out of his hand and stepped in very close.  “I’m going to spray you ten times,” he said, voice low and gravelly.  “And you don’t get to know when.  Come on, let’s go.”

Alex bit his lip, heat pooling low in his belly.  He fought with everything he had not to reply, yes master.

 

-/-

 

“Wow,” Alex said, surveying the impressive architecture of the library’s lobby.  “This is really cool.”

“What?”  Jefferson asked, turning to face him, “have you never been to this library before?”

“No,” Alex shrugged, “I don’t really read books for fun.”

Jefferson stepped back with a scandalized look on his face, hand splayed out on his chest.

“What?”

“I let you touch my dick,” Jefferson hissed, his words echoing slightly in the huge marble room.

The few other patrons in the lobby, hardened New Yorkers that they likely were, shuffled away.

“You did,” Alex confirmed.  “And what?  Are you one of those people who gets super snobby about books?  Do you refuse to talk to people who can’t recite Tolstoy or Hugo from memory?”

“No, asshole,” Jefferson said, drawing up to his full height and crossing his arms.  “I’m here for a motherfucking Janet Evanovich book.  I don’t care what you read for fun, as long as you read.”

“I don’t have the time—”

“Bullshit you don’t have the tome.  If you have the time to write a 5,000 word blogpost about why the subway should completely revamp its policy on food and drink, you have enough time to pick up a fucking book.”

A sudden realization clicked in Alex’s mind.  “You’re publius412!”

Jefferson shrugged.

“You fuck, do you have any idea how much time I wasted correcting you?”

“You didn’t have to. Why can’t you just leave some shit alone?”

“Why are you lecturing me on time management when you spent an entire night summarizing a blog that’s existed for three years?”

Jefferson fixed him with a stern look.  He pulled out the spray bottle.  “One.”

Alex flinched as the cool water hit his face.  He wiped it away with the scarf around his neck.

“You’d better not get that dirty,” Jefferson said.  “It’s cashmere.”

Alex rolled his eyes. He’d taken the dark purple scarf out of Jefferson’s closet that morning to cover up the hickeys blooming across his neck and collarbone.  He wasn’t quite sure what to make of the fact that Jefferson didn’t ask what the scarf was for and didn’t appear eager to get it back.

Though, of course, Jefferson was wearing a scarf as well.

“So do you actually like reading?” Jefferson began as they started to walk further into the library.

“Yes, dickwad, I actually like reading.  I just don’t have the time.”

And he missed it, back on the island, he’d always had a book in his hand.  He’d practically lived at the library.  He rarely enjoyed remembering his early childhood, but the memory of the large grey stone building in Nevis always brought a nostalgic smile to his face.

But then the shit hit the fan and he had to work to keep his head above water, to get into schools, to stay in school and keep his scholarships.  And that left very little time for reading books just because he wanted to.

He followed Jefferson through the stacks and observed how the man seemed to calm down when surrounded by books.  His posture relaxed and his face became more open.

It was interesting, really, watching him in that environment.  So completely unguarded, dark eyes warm and curious, almost childlike as they scanned shelves, occasionally plucking a volume and reading the inside cover.

Alex looked at the books as well, but mostly his eyes drifted up towards Jefferson.

When he’d first met him, he’d thought Jefferson was handsome.  Further interaction made him think of him as sexy (in that annoying, dickish sort of way).  On a few occasions, he’d thought of him as adorable.

But there, among the bookshelves, completely absorbed in the texts around him, he looked beautiful.

Alex didn’t want to think of him that way.

He’d left that morning because it was too much.  When he’d imagined it with Jefferson, he’d figured it would be good.  Laf’s personal recommendation of him as a lover aside, he gave every indication of being someone who was good in bed.  The way he inhabited his body with a dancer’s poise… the way he danced.  He had complete control of his body.  So he’d expected good — maybe even great — sex.

He hadn’t expected all the fucking feelings.  Not love.  He wasn’t in love with the fucker.  No, more like wanting to Jefferson to keep holding him after the attack.  Wanting to kiss his forehead and cheeks and lounge in bed all morning.  Wanting to see him smile.  Wanting him to exist in his life as something other than an intellectual rival/coffee server who happened to have a gorgeous face and body.

And as with all the other feelings he was feeling… he didn’t know how to feel about it.  He just felt tired.

Jefferson’s movements within the library brought them to a nearly deserted corner by a window.  Alex glanced outside.  Deep grey clouds were casting a deep grayish tone on everything around them.  Alex felt a small tightening in his stomach.  He hadn’t checked the forecast that morning… was it supposed to — ?

As if in response, a clap of thunder sounded overhead.

Alex felt a tingle run across his body.

“Hey,” he said, stepping away from the window.  “Do you know where they keep the Austen books?  I feel like rereading Mansfield Park.”

Jefferson slid the book he was looking at back into place.  “No one ever wants to reread Mansfield Park,” he said, eyes narrowed and disdainful.  “It’s the one you push yourself through so you can say you’ve read the set.”

“Fuck off,” Alex replied conversationally as he started to move further into the library.  More thunder.  He walked faster.  “It’s my favorite.”

“You fucking with me?”  Jefferson asked, trailing after him.  “Bullshit it’s your favorite.  What sort of hipster trash do you have to be that Mansfield Park is your favorite Austen novel?”

“This kind,” Alex replied, gesturing towards himself.  “I think it’s her most interesting book.  And what, pray tell, is your favorite Austen novel?  Pride and Prejudice?”

“Persuasion,” Jefferson said readily, almost argumentatively.

“And you call me hipster trash,” Alex snorted.  He ran his fingers along the plastic-covered spines of the books he was passing.  “So what was your favorite thing about it?  That it was short?”

“No, you stupid fuck.  I like it because it’s the most real of her novels.  The most honest.  The ending is sort of rushed because Austen wrote it as she was dying.  She didn’t even really get to edit it properly for publication.  It pulls no punches but at the same time it doesn’t feel as glossy as her other novels.”

“You’re calling Mansfield Park glossy?”  Alex asked.

“All the grit is intentional.  You can feel her trying.”

“So what?”  Alex stopped walking and turned to face him.  “You’re arguing that it’s better when the author doesn’t try?  That the less intentional bits make it the best novel?”

Jefferson shrugged, leaning against a bookshelf.  “I’m not saying it’s the best novel.  I’m just saying it’s my favorite.”

Another clap of thunder.  Alex took a deep breath.  “And I prefer Mansfield Park.  It has some larger world implications, beyond middle class British society.”

“You talking about the slave thing?”  Jefferson asked, eyebrow raised.

“Yeah,” Alex replied.  “I’m talking about the slave thing.”

“Do you think of it as some abolitionist book or something?  Because I’d disagree.”

“No,” Alex replied.  “But it feels more like it’s part of the world as a whole, you know?  Not just a cluster of estates in the south of England.”

Jefferson looked at him for a moment.  “Where was the guy’s plantation?”

“Antigua,” Alex answered.  The beat of rain on the library’s roof got heavier.

“You ever been there?”

Alex frowned.  Someone (he was guessing either Laf or Dolley) must have told Jefferson where Alex was from.  “Oh I don’t know… you ever been to New Orleans or Savannah?  You know, since you’re a southerner?”

“Yeah,” Jefferson replied.  “Been to both.”

Of course he had.  “Well, we aren’t all quite so well traveled.  I’ve only been to Antigua once, and it wasn’t for fun.”

“What was it for, then?”

“Hurricane evacuation.”  More thunder rolled through as he said it, and Alex almost laughed at the dramatic timing.  It was easier to laugh away from the windows.

Jefferson looked away.  “Oh.”

Alex enjoyed his discomfort for a moment, then decided it was time to change the subject.  “So, who’d you think would top?  Darcy or Bingley?”

“Oh, Bingley, definitely,” Jefferson replied.  He sounded very certain of his opinion.  Had he thought about it before?

“You honestly don’t think that Darcy would top?”  Alex asked.

And then they started arguing about Austen.  They started arguing about Austen for a while.  Every time there was lull in the conversation, Alex would ask another random and inane question about Jane Austen’s books — Was Mary Bennet asexual?  If Austen was alive today, would she still be an author?  What Hogwarts houses were all the characters in (on that one alone they spent probably close to half an hour talking about whether Captain Wentworth was a Slytherin or a Gryffindor).

Eventually the thunder died down.  By the time they left the library (three books in Jefferson’s arm, a library card application tucked inside the cover of Alex’s notebook), the storm had passed and the air had a surprisingly clean feel to it.  Alex took a deep breath of the crisp air.

They kept arguing about Jane Austen, settling into the equilibrium of their relationship, which Alex had described somewhere in the notebook he was clutching as “companionable animosity.”  At one point, during an argument over which Dashwood sister would be more likely to survive the Hunger Games, Jefferson had sprayed him a second time.  Alex made a point of wiping his face with the scarf, which Jefferson quickly took away from him.  “Couldn’t have taken a cheap cotton one, no, had to go for the most expensive scarf I own.”

“Oh, speaking of you wasting your money,” Alex said as they approached his building, “I’ve got a new version of the budget with some edits printed out for you.”

“Is this one bound too?”  Jefferson asked, following him up the steps.  “With a fucking leather cover?  And that weirdly thick paper people only use for wedding invitations?”

“Oh,” Alex said, swooning against the wall of the stairwell, “I put in all this extra effort to make something special for the man, and how does he repay me?  By mocking my efforts?”

“You did a title page in calligraphy!  And you tried to take me to get the stupid thing notarized,” Jefferson exclaimed.

“I don’t ever half ass, even for an ungrateful piece of shit like yourself,” Alex said, unlocking his door.  “It’s full ass or nothing!”

“Alex!”  John cried, running at him and hugging him.  “I’ve been so worried about you!”

Shit shit shit fuck fuck fuck how did I forget shit fuck fucking shit…

“John,” Alex said, returning his friend’s hug.  “Uh… sorry about that.”

“I’m just glad you’re all right,” John said, drawing back.  His eyes were red and blotchy and… shit, had he been crying?  “I’ve been sorta freaking out most of the day.  But uh…” he started wiping at his cheeks, stepping away, “I know I shouldn’t have been… it’s just you ran out so fast and I couldn’t get ahold of you and… uh… uh… we were all wondering why you texted Thomas first… I thought you two didn’t get along?  And wait, are those hickeys?”  He stepped forward, eyes darting between the two of them.  “Wait… are you two dating?”

Alex was about to say no, but there was a look of hope in John’s eyes that broke his heart just a little.  That gave him an idea as to how he could maybe start to fix his relationship with him.  Before he could stop himself, before Jefferson could deny anything, he said, “yeah, actually.  We are.”

“Really?”  John asked.  “That’s amazing!  When did you get together?”

He looked back at Jefferson, who was leaning against the door frame behind him.  Jefferson’s eyes were wide and his jaw was clenched, but he forced a smile.  “Fairly recently, Alex just wasn’t sure when to tell you.  Sorry you had to find out like this.”  The lies flowed with surprising ease off his lips.

John waved a hand.  “It’s fine, I get it.  I’m sorry you didn’t tell me sooner, though.  So why’d you run out last night?”

“Uh…”

“That’s my fault, actually.  I needed him to come over and help me with some schoolwork and he forgot.  He just sort of remembered in the middle of your conversation.  Or at least that’s what you told me, right, darlin’?”  Jefferson wrapped an arm around his waist.

“Uh, yeah.  And I was just sort of having an off day with a bunch of shit and… dude I’m really sorry.”  Alex tried to twist a weak smile onto his lips.

“That’s fine,” John said, a huge smile on his face.  “I’m just so… uh… yeah.  I’m gonna shut up before I start blubbering like a mom on prom night.  I’m just happy you two finally got together!”

“Yeah,” Jefferson agreed, smiling down at Alex.  Though from that angle, it looked like more of a bearing of teeth.  “So look, Alex promised to treat me to dinner tonight, he was just swinging by for a change of clothes.  Mind if we…?”

“No,” John said, jumping back towards the couch in a somewhat overly dramatic display of trying to get out of their way.  “Go right ahead.  Have fun on your date.”

Jefferson all but shoved Alex towards his room, closing the door behind himself.

“I wasn’t joking about dinner,” he said.  “Get changed.  I was thinking we could have a lovely meal as we discuss the many things you’re going to do to make this bullshit up to me.”

“Uh… right,” Alex replied, still sort of in a daze from the sudden turn the evening had taken.  As he turned to take his shirt off, Jefferson stepped in behind him.

“Oh, and Alex?” he murmured in his ear.

“Yeah?” Alex shivered.

“Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.”

“Wha— aaaagh!” Alex shrieked as a stream of cold water ran down his spine.

Notes:

Comments are to me what library shelves are to Thomas.

Chapter 7: Thomas Has a Chat

Notes:

Sorry for the late update. Real life, friends, stuff like that you know.

“We gonna talk about this?”

Hamilton didn’t meet his eyes.  Instead, he trailed a finger through the ring left by the water glass he’d been nervously sipping from for the last few minutes.  “I’m sorry, okay?  It fell out.”

“It fell out.”

“I didn’t have a lot of time to think about what to say.”

“You had all day!”  Thomas’s voice had grown steadily louder and drew a few sharp looks from people at neighboring tables.  He bowed his head in response.  “You had all day,” he repeated, voice lower.

“Alright, fine,” Hamilton hissed, leaning towards Thomas.  “I fucked up, okay?  I threw you under the bus because I wanted to save face.  I’m sorry.  Is that what you wanted to hear?  I’m sorry.”

“You don’t sound very sorry,” Thomas whispered back, glaring at him.

“Uh… can I get you something to drink?”  A waitress was standing at the edge of their table, eyes darting from one to another.

“Water’s fine,” they said in unison, flashing her matching fake grins.

“Okay…” the waitress said, backing away slowly.

“Look,” Thomas said as the waitress retreated, “I get that you weren’t in a great spot, but now you’ve dragged me into your bullshit.”

“Is that what you’re mad about?  That I dragged you into my bullshit?”

To be completely honest, Thomas wasn’t sure precisely what he was angry about.  The empty bed that morning?  The worry?  The coffee delivery?  The sudden fake relationship?  It could have been any of it.  Maybe it was all of it.  Whatever it was, he knew he was justified.

Thomas didn’t answer the question.  Instead he said, “so what do you want to do now?  What’s the next step of your brilliant plan?”

Hamilton gnawed on his lip.  Thomas remembered he’d bitten those lips the night before.  An uneasy feeling tugged at his gut.  “Keep it up?  If you’d be willing.  I know it’s a lot to ask—”

“It’s a fuck ton to ask.”

Hamilton’s eyes weren’t focused on him.  “But — did you see John?  That’s the happiest he’d looked in so long.”

The feeling in his gut went from tugging to ripping.  “Well, if it makes John happy.”

Hamilton’s eyes snapped back to him.  “Are you jealous?”  he asked, desperately trying to grab a foothold in the conversation and get some moral high ground.

Oh, fuck that.  Thomas opened his mouth to shut the idea down and defend his status as king of the conversation.  Unfortunately, the waitress had returned.

“Are you ready to order?” she asked, tone aggressively polite, subtext reading give me your fucking order and I’ll leave you alone why the fuck would you even have this sort of conversation in a public place you selfish pricks you’d better give me a good tip you fuckers.

Thomas flipped open the top menu of the small pile that had been untouched since the hostess had brought them to the table.  He muttered something about a salad.

“Same for me,” Hamilton said, trying at a smile.

“Great,” the waitress said, gathering the menus up and power walking away.

“Fine,” Thomas said after a moment, “I’ll be your fake boyfriend.  But I would like to say for the record there is no way in fucking hell this won’t blow up in our faces.”

Hamilton let out a relieved breath.  “Thank you.”

Thomas shrugged.  Goddammit, why was he agreeing to this shit?

Because you’re a stupid fucking softie who can’t resist a damsel in destress, even if the damsel looks a lot like a gremlin.

Thomas almost vocally ordered his brain to shut up, but managed to stop himself.  “How are we going to do this?”  he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“There has to be some sort of system for this.  Rules.  A story.  People are going to ask how we got together.”

“Mmmmm….” Hamilton snapped his fingers.  “Mutual attracting culminating in a night of wild passion during which we both realized our undying love for each other?”

Thomas rolled his eyes.  “No.”

“What’s your suggestion, then?”

Thomas considered it for a minute.  “You harbored a secret crush on me for a while.  We met up to discuss a class project, slowly you worked up the balls to ask me out.  I said yes.”

“Oh, I see.  I’m the one with the crush.”

Thomas raised an eyebrow.

Hamilton sighed.  “Fine.  So what about day to day stuff?  What are the rules there?”

Thomas pinched the bridge of his nose.  This stretch of the conversation was a potential mine field.  “I guess… spend time together.  Maybe have a designated date night.  We’d be in the honeymoon phase, so we’d be all over each other.”

Hamilton nodded.  “PDA galore, around our friends, at least.  Should we have pet names?”  His grin widened.  “I can be muffin cakes and you can be schnookums.”

Thomas glared at him.  “No.”

“Aww, come on, honey pie.”

“I will murder you in you sleep.”

“You know you secretly like it, sweet cheeks.”

“Don’t test me, bitch.”

“Here are your salads!”  The waitress said, putting the food down so quickly they both had to lean away from each other to avoid getting hit in the face.  “Can I get you anything else?”

They made all the necessary polite sounds to make her go away.

“Alright,” Hamilton said, rolling a cherry tomato around with a fork, “no pet names.  But touching is okay?  Because though we don’t know everything about each other, I’d say it’s fairly safe to assume we’re both touch starved and sorta fucked up.”

Thomas chuckled, though there wasn’t much humor in it.  “Fair enough.”

“And other physical stuff?  Like sex stuff?”  Hamilton wasn’t looking at him.

Thomas felt a tingling all over his body.  “I think the rule of thumb should be that we only do physical stuff — sexual or otherwise — because we want to, not because it adds to the appearance of us dating.  Enthusiastic consent only.”

Hamilton nodded.  “And… feelings?”

“Feelings?”  Thomas replied, his stomach tightening.

“What if one of us catches feels?”

Thomas raised an eyebrow.  “You trying to tell me something, sugar bear?”

Hamilton flushed but rolled his eyes.  “No, but it’s not impossible.  What’s the contingency plan?”

Thomas sighed.  “Maybe we should have a safe word or something… something that we can say when other people are around.  If shit gets too real or too weird.  If one of us says it, we get ourselves out of whatever situation we’re in and talk.  Figure out where to go from there.”

Hamilton’s lip quirked.  “Safe word’s albatross.”

Thomas frowned for a moment, then he remembered that from the night Hamilton had agreed to be his financial advisor.  “What is it with you and albatrosses?”

“I just think it’s a stupid safe word, so it’s the only one I want.  Our emotional safe word.”

“Our emotional safe word,” Thomas repeated.  “Alright, fine.  Albatross it is.  What about more personal rules?  For me the only one is nothing on the internet or social media.  We aren’t going to be Facebook official, you aren’t going to be tweeting about bae, and I don’t want to be mentioned in blog posts.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not out to my family and I would like to keep it that way.  Whether or not I eventually become rich is dependent on a small collection of very conservative old southerners thinking I’m tolerable.  Okay?”

Hamilton nodded.  “Okay.”

“So it goes without saying you won’t be meeting my family.”

Hamilton chuckled slightly.  “That’s fine.  You won’t be meeting mine either.”

Thomas smiled.  “And as for payment…”

“I was wondering when we would get to that.  What do you want?”

Thomas chuckled.  This.  This was the bit of the conversation he knew he would enjoy.  “That’s the thing… I’m not really sure there is something I want from you enough to go through with all this shit.  It’s a tall order.”

Hamilton’s face paled.  “There’s got to be something… I could… I could pay off your debt in full.”

Thomas blinked.  He certainly hadn’t been expecting that offer.  And it made him uncomfortable.  “I don’t need a sugar daddy.”

“Then what—”

Thomas held up a hand.  “I’m not backing out.  You just… you just owe me now.  And a fairly big favor, too.  Don’t worry,” he rested his chin on his hand.  “I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

Hamilton looked nervous, and Thomas allowed himself to enjoy that.  There was no way this arrangement was going to cause anything but misery and pain — his own and his friends’.  That feeling that morning … waking up to an empty bed, all the old abandonment anxieties and self loathing hitting him before he’d even rubbed the sleep from his eyes… why was he setting himself up for a potentially unlimited amount of that?  He hated feeling used, and here he was, allowing himself to be used indefinitely.

Whatever favor he got in return for this, it had better be a fucking big one.

 

-/-

Laf was waiting in their apartment when Thomas got home.  He was sprawled out on the couch, his laptop open on his stomach.

“So,” he said, looking over the top of the screen.  “You and Alex?”

Thomas sighed.  News traveled fast.  “Me and Alex,” he said.

“When did that happen?”

“Uhhh…” shit, they should have sketched out a timeline.  “A few days ago.”

Laf closed the laptop and set it aside.  “How… eh… is everything alright?  Today was the first I heard of it.  And I heard from John.”

Thomas didn’t want to look in his eyes.  Didn’t want to see the hurt there.

“Uh, we weren’t sure how to tell you,” the lie fell of his tongue awkwardly, leaving an unpleasant taste in his mouth.

“Well,” Laf said, “I’m glad you are together.  You suit each other in a strange way.  But… I’m still a little worried about Alex.  He hasn’t been quite right for a while and — well, I mean — you got together so fast and…”

“You think I’m the rebound.”

He looked away.  Yeah, that was exactly what he thought.  “Not that.  I mean, I’m sure he likes you, it’s just—”

Thomas held up a hand.  “Don’t worry, Laf.  I get it.  I — I know.  We’ve talked about it.”

“You have?” Laf asked, disbelieving.

“Yeah,” Thomas lied.

“Okay… I just… I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I don’t want me to get hurt either,” Thomas said, pulling his lips up in a reassuring smile.  “I’m a big boy, Laf.  I can take care of myself.”

“I know, I just… I worry.”

“I know.  I appreciate that you care.”   And that, at least, was not a lie.

Laf smiled.  “Marie just sent me her wedding photos.  Would you like to join me in critiquing everyone’s hats?”  He pulled the laptop back out.

Thomas smiled, relieved at the change of tone.  “I’ll go get the wine.”

They settled into the couch together, talk of boyfriends abandoned.

They scrolled through the pictures, making snarky comments about feathers and frills and unfortunate choices of cut and color, and Thomas relaxed into the warm familiarity of their easy friendship.

That night, however, he stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep as he started to process the full weight of what he’d agreed to.

 

-/-

 

“You and Alex, huh?”  Angelica asked, leaning against the counter in the kitchen.  She was eating a little oatmeal cup thingy with a tiny bamboo spoon.  “You’re three weeks early, good sir.  Cost me fifty bucks in the pool.”

Thomas sighed.  “Terribly sorry.”  He sipped his coffee.  “Who won?”

“Dolley,” Angelica said, gesturing at the woman in question.

“Dolley did indeed,” she said, taking a pan of muffins out of the oven.  “Thanks for that.”

Thomas raised his cup in acknowledgment, but didn’t speak.  Mostly because he was fairly sure he’d probably scream.

“Still,” Angelica said, setting the empty oatmeal cup down.  “Don’t you think it’s a little sudden?  You and Alex, I mean.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t file all the correct paperwork,” Thomas deadpanned.  “And didn’t you want us to get together?”

“We do,” Dolley admitted, putting the muffins out on cooling racks, “we just worry about Alex.”

“He’s been through a lot,” Angelica added cryptically.

“I know,” Thomas said, though he didn’t.  The finer details of Hamilton’s biography were still a mystery to him.

“I just want to say that Alex can take a beating better than anyone I know, but that doesn’t mean he deserves another one.”

“Do you think I’m gonna give him a beating?”  Thomas asked.  Because if anything, he added mentally, it’s the other way around.

“No,” Angelica said.  “I just—”  She sighed.  “Look, I like you.  We’ve only known each other for a few months, but you seem like a great guy.  I’ve known Alex for years.  He’s got this destructive streak.  He has an amazing talent for fucking things up for himself.  Like whatever went down with John.  I just don’t want to see him in any more pain.  Here, let me make it simple.”  She reached into the oatmeal cup and pulled out the tiny bamboo spoon.  “You hurt Alex?  I’ll personally remove your balls with this spoon.”

“You should listen to her,” Dolley added.  “She’s crazy.  I used to be a bass singer but then she got to me with a plastic straw.”

Thomas was about to reply when the bell on the door rang.  He walked through the kitchen door to greet the new customer, but the words caught in his throat.  His face went cold.

“Thomas!”  Emma said, arms spread wide.  “Come and give your favorite cousin a hug!”

“I can’t,” Thomas said after a moment.  “Will is in Guatemala.”

“Oh ha ha,” Emma said, approaching the counter.

Thomas sighed and stepped out from behind the counter, confused coworkers staring after him.  Emma was maybe 5’2’’ on a good day, so they had one of those awkward size difference hugs where she wrapped her arms around his waist like he was a tree and he was resting his hands on her shoulders.

“So… how are you?”  she said, accent and natural disposition tingeing her words.  Emma had an interesting way of talking — like the English language was an old bottle of lotion she was trying to use up.

“Fine,” Thomas replied, not fine at all.  “What brings you to the city?”

“Oh, work,” Emma said, waving it off.  “Thought I’d stop in on my cousin, since he doesn’t feel the need to message me ever.  Or call.”

“Figured you’d be too busy,” Thomas said through his plastered-on smile.

“Never too busy for you, darlin’.”  She glanced back at the counter.  “So,” she said.  “Aren’t you doing to introduce me to everyone?”

“Right,” Thomas said, turning back to face his friends.  “Well, the girl behind the counter with the red bandana is Dolley, and the one next to her with her jaw hanging open is Angelica.  Ladies, this is my cousin, Emma Randolph.”

“Emma Randolph!”  Angelica said, straightening.  “That’s where I’ve seen you!  I’ve been following your Instagram for years!”

Emma flashed her a smile with her too-white teeth.  “Yeah?”

Thomas stepped back so they could go through the motions of taking a selfie together.

Dolley poked his back.  “You okay?” she whispered.

He gave her a lost sort of shrug.  Her face twisted in worry, but smoothed when Emma turned to face them again.  She approached, heels clicking on the cafe floor.  “Must be fun working here,” she said, eyes moving over towards Hamilton.  “Especially with so many cute customers.”

Hamilton hadn’t been paying attention to the goings-on, but he must have felt the eyes on him.  He looked up.  “Uh,” he said, blinking, “hello?”

Emma’s grin widened and she stepped behind him, looking down at his laptop screen.  “What are you working on?”

Hamilton snapped the laptop closed.  “Just a few projects.  Can I… help you?”

“Thomas,” Emma said, stepping back, putting on her best southern belle facade — which, Thomas had to admit, was quite good — “won’t you introduce me to your friend?”

Is she flirting with him?  “Alex, this is Emma, my cousin.  Emma, this is my friend Alexander.”

Understanding flashed in Hamilton’s eyes, and he gave Emma an uneasy smile.  Thomas glanced around the room.  His friends seemed to be aware of what was going on and didn’t contradict or question him.  He felt some of the tension in his stomach release.

“Nice to meet you, Alexander,” she said, drawing the word out like a caress.  She turned away from him.  “I’ve gotta run, but I want to talk to you later.  When do you get out of work?”

“Two,” Thomas said.

“Great.  I’ll buy you lunch.  I’ll text you the address.”  She kissed Thomas on the cheek.  “Ciao!  So great to meet all of you!”

She left.  Thomas stared after her, closing his eyes as his body started to process the dread.

Angelica was still starstruck.  “Oh my god!  I can’t believe I have a selfie with Emma Randolph!  I can’t believe you’re related!  I’m such a big… you don’t look happy.”  Angelica glanced at the door, then back at him, face falling.  “She’s a bitch in real life, isn’t she?”

Thomas gave her an apologetic smile.  “She’s a total bitch.”

Angelica sighed.  “Goddamit.”

 

-/-

“Order anything you want,” Emma said, setting the menu down by her cocktail.  “It’s free for me and my friends here.”

Thomas examined the options, and made a mental note to order the least expensive item available.

He took a sip of his water.  “So how’s poverty been treating you?”

Emma smiled.  “To the point as always,” her speech had calmed down now that they no longer had an audience.  “Well, I can’t complain.  Fortunately for me I had an additional stream of income.  And you?”

“I can complain and I do, but I’m getting by.”

Emma nodded.  “You always do.  We’re missing you back home.”

Bullshit, Thomas thought.  “I’m missing all of you up here.”

Bullshit, said Emma’s eyes.  “Been in contact with Aunt Shannon recently?”

He frowned in confusion.  “Yeah, I called her the other day.”

“Did she seem off to you at all?”

“Off?”

The waiter came by and they placed their orders.  Thomas was too distracted by the unexpected topic to remember what he wanted, so he ended up getting what Emma got — the most expensive thing they had.  He flinched slightly as the waiter walked away.

“Off?” he repeated, turning back to her.

“Dad was telling me that she’s been acting strange recently.”  She ran her fingers along the rim of her glass.

“Strange?”  Thomas echoed, nervousness building.  “How so?”

“She’s been quiet.  She’s been avoiding people.  Staring into space… she missed her nail appointment the other day.  She didn’t go to church last Sunday.”

“That is strange,” Thomas agreed.

Emma nodded.  “I was thinking maybe she would tell you if something was up because — well.”

Because she liked him best.

“She hasn’t said anything to me,” Thomas said.  “When I talked to her the other day she sounded normal.”

“Yeah, she acts normal when she know we can see her or hear her, but… do you think she would tell us if she were sick or something?”

He opened his mouth to reply, but closed it.  The truth was, she might not.  When he actually thought about it, how much did he really know about Aunt Shannon?  She never withheld affection but he suspected she withhold information.  She didn’t talk about herself often.

Then again, he never really asked.  “I… don’t know,” he admitted after a moment.

Emma bit her lip.  “Maybe something’s going on and that’s why she’s being so erratic.  You know, cutting us off and everything.  I mean, I get the forced maturity thing, but there were better ways to go about it, you know?  Someone needs to tell her that.  Our family is all scattered.  You’re here.  Will’s off trying to pretend he’s some sort of saint.  Michelle’s boyfriend dragged her out to London.  And me… well, I go wherever I can.”  She tapped her manicured fingers against the table of the four star restaurant.  If that was her trying to portray herself as forlorn, she wasn’t doing a great job of it.  “It’s ripping up the family.  And if you don’t have family, what do you have?”

 

-/-

 

Thomas was almost all the way home before he gave up and just pulled his phone out of his pocket.

Aunt Shannon picked up on the third ring.  “Evening, sweetie.  How’re you?”

“I’m… good.  How are you?”

“Great!  To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I was having lunch with Emma,” Thomas began.

“Oh, right.  I’d forgotten she was in New York.  How was that?”

“Awkward and stilted.”

“Okay.  Good to know all is as it should be.”

“Yeah… so, uh, she mentioned something.”

“Yeah?”

“Apparently some of them have been worried about you.”

“Of course they have.  You miss one nail appointment and suddenly everyone thinks you’re dying.”  She laughed.  “I think they just want something to gossip about.  Life’s been a bit boring without you around.”

“So everything’s alright?”

“Everything’s fine,” Aunt Shannon said.  “No need to worry about me.”

“Alright… I just wanted to check.  I love you.”

“Love you too, bye.”  The line went dead.

Thomas continued his way home, turning the conversation over in his head.  He would have found the whole thing a lot more reassuring if he didn’t recognize her tone as exactly like the fake cheerful one he used with customers.

Notes:

Comments are to me what selfies are to Emma.

Chapter 8: Alex Gets Distracted

Notes:

Warning: This chapter contains smut, brief homophobic language, talk of outing someone, and probably a lot of typos.

The problem with emotional outbursts, anxiety attacks, and spontaneous elaborate lies is that they really fuck up your publishing schedule.

Alex sighed as he scrolled through the “you alive, man?” comments on his various blogs.

He drafted a quick ten paragraph post explaining that he’d been away the last few days to deal with some personal emergencies but would be resuming his normal posting schedule immediately.  He shuffled through the files on his computer, and sighed into the comfort of his tidy, color-coded folders.  The rest of his life was a mess, yeah, but at least his documents folder was pristine.  He posted a few of the reserve articles he’d saved for a rainy day (taking a moment to glance out at the window, where it was, indeed, raining.  Alex never had time for much but he’d never deny himself the opportunity to savor life’s ironies).

The emails though… those were going to take a while.

He was methodical — almost meditative, really — as he worked his way through the emails, reaching for his coffee in a rhythm he didn’t recognize.

It took him a few hours to notice that his coffee cup hadn’t emptied at any point.  He looked over at the mug.  It was full, thin tendrils of steam curling up in the chill of the raw fall day.  He glanced up and saw Thomas’s retreating form.

Warmth spread across his body.  He sighed.  Distractions.

He checked his phone.  There was a message from John.

Hey Ben’s coming over tonight.

Alex’s brow furrowed in confusion for a moment, then he remembered.  Ben, right.  The boyfriend.  Shit, how was he supposed to feel about that?  He closed his eyes.  Breathe.  It isn’t a big deal.

His fingers moved without him really noticing them, and his reply went out.  That’s fine.  I’m staying over at Thomas’s.

The reply: Oooooh.  You crazy kids have fun ;) Use protection.

Alex tossed his phone back on the table.  The reply had sent his thoughts to a place that would do little for his productivity.  He was looking over at the counter before he could stop himself.

The cafe was busy at the moment, and he watched as Thomas and Angelica worked together like a pair of dancers, their hands moving with confidence and speed, walking around each other in practiced grace, hips swinging as they passed through tight corners, wide smiles for the customers as they sent out drinks, pastries, sandwiches.  Alex remembered that night at the club, seeing them dance together.  The beauty in their movements.  The strength of Thomas’s body against his…

He groaned as arousal started to pool deep inside of him.  He didn’t need this shit.  He needed to get his stuff done.

But it was too late: Thomas’s skin on his, the taste of his lips… fucking a.  Everything.  The fucker had only become more distracting after Alex had learned what his cock felt like and how he sounded when he came.

They hadn’t done anything since that first night, a few days ago.  And it was all Alex could think about.  Which was annoying, because there were a lot of other things he really did need to think about.  Like how he was going to maintain the illusion that he and the fucker were dating.  How he was going to fix things with John.  How he was going to prevent his friends from finding out… how he’d do damage control if they did find out.  How the fuck he was going to pay Thomas back…

Oh, and his blogs and side hustles and articles and academics and networking and paperwork and working towards getting his green card and not dying in a ditch somewhere or starving to death or going crazy or whatever else it was he was worried about that day.

But no, all he could think about is what Jefferson would feel like buried inside of him.

He buried his face in his hands.  For fuck’s sake.

Aaaaaaaaaand he had a boner.  Great.  Fucking great.  Motherfuking great.

There was a disturbance across the table.

Jefferson was sitting there with a tupperware container full of some steaming… something.

“Laf was wondering why I didn’t want to spend my lunch break with my boyfriend,” Thomas explained.

Alex readjusted himself subtly under the table.  Jefferson raised an eyebrow, but made no comment.  “What is that?”  Alex asked, looking down at the brownish mass he was stirring with a fork.

“Sweet potato, apple, and Brussels sprouts.  Found the recipe on Pinterest.”

“It’s brown.”

“That’s seasoning… I think.  You know, education is a process, not an event.”

“How are they all brown?”

“Shut up.  It’s delicious.”  He skewered a piece with his fork and pointed it at Alex’s face.  “You know you want some,” he said in a husky voice.

Alex tried desperately to ignore the effect his tone was having on the tightness of his jeans.  “Get that away from me.”

“C’mon babe. Don’t you want to support your boyfriend’s efforts towards self improvement?”  He pushed the fork closer to Alex’s lips.

“Not at the cost of my health.”

“Says the man whose diet I’m fairly sure consists almost entirely of caffeine and spite.”

“And rice and beans… and pizza,” Alex added, eyes trained on the offending chunk of whatever it was.

“Just eat it.  I’m not moving my hand until you do.”

“Your lunch will be over in half an hour.”

“I’ll stay here anyway.”

“And what would your boss have to say about that?”

“Ah, mon ami, why do you not eat ze deli-cious food your man has made for you wiz his love?  No food is better zen zat made by zose who care for you.”

“Your French accent is horrible.”

“Eat the damn sweet potato, Hamilton.”

“No.”

“Come on.  Eat it.  If you die I promise I’ll apologize at the funeral.”

“If I die I will haunt your sorry ass.”

“Eat it…” he pushed the fork directly against Alex’s lips and Alex groaned.

“Fine.”

It was crunchy on the outside and undercooked on the inside, with distinctive notes of pepper and charcoal.  Alex swallowed it down quickly and chased it with his coffee.

“So?”

“Education is defiantly a process.”

A tiny spark of hurt flashed in Thomas’s eyes, but he shrugged.  “I’m working on it.”

“If you want, I can give you another cooking lesson tonight.  I’m staying over.”

“Are you now?”

“John is having his boyfriend over and… fuck that.  So I told him I was spending the night at yours.  I’ll stay out of your hair, I’ve got a lot to catch up on.”

Thomas nodded.  “That’s fine.  I’ve got some work to do as well.”  He took a bite of his lunch, his face twisting.  “But cooking lessons sounds nice.”

Alex smiled.  “It’s a date.”

He returned to his emails, catching a glimpse every one in a while of the various adorable faces Thomas made as he choked down his lunch.

“Alright,” Thomas said, standing up with a sigh.  “Time for me to go back to the grind.”  He stretched his arms above his head, shirt trailing up and revealing a strip of skin just above his jeans.  He caught Alex’s eye before Alex was able to move his stare away from his hips.  “Need more coffee?”

“If you don’t mind,” Alex said, neck hot.  “I’m—” he cleared his throat.  “I’m surprised you haven’t cut me off yet.”

Jefferson shrugged.  “I know a losing battle when I see one.  And besides,” a knowing smirk spread across his lips, “you look pretty thirsty to me.”

 

-/-

 

How had Alex never noticed that Thomas played with his hair when he was thinking?

He would reach for a curl and pull it straight, then release it, letting it spring back into place.

And he would do it without even looking, chewing his stupid lip.  Wearing those stupid fucking glasses.

He seemed to sense Alex’s stare, because he glanced up over the rims of the stupid fucking glasses, sexy librarian style.  “Maybe I help you?”

Alex shook his head and returned his eyes to the laptop like a good boy.

They’d cleaned up the dining room and spread their respective work out after dinner (a decent pasta primavera with a bit too much garlic).  Laf was at Hercules’s.  Alex’s mass of notes and his dinosaur laptop were sprawled across sone side, while Thomas’s system of leather bound notebook, pristine MacBook Air, and — fucking lord, is that a fountain pen? — sat on the other.  They fell into surprisingly comfortable silence (silence here meaning the ever-present sound of sirens and engines from the street, the angry growl of Alex’s overworked laptop, and the occasional murmur of the baseline of whatever song was playing in Thomas’s overpriced headphones.)

What music was he even listening to?  If Alex could hear it, it couldn’t be good for this ears.  It almost sounded like rap.  Alex wouldn’t have pegged him for the rap type.  He figured he was more the classical music type.  Something you could play at a brunch that involved sweaters tied around shoulders and shrimp arranged artfully around martini glasses and whatever else rich people parties involved.  But now he was imagining him listening to rap and it reminded him of the parts of Thomas that weren’t bourge-y as fuck.  The parts of Thomas that could cuss him out as well as the saltiest, tannest, tattooiest schooner bum.  The parts of Thomas that felt the need to go to the gym (a membership to which Alex had allowed into the budget for slightly selfish reasons) to sculpt muscles his lifestyle didn’t require.  The parts of Thomas that ripped debate opponents apart the way Alex sometimes ripped napkins when he was bored.

The parts of Thomas Alex wanted to fuck him senseless.

And the boner was back.  Fuck.  He wasn’t going to get a thing done.

Thomas ripped his headphones off.  “What?”

Alex blinked.  “What?”

“You’ve been staring at me.  Is there something on my face?”

“Uh… no.”

“Then stop looking at me like that.  It’s distracting.”

“Oh, I’m being distracting?  You’re the one who keeps chewing his lip!”

“I’m chewing my lip?  How are your lips not bleeding?  And you keep doing the hair thing!”

“The hair thing?”

“Oh, like you don’t fucking know.”

Alex glared at him.  “Bedroom?”

Thomas didn’t reply.  He just closed his laptop, tossed down his headphones, and walked to his room.

Thomas grabbed Alex as he approached the bed and pulled him into an aggressive kiss.  Alex gasped and Thomas took advantage, his tongue slipping into Alex’s mouth and working to take over.  His fingers went to Alex’s hair, easing the elastic out with surprising gentleness.  He tossed the hair tie away from them in a single violent motion.  His fingers were in Alex’s hair then, tugging at it gently and massaging his scalp while his lips and tongue sent heat searing through Alex’s body.

Alex reached down to pull of Thomas’s shirt, and the taller man helped him, parting their lips and tossing the shirt into the corner.  Alex ran his fingers along Thomas’s back… the heated, smooth skin, the muscles underneath… the way he trembled at Alex’s touch.

Thomas’s fingers undid the zipper of Alex’s hoodie, pushing it back from his shoulders.  Their lips parted again as Thomas pulled off Alex’s t-shirt.  Thomas pulled Alex over to the bed and all but tossed him down on it.  His hands went to the front of Alex’s jeans.  “Can I?”

“Yeah,” Alex breathed, sighing as Thomas opened his jeans and released the pressure they'd been under.  The sigh quickly turned into a groan as Thomas palmed him through his boxers.  “Fuck…”

Thomas pulled his jeans, boxers and socks off, then kissed Alex again, pushing his thigh against Alex’s hardness.  Slowly, he started trailing kisses down Alex’s neck, his chest, his stomach, his…

“Aaagh.”

Thomas sucked Alex’s tip and Alex’s fingers went reflexively to his hair, threading themselves into the thick curls.

Thomas released his cock and grabbed his wrists, throwing them to the sides.  “Don’t touch my hair.”  He gave Alex a little glare, then returned to the task.  Alex fisted the sheets as Thomas slowly worked his way down his cock, bobbing his head up and down, running his tongue along the bottom… ah fuck, playing with his balls as he worked the head with the tip of his tongue…

Thomas took him all the way down and swallowed, his throat constricting around Alex’s cock.  “Fuck!”  Alex grabbed his head and tried to push him further.

So quickly Alex almost wasn’t able to sense the movement, the mouth on his cock was gone, his wrists were being held in an iron grip above his head, and Jefferson’s face was floating over his, eyes filled half with lust and half with annoyance. 

“Don’t touch my hair,” he repeated, voice dark and dangerous.  He pushed Alex’s hands towards the headboard (an old fashioned iron one), wrapping his fingers around two of the bars.  Thomas whispered in one of Alex’s ears, breath hot: “you are going to keep your hands on these bars until I say you can move them.  You aren’t going to touch me or yourself.  If you take your hands off those bars without my permission, we stop.  And I don’t want to stop.  Understand?”

Alex nodded, chest heaving.

“Good,” Thomas moved back between his legs.  “Look at me.”

Alex did, the sight of Thomas holding his cock, lips less than an inch away from its head sending a fresh wave of arousal through him.  “Fuck.”

Thomas smirked, then made a big show of licking up the length of Alex’s cock, mouth wide open, eyes trained on Alex.

Alex shuddered at the pleasure and the view, arms straining to move, but he managed to maintain his grip on the bars.

Thomas smiled.  He released Alex’s cock and pressed a kiss to his hip.  “Good boy.”

Alex’s cock twitched, and the smile on Thomas’s face widened.  Alex felt his face go cold.  Shit.

“You like that, don’t you?”  Thomas moved up the bed so he was lounging beside Alex, head resting on one hand, the other wrapping around Alex.

Alex shuddered.

Thomas started stroking him.  “You like it when I tell you you’re being good, don’t you?”  His fingers dragged up and down, up and down.  “Do you want to hear all about how pretty your cock is?  How I’ve thought about all the things I could do with it for months now?  Do you want me to tell you how good it tasted?  How much I loved the weight of it on my tongue?”

Alex whimpered, attention divided between the feel of Thomas’s hand, his words in his ear, and the painful task of keeping his hands on the bars, of keeping it all going.

“Mmmm, look at you, falling apart like this, but still holding the bars like a good boy.  Such a good boy… so desperate for pleasure… is this what you want?”  His fingers sped up.  “Or do you want my mouth?”

Alex gasped as he twisted his hand at the top of his cock, increasing the pressure as he went down.

Thomas leaned in even closer.  “Or do you want me to fuck you?”

“Aaagh,” Alex keened, thrusting up into Thomas’s hand, fingers tightening on the bars.  “Yes.”

A pause.  “Do you want me to fuck you?”  The question wasn’t rhetorical that time.

“Ye— yes.  Fuck, yes.  God.”

“Okay,” he pressed a kiss to Alex’s cheek.  “One second, don’t move.”

Alex heard a drawer opening, and then Thomas was back, kissing his neck as his hands trailed back down between his legs.  Alex gasped as Thomas wrapped a lubed finger around his cock and gave it a few quick strokes, then released it.  His hand went to his balls next, massaging them lightly before continuing the descent.  Alex let his head fall back as a finger prodded his entrance.

Thomas pressed it in slowly, cooing into his ear about how tight he felt, working the finger in and out.  “Want another?” he asked after a moment.

Alex nodded furiously.

The second finger stretched him a bit more, and Thomas kissed his neck as he slowly spread his fingers.

Alex gasped.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No… fuck… another…” Alex managed after a moment, words escaping him.

The third finger brought with it some pain, which quickly turned into a pleasurable burn.  “Ah, baby, look at you… so good for me.  You take my fingers so well.”

Alex preened under the attention, too far gone to care about how much he liked it.

“Think you’re ready for my cock?”

“Yeah…”

He whimpered as the fingers and the hot presence of Thomas beside him left. 

Thomas was standing at the foot of the bed, all but ripping his jeans and briefs off.  Thomas naked was a sight to see.  The muscles that had distracted Alex almost from the moment he met him, the aristocratic good looks cast in an expression of perpetual arrogance, and of course, the long, thick cock standing at attention between his legs.  He stood there for a moment, allowing Alex to admire him.  When Alex realized what he was doing, he closed his eyes and let his head fall back.  “Jesus Thomas, just fuck me already.”

Thomas chuckled.  Alex heard a foil packet open, then moments later there was a blunt head pressing against his hole.

“Look at me.”

Alex opened his eyes, Thomas’s face now inches away from his.  They locked eyes as Thomas slowly slid himself in.  Alex groaned at the stretch, but pushed his ass against Thomas’s hips, ushering him on (or in, he guessed).  He pressed inside in small thrusts, shallow at first and getting deeper as he went.  Eventually he bottomed out, and Thomas rested his forehead against Alex’s.

“Fuck,” he said, breathing heavy, “you’re so fucking tight baby.”

Alex moaned.  “Move.”

Thomas started to thrust again, hips gaining momentum as he went.

Alex’s arms were still above his head, straining.  He was drowning in Thomas — his complex scent, his heat, the sound of him grunting as he pushed into Alex, the feel of his thick cock stretching and filling him — but he hadn’t been permitted to move his hands yet.

“Can I — aaaah — can I please touch you?”

“Yeah, darlin’,” Thomas said, hand pushing one of Alex’s legs up higher, thrusts going deeper.  “You can touch me.”

Alex’s hands flew to Thomas.  They raked along his back, they ran up his sides, they grabbed his ass, and pushed Thomas even farther into him.

“Aaaaagh,” Alex groaned, pleasure spreading through his body, “fucking there.”

Thomas angled his next thrust to hit Alex’s prostate, and Alex’s vision went blurry for a second.  He felt himself contract around Thomas.

“Shit,” Thomas grunted in his ear.  “Do that again.”

Alex tightened himself again and Thomas groaned.  “I’m not gonna last long.  Touch yourself,” he commanded.  “Get yourself off while I fuck you.”

Alex started pulling at himself desperately in time with Thomas’s thrusts, and felt the familiar coil build up in his groin.

His orgasm hit him harder than he’d been expecting.  He arched his back up and wailed as he started to come, the world erupting momentarily in bright light.

Above him, he could feel Thomas’s hips stutter.  He heard Thomas’s deep satisfied groan as he stilled inside of him.  He collapsed to Alex’s side, and they both laid there, gasping for air.

Eventually, Thomas reached for him.  He wrapped his arms around him and started kissing his face and neck.  “That was…”

“Yeah,” Alex agreed, melting into the contact.  He was too blissed out and spent to bother pretending like he didn’t like it.  Thomas took the condom off and threw it away, then gathered Alex back in his arms.  They stayed like that for a while, allowing their hearts and breathing to slow.

“Shower?” Thomas asked after a while.

Alex groaned.  He didn’t want to move, but the desire not to be sticky was stronger.

Thomas all but carried him over to the bathroom, turning on the shower.  He directed Alex under the spray.

He sank into the moment, leaning against Thomas’s chest as he scrubbed them both up with some sweet smelling body wash.  He didn’t really know how much time passed, he just got lost in the warmth and the soft kisses and the general feeling of being held and cared for.

Eventually Thomas stopped the water and carried him out.  He wrapped Alex in a towel and started drying off his hair, which led to another make out session against the counter.

“I need to do my routine,” Thomas said eventually, breaking away from the kiss.

“What, like brush your teeth?”

Thomas laughed.

Turned out all the bottled and jars lined up against the bathroom wall weren't just for decoration — Thomas used every single one.

Alex watched in amazement and amusement as Thomas applied various gels, creams, and balms to as surprising number of different spots on his body.

He glanced over at Alex.  “Want to use some?”  He held out a jar that appeared to be from Lush.

Alex sniffed it.  It had an interesting scent: sort of sweet but with an undercurrent of spice.  “Where do I put it?”

Thomas chuckled.  “Everywhere.”

Alex scooped a big glob of the stuff out of the jar and started to manage it into his arms.

“Rub some in your elbows,” Thomas suggested, rubbing something under his eyes.

Alex moved the silky cream to the surprisingly scaly skin of his elbow.  “I’m gonna smell like a spice cabinet.”

“There are worse things to smell like,” Thomas commented, squeezing something out of a dropper into his palm.

“It looks like you’re brewing a potion or something,” Alex observed.

“The recipe for eternal youth is a complicated one,” Thomas said.  He rubbed the oil between his palms.  “Many steps… many shops…” he started massaging the oil into this face.

“That’s what the cosmetics industry wants you to think… are you oiling your beard?”

“Mmmmmm…” he replied, fingers massaging something into the hair on his cheeks.  He screwed the cap back on the blue glass bottle.  “I have oil for every type of hair on my body.”

“Yeah?  You got pube oil — holy shit you’ve got pube oil.”

Thomas unscrewed a small round bottle and winked.  Alex watched with somewhat alarmed arousal as Thomas started applying the oil to the hair around his junk.

“Why do you use all of this shit?” he asked.

“Because I like it.”

“You like spending half an hour rubbing yourself before bed?”

“That’s what she said,” Thomas replied with a grin, hand applying the oil… somewhere between his legs.  “Or I guess what he said, could go either way.”

“So is the ass the last stop on your little journey of self discovery or just a landmark along the way?”

“I’m almost done.”  He seemed to hurry up for the rest of his routine and they were back in bed soon.

Alex nuzzled up against Thomas, breathing in the scent of all the products he’d just put on.  He was staring to get used to the unique mixture of smells, and he didn’t know how to feel about that.  His phone was plugged in on the side he tended to end up in (he wasn’t yet willing to call it his side) and he was watching Thomas scroll absently through Instagram.

Aside from all the pleasure and orgasms and stuff, this was probably his favorite part of sex — the after bit when everyone’s cleaned up and clothed (Alex in one of Thomas’s old t-shirts and a pair of his boxers) and cuddling.  Everything around him was soft and warm, but under his clothes, he could still feel the ache where Thomas had been less than an hour before.  His nerves were all still fried from the climax.  He was pleasantly sleepy, enjoying the small slideshow of images, Thomas’s arm wrapped around him, fingers drawing indistinct patterns absentmindedly along Alex’s shoulder.

“Oh what the fuck,” Thomas said after a moment, stopping on an image of a massive marble pool.  “Look at the place where Emma’s staying.”

Alex, who’d started to doze off slightly, squinted at the screen.  “Jesus fuck.  Where is that?”

“At uh, that,” he ran his thumb under the location name she’d posted, which was foreign looking and unpronounceable.  “Somewhere in the city.  Probably the reason why she’s here.”

“Mmmm,” Alex sighed.  “You don’t think she came to see you?” he quipped.

“Nah,” Thomas said.  “Emma doesn’t do a damn thing unless there’s something in it for her.”

“Yeah… she sorta gave off that vibe.”

Thomas didn’t reply.

Alex pressed himself up slightly so he could see Thomas’s face, which was cast in a frown and staring at the ceiling.  “What is it?”

“When she came to see us the other day, she talked to me about her concerns with a family member, but… I don’t know.  That doesn’t seem like enough motivation for her.  She’s my smartest cousin and I don’t trust her any farther than I can spit.  I don’t like having her around.”

“Do you know when she’s leaving?”

“Day after tomorrow,” Thomas answered.  “So, maybe I’m just being paranoid or something.  I don’t know.”  He turned his screen off.  “Whatever.”

He clicked the light off and pulled the covers over them, wrapping himself around Alex.

“Alex?” he whispered into his hair after a moment.”

“Yeah?”

“Be here in the morning.”

Alex felt his stomach tighten.  “I will,” he said after a moment, “I will.”

Thomas’s relieved smile when they woke up together sort of tore Alex’s heart out, but he wasn’t quite willing to think about that, so he tucked that away for later consideration.

It was Thomas’s day off, so they made omelettes for breakfast (technically, Alex made omelettes while narrating the whole process to Thomas, who was half paying attention).  Alex tried to get some more work done, but a shirtless Thomas milling around wasn’t doing much for his concentration, so he decided to go down to the cafe to try to get his shit done.

He managed to get a few hours of solid work in before he was interrupted.

“Hey, Alex?”  Dolley said, clutching her phone to her chest.  “There’s something you might want to see.”

“What is it?” Alex asked, trying to keep some of his annoyance out of his tone and failing.

“Ever heard of the Instagram account NewYork’sSexiestBaristas?”

He paused.  “If I say that I have, do you promise not to tell anyone?”

Dolley chuckled slightly.  “C’mon dude, we’re all following that trash.”

“Alright,” Alex said, closing his laptop.  “Yeah, I have.  So what’s up?”

“This.”  She handed him her phone.

There was a picture of him and Thomas chatting, or arguing — with them the two sort of looked the same.  The caption read: You can hear the hearts breaking all across the city!  I’m sorry, loves, but it appears that our Thomas is taken.  Word is he’s dating writer and money guru Alexander Hamilton.  But fret not.  Though this means that there is less Thomas for us, we can at least enjoy the beauty of this blossoming relationship over at @CaféLiberté.  Best of luck to the happy couple.

Alex felt a tingle run up his spine.  “Jesus,” he said, handing Dolley her phone back.  “Well, now I feel violated.  Why would they even— why would they write that shit?”

Dolley shrugged.  “Young women have this weird fixation on gay guys in coffee shops.  I mean, you ever been on AO3?”

“A oh what?”

“Never mind.  But look, you aren’t the one I’m worried about.  Do you think Thomas knows?”

Dread gathered in his stomach as Alex realized why Dolley was showing him the picture.  “Fuck, uh… no I don’t think so.  He didn’t seem too concerned… er, last night.”

Dolley raised an amused eyebrow, but her expression quickly returned to worry.  “Then we should probably tell him.  I don’t know how tech savvy his family is, aside from the Insta-famous cousin, but I doubt he’d want this around.  I mean, he’s out and proud here, but from what I’ve gathered, back home…”

“He’s so far in the closet he gets a tax return from Narnia, yeah,” Alex confirmed.  “Motherfucker.  Is there a way to get the picture taken down?”

“I’ll report it, maybe send a very strongly worded message.  Just… you should probably tell him.  It would be better if it was you, you know, with you being his boyfriend and all.”

Alex nodded absently.  “Yeah.”  Fuck, how was he going to tell him?  “I’ll figure something out.”

Dolley gave him a relieved smile.  “Alright, I have some baguettes I have to attend to.”

Alex turned back to his computer as she left, but the words swam on the screen as the anxiety rose.  This had the potential to be bad.  How was he going to tell Thomas?  How were they going ensure his family never saw?

His phone screen lit up, and he realized it was already too late.

 

-/-

 

Emma’s suite was overwhelmingly white.  Whoever the designer was, he must have had a personal vendetta against maids.  Alex suspected a stiff breeze would be enough to stain the drapes, and he didn’t want to imagine what bioweapons the cleaning staff probably had to use to keep the carpet that particular shade of “imperial alabaster.”

Emma herself was seated in one of the two armchairs by the window, a covered tray sitting atop a table between them.

“Alex,” she said, looking up from her book like she hadn’t been posed there for God knew how long.  “So great to see you.”

“Thanks for inviting me,” Alex said with his best fake smile.

Emma’s eyes slid to the bellhop who’d brought Alex up.  He must’ve been waiting for some tip.  Alex wished he’d brought cash.  She dismissed him with a look.

“Please, sit down.  I’ve ordered us lunch.  Apparently this is from the best sushi chef in New York.”  She removed the lid from the tray, revealing an artful arrangement of very complicated looking sushi.  Alex figured she’d already taken the photos.  “I didn’t want to try it alone.  And I’d been meaning to have a chat with you.”

Alex sat in the chair across from her.  He tossed his phone casually down on the table, barely missing a delicate flower arrangement in a cut glass vase.

“Sake?” she asked, holding up a small bottle.

“No thank you.”

She shrugged and poured her own.

“So how are you?” she asked.

Alex sighed.  “Look, I’m on a tight schedule.  You can drop the bullshit.”

She gave him a level look, her face betraying nothing.  She picked up a pair of jade chopsticks and plucked a piece of sushi from the tray.  Alex watched as she chewed it slowly.

After nearly a minute of uninterrupted eye contact, she spoke.  “Thomas is gay.”

Alex opened his mouth. 

She held up her hand.  “And you aren’t going to deny it, because like you said, you’re on a tight schedule, so no bullshit.  Fine.  He’s gay.  I’ve known for a while, before the stupid Instagram post.  I’ve known for years.  I’ve seen him at parties with girls flinging themselves at him, and he did nothing.  And the way he dresses, the way he primps and preens… the way he checked out Dan Sullivan’s ass when we were twelve… the guy thinks he’s subtle, but he’s not.  I’ve always known.  Hell, I might have known before him.”

Alex narrowed his eyes.  “So what’s changed?”

Emma smile was predatory.  “Now I know you’re dating him.”

Alex said nothing.

“Not just the Instagram post.  The way you looked at him, and him at you, at the cafe.  And when he introduced you as his friend, those two women exchanged a look, like they were trying to catch up on something.  Oh,” she chuckled, “and the way you walked into the room today.”

Alex kept his face steady despite the heat in his cheeks.  Emma laughed at him anyway.

“And as I’m sure you know, we Randolphs are good church-going folk.  There are several members of the family who wouldn’t be thrilled to hear about a queer on the family tree.  And trees like ours don’t get to be very old unless they’re kept well pruned.  So if they find out Thomas is gay, well… he’d probably be written out of all the wills and trusts.  And that would be a pity, wouldn’t it?  So out of the goodness of my heart, I kept his secret for him.  But then I was cut out of everything for our aunt’s stupid little life lesson thingy or whatever the fuck it is.  And so when I found out that my cousin was dating the Little Lion of Wall Street… well, can you blame me for seeing the opportunity?”

“How much?” Alex asked.

Emma reached down into the purse by her chair, and handed him an envelope that appeared to be made of thick parchment paper,  Alex rolled his eyes as he slid the expensive stationary out and read the number.  It was towards the high end of what he was expecting.

Alex looked at her.  “You want me to give you $50,000 so that you won’t out Thomas Jefferson to his family?”

She blinked.  “Well, I wasn’t going to be that blunt, but yes.”

Alex sighed, picking up his phone and stepping away from the table.  Emma watched him in confusion as he paced the room slightly, fiddling with it.  “Well, I’ve got to give it to you,” he said, “you’ve got great taste in hotels.  This one has amazing wifi.  You can send audio files to the cloud in no time.”

She blanched.  “What?”

Alex closed out of his recording app and slid his phone into his pocket.  “I don’t make large purchases without insurance,” he said with a smile.  He handed her a business card.  “Meet me here at three.  I’ll have the money and my lawyer will have a nondisclosure agreement.”

Alex watched in satisfaction was the fear spread across her face. 

“Ah yes,” he said.  “You must think you’re so clever, bringing me up here, being all cryptic, blah blah.  Do you have any clue what you just got yourself into?”  He laughed, and it sounded foreign to him, but good.  He could almost feel claws where his nails normally were.  “There are going to be a few special stipulations in the contract.  If I pay up?  Thomas’s secret is sacred to you.  Not only will you not tell anyone yourself, but if his family finds out from anyone but him, I will tell every one of your followers all about how you extorted money from your gay black cousin’s boyfriend and threatened to out him and render him penniless.”  He clicked his tongue.  “I’m sure that’ll do wonders for your reputation among the 18-35 crowd.  Gee, I hope they aren’t too important to your Instagram business.”

Fear twisted into anger.  “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Wouldn’t I?”  He picked up his things.  “I’ll see myself out,” he said, slipping away before she could say anything else.  He managed to navigate his way through the hotel without really breaking eye contact with his phone, which was good.  There were a lot of people he had to contact to move that amount of money around so quickly.  He made a mental note of all the places he was going to have to go before the three o’clock appointment.

As he stepped out of the lobby and back into the real world, though, his mess of tasks and mental lists coalesced into one single thought:

Well, I guess we’re even.

Notes:

Btw, pube oil does actually exist. And Thomas totally owns it.

Comments are to me what bathing products are to Thomas.

Chapter 9: Thomas Doesn't Go on a Date

Notes:

So I'm currently super tired and unwilling to reread the second draft I just finished, so I'm just gonna publish this chapter the way I finished essays when I was in school -- done is good enough. If there are a ton of mistakes, I'll go back and edit it, but I wanted to unleash the thing tonight.

 

Warning: Only warning I can think of is... emotionally complicated sex?

The bluish glow of very early morning cast Alex in an almost eerie light as he moved.  Thomas was on his back, looking up at the man riding him.  The sheets and blankets tangled behind Alex’s body, blocking the place where they were joined from the window’s illumination.  The head of his cock was just visible above the shadow, pale and untouched in the murky light of the room, weeping at the tip.

Alex’s hand’s were braced on Thomas’s chest, applying light pressure in time with his slow rhythm.  His loose hair had fallen into his face, blocking it from view.  Thomas reached up with one hand and gently tucked his hair behind his ear.  Alex’s eyes were closed, but he grabbed Thomas’s wrist as he made to move his hand away, placing a kiss there, brow furrowed.  He kept moving, breath washing across the sensitive skin of Thomas’s wrist.

Thomas watched and did nothing.  The moment, for all its quiet and calm, was overwhelming.  The sensations… the room was cold, and the skin of Thomas’s torso and arms raised in goosebumps.  Alexander’s warmth — his hot thighs pressing into Thomas’s hips, his breath against Thomas’s skin, his tight heat as he fucked himself on Thomas’s cock — felt scalding in contrast.

It had been a week since the first time they’d slept together, and they’d more or less learned how to properly have sex with each other.  Usually, it was loud and teasing, almost competitive.  Thomas and Alex would fight for dominance, playful quips mixed in with moans, and a few too many comments about “better uses for mouths.”  Thomas would satisfy Alex’s need for praise: “you look so pretty bent over the counter,” “ah, look at you, such a good boy taking all my cock down your throat,” “you’ve got such a great ass, Alexander, so tight and skilled, so good for me…”

And the thrust was Alex was.  For all his faults, Hamilton was a fantastic lay.  He knew exactly what he was doing, and clearly had a lot of experience.  Rather than feel jealous of the many lovers he must have gone through to gain that experience, Thomas felt grateful to them for teaching him how to use his body like that.

And just when he thought he’d figured what Alexander the Lover was like, something like this happened.

This morning was different from the other times they’d been together.  They hadn’t yet said a word to each other that day.  Usually, words were more than half the foreplay — teasing and flirting and arguing until they couldn’t keep their hands off of each other, praising and begging and challenging until they were both past the point where they were able to form words.

But this morning, a silent good morning kiss from Alex turned into a silent make out session, which turned into silent groping, then silent fingering, then silent fucking.

Though fucking didn’t feel like the right word, and Thomas didn’t want to think of what a better word (or phrase) would be, so he stayed quiet.

It was easy, he thought, gasping as Alexander bit his wrist slightly on a particularly strong downstroke, to recognize your physical limits.  The body has a way of letting it’s needs be known.  Safe words are established with the assumption that the person’s body will know when the line is crossed the moment that it is.

Emotions are not so simple.

There was pleasure in that room just then, in the masterful way Alexander worked over Thomas, pulling them both towards climax.  But lingering around the corners of the moment was the knowledge that the more pleasure he felt then, the more pain he risked later.

But he couldn’t bring himself to say anything.  He didn’t want to break the tension that morning.

Thomas wrapped his free hand around Alexander’s cock.  Alex gasped at the contact, dropping Thomas’s hand at last, hand’s bracing on his chest again, eyes flying open as his body contracted around him in response to the sudden pleasure.  There wasn’t much light available, but his eyes were able to catch some, the deep brown meeting Thomas’s for the first time in a while, dark and open and vulnerable.  His body adjusted to the new stimulation, and he started moving differently, pushing down onto Thomas’s cock and up into his hand in turn.

Their grunts and breaths and moans filled the room, forming a strange sort of melody over the regular beating of headboard against wall.  Alex let out a little wail as he spilled over Thomas’s hand, his body tightening around him as it processed the pleasure.

Thomas’s orgasm was practically ripped out of him moments later.  It was all too much.  It wasn’t nearly enough.

Alex collapsed on top of Thomas, panting heavily in his ear.  Thomas wrapped his arms around him.  His fingers found Alex’s spine as they waited for their breaths to slow.  He trailed his fingers up and down the line of it, and he smirked at the slight shiver it elicited from Alex.

After a moment, Alex’s lips found his throat, his jaw, his lips.  The kiss was languid, familiar.  Thomas continued to stroke his partner’s back as they kissed, his softening cock still inside him.

Eventually Alex sat up and moved off of him, letting out a little gasp as Thomas slipped out of his hole.

Thomas felt cold as he went to dispose of the condom.

Alex was lounging naked on the bed, small smile forming on his lips.  “Date night tonight?”

Thomas’s heart jolted at the first words of the day.  “Yeah,” he confirmed after a moment, “fake date night.”

“Fake night,” Alex replied, smile turning ironic.  “I figured I’d pick you up this evening and we’d go kill some time.  Then we can tell our friends all about the romantic outing.”

“Sure,” Thomas said, pulling on some sweatpants as he left for the bathroom, “sounds fun.”

 

-/-

 

“I can’t believe you don’t know how to sew a button,” Hercules said, threading a needle.

“Really?” Thomas asked, shirtless and leaning across the table to watch his friend work, “you’ve known me for how long now?”

Hercules chuckled, pulling the needle up through the button.  “You’re right, never mind.  Of course you never learned how to do that.  I bet you had a tailor on call.”

“Still do,” Thomas quipped as he watched Hercules remain his favorite shirt.  He felt it would be proper to wear the shirt on his first fake date night, if only to maintain appearances.  The fact that no one else knew it was his favorite shirt, well… that didn’t matter.

“So how’re you gonna repay me for this?”

“I thought sewing a button onto a shirt was so easy ‘a monkey with a watermelon up his ass and sticks in both of his eyes could do it while still having time to dodge the shit his friend threw at him’?”

Hercules chuckled.  “Gonna have to save that one for later, it was one of my better ones.”  He did… something with the needle and snipped the threat with the comically small scissors.

Thomas was about thank him when Hercules cut another button off the shirt.

“What—”

“You’re gonna learn how to do this.  Sew a man’s button for him, and you get to go back to your boyfriend for one night.  Teach a man to sew his own buttons like a fucking grown up, and he won’t walk in on your while you’ve got your and down your boyfriend’s pants again.”

“… yeah… sorry about that.”

Hercules shrugged.  “Whatever.  Laf’s always been a bit of an exhibitionist anyway.”

“Are you talking about me?”  Lafayette said, strolling into the room.

“Yeah,” Thomas said, fumbling with the thread.  “We were comparing notes on all the shit you do in bed.”

“Try moving the needle towards the thread, not the other way around,” Hercules said.  “He was asking me if you still call your penis mon petit général.”

Laf rolled his eyes, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge.

“And whether you still shout vive la révolution! when you orgasm,” Thomas said, cursing when he accidentally stabbed his thumb.

“But of course,” Laf added, sitting at the table.

“Try to get the stitch to look similar to the way the other buttons are sewn on.”

“Like this?”

“Yeah,” Hercules said.

“And of course there’s the daddy kink,” Thomas added as an afterthought.

“Ha!” Laf pointed his water bottle at him.  “Joke is on you.  I do have a daddy kink.”

Thomas glanced up.  The surprised look on his face suggested Hercules was not aware of that little factoid either.

“Thomas?” he asked, voice somewhat high pitched.

“Yeah?  Fuck!”  Thomas sucked on the tip of his thumb.

“You’re going over to Alex’s house after your date, right?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“Good, because I don’t think I’m going to be proud of the sounds coming out of the bedroom tonight.”

Laf laughed.

 

 

-/-

 

“Right… so what now?” Thomas asked as he and Alex started down the street.

“Kill I don’t know… three hours?  You’re staying at mine, right?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said, “and… uh… I really don’t think Laf or Herc want me to come home tonight.”

Alex raised an eyebrow.  “Okay… do I want to know?”

“What’s French for daddy kink?”

“Ah,” Alex said, chuckling.  “To be young and in love.  Is it ever a problem?”

“What?”

“You being there… you know, as the ex.  And then there’s the resemblance to Laf…”

“Oh,” Thomas said.  “Not as much of one as a lot of people seem to think.  As for the resemblance thing… that was only a problem once.  The bathroom incident.  And we have all agreed not to speak of it.”

“But not I want to know.”

“Tough.  So where do you want to kill time?”

“Don’t know,” Alex stopped and looked around.  “There’s a Target up the street.  It’s open until late.”

“You… just want to wander around Target?”

“Yeah,” Alex said, running a finger through his hair.  He had it down, like he knew Thomas liked… but that probably didn’t mean anything.  Nothing more than Thomas’s shirt.  “Have you never killed time in a Target before?”

“No…” Thomas frowned.  Why would someone want to wander around a florescent capitalist hellscape for three hours?  That sounded terrible.

Alex dragged him into the building.  Bright white lights and tiles, red signs everywhere, massive billboards of vaguely attractive people smiling with blank eyes.  Red carts milling around.  Thomas could hear at least two children crying.

Three hours?

“So what does one do in Target for three hours?”  Thomas asked.

Apparently, nothing.

They wandered around the store endlessly, examining the various mass produced knickknacks on display in the home good section.

(“Who would want llama bookends?” Thomas asked, poking one of the gold figures.  “What designer sat down and said, ‘gold llamas, that’s what Target shoppers want’.”

“I think llamas are the fashionable animal this year.  Like it was owls, then elephants, then foxes, and now it’s llamas or alpacas.”  Alex was examining an alpaca piggy bank.)

They visited the scented candle isle.

(“Hey, close your eyes and tell me what this smells like.”

“It smells like red 40 threw up in a jar.”

“Close.  Skittles.”

“Who the fuck would want a skittles candle?”

“I don’t know but it’s the last one on the shelf.”

“Jesus Christ.”

They browsed the toy isles.  Alex laughed when Thomas jumped at the sudden activation of a Transformers toy.

They wandered through the book section.  Thomas took subtle pictures of books he wanted to take out of the library later.

They shuffled through the posters.  Took turns loaning on each set of patio furniture and got in an argument about whether metal or wicker furniture was better.  They fiddled about with the computers, seeing who could draw a better penguin on the paint function of the iPads.  They listened to various headphones, critiquing the music that was being used for the demos.  They tried to figure out how to operate the volume on each of the Bluetooth speakers.

As it got closer to eleven, they wandered over into the skincare isle.  Thomas told Alex what each product did, and whether or not it was shit.

“Smell this one,” he said, pushing it into Alex’s face.

Alex smelled it.  “What is that?”

“It’s a face mask.”

“Huh.”

“Do you like it?”

“It looks nice,” Alex said.

“Then get it.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t need it.”

“So?”

“So I don’t spend money on useless shit.”

“Are you serious?”

“What?”

“You never spend any money on fun stuff?”

“I don’t waste money.  Don’y you get that by now?  That’s only something rich people do.  Us poor people—”

Thomas cut him off.  “You aren’t poor.”

Alex put the jar down and faced him more squarely, legs spreading in what Thomas had come to recognize as his fighting stance.  “What?”

Thomas glared at him.  “You aren’t poor, Alex.  I know you aren’t.  Sure, you’re not loaded, but don’t act like you’re seriously hurting.  I’ve seen your budget, remember?  When we were making mine?  I’ve seen your income.  You aren’t poor.  You have money.  You work all the time, you’ve got all these people paying you for shit, and you spend none of it.”

“It’s not that simple,” Alex began, opening his mouth to launch into some stupid fucking lecture.

“Of course it’s that simple!”  Thomas said, stepping closer.  “What are you saving up for?  What are you working towards?  Are you going to head up some big company or something and still buy your shoes from Goodwill?  Why are you so shitty to yourself?”

Alex took a step back.  “I’m not shitty to myself, I just don’t blow through all my money for no reason.”

“There is a reason!  For fuck’s sake, what do you think money is for?  You can’t take it with you.  It doesn’t help anyone sitting in an account doing nothing.  You aren't making yourself happy.  Why do you keep it all?”

Someone glanced into the isle, but walked away quickly when they saw the aggressive stances they were both poised in.  They stepped back, each trying to loosen their stance.

“Because I don’t know what’s going to happen next, okay?” Hamilton continued after a moment.  “I don’t.  I don’t know if you funding is going to fall through or if I’m going to get sick or if an earthquake is going to send the city into the ocean.  I don’t know.  and when shit goes down, an extra ten grand here and there is a really fucking nice thing to have.”

“That’s it, isn’t it?”  Thomas said, laughing.  “That’s why you do all of this to yourself.  All the overworking and budgeting and everything.  You’re convinced that if you work harder than anyone, you’ll be safe.  Well, you know what, Alex?  There are no guarantees.  So why bother?”

“Oh, so what?  I should just spend all my money and fuck around like the world is ending?”

“That’d be better than what you’re doing now — acting like the world has already ended.”

Hamilton rolled his eyes theatrically.  “Yeah well I’m sorry if I seem a little austere these days.  Money’s been tight since I gave your stupid cousin fifty grand to get her to shut up.”

Thomas stepped back.  “What?”

Hamilton’s face paled as his own words sank in.  “Fuck.”

“You gave Emma money?”

Hamilton paused.  For a moment, Thomas thought he was going to deny it.  But eventually the admission came, quiet and almost ashamed, his bluster gone.  “This isn’t how I wanted to tell you.”

Tangles ran across Thomas’s skin, hot and cold taking turns.  “She knows, doesn't she?  She knows I’m gay… she blackmailed you.  And you… you gave her fifty thousand dollars.”

Hamilton’s expression was unreadable.  “Yes.”

Thomas went silent, panic rushing through him as his body processed the information.  A few people scurried through the isle.

“Thomas,” Alex began after a moment, reaching a hand out.

“Albatross.”

“What?”

“I — I need to go outside.

Alex nodded and they hurried outside the door.  A security guard stopped them on the way out.  “Did you gentlemen buy anything?”  His eyes were trained on Thomas.

Fuck, Thomas thought.  He did not need that in that moment.

Thomas was shaking, but he managed to crank his lips up in a smile and say in his most high-class (and whitest) accent: “We were just browsing sir, but I just received some information about a family emergency, so we have to go.”

The guard glared at them and made them turn out their pockets.  Thomas gritted his teeth and complied, too panicked pissed off about other stuff to have much fight about that.

Once they were let outside, Alex guided Thomas to a nearby park and sat him down on a bench.  They stood there for a moment in the relative quiet — cars going by, pedestrians chatting, horns and sirens and car alarms… when was the last time Thomas had encountered actual silence?  Sometime before moving to New York.

“Thomas?”  Alex began after a moment.  “Can we… are we going to talk about this?”

Thomas looked at him without really seeing him.  He was seeing things that were miles away.  Rolling hills and big houses and fancy hats and nice cars and familiar faces and all of it going away with a slamming door.  His greatest fear ever since he was a horny thirteen-year-old who’d finally admitted to himself he thought about boys the way he was supposed to think about girls.  Emma knew it.  And she put a fucking price tag on it.

Eventually the words fell out of Thomas.  The only ones he could think of at the time.  “That bitch.”

Alex blinked.  Then he started laughing.  “Well now at least we know what she came here for.”

“She could tell them… I would loose everything.”

Alexander approached him slowly, seeming unsure how to proceed.  He reached a tentative hand out towards his shoulder and Thomas pressed into the contact.  Alex put his other hand on the other shoulder and crouched down to his level.  Thomas was too far gone to appreciate the irony of the moment.  “She won’t say anything.  I got her to sign a non-disclosure agreement and ensured that it is in her best interest no one ever finds out about your secret.  Honestly you may be safer now.”

There may have been some comfort in his words, but Thomas was too far gone to process it.  “I just… she fucking… I knew she was a piece of shit.  Didn’t realize she was that shitty.  and Alex… you spent 50k on me?  What the fuck?  And why didn’t you tell me until just now?”  His thoughts were racing past him.  Why would Hamilton do that?  How the hell was he gonna pay him back?

“It isn’t a big deal,” Alex said, his voice surprisingly light.  “I mean, what would you have done if our situations were reversed?  If someone was threatening to out me and you had the money?  Would you do the same?”

Thomas frowned.  “Well, yeah, but…”

Alex smiled.  “See?  If even you’d do it, it’s not really all that big of a sacrifice.  Anyone would.”

Thomas laughed despite himself.  “Fuck off.  Jesus.”  He pinched the bridge of his nose.  “My cousin fucking blackmailed you.  How the fuck did she become such an asshole?”

“Money makes people do shitty stuff,” Alex said sagely.  “Especially when that person is used to having it.”

Thomas nodded.  “Not to trivialize what you did for me, but a few months ago fifty grand wouldn’t have been very much to either of us.”

The look him Alex’s eyes was surprisingly affectionate.  “Stupid rich kids.”

Thomas smirked, forcing his breathing to slow.  “I’m not gonna deny it.  You know, back in the day, I wouldn’t even have to take my credit card out when I went shopping.  I’d have an account at the places where I went for clothes and I’d just take whatever I wanted.  Hell, I’d never even see the bill.  It would just be taken care of.  And I’d meet my friends out for lunch and everything would be set up for us when we’d arrive.  We’d leave for random shit and just abandon massive amounts of food without even thinking about it.  We wouldn’t take leftovers or anything.”

Alex nodded.  “I once hit a seagull in the face with a brick because it was about to make off with the last bit of crust from my sandwich.”

“Did you eat the crust?”

“Of course I did.”

Thomas laughed.  “Yeah… we had very different childhoods.”

“Yeah,” Alex sat beside him on the bench.  “That was one of the first things I learned when I became a financial advisor, just how emotional money is.  We’ve all got our hang ups.  You’re a rich person who doesn’t have money, I’m a poor person who does.  Something as simple as a bank balance isn’t going to change the fundamentals of how we perceive money.”

“Yeah…” Thomas said.  “I guess you have a point there.  I’m sorry for how I went after you back in there… I just… not having money doesn’t suit me and I don’t get how you don’t spend it.”

Alex shrugged.  “Like to save it for big splurges like that one.”

Thomas groaned, head falling back.  “You’re going to hold this over my head forever now, aren’t you?”

“No,” Alex said.  “I would never do that.  I’m happy to do my friend a favor.  Besides,” he smiled.  “I owed you a favor.  Consider this your payment.”

Thomas winced slightly at the mention of the favor.  This certainly hadn’t been what he’d had in mind.  “Right… well, I don’t think it’s a $50,000 favor.  When I get my money back, I’ll repay you in full.  No, I’ll pay you double.”

Alex didn’t look at him.  “You don’t have to repay me, certainly not double.  I… I wouldn’t want to profit off of this.”

Thomas let the matter drop, though he made a mental note to find some way to pay Alex back.  “Why did you wait so long?” he asked.  “You didn’t answer that.”

“I… I didn’t know how to tell you.  Or when.”

“So your solution was to just not tell me?”

“I was going to tell you eventually,” Alex shook his head.  “Look, it’s settled, alright?  And I’ve repaid your favor, so we’re even, okay?  It’s all balanced out.  And now you know and it’s fine.  Can we go home?  I’m getting cold.”

Thomas let out a little huff.  His breath formed a little cloud, which washed over his face.  “Fine.”  What else was there to say?

Oh, yeah.

“Thank you,” he said as they started down the sidewalk.  “Favor or no… I appreciate the lengths you went to to protect me.  And…”

And for my own sake I’m going to choose not to read into all this.

“And yeah.”

Alex smiled.  “You’re welcome.”

They walked home without much conversation… until they passed by a Chinese restaurant and got in an argument over whether egg rolls or spring rolls were better.  Though as he smelled the cooking food, his stomach turned.  The anxiety that came with the knowledge that his smartest and apparently bitchiest cousin knew he was queer was still tugging at his stomach despite Alex’s reassurances.

When they got to Alex’s apartment, John was sitting in the living room, working on a laptop.  “Oh,” he said, glancing up.  “Hey.  How was the date?”

“Good,” Thomas said, slipping out of his coat and into the role of boyfriend.  He felt a slight sting on his cheeks as his skin adjusted to being back inside.

John smiled into the screen.  “Well, I don’t know if it’s third wheeling if I invite you, but ABC is doing its biweekly Harry Potter marathon and they’re about to start the sixth movie.  I was planning on watching it once I got these emails out if you want to join me.”

Alex and Thomas exchanged a short look.  “Sure,” they said in unison.

“Just let me change,” Alex said as he darted into his room, and Thomas trailed behind him.

When they started their fake relationship, they exchanged duffle bags full of toiletries and changes of clothing.  Thomas pulled a pair of sweat pants out of his bag, which was sitting in the corner that his unofficially become his.

Alex was changing behind him.  Thomas allowed his eyes to linger on his form as he slipped out of his shirt — the slender line of his waist, the pale skin of his back, the dip along his spine.  He stepped behind Alex and ran his fingers along his sides, smirking at Alex’s shiver in response.  “I love how sensitive you are,” he whispered in Alex’s ear as he trailed his fingers along the waistband of Alex’s jeans.  He felt good there, like that, comfortable in that position.  Letting himself want the things that were safe to want.

“Don’t start anything you aren’t prepared to finish,” Alex warned, voice unsteady.

Thomas planted a kiss behind his ear, and his lips retreated with a promise: “later.”

Alex shivered and went back to changing, pulling on some flannel pajama bottoms and—

“Is that my hoodie?”

Alex grinned as he zipped the giant grey sweatshirt up.  The thing was comically massive on him, reaching almost to his knees.  The long sleeves went past his hands.  “Yeah.  I was cold the other day so I borrowed it.”

“Borrowed here meaning?”

The grin widened.  “It’s mine now.”

“That’s my favorite one,” Thomas complained.

“Well, I mean, I did sorta pay $50,000 for it.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Thomas groaned.  “I thought you weren’t going to hold it over my head.  I thought we were even.”

Alex pulled the hood up.  It nearly covered his whole face.  “Well… maybe I lied a little.  C’mon, let’s go watch the movie.”

When they got back to the living room, John had already cleared out his work stuff.  The smell of popcorn was coming from the kitchen.

They settled on the couch, Alex wrapping a blanket around both of them.  Their bodies fell together naturally, Thomas’s arm slung around Alex, Alex’s head tucked into Thomas’s shoulder.

“Awwww,” John cooed as he came from the kitchen with two big bowls of popcorn.  “You two look so cute.”

Alex tossed a throw pillow at his head.  John dodged it, but lost some of the popcorn from one of the bowls as he did so.  “Well,” he said, handing them the bowl that had lost some.  “Guess this one is yours.”

“But there’s two of us,” Alex protested, pressing his body further into Thomas’s as if to prove his point.”

“Well, you should have thought of that before you assaulted the chef,” John said, settling into an armchair.

They seemed a lot more comfortable around each other after he and Alex started “dating.”  Thomas figured that was because Alex felt better pining after John in the safety of a fake relationship.  Or something like that.  Thinking about it wasn’t something Thomas enjoyed.

But he had to admit John had a point.  They were cute.  There was a mirror hanging nearby and he could see their reflection in it, snuggled under a blanket.  They looked like boyfriends.  Anyone who saw them would think they were in love. 

Hell, Thomas half believed it himself.

Notes:

Comments are to me what Harry Potter marathons are to ABC.

Chapter 10: Alex Is Fine

Notes:

Hey I'm really sorry this chapter is so late. I was hit with the perfect storm of writer's block, moving (to an apartment that doesn't have WiFi yet) and switching to a job with a completely different schedule from my last one. I've got the next two chapters drafted, so I should be able to get them out in better time. You know, hopefully.

Right, so warnings: this chapter contains discussions of Tragic Backstories™ so like... warnings for mentions of nonconsensual sex activities, abuse, disease, Dead Parents. Also this is an Alex chapter so typical warning for thought spirals and general neurotic ramblings.

Alex stared at his computer screen, though he was having a hard time processing the words.  He was still ruminating over the chewing out he’d gotten from his stock broker the other day about the fifty grand he’d ripped out of his portfolio.  His vague excuse of “personal emergency” didn’t seem to subdue the man.

Which he guessed made sense because he never did stuff like that.  He never did stuff like that.  And when he looked at his portfolio there was a big gaping hole where fifty thousand dollars should have been.

And he knew he was going to be alright.  He had several months rent saved up in a few emergency funds.  He’d upped his asking price for articles recently and made a couple of good calls with his stocks.  He’d make the money back, he knew.

Still… fifty fucking thousand goddamned dollars.  He felt like he’d cut off a foot or something.  It was going to be a pain getting back to where he was.

All he could do in that moment was breathe.

He glanced down at his empty coffee cup.  It was Thomas’s day off so it didn’t fill automatically, which was a bit creepy, come to think of it.  The fledgling barista was starting to gain a following, especially once he learned how to actually make coffee.  Alex brought his empty mug up to the counter and noticed a small display of ribbons that hadn’t been there the day before.

“What’s with the purple bows?”

“Mmmm?” Angelica asked, looking up from her phone.  “Oh, it’s for next month.  It’s pancreatic cancer awareness month.”

Alex frowned.  “And Laf made a display?”

“For Thomas,” Angelica said.  She looked up at him.  “It’s what his father died of, remember?”

“Oh,” Alex’s cheeks heated.  “Right.  I remember now.  That’s nice of him.”

 

-/-

“Hey, I was wondering if we could play a game.”

Thomas looked up from the dish he was washing.  The kitchen was littered with the bowls and knives and cutting boards they’d used to make the chicken soup that was simmering on the stove.  He raised a playful eyebrow.  “Is it a sex game?”

“No,” Alex said, leaning against him. “It’s a talking about feelings game.”

“Oooh boy,” Thomas said.  “Sounds fun!  What are the rules?”

Alex took a breath.  “Well I was talking to Angelica earlier and I realized I don’t really know all that much about your life before you moved here and since we’re fake boyfriends I figured we should know these things so I figured maybe we could ask each other five questions we’d been wondering about so our boyfriend thing will look more realistic and like obviously you don’t have to answer a question if you don’t want to and shit and can albatross or something but maybe it would help so what do you think?”

Thomas blinked.  “You put some thought into this.”

‘No,” Alex said.  “I put too much thought into this.  And it won’t just be me asking you.  I’ll answer a question for every one I ask.”

“Not everything we do has to be transactional, Alex.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” he took a sip of his beer.  “Okay.  You want to go first?”

What do you think of me?  “Do you have any phobias?  I feel like that’s something a boyfriend should know.”

Thomas’s hand froze on the knife.  “Claustrophobia.”

Alex nodded.  Okay, he thought, that was common enough.  “Just because or—”

“When I was six my cousin locked me in the slave quarters on my uncle’s estate,” Thomas said quickly.

Alex choked on his beer.  “What?”

Thomas continued washing a pan. “We were playing in the backyard one day.  The, uh — the slave quarters were intact but mostly boarded up.  I think the gardeners used one as a tool shed and maybe another as storage or something.  Anyway I was young so I didn’t really know what they were.  But Brandon — the cousin who did it — he was ten.  He told me to get into one so I could jump out at Emma.  He’d managed to get one of them open — I don’t know how — and closed it on me.  Then I heard this clicking sound and…” he paused.  He wasn’t washing the pan anymore.  He was staring out the window above the sink, streetlights painting his skin an unhealthy color.   “It was really dark because all the windows were closed up and it took the adults a few hours to figure out where I was.”

“Jesus Christ,” Alex said, newfound anger washing over him.  He hadn’t thought he'd be able to get more angry with the Randolphs after the stunt Emma pulled, but apparently he could.

“So yeah,” Thomas finished, not looking at him.  “I can’t be in a room if it’s really dark or I don’t know the way out.”  He started rinsing the pot.  “You?”

“Mmmm?”  Alex was still writing a lengthy script he planned to one day deliver to the Randolph clan in his head.

“What’s your phobia?  Or phobias?”

“Oh,” Alex said.  “Uh, big storms.  Like strong winds, loud thunderstorms.  There was a hurricane that hit Nevis in my teens and I just…”  Images of dead bodies floating down flooded streets entered his mind.  He took a sip of his beer.  They’d go away if he just let them pass.  They always did.  “I don’t like big storms.”

Thomas nodded slowly, his expression somewhat distant.  “Okay,” he said after a moment.  “My turn?”

Alex nodded.

“Why’d you move to America?”

That one was easy.  “The hurricane, actually.  I was seventeen.  I’d been working at this store and the store was destroyed.  And there was this essay contest and I wrote about the storm and won a scholarship to this school in America.  Everyone on the island pitched in to buy me a ticket to the states.  I went to the boarding school, then Columbia.  I’m working towards getting a green card.  I like New York.  There isn’t anything for me in Nevis.”

He knew his tone was harsh, but Thomas didn’t seem to want to comment on it.

“Right,” Alex continued.  “My turn.”  You’re always touching me.  What does that mean?  “How many boyfriends have you had?”

Thomas raised an eyebrow.  “Why do you want to know?”

Alex felt his cheeks heat up.  “I… just feel like that’s something boyfriends would talk about.”

“Riiiiiight…” Thomas drew the word out — drawled it — and finished his beer before replying.  “Actual-ass relationships?  Two.  Being a sad little closeted southern boy doesn’t lend itself to long term shit.”

Alex nodded.  “Can you… tell me about them?”

Thomas leaned against the fridge.  “The first one was a guy named Sean.  I was a freshman, he was a senior.  It was kinda stereotypical, really.  It was my first time away from my family in any capacity and I was just like really desperate to have a boyfriend because I’d never been able to be open about anything and he… he sort of took advantage of that.”

Aw fuck.  Dread sank down to the pit of Alex’s stomach.  “Like how?”

Thomas wrapped his arms around himself, his shoulders slumped.  “He just… pushed me to do a lot of stuff I didn’t really want to.  He’s the reason why I don’t bottom anymore.”

Alex felt yet another rush of anger and wondered if at the end of this conversation he was going to go on a vigilante rampage through the south.  But he figured then wasn’t the time.  He offered his hand up in comfort and Thomas drew him into his arms.  He squeezed him, burying his face in his hair.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Alex said lamely.

“I know,” Thomas said, pressing a quick kiss to the top of Alex’s head.  “Dillon though, my second boyfriend?  That was my fault.”

Alex chuckled at Thomas’s lighter tone.  “Yeah, maybe.”

“What about you?” Thomas asked, not releasing him.

“Mmmm?”

“How many?”

“Real relationships?  Two.  “Eliza—”

“Angelica’s sister?”

Alex nodded.  “Her and John.”

He felt Thomas tense around him.  “Okay,” he said, voice measured.  Why’d you break up with them?”

“Eliza dumped me.”

“Aw shit dude, I’m sorry.”

Alex smiled a little to himself, not moving to leave Thomas’s arms.  Thomas didn’t move to release him.  “Don’t be, it’s my fault.  I cheated on her with Maria.”

“Wait, Maria…?”

The words fell out of Alex quickly.  “Yeah, her current girlfriend.  The whole thing went down a few years ago.  Maria and I had sex at this party and someone caught wind of it and there was this rumor going around that I’d stolen something from a dorm on the night I was with Maria.  And so I in my infinite wisdom sent out this mass message to everyone involved saying that I wasn’t there because I was with Maria and Eliza dumped me and a few months later the two of them got together and yeah I know I was dumb I don’t need another lecture believe me I’ve gotten enough.”

Alex could feel Thomas shaking around him.

Alex groaned.  “Are you laughing?”

Thomas released him, leaning against the counter.  Alex glared at him.

“I’m sorry,” Thomas said, wiping tears away from his eyes.  “It’s just that holy shit dude why would you do something like that?  It’s such a—”

“I know.”

“Such a dick move.  Also... you cheated on Eliza?  That’s not okay.  Do you… do you normally…?”

Alex’s stomach turned.  Dammit.  This wasn’t the direction he wanted this conversation to go in.  “No, alright?  That was the only time I ever cheated on anyone.  I was drunk and it was a bad call and… I just don’t, okay?  Can we move on?”

Thomas looked at him for a moment, then grabbed another beer from the fridge.  “Fine,” he said.  “Whose turn is it?”

“Yours.”

“Mine.  Hmmmmm.”  His expression turned serious.  “Can you tell me a bit more about your mother’s husband?  At one point you said he’s the reason why she’s dead.”

Anxiety tugged Alex as he considered his answer.  He watched the concern wash over Thomas’s face.  “You don’t have to…”

“No,” Alex said.  “It’s alright.”  He shot Thomas a weak smile.  “My boyfriend would know.”

Was that a wince he saw on Thomas’s face?  Maybe, maybe not.

“He didn’t actually kill her, but I’ve always sort of blamed him for her death.”  He hopped onto the counter and snatched up Thomas’s beer.

Thomas didn’t say anything, he just rolled his eyes and got himself another beer.

Alex began his story.

“So my mother’s first husband — well, her only husband — was this fucker named Johann Michael Lavien,” Alex over-pronounced his name perhaps a bit too much, a bitter taste on his tongue.  “They got married when she was super young and he was an abusive piece of shit.  She wanted a divorce but he had the local judge in his pocket and he pulled this loophole out of his ass that made divorce really complicated.  So she skipped town.  She moved to St. Kitts, where she met my dad.  Eventually she told him about it and he just sort of went with it.  She’d introduce herself as Rachel Hamilton, everyone accepted that they were together.”  He shot Thomas a shy glance.  “Turns out faking a relationship is easy.”

Thomas didn’t meet his eye.  Alex pressed on.

“So yeah.  I spent my childhood thinking they were married.  Mom and Dad.  Me and my brother.  Typical happy family.  Then he showed up again.  He’d hunted her down, somehow, figured out where she was.  I mean… it isn’t hard, the islands are pretty much just a bunch of small towns.  He told everyone she was actually married to another man.  They all sort of turned on her.  We had to leave… then… then dad left and we started bumping around a lot and then Mom got sick.”  He took a deep breath.

Thomas set down his bottle and offered Alex his hands.  Alex took them, running his thumbs over the soft skin.  The counter made up for their height difference and their foreheads fell together.  They looked down at their intertwined fingers as Alex continued his story.

“It was some sort of infection.  Really nasty.  Like puking and shitting all over the place and…” he shuddered as memories of hot, disgusting smelling rooms ran through his head.  “Not great.”

“How’d she get it?”

“Don’t know.  Could have been bad water or food, or a bug bite.  The tropics are dangerous, you know?  So she was sick and she was scared to go to a hospital because then maybe he’d be able to get to her or something.”

“Wouldn’t the hospital conceal her if she didn’t want him to find her?”

“Maybe,” Alex said, “but I don’t think she trusted them not to.  He probably had connections… I was young when all of this was happening, so most of it I’ve learned from other people.  She was sick for a long time but she refused to go to the hospital.  Then…. then I got sick too.”  He paused for a second, trying to breathe through the lump in his throat.  The air between them was heavy and smelled like stale beer.  He should have wanted to pull away but instead he held Thomas’s hands tighter.  “We couldn’t even get out of bed.  The room… it smelled like hell.  The AC broke and it was so hot and were were both a mess and too weak to move.  Jamie was off doing some apprenticeship and no one knew we were sick.  My mother… she just held me through it.  She held me through it all.  She held me all day and all night, the two of us sick in bed.  Then one day… one day she wasn’t holding me anymore.  I woke up in a hospital and she was gone.  Apparently the landlord had become suspicious and the smell was starting to spread and when he got into the apartment we were both on the bed and she was… yeah…”

“Jesus,” Thomas whispered into the space between them.

“They rushed me to the hospital.  According to the doctors I was hours away from death when they got me.”

Thomas closed the gap between them and wrapped his arms around Alex.  Alex welcomed the comfort.  He didn’t tell that story often.  He felt dried out, exhausted.  Images that had haunted him for as long as he could remember marched through his head like a funeral procession.

“Can you… can you tell me about your dad?” He asked, lips buried in the side of Thomas’s neck.

“Not much to tell,” Thomas said after a moment, the rumble of his deep voice vibrating through Alex’s body.  “He went to the doctor’s for a routine checkup, and they found something strange.  Within a week there was a diagnosis.  After that, it all happened fast.  I was fourteen and everyone just sort of kept me away from him.  He got really sick quickly.  I’d go for days without seeing him.  I ended up staying with my Aunt Shannon towards the end.  I knew what was happening, obviously, but everyone sort of pretended like it wasn’t.  Then one day I was taken to the hospital to see him, and he was…” Thomas paused.  Alex ran a hand along his back, and he felt the muscles relax slightly.  “You have to understand, my dad was massive.  Taller than me, bigger than me.  He was always so strong, so together.  He always knew what to do.  But he looked so weak, like he was made of glass and if I touched him he’d crumble.  He said some stuff to me… and it sounded sort of rehearsed, you know?  And I knew he was saying what he’d decided would be his last words to me.  I gave him a really gentle sort of hovering hug before I went, and his smell was all wrong.  He smelled like hospitals and old people and death… to this day I can’t stand the smell of hospitals.  So I left and Aunt Shannon drove me to her estate and suggested I go swimming.  About an hour later she came down to the dock and told me my father was dead.”

Alex tightened his arms around Thomas.  “I’m… sorry,” he said after a moment because he didn’t know what to say.

“I’m sort of glad I wasn’t there for it, you know?  What gets me, though, is that he didn’t want me there for it.  I was mad about it for a long time.  I didn’t get why he didn't want me there.  But now… I mean, I was a kid.  Seeing him die would have been a whole new realm of shit.  You know?”

“Yeah,” Alex said, exhausted in a way that was too familiar.  “I know.  Why don’t we put the game on pause?  The soup’s probably ready, and I think we need some.”

 

-/-

 

Alex braced himself as the subway car made a sharp, crazy turn around a curve, body automatically adjusting to the movement.  His lip quirked slightly as he watched a tourist get thrown by it.  He checked his phone.  Jesus, he was late.  Laf was gonna kill him.

Except no, he wasn’t.  Laf was going to be like everyone else that night, looking at him like he was a kicked puppy.

John had slipped it so casually into the group chat: Hey is it okay if Ben comes to family dinner?

Which meant: Hey Alex, have you got your shit together enough to meet my boyfriend of like two moths who I’ve had to smuggle around like an ounce of weed?

And fucking everyone left it on read until Alex got to it like two hours later because he was still behind on all of his paper work and deadlines and he hadn’t slept in the same bed with Thomas in like three days which shouldn’t have been a big deal but it fucking was because he missed him even though he knew he wasn’t supposed to miss his fake boyfriend but he’d been avoiding him a bit since they went over their tragic backstories together and so now there was a whole new type of anxiety surrounding the dinner and fucking hell.

And so it wasn’t until a few hours later that Alex replied with his third fucking draft which went like: Fine by me.  What do the hosts think?

And then everyone else almost immediately said they were fine with it too.

And that was fine.

It was fine.

It was just fine.

It was fine.

He was fine.

Or he had been, until about an hour ago.

The thing was, Alex knew he was starting to get better, at least with his anxiety about John.  The good days were getting more common and turning into good weeks and the bad days were spreading out and getting a little less bad.  The thought spirals were becoming almost boring, and he was starting to get to the point where he could let them run through his mind without feeling the need to go after them each time.

Maybe it was just time.  In his more lucid moments he’d always known that this particular strain of anxiety would eventually work itself out.  Maybe it had done that.

Or maybe it was because he had so much other shit to worry about.  The looming deadlines.  The fact that he was extorted by an Instagram star and now had to remake 50k.  The warm fuzzy feeling he got when he saw Thomas that he knew he wasn’t supposed to feel because there was no protocol for fake boyfriends but the fake bit suggested there weren’t any feelings and lord help him he knew that train had long since left the station and he knew he knew he needed to albatross soon but he couldn’t bring himself to because what if that ruined everything?

And then he had to remind himself there was’t a thing to ruin.

But whatever.  It was just as well.  One of the best cures for anxiety is other anxiety and so despite his problems there had been days where he would tilt his head up in the crisp November air and feel the sharp November sun and feel healed.  That special, tired, bittersweet end-of-the-movie feeling when the character has gone through is arc and is truly fine.  He could practically hear the hipster acoustic riffs in the air (which usually turned out to be a busker but whatever).

So yeah, he’d been fine.  And not “fine” fine.  Like, fine fine.

Until about an hour ago, because he’d just gotten in the manuscript and oh shit he was running late and that wasn’t going to look good and they were all probably waiting for him though maybe not because he knew they’d all probably enjoy the evening without him because he had nothing against Ben but then it was probably gonna be awkward and what if he did have a problem with Ben and shit was he staying at their apartment that night what if Alex wanted to do something what did that feel like shit he thought he'd moved passed this fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck…

Breathe.

The mechanical voice announced his stop and Alex got of the subway, slinging his bag over his shoulder.

It was going to be fine, it was going to be fine.  It was going to be fine.  It’s going too be fine…

Alex spent the walk to Laf’s apartment doing some breathing exercises he’d learned online.  He was going to be fine.

Fine.

He was still doing the exercises when he used his key to open the door to Laf’s apartment.

What happened next happened quickly.

The door didn’t open all the way, and Alex heard a grunt as the door hit something soft.

Alex stepped into the apartment to get out of the way just as whoever was trapped between the door and the wall tried to sleep out from behind it.  They collided, and Alex landed on top of the other person, who, as it turned out, was holding a bottle of wine.

The bottle shattered as it made contact with the floor.  Alex heard everyone run over from the kitchen. 

Alex groaned as he tried to get up off the other person.

Shit.

“You must be Alex,” an attractive man with his hair pulled back in a messy bun said as he tried to sit up.

“Uh, yeah, sorry,” Alex replied dumbly, automatically flinging back when the man he figured was Ben moved to stand.  Of course this is how I meet Ben.  Of course there’s broken shit and… “Fuck!” he yelped as a searing pain ripped through his palm.  He looked down at his hand.

“Oh my god you’re bleeding!” Thomas exclaimed, helping Alex up and all but carrying him to the bathroom.  He hit the light switch surprisingly hard he set Alex down on top of the toilet lid.  The yellowish overhead light flickered to life and the fan started.

“Damn, mamabird,” Alex hissed as Thomas examined his bleeding palm.  “You swoop in fast.”

“Yeah, well…” he took the first aid kid down from a shelf, “just playing the part of concerned boyfriend.  Not my fault I’m more dedicated to the craft than you are.”

Alex let out a little chuckle, which quickly turned into a gasp as Thomas started to clean the wound.

“Looks worse than it is,” he assessed, putting some sort of gel on the small cut.

“Yeah,” Alex whined, “but it feels worse than it looks.”

“Oh boo hoo,” Thomas said, applying a bandage.  “Do you need me to kiss it better?”

Alex held out his palm expectantly, sarcastic arch in his brow.

Thomas had a challenging look in his eyes as he placed a kiss on the material of the bandage.  “Anywhere else you got an owie?”

“Well now that you mention it, my dick…”

Thomas smiled.  “I’ll help you with that later.”

Alex felt a little thrill go down his spine.  “Would it be okay if I stayed with you tonight?”

“Why not?” Thomas said, closing the first aid kit up, “my sheets haven’t smelled like cheap shampoo and Walmart deodorant for a few days.”

“You still have a terrible bedside manner.”

“This isn't a bedside.  You’re sitting on a toilet.”

Alex looked down at the toilet, as if he needed to verify Thomas’s claim.  “We should probably leave, huh?”

“Probably.”

“So I take it that was Ben whose ribs I bruised?”

“Yeah.  Though you probably didn’t bruise them.  You’re very light.”

“What’s he like?” Alex asked.

“Oh, charming, handsome.  Intelligent far as I can tell.  Just got back from like seven months in Thailand and only talks about it when someone else brings it up.  I think he’s a vegetarian but I don't know.”

“Impressive,” Alex noted as they moved to leave.

“You okay?” Thomas asked, stopping.  Alex could hear the laughter from the other room.

“I don’t think I’m going to lose the hand.”

Thomas rolled his eyes.  “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” Alex said, sobering.  “I’m fine.”

Thomas took his hand and they walked into the kitchen together.

 

-/-

 

“Ben seems nice,” Alex commented, toweling off the plate John handed him.

“He is,” John replied, a fond little smile on his face as he rinsed off a glass.  “He said you were nice too.”

Alex laughed, taking the glass.  “That’s nice.  I think we’re socially obligated to refer to new acquaintances as ‘nice.’  Maybe I should…”

“Write a blog post about that,” John finished.  “Maybe.  Just try to keep it under fifteen thousand words so your editor will stop yelling at you.”

“They’re actually oaky with that now.  Apparently loquaciousness has become part of my ‘brand.’”

John laughed.  Alex smiled.  For a moment, it was like everything was normal again.  Like the past few months never happened.

But of course they did.  Alex’s chest felt heavy.  He knew the anxiety would come back.  And, of course, the dread of it was almost worse than the worry itself.

“But really, what do you think of him?”

“He seems sweet.  And he’s really into you.  It was sort of adorable.  Whenever you weren’t looking he’d gaze at you with this sort of puppy-dog look.”

“Sort of like how Thomas looks at you?”

“Mmmm?”

John’s smile was mischievous.  “Whenever you aren’t looking, Thomas shoots you this adoring look.  If he weren’t so handsome he’d probably look like an emoji.  You guys are coming up on a month, right?”

“Yeah,” Alex said, voice slightly detached.  “Something like that.”

“You’re still honeymooning pretty hard, eh?”

“Uh, yeah,” Alex said.  “So… like, every time I look away?”

John laughed.  “Pretty much.  Dude’s got it hard.”  He handed Alex a plate.

Alex toweled it off and put it away, a sharp breeze rolling in through the window.  Anxiety was still tugging at him.  But he was starting to let himself hope.

Notes:

Comments are to me what chicken soup is to the human soul.

Chapter 11: Thomas Slips Up

Notes:

Currently in a McDonald's trying to bust out what is essentially a two-part chapter because my apartment still doesn't have WiFi.

Ah... the fanfic life.

Warnings: Vague mentions of non-consensual sex stuff, is I think the only one.

Thomas limped up the stairwell to his apartment, not realizing he hadn’t taken his apron off until he was halfway there.

Alex was curled up on the couch, laptop squealing (likely due to the angle he had it at — Alex’s laptop was sort of like a baby, over time you learned what the different cries meant).

“Hey,” he said without looking away from the screen.  “The crowds scared me off so I moved up here.”

“I’d do the same, if only I could.” He plopped down on the couch beside Alex.  “Goddamn.  I feel like my feet are gonna fall off.”

“Here,” Alex said, pulling his feet into his lap.  He started undoing the laces on Thomas’s shoes.  “My mom used to wait tables, so I did this all the time.”  He took Thomas’s socks off and started rubbing his feet.

Thomas sighed at the sensation.  “You don’t have to do that.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“Fuck no.”

It had been about a month since the start of their fake relationship, and they’d fallen into a sort of routine.

As it turned out, faking a relationship was very easy.  Despite what movies and books would have you believe, people rarely question whether two people are actually dating.  There had been no requests to kiss to prove they were together.  No one grilled them about the details of their first date.  People just accepted it with a smug grin and a, “oh good, finally.”

Honestly the only problem they had was that it was a bit too real.  Alex was present in just about every facet of Thomas’s life.  Alex was there all day at work.  They usually hung out after work for various reasons, and then there was date night.

Any chance of a reprieve from their two-man show during Washington’s class went out the fucking window within a week of them commencing their fake courtship.

They’d been in the middle of one of their normal academic screaming matches when Alex exclaimed:

“Well maybe if you structured a rebuttal half as good as you sucked dick we wouldn’t be having this conversation!”

A quiet spread across the room, and Thomas sat there, checks hot, brow set in a stony sort of anger he’d learned from multiple generations of southern ladies.

Alex took a moment to process what he’d just said, then pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Motherfucker.”

“Well,” Washington said after a moment, “I don’t have my checkbook on me, but I can get you the money next class if that’s alright, Edmund.”

“Sounds good, sir.”

“You got Venmo?” Henry asked, pulling out his phone.

“Yeah,” said Edmund.

Thomas and Alex watched the transaction with what Thomas figured was probably matching side eye.

The only person who actually knew what was going on was James.  Thomas had gotten specific permission from Alex to tell his best friend due to his geographical distance and general lack of connection to all interested parties.

But his conversation with James about the topic wasn’t exactly encouraging.

“So let me get this right,” he’d said, “you’re not actually dating.  You’re just going on dates, spending all your time together, and sleeping with each other?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said.

“… right.  Well, when you get married, I want to plan the wedding shower.”

Thomas grumbled it away, ignoring the uncomfortable feeling in his gut.

Truth was, he was starting to forget that they weren’t a real couple.

It was especially hard to remember it when Alex was giving him a fucking foot rub. 

“Was it as bad as it looked?” he asked, pushing his thumbs into a particularly sore spot.

“Yes.  We were packed.  And of course when you’ve got a line nearly out the door, cups everywhere, abandoned milk jugs falling to the floor, and a look of abject terror in your eyes, that’s when someone decides what they want more than anything else in life is some four shot, half-caf, extra foam fuckery.”

Alex smiled.  “Of course.”

Thomas grabbed a throw pillow that had fallen off the couch and put it over his eyes. 

“Hey,” Alex began, sounding a little unsure.  “There’s something I wanted to talk about…”

“Yeah?”  Thomas asked, raising the pillow off his face.

Alex shook his head.  “You know, it can wait until I’m not holding your feet.  Right now I’m gonna get that stupid foot cream that makes your feet smell like candy canes.”

Thomas smirked.  “You mean the stuff you used as toothpaste that one morning?”

“I thought we agreed not to talk about that,” Alex said, tossing his feet to the couch.  Thomas heard the bathroom door open.  He set the pillow back over his eyes.

“Hey,” he called, remembering.  “It’s coming up on our anniversary.  We should do something for one month of fake boyfriends.  Maybe fake flowers?  A card that says ‘happy fake-a-versary?  Faker-versary?”

“Thomas…”

“Tell Laf we’re going to a fancy dinner or something… eat Hungry Man dinners.  McDonald’s… fake something…”

“Thomas?”

“Yeah?”  He tossed the pillow off, blinking.

There were three other people in the living room.

“So,” Laf said, unwrapping the scarf from his neck and taking Hercules’s coat.  “Would you like to explain?”

 

-/-

“So,” Hercules said, sitting on the couch beside Laf, “you aren’t actually dating.”

“No,” Alex said, looking stranded as he paced the carpet.

“You’re only pretending to date… to make John feel better?”  Laf asked, arm wrapped around Hercules, brow furrowed.

“Yeah,” Thomas said from his spot in the corner.

“And you think this is a… good idea?” Hercules asked.

Thomas let out a humorless laugh.  “Never claimed that.”

“But we would like for you not to tell anyone,” Alex said quickly.

“Using the royal we, are we?” Thomas asked.

Alex glared at him.  “Do you want all our friends to know we’ve been lying to them?”

“They were gonna find out eventually,” Thomas said, arms crossed, heart racing.

“Look,” Hercules said, holding his hands up, “this isn’t our business.  Right Laf?”

Laf looked concerned.  “But… what if you actually fall in love?”

Of course he would ask that.

Alex took that one, because he was Alex.  “We have a safe word… for… for feelings.”

The couple on the couch looked confused.

Alex spoke again, more quickly this time.  “We agreed at the beginning that if things got to be too… too much, we’d use the word.  And, well,” Alex looked at him.  “Neither of us have used it.”

Laf and Herc followed Alex’s eyes.  Everyone was looking at Thomas in the corner.  He didn’t like it.  He didn’t like how this was all unfolding.  This conversation wasn’t supposed to have an audience.  This conversation wasn’t supposed to happen at all.  He didn’t want to be in the corner anymore, he needed to get out…

He… he… he…

“I need some air,” he said, leaving before anyone could say anything else.

 

-/-

 

Thomas swirled his whiskey around.  There was something sort of fascinating about how it pressed against the edges of the glass, leaving the center empty.  Like a mini hurricane.

He tossed the rest of it back.  The sting of it against his tongue and throat was welcome.

Thomas had never been a particularly masochistic person.

Sean had liked spanking, he’d remembered.  Thomas had never been into it, but he was too desperate to let Sean go.  In those days he was all hunger and excitement.  Finally getting to know what a boy’s lips tasted like, or how someone else’s cock felt under his fingers.  The sprawl of a man’s shoulders… the strength of a man’s body against his… all the things he had fantasized about while tugging at himself under the expensive sheets in his bed back home.  He’d been so excited to finally get what he wanted he didn’t know what to do about the things he didn’t actually want.

Generally, Thomas hated pain in any form.  And he didn’t want it anywhere near his pleasure.

Maybe it was because of his childhood.  All the barbs and micro aggressions and motherfucking “bless your heart”s.  A conversation with most members of his family was like swallowing a tablespoon of honey laced with fiberglass.

So in most of his relationships he looked for nothing but ease. There had been a few guys he’d kind of dated then dumped the second they had one argument.  He ditched Dillion over a petty fight over… what was it, a TV?

Then he made that deal with Alex, and he couldn’t just leave.  There was a grit to their relationship, like they were always sharpening their claws on each other.  But then they’d hold each other or kiss or… fuck at this point it felt like making love.  And he liked it.  He really fucking liked it in a way he didn’t know he could like things like that before.

But it wasn’t real.  And he didn’t know if it could ever be real.  And if he albatrossed… what if Alex didn’t feel the same?  What then?

He had to do something.  He had to move on.  He couldn’t keep doing this to himself.  The real pain was coming, he knew it was coming.  But what sort of pain?

He had to figure it out.

The bartender set another glass down in front of him.  “This is from the gentleman down at the end of the bar.”

Thomas looked over.  Smiled.  Got out of his seat.

And maybe he should have known then what the answer was, what he really needed to do next.

Because as he walked over, all he could think was, this better fucking hurt.

Notes:

Comments are to me what overcomplicated coffees are to people in crowded cafes.

Chapter 12: Alex Comes Clean

Notes:

And here's Part 2, so to speak. Because I just can't leave it on a cliffhanger. Guess I'm just too nice.

Warnings: Alex chapter... so... thought spirals... an anxiety attack... vague smut... all that good stuff.

Alex gnawed at his thumbnail, eyes trained on the screen on his lap.  The words all seemed to blend together.  What was he even writing about? 

 It didn’t really matter, he guessed, as long as he could stay calm.

He had the weighted quilt Hercules had made him wrapped around his shoulders.  The lavender candle Laf had bought him was flickering in the corner.  The salt lamp John had given him was casting his room in a warm glow.

But he couldn’t calm down.  Thomas was gone and he didn’t know where and it hurt.  

He’d tried everything.  Breathing exercises.  The two different meditation apps he’d downloaded back when he thought he was getting his shit together.  Hell, at one point he’d even tried doing a yoga video off of YouTube. 

Nothing was working.  So now he was trying to write. 

But that wasn’t working either.  All he could think was that Thomas had left and he could be anywhere and — 

Breathe.  Breathe.

And Alex was gonna tell him that day.  He was gonna albatross and call it off or maybe find out that Thomas loved him too and maybe they could actually be together but now he was gone and what if it was too late and and — 

Breathe.  Breathe.

And maybe he was with someone else but that shouldn’t matter because they weren’t really dating and Alex had no right to be jealous and—

Breathe, breathe.

And he was okay with it because he had to be but did he want to go after him?  Was he going to try to activate a Find My iPhone thing or something and find him?  Did he want to do that?  He didn’t know... so did he?  Was he going to be a creep?  Oh my god did this mean he was going to try to kill him or something?  How could he know he didn’t want to?  What did that feel like was he—

Breathe.  Breathe.  Please god breathe...

He closed his laptop and set it on the floor.  He wrapped the blanket around himself and curled up on his side.  The blankets all smelled like Thomas.  Sobs started to rock through Alex’s body. 

Thomas was gone and what if he never came back what if he died but fuck what if he hated Alex and what if Alex was going to ruin his life and was Alex obsessed with him what did that feel like and fuck he didn’t get to feel like this this wasn’t okay fuck fuck fuck fuck.

He sat up, his breath coming in quick pants.  He coughed, his lungs and stomach both desperate to push something out of him.  Alex fell onto all fours, coughing and dry heaving, tears streaming down his face and it was too much he couldn’t he couldn’t.

He crawled to the door, tangled blanket tripping him up as he made a desperate go at the door knob. 

Eventually he managed to get the door open and he stumbled to the bathroom, barely managing to get the toilet seat up before he started vomiting.

He stayed there for a while, hunched over the toilet bowl.  Sobbing and puking.  He started the shower so John couldn’t hear.

Eventually he was spent.  He stood, shaking, and brushed his teeth.  He looked like shit: face pale, eyes bright and rimmed with red.

He wet down a washcloth and pressed it against his eyes, then padded over to the kitchen.

He was sipping his second glass of water when the door opened.

“Alex,” Thomas said, his voice hoarse.  “I was hoping you’d be up.”

Any sense of relief Alex had gotten from Thomas’s return was gone immediately when the man got closer.  

He smelled wrong.

Alex had Thomas’s smell memorized.  A unique and complex blend of expensive bathing products laced with something else.

But in that moment he smelled like cheap cologne, sweat, whiskey, and sex. 

He’d been with someone else, Alex realized.  He felt a stab of jealousy, and his thoughts started to spiral again, though this time he was too tired for it to work back up into an attack.  It just felt like hurt. 

“Can... can I have some water too?”  Thomas asked.  He looked nervous.

Alex poured him a glass and set it down on the counter.  

Thomas took a seat on the little breakfast island they had in the kitchen, studying the glass.  “I went to a bar,” he said.

“I guessed.”

“I went home with someone.”

“Two for two.”

“I... I didn’t like it.”

Something inside of Alex twisted.  “If you’re here to complain about your shitty one night stand…”

“That’s not what I meant,” Thomas replied.  He sighed.  “Alex, I can’t do this anymore.”

Alex felt his stomach drop.  “What?”

Thomas was staring at his glass.  “I can’t pretend to be with you anymore.  It doesn’t feel right.”

Alex felt like he was having one of those nightmares where you’re falling, and you wake up in bed with solid ground beneath you but still feel like you’re plummeting.

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”  Thomas asked. 

“Why now?” Alex asked, voice getting louder, heart beating faster.  "What happened?  Why can’t you do it?  Why are you backing out now?"

Thomas threw his hands up.  “Oh for fuck’s sake... because I’m in love with you, asshole!  You happy? Fucking albatross.  You win.  I caught fucking feels.  Less than an hour ago I was balls deep in some rando and all I wanted to do was literally anything else with you!”  

Alex took a step back.  He should have been thrilled.  This was what he wanted.  But… “Are you fucking kidding me?  No.  You do not get to be the one who has an emotional outburst before me.  I was here freaking out while you were off getting laid.  You want to albatross me?  I’ll albatross you right the fuck back!” 

Thomas frowned.  “What?”

“I’m in love with you too, dumbass,” Alex said, hands on his hips, and it sounded like a schoolyard retort and he wanted to bang his head against the counter. 

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Alex said.  “So... there." 

A smile spread across Thomas's face.  “So like... for real?  You’re in love with me?”

“Yes, dipshit.  Did you not hear my emotional outburst?  I was planning a long and elaborate one for earlier this day and then you ran out on me and had this whole dramatic thing.” 

Thomas stepped in closer.  “Sorry to steal your thunder,” he said as he hauled Alex up onto the counter.

“Wha—” Alex began, but then Thomas’s lips were on his.  Alex sighed into the contact, wrapping his arms around Thomas’s neck.  He tried to get into the moment, tried to enjoy the press of their tongues, the overwhelming warmth and the feel of Thomas’s hands on his hips, but —

“Alright this is great but you taste like stale booze and some dude’s dick.”

 

 -/- 

 

 

They decided to take a shower together, and it was almost ritualistic, really, the way they washed each other slowly.  Alex ran one of Thomas’s dumb loofahs (which, yeah, he’d kind of gotten into the habit of using…) all over his body, rinsing thoroughly.  

Thomas crouched down to kiss Alex, his breath minty (Alex had never seen someone brush their teeth so quickly or aggressively before). 

“So are we, like, not fake boyfriends now?”  Thomas asked when their lips parted.

Alex smiled.  “I’d prefer fake fake boyfriends.”

“Fake squared,” Thomas said, fingers trailing down Alex’s stomach.

“Fakeception,” Alex suggested, head hitting the shower wall as fingers curled around him. 

When Thomas started stroking him, surrounded by steam and the scent of the soap, it felt familiar and perfect.

And when he reached his release, gasping against Thomas’s chest, he felt like some other, deeper part of him was being released too, and he was happy to let it go.

 

 

-/-

 

 

“So you wait for the bubbles to pop, and when the batter doesn’t refill the craters, then it’s ready to flip,” Alex said from his perch on the counter, taking a sip from his favorite enormous coffee mug, clutched in the sweater paws he’d made at the end of the hoodie he’d stolen from Thomas.

Thomas stood over the pan, spatula poised.  “When do we add the blueberries?”

“In just a moment, and also we’re adding chocolate chips." 

“Okay, honey?  I love you, but fuck no we are not adding chocolate chips.  You have fresh blueberries and those are objectively better.” 

“Sweetie?  Babe?  I love you and I value your opinions, but who the fuck would not want chocolate if given the chance?”

Thomas tsked.  “Blueberries, Alex.  They’re so good and lovely and full of antioxidants.”

“We’re making fucking pancakes!  What the fuck does healthiness have to do with it?”

“Chocolate chips are too sweet.  With blueberries there’s more of a sense of contrast, the tartness of the berry and the sweetness of the syrup.” 

“You seriously pretending to be some sort of connoisseur?  You’d eat Mac and cheese for every meal if you could get away with it.” 

“Morning,” John said, strolling in.  He poured himself some coffee from the pot.  “You two still fighting?”

“Still?” Alex asked. 

“I heard raised voices last night... but then it seemed things got better.”

Alex and Thomas exchanged a look. 

“You do remember I share a wall with the bathroom, right?” 

“Uh....” Alex felt heat pool in his cheeks.

“It’s whatever,” John said, smiling, taking a sip of his coffee.  “Three a.m. make up shower sex is the spice of life, as the old saying goes.  Well, I’ve got to get ready for work.” 

Alex stared after him, then glanced back at the pancakes.  “Oh you fucker, get those blueberries out of my pancakes!”

Thomas’s laughter filled the kitchen, and Alex couldn’t help but smile.

 

 

 

Notes:

Me: Oh, this is an important emotional chapter, I should give it a good, deep name.
Lizard Brain: Shower Sex pun.

Comments are to me what chocolate chip pancakes are to Alex and blueberry pancakes are to Thomas.

Chapter 13: Thomas Goes Sightseeing

Notes:

And we're back. Sorry for the late chapter. I could make excuses but mostly it's just writers block and an unfortunate bout of depression and anxiety the last few days. I'll try to get chapter 14 up faster, but honestly can't make any promises.

No real warnings I can think of.

“I can’t believe that out of everywhere in this city, you choose to go to another coffee shop for the first fake-fake date.”

“It’s a perfectly normal date location,” Alex sniffed, bringing his latte up to his lips.

“And what the fuck is with that latte?” Thomas asked, gesturing at the offending mug in Alex’s hands.  “You never order a latte at the cafe.”

“Don’t want to be too much of a bother,” Alex explained, licking the small line of milk foam from his upper lip.

“A latte isn’t a bother,” Thomas said, leaning back in his over-cushioned chair.  “If I fall hard enough, I make a latte on the way down.  Your stupid obsession with cramming every possible espresso shot into yourself is the annoying bit.”

“Ah, well,” Alex shrugged.  “Whatever.  You still love me, right?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said, sobering.  “I still love you.”

They must’ve said, ‘I love you’ five million times in the last eighteen or so hours that had passed since that first confession.  Maybe it was the high of new love.  Maybe it was because neither of them had been able to say it to anyone for a while.  Maybe it was because everything was fresh and scary and they needed constant reassurance.  Do I have my keys?  Do I have my phone and wallet?  Does he still love me?

And they decided to go out on a date.  A real date.  Thomas had been expecting lunch, but Alex dragged him into some hipster coffee shop five streets over and there Thomas was, familiar sound of grinding beans and smell of steaming milk in the air, what he was now educated enough to recognize as a mediocre cappuccino in front of him.

And feeling happier than he had in quite some time.  His cheeks were sore from the smile he was not yet able to work off his face.  And Alex was right there with him, grinning.

“So…” Alex said after a moment.  “Are we gonna tell Laf and Hercules?”

“Tell them what?”  Thomas asked, swirling his mug.

“That we’re actually together now.”

“Ah,” Thomas said, “that… is it bad that I don’t want to?”

The smile was gone from Alex’s face.

“Not because I don’t want to be with you… I’m sorry,” Thomas reassured quickly.  “That’s not what I meant.  I mean… like… I don’t want to give them the satisfaction… I mean, we got together within a few hours of them telling us we would.  I can imagine their smug faces right now.  And like…”

“Yeah,” Alex agreed, eyes glazed over, “I can see it too… maybe we could wait a bit.”

“Not forever,” Thomas said.  “Just until the end of the semester, maybe?”

“Oh,” Alex said, “that reminds me.  We need to start on our group project soon.  And since you’ve already paid off half your debt…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Thomas waved his hand.  “We’ll use your stupid methodology.  It’ll permanently tarnish my academics, mind you, but I suppose a deal’s a deal.”

Alex’s grin made a return.  Thomas never wanted it to go away again.  “Deal’s a deal,” he replied.  “So, keep Herc and Laf in the dark for another month or so?  Maybe give them our relationship status as a Christmas present?”

Thomas laughed.  “Something like that.”

“Should be simple enough.  Being fake fake boyfriends.”

“What could possibly go wrong?” Thomas monotoned.

“That’s the spirit!”

Thomas’s phone lit up.  James’s name was in bold beside a rather long text.  “Do you mind if I…?”

“Go ahead,” Alex said.

The small smile on Thomas’s face widened as he read his best friend’s message.  “Oh my god,” he said.

“What is it?”

“James’s firm is considering opening a New York office, they’re sending him up for a week to meet some contacts,” Thomas looked up.  “He’s gonna be here!”

“James as in your best friend James?”

“Who I haven’t seen since May, yeah.”

“That’s great!” Alex said.  “It’ll be nice to meet him.”

“It does complicate our elaborate rouse, though,” Thomas admitted.

“Why’s that?”

“Well, James knows everything.”

“Everything, everything?”

“I may have sent him a novelistic text message this morning about our declarations of mutual love.”

Alex laughed.  “Aww, that’s sorta sweet.  Wish I could do the same with John.”

The mention of John sent an unpleasant jolt through Thomas’s body.  “Yeah…” he cleared his throat.  “I’m sorry about how all of this sort of strands you.”

Alex cast his eyes down at the table, a small, sad smile on his lips.  A part of Thomas he wasn’t quick enough to bat away wondered what exactly it was he thought about John those days.  Did he still love him?  Was it alright for him to ask?  Was it alright for him to wonder?

“It’s okay,” Alex said after a bit.  “I mean, I’m not technically lying to him anymore, so it doesn’t really matter.”

They both knew it did, but they let the issue drop.  “So do you not think James will be willing to go with what we’re doing right now?”

“Oh, he’ll be willing,” Thomas said, happy for the change of topic.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“He’s the worst liar in the whole world.”

“Ah,” Alex said.  “That does complicate things.”

“He’ll try,” Thomas said with a shrug.

“Well, hopefully it’ll be okay.  So what else would you like to do on our first date-date?”

“Actually,” Thomas said, finishing his coffee.  “I need a few things at Target.”

“Seriously?” Alex asked.  “Are we to live out the entirety of our romantic lives in Target?  Does my fake fake boyfriend have some sort of fascination with that place?”

Thomas’s lips quirked.  “And I blame you for it.  But you still love me, right?”

Alex’s lips spread in a slow smile that made his eyes glitter and Thomas’s heart pound.  “Right.  I still love you.”

 

-/-

 

“Are you going to be coming home for Thanksgiving?” Aunt Shannon’s voice sounded tired over the line, and a small shock of anxiety ripped through the delirious happiness Thomas had been feeling the last few days.

“Uh…” the truth was he hadn’t really thought about it.  “Maybe?  I’ve been so busy with work and school and…” he almost said Alex, but he stopped himself.

“I may not be able to attend this year,” Aunt Shannon continued.  “I’ve got some urgent business out of state.  Estate stuff,” she added quickly.  “Nothing terribly exciting.”

A laundry list of possibilities ran through his head: she was going out of state for some experimental cancer treatment, she was going out of state to find a long-lost member of the Randolph family tree, she was going out of state because she secretly worked for the NSA and somehow found out he was gay and was just going to avoid him for the rest of her life.

“Right,” Thomas said after a moment.  “Well, if you’re not going, I’m not going.”

She chuckled.  “That’s fair.  To tell the truth, I wouldn’t have gone if you weren’t going.”

Thomas laughed.  There had been one Thanksgiving when he was sixteen where a huge storm had ripped through Virginia and they lost power.  No one else’s home had power and they decided not to hold the annual family dinner.  Instead, Thomas and Aunt Shannon ended up ordering half the menu from the local KFC and playing scrabble by candlelight.  It had easily been the best Thanksgiving of Thomas’s life.

“Why would you want to miss out on Aunt Mia’s famous… whatever it is casserole?”

Aunt Shannon laughed.  “Why indeed.  So how’s New York been treating you?  You’re sounding very chipper.”

Thomas would have given anything to tell his aunt why precisely he was in such a good mood.

But he couldn’t.  And it fucking killed him.

So he went with a partial truth.  “James is coming to visit in a few days.”

“Ah, James,” Aunt Shannon said.  “That’ll be nice.  Send him my love.”

“I will.”

“I’ll have to come up to New York some time.  Meet all your friends.”

“Yeah,” Thomas agreed lamely.  “You should.”

Aunt Shannon laughed.  “Try not to get too excited.  I know the prospect of your crotchety old maiden aunt meeting all your hip New York friends is one you savor.”

“Ah yes,” Thomas said.  “You got me.”

“Ah hah,” her voice became more distant and Thomas thought he heard some murmurs that sounded like a conversation.  “My driver is here.  I’ve got to go.  I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said, stomach tightening.  “Safe travels.  Love you.”

“I love you too, Thomas.”  The line went dead.

 

-/-

 

“So what does he look like?”  Alex asked as they watched the passengers from James’s flight file out of the gate.

“Uh,” Thomas said, eyes scanning the crowd.  “He actually looks quite a bit like Hercules, come to think of it… like, a lot.”

“So… that guy?”  Alex pointed towards a man coming off the plane.

Instead of replying Thomas half-jogged over to him and all but tackled him in an enormous bear hug.

“Hi Thomas,” James chuckled, voice somewhat strained from the arms squeezing him.

“Hi,” Thomas said, jumping back on the balls of his feet.  “How was your flight?  Are you thirsty?  Hungry?  Cold?  Do you need to use the bathroom?  Did you take your Airborne?  Because you know you always get sick on flights.”

“Yes, Mom.  Thank you, I’m fine.”  James casually pulled one of the tissues he always had on him and blew his nose.  He glared at Thomas.  “And the fact that I had to blow my nose just then has nothing to do with my overall current health.”

“Right,” Thomas said.  “Well,” he looked over at his boyfriend (he still sort of shivered at the word), who was waiting back where they had been earlier, glancing around awkwardly.  “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“James, this is Alex.  Alex, James.”

Thomas watched as two of the most important people in his life shook hands, the overwhelming sensation of worlds colliding coming over him.

“Can’t believe I’m finally meeting the legendary Alexander Hamilton,” James said.  “Thomas doesn’t shut up about you.”

“Don’t call him legendary,” Thomas said, “it’ll go straight to his head.”

“Eh,” Alex said with a shrug.  “Wouldn’t matter much.  I already know I’m legendary.  On that note, I need to pee.”

Alex darted off.

“He’s a lot shorter than I imagined,” James commented as Alex wove his way through the crowd.

“Yeah…”  Thomas’s voice sounded dopey even to his own ears.

“Dude, you’re so smitten.”

“I know,” Thomas said.

“Like, seriously.  You’re glowing.”

“Bitch I’m always glowing.”

James laughed.  “How many of the bottles you applied to your face today had the word ‘glow’ on them?”

“We don’t need to talk about that.”

“Right… well, I need to be at a meeting in less than an hour, so I’ve got to run.  I’ll have some free time tomorrow, though.”

Thomas nodded.  “Sounds good.”

“Maybe I should stop by that bakery of yours, meet all your friends.”

“Yeah,” Thomas said weakly.  “Maybe.”

 

-/-

 

“You’re so handsome,” Laf said, face inches from James’s.

“Thanks,” James said simply, taking a sip of the coffee Thomas had made for him. 

Thomas leaned against the counter, eyes darting anxiously between the two men in front of him.  Alex was hacking away at a new article in the corner, but he also kept glancing at them. Thomas doubted Laf would bring up the fake boyfriend thing to James, but still…

Maybe they just should have told the truth.  Sidestepped this whole farce.  But at this point it almost felt too late…

There was a banging sound coming from the kitchen.

“Ah,” Laf said, straightening up.  “If you’ll excuse me I’m about to be yelled at by one of my employees.”

“Where are you, you French fuck?!”  Dolley shouted, tossing open the kitchen doors.  “What the fuck is this?!”  She held her phone out at him.  “A rush order?  For two hundred motherfucking goddamned cupcakes?  With Angelica in Albany?  And you have a family function?  What does that even mean?  It’s my day off!"

“I am so very sorry, Dolley.  I will of course be paying you very well if you are willing to do this.”

Dolley crossed her arms.  “I want double overtime and one week’s paid vacation and a three hundred word formal apology iced onto a cake and two bottles of whisky and your first born child.”

Laf’s smile was relief personified.  “I already promised my firstborn to a witch in return for my good looks, love.”

“Your second child and a third bottle of whiskey, then.  Also you have to help me find a grunt.  I’m not going to be able to do this all myself.”

“I understand completely.  You will have all of those things.  And I will find you a helper."  He turned to Alex.

“Alex?”

“I’d love to, but I have a meeting with my editor soon,” Alex said, looking to the world like a man who most certainly would not love to.

“I can help,” came a voice behind them.

Everyone turned to face James.

“What’re your qualifications?” Dolley asked, eyes moving up and down his form.

“He’s a junior member of a consulting firm,” Thomas offered.

“Which is really just a fancy way of saying assistant pastry chef,” James said with a smile.

“You’re hired,” Dolley said, tossing him an apron.  “Follow me.”  She turned to return to the kitchen.  “Oh,” she said, stopping.  “What’s your name?”

“James.  I’m Thomas’s friend.”

“Thomas’s friend James?”  Dolley took a step back and gave him another appraising look.  “Huh.  He was right.  You are gorgeous.”

James scrambled for a reply but didn’t find one before he was dragged into the kitchen.

“Should we…?”  Thomas began.

“No,” Laf replied.  “Perhaps it is best to simply leave him to his fate.”  He checked the clock.  “I need to leave to help my Hercules set up for his sister’s party.  You okay on your own?”

Thomas nodded, eyes trained on the kitchen doors.

For the rest of the day, Thomas continued about his work, avoiding the kitchen, lips quirking slightly whenever he heard laughter.

“What do you think they’re doing in there?” he asked Alex as he refilled his coffee.

Alex looked amused.  “Whatever it is, I doubt it’s sanitary.”

When it was time to close, he knocked on the kitchen door, something he’d never done before.

“Yeah?”  Dolley asked.

Thomas poked his head in.   They were both seated on stools around the center table.  Boxes of cupcakes were stacked on just about every available surface and James had somehow managed to get vanilla icing on his face.  They were also both shaking with some sort of laughter, like they were sharing some sort of inside joke.

“Uh… how’s it going?”

“We’re like seventy percent done,” Dolley said, closing another box and stacking it atop an already precarious pile.  “You closing the front?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said.  “You’ve got the keys, right?”

“Yup,” Dolley said, smiling.  “You taking my helper away?”

“Only if he wants to go,” Thomas said.

James most certainly did not look like he wanted to go.  “I mean… I told her I’d help… then there’s clean up… I’d feel sorta shitty ditching her in the middle of all this…” he gestured around with his spatula at all the bowls and cups surrounding him.

Uh huh, Thomas thought, that’s why.  “Alright,” Thomas said, rolling his eyes.  “You two have fun.  I’ll call you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Sounds good.”

“Oh, and use protection,” Thomas said, as he closed the door, dodging the rolled up baking parchment James threw at his head.

 

-/-

 

“You still good for the thing later?”

“The… what?”  James’s voice was groggy sounding.  Thomas frowned.  It was almost noon, why was he still in bed?

“Didn’t you check the email I sent you?  I was gonna take you to do some tourist stuff before you had to go to all your meetings and shit.”  Thomas readjusted the phone against his ear.  Alex looked up from his laptop, brow raised.  Later, Thomas mouthed.

“Oh, right… uh…”  There was a scrambling sound.

“Sorry Thomas,” Dolley said.  “He was too busy getting laid last night.”

“Ah,” Thomas said.  “I see.”

“When you described him, you failed to mention he was such a good lay.”

Thomas smiled despite his annoyance.  “If I had known, Dolley, I would have told you.”

Thomas heard more shuffling.

“Sorry about that, man,” James said.

“It’s fine,” Thomas said lamely, leaning against the wall.

“Yeah…” James trailed off, Thomas heard some giggling.  “I don’t know why you’re always complaining about New York, I like it.”

Thomas pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Uh huh.”

“So… the thing?”

“I was thinking we could do some tourist stuff today… but you sound kinda busy… so…”

“No I… uh… I mean… I can…”

Thomas sighed.  “How about dinner tonight?  Or coffee tomorrow?”

“I’ll buy dinner tonight and coffee tomorrow.  I’m really sorry about this… I wasn’t expecting…”  He let out a little gasp and there was a rustling sound.  “Uh… yeah."

“It’s okay,” Thomas said.  “Have fun.”

He ended the call and sank down into the seat across from Alex.

“So…” Alex began.

“Want to go to the Statue of Liberty again?” Thomas asked, holding up a set of tickets.

“Again?” Alex echoed.  “I’ve never been there before.”

Thomas frowned.  “How long have you been living in New York now?”

Alex let out a dramatic groan, closing his laptop.  “People who actually live in New York don’t—“

“Do that tourist stuff,” Thomas answered for him.  “Right.  Well, have you ever wanted to?”

Alex looked at him for a moment.  “I’ll go get my coat.”

 

-/-

 

“So James and Dolley…” Alex began, looking out over the railing of the ferry.  “That’s actually a thing now?”

“I guess,” Thomas said, sipping the little thermos of coffee he’d brought with him (he didn’t have a caffeine addiction… he was just used to a certain amount of coffee every morning.  And every afternoon.  And sometimes in the evenings…)

Alex chuckled.  "Good for them.  Though you must be annoyed he kinda ditched you.”

Thomas was, but he was trying to be a grown up about it.  “I mean, losing out to Dolley is sort of its own honor, you know?  And who knows?  If they get married maybe I’ll mention it in my best man speech.”

“Ooooh.  Someone’s confident.  What’s got you so sure you’ll be the best man?”

Thomas looked out towards the harbor.  Small waves were catching glints of sunshine and then sinking back into the water.  “I’d better fucking be.  I mean, he’s going to be mine.”

Alex didn’t reply, and Thomas felt his throat close up as he realized what he’d said.

“I mean… if I ever get married.  Who knows if that’ll happen?  Right…”  he studied a sticker someone had put on the railing.  It looked like it came off of an apple or something. He scraped at it with his thumbnail, intent on throwing it away.  Unfortunately, the adhesive was old and the whole thing flicked off, spinning in the chilly breeze and flying out towards the harbor.  Thomas watched with detached helplessness as the sticker landed in the water.  “Oops."

He turned to Alex, who was eyeing the little sticker as it got carried away in the waves.  There was a small, mysterious little smile on his face.

“Penny for your thoughts?”  Thomas asked.

Alex’s eyes met his.  “My thoughts cost far more than that, Thomas.”

“Bullshit.  You give them away for free every day.”

“True,” Alex conceded.  “Honestly I wasn’t thinking much.  I’m just happy.”

Thomas smiled.  Alex’s eyes were bright and warm in the autumn sunlight.

“Good morning everyone!  How are we feeling today?”

Thomas’s face felt cold as he watched a man walk out from the little cabin the crew had in the back of the ferry.  “Fuck.”

“What is it?”  Alex asked, turning to look where Thomas was.

“Uh… you know that guy I… I met the night we got together?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, he’s our tour guide.”

“Really?”  Alex craned his neck to look over the crowd.  “Huh.  He’s kinda cute.  He didn’t mention that he worked as a tour guide?”

“Honestly,” Thomas said, crouching down behind a crowd of Japanese tourists, “our careers didn’t really come up.  Stop doing that,” he snapped at Alex, who was hopping up and down to get a better view.  “I don’t want him to notice me.”

“Okay, honey?”  Alex said, landing and looking up at Thomas.  “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you are six foot two, you have an afro, and you’re wearing magenta.  He’s gonna notice you.”

“A man can dream, can’t he?”  Thomas tried to quell the anxiety building in his gut.  He cast a nervous look down at Alex, but he just looked amused.

The ferry docked and Thomas and Alex got swept away with the crowd onto the island.  Thomas was easily the tallest person in the crowd and it quickly became apparent that not only had the guide noticed Thomas, he was actively trying not to look at him.

“What did you do to the poor guy?” Alex whispered as the guide — fuck, what was his name?  Josh?  He’d mentioned it at the beginning of the tour but Thomas had been too caught up in his worry to pay much attention — talked them through the history of the statue.

“It might not have ended on the best note,” Thomas admitted, glancing down at Alex, searching his features for any signs of jealousy.  What was he thinking?

“What happened?  I mean… if you don’t mind me asking.”

“Well, we went back to his place and… after… I was not feeling great.  I immediately regretted it and… uh… I…”

“Yeah?” Alex prompted.

“I may have cried.”

“Ooooh,” Alex said, flinching.

“He was really sweet about it, but uh… I sort of just ran out of the apartment.  Actually I think I forgot my boxers there.  I was in a rush to get dressed again.”

Alex put a hand over his mouth, though from his eyes Thomas guessed he was probably smiling.  “That’s… that poor guy.”

“Yeah,” Thomas admitted, watching as the man launched into a history of the statue.

The ferry docked and they milled about the island, dodging the various people taking pictures.  

Thomas realized he was about to photo bomb a rather large group picture, so he jumped backwards, bumping into the person behind him.

“Oh, crap, sorry!” Thomas said automatically, freezing when he realized who he’d just bumped into.

“It’s okay.  How you doing, Thomas?” Josh — Joe?  Justin? — said, small, squinty smile overlit by the late morning sun.

“I’m uh… I’m good.  How’re you?”

Alex, who’d gotten ahead of Thomas, was looking over at them from the other side of the photographer.  Where do you want me? his eyes asked.

Thomas gave him a confused shrug.

“I’m doing fine,” Josh — it was Josh.  He had a name tag. — said.  “You seem… better.”

“I uh… I am.  Yeah.  Thanks.  And sorry.”

Alex came over.

“Oh,” Thomas said, stepping over to Alex, “this is Alex, by the way.  My boyfriend.”

“Ah,” Josh said, eyeing Alex uncomfortably.  “Did you guys… just get together?”

“Yeah,” Alex said, reassuring smile gracing his lips.  “He told me about what happened.  Sorry about the awkward reunion.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” Josh said with a shrug.  “I figured something like that was going on.  Glad things turned out okay.  Do you… eh… do you want your underwear back?  I wasn’t really sure what to do with it.”

“Oh.”  Heat spread across Thomas’s cheeks.  “You can… just throw it away I guess.”

“Okay,” Josh said, scratching the back of his neck.  “Well, I need to get back to work.  Let me know if you have any questions, you know, about the statue.”

“Will do,” Thomas said with a little smile.

“Right.  Nice meeting you, Alex.”  And he made a quick retreat.

Thomas felt  Alex shaking at his side.  Fuck… was he having an attack?  Was he freaking out?  What was going on?

He looked down at Alex, who had his hand over his mouth.

“Alex… what?”  Then he realized what was going on.

He was laughing.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” Alex said.  “It’s just… this city has a population of what?  Eight million people?”

Thomas smiled, the knot that had been tied in his stomach loosened.  “Island’s an island.  You can stop laughing any time, though.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex said, wiping a tear away from his eye.  “I know I’m being an asshole.”

“Just a bit.”

“You still love me, though.  Right?”

Thomas looked down at his boyfriend, giant scarf piled around his neck, dark eyes glinting in the too-bright November sun, cheeks flushed by the cold air, the sprawling towers of the city’s skyline behind him.

“Yeah,” Thomas said, taking a sip of his coffee.  “I still love you."

 

Notes:

Comments are to me what double overtime pay, several bottles of whiskey, and a cake would also be to me.

Chapter 14: Alex Makes a Promise

Notes:

So... uh... sorry I've been away for so long. I have a political job so my life has been sort of insane leading up to the election. That's over now and I'm happy to be back to writing.

I'm going to be putting out chapters 14 and 15 at the same time, since they're both short and sorta connected. Hopefully 16 won't take a month.

Warnings: Alex chapter, so Alex stuff. Some anxiety but nothing too major. Also smut.

“So we’re running down the street, ducking into alleys and shit like we’re in a fucking spy movie, trying to get away from this drag queen who Thomas insulted… somehow.”

“I thought I was complimenting her!”  Thomas protested, laughing.  “My French wasn’t as good as I thought it was.”

“It still isn’t,” Alex added, sipping his beer.

“Oh, wow,” Thomas said, leaning back.  “Okay.  Who else wants to join the let’s-all-shit-on-Thomas party?”

“You still burn my soy milk,” Dolley said, running her finger around the rim of her glass, “you haven’t figured out how to make roses with icing even though I’ve shown you like fifty times…”

“That was a rhetorical question.”

Alex smiled, leaning into the alcohol haze and the warmth of the bar.  “What happened next?” he asked James.  “I want to hear more about Thomas’s first Mardi Gras in New Orleans.”

“It was also his only Mardi Gras in New Orleans,” James said with a smirk.  “We found this bar to duck into and started hiding in the crowd.  She followed us in and lost the scent.  We hid in the corner and she went to the bar.  It was all going good and we started chatting with these girls from Tennessee, but then someone started up a karaoke machine and Thomas decided the only thing he wanted to do in the whole world was sing.”

“And friends, the performance was glorious,” Thomas interjected.  “He’s just mad because he thought he was gonna be able to hook up with one of those girls.”

“I did,” James admitted.  “But your gay ass had no time for that bullshit.  Oh no, you had to share your Marvin Gaye impression with the entire fucking bar.”

Thomas smiled at the memory, his face dimly lit by the glow of the candle at the center of their tiny table.  “They weren’t that into you anyway, man.  I saved you from a lot of embarrassment.”

“I had to haul your ass off stage!  She spotted us and started throwing bottles at you.”

“Exactly!  You were removing the nuisance.  You were the hero they all needed.”

“I still haven’t forgiven you,” James said, shaking his head.  “Don’t think I ever will.”

Thomas batted his eyelashes.  “How could you possibly stay mad at someone as adorable as me?”

“I don’t know, man.  Been managing for like six years now.”

Thomas rolled his eyes, but he smiled.  He dismissed himself to go to the bathroom.

“I’ll go grab another round,” James said, looking down at the empty glasses.

Alex swirled the beer foam around the glass in his hand.  “So, you and James actually ended up together,” he said.  “How’s that been?  Are you thinking a spring wedding?”

Dolley smiled.  “I like him.  More than I thought I would.  But you know how it is in the beginning.  All scary and delicate.  You’re always afraid you’ll fuck up, or that once they know the real you they’ll run away and you’ll be left with nothing but a broken heart.”

Alex felt a knot tighten in his stomach.  “Yeah, I know that feeling vaguely.”

Dolley sighed.  “I know about you and Thomas.”

“What do you mean?”  Alex’s eyes darted to the bar and the bathroom door, but their companions didn’t seem to be on their way back.

“About how you pretended to be in a relationship with Thomas to make John happy… for some reason.  And how you just started dating but Laf and Herc think you aren’t.  It’s quite the pickle, really.”

“How did you…” Alex felt the anxiety start to rise in his chest slowly, like the tide coming in.

“I was asking James some questions the other night and… well… he’s a really bad liar.  Try not to be mad at him,” she said with a slightly apologetic look.  “I probably pressed him too far.  And don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone and I’ll help you maintain this charade or… whatever it is.  But Alex?”

“Yeah?”  His voice was clipped as he saw Thomas start to return from the bathroom.

Dolley’s voice got quieter, and quicker.  “I think you need to tell the truth.  To everyone, including Thomas.  I don’t know what went down with you and John, and yeah, it’s none of my business.  But from what I’ve gathered from James, Thomas is concerned and insecure about it, even if he doesn’t want to let it show.  So if you can tell him, do.  Because one of the best ways to fuck up a relationship is to keep secrets you don’t need to.”

Hot and cold took turns running over Alex’s skin.  He was about to say something but Thomas was back at the table and so anything he might have hissed about things that were so very much not her fucking business caught in his throat with a distinct “dry swallowing a pill” sensation.  He almost recoiled from the feeling.

Dolley and Thomas kept chatting about New Orleans, and Alex’s thought’s started to spiral.

Mother fucker.

He’d been fine, recently.  Really fine.  Freshly-in-love fine.  Which is really beyond fine.  Fineness was irrelevant compared to the absolute joy he was normally marinating in.

But in the back of his mind, he always knew the John Thing was gonna be a problem.  Until he talked about it.  He had to talk about it.

But… what if he scared Thomas off?  What then?  Would they break up?

The thought of breaking up with Thomas sent a sharp pain across his stomach.

No, he tried to reassure himself as everyone else laughed at a joke James made (one he hadn’t been paying enough attention to to hear), Thomas wouldn’t do that.  He’d understand it’s just a mental thing.

But even if he doesn’t think I’m a psychopath, he’ll still think I’m crazy.

James has anxiety too, he’s used to it.

This is different.

That’s what you always say to yourself.  All anxiety is essentially the same, but it’s almost a symptom that it feels different every time.  Don’t fall for it.

Oh, I’m falling.

Alex took a big gulp of his beer, the argument he was having with himself raging on as always. 

Thomas caught his eye from across the table.  You okay? He mouthed.

Alex took a deep breath.  “I’m not feeling great… my stomach’s a little weird.  I think I need to head home a bit early.”

Thomas looked worried.  “Okay,” he said.  “I’ll go home with you.”

“You don’t have to,” Alex said, and almost immediately flinched at the hurt look in his boyfriend’s eyes.  “But, uh… if you want to come, I wouldn’t mind the company.”

And so they went home in somewhat uncomfortable silence, without anything of note being said between them leaving the bar and crawling into Alex’s bed.

Thomas tried to get Alex to take everything from Tums to saltines to baking soda and water, but eventually Alex just admitted, “I don’t really have a stomach ache.”

Thomas looked at him for a moment.  “Are you having a mental thing?”

Alex chuckled slightly at his wording, but nodded to confirm it.  “Yeah, a mental thing.”

Thomas didn’t look surprised.  “Can I do anything to help?”

“Just hold me… and maybe talk to me about one of your many stupid opinions so I can try desperately to get you to think like an intelligent human being.”

Thomas laughed and wrapped his arms around him.  “What haven’t we argued about yet?”

“I don’t know…” Alex began, sinking into the comfort of their familiarity and the warmth of Thomas’s body.  “Do you like something stupid like strawberry ice cream?”

“I fucking love strawberry ice cream.”

“How did I fall in love with such a depraved person?”

“Mmmm,” Thomas hummed, his lips against the back of Alex’s neck.  “You didn’t seem to have any problem with the depravity when I was fucking you into the mattress last night.”

“That was before I knew you liked strawberry ice cream.  Now I just feel dirty.”

Thomas laughed.  “Maybe one day I’ll cover you in strawberry ice cream and lick it all off.”

“Why don’t you lick chocolate syrup or whipped cream off me like a civilized person?”

“We’ve got whipped cream in the fridge, I think,” Thomas said.  “If you want…” his hand, which had been rubbing small, soothing circles on Alex’s stomach, started to travel south.

Arousal pooled low in Alex’s belly.  He turned over in the bed and brought their lips together.  Thomas sighed into the kiss, fingers threading through Alex’s hair. 

When their lips parted, Thomas whispered, “do you want me?”  His voice was raw and rough, and even through the haze of lust Alex could hear that he didn’t just mean his body.

“Yes,” Alex replied, fingers going to the buttons on Thomas’s shirt.  “So much I don’t know what to do with myself sometimes.”

Their eyes met and Thomas smiled.  “That’s fine,” he replied, flipping their positions so he was hovering over Alex.  “I know exactly what to do with you.”

Alex gasped as Thomas started pumping him slowly, thumb coming around to circle his tip on the occasional upstroke.  Alex pressed into his hand, kissing the exposed skin on Thomas’s neck.  “Need you… in me… now.”

Thomas chuckled a little and nipped his ear before slipping away to the bed stand to grab the lube and a condom.

Alex groaned as the first finger pressed into him, happy to let his thoughts fade away and immerse himself completely in the sheer feeling of it all.

Thomas was a quick learner, Alex had discovered.  It took him very little time to figure out precisely how to take Alex apart bit by bit.  His fingers found all the right places, stroking, caressing, and prodding, taking turns between rough and soft.  It was probably about ten minutes, but Alex felt Thomas had been working him for hours by the time the fingers were gone.  Thomas left him there for a moment, a shaking mess, cock full and throbbing, desperate stream of precum running down the underside, balls tight and hole quivering and so so so empty.

Thomas pressed in, blunt head of his cock still a stretch even after all the preparation.  Alex moaned at the size, the strength, the sheer warmth of the man above him, and grabbed Thomas’s ass to demand harder and faster and more.

Thomas was everywhere — face above him, arms around him, cock inside him.  He was setting a brutal pace and it was all Alex could have wanted.  He was going to be sore tomorrow, he knew.  He hoped.

They didn’t last long — it wasn’t a marathon, it was a sprint, and they bolted through the finish line together.  Thomas went first by a few seconds, stilling above Alex and releasing an animalistic groan as he emptied inside of him.  Alex barely had time to register what happened before a hand wrapped itself around his cock and brought him off in a few hard strokes.

They remained in the bed in a panting tangle for a while, exchanging the occasional kiss and generally luxuriating in one another’s warmth and presence.

Thomas smiled, and opened his mouth to say something when they heard the door open.  Two male voices sounded, but it was too muffled to hear what they were saying.

“John and Ben,” Alex explained unnecessarily.  “Must’ve just gotten home.”

He could almost feel a chill enter the room.  The relaxed intimacy they’d had a moment before was gone.  They didn’t ever really talk about John.  Sure, sometimes he was mentioned in stories, and when they spent time with their friends, he was often one of those friends.  But Alex never talked about his relationship with John, or how it ended, or why his friendship with him was so strained those days.  And Thomas never asked.

There had been a few times when Alex resolved to explain everything about himself to Thomas, to try to get him to understand the best he could, and accept the consequences if he couldn’t.  But every time his fear had gotten the best of him. 

He pressed himself into his lover and wrapped his arms around him, taking in the scent of sweat and sex and Thomas. 

I’ll tell him tomorrow, after Laf’s dinner party, he decided.  He’ll understand.  He has to.

Thomas stroked his cheek and pressed his lips to his forehead.  “I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you, too,” Alex replied.

He has to.

 

Notes:

Comments are to me what karaoke machines are to Thomas.

Chapter 15: Thomas Gets a Call

Notes:

Warnings: brief mention of minor character death.

The cafe had been completely transformed.  Laf had turned off all the overhead lights and placed about 15,000 candles on every surface that didn’t have plates or food or flowers on it.  Bottles of wine traveled around so easily and quickly that Thomas could have sworn they were wandering around on their own.  Laf had brought most of the tables in the cafe together in the center of the room and the guests were wandering around in little clusters, nibbling on cheese and crackers, the calm murmur of their voices drowning out the “chill” playlist Laf had gotten Thomas to put together earlier.

  Thomas was leaning against a wall next to James, twirling the stem of his glass in his fingers.  “So it’s looking like the move is going to be permanent?”

James nodded, confirming that fact for probably the hundredth time that evening.  “Yeah, it’s all but certain.  They’ve told me to start looking for housing around here.  I’m planning on moving in officially sometime in January.”

Thomas nodded, warmth in his chest equal parts wine and excitement.  “So how’re you feeling about it?”

“Weird,” James said with a shrug.  “Like, I’m gonna miss Virginia, but I think I’ll like New York.  There are a few things going for it, outside of work.”  He cast a fond look over towards Dolley, who was chatting with Eliza and Maria, wine bottle in her hand nearly hitting Hercules in the face as she made some grand, sweeping gesture to accompany whatever story it was she was telling.  “And it’d be nice to be around you again.”

Thomas smiled.  “Same.  I’ve really missed you, man.”

“Have you missed Virginia, though?  You never really seem to talk about it.”

“I do, a little,” Thomas answered.  “But not as much as I thought I would.  Outside of you and Aunt Shannon, there really wasn’t much for me there.”

“Aside from your car,” James replied.

Thomas groaned.  “Don’t bring up my baby.  Who knows when I’ll get to see her again?”

“You aren’t going home for Thanksgiving, then?”

Thomas was about to make a comment about what exactly it was that should be considered home for him those days, but decided not to.  “No.  Aunt Shannon’s away and everyone else is... everyone else.”

James nodded in understanding.  “You heard from Shannon recently?”

Thomas shook his head.  “Not for like a week.”

“She still acting weird?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said, trying to ignore the usual jolt of anxiety that hit him whenever he thought about his aunt.  “Yeah she is.”

“Have you tried calling her?”

“She seems sort of busy,” Thomas explained.  And also he was terrified that if he asked he’d get an answer.

“Gentlemen!”  Hercules exclaimed, approaching the pair.  “Can you help me with something in the kitchen?”

“Something” turned out to be cutting up a few loaves of bread and pressing various types of herb infused butters into painfully pretentious looking little bowls. 

Hercules was arranging the slices of bread into little towel-covered baskets when he asked, “have you met Angelica’s latest conquest?”

Thomas smiled.  Angelica had brought some hot British guy named John to the party and had been parading him around.  “Last I saw he and Alex were having some sort of discussion about Margaret Thatcher.”

“If by discussion you mean bit-by-bit dissection of late twentieth century British political history, then yeah,” Hercules shook his head.  “I don’t know if Alex actually knows literally everything or if he’s just mastered the art of bullshitting.”

“Little column A, little column B,” Thomas said with a small smile.

“Better watch out,” James quipped, smoothing butter into a dish, “you might have some competition for your man’s time.  From what I’ve heard, drawn out debating is his primary form of foreplay.  Maybe you should go challenge British John to a duel.”

Thomas rolled his eyes but laughed, stopping when he caught the confused look on Hercules’s face.

Shit.

“I thought…” he cleared his throat.  “Never mind.”

“James, uh, he knows that Alex and I aren’t dating,” Thomas said, too quick.  “He was just making a suggestion in case I wanted to keep up appearances.”

“Yeah,” James said, eyes cast on the table.  “That.”

“Right,” Hercules said, looking from one to the other.  “Well, let’s bring these out while the bread is still warm, then.”

They exited the kitchen, James giving Thomas an apologetic little shrug.

Thomas sighed.  This bullshit was starting to get ridiculous.

He went to put some bread down on the coffee table by the couches when he heard a few voices around the corner.  Two people were having a conversation the the hallway that led towards the bathrooms.

“Do you get the feeling everyone’s staring at us?”

Thomas’s ears pricked up like a goodamned German Shepard.  And yeah he knew it was wrong but he moved himself subtly over towards the corner, toying with a flower arrangement.

“Yeah,” a second voice — John, Thomas thought — replied.  “Don’t know what’s up exactly, but Laf and Herc keep looking at me.  And James and Dolley.”

“Think everything’s okay?”  The other voice sounded like Ben.  Thomas gave the room a quick look over, confirming his suspicions.  The only guests he didn’t see were John and his boyfriend.

“I don’t know,” John said.  “Alex has been sorta weird today.  He asked me to go to yours tonight because he wants the apartment to himself tonight.  Said he had to have a talk with Thomas.”

“Ooooh,” Ben said in a hushed tone.  “Sounds ominous.  Did he say what it was about?”

“No, he didn’t.  He doesn’t tell me much these days.”

Even whispered, Thomas could hear the hurt in John’s voice.  He winced, guilt tugging at his gut.  He liked John, he really did.  Even if he was like 87% sure Alex was at least a little bit in love with him still.  But that, he reminded himself for the millionth time, was not John’s fault.

Or Alex’s fault, he added.

Or mine, he finished.

And just like the million times he’d reminded himself of that before, saying it again didn’t make him feel any better.

He looked over at Alex, who was still deep in conversation with Angelica’s John.  He had been acting funny all day, sort of nervous.  What was this supposed talk gonna be about, he wondered?  Was he gonna tell him he still wanted John?  Was he gonna dump him?

No, he told himself, calm down.  You’re being unreasonable.

He sighed, pinching his nose.  He was so focused on keeping his breathing steady that he didn’t hear the approaching footsteps.

“Oh, Thomas,” John said, jumping back slightly.  “I… uh… I didn’t know you were right there.”

Thomas straightened.  “Uh, yeah, just…” he was about to make an excuse about flowers or something, but then decided maybe it was time to stop lying to John.  “I’m sorry.  I heard some of your conversation.”

John and Ben exchanged a look, their cheeks flushing.  “Are you… is everything okay?”  Ben asked, eyes wide and full of worry.

Oh Jesus Christ, Thomas felt like shit.

“I… maybe?”  Breathing was starting to get hard, and he felt like he always did when he was cornered and crowded.  “I need to get some fresh air, excuse me…”

He walked away before they were able to respond, streaming past them and about half the party to get out the back door and into the alleyway.  He leaned against the brick wall, breathing in the sickly city air.  It smelled like trash, but at least it was cool and crisp.  You have to calm down, he told himself.  It’s probably nothing. 

Reflexively, he pulled out his phone to check the time.  He was greeted by a stream of notifications.  Aunt Shannon had called him ten times in the last hour.  Atop all the missed call notifications was a single text: call me.

Hands shaking, he quickly called her back, bringing the phone up to his ear as he heard the door open behind him.  He turned to see Alex in the doorway, looking concerned.

Thomas made eye contact with Alex and didn’t break it as the phone rang.

“Thomas!” came his Aunt’s broken voice through the line.

“Hi, uh,” he cleared his throat.  “Hi Aunt Shannon, you called?”

“Yes,” she said, “there’s been an accident.  Your mother… she… she’s dead.  We need you to come home immediately.”

Notes:

Comments are to me what pretentious looking little bowls are to Laf.

Chapter 16: Alex Gets Honest

Notes:

Warnings: Alex chapter... so Alex. A small panic attack, a character accidentally outing himself.

It was one of the oldest contacts in his phone, though he had to edit it every other year or so.  And Alex couldn’t remember exactly when it was that he changed the name at the top of the contact page from “James Hamilton” to “Dad.”  Maybe three years ago?  With his father, forgiveness had been a slight but steady trickle.

He’d been staring at the contact page for almost half an hour, trying to gather up the courage to just press the little phone icon.  Calling his father usually took half a day: three hours to get himself to do it, fifteen minutes of actual conversation, and four or five hours of obsessively picking apart everything the elder Hamilton said.

Just do it, he told himself.

And somehow, he did.

The phone rang four times before his father picked up.  “Alex!  How’s it going?”

Alex smiled a little despite himself.  His father abandoned him — actually abandoned him, with no warning, when he was ten, in the middle of the night — but he also had a way of talking to you that made you feel like you were the most important person in the world.  It was freezing in New York, there was ice on his window, but he could feel the warmth of the tropics coming through the phone.  His father still had a thick Scottish accent — completely undiluted by his decades abroad — but hearing his voice always made Alex think of turquoise water and palm trees. 

“Hey, Dad,” Alex replied.  “I’m, uh, I’m doing fine.  How are you?  How’s Mexico?”

“I’m doing well.  Mexico’s nice, though my Spanish isn’t as good as I thought it was.  But I’m working for a resort on the coast and all the staff are required to know English, so I get by.  New York still treating you well?”

“As well as it treats anyone,” Alex said.  “I sold a few articles to Forbes last month, don’t know if I’ve told you that yet, otherwise I’m staying busy with my other stuff and grad school.”

“That’s great,” his father said somewhat lamely.  Alex knew he wasn’t imagining the slight jealousy in his tone.  It was always there, a little bit.  He had a theory that his father resented him — consciously or unconsciously, he wasn’t sure — for his accomplishments.  Alex immigrated to another country at a young age and managed to build a life for himself from nothing.  He’d succeeded in doing what his father had always failed at.

And it didn’t particularly help matters that whenever he talked to his father he felt a compulsive need to tell him every vaguely impressive thing he’d managed to do since the last phone call.  The motivation was always somewhere on a spectrum between “Look at all the Things I’ve Done, Dad, Aren’t You Proud of Me?” and “Look at how Well I’m Doing Without You.”

“So… happy as I am to hear from you,” his father continued, “is there any particular reason why you’re calling?  I wasn’t expecting another call so soon.”

Calls among the Hamilton men were a rare thing.  Alex talked to his dad every six months or so, his brother maybe once every other year.  He suspected his father and Jamie were in contact more regularly, and sometimes even felt a little bitter about that, but also never really went out of his way to bridge the gap there.

Alex had gone into the phone call with a script, but it was pretty much gone from his head.  He considered a few options for how he introduced the next subject, but settled on honesty.  He was tired, and he was starting to get really sick of lying to people.  “My boyfriend, his… uh… his mother just died.  They hadn’t spoken since he was eight, and now she’s gone.  It just… it just made me want to call you.”

The response was not one he was expecting.  “… Boyfriend?”

Shit.

“Uh… yeah…” Alex said.  “My boyfriend.”  The anxiety reached out to grip him again.  How the fuck had he forgotten he wasn’t out to his dad yet?

“That’s… eh… I’m sorry I’m just a little surprised.  I didn’t know you were gay.”

Heat pooled his his cheeks and Alex was grateful his father couldn’t see him just then.  “I’m bi, actually.  I like both boys and girls… I, uh, I thought I told you.”

“No, you hadn’t.  I mean, I’d always suspected a little, with the way you talked about that friend of yours… John, right?  Is he the boyfriend?”

“Uh, no,” Alex said.  “I broke up with him about a year ago.”

“Right,” his father said, laughing.  “Well it’s good to be in the know.  So your new boyfriend, he just lost his mum?”

“Yeah,” Alex said.  “And she… she abandoned him when he was eight.  He never forgave her and they never talked after she left.  And now…”

“They never will,” his father finished for him, voice grave.  “I understand why you’d want to call now.  Is there anything in particular you wanted to say?”  He hesitated.  “Or ask?”

Millions of things.  But most of them were really just variations of one question: “why did you leave?”

There was a pause on the line, and Alex wondered if he’d gone too far.

“It’s not a very pretty answer, Alex.  Or a simple one.”

“I’m twenty-two, Dad, I think I’m old enough to hear it,” he replied with a confidence he didn’t feel.

His father laughed.  “Twenty-two isn’t that old, son.  Trust me.  But I guess it’s your right to know.  One of the biggest reasons why I left was money.  There was a lot of debt and most of it was mine and your mother and I decided it would be easier if I wasn’t around.  Financially, I mean… well, mostly financially.”

His stomach felt heavy.  “Wait… you and Mom decided?  She knew you were going to leave?”

“Yeah,” his father said, tone somewhat far off.  Did his father do what Alex did?  Disassociate when talking about the bits of his life he didn’t like to think about?  That made a strange warmth spread through Alex’s chest, somewhat perversely.  He never really thought of himself and his father having much in common.  The occasional shared trait gave him more pleasure than it probably should.

“I… I didn’t know that,” Alex said after a moment.

“We’d been living together long enough that we had a common law marriage, so our finances were all tangled up.  I was also the father of two of her children, so there were concerns about child support.  I owed more money than I could make, and things were really tight when you were young.”

Alex nodded though he knew his father couldn’t see him.  “I remember,” he said, and maybe the words sounded like an accusation. James Hamilton kept going.  “And then your mother’s husband came around and… complicated things.”

Alex felt the customary flash of anxiety whenever he remembered Lavien.  Breathe, he told himself.  “You knew about him, right?”

“Sort of.  Rachel told me she had an ex-husband, and had a child by him.  She said she left him.  I’d always figured that meant she got a divorce as well.”

Alex didn’t think about his half-brother often.  He’d only met him a few times, during the various legal goings-on that occurred after his mother’s husband’s sudden appearance in his life.  He’d always thought he was ugly, looking down his long nose at Alex, as if he were nothing.

“So we decided I should leave.  My presence would complicate things and your mother’s reputation was in tatters as it was.  People think they’re modern then they realize Rachel Hamilton up the street has two husbands and suddenly it’s the eighteenth century.  If they had their way, I think they would have made your mother stitch a red ‘A’ on everything she owned.”

Alex smiled despite himself.  Even years after her death, his father was still fighting for his mother’s honor… in his own way.

“You were so young when it happened,” his father continued.  “I don’t know how much you remember.  But it was all a mess, and me being there wasn’t going to help a bit.”

I remember you leaving, Alex thought, I remember spending years wondering why you didn’t want me.  Why you didn’t protect me.  Knowing the truth — that his father simply couldn’t — didn’t really make him feel better.

Still, he was glad he knew.  He guessed.

“Did you ever think about coming back?”

A pause, and then, “I…”  Then he seemed to change his mind.  “No, Alex,” he said.  “I didn’t.  I… I don’t grow roots.  When things go bad for me I leave, and I’m always too much of a coward to return.  I’ve never come back to anywhere.”

Alex closed his eyes.  Alright, that one was gonna linger a bit.  He thought this aspect of his life was done hurting him, but it appeared he was wrong.  Maybe it was just how things were between him and his father, the honesty they’d developed between each other over the years.  Sometimes things were too honest.  He wondered if his father had ever had the opportunity to tell his story.  He doubted it.  His father fell into the trap a lot of people who confide in their adult children fall into — they forget that no matter how old they are, you always have to be gentle with your kids.

“Did you ever regret it?”  Alex asked.  “Any of it?”

His father let out a rueful laugh.  “I regret most of my life.  But mostly I regret that I wasn’t the father you and Jamie needed.  Sometimes I think I could have been, given the right circumstances.  But I don’t know.  I’m sorry, Alex.  You didn’t deserve all the shit that got thrown at you, and I can’t tell you how proud I am about how you turned out.  Even though I barely helped raise you.”

Alex held back what he wanted to say, some sort of biting comment about how his father leaving him had a bigger impact on his development as a person than his raising him ever could have.  But Alex decided to be kind.  Alex decided to be gentle.  “Thanks, Dad.  I’m happy we had this conversation.”

“Me too,” his father said, voice soft.  “So how is your boyfriend doing?  With his mum and everything?”

“He’s… handling it.  He had to go back to Virginia for the funeral, and he’s been gone about a week.  Apparently things keep coming up.  He hasn’t been telling me much.  We… uh… we got in a fight right before he left.”

“What about?”

“It’s… it’s complicated.  He found out his mom died at a party, and his family got him a ticket for that very night.  He was freaking out and throwing stuff into a suit case and when I came to help him he sort of turned on me.  We… I was planning on talking to him about something that night and he found out somehow and came to all the wrong conclusions.  I think he thought I was going to break up with him or something.  He was just overwhelmed and started yelling at me and I yelled back and we never quite resolved it.”  The words fell out of Alex before he could even really measure them.  He didn’t have anyone to talk to about it, not really.  Everyone either didn’t know the full story or had some sort of stake in it.

“Have you been in contact with him since then?”

“Kinda.  He called when he arrived in Virginia to apologize about how he had acted.  And when he asked me what the talk was about, I said it was a conversation I wanted to have face-to-face.”

“What’s the talk about?”

“It’s personal,” Alex said, stomach tightening.  “I don’t really want to get into it.”

“Okay.”

“Mostly since then it’s been texts.  Most of them have been him saying, ‘need to spend a few more days here,’ and ‘I’ll probably be another week.’  Now he’s planning on staying through Thanksgiving break.”

“Are you going to go to Virginia to see him?”

“I… I don’t know,” Alex said, taking a deep breath.  “I don’t know if it would be a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“He hasn’t asked me to come.  And he isn’t out to his family.”

“Ah.”

“So… I don’t know.”

There were some muffled voices in the background on the other line.  “Well, I still think it might be a good idea.  And it looks like I need to go.  Call me back if you need to, okay?”

“Okay, Dad.”

“And Alex?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you, I really do.”

And the line cut out before Alex could reply, but he did anyway, to the empty room: “I love you too, Dad.”

 

-/-

 

Alex’s mind never did terribly well in silence.  Usually he was able to drown things out with work or reading.  It had been ten days since Thomas had left and the silence in his life was deafening.  Mostly he’d managed to keep things together, plugging away at his projects.  He’d pretty much taken over the group presentation they had for Washington’s class.  Thomas hadn’t been able to attend to his schoolwork much, apparently.

All the anxiety and frustration came to a head while he was washing dishes, of all things. 

He’d been scrolling through his phone for something like five minutes, looking to find a podcast or something to listen to while he took care of the chore.  Finding nothing, he slipped his phone in his pocket and set about the task.

He was fine.  He could just take care of this shit and get back to work on his blog post.  He was fine.  He was fine.

Should he call Thomas?  Was that the right thing to do?  He wasn’t sure.  What was the etiquette in this situation?  He still felt like Thomas was mad at him, and he guessed he understood why.  He was being ridiculous.  Maybe he should have just told Thomas over the phone, gotten it out of the way.

But what if Thomas didn’t react well?  What if it was too much for him?  And even though it always had a lot of power over Alex, he knew it was just a small thing.  He knew it wasn’t a big deal.  Nothing compared to Thomas’s mother actually dying.

Fuck, he should be there for him.  What must it be like for Thomas right now?  And his family’s shitty, so things must be horrible for him.  Maybe Alex should go to see him.

But what if that freaks Thomas out?  Should he ask or wait for Thomas to ask him?  Was Thomas thinking the same thing?

Jesus fucking Christ, what damage was he doing to his relationship by just letting all this stupid bullshit continue on?

But what if it turned out it wasn’t stupid?  What if Thomas was actually freaked out?  Or what if despite everything, it was all true after all?

What if Alex ended up chasing Thomas around like his mother’s husband chased her?  What if this just kept spiraling and and and…

He knew he was being ridiculous but what if what if what if…

It wasn’t impossible.

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

Everything was such a mess and Thomas wasn’t talking to him what if he didn’t want him anymore what if he never came back what if Alex freaked out what if they broke up what if Alex became obsessed with him how was he supposed to feel what what what…

He braced his soapy hands against the edge of the sink, trying desperately to catch his breath.  He started heaving, but since he’d skipped breakfast nothing came up.

Still, he must’ve been loud, because John ran in from the other room.

“Hey, hey Alex?  You okay?”

Alex curled up in on himself, trying to keep his streaming eyes away from John’s view.

But John was having none of that.  “You’re having an anxiety attack.  Can I help?  Do you want me to hold you until you calm down?”

It was instinct, he figured later, more than anything else that led Alex to wrap his arms around John, who quickly returned the embrace.

They were a mess on the floor for a while, Alex curled up in a ball and trying to get his breathing in order, John stroking his back and murmuring encouragement.  There had been a time when John was the best person in the world at getting Alex to come down from his attacks, and even when he was partly the cause of them, his familiar presence helped Alex relax.

“I… I feel like — like we’re in college again,” Alex choked out with a sad little laugh.

“Yeah,” John replied.  His voice sounded far away.  “Are you… are you feeling better?”

“Yeah,” Alex said.  “Thank you.”

“Do you want me to leave?”  John asked, quiet.

Most days, Alex probably would have hidden, or made some sort of excuse they both would have known was bullshit.  But right then, looking at his best friend, he didn’t.  He didn’t find bravery, exactly.  It was more one of those situations where bravery was all that was left after he got tired of running.

“Actually,” he said.  “Can we… can we talk?”

And Alex told him everything.  Because he was exhausted and missed John and he just really, really needed to tell someone, he told him.

John, for his part, listened intently, concern and understanding taking turns moving across his face.  He got Alex a wet cloth for his face when he started crying, and made tea for them at one point before returning to the spot on the kitchen floor where they’d been sitting.  It took about an hour, by the end of it, explaining everything.  The intrusive thoughts and mental spirals, the fake relationship with Thomas.  All the anxiety about the anxiety.  It just came pouring out of him.

It was weird, Alex thought, the way you have to go about explaining anxiety to someone.  You tell them what you’re afraid of, and explain that you know it’s ridiculous and you don’t actually believe it… except for when you do.  Then you present them with the array of sensible explanations, scientific evidence, and life experience you’ve compiled in your head to try to logic yourself out of the anxiety.  Then there’s that apologetic interlude where you say that despite all the information you just presented, you still believe this ridiculous thing… except for when you don’t.  Then there’s the implied request at the end of all of it: I hope I’ve done a good enough job explaining why this isn’t true.  Now, would you kindly reassure me that it isn’t true repeatedly until I finally stop believing it or die, whatever comes first?

It was especially strange, he found, when you’re explaining that you have developed a neurotic complex where you’ve convinced yourself you’re a psychopath who wants to murder someone… to the very person you’re having the intrusive thoughts about killing.

But John was John.  And there was a reason why he was one of Alex’s favorite people.

“Well,” he said, setting his tea mug down after Alex had talked himself out (which, this being Alex, was a while), “I get why you didn’t tell me before now.”

“I just… I didn’t know what to say to you.”

John smiled.  “Yeah, not sure I would have known how to broach that subject either.  But Alex?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t think you’re a deranged psychopath.”

“How would you know?”  Alex asked, because he’d been asking himself that question for months.

“Well, I’m not a mental health professional, but I’m fairly sure deranged psychopaths don’t spend months obsessing over whether or not they’re deranged psychopaths.”

Alex laughed a little — a tired, relieved sound.  “Yeah, I guess that’s fair.  Still… aren’t you uncomfortable at all?  Because of… you know?”

John shrugged.  “Not really.  You’ve had mental things like this in the past, remember?  You recovered in time.  And you never acted on any of the things you were dealing with back then.”

“Yeah,” Alex said, “but none of them had to do with you.”

“Alex, if you were going to kill me, I think you would have already done it.  And you wouldn’t have told me.  You wouldn’t even have wanted to tell me.  I’m really not worried.”

Alex closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  “Thank you.”

“Thank you.  For telling me.  I know it must’ve been scary.”

“It was.”

“When are you going to tell Thomas?”

Alex rubbed his eyes and blinked them open.  The sun was starting to set and the kitchen was cast in a blurry gold as they readjusted.  “When I can.  When I see him next.  I’m still scared, John.  What if it freaks him out?”

“If he’s worth your time, he’ll understand,” John said.  He tugged at a ringlet, letting the curl coil back up before straightening it again.

  “I know it’s all kind of minor, the intrusive thoughts and everything, but it’s become this huge problem in my life and now whenever I think about it, I just feel like an idiot.  I don’t know what’ll happen when I tell him.”  Alex ran his thumb around the rim of his coffee mug, stopping when he discovered a slight bump in the glaze.  He started worrying it with his thumbnail.

John shrugged.  “Small stuff becomes big stuff when you don’t talk about it.” Alex laughed.  “Thank you, Mr. Rodgers.”

“Any time, dude.”  He stood up and put his mug in the sink.  “But really, I think he’ll react well.  I think it’ll be okay.”

“You’re probably right,” Alex agreed.  “Still.”

John nodded.  “Still.  Well, if you want to take your mind off of things, Ben and I were planning on checking out that new arcade bar down the street.  Wanna come?”  He offered a hand to Alex.

Alex took it, standing.  “You really think it’ll do your relationship any favors to have your man watch you getting your ass kicked at Street Fighter?”

“You beat me one time.  One time.”

“Yes, but it was glorious.”

John rolled his eyes.  “Just don’t challenge a twelve year old again.  I don’t need a crying kid to fuck up date night.”

“Hey,” Alex said, “kids need to learn that the world is a brutal place.  Better they learn early.”

“We can’t all be you, Alex.  We weren’t all born with the minds of jaded forty-five year old accountants.”

“More of a forty-seven year old stock broker, don’t you think?”

“Sure, honey,” John said, voice sarcastic, eyes making a rather dramatic roll.  But he was smiling.

 

-/-

 

He just needed a book, he told himself.  Just needed a book.  It was an easy excuse.  He had left tons of books in Thomas’s room.  He had a key.  With luck, he could just slip in, grab what he needed, and slip out without Hercules or Laf noticing.

He’d have felt a bit weirder about the task if Thomas hadn’t commented on how he “missed his dollar-store body wash smell” last night over the phone.  The phone calls had started a few days ago, when the complex weirdness of Thomas’s abrupt departure gave way to the simplicity of missing each other.

Alex had told him to fuck off, but had been secretly thinking about how his bed didn’t smell like Thomas anymore, and how much harder it was to fall asleep those days without him there.

So if he slipped into Thomas’s apartment to grab a pillowcase or a hoodie or something, well, that was something lots of couples did.  It was normal.

If only Thomas didn’t happen to live with someone who was under the impression they weren’t dating.

But whatever.  Alex could probably come up with some excuse.  He was clever.

He unlocked the door and slipped into the apartment subtly as he could.  He couldn’t hear any conversation or movement, so he scurried over to Thomas’s room.

The place was exactly as Thomas had left it, clothing strewn about, books all over the floor, bedsheets in disarray.  He’d been in a hurry when he’d left, and there was still a sort of chaotic energy hanging in the still air. Alex sank down to the floor and started to neaten things up a bit, closing the books that had been left open on their spines and setting them up in a little pile.  He came across a discarded t-shirt and couldn’t stop himself from bringing it up to his nose.

Thomas’s smell had a strange effect on him.  Even as it calmed him down, it made him excited.  Aroused, almost.  He hugged the shirt slightly and just let himself enjoy the simple animal feeling of smelling his lover.  God, he missed Thomas.

The apartment door opened and shut, and Alex froze.  Fuck fuck fuck.

“Alex!” Laf exclaimed, approaching the wide-open bedroom door.  “I… uh… I wasn’t expecting you.”  His eyes were trained on the shirt Alex was still holding just below his face.

“Uh, sorry,” Alex said, tossing down the shirt.  “I was just… tidying up a bit.  Looking for a… looking for a book.  Thomas didn’t really clean his room before he left.”

“Right,” Laf said, sitting himself down on the desk chair.  “And you feel it is your duty as his fake boyfriend to take care of that for him.”

Alex winced.  “Something like that.”

They locked eyes.  It was kind of gut-wrenching, looking at Laf, since he and Thomas were so similar in appearance.  Still, no one could confuse the two.  Laf had an easy-going kindness to him.  He was expansive and warm, with a sort of child-like trust of human nature.

Thomas, however, was more focused and intense, like inside of him was a barely concealed storm just waiting to break free.  For all his charming smiles and superior looks, it was clear he’d spent most of his life angry and afraid.

Maybe that was part of why Alex had been so drawn to him — he’d been angry and afraid all his life as well.

Laf’s eyes were nothing but sympathy and friendly wisdom when he said, “you love him, don’t you?”

And Alex was going to deny it, but he found after everything he just couldn’t.  “I do.  I love him so much it hurts sometimes.”

Laf nodded.  “He loves you too.”

Alex let himself fall back against the bed, the smell of Thomas still thick in the blankets and sheets.  “I know.  We actually started real dating the right around when you caught us fake dating.”

Laf smiled.  “It appears my Hercules owes me fifty dollars.  But truly, I am happy for you.  Are you going to go to him?  In Virginia?”

“I… I don’t know if that would be a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Shouldn’t he just be with his family?”  Alex asked, repeating what he’d told himself hundreds of times.  “And he’s not out, so how would he justify my presence?  What if he thinks I’m being too clingy?”

“He’s not going to think that.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I’m sure he’ll want you there too.  Have you talked since he left?”

“Yeah,” Alex said.  “But, mostly he’s just talking about how he’ll be coming back to New York as soon as he can, but…”

“But?”

“He has no idea when that’ll be.  I don’t want to get in his way.  I’ll wait…” Alex swallowed the small lump in his throat.  “I’ll wait until he tells me he wants me to come down.”

“I understand,” Laf said, standing.  “But I think you still might want to consider going to him.”

Alex was about to say something, but Laf continued.  His eyes weren’t on Alex, though, they were trained towards a corner, unfocused, like he was looking at something long gone.  “Did I ever tell you the story of how I met Thomas?”

“No,” Alex said, straightening slightly in interest.

“It was at a party,” Laf said, slight smile coming to his lips.  “He’d been dragged along with a group of Americans.  All the other foreign exchange students were throwing themselves into it, grinding against the first French person they could find.  We have a certain mystique, no?”

Alex raised an eyebrow.  Go on.

Laf continued.

“I had my eye on him for most of the night, because he was sort of separate from everything.  Not off to the side alone, but setting himself apart from the other Americans.  He was sitting with a few French people and telling them some sort of story.  His French, it was… okay.  Sometimes he had to say something in English, but still… he made them all laugh.  They were all so charmed by him.  He has that… that charisma, you know?”

Alex nodded.  He knew.

“And that very night, I took him to my bed.  I could not help it, mon ami, he was irresistible.  And do you know why I felt the need to hold him, to warm his body with mine?”

Alex rolled his eyes slightly at Laf’s poetic phrasing.  “Because you finally had the opportunity to fuck yourself?”

Laf laughed.  “No, Alex, not that.  Though I would be lying if that was not part of it… just a little, eh?”  The mirth that had entered his eyes was gone immediately as he went on.  “No, that is not why.  It was because while everyone else was looking at his lips, his arms, his body, I was looking at his eyes.  And even while there, surrounded by adoring people, smiling so beautiful, all I could think was, ‘that is the loneliest man I’ve ever seen.’”

And with that he left. 

Alex stared at the doorframe for a moment, eyes settling on some knot in the wood.

Then he pulled his phone out of his pocket and sent his boyfriend a text.  Do you want me to come to Virginia for a while?

The response came within twenty seconds.  Please.

Notes:

There you have it, like 5000 words of Talking About Feelings™. I'm starting to think my open communication fetish is going to far.

Anyway, comments are to me are what Thomas's scent is to Alex.

Chapter 17: Thomas Takes Care of Business

Notes:

And here we are, chapter 17. She's a monster. This has been a chapter I've looked forward to writing for a while now, but it was also pretty challenging at times.

Warnings: Smut, mention of suicide, talking about mental health (and not just Alex's), and anxiety about being outed.

Thomas wiggled his toes under the water, watching as the tiny waves distorted sunlight into thin veins of gold dancing across his skin.  Sharp November air ripped across the water and through his hair, billowing out his shirt, but he couldn’t be bothered to move from his seat on the dock.  The lake was too cold, but he didn’t care.  He sat there with his black trousers rolled up just below his knees.  Beside him on the dock were black shoes with black socks bunched up inside.  He’d slung his black jacket over the back of a deck chair.  His black tie had caught on the chair’s arm and was being beat around by the breeze like a flag.

It had been a quick ceremony.  Quicker even than planned.  The preacher had delivered an impersonal and rather flaccid eulogy over the coffin as it was lowered into his mother’s corner of the family plot.

Thomas had been standing nearby.  There was a folded up piece of notebook paper in his jacket pocket with a few notes he and the preacher had agreed upon a few days prior.  But when the preacher said, “and now Jane’s son has a few remarks he’d like to make,” Thomas didn’t take the paper out.

Instead, he just looked at the man delivering the service and said, “no, I don’t.”

The preacher frowned, but just nodded and continued the service.  No one said anything.

There was a quick prayer and then they were burying her.

It wasn’t a normal Randolph funeral.  Only immediate family members were in attendance, and there was no meal served, just a small table with cheese and crackers and sweet tea.  There weren’t any tables or chairs for people to linger in.  No one had put out her picture.  The gravestone Aunt Shannon had bought simply said her name and her dates.

After the burial, the family broke apart into little groups, catching up with one another.  Aunt Shannon had excused herself to the house for a moment, and Thomas decided he wasn’t particularly interested in catching up with Uncle Andrew on his newest car or Uncle Charlie on how he’d managed to improve his golf game by altering the way he held his clubs.

The family cemetery was located on Aunt Shannon’s estate, so Thomas was comfortable enough to wander around on his own.  Eventually, he ended up at the lake.  He watched the trees sway and birds flit about.  He’d missed this, he decided.  The clean simplicity of nature.  The quiet.

But, he thought, he missed New York more.  The loudness and the humanity.  The weird little family he’d built up for himself there.  And most of all, Alex.  Thinking about his boyfriend made his stomach twist.  What was going on with him?  They’d parted on such uncomfortable terms.  He’d have given anything to have Alex with him in that moment, holding his hand and arguing with him about something stupid like whether the state bird of Virginia should be the cardinal or whether lake or ocean swimming was better.

After some time, he heard the clicking of heels on the dock and was jolted back into the present.  He turned around and gave Michelle a little wave as she approached.

“Aunt Shannon sent me to find you.  She says she wants to talk to you in her study.”

“Sounds ominous,” Thomas said, unrolling his pants and putting his shoes back on.  “Did she say what about?”

“No,” Michelle replied, looking out at the water.  The wind pulled a small lock of hair out of her bun.  She tucked it behind her ear.  She looked down at him, eyes trained on the laces he was tying.  “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” Thomas said, standing.

“You know,” she began, “if you ever want to talk…”

“Thanks, Michelle,” Thomas interjected.  “But I really am fine.  It’s not like we were close.”

She winced slightly at his tone.

Thomas pulled his jacket back on and hastily redid his tie.  He was about to leave the dock when she stopped him.

“Wait!  Your tie’s crooked!”  She scrambled over to him and fixed it, eyes trained on the black silk rather than her cousin.  “There.”

“Thank you,” Thomas said.

She looked like she was going to say something else, but changed her mind.

Thomas made his way to the house.  The small table that had been laid out for the funeral was already gone and the family had moved to the sunroom by the south entrance.  Thomas caught a quick glance of Uncle Andrew raising a glass of wine in the air before he made his way towards the study.

Aunt Shannon was sitting behind her desk.  Even for a funeral goer, she looked austere.  She’d dyed her hair back to its natural deep brown, and had pulled it into a bun so tight it looked like a form of self-flagellation.  She was wearing a high-necked charcoal frock bland enough to made the black ensembles the rest of the clan were donning appear indulgent by comparison.  Her sole adornment was a silver cross hanging from a short chain around her neck.

“Hello, Thomas,” she said.  “Please take a seat.”

Thomas did.

“I wanted to discuss your mother’s will with you.  I know it’s customary to have a lawyer around for this sort of thing, but your mother made me executor of her will and there are certain more personal matters I wish to discuss.  Is that okay?”

Thomas nodded.  He’d been wondering when this was going to happen.

Aunt Shannon knelt down behind the desk and emerged with an old leather suitcase in her hands.

“Wait,” Thomas said, straightening in his chair.  “I recognize that!”  He remembered finding it in the attic in Monticello when he was a little kid.  He used to carry it around the house and pretend he was traveling.  He hadn’t seen it in years.

Aunt Shannon nodded, eyes trained on the suitcase.  “I received it in the mail about a month ago.  There wasn’t a return address or a note, but,” she flicked the suitcase open.  “Inside, there were three things.  Her will,” she set a thick white packet down on the desk, “her portfolio,” she placed a binder beside it, “and this,” she pulled out a package wrapped in brown paper and handed it to Thomas.

It was bound with some sort of twine.  The string was looped through a set of keys and a tag that read “Thomas” in tidy handwriting.

Hands shaking, he pulled the string loose, catching the keys just as they were about to fall to the floor.  He unwrapped the package slowly, peeling back the paper and setting it down.

Inside was a leather bound journal.  It was held shut with a simple clasp.  From what he could tell from the edges of the pages, it was about half finished. 

He didn’t move to open the book, and Aunt Shannon didn’t say anything.  Even as he held it, he felt a slight tingling in his hands.  He was reminded, vaguely, of some little piece of trivia he’d picked up somewhere: that the notebooks Marie Curie used in her research were radioactive, and would remain so for 1500 more years.

Thomas set the journal down on the desk and started folding up the paper it had been wrapped in, resisting the urge to wipe his hands on his pants to get the feeling to go away.  “So what does the will say?” he asked, voice steady as he could make it.

Aunt Shannon’s eyes were trained on the notebook for a moment longer.  What was that look?  Longing?  Maybe.  There hadn’t been a package in the case with a tag saying, “for Shannon,” after all. 

She cleared her throat.  “She left you everything, of course.  Monticello — I’m guessing those are the keys — her savings, her stocks and bonds.”  She opened the binder and pulled a piece of paper from the side pocket.  “Here are some round estimates of exactly how much money you have coming towards you.”

Thomas took the paper and read down the column of numbers.  He blinked.  “Holy shit,” he whispered.

Aunt Shannon chuckled, ignoring his language.  “You’re a very wealthy man, Thomas.  And speaking of that,” she said, standing.  “I’ve decided that I’m going to resume giving you and your cousins your allowances, even though you personally don’t need it anymore.  In light of everything that’s happened, it feels a little silly.”

Thomas’s returning smile was ironic.  “Don’t think Will’ll be thrilled to hear about that, since he’s stuck in Guatemala for eighteen more months.”

Aunt Shannon shrugged.  “I think that’ll do him good.  Everyone else… I don’t think they’ll learn anything they haven’t already learned if I continue.”

Thomas nodded.  “So she sent this to you a month ago?” he asked, gesturing at the suitcase with the paper.

“Yes.”

“Why did you wait until now to tell me?”

Her eyes fell once more to the case.  “Because I didn’t want you to worry,” she said after a moment.  “I received the suitcase and then a few days later got word from one of her gardeners that she’d left Monticello.  I started working to track her down and finally located her in Colorado.  I figured out what hotel she was staying in and was going to try to reach out to her, but then I got a call from a hospital saying she’d died in a car accident and they needed me to identify her body.  She’d listed me as her next of kin on a card in her wallet.”

Thomas felt a cold satisfaction, that strange feeling that comes with realizing you were right when you hoped you were wrong.  “It wasn’t an accident, then.”

Aunt Shannon didn’t look up.  “There wasn’t a note or anything, but no, I don’t think it was.”

Thomas set the paper down on the desk.  He pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Are you going to say anything?  The obituary you posted says it was an accident.”

“That’s how she wanted it to look,” Aunt Shannon replied, voice strong.  Purposefully so. “so that’s how it’ll be to the world.  I’ll do that for her, at least.  Unless you want to tell everyone?”  She locked eyes with her nephew and Thomas felt like he was being tested.

He already knew the correct answer.  “I don’t, no,” Thomas said.

The conversation fell for a moment, and then Thomas answered a question he hadn’t quite thought to ask yet.  “Are you okay?”

She was looking at the journal again.  “I’ll be okay.  It’s just… it’s been a lot.  What about you?  You’ve been sort of stoic through this all.  I know this can’t be easy for you.”

In truth Thomas felt like he’d been walking around in a haze ever since he got that phone call.  He hadn’t quite felt like himself for a while.  He was supposed to be in mourning, he knew.  But was he?

“I’m okay… or I will be.  It’s all so weird, you know?  This isn’t how this sort of stuff is supposed to go.”

“This family has never been what it was supposed to be,” Aunt Shannon said, tone bitter.  “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Maybe later,” Thomas said, eyes falling to the journal on the desk.  “Do you mind if I take the documents?  I should probably give them a go-over.”

“Of course,” Aunt Shannon said, stepping away from the desk to allow Thomas to put everything — portfolio, will, keys, journal — back in the case.  He snapped it shut.

“Why don’t you take it to your room and join us back in the sunroom?  Everyone’s probably curious about what we’re up to.”

 

-/-

 

The drive was familiar, sort of.  The last time he’d been here, he hadn’t driven.

The last time he’d come here, he could barely even see above the car windows.

Aside from seeing Aunt Shannon again, the best reunion in Virginia by far was his car.  He ran his fingers lovingly along the steering wheel.  His brief stint of relative poverty had taught him to enjoy the luxuries he’d used to take for granted.  Driving through the Virginia countryside, ass planted on leather seats, purring engine at his command, was glorious after months of desperately grasping for some bearings as the subway tore around another squeaky corner.

He took a deep breath as he took the last turn and the house came into view.  He parked right out front and stepped out of his car.

Monticello’s new master had arrived.

And he was fucking terrified.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there staring at the house’s facade, but it was long enough that the person inside noticed his arrival.

“Mr. Jefferson,” a short, middle aged man shouted as he scurried out a side door.  “Welcome home!”

Thomas blinked, looking down at the man — who barely reached his shoulder — as if he were some sort of alien life form.  Eventually, though, he remembered his manners.  “Uh, hello.  I… I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

The man smiled.  He was missing a tooth.  “My name is Bill.  I’ve been working here as a gardner for about ten years.  Your aunt asked me to greet you when you got here and brief you on the state of the building, the grounds, and the staff.”

Of course she did.  Thomas wondered if this was the same gardner that had told his aunt about his mother’s departure from the estate.  A few months ago, he might have looked down his nose at such a person, but after all the times Alex had lectured him about the importance of multiple streams of income… well, he supposed he could admire the man’s sense of enterprise. 

“I see,” Thomas said.  “I guess I would need briefing.”

“Please,” Bill said, gesturing grandly towards the front door.  “Come in.”

Thomas felt a little strange being ushered into his own property like a guest, but didn’t make a comment.  He followed Bill inside.

The entrance hall was as he remembered… sort of.  The color of the walls hadn’t changed, the dark wood of the floor was the same, but it was completely empty.  There was no furniture, no rugs on the floor, no paintings on the walls, but also no cobwebs in the corners or dust on the banisters.  Their footsteps echoed throughout the hall.

“When…” Thomas swallowed, then started again.  “When did she remove the furniture?  There used to be some sofas around the fireplace, I remember,” he gestured unnecessarily at the hearth, which had been scrubbed back to a near-white and clearly hadn’t been used in some time.  “And the paintings?”

“This room was already cleaned out before I got here, sir,” Bill said.

“Do any of the rest of the staff know where the stuff went?”

“Maybe,” Bill said with a shrug, “but you’ll have a hard time getting ahold of them.  Mrs. Jefferson dismissed everyone months ago, and found all the staff new jobs.”

Thomas nodded, though he was still confused.  How long had his mother been planning— no, he cut himself off.  That line of thinking wasn’t somewhere he wanted to be.  Not while he was in this place.

“Has all the furniture been taken away?”  His mind started to catalog various items he hadn’t thought about in years.  The landscape in the dining room he stared at when he was putting off finishing a dinner he didn’t want to eat.  The big chair by the radiator in the library, which he would stick his legs under during the winter, his feet a bit too hot and his fingers a bit too cold as he read his book.  The marble bust of some Greek god in the hallway, which he’d knocked over one afternoon and hastily tried to repair with Elmer’s glue.  And… shit, what about his bedroom?  Had she removed the bed, with the thick quilt his grandmother had made for him?  What about his toys? The ones he hadn’t been able to retrieve after that day his father sat him down in their townhouse in Richmond and told him they weren’t going to be seeing Mama anymore, that he wasn’t going to be able to go back to that big house in the country where they’d spent holidays and most weekends?  Had she removed his books?  Did she find the place where he’d carved his initials into the windowsill with the pocket knife he’d stolen from his father’s desk?

“Some rooms still have furniture,” Bill said.  “Most of it was covered with sheets, though I’ve removed them so you can get a better feel for the place.  Mrs. Jefferson had a few rooms she spent most of her time in, but had most of her things removed in the months leading up to…” he cleared his throat.  “Then there’s the east room…” he trailed off, eyes trained at the ground.

“The east room?”  Thomas asked.

“There’s a room on the second floor that’s been boarded up for as long as we can remember.  No one’s ever been in there.  Apparently someone asked Mrs. Jefferson about the room, and she fired him on the spot… we, uh, we took to thinking of it as haunted.  It’s not, of course,” Bill added, hands held up as if defending himself from some retort from Thomas, “but… people talk, you know?”

Thomas felt a painful tingle run across his body.  “Is there a crowbar in the shed, by any chance?”

Bill blinked.  “Sir?”

Thomas made for the front door, Bill hastily trailing after him.  “Sir!  Are you gonna… are you sure it’s a good idea?”

Thomas threw open the door to the gardner’s shed and found what he was looking for hanging from a peg on the wall.  He picked up the tool and started back towards the main house.

“Are you sure you don’t want to see the rest of the house first?”  Bill asked, puffing in his efforts to keep up with Thomas’s long strides and determined pace.  “The east room… it’s got a feel to it, you know?  I… I wouldn’t recommend opening it.”

Thomas stopped halfway up the stairwell.  “Thank you for your input, Bill.”  Then he kept climbing.

Bill scrambled after him, and Thomas gave him a short glance.  The man’s really terrified of this place, he thought.  He guessed it made sense.  Old plantation house owned by a hermit?  Boarded up room no one was allowed to talk about?  The whole thing had the trappings of a gothic novel.  It would be easy to think of Monticello as haunted.  Thomas kept expecting to see his mother’s ghost every time he turned a corner.

But he saw nothing.  Felt nothing.  The house was empty.

Muscle memory guided him to the room.  Bill was standing behind him, breath heavy.

Thomas set the crow bar under the plank that had been clumsily nailed across the door, and started to work it free.  Eventually, the board fell to the ground with a clunk, and Thomas dropped the crowbar, which made an unsettlingly loud metallic sound that echoed through the barren hallway.

He turned the doorknob.  It was locked. 

“Fuck,” he muttered.

Bill seemed to relax behind him.

“Wait,” Thomas said, reaching into his pockets.  He pulled out the key ring that had been attached to the journal.  There were four keys in total, and he tried each on the lock in turn.  The fourth one worked.

He heard Bill’s uptake of breath behind him, and he threw the door open.

It was exactly as he remembered it.  His bed was made up, the quilt draped neatly over the pillows.  His books were on the shelves, his collection of rocks and seashells were on the windowsill.  One of the tacks had fallen off his Star Wars poster, though, and the corner was flopping down sadly.  The rug was slightly askew, and he could imagine his eight-year-old self dragging his bag across it as he got ready to return to Richmond, not knowing that would be the last time he saw Monticello for fourteen years.  The toys he hadn’t bothered to bring with him were strewn across the floor.

And, of course, everything was covered with a thick layer of dust.

“Is this…?” Bill began, but he didn’t finish the question.

“It’s my room,” Thomas answered.  “So I guess that makes me the ghost,” he turned to look at Bill.  “Boo.”

Bill’s face was somewhere between horror and confusion, then the rugged sunburned lines of it settled into a sort of tired sadness.  “I’m sorry, Thomas.”

Thomas smiled slightly at the loss of formality.  He shut his eyes. 

Whenever he’d imagined his mother over the years (and he did it way more than he wished), he thought of her tormented, or obsessive, or insane.  It’d never quite occurred to him — though he wasn’t sure why — that perhaps she had dealt with the separation the same way he did.  By pretending he didn’t exist.

Thomas closed the door.  “Can you show me the rest of the house?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Bill said, voice gentle, eyes trained on the door.  “Yes I can.”

Bill led him through some of the guest rooms, a spare study, a music room.  Thomas nodded along, familiarity with the building slowly rebuilding.  The place didn’t quite look how he remembered.  The bones were there — the wallpaper, the larger pieces of furniture.  But the flesh and blood and soul of the place had been stripped away, deliberately.  What remained was as sterile and generic as a bleached skull on a professor’s shelf.

Alas, poor Yorick,Thomas thought to himself as Bill opened the door to a bland guest room that Thomas recalled was once filled with family photos, I knew him.

He chuckled under his breath despite himself.

Bill turned back to him, wary.  “Sir?”

“Nothing,” Thomas said, walking away from the doorway.  “Just being a pretentious shit.”

Bill looked at him.  “Alright,” he said slowly.  “That’s it for the guest rooms, Mr. Jefferson.  The last two on this floor are the ones Mrs. Jefferson used before… er, before.”

“Before she died,” Thomas said, walking past him.  “It’s not a secret, Bill.”

“No, sir,” Bill replied quietly, following Thomas, “I’m sorry, sir.”

“It’s okay.  Is this her room?”  Thomas nodded towards a closed door at the end of the hall.

“Yeah,” Bill said. 

“Strange,” Thomas commented.  “She moved it.  She and my father used to sleep in the south wing.”

“Huh,” Bill said.  “That’s… that’s interesting, sir.”

Thomas shrugged and opened the door.

His hand hand fell off the knob, disappointment wrapped itself around him like a boa constrictor.  He took a breath, and it started to squeeze.

“You said she had two rooms she used?”  His voice sounded choked.

“Yes, sir,” Bill said.  “Through that door, you can access the study.”

Thomas opened the door and stepped into the other room.  “Goddamnit,” he whispered to himself.

“Sir?”

Thomas leaned against the doorframe separating the two bare rooms.  His eyes glanced between the two equally annoying scenes: a study that was just a pine desk with no drawers, shelves with no books, and a wooden chair with no cushion; a bedroom that was a bare mattress on an old iron frame.  The light let in by the curtains windows in both rooms felt as unnerving and clinical as the lamp above a dentist’s chair.

“Tell me about her,” Thomas said, looking over at the wary gardener.  “Anything about her.”

Bill frowned.  “Sir?”

“What was she like?”  Thomas asked, rapping restless knuckles against the wood of the frame.  “What were her mannerisms?  What sort of food did she eat?  Who was she?”  Each question came out more broken and desperate than the last.  Thomas didn’t care.  God, he was tired.

“Mrs. Jefferson?”  Bill asked pointlessly.

“No, Mother Theresa.”

Bill cocked an eyebrow.

“I’m sorry,” Thomas said, closing the study door and stepping back into the empty bedroom.  “Please, just… something.”

“Well,” Bill began, crossing his arms.  “She didn’t talk often, at least not to me.  No,” he amended, shaking his head, “to anyone.  She kept to herself.  She… she read a lot,” he straightened as he reached something like a stride.  “She had books shipped in by the crateful, then she had books taken away in huge boxes to be donated.  Lots of thrillers, I think… some romances… histories… everything, actually.  The person who took care of her book orders could never predict her tastes.  She wrote sometimes, in this little journal.  She kept it locked up.  She never made any requests to the cook, never gave him a budget, just a credit card to use for whatever.  He would make her these amazing meals at first, you know?  He’d experiment… lamb, duck, steak… it was amazing… he’d share some of it with us, yeah?”  He blushed slightly, as if he was worried Thomas would have a problem with that.

Thomas just made a gesture to usher him on.  Bill complied.

“Anyway, for years he’d make these awesome meals, but she never commented on them or anything, so he kind of lost motivation.  By the end he’d just make her a grilled cheese or Ramen or some shit and she’d react just like she had when it was something fancy.  We never really knew what to make of her, to be honest.  She wouldn’t talk for months, then she’d walk right up to you and start talking about something.  Like her college days or some super long story from when she was young.  She’d be all friendly and charming and funny, like there was nothing she wanted to do but talk to you.  And she’d be nice for a while, then she’d withdraw and keep to herself again.  But slowly we kind of learned a lot about her early life, except…”  He trailed off, clearing his throat.  “She was just sort of unpredictable, really.”

“Except?” Thomas pressed, attention catching on the word.

“She… I’m sorry sir, but you have a right to know, I guess… or at least maybe you’d want to… but…” his trailed off.  “Maybe… no… I shouldn’t.  She was just flightily, you know?  She was a strange woman, but not unpleasant.  Bit her nails, actually!  Just remembered that!”  He looked triumphant.

“What was the thing you were going to tell me?”  Thomas asked, stepping closer to Bill.  “I want to know.”

Bill stepped back instinctually.  “She… she never mentioned you.  I didn’t know she had a son until Miss Randolph told me.  I knew she’d had a husband.  But she never mentioned a kid.”

The boa constrictor was around his throat now.  Thomas couldn’t get any air.  “Ah,” he said, after a moment.  “I guess that makes sense, with the board and everything.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Bill was looking at the ground.  “Still, I shouldn’t have told you.  You didn’t need to know that.”

“No,” Thomas said.  “I didn’t.  But thank you.”

 

-/-

 

“Uncle Andrew’s hosting Thanksgiving here this year,” Aunt Shannon said, sipping her wine.  “Are you planning on staying for it?”

Thomas nodded.  “Yeah,” he said, “I’m gonna be here a while, I think.”

Aunt Shannon gave him a weak smile, “I’m glad, despite the circumstances.  I missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” he said.  And he meant it.  He took another bite of his chicken.

He’d thrown an overnight bag in the back of his car when he went to Monticello, but after Bill left, he’d realized he couldn’t stay there… not alone, anyway, and came back to his aunt’s place.  She hadn’t asked anything when he arrived, she just set another place for dinner.

“Aunt Shannon…” he began, swirling his wine in his glass.

“Yeah?”

“Can you tell me something about my mother?  I figure the gag rule’s ended by now.”

The skewered green bean she was about to eat got set daintily back down on the plate, silver prongs of the fork still jutting through it’s plump form.  “What do you want to know?” she asked, voice soft.

“Do you know why she left?”

Aunt Shannon’s brows came together, eyes wide and sympathetic.  “Oh, honey… I… I don’t know.”

Thomas finished his wine.  “Can you guess?”

She sat back in her chair slightly, crossing her legs, hands laced around the higher knee.  She closed her eyes, took a deep breath.  “Thomas, you’ll have to understand, your mother… she was never a happy person.  Even from childhood, she’d fall into long periods of depression, then she’d be hyperactive for a while, painting and making music and reading and… everything.”

“So she was… bipolar?”  Thomas asked.

“She was never diagnosed,” Aunt Shannon said, “but, yeah, probably.  That’s what I always figured.  But… if she was bipolar, I don’t think that was the only thing… going on, so to speak.  She was never really okay.  Our parents were never willing to acknowledge it.  She’d asked them to let her go to therapy a few times, I think, but they were afraid the neighbors would find out.  They told her to just work through whatever it was she was dealing with, that it was all in her mind.”  Her eyes were unfocused then, looking over her nephew’s shoulder.  “I remember having to pull her out of bed at six in the evening, brushing her hair as she shook with sobs, hauling her into the shower myself.  I’d sit her down and put on her makeup for her, then we’d come down the stairs together for some party or dinner or something, the Randolph girls, so pretty and well behaved…”

She shook her head.  “Eventually they got her on some sort of meds, and it stabilized her… as long as she took them.  But she didn’t like them, I remember.  She complained about the side effects a lot, but she took them dutifully for years.  Then she went off to college and she came back with Peter… your father,” she added, unnecessarily.  “And… well, he seemed to have a stabilizing influence on her as well.  She seemed happy.  Later he told me that he convinced her to go to the university’s counseling center, and they helped her a bit.  Our parents were thrilled, of course, to have her acting so together.  So thrilled they were willing to pretend they were okay with their daughter dating a black man.”

The familiar feeling of anger rose with that memory, but he just nodded in silence.  He always knew his grandparents weren’t comfortable with his race.  He’d long since dismissed it as just more racist bullshit from the Randolphs.  Still… rejection was rejection.

Aunt Shannon rubbed her eyes.  “She was better for a while… then, not so much.  Then she left.  We weren’t really speaking much when she did it, and I couldn’t really get into contact with her after, so… I don’t know, love.  But it isn’t your fault.  You never did anything wrong.”

“I know,” he said, throat tight, “I know.”

His phone vibrated once in his pocket, he checked it covertly.  A text from Alex.  You good for a call tonight?

“Would it be okay if we continue this conversation later?” Thomas asked.  “It’s getting a bit late, and I… it’s been a long day.”

Aunt Shannon nodded.  “I understand.  I’ll be up for a few more hours if you want to have some tea or chat… or watch a movie or something.  Whatever you need, love.”

He smiled, chest tightening.  “Thanks.”

 

-/-

 

Brandon set down his glass after finishing his beer.  “So where was it you took that one?”

Emma rolled her eyes at her brother.  “Do you not recognize the Grand Canyon?”  She tapped a manicured nail against the back of her marble-print phone case.  “Look at the colors, and the lines…”

“And those shoes,” Michelle commented, brows raised, eyes glowing faintly in the light of the screen.

Thomas took another sip of his whiskey, refusing to move from his seat as his cousins ogled Emma’s latest photoshoot.  He set the glass down a little too hard and Emma’s eyes flickered up at him, then quickly away.

Thomas laughed through his nose.  Emma had been avoiding him the whole time he’d been down in Virginia, likely to prevent any career-ending slip ups.  No one seemed to have noticed.  Not that there was really anything different — the two had never exactly been close.

“Oooh,” Michelle said, “that one’s really pretty.  I love your dress.”

“Thanks,” Emma said with a smile.  “It was a bitch to keep the dust off of it, though.”  She set her phone down and they returned to their seats.  “How was London?  Like, really?  Once you ditched Paul?”

Michelle shrugged.  “Cold and dreary, honestly.  I got pretty bored of it.  I met up with some friends of mine in Paris, though,” she glanced over at Thomas, “I actually met a former classmate of yours.”

Nervousness rose in Thomas’s gut, “really?” he asked, voice trained neutral.  “Who?”

“Mathieu, I think?” her voice wrapping uncomfortably around the French pronunciation.  “Mathieu Cuvillier?  I met him at a party and he said he remembered you.”

Thomas’s face felt cold.  He remembered Mathieu.  Remembered his pretty eyes and full lips.  Remembered how his cock felt on his tongue.  Remembered the way his back arched when he came and what his body felt fluttering around him.  “Oh,” he said, pulling his lips up in a smile.  “Mathieu.  How’s he doing?”

“He’s doing well,” Michelle said.  “He said to say hi.”  Her eyes were artless as ever.  Did she… no, Thomas figured, decided.  Hoped.  She probably didn’t know.  He wouldn’t have told her.

“Great.  I’ll have to message him or something.”

Emma glanced up at him, eyebrow quirked.  Thomas raised his brows slightly, and she took the hint.  “So, Brandon, how was California?”

“Mmmm?” Brandon looked up from his phone.  “Great, actually.  I’m planning on moving out there.  I actually need to get back soon-ish.  I’m leaving straight from Aunt Shannon’s on Thanksgiving and flying back.”

“You’re traveling on Thanksgiving?”  Emma asked, frowning.  Apparently that was the first she’d heard of it.  “What’s the rush?”

Brandon shrugged.  “Best deal I could get on tickets.  Made the decision back when I was poor.”  He gave her a goofy little grin, waving the topic off like it was irrelevant in that warm way of his.

If Thomas hadn’t known him since he was little, he probably would have liked Brandon.  There was something charming about him, loud and bright and powerful, filling the room.  He’d grown out of being a bully through his teens, though he was one of those former bullies who seemed to lack the self-awareness to even know they were bullies in the first place.  A childhood of pushing Thomas into walls, laughing at him for wearing “girl colors,” and generally being an annoying, bro-ish piece of shit faded quickly into awkward half-hugs and “it’s good to see you, man”s.  If Thomas had ever been expecting an apology from him, he’d long since given up on it.

Still, there was something sort of off about him that night, Thomas thought.  The four of them going out for drinks had been his idea, yet he seemed sort of withdrawn.  Well, withdrawn by his standard, which meant just this side of obnoxious. 

Something must’ve happened in California, Thomas figured.  Does he have a court date? he wondered.  Maybe he got a girl pregnant.  After twenty years of “you won’t believe what Brandon did this time”s, nothing would surprise him.

  But then again, all his cousins seemed slightly different.  Brandon was more muted, like someone had found a knob on his back and turned down his volume.  Michelle seemed gentler — she almost reminded him of a faded portrait of the Virgin Mary on the wall of some old European church, tired and almost sad in a serene sort of way.  Emma, though she was looking as polished as ever, felt flimsy and ragged as a ripped nail.  Apparently Aunt Shannon’s little life lesson had worked on all of them in different ways.

He wondered if he’d changed.  He wondered if they were paying enough attention to notice.

His phone vibrated in his pocket.  Alex.  Do you want me to come to Virginia for a while?

Anxiety ripped at him for a second.  He desperately wanted Alex there, but having his boyfriend around would make keeping his secret that much harder.  But ultimately, he knew what he wanted.  He let his fingers type the reply even before his mind was completely made up.  Please.

 

-/-

 

The rumbling coming from the wheel’s of Alex’s luggage rolling across the pavement stopped suddenly.  “What the fuck is that?”

“What?” Thomas asked, key fob still raised, headlights of his car flashing twice.  “It’s my car.”

“It’s… ridiculous.”

Thomas frowned, looking down at the familiar, elegant lines of his car.  He had to admit it looked a little out of place among the Camrys and Civics populating the airport’s parking lot, but not ridiculous.  “Fuck off, it’s a piece of art.  You don’t like it?”

Alex considered it.  “I mean, part of me wants to make you sell the dumb thing and invest the money, and the other part wants you to bend me over the hood and take me here.”

Thomas laughed, but he glanced around without even meaning to.  The hug he’d given Alex when they met at the gate was brief, brotherly-looking to onlookers.  Breathing Virginia air made him paranoid as he probably should have been in New York.  He was scared to touch Alex, but he felt like he would die if he didn’t touch him soon.

They navigated their way out of the airport parking lot and the city, conversation easy and light, more teasing banter than anything else.

“So I called my Dad,” Alex said about an hour into the trip.

“Really?”  Thomas asked, glancing over before returning his gaze to the highway.  “How’d it go?”

“Good… I accidentally outed myself.”

A nervous tingle ran across Thomas’s skin.  “Shit, man.  I’m sorry.  How did he react?”

“Really well, actually,” Alex said, tucking a lock of loose hair behind his ear.  “I actually thought I’d already told him.  I… I don’t think about stuff like that often.”

“How the fuck do you not think about stuff like that?”

Alex startled a little at Thomas’s sharp tone, but shrugged.  “I’m never really in contact with my family, most of my friends are gay, and I live in New York.”  Thomas could feel Alex’s stare on him.  “I’m sorry… that might have come off as insensitive.  What did you tell your family about me?”

Thomas’s knuckled tightened on the steering wheel.  “You’re a friend from New York who’s really good with money, so I asked you to come down and help me smooth out the financials.  Also, we’ll be staying at Monticello, if that’s okay.  We’ll… we’ll have the place to ourselves.”

The significance of the statement hung heavy in the air between them.  Alex looked over at him.  The heavy November sun was hanging low over the treetops, half of his face was glowing bright in the glare of it, the other half was in shadow.  But the bit Thomas could see was grinning like a lecherous idiot.

Thomas smiled as he took the exit off the highway.  Slowly the dense traffic faded into winding country roads.  The sun was setting and everything was cast in gold when Thomas pulled off into a little side road and came to a stop.

Alex frowned and looked around at the trees surrounding them.  “Why’d we stop?”

“Because I needed to do this,” Thomas explained, unbuckling his seatbelt. 

“Wha—” Alex began, but he was cut off when Thomas started kissing him.  Alex sighed into the contact, hands going to Thomas’s shoulders as his boyfriend leaned over the center console to bring them a bit closer.  Thomas pressed further into him, biting Alex’s lip and digging his fingers into the messy bun he’d put his hair into for the flight.  Their lips parted after a moment, both breathing heavy.

“How far are we from Monticello?” Alex asked, voice husky.

“Maybe an hour,” Thomas replied.  “Though I could probably do it in forty-five.”

“I brought handcuffs,” Alex said, gesturing at his bag in the back seat.

Thomas got them to the house in thirty minutes.

 

-/-

 

“Mmmmm,” Alex stirred under Thomas as he started trailing kisses down the length of his spine.  “Morning.”

“Morning,” Thomas whispered, pressing a smile halfway down his back.  He moved up to Alex’s neck.  “How’d you sleep?”

“Really well,” Alex gasped as Thomas ran his tongue along a particularly tender patch behind his ear.

Thomas bit his earlobe slightly, pulling at it a bit with his teeth.  “Do you have any idea how much I missed having you in my bed?”

Alex pressed his ass into Thomas’s crotch, making his bedmate groan at the contact.  “I can feel it pretty clearly.”  He grabbed one of Thomas’s hands and pressed it down between his legs.  “Can you feel how much I missed you?”

Thomas smirked, wrapping his hand around Alex’s hard length.  “I can, actually.”  He started stroking him slowly, teasingly.  Just enough for Alex to make a little whining sound and press his ass back into Thomas. 

Thomas ran the hand not currently rubbing Alex across his ass, fingers playing lightly over his hole.  “You want it again?”

“Mmmmm,” Alex groaned.  “Yes.”

Thomas chuckled, sitting back a little and pulling Alex’s hips higher up.  Alex cooperated, wiggling his ass in the air a bit.

Thomas ran his hands across Alex’s asscheeks, pulling them apart to reveal his hole.

When they arrived at Monticello the night before, they spared no time christening various different spots throughout the house.

“You sure you want to be doing it here?” Alex had asked the night before, gasping against the wall in the kitchen.

“This house needs some life in it again,” Thomas had said, hips pumping steadily into the man before him.

And there they were, the morning after, getting ready for round… whatever it was.

Thomas ran his lips along the curve of Alex’s ass, working a solid hickey into the right cheek as Alex whimpered beneath him. 

He continued to kiss a line along Alex’s ass, moving slowly and making it clear where he was headed.

Alex’s little intake of breath as he licked a long stripe right over his asshole made Thomas’s cock twitch with desperate arousal.

“Is this okay?” he asked, lips barely removed from Alex, breath on the sensitive skin pulling a shudder out of his boyfriend.

“Ye— yeah.  It’s more than okay.  Please don’t stop.”

Thomas had received maybe one or two rimjobs in his life, and had maybe given three or four.  He was by no means an expert, but still, it was fun to explore Alex’s body in that new way, flicking his tongue over the tired ring of muscle and finding new ways to drive Alex insane.  He pressed his tongue in and Alex groaned, pressing back into him.  Thomas grabbed Alex’s hips to hold him steady as he kept working on him.

Once he was satisfied he’d turned his boyfriend into a whimpering, wanton mess, Thomas reached over to the nightstand and grabbed the lube and condoms.  Alex groaned into the pillow as Thomas pressed the first finger in, easing it in and out as slowly as he could, teasing.  Alex’s knees widened, seemingly without him intending to spread them further apart.  Thomas smiled, pressing in a second finger.  Once Alex seemed to get used to it, Thomas bit his left cheek, almost hard enough to break the skin.  Alex gasped and recoiled from the sensation, cock twitching.  Thomas licked over the red mark he’d left and placed a kiss just above it.  He kept pumping his fingers into Alex, eventually adding a third finger.

“Do you think you’re ready for me?”

“Mmmhmm,” Alex gasped, nodding vigorously into the pillow he’d buried his face in.

Thomas rolled a condom on and grabbed Alex’s hips, guiding himself in and finding nearly as much pleasure in the sight of his cock sinking into Alex’s ass as the tight heat engulfing him.  Fuck, he’d missed this.

He set a quick and brutal pace, the sounds coming from Alex urged him on as he thrusted into him.  They didn’t do it in that position often — the fragile nature of their budding relationship required a certain amount of intimacy and reassurance, something that bending Alex over and fucking him like an animal didn’t really provide — but goddamn he was loving it that morning.  Maybe it was the view — there’s something about a man’s back, the way broad shoulders taper down to a narrow waist, the movement of muscles under smooth skin, the gracefulness of the spine.  He could remember admiring the way men’s backs were formed at swimming pools and beaches long before he quite understood what looking at men that way meant.

The sight of a man’s back is aesthetically pleasing.  The sight of the back of the man you are currently fucking is glorious.

And maybe part of the appeal that morning was also the fact that he couldn’t see Alex’s face.  There was nothing to examine and analyze.  It was just simple fucking.

And there was nothing Thomas wanted more just then than simplicity.

He could feel himself getting close, so he reached down and wrapped a hand around Alex’s cock, thumb playing with the weeping tip as Alex gasped and pressed into his hand.  He started tugging on Alex in time with the thrusts, working them both into a loud frenzy.

Alex came first, spilling out onto Thomas’s hand and the sheets, body clenching around Thomas’s in a way that made his hips stutter for a moment before he resumed his relentless pace, eyes shut, desperately chasing pleasure.

He found it soon enough, and slammed his hips into Alex one last time, stilling above him as he filled the condom.

They collapsed into the bed after, breathing heavy, eyes locked on each other with tiny smiles on their mouths.  Simple.

Thomas ran soothing hands across Alex’s skin as his breathing started to slow again.  He placed tiny, chaste kisses across his shoulders and up his throat, running his lips along Alex’s cheeks and hairline, trailing tiny kisses down his nose before finally bringing their lips together.  Alex sighed into the kiss.  After a moment, he started to work his way down to Thomas’s throat, lips moving across the sensitive skin, down to the collarbone.  Thomas ran a hand across his boyfriend’s back as he started peppering kisses across his chest.  He fell into a sort of drowsy trance as Alex explored his chest with his mouth, barely registering the slight difference in sensation when Alex’s mouth found one of his nipples.

Then Alex bit it.  Hard.

Thomas let out a loud yelp, body jerking back to full awareness.

Alex ran his tongue along the bite mark, already clearly visible and sure to leave a bruise.  “Payback,” he explained, “for my ass.”

“Ah,” Thomas said, running his fingers along the outer curve of said ass.  “Sorry… I shouldn’t have.”

Alex shook his head, running his own hand across the bite mark, wincing slightly as he pressed into the sensitive skin.  “I like it,” he said, “I just wanted to mark you too.”

“Matching bruises,” Thomas said, running his finger along his own bite mark and hissing slightly at the sting on the raw skin.

“Sounds like something from some emo song,” Alex commented.

Thomas laughed.

Alex flopped down on the bed and stretched out like a cat.  Thomas took the opportunity to admire his ass and the red mark he’d left on it.  “Shower?”

Thomas nodded.  “You good to walk?”

Alex scoffed.  “You didn’t rail me that hard, kid.”

“Mmmmm,” Thomas hummed as he got off the bed, “that a challenge?”

Alex just threw him a saucy look over his shoulder as he strolled out of the bedroom.

Thomas lingered behind a moment, stretching out a bit and enjoying the strange pleasure of sore muscles and popping joints.

“Shit,” came Alex’s voice from the hallway.  “Which one of these doors is the bathroom?”

 

-/-

 

Frosted leaves crunched underfoot as they made their way though the path.  Alex looked sort of out of place among the trees, Thomas thought.  It was strange seeing him among nature.  Though he knew Alex hailed from a volcanic island in the Caribbean, despite his efforts he was never able to imagine the man among the sand and palm trees.  He couldn’t even really picture a family for him.  In his head he always pictured Alex springing, like Athena, fully grown and dressed, from a manhole in Times Square, or simply emerging out of the shadows cast by sky scrapers, pen in hand and “um, actually, you’re wrong,” falling from his lips.

Thomas smiled to himself at the somewhat uncomfortable way his boyfriend made through the bumping roots and fallen twigs, white-knucked grip on a tree as he made his way over a mossy rock blocking the path.  He knew exactly how human Alex was, yet despite it all, there was still something almost supernatural about him.  Thomas had never known anyone like him.

They hadn’t talked much since they’d set out on their treck, the unspoken subject hanging like a film over everything they did.  Once the greetings and kisses and small talk and sex were out of the way, all that was left was whatever it was Alex wanted to talk about.

Thomas had been trying to distract himself to avoid thinking about whatever the fuck that was going to be.  He was fairly sure Alex wasn’t going to dump him, if the pleasant tired soreness of his crotch was any indication.  But there were so many things it could be, and he knew if he let himself linger on it for too long, he’d drive himself insane.

Maybe he should just broach the subject then, he thought.  Get it over with.

But Alex beat him to it.

“So,” Alex said, tugging at the scarf he’d wrapped around his neck.  “That thing I was gonna talk about before you left, can we talk about it now?”

Thomas’s throat closed up, so he just nodded.

Alex leaned tentatively against a tree, as if he didn’t trust anything not made of bricks or concrete to support his weight.  “It’s really not a big deal, honestly.  It feels sort of stupid after everything that’s happened, but I want you to know… can you just like, withhold questions or judgement until I’m done?”

Thomas sat down.  He considered making a snarky comment about how long it usually took Alex to be done talking about anything, but stopped himself from saying it.  Now wasn’t the time.  He nodded dutifully, body tensed up and mind spewing out possibilities so hard and fast he wouldn’t have been able catch and analyze one if he tried… and he didn’t try.

Alex rolled his shoulders against the damp bark of the tree, eyes closed.  “Alright,” he said, opening them, “I’m gonna tell you why things were so weird between me and John.”

The mess of anxiety that was Thomas’s inner monologue in that moment changed its pitch.  It was as if before his mind was a talentless marching band attempting a new number, twenty types of horrible all sounding off at once.  Now it was like just the trumpets were playing — squeaky, unpleasant, and somehow just as loud.

Despite the internal wailing, Thomas nodded.  That, he figured, was all Alex wanted from him for the next while.

Alex continued.  “I… Jesus I’ve written this in my head and on paper so many times, but telling someone is always such a mess… you remember my mom’s husband?  The abusive asshole who made our lives a living hell?”

Thomas nodded.

“There’s… there’s always been this little part of me that was afraid I would turn out like him… like I used to ask myself how someone could do that to another person… and, well… I don’t believe in inherently evil people, so the only possible conclusion to draw was that anyone could be like that.  And if anyone could, so could I.  So there’s always been this latent fear that I was going to get too intense, that I was gonna be horrible and ruin someone’s life because I didn’t know how to love someone in a healthy way.  I mean, I was sort of hurting for strong male role models as a kid, and apparently that’ll fuck you up, I don’t know.  It’s just always been a fear, an insecurity…”

Alex trailed off, eyes cast down to the forest floor, brow furrowed.  Thomas sat and waited.  This conversation wasn’t going in the direction he’d anticipated and he was getting sort of worried…

“Have you ever heard of intrusive thoughts before?” Alex asked, looking at Thomas through his lashes.

“Uh…” Thomas cleared his throat, “yeah… like looking at a knife and suddenly wanting to stab something, or having a desire to jump off a tall building even if you aren’t suicidal?  That sort of thing?”

“Yeah.  Well, I’ve dealt with them most of my life.  It’s just part of my anxiety, I guess, or me.  I’m not 100% convinced my anxiety and I are separate entities… but that’s another thing.  Anyway, I get them a lot, and I freak out about them a lot.  Like a few years ago, I had this thing where I convinced myself I was going to turn into some terrorist because I had an intrusive thought about a shopping mall… then for like five months I was freaking out and thinking about turning myself in to the authorities because I was a danger to society, even though I knew I wasn’t going to do anything.  It’s so dumb, when I think about it, but it felt so real at the time and… yeah…” his cheeks were flushed.  They already had been from the cold and the hike, but now his whole face was red.  Thomas wanted to hug him, but he wasn’t sure that would be a good idea.  Alex’s eyes were unfocused.

“Anyway, so a few months ago… well, more than a few, it was February — fucking lord, it’s been almost a year now — right… anyway, I had this intrusive thought about John, I was looking at him and I thought I could kill him,” Alex paused, took a deep breath, continued, “and that was all it took.  I started freaking out, withdrawing, going back over every interaction I had with him since we met and trying to find some sort of latent desire to kill him.  And when I couldn’t, I’d just tell myself that I also couldn’t prove that I didn’t want to kill him and I’d search myself for a burning desire to not kill him… but the feeling of not wanting to kill someone is more of an absence of feeling and searching for the absence of feeling never really yields much and anyway that’s what that was all about… so I kind of distanced myself from him and things got uncomfortable and weird and I was always scared of being someone he was scared of — someone he had reason to be scared of — and I distanced myself and things got weird but we talked it out a few days ago and things are getting better but I still had to tell you and now I’ve told you and yeah I’m rambling you can speak now that’s what I needed to say.”  He bit his lip and looked at Thomas expectantly.

Thomas blinked.  “That’s it?”  His eyes widened.  “Shit, wait, that’s not how I meant it… just… wow… okay.  I… that’s now what I was expecting, but I can see how that would cause you a lot of anxiety and can we hug now or something I’m sorry fuck…”

Alex smiled and crossed the short distance to his boyfriend, wrapping his arms around him.  Thomas returned the embrace.

“So…” Thomas continued, somewhat more in control of himself, “This whole time, it’s been anxiety about intrusive thoughts?  You weren’t in love with him?”

“No,” Alex said, “that’s been it.  But it became this whole thing in my head so I never knew how to feel.  Or how I felt.  I still don’t, honestly.”  He sat down on the forest floor and Thomas slid down with him.  Alex tucked himself into Thomas’s chest, much like they’d sat together when Alex was coming down from his anxiety attack, all those nights ago.  Things made a lot more sense now.  “It’s weird.  Some days I can laugh at it.  I’ll feel like I did before and have no clue how I ever worried about something as stupid as that.  Other days it’s like it’s the only thing I know about myself.”

Thomas tucked his face into Alex’s hair, running his lips gently across the soft strands.  “But you’re feeling better?  Or a bit better now?”

Alex nodded.  “A bit.  I told John, which was a big step.  And I told you.  But I’m not going to magically get better.  It’s gonna be around for a while.  I just… if we’re gonna be together, long term, and if you want this to work, then you’re gonna have to understand that.  It might get annoying or repetitive, and I’m sorry but I just can’t turn it off.”

“I know,” Thomas soothed, running his hands up and down Alex’s arms, “I know.  I didn’t mean to imply that.  I’m sorry.”

Alex had tensed up a bit, but he was relaxing under Thomas’s touch.  “Do you… have any questions?  Concerns?”

Thomas smiled a little at his tone.  “No, I’m just really glad you told me.  Thank you, I know that must’ve been uncomfortable.  I’m not going to pretend like I understand fully, but I’ll try… I’ll try.”  And he would.  He was too caught up in the relief to really register the weight of what Alex had told him, if he gave himself time to think about it.  Intrusive thoughts, anxiety… those were things he could handle, things he’d handled with other friends before.  Not having a boyfriend who was in love with someone else.  Later that night, he’d think to himself that it was sort of fucked up that he found the idea of Alex loving John more objectionable than the idea of Alex obsessing over whether or not he wanted to kill John.  Then he’d remind himself to look up how to take care of someone dealing with intrusive thoughts.

But those musings would come later.  In the moment, it was simple relief and love.  New intimacy which made all their other intimacies that much more potent.

Alex pressed back into him.  “Thank you.”

They sat like that for a little while, looser in the tiredness that came after uncomfortable conversations.  Thomas’s breaths came easier then than they had in a while.  The sharp breeze that rolled through would have felt biting a few minutes ago.  Now, Thomas thought it felt cleansing.

 

-/-

 

“Holy shit,” Alex said, flipping to another page of the portfolio.  “I know you aren’t crazy about her, but the woman had a talent for stock trading.  These numbers are incredible.”

Thomas watched Alex from his seat in the dining room, one of the few places still furnished in the house.  Thomas hadn’t quite been lying when he’d told his aunt Alex was a financially savvy friend from New York whose advice he wanted.  There was a lot of shit to sift through.  “Is there much I’m gonna need to do?”

Alex shook his head.  “It looks like she put a lot of things in positions where you don’t need to touch them for a while…” he glanced up, as if wondering whether to say something else.

“Let me guess,” Thomas drawled, “everything seemed perfectly set up months in advance, like she’d been planning on handing everything over to someone else?”

A sad little smile touched Alex’s lips.  “This is the stock portfolio equivalent of a dining room set covered in white sheets, or—”

“Or an old journal mailed to your next of kin,” Thomas added.

“You still haven’t opened it, right?”

Thomas shook his head.  “No.”  He’d left the journal in the bag he’d brought to Monticello, and it was still there, stuffed in the back of the closet under Alex’s luggage.  He was constantly aware of it, though: its weight and presence, loudly beating away in his head like the telltale heart.

Alex was looking at him, but didn’t say anything.

Thomas took a pen from the table and started fidgeting with it, running his thumb along the plastic seams, clicking it open and closed.  “Would you have read it by now?”

“Probably,” Alex said.  “I don’t think I would have been able to resist the mystery.  I’ve always hated secrets.”

Thomas nodded.  “I get that.  It’s just… there was always this part of me that thought she was going to come back, even though I knew it wasn’t going to happen.  Some part of me was convinced that she’d just appear at my doorstep and apologize for everything and say she loved me and it would all be better.  And now it’s never gonna happen.  I’m just… I’m not ready to hear the last thing she has to say to me.”

Alex got up from the table and walked around to Thomas.  He wrapped his arms around his boyfriend’s shoulders, Thomas’s seated position allowing Alex to rest his chin atop his curls.  “I understand.  I’m so sorry, babe.”

Thomas ran a hand along the exposed skin of one of Alex’s forearms, playing with the rolled-up edge of his shirt as he asked, “what was the last thing your mom ever said to you?”

He felt Alex go slightly tense around him, then murmur, “‘Alex, you need to drink more water.’”

Thomas blinked.  “Oh.  That’s…”

“Last words aren’t always dramatic.  What was the last thing your dad said to you?”

Thomas’s stomach knotted.  “‘I love you.’”

Alex pressed a kiss to his neck.  “That’s a good one,” he said.

“Yeah,” Thomas said.  “It is.”

Notes:

Comments are to me what expensive cars are to Thomas.

Chapter 18: Alex Gives Thanks

Notes:

Eesh, this thing took me a while, and I'm still not totally sure I should say, but whatever. Time to let this chapter fly.

Warnings: Smut, light bondage, off-stage homophobia, and the destruction of perfectly good antiques.

This was new, Alex thought.  He ran his fingers along Thomas’s prone side, lips quirking when Thomas recoiled from the light touch on such sensitive skin.  He trailed them up, fingers traveling from his sides up across his nipples (earning him another shiver), over to the sprawl of his shoulders, over the hard muscles of his biceps, down his forearms and to the cold metal of the handcuffs attaching him to the bedposts.

“You look good like this,” Alex mused, propped up on Thomas’s lap.

Thomas rolled his eyes, but Alex could feel his hardness pressing against his ass.  He ground down on it and Thomas let out a little hissing sound.

“Why are you pouting?” Alex purred, running a finger along Thomas’s bottom lip, which was jutting out just a little bit more than was normal.  “I won fair and square.”

“I’m not pouting,” Thomas protested.

“That’s what everyone who’s ever pouted has said.”

“It’s just strange, is all,” Thomas said, looking away.

“Do you want to stop?  We don’t have to do this, I just thought it would be fun.”

“No…” Thomas looked over at the handcuffs, wrists pressing against them instinctually.  “I don’t think I want to stop.  I’ll tell you if you do.”  He looked over at Alex with a small smile that didn’t quite touch his eyes.  “Do your worst.”

Alex frowned.  When he’d brought the handcuffs out that morning, Thomas had quirked an eyebrow and said.  “Which one of us?”

They’d decided to flip a coin.  And there they were.

Usually Alex liked being dominated in bed.  Liked the feeling of being held down and used, scooped up and cared for.

But power.  Power was nice, too.

“Have you ever been handcuffed in bed before?”

Thomas tensed for a moment, then his shoulders fell back to the pillows.  “Yeah,” he said after a moment.  “With Sean.”

The usual surge of anger and concern that ripped through Alex whenever he heard Thomas say that name came again, all the stronger that time because they were naked together on a bed.  Everything felt vulnerable and raw.  “It… didn’t go well?”

“It wasn’t a comfortable experience, no.”  Thomas’s eyes were trained on the opposite wall.  “But… I want to try again, with you.  I’m just a little nervous.”

“Of course,” Alex said, sitting back.  He wasn’t sure it was a good idea to touch him just then.  “What can I do to make you more comfortable?”

Thomas closed his eyes.   Took a deep breath.  “How about we make it a game?  You can only do what I tell you to?”

Alex nodded.  “Alright.” He slid off the bed.  “How do you want me?”

Thomas smirked at that question.  “Touch yourself.”

Alex blinked.  That wasn’t what he’d been expecting.  He pulled an expensive antique armchair from the corner of the guest room they’d set up house in.  Alex sat down, hanging a leg over one of the arms.  He ran a hand slowly down his chest, pinching a nipple on his way down and biting his lip at the sensation.  Thomas’s eyes followed his hand as it made its descent.  Alex wrapped a loose hand around his cock, lightly stroking himself back to hardness.

“If you get cum on that two hundred year old chair, I will be very upset.”

“Yeah?”  Alex asked, quirking an eyebrow, picking up pace.  “Would you punish me?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said, eyes still trained on Alex’s crotch.  “I’d make you buy me a new chair.”

“Mmmmm…” Alex hummed.  “And what if I made a mess on that one too?”

“I’d imagine we’d start collecting chairs.”

“Our guests would never sit on any of them, it would be very embarrassing.”

“Maybe we’d just keep them in a big spare room and not let anyone see them.”

“What is this discussion?”

“You tell me, you’re the one jerking off to it.”

“At your request.”

“What would you rather talk about?”  Thomas asked.  “Politics?  Stocks?  That rant you went on about monopoly?”

“Why would you mention monopoly?  Do you want to kill my boner?”

“No,” Thomas readjusted himself on the bed, at least as much as he was able to, restrained as he was.  “I want you to play with your balls.”

Alex slid a hand down between his legs, cupping his sack as he continued stroking himself.  The easy pleasure was starting to build up to something more urgent.  His eyes roamed down his boyfriend’s body to his cock, thick and hard and proud, weeping at the tip and so, so goddamned beautiful.

“You look so hot like that,” Thomas murmured.  “Why haven’t we done this sooner?”

Alex’s ability to talk was becoming somewhat compromised.  He just made a noncommittal groaning noise as his fist sped up, concentrating on his tip.  He gasped as he brought himself off, feeling his balls tighten under his fingers.  Hot cum ran down his hand and dripped onto the old blue velvet.

“Oops,” Alex said, out of breath.

Thomas’s gaze was still hot as he glared down at the stain.  “You had one job.”

Alex shrugged.  “Sorry.  We can probably clean it.  Besides, white and blue go well together.”

“Suck my dick, Hamilton.”

“Alright,” Alex slid out of the chair and moved over to the bed.

“I meant that as a figure of speech.”

“Oh,” Alex said, gripping the base of Thomas’s cock, positioning himself so that his lips were a hair’s width from the glistening head.  “So you don’t want a blowjob?”

Thomas shuddered Alex’s breath washed over his tip.  “Didn’t say that, either.”

Alex ran the flat of his tongue from Thomas’s base up to his tip, ending the lick with a playful flick of his tongue.  “Mmmm, but what kind of blowjob do you want?  I need you to tell me what to do, remember?”

Thomas’s eyes were heavily lidded.  “Do that thing where you concentrate on the tip and do the thing with the… thing…”

Alex quirked an eyebrow.  “Not very descriptive.  Do you mean this?”

Alex did the thing with the thing.

Thomas’s hips jerked off the bed.  “Yeah,” he gasped.

Alex smirked, pressing a fond little kiss to the head of Thomas’s cock.  “Good thing you’re dating a genius.”

“Suck my balls, genius,” Thomas said.

The genius complied, stroking Thomas as he worked his tongue over the soft skin of his balls, breathing in his scent.

Mmmmmm.

Thomas’s head fell back to the headboard with a thunk and he sighed.  “That’s it, babe.  You’re so good to me…”

Alex hummed against the skin, earning himself an appreciative moan.

Thomas directed Alex back to his cock and Alex was working his way towards deep throating his boyfriend when the phone rang.

They froze on the bed, eyes moving over to the landline that had been set up on the nightstand.  They’d ignored it the whole time they were there, like a phone in a hotel.

Alex released Thomas from his mouth.  “Should we…?”

Thomas shook his head.  “Let it ring.  Probably a telemarketer.”

They sat there, naked, Thomas’s cock wet and throbbing, Alex’s lips swollen, and waited for the ringing to end.

After a brief eternity, it did, and a generic voicemail asked for a message.

“Hi Thomas,” a middle-aged female voice came through the speaker.  “It’s Shannon.  My cleaner discovered some mold in my house earlier so I’m getting it treated.  I figured since tomorrow was Thanksgiving and you live closer to Andrew’s, I’d just swing by today and spend the night.  I was going to call you before I left but I forgot.  I’m about five minutes out.  See you soon, love you.”  The machine made a beeping sound and Thomas and Alex stared at the flashing “1” on the answering machine’s display.

“Well fuck,” Alex said.

“Uncuff me.”

“Right,” Alex said, shaking hand moving towards the keys on the nightstand.  He moved a bit too quickly and knocked them over.  There was a metallic clanging sound.

“Shit.”

“What?” Thomas asked, sitting up as much as he was able.  “What is it?”

“I wouldn’t have guessed a house this old would have vents.”

“What?”

Alex sank down to the floor and looked into the vent.  “I can see it, let me just…” he tried to remove the plate covering the vent, but it didn’t move.  “Goddammit.  Alright, I think it needs a screwdriver… there’s a work shed outside, right?”

Thomas closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  “Yeah.  Put some clothes on and see if you can find one.  And hurry.”

The doorbell rang, echoing through the house and the very depths of Alex’s soul.

Thomas’s eyes flew open.  “Goddammit goddammit fuck mother fucking shit fuck fuck fuck.”

Alex had already tugged his jeans on.  “That was most certianly not five minutes.”

“Alright,” Thomas said, “here’s what you’re going to do.  You’re going to start the shower in the bathroom attached to this room, you’re going to go downstairs and greet my aunt — with a very firm handshake because if your handshake is weak she’ll never think of you as anything other than the guy with the weak handshake — then you’re going to help her with her bags and guide her to a room far away from this one and find a way to ditch her.  Then you are going to find a fucking screwdriver.”

Alex put his shirt back on and nodded, tossing a blanket over Thomas’s bare form.  He started the shower (washing the dried cum off his fingers and smoothing his hair out when he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror) and closed the bedroom door with one last glance at his hyperventilating boyfriend.

He moved casually as he could down the steps and there she was, the legendary Aunt Shannon.

Alex had expected her to be taller, actually.  There was something about the way that Thomas talked about her that suggested she would be a giant, towering over all around her with a serene sort of power.  But then again, Thomas was something of a biased party.

The woman standing by the entrance was somewhere in her early fifties.  She was wearing impeccable clothing of obvious quality, and her posture was so good Alex instinctively straightened up to match it.  She was quite a bit shorter than Alex, even in the towering heels she wore.  Her brown hair was loose and tumbled down to her mid back in curls too regular and fashionable to be completely natural.

“Hello,” Alex said, extending a hand, “my name’s Alex Hamilton, I’m Thomas’s friend from New York.  He’s in the shower right now, but he should be down in a bit.  Would you like some help with your bag?”

Shannon — Ms. Randolph, he corrected himself — had very soft hands, but her grip was firm.  Alex gave her his firmest handshake, the one he usually reserved for meetings with investors and editors.  “Nice to meet you Alex,” she said in an easy, educated drawl that echoed Thomas’s.  “I think I can manage the bag on my own, thank you.  I used to stay in the north room, so I’ll just bring it over there.”

“Wait!”  Alex jumped in front of her.

She quirked an eyebrow.

“That’s… uh… that’s the room Thomas is using.  The south room is well furnished if you want to take that one,” he cleared his throat, attempting to train his shoulders back to a casual stance.

Ms. Randolph looked at him for a moment.  “Alright,” she said, “south room it is.  Would you mind guiding me there?  I haven’t been here in… a while,” she looked around the empty entrance hall.  “It’s changed quite a bit.”

Alex nodded, ignoring her tone of voice.  He picked up her bag before she could get back to it.  She smiled slightly at that, but made no comment.

“So,” she began as they started to climb the stairs, “how do you like Monticello?  It’s quite the manor, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Alex agreed, stomach turning as he heard the shower spray from down the hall, “I’ve never stayed somewhere so grand before.”

“Which bedroom did you choose?  The octagonal room has always been a favorite.  That’s the one visiting presidents stayed in, according to my parents.”

“Presidents stayed here?” Alex asked, dodging the question.

Ms. Randolph nodded.  “Back around the colonial era, during the early republic.  The house was built in the 1770s, right before the Revolution.  The Randolphs have been influential in this area for a while, and some members of the family got involved in politics.  This place has seen a lot of guests.”

As she made her speech, she cast sad eyes around the hall.  He wondered how everything looked to her.  Did the place seem as soulless and carved out as it did to Thomas?  Even Alex could feel the emptiness, the sense of loss and heartbreak, and beyond that, the numbness.  But from what Alex had gathered, this place had once been the finest estate in the Randolph clan.

“Right, here we are,” Alex said, opening the door to a rather sparse guest room with yellow wallpaper.  “Can I get you anything?  Tea?  Coffee?”

“No thank you, Alex,” Ms. Randolph said with a polite little smile.  “Would you be willing to show me the rest of the house, though?  Like I said, it’s been a while.”  She looked tired, he thought.  And maybe he would have offered her some comfort if he didn’t have her nephew chained to a bed a few rooms over.

“Of course!” he said with false cheer.  “Would you like to take a look at the gardens first?  There’s some green left, even though it’s November.  Take advantage of the lovely day.”

She looked out the window, where strong autumn winds were keeling some young birch trees over.  The clouds above the tree line were darkening, and Alex wondered if it was going to rain.  “I was thinking more the interior, if you don’t mind.  The parlor was quite beautiful, as I remember.”

“Right,” Alex said.  “Of course.  Just this way.”

He led her back down the stairs, the faint sound of shower spray still sending a nervous tingle down his back.

“I hope Thomas’ll be joining us soon,” Ms. Randolph said with a vaguely disapproving glance at the door.  “He always liked his long showers.”

Alex gathered from her tone that there was a very old argument there, and just gave her a friendly shrug.  “The parlor’s right through there,” he said, gesturing at the French doors.  “It’s through those doors.  If you’ll excuse me, I need to use the restroom.”

“Don’t flush unless you want Thomas to kill you,” she quipped over her shoulder.  “The water pressure here is horrible.”

“Right,” Alex said.  “I’ll just… go outside then…”

She laughed.  “Men.  The world is your toilet, isn’t it?”

Alex shrugged.  “It is one of the perks, yeah.  So…”

She waved him off, turning her attention to the only piece of artwork left on the wall.

Alex had to keep himself from breaking out in a sprint as he approached the work shed.  He flung the door open and tried the light switch, but it didn’t turn on.  He groaned and started looking through the shadow-y shelves of the shed.  Mostly, it was full of junk: broken pots, random bits of plastic, a few old hoses.  A peg board on the wall bore some saws and a crowbar, but he couldn’t see any sort of tool box.  He shuffled over to a set of drawers in the corner, sending a few empty nip bottles rolling across the old wooden floor.  He opened the darkened drawer, but couldn’t see anything. He reached into his pocket to grab his phone, but it was empty.  Of course, he thought.  His phone was probably on the nightstand next to his prone, naked boyfriend. 

“Motherfucker,” he muttered under his breath as he started feeling through the drawer.  He felt the rounded head of some nails, some twine, a length of metal… wait, was it? … No.  Scissors.  He closed the top drawer and moved down to the next one and —

“Fuck!”  he recoiled as a sharp pain tore across his finger.  “Fuck fuck fuck.”

He moved over to the window and examined his bleeding hand.  The cut didn’t look deep, so that was good.  When was the last time he got a tetanus shot?

He looked around for something to put on the cut, and saw a white rectangle tucked into a corner, which looked promising.  He pulled the first aid kit out and dressed his wound, shaky hands making the task take about twice as long as normal.  All the while his eyes were scanning the dark room.  God, Thomas must be freaking out.  He had to find something, anything… Surly this place had —

There it was.  Alex had barely wrapped the bandaid around his finger when the hand he’d just dressed reached into the dark, dusty corner and extracted a beautiful, wonderful, excellent, magnificent, life saving screwdriver. 

He pocketed the damn thing and bolted out of the stupid fucking shed.

Ms. Randolph was no where to be seen when Alex returned to the house, but he was too focused to worry about that.  He ran up the stairs, around the corner and —

Right into Ms. Randolph.

“Oh,” he said, jumping back.  “Ms. Randolph.  Exploring the north wing?”  His voice sounded high pitched even to himself, and he tried not to think about the pain in his hip where the collision had pushed the sharp metal into his thigh.

Ms. Randolph rubbed her hip.  “You can just call me Shannon, Alex.  And… is that a screwdriver in your pocket?”

Alex glanced down at his jeans, where the red handle of the screwdriver was sticking out.  “No,” he said too quickly, “I’m just happy to see you.”

His face felt cold as he realized what he’d just said, but Shannon laughed.  “Wow.  I bet you really didn’t mean to say that.”

“I really, really didn’t.”

“It was too good a set up, anyway, couldn’t really blame you.”  She looked over at Thomas’s door.

Please don’t open it, please don’t open it, please don’t open it.

“I’m… gonna go down to the library and see if a few old volumes are still there.  Thomas should be out soon, right?”

“I mean, probably.  I wouldn’t know…” he glanced around nervously.  “I just need to go fix something in my room.”

“Your room, of course.  Well, I’ll leave you to it.”  She gave him a little nod and walked away, heels clanking on the old wood.

Alex watched after her for a moment and once she was around the corner, he ducked into the room.

Thomas was right where he left him.  And he was glaring.  “‘I’m just happy to see you’?”

“You heard that, huh?”

“I am going to murder you.  Then I’m going to take your corpse to New Guinea and get a witch doctor to reanimate your dead body, then I’m going to murder you again.”

“That any way to talk to the man who’s about to free you?”

“No,” Thomas mused at the ceiling as Alex kneeled by the bed.  “That’s the way you talk to the man who dropped the keys in a motherfucking vent.”

Alex rolled his eyes and pulled out the screwdriver.  “Shit.”

“Let me guess,” Thomas said, voice crisp and prim, “the vent’s screws are Philips head, and the screwdriver you found is flat head.”

“I… I hadn’t thought to check.”

“And once I’m done murdering you in New Guinea, I’m going to take you to Area 51 and get an alien to bring you back to life, take you up in a UFO, then toss you out into space.”

“I think I can make it work.”

“Don’t strip the screws.”

“I’m not gonna strip the fucking screws.”

“That’s what people always say right before they strip the screws.”

“Where was this handy-man know-how when we had to replace that light fixture in Laf’s apartment?”

“The wires were complicated!”

“You should have hired someone!”

“I watched that YouTube tutorial, I knew how to do it!  It was just that one thing…”

“Oh for fucks sake,” Alex managed to get the screwdriver at an angle that worked and started working on of the screws out.  “There!” he said as one side came free.  He swung the vent’s cover out of the way and carefully extracted the keys.

Thomas groaned as his wrists were released from the cuffs, rubbing the raw skin in that way Alex had only ever seen in movies before.  “I’d hug you if my arms weren’t so numb.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Alex waved him away.  “Go take a shower.  Your aunt’s waiting for you.”

 

-/-

 

They moved like each other when they talked, he realized.  That was it.  The unsettling thing about watching them chat.  Never before had two people who looked so different been so obviously related.  Shannon waved her hands around as she told some story about one of the uncles… Andrew?  Or was it Charlie?  He got the feeling there was a general preference, but he was having a hard time paying enough attention to figure out which one it was.

“So, Alex,” Shannon began after the conversation died down for a bit.  “You’re originally from the Caribbean, right?”

Alex tensed slightly.  “Yes.”  He stabbed his chopsticks into his takeout box and set it aside.

“That’s so interesting, I would have never been able to tell from your accent.  You sound so American.”  She was leaning forward, chin resting on her hand like a daytime T.V. host.  If she was aware of his discomfort, she wasn’t acknowledging it.

“I grew up watching American T.V. so it came sort of naturally.  I’ve always sounded like this.”  That was a lie.

Thomas opened his mouth to say something, but Shannon already had another question.  “You moved here as a teenager, right?  But you’ve already made a name for yourself.  Forgive me,” her smile suggested she had no interest in asking for forgiveness, “I read up on you a little.  You’ve got quite the resume.  I’m glad Thomas was able to make those sorts of friends.”

“Thanks, Aunt Shannon, good to know you’re still watching out for me,” Thomas said, sarcasm dripping from each word.

She shot him a smile just a touch too self-aware to be called ‘innocent.’  “What are helicopter aunts for?”

Thomas rolled his eyes, but looked over at Alex.  You okay?

Alex shrugged.  Fine.

Shannon smiled down into her lo mein.  Alex gnawed his lip.  He wasn’t completely sure if she knew Thomas’s secret.  But she certainly knew something. 

He looked over at his boyfriend.  The question now was, did he know she knew?

Shannon steered the topic to calmer waters with the practiced hand of someone from old money, and Alex went along.  She poked and prodded Alex about work, and he couldn’t help feeling he was being sized up for something.

But whatever, he brushed it off.  She was friendly enough.  Alex figured they would probably be good friends, given time and openness.

He wondered whether he was going to get either of those things.

Eventually they went to bed for the night (Alex had managed to sneak a bag into another guest room at one point in the evening), and Alex and Thomas texted each other from their rooms until eventually Alex passed out.  When he woke on Thanksgiving morning and opened his phone, it still had the last message from the previous evening up: Good night.  I love you.

 

-/-

 

Andrew Randolph’s house was massive.  Bigger than Monticello, even.  It sprawled in every direction and overall gave off the impression of a camper encountering a bear and trying to make himself look big.  Thomas and Shannon, chatting in the front of Thomas’s stupid car, didn’t seem fazed by the freakish mansion they approached.  Alex wondered whether, if he spent enough time in their world, he would eventually get used to being around houses like that.  He wondered if he wanted to be used to houses like that.

They parked and Alex was ushered into the gigantic building.  A glass of wine found its way into his hand and before he knew it Thomas was introducing him to a middle-aged man with shallow-looking blue eyes and a woman clearly at least fifteen years his junior.

“Alex, this is my Uncle Andrew and my Aunt Mia,” Thomas was at least two paces away from Alex, his body language reserved and so very intentionally heterosexual looking Alex had to bite his lip.

Alex said something polite and they responded with pleasantries so generic Alex wouldn’t have been able to repeat them a minute later if asked.

He was then ushered over to a balding, pudgy man and a woman holding a tiny dog.  Thomas listed off their names (Charlie and… Rachel?  He wasn’t really paying attention) and Alex stared at the dog in her arms.  He’d always thought the rich-ladies-and-tiny-dogs thing was a myth, but maybe there was some truth to it.  And fucking hell, were those diamonds on the collar?

Necessary introductions over, Thomas guided Alex over to a side room, where three younger people were crowded on a couch.  A tall-ish guy with cropped sandy brown hair was trying to set up an X-box.  On one side of him was a tiny girl with a brown braid on her phone.  And on the other side —

“Alex!”  Emma exclaimed, setting her phone down on the coffee table.  “How good to see you again!”

Aw fuck, we’re doing this, Alex thought as he was brought into a hug that smelled like perfume and moisturizer.  “Nice to see you, too,” he lied.

Thomas introduced Alex to his cousins, and Alex finally got to put faces to the names Michelle and Brandon.  They were briefly, politely interested in him, but he managed to fade into the background quickly, which suited him just fine.

Michelle made some effort to maintain a conversation with him, but their complete lack of mutual interests became immediately apparent and they found themselves talking about temperature differences between New York and Virginia as Brandon worked his way through a maze of log in screens.

“Why don’t you just give up?”  Emma asked him after his fifth attempt failed.  “Obviously it isn’t working.”

“I want to get it done,” Brandon said, eyes focused on the screen.  “I want to get it done before I go back to California.”

“Just get a later flight.”

Brandon glared at Emma, and Thomas, who was sitting somewhat separate from them, raised an eyebrow.

“So Alex,” Michelle began nervously.  “Are you sad to be missing the parade?”

“Hmmm?”

“The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  When I was a kid I watched it every Thanksgiving on T.V.  I’ve always wanted to see the real thing.”

“Oh… I’ve never actually been to it.  Not sure too many New Yorkers actually go.”

“Alex thinks tourist things are beneath him,” Thomas said with a smirk.

“Not beneath me.”  Alex shot Thomas some side-eye.  “It’s just never really something I think to do.  I’m never really in that area anyway.”

“Oh,” Michelle said.  And she appeared to be out of things to say, so the conversation dropped.

Eventually Thomas and Alex managed to detangle themselves from the cousins.  “Here,” Thomas said, pulling him into the hallway, “let me show you around.”

“You just don’t want to hang out with your cousins.”

Thomas smiled.  “Over here, we have the library, which originally contained John Randolph’s collection of over 6,000 volumes, an incredible collection for the time…”

Alex rolled his eyes but accepted their move into the mansion’s old library quite easily.  The presence of old leatherbound tomes was much more comforting than that of Thomas’s childhood tormentors.  He walked along a shelf and ran his fingers from spine to spine, picking up a book at random.

It was an old guide to various local wildflowers, Alex smiled to himself as he flipped through the color plates, which bore beautiful and elaborate illustrations.

He could feel Thomas come around to stand near him — but not too near — and he sighed.  “This is so strange,” he murmured.

“I know, but thank you for playing along.”

“Of course.” 

Thomas smiled down at Alex, who was admiring the way the glow from the window cast light on the features of his boyfriend’s face.  All he wanted to do in that moment was kiss him.

“Ah,” came Shannon’s voice from the doorway, “there you are.”

They straightened up.

“Aunt Shannon,” Thomas said smoothly, stepping towards her and very definitively away from Alex, “already done with the family?”

Shannon closed the library door behind herself and sank down onto an old leather chair in the corner.  “Says the man who took his friend — the first outside guest we’ve had in years — away from the rest of us and to a room full of dusty old books.”

“He’s my guest, I can do what I want with him,” Thomas joked, leaning against an old desk.

“Mmmm,” she took a sip of her wine, “fairly sure that’s not the attitude I raised you with.”

“Well, it’s the one I ended up with.  Therefore it must be your fault.”

“Can’t fault that logic, can I?  Well, Mia has moved to the kitchen, which means we will all be subjected to a Thanksgiving dinner soon.”

“You two are really selling this dinner,” Alex said, “should I be thanking you for bringing me or blaming you?”

Shannon’s smile was equal parts mysterious, friendly, and sarcastic and so, so like Thomas’s.

“The food will be delicious because it’ll be made by a professional.  Mia gave up on cooking it years ago.  The company, however… well, you’re from the Caribbean, I’m sure you’re used to swimming with sharks.”

“Something I managed to avoid my whole childhood, actually,” Alex mused.  “Though I get your point.  Any reason they’ve sniffed blood in the water?”

Shannon shrugged.  “You’re new, and we’ve been having the same conversation for about fifteen years now.  Everyone is going to want to chat with you and hear stories about your life.  I hope you like being the center of attention.”

“Oh, he does,” Thomas said.

Alex fought the urge to flip him off.

 

-/-

 

Alex was the center of attention, for a while.

They were seated around a massive dining room table, crowded close together in their antique chairs.  Elaborate, spectacularly beautiful dishes that appeared to be creative interpretations of traditional Thanksgiving fare were heaped on serving dishes passed awkwardly from person to person.  Large floral arrangements placed at the center of the table prevented Alex from being able to see most of the Randolphs, but questions were still lobbed at him from surprising distances.  Questions about New York and his jobs and writing.  When someone managed to figure out that he was from Nevis, the questions were about the Caribbean and what he thought about America generally and Virginia particularly.  Alex barely managed to get five bites of the meal for the first half of the dinner.  Which was a real pity, because the food was amazing.

Alex was halfway through trying to explain the linguistic differences between Caribbean French and the French Michelle learned in Paris over a sunflower when Brandon stood up.

He rapt a butter knife (which, Alex noted, still had butter on it — a large spec of it went flying onto a nearby dish of cranberry sauce) against his water glass.  “Can I have everyone’s attention?”

The conversation died down and everyone looked over at Brandon, whose face was red and whose hand was shaking on the glass.  He set it down.

“I need to leave soon to catch my flight, but I have something I want to tell everyone first.”  He took a deep breath.  “I’m gay.”

The table was silent.  Alex looked around at the faces he could see.  Brandon’s father’s face was as bright as the likely genetically modified flower jutting out of a vase near him.  Emma looked horrified, eyes darting around the table as quickly as Alex’s were.  Thomas’s jaw was hanging open.

Shannon looked like she was going to say something, but Andrew (that was Brandon’s father’s name, Alex thought, Andrew), stood suddenly, chair falling back behind him, the sound of wood hitting marble echoing through the massive hall.  “Brandon, a word,” he said, jutting his head curtly towards the door.

Brandon looked like he’d rather take a hot poker to his eyes than follow his father into the other room, but he trailed after him dutifully, eyes cast down.  Andrew’s wife scrambled after them, and Emma, who cast one last confused look at the table, followed her.

A slamming door and the vague muffle of raised voices came almost immediately after, and the people left in the dining room were left to their shocked silence.

Shannon was glaring at her plate, but after she heard another slamming door she stood up with an aggravated groan, heels clinking briskly against the floor as she left.

The raised voices got louder.

Eventually Thomas got up from the table as well, heading towards a room in the opposite direction.  Alex followed him.

Thomas went up the stairs and into a side room, Alex went after him and closed the door.  It was a guest bedroom, from the looks of it, though it appeared to be unoccupied.  Thomas sat down on the bed, hands clenched in front of himself.

“Are you… okay?”  Alex asked.

Thomas rolled his shoulders.  “Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked, voice tense.  “Nothing’s happened to me.”

“Thomas—”

He raised a hand.  “Don’t, please.  Just… don’t.”

Alex nodded, taking a chair in the corner.  They could still hear the muffled shouts from downstairs.  Alex gnawed at his lip as the minutes passed by, occasionally glancing over at his boyfriend.  Thomas’s breaths were loud, long, and deliberate.  Eventually Alex took his phone out and responded to a few comments on his blog, though he kept stealing glances over at Thomas.  Should he go over and comfort him?  That didn’t feel like a good idea.

After a brief eternity (about twenty minutes, according to Alex’s phone’s clock), the screaming died down.  A few more moments, and Alex could hear a car starting outside.

Thomas glanced at the window behind the bed.  “Brandon’s leaving.”

“Should we go downstairs, do you think?”  Alex asked.  “If only to keep up appearances.  If you’re this upset… they might suspect something.”

Thomas’s winced.  “You’re right.”  He stood up.  “Let’s… let’s go.”

Downstairs, Shannon was speaking quietly with Charlie, his wife, and Michelle.  They looked up when they heard them coming down the stairs.

“Ah,” Shannon said.  “There you are.  Thanksgiving is sort of… over.  The cook’s packing everything up so we’ll still have some food, we’ll just have it later.  Andrew’s having a hard time and asked for some time alone, so…”

Charlie sighed.  “Brandon couldn’t have chosen a better time for this?”

“What better time was there?  He even had his escape planned out.”

Charlie shot a pained look towards the window.  “I’m just glad Emma went with him.  She’ll keep him from doing something stupid.”

“And Mia should keep Andrew from doing something stupid,” Rachel said.

“I’m sorry about this mess, Alex,” Shannon said.  “Today was… unique.”

Charlie nodded, eyes trained on the floor.

A small woman popped her head out from the dining room.  “Excuse me?  I’ve got the food packaged up.”

Shannon’s shoulders relaxed a little.  “Thank you, Mary.  I guess we’ll be on our way, then.”

As Thomas and Alex went to follow Shannon, Michelle stopped Alex.  “Emma left me something to give to you,” she said.  “Here.”  Then she scurried away.

She handed him a small pieced of folded up notebook paper.  He unwrapped it slowly, the rest of the crowd stepping towards the dining room except Thomas, who still seemed sort of out of it and stared blankly down at Alex’s hands.  The paper wasn’t a note, it was a makeshift envelope.  Inside was a check for $75,000.  In the memo field were the words, “I’m sorry.”

 

-/-

 

They had taken Shannon’s car to Andrew’s house, and the drive back was that painful, soul-scraping sort of silent, until she spoke.

“So,” she said, knuckles white on the steering wheel, “I’m sure you both want to know what happened.”

Neither of them responded.

“Andrew was upset, as you can imagine,” she continued.  “He was mad at Brandon for causing a scene, and he was confused.  He… he didn’t really understand how Brandon could be gay.  He asked if it was something he’d done.”

Alex could see Thomas’s fist clench on the arm rest of the front seat.

“He wanted Brandon out of the house.  He started chewing him out.  So I told Brandon he was welcome at my house anytime.  I tried to diffuse the situation, but I made it clear that no one would be excluded from this family because of their sexual orientation, at which point Andrew started yelling at me for not minding my own business…”

“How long have you known?”  Thomas interrupted.

“About Brandon?”

“No,” Thomas said, turning to face her, expression unreadable.  “About me.”

Alex’s eyes widened, but he didn’t say anything.

Shannon paused.  “A while.  I wanted you to tell me when you were ready, but I didn’t know if you’d ever be ready.”

Thomas laughed without humor and turned to look out the window again.  He was curled up in on himself like a teenager at the back of a school bus, the effect made all the more ridiculous by the fact that he was a six foot two man.

“Should I have said something earlier?”  Shannon asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Okay.”

The conversation fell and Alex stared out the window.  The countryside flew by in seasonally appropriate grays and blacks, the white of an overcast sky bleeding into bleak fog.  Part of him felt like they’d forgotten he was there.  He didn’t think he minded.

Shannon pulled up to Monticello and they filed out of the car. 

“Don’t forget to put these in the fridge,” she said, handing him a bag of leftovers.

“Thank you,” he muttered at the ground.  He walked into the house.

Shannon sighed.  “Keep an eye on him, okay?  When he gets like this he can be—”

“Insufferable?”  Alex offered.

Shannon smiled.  “Yeah, that.  You’re his boyfriend, right?”

Aw, fuck it.  Alex nodded.  “Yeah, though you weren’t supposed to know that.”

Shannon shrugged.  “Sorry.  I’m going to go collect my things.  I’m guessing he doesn’t want me around just now.”

“I’ll help you.”

She didn’t protest, and soon they had her things back in her bag, and her bag in her trunk.

“Thank you, Alex,” she said, climbing into her car.  “It really was nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” he said, waving as she drove off.

Finding Thomas afterwords didn’t take long.  He just had to follow the sound of things breaking.

Thomas had set himself up in the back yard, and was in the process of knocking China tea cups off a patio table with a baseball bat.

“Where did you get the bat?”  Alex asked, sitting on the porch steps.

Thomas glanced over his shoulder.  “The garden shed.”  Then he swung the bat into another tea cup.

“Alright,” Alex said after a moment.  “Can you tell me know why you’re so fucking pissed about this?  Isn’t this what you wanted?  Shannon knows and she’s fine with it.”

“This is not what I wanted!”  Thomas shouted, swinging the bat up and bringing it down on the table from above.  “She wasn’t… it… I was supposed to be the one who told her.  And Brandon?  Brandon!”  He hit the last tea cup on the table.

“You’re mad at Brandon?”

Thomas tossed the bat aside.  “If I said yes, would that make me an asshole?”

Alex shrugged.  “A bit.”

Thomas sank down onto the seat.  “It doesn’t make any sense.  How the fuck can he be gay?  How did I not notice?  And now, what, am I supposed to feel bad for the fucker?  Do I need to call him tonight and tell him he isn’t the only one?  Goddammit.”  He kicked a piece of stray porcelain, kicking up dirt and grass as he did so.

“You don’t have to do anything,” Alex said.

“Eventually he’ll know.  Eventually he’ll find out and he’ll know that while his father was threatening to disown him, I was sitting three rooms over, doing absolutely fucking nothing.  Jesus Christ, I’m such a fucking coward.”  He sat up and grabbed a stray saucer, chucking it at a nearby column.  It smashed with a loud sound.

“In all fairness,” Alex said, “if you’d’ve just stood up and said ‘I’m gay too,’ I’m not sure that would have helped much.”

“I don’t know,” Thomas said.  He took a deep breath and turned to Alex with a slightly forced looking smile.  “Maybe we all could have done it.  Emma and Michelle could have said they were lesbians, it would have been a Spartacus thing or something.”

Alex laughed.  “Not sure Emma would have been game, did you see her face?”

He nodded.  “She did not see that coming.  I mean, none of us did.  And the check.”

“The check,” Alex agreed.  It was folded up in his pocket.  He was still trying to figure out how he felt about it, though in his mind he’d already worked the money back into his portfolio.  “And as for noticing, not at all?  With Brandon, I mean.  That isn’t usually the sort of thing that just comes out of no where.”

Thomas shook his head.  “I never saw it.  And if I didn’t…”

“Yeah…” Alex agreed.  “That is strange.  But I can’t see him lying about it.”

Thomas shook his head.  “No.  Jesus, how could I not have noticed?”

Alex shrugged.  “He probably didn’t notice you were either.  You didn’t seem to be particularly close.”

“No,” Thomas said with a rueful laugh.  “We definitely weren’t close.”

“He was a dick to you when you were kids, right?  As far as I’m concerned, you don’t owe him shit.”

Thomas pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Maybe.  I think I need some time alone, just for a bit.  Alright?”

“Yeah,” Alex said, standing, “Alright.”

 

-/-

 

It had started raining at some point, Alex noticed.  Barely noticed.  His eyes had been trained on his laptop for the last several hours, hacking away at the various projects, tasks, and obligations he’d been neglecting since he’d arrived in Virginia.

Thomas was… somewhere.  Big as the house was, Alex had always been able to sense his presence, like that weird hyperawareness you have of the thing you were going to grab or the area where you had to do some task.

Then he heard the banging of pots and pans, and he smiled to himself.

A little while later, Thomas poked his head into the doorway.  “Dinner.”

He led Alex to the dining room, where the Thanksgiving leftovers had been set out on the China he hadn’t broken.  Two intimate places were set at the end of the grand table, flickering candles casting them in a gentle glow.

Thomas pulled the chair out for Alex, and Alex rolled his eyes but was smiling when he sat in it.  “Such a gentleman.”

“Aunt Shannon raised me right, what can I say?”

The food really was excellent, even after being stuffed in tupperware and reheated.  Alex hadn’t been able to eat earlier, so he was absolutely ravenous as he devoured the meal.

“I was curious, what did you do for Thanksgiving in the past?  It’s an American holiday, so I can’t imagine you celebrated it in Nevis.”

“Nope,” Alex agreed, sipping his wine.  “Usually someone took pity on me and invited me to their family thing.  Or I managed to avoid it all together.  It’s sorta a fucked up holiday, when you think about it.  This sterilized little story celebrating the start of a genocide.”

“Yeah,” Thomas agreed.  “But the idea of the holiday is sort of solid, a day dedicated to gratitude.  Reflecting on the last year—”

“Gorging yourself while millions of people in this country go hungry.”

“Yeah, well that’s just American.  Other important components of our day of thanks are football and a parade hosted by a department store.”

“Capitalism, food waste, and concussions.  This is the country I’ve come to call my own.”  Alex shook his head.  “But the gratitude thing is nice, I guess.  Trying to keep people humble.”

“Or at least telling them not to complain.”

“That too.  I don’t know, what are you grateful for?”

Thomas raised his eyebrow at Alex’s sarcastic emphasis.  “I’m thankful that my aunt isn’t going to disown me because I like cock, I’m grateful that I’m rich again but thanks to my cheap—”

“Frugal.”

“Cheap-ass boyfriend, I don’t need to be rich anymore.  I’m grateful for the fact that Aunt Mia finally admitted to herself she couldn’t cook and hired someone to make this…” he looked down at his plate, “mashed potatoes with garlic and crushed… what are those?”

“I was hoping you knew,” Alex said.

“Crushed whatevers.  I’m grateful for Laf for being amazing and for all our friends.  I’m grateful that James is moving to New York.”  They locked eyes over a candle.  “I’m grateful for you.”

Alex felt a flush coming to his cheeks, which was stupid, so he said, “now you’re just getting corny.”Thomas flicked a chunk of bourge-y stuffing at him.

Alex laughed, retaliating with a piece of turkey aimed at Thomas’s eye.  Thomas came back with an underhanded shot of green beans to the jaw.  Alex dipped his hand into the bowl of mashed potatoes and was about to bring it down on his boyfriend’s head when Thomas grabbed his wrist.

“Don’t.  You.  Dare.”

But Alex pressed down anyway and Thomas moved against him and they were crashing down to the floor.

They giggled like school boys as they tried to wrestle each other into submission, but the quickly just turned into making out on the carpet.  Somehow Alex had ended up on top, and he hovered over Thomas, who was looking particularly beautiful in the candlelight despite the glob of mashed potatoes that had gotten into his hair.

“Thank you,” Alex whispered, “for loving me.”

Thomas smiled slowly.  “Who’s corny now?”

“Fuck off.”

And then they were kissing again.

 

Notes:

Comments are to me what sanitizing history is to the United States of America.

Chapter 19: Thomas Goes Home

Notes:

Hello hello!

Can't actually think of any warnings for this chapter, aside maybe from cheesiness and an inordinate amount of it taking place in New Jersey.

Thomas really fucking didn’t want to do it.

But Alex was sitting nearby and making encouraging gestures and he felt sort of stupid just holding his phone up like some anthropologist who’d never seen one before so he just hit the goddamned green call button.

It rang twice.

“Thomas?”  Brandon’s voice sounded distorted through the line.  Had Thomas ever actually called him before?

“Uh, hi.  How… how are you?”  He flinched at his own words, even though they were more or less in line with the list of bullet points he and Alex had jotted down on the notebook in front of him.

“I’m fine, Thomas.  I’m actually sort of busy, so I can’t talk long.  Is everything okay back home?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said, “it’s fine, I just wanted to talk to you after… after what happened.  I know things are sort of—”

“Shitty.”

“Shitty,” Thomas conceded, “with your dad, I just wanted to check in on you and see how you were doing and also tell you something…”

“I’m doing okay.  Look, I really—“

“You were really brave,” Thomas cut in, “doing what you did.  It… I was impressed.”

“Thanks.”

“And…”

“Look, Thomas, I really don’t have much time so if you’re just calling to make yourself feel better or something, save it.  I know you’re probably weirded out or some shit and honestly I don’t care.  This is who I am, and it took me a really long time to get here so if you’re gonna be a homophobic piece of shit save it.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake.  Brandon I’m gay.”

“What?”

“I’m gay,” Thomas said, tossing up the hand not holding the phone to his ear.  “I’m queer.  I like boys.  I like cock.  I’m a fucking flamer.  And this whole time I thought you were a homophobic piece of shit who was gonna kick my gay ass the second you learned about me.  So, yeah, Brandon, I am actually fucking proud of you and I didn’t want to be because you’ve been a prick since we were kids but I had to admire you and had to tell you you aren’t the only one.  So there.”

“Are you serious?”

Thomas rolled his eyes.  “No, Brandon, this is all some elaborate practical joke.  I’ve got Michelle giggling in the corner right here — of course I’m serious!”

“I’ve got to go.”

And then the line cut out.

Thomas tossed his phone on a nearby chair.  “That went well.”

Alex was curled in on himself like a cat, gnawing at his lip.  “What happened?”

“He just sort of… hung up.”

“Ah.  Well, at least you did it.  Ball’s in his court now.”

“I know,” Thomas said, sinking onto the couch beside Alex.  “That’s the problem.  I hate the idea of him having the ball.”

“Yeah… that makes sense,”  Alex ran a hand along Thomas’s arm.  “You want to talk about it?”

At that moment, Thomas felt like his head was full of cotton.  “No, I’m getting sort of tired of all of this talking, to be honest.”

“Wow, never thought I’d live to see the day where Thomas Jefferson didn’t want to hear his own voice.”

Alex laughed as he ducked the balled up notebook paper Thomas lobbed at his head.

 

-/-

 

“I can’t believe I actually agreed to this,” Thomas said, shaking his head as he flipped through the PowerPoint.

Alex smirked.  “But you did.  Have you finished your bit?”

“Yeah,” Thomas said, holding up the essay he’d written to accompany the presentation.  “Mind you, every word felt like pulling out a tooth.”

“It is painful realizing I’m so much smarter than you, isn’t it?”

Thomas side-eyed him.  “Uh huh.  This all doesn’t matter anyway,” he said, looking at the calendar, “I’ve missed three classes, as of yesterday.  No matter what we get on the project, I’m failing the class.”

“About that…”

“What?”

“I pulled some strings with Washington, told him about your special case… he’s willing to make an exception, for you.”

Thomas blinked.  “Washington, famous for making no exceptions to fucking anyone, Washington, is willing to make an exception for me, because you asked?”

Alex gave him a self conscious little shrug.  “He offered me a position as an intern because he’s about to do a specific type of research I’d be very useful for… so I said I would if he let you off the hook since, you know, your fucking mom died.  It’s a stupid policy anyway,” he muttered to the table.

Thomas nearly knocked his laptop off the table in his rush to get to Alex, who let out a little yelp as Thomas swept him up in his arms and started kissing him all over his face, lips, and neck.  “You’re amazing.  Thank you.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Alex said, looking away.  “It was nothing.  I had a lot of leverage, since he needed a specific skill set.  Apparently it’s hard to find a twenty-two year old who’s fluent in French, has several years of experience with accounting and finance, and can write at a rate of 5,000 words an hour.”

Thomas frowned.  “What the fuck is the research for?”

Alex smiled.  “A very special project.  Don’t worry about it.  Either way, you now no longer have an excuse to botch the project.”

“I wasn’t going to botch it,” Thomas said.  “I take the bet very seriously.  I lost fair and square and now I must deal with the consequences.”

“You sound like you’re going to the gallows.”

“My academic reputation is.”

Alex rolled his eyes.  “If we’re done, we can just submit it now and rip the bandaid off.  Then I can give you a consolatory blowjob and it’ll all be better.”

“You think my silence can be bought with a blowjob?  Good sir, I am scandalized.”

“Alright,” Alex said, looking over the top of his laptop.  “What would buy your silence?”

“Nothing,” Thomas replied primly.

Alex made a dramatic eye roll, then typed away furiously at his old laptop and closed it.  “It’s done.”

He took Thomas’s hand as he left the room, moving up the stairs towards the bedroom.  “What’re we doing now?”

Alex gave him a wicked look.  “I want to see what it’ll actually take to shut you up.”

 

-/-

 

Thomas had been standing in front of that door for nearly a minute.  He’d had his hand poised and ready to knock for nearly half a minute.

There’d been a time when Aunt Shannon’s house had been home, but now the familiar door was foreboding as the ruins of the medieval castles he’d visited in France.  Yet another conversation he felt too tired to have.

Aunt Shannon wasn’t mad at him, he just needed to put on his big boy panties and fucking deal with the situation.  Apologize for being a little shit on Thanksgiving, tell her he was heading back to New York the next day. 

Say goodbye.

Right when he’d gotten up enough nerve to knock, the door opened.

“Thomas,” Aunt Shannon said, cocking an eyebrow at the fist he still had raised in the knocking position.  “How are you?  I have one of those little camera thingies on my phone,” she said, holding up her cell phone as some sort of visual aid.  “Siri told me you were here.”

“Right,” Thomas said, letting his hand drop.  “I remember telling you to get one.”  He cleared his throat.  “I’m here to apologize for Thanksgiving.  I know I was being… difficult.  I just… it wasn’t an easy thing for me to handle, any of it.”

Aunt Shannon smiled a little and nodded.  “I understand.  And I appreciate the apology.  I’m sorry I never discussed things with you sooner, though I don’t know if that would have made things better.”

“I don’t either,” Thomas said, throat tight.

She sighed and leaned against the doorframe.  “Care to go for a walk?”

 

-/-

 

  “So how did you know?”  Thomas asked, eyes trained on the walkway that ran through Aunt Shannon’s gardens.

“I’d suspected it since you were fairly young, to tell the truth.  Just little hints here and there — how you looked at boys versus girls when we went out shopping, stuff like that.  As you got older it was obvious you were keeping a secret.  Then the way you acted around Alex sort of confirmed it.  I didn’t know know until you asked me how long I’d known about you, I was just about 80% sure.”

Thomas laughed once without humor.  “So if I’d just kept my mouth shut, you still wouldn’t know.”

She looked at him.  “Would you have preferred that?”

“No.  I just wish it wasn’t confirmed in that context,” Thomas said, eyeing a rosebush.  Red rose hips stood out like drops of blood on the otherwise bare, thorny branches.

“Yeah,” Aunt Shannon said, “I understand.  But I meant what I said.  I don’t have a problem with it.  I’m glad you’ve found someone.  Alex seems lovely.”

“He is,” Thomas said quietly.

“Where is he, by the way?”

“He’s at home, working on some stuff.  I wanted to talk to you alone for a bit.  And to tell you we’re leaving for New York tomorrow.”

Aunt Shannon nodded.  “I’ll be sad to see you gone, but I understand.  So you’ve pretty much wrapped things up in the house?”

“Kind of,” Thomas said, a small stab of anxiety undercutting the moment.  “There’s still stuff I need to do.  I haven’t touched my old room at all.  I… I need to see to that.  Figure out what to do with the old place.”

“Maybe,” Aunt Shannon said with a kind little smile, “but you can take care of that later.  You’re going to have to make a lot of decisions about Monticello, Thomas, but you don’t have to make them all now.  The house isn’t going anywhere.”

Thomas sighed.  “I know, I just…” I want it all to be over.

The conversation fell to silence for a moment, the only sound the crunching of gravel under their boots. 

“So,” Aunt Shannon began with the uncertain tone she almost exclusively used when talking about his mother, “have you opened the journal yet?”

“No,” Thomas said.  “It’s in my bag.  I’ve been trying not to think of it.”

She nodded, though he could still see the disappointed look on her face.  He knew most other people would have finished the thing by then.  He knew in most situations he would have finished it by then, but he couldn’t bring himself to touch the thing.  He still felt aware of its presence — radioactive, toxic, maybe haunted — even miles away from it.  A few nights ago, he’d even considered burning it.

“I’m sorry she didn’t write one for you,” he lied, because maybe that was the thing he was supposed to say. 

She smiled ruefully down at a collection of yellow stalks that had likely been flowers months before.  “She didn’t like me much, honestly.  I think she thought of me as just another family member who didn’t want to have to deal with her… and maybe she was right.  I just wish I’d found her sooner, spoken to her sooner.  I never wanted to think about her, really.  Knowing there wasn’t much I could do to help her… I just convinced myself she didn’t want me or my help.  I’m not sure that was true.”

Thomas bit his lip.  “I’m not sure either.”

“Are you mad at me?” she asked after a moment.  “For not doing more to reach out to her?”

She’d stopped walking.  Thomas’s eyes were trained on the ground when he responded.  “I don’t know.  I try to figure out how I feel and it’s all just a mess.  I’m just tired all the time and I want to go back to New York.”

She nodded.  “I understand.”

They walked a little longer in silence, and Thomas tried to calm his pounding heart in the quiet.

 

-/-

 

“Sure you have everything?”  Thomas asked.

“Yes,” Alex said, rolling his eyes.  “And I was sure the last five times you asked.  Can we go now?”

He was leaning against Thomas’s car, arms crossed.

“Yeah, yeah, fine.”  He locked the door to Monticello.

Alex muttered something that sounded like, “finally,” and got into the car.

Thomas cast one last look at the gigantic house that was his and climbed into the driver’s side, taking a deep breath.

“So you’ve never been on a road trip before?” he asked for what he guessed was also the fifth time.

“No,” Alex said, taking a sip from his massive coffee thermos.  “Should I be nervous?”

“Nah,” Thomas said, starting his car.  “It’s just six hours.”

“Just six hours,” Alex shuddered.  “God, I hope we don’t kill each other by the end.  It would be such a let down.”

“I’m sure we can make it,” Thomas said as he started down the driveway.”  He cast one absolutley final look in the rearview mirror then turned onto the road.  “If this relationship could survive your two A.M. Showers, it can survive six hours in a car.”

“I like taking showers in the middle of the night,” Alex snipped.  “It’s when I get all my best ideas.”

“What, singing Les Mis as loud as your little heart allows gives you the best ideas?  How does that work?”

“It makes me feel powerful and revolutionary.”

“It makes you sound like a dying pigeon.”

“Better than sounding like a dying duck, like you do when you sing Disney songs in the shower.”

“My Elsa impression is on point and you’re just jealous.”

“Yeah,” Alex muttered.  “Jealousy, that’s it exactly.”

Thomas chuckled.  “So is there anything in particular you want to visit while we drive?  D.C.?  Roadside attractions?”

“What roadside attractions?”

“Between any two U.S. Cities there should be a few roadside things built to get people to come to various tiny little towns.  Usually the world’s largest something.  Like the world’s largest tape ball, the world’s largest dinosaur statue, something like that.”

“That sounds really stupid,” Alex said, looking interested.

“That’s sorta the point.”

And so, having managed to not kill each other for five and a half hours, they were standing at the foot of a giant fake elephant.

“You know,” Alex said, looking up at the stupid thing.  “I never would have thought to call an elephant Lucy, but it sort of works.”

Thomas hummed in agreement.  “I can’t believe we paid to climb inside that thing.”

Alex laughed.  “Anything to cut up the drive through New Jersey.”  That had been the logic behind the trip to the ocean.  “C’mon,” he said, pulling Thomas by his shirt sleeve.  “I think the tour’s starting.”

They hung back, behind the small crowd of children and tired-looking parents. 

“It’s a fucking house,” Alex whispered, casting surprised looks around what Thomas figured was probably the elephant’s stomach.

“I thought you knew that,” he said.

“No,” Alex said.  “I just googled ‘roadside attractions New Jersey.’”

“Welp.”

They followed the tour group up the spiral stairs to the “saddle” on the giant elephant’s back, and Thomas smiled at the view of the ocean.  He’d missed that, while they were at Monticello.  He’d gotten so used to life on the coast. 

The tour guide started gesturing around at the buildings that could be seen from the elephant’s back, but Thomas was leaning over the railing and watching people wander around the beach.  Alex came to lean against it beside him.  “Wanna go swimming?”

“It’s November.”

“Wanna take your shoes off and wade into the water briefly then run away like a pussy?”

A nearby mother glared at them, and Thomas gave her an apologetic little smile.  “You can, if you want.  Just don’t track sand into my car.”

Alex smiled.

After the tour, they found a somewhat abandoned stretch of beach (not hard — it was November) and Thomas held Alex’s socks and shoes as he dipped his feet into the waters of the Atlantic.

“Holy fuck Jesus fucking Christ,” he said, jumping back and hopping about on the sand.  “That’s cold that’s cold that’s cold.”

“What were you expecting?”

“I don’t know,” Alex said, falling back and rubbing his feet.  “It looked so much like the beach I grew up next to I had to splash about a bit.”

Thomas looked around them.  The sky was grey and the sand was cast in a similar sad pallor.  Closed up shops lined the beach and, peeking above the rooftops, Lucy’s massive, lifeless eyes seemed to be watching them with an expression eerily similar to a middle aged man getting his first prostate exam.  “This looks like St. Croix?”

Alex smiled a little, dusting the sand off his feet and accepting his shoes back from Thomas.  “Not quite, but enough.”

“Do you ever want to go back there?”  Thomas asked, sitting beside him on the sand.

“Sometimes,” Alex said.  “But not really.  I’m not sure who I’d visit.  Most of the people I knew there are dead, gone, or hate me.”  He looked out at the ocean.  “But I do miss swimming there.  It was like a huge bath tub.”

“You wouldn’t have to visit anyone, you know.  You could just come back as a tourist, or go to another island.  We could fly there sometime, if you wanted.”

He looked wistful in a way he rarely allowed himself to look wistful, eyes looking out at the Atlantic.  “That might be nice.”

Thomas would have loved to have pressed a kiss to his forehead or cheek.  But there were some other people wandering the beach and he wasn’t willing to risk it.  Not when they were having such a good day.

“We should probably go,” Alex said once his shoes were retied.  “It’s getting cold out.”

“You’re right,” Thomas said, eyeing the setting sun.  “New York’s still a ways away.”

The next stretch of driving was pleasant, if uneventful.  They chatted about random topics, which of course turned into random little debates about stupid shit.

“No way in hell would Merida beat Mulan in a fight,” Thomas asserted as he weaved his way through New Jersey traffic.  “How could you even think that?”

“She could shoot an arrow into another arrow.  That’s some Hawkeye bullshit,” Alex said.  “And a claymore has way more reach than whatever sword it was Mulan was fighting with.”

“But Mulan was a trained soldier, Merida was just a princess with a few hobbies.”

“Mulan had a few months of formal training,” Alex declared precisely and confidently as a lawyer, “before that she was a farmer’s daughter.  And it’s obvious that she never had any fighting experience before she joined the army.  Merida had been practicing archery all her life.”

“Mmmm,” Thomas hummed.  “But did she ever save China?”

“If she’d felt the need to, I’m sure she would have.  Besides, everything she did she did without access to the resources Mulan had — can you imagine Merida with gunpowder?”

“She’d blow everything up,” Thomas said.  “Which really only aids my point.  She’s a loose cannon, completely unreliable.”

“Mulan blew up a fucking mountain!”

“That was a tactical maneuver.  She defeated the Hun army with a single shot.”

Alex scoffed.  “She did not defeat the Hun army with a single shot.  She slowed it down but they still managed to get to the capital and almost kill the emperor.”

“But then Mulan defeated them.”

“With the help of her pet dragon and a fucking explosion!”

“She still won.  The question isn’t who would win in a one-on-one cage match, the question was who would win in a fight.  I mean, what are the parameters?”

“Mulan would win in hand-to-hand.  She beat Shang in hand-to-hand.  I don’t think Merida has much experience wrestling.”

“She hit Shang once and he was in the middle of a gay panic.  The man’s mind was otherwise occupied.  That isn’t really a testament to her skills as a martial artist.”

“You think a gay panic makes someone so generally distracted they don’t see a leg coming at them?  If anything, you’d think Shang would be hyperaware of her legs.”

Alex laughed.  “I did spend a lot of early puberty staring at guys’ legs.  I will give you that.”

“Same,” Thomas said.  “I remember there was a year or so where I’d be very aware that Christopher Portera had really nice legs and wasn’t quite sure why.  By the end of the year, I knew.”

Alex paused.  “Was it more of a slow realization or one day it was just like, ‘holy shit I’m gay’?”

“A little of both, I think?”  Thomas said, mind reaching back to a time he didn’t often like to remember.  It felt like the emotional equivalent of picking at a scab.  Healed enough, but not completely.  “I didn’t want it to be true for a long time.  After I accepted it, a lot of things made sense.  What about you?”

“I don’t know… realizing you’re bi is sorta weird… I don’t even remember the first time someone mentioned bisexuality to me.  For the longest time it was just sort of you’re gay or you’re straight.  I figured I was gay but I’d still think girls were really pretty and I’d want to kiss them and you know… other stuff.  It took a while for me to get comfortable with the label.  I had so much other shit going on, I didn’t want to spend that much time thinking about who exactly it was I wanted to fuck.”

“And then you met me, and it was all you could think about.”

Alex scoffed, but he was smiling.  “Fuck off.”

He reached across the center console and took the hand Thomas had resting there.

“We do say that a lot,” Thomas commented, eyes returning to the road ahead of him.

“What?”

“'Fuck off.'  It’s like our thing.”

“We don’t have a thing,” Alex said.

“We could have a thing.  Why don’t you want us to have a thing?”

“I have no problem with us having a thing, we just don’t have one.  You can’t just suddenly have a thing.”

“We could, if we wanted.  ‘Fuck off’ could be our thing.”

Alex laughed.  “Maybe fuck off will be our always.”

“See?  Told you you’d like The Fault in Our Stars.”

“It was alright.”

“You cried.”

“I had something in my eye.  You were the pussy who was sobbing into your pillow.”

“Because I have feelings you emotionally constipated little gremlin.”

“Don’t mock my disability.  Emotional constipation is a serious problem.  If I had a car I’d be able to park in the handicapped spots.”

Thomas rolled his eyes.  “Fuck off.”

Alex smiled. “Fuck off.”

 

Notes:

Comments are to me what making massive roadside attractions are to eccentric millionaires.

Chapter 20: Epilogue: Dolley Has a Holly Jolly Christmas

Notes:

Aaaaand here we are at the end! Whoo, it feels weird.

Warnings for heterosexuality and suggested wet dreams about cookies.

Dolley’s phone buzzed on her nightstand.

She let out one of what her sister usually referred to as her “dinosaur noises” as she reached over the sleeping body of one James Madison.  The dinosaur noise evolved into a dying cat noise when she read the short line of text on her screen.  Well, she thought, guess we’re waking up.

She flipped over like a whale coming up for air and let her dead weight fall on the prone form of her bedmate.

“Aaagh!”  He startled awake and Dolley moved to face him.

“Good morning, lover.”

James groaned, rubbing his eyes and blinking around, like he wasn’t quite sure how he ended up on a full bed tucked into the corner of a shitty studio apartment in Manhattan.  In all fairness, sometimes Dolley barely understood how she got there either.  She hadn’t expected to see him again until January, but he’d surprised her with a call on the 20^th, saying he was moving to New York earlier than he’d originally planned because of… leases or something… his explanation had been mumbled and vague.  When she’d told Thomas about it, he’d snorted.  “The nerd just wants to see you.”

“Morning,” the nerd said, voice husky, after a moment.  “Why the wake up call?”

“I need to go in to work.  Laf needs help with a rush order of Christmas cookies.  Again.”

“Why doesn’t he hire more bakers?  He seems to call you in a lot.”

Dolley rolled out of bed, feet hitting the floor with a thud that would likely get her in trouble with the new neighbors.  Oh, how she missed Mrs. Chen.  The old lady had practically been deaf.  Now this new couple were banging a broom against the ceiling all hours of the night.  She’d had to shove her weights to the back corner of her closet.

She tore off her tank top and kicked her panties into some obscure corner, likely to be discovered sometime around Easter.  “We’ve interviewed a few, but none of them were a good fit.”  She strolled over to the closet.  “Besides,” she said, glancing over her shoulder, “there aren’t any bakers in New York with a better ass than me.”

James, who’d quite clearly been admiring said ass, sat up in the bed.  “Didn’t know that was a job requirement.”

“It isn’t,” Dolley said, shuffling through the mass of tulle, leather, denim, silk, and suede that was her closet, “but I’ve always been of the opinion that you should never trust a skinny baker.”

“That just sounds like discrimination.”  There was a rustling in the bed and moments later, as Dolley was trying to choose between Vintage Dress A and Vintage Dress B, James’s arms wrapped around Dolley’s neck and he pressed a chaste kiss to the ticklish spot behind her ear.  “You should wear the red one,” he suggested, “that way if you get frosting on it, no one will know.”

“Sir, I will have you know that I own the largest collection of aprons on this side of the Mississippi and I am frankly offended that you believe a professional such as myself would ever allow a speck of frosting to touch my clothes.”

“Terribly sorry, ma’am,” James said, slipping back into his southern drawl, “I meant no offense.”

“Mmm,” she said, pulling out the red dress.  “I’ll let you apologize later.”

“I look forward to it,” he said in a voice that made Dolley very, very angry at Laf for calling her away from her bed.

“Speaking of later,” she said, rifling through her underwear drawer, “are you planning on going to that Christmas thingie Alex and John are hosting tonight?”

“Yeah,” James said, returning to his normal voice.  “They asked me to bring wine.”

Dolley smiled.  “They asked me to bring cookies.”

James leaned against the wall as Dolley started pulling on her clothes.  “Tell me,” he said, “at this point in the year, do you just like see floating sugar cookies in your dreams?  Do gingerbread men dance across your imagination to the tune of the Nutcracker Suite?”

“Yes,” Dolley confirmed, gesturing towards the zipper at the back of her dress.  She held her dress in place as he did it up.  “But then they begin doing highly inappropriate things to each other and I wake up and start reciting Hail Marys automatically.”

James laughed.

 

-/-

 

The bell on the door clanked merrily as Dolley walked in.  Laf had started on the Christmas music mercifully late that year, so the songstress crooning about snowy Christmases and hot chocolate and whatever other generic thing she could fit into the verse didn’t make Dolley’s soul recede into the darkness quite as much as it normally would. 

She stopped at Alex and Thomas’s usual table on her way to the kitchen.

“Morning gentlemen,” she said, unbuttoning her jacket.

They were both studying their laptops with a focused fury that could only be obtained after several cups of coffee.  Dolley noted that Laf had left a pot of it at their table, a habit he’d gotten into recently.  It was a moment before one of them even noticed her.

“Oh, hi,” Thomas said, looking up and smiling.  “I thought you had the day off.”

“Oh, yes, well… Laf had yet another cookie emergency.”

“And you aren’t going to demand compensation?  Last time you wanted his first born.”

“Ah,” she said, shrugging, “well, I figured I’m not actually that maternal anyway.”  Also Christmas was coming and she had a big family and the overtime would be helpful.  Not that she was going to tell her millionaire former coworker that.  She looked over at Alex.  “What’s he working on that’s got him so worked up?”

Alex was glaring at his computer screen, and his fingers were moving so fast against the keys that she was afraid they were going to start flying off.  She stepped a bit closer to Thomas to avoid getting hit with any potential shrapnel.

“He’s about to start an internship and the workload is crazy,” Thomas explained, gazing lovingly at his boyfriend, who Dolley distinctly remembered he’d referred to as a “stupid fucking gremlin with all the wit of a lobotomized donkey,” just a few short months ago.

She’d known they were going to end up together from the start.  Though the way they went about it was a bit of a surprise.  The truth about how Thomas and Alex awkwardly groped their way towards their relationship was revealed to her slowly, though muttered confessions in bars, sarcastic digs made at each other when they thought she wasn’t listening, and a few pointed questions at Laf while they were icing something or filling something with jelly.  She supposed she should have been mad at them for lying to her, but she found it too funny.  Those dipshits could never do things the easy way.

Lafayette poked his head out of the kitchen.  “Dolley!  My beautiful Dolley, come to save my life!  Thank you so much for coming in!”

“Don’t act too excited,” Dolley called over to him, “I haven’t listed my terms yet.”

Thomas laughed.  “Duty calls.”

“You know, any time you want to help him with the baking…”

“I did help him with the baking.  I was helping him all morning.  Then I fucked up, and that’s why you have a cookie emergency.”  He dusted some flour Dolley hadn’t noticed before off the cuff of his shirt.  “Sorry.”

“Ah,” Dolley said, pulling off her jacket and draping it over her arm.  “Well, you can explain to James how you cock blocked him this morning at the party tonight.”

He smiled a little apologetically.  “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

 

-/-

 

“Thanks for helping with the dishes,” John said, running a rag over a plate before putting it away.

“No problem,” Dolley said, rinsing out a bowl.  “It was the best way to get myself out of having to help choose the movie we were gonna watch.”

“We just told Alex and Thomas to pick a movie,” Hercules said, bringing over another stack of dirty dishes.

“Why would you do that?”  John asked, clutching the dish rag to his chest.  “Do you want to start World War Three?”

“Eh,” Dolley said, “I don’t know about that.  They’ve been suspiciously lovey-dovey since they came back from Virginia.”

John raised an eyebrow.  “Two days ago I walked in on Alex shoving a white board showing a flow chart of Thomas’s and I quote ‘logical fallacies and general moral failings’ in his face.”

“Yeah, but a month or two ago he would have leased out a billboard for that.”

John looked like he was about to argue, then considered it further and shrugged.  “Fair enough.  Though I have to say, Alex is getting a lot better.  Back when we were in school, he once bought several slots of cable commercials to call out the head of the student government for… shit, I don’t even remember.  He hired a professional filming crew and got some film majors to help him edit them.  Then he started this leaflet campaign to get him removed from his office.  It was this whole thing.”

“Yeah,” Herc said, scrapping off a plate and adding it to the pile by the sink.  “Every time you want to call Alex out on something, just remember that he’s chill now.”

“Still, you must find it somewhat unnerving that they didn’t get in a fight for the entirety of dinner.  Like from cheese and crackers to desert and coffee, nothing.”

“Yeah…” John said.  “I wonder if they can make it all the way to the end of the movie without fighting.”

“I almost don’t want them too.  It’s kinda eerie, you know?  Very Twilight Zone,” Dolley waved her soapy hands around dramatically.  “Imagine, if you will, a world where Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton can make it through a meal without a screaming match.”

Alex’s muffled voice sounded from the living room.  “You must be out of your goddamned mind if you think that It’s a Wonderful Life is better than Miracle on 34^th Street.”

“It’s a classic!” came Thomas’s equally loud reply.

“Only because it was so shitty that TV stations could get it for next to nothing and indoctrinated the American public into liking it!”

“Oh, like how 1993 indoctrinated you into thinking goatees were cool?”

“You didn’t seem to have a problem with the goatee when it was wrapped around your dick last night!”

“That’s because it was the only way to get you to shut up about the Hunger Games.”

“I still maintain that it takes place in an alternative universe where England won the Revolutionary War.  Did you read the articles I sent you?  It just makes sense!”

The muffled voices continued and the three in the kitchen just stood there, giggling.

Dolley set a dish down down on the rack, affection tugging her lips up in a small smile.  “And all is right with the world.”

Notes:

Comments are to me what sharing stories about Alex's eccentricities are to his friends.

Thank you so much to everyone who's read and commented on my story! I appreciate it so much.

Also, to answer the question no one asked me, yes, there is going to be a sequel. It's called "Supply and Demand" and I'm really excited to start working on it. It's going to take off pretty much where this story left off. I probably won't start posting chapters for a month or two because I want to have the whole thing written before I publish to try to maintain quality and pacing throughout. So, yeah, if you're interested, please subscribe or just keep an eye out.

Chapter 21: Supply and Demand

Hello,

This is just a quick update for those still interested in seeing what happens next.

I've published the first chapter of Supply and Demand (the sequel I promised like seven months ago) and hope to post a new chapter every week.

Thanks lovlies,

SeasofTrees

Notes:

Comments are to me what shots of espresso are to Alex.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of Checks and Balances Verse