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Chapter Text

Ternant will relate to you how many violent struggles I have had between duty and inclination—how much my heart was with you, while I appeared to be most actively employed here.

- John Laurens to Alexander Hamilton, 14 July 1779

John awoke to the sounds of Alex tossing and turning, whimpering in his sleep. He looked drearily to the clock on the nightstand. 2:54 AM. Sitting up and trying his best to wake himself up a bit, he tentatively reached out and shook Alex’s shoulder a bit. Sometimes that was all it took. Not tonight. 

“Lex?” John asked quietly. “Alex, wake up.”

Alex was still fast asleep, muttering something indecipherable as his body twitched and he grabbed the sheets of John’s cramped twin bed tightly. John could feel sweat leaking through the back of his shirt. 

“John,” Alexander murmured, and for a moment John thought that he had woken up, but it soon became clear that he wasn’t talking to the real John. 

“I’m right here,” he whispered, trying to wrap his hands around Alexander’s to unclench them from the sheets, but they were too tight. 

“No. No. no. John–” Alexander tossed around, John’s hands falling from his own in the process. 

John swallowed harshly, looking down at his boyfriend with worry. Alex had asked him to try and wake him up if he was having a nightmare. It usually worked. But it wasn’t working this time.

Alex was on his back now, and John reached out to shake his shoulder again. All it did was seemingly disturb the poor boy even more, as he let out a whimper and squeezed his face tightly. 

“Alexander? Please wake up,” John said, a bit more loudly this time, a lot more desperately. 

It did nothing.

The last thing he thought of, his hail-mary, was pinching his own wrist. He did it more harshly than usual, so that hopefully, Alex would feel it in the dream.

Alexander stopped moving, and for a moment, John panicked, before his boyfriend gasped loudly and sat up, breathing coming in shallow gasps. “John? How are you– where–”

“I’m right here,” John murmured. He held out his hands for Alex to take if he wanted. “I’m right here, baby.”

“You were– you–” Alexander broke into a loud sob, pulling his knees up to his chest. “How are you here?’

“What do you mean?”

“You were dead.”

John’s heart plummeted to the ground. Alexander had nightmares quite often, especially when he was stressed. John didn’t even live in the same dorm as him, but he slept over often enough to know how frequent they were. But Alex had never mentioned him being a part of his dreams. “I’m not dead, Lex. I’m right here. It was just a dream.” He placed a hand on Alex’s knee, and was relieved when he didn’t flinch away. 

Alexander slowly reached up and interlaced his fingers with John’s, squeezing tightly. His breathing was still shallow. “Can you come here?” he asked.

“Of course.” 

John scooched over and laid his back against the headboard, opening his arms and allowing Alex to crawl over. He held him tight as he shook, loud sobs escaping from his mouth. He gripped John’s biceps as if trying to prove to himself that he was real. 

“It’s okay, Lex. I’ve got you. I’m right here.”

The sun shone bright on John’s face through the curtain as he woke up the next morning. Hearing the noise of frantic typing, he rolled around to find Alexander sitting up in bed with his laptop on his lap, typing out an essay which John knew for a fact wasn’t from a class, because the term had ended three days ago. 

“Lex, why are you writing? What time is it?”

Alexander looked a little startled to see John awake. “Oh, uh–” he checked the clock on his laptop– “Seven thirty.”

“You didn’t answer my first question.”

Alex shrugged. “Woke up. It was too late to go back to sleep.”

“Dude, it’s summer. There’s no such thing as ‘too late to go back to sleep.’ 

Alexander just rolled his eyes and went back to his typing. John groaned and reached over, literally prying his hands off the keyboard.

“John…”

“Alex…”

Alex sighed. He freed his hands from John’s grasp and shut the lid of his laptop. “Fine,” he sighed. He leaned over to put his laptop on the floor next to the bed before turning back around to settle in John’s arms. “I’m… sorry about last night,” he murmured. 

“It’s okay. Do you want to talk about it?”

Alexander shrugged. 

“Alex? I’m just a little worried because– well, you’ve never mentioned dreaming about me before.”

“I never have.”

“Oh.”

They stayed like that for a while, John just searching Alex’s face for answers of any kind while the other boy looked awkwardly down at the sheets.

“Do you know why you did tonight?”

Alexander shrugged. “Maybe…” he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes it does.” John reaches out and tilts Alexander’s chin up. “What is it?”

“Well, I tend to get the dreams more when I’m stressed out, and, well, I guess I’m stressed about you.”

John felt his heart drop through his chest. His mind immediately went to his wrists. Was this it? The day that Alexander finally decided that John was too much, too painful? “I– I’m sorry,” he murmured. 

“What? Sorry for what?”

“For– for making you worried. For being so–” he looked down at his arms, at the scars that littered them.

“Oh, John, no, I didn’t mean that,” Alexander quickly grabbed his hands and placed them on his chest, holding them close. “I just meant you… going home.”

“Ah. Right.” John had been pointedly avoiding thinking about that. He hadn’t been back to South Carolina since the Christmas break, since before he met Alexander. His life was so much better now. He didn’t want to think about what might happen when he inevitably had to go back to his childhood home. The only consolation would be that he could see his siblings again. “It’s okay,” he lied. “You don’t have to worry about me. I survived eighteen years there. Three weeks won’t do me any harm.”

Alexander looked skeptical. “But you always–”

“Not anymore. I can handle myself now.”

“You’ll call me if you need to talk, yeah? If you have any urges, you tell me.”

“Of course.” In actuality, John probably wasn’t going to tell him every time. Given that would probably mean calling 24/7. It sounds pessimistic, sure, but it was true. Looking back, John honestly didn’t know how he actually lived in that house for eighteen years and lived to tell the tale. He had only been out of it for a year, but already he was growing used to the freedom. 

Luckily, John’s flight was that afternoon, and so they had time to laze around in the dorm and cuddle and watch movies all day. It was something they did often when they didn’t have too much work to do. Well, when John didn’t have too much work to do. If Alexander didn’t have any work, you could rest assured that he would find some. John felt bad about it, sometimes. Alex wrote articles for a local publication which earned him a decent amount of income for a college student. And then he went and spent it on therapy for John. Well, not all of it, but a significant amount. John’s father would never pay for such a thing, and so they had to fund it themselves. And even though Alexander told him many times that he didn’t mind one bit, John still found himself having a hard time trusting it.

He really needed to find himself a job. 

But that would be a problem for the next school year, once he was back in New York. 

The dorm had been mostly packed up, all of his clothes and things important enough he would need to take home (Laptop, sketchbook, phone charger…) were all packed into a couple of suitcases and a backpack. The rest of his stuff was in Laf and Herc’s new apartment. The two others had graciously let him dump all of his things there over the summer so that he didn’t have to get rid of them or place them into a storage unit until he got his new dorm. Alexander was going to be staying with them over summer, too, since he didn’t have anywhere to go, and John would be joining after the three weeks at his old home in South Carolina. His dad had been pretty ticked off that he refused to spend the whole two months there, but John knew he wouldn’t have been able to handle that. So he would have to endure a bit more of the man’s wrath but over a shorter period. It was a trade off he was willing to make.

The whole day, John could tell that Alexander’s anxiety was building. John himself was simply feeling a looming sense of dread. He kept looking at the clock. Six more hours. Three more hours. One more hour until they had to leave.

“Think we have time for a quick…” Alexander was muttering at one point, holding himself over John on his elbows and leaning down for a kiss. The two were sprawled on the bed. 

John twisted his head to get a look at the digital clock on his nightstand and Alexander buried the end of his question into John’s neck, kissing up and down like a starved man. Well, more like a man about to be starved. His heart sank when he saw the time. He tried to calculate how late they were, but it was hard to focus when Alex kept doing that thing with his goddamn teeth. 

“Lex,” John groaned. “Hey, Lex, stop.”

Alexander pulled himself off John's neck and looked down at him. “What?”

“We need to go.”

Alexander looked over at the clock, and when he saw the time, 2:34 PM, he scowled at it as if it had personally insulted him. “Only an hour and a half till your flight. Pretty late, huh? Might as well just miss it.” He dove back down and started attacking John’s neck with his lips again. 

“Alexander.” John used the sternest voice he could muster at that moment.

Alex groaned as he looked up. “Yes?”

“We need to go.” 

“Why?” Alexander looked at him with the biggest puppy eyes, a trick that he knew worked every time.

Not this time, though. He was going to have to face his dad sooner or later, like it or not. And he would have rathered not to get a beating for being late. It would hurt Alexander, too. That was what he was most worried about. 

“I have a flight in less than two hours, Alexander, I need to go.”

Alexander sighed and rolled off of him, sitting up. Even though he was a bit exasperated, John still felt cold at the loss of contact.

“You promise me you’ll tell me if you need anything?” Alex asked, his voice having lost the easy confidence it had before.

“Of course, baby.”

Alexander took a deep breath. “Okay.” He turned around to look at John. “Come on, then.”

——

The two of them took a cab to the airport, since public transport would have taken way too long. 

“You don’t have to come, I know the cab for the way back is going to be expensive,” John had said. 

“Don’t be silly. I’m not saying goodbye to you until you’re right outside of TSA, you hear me?” Alexander replied. 

It looked like John had decided not to argue, because he didn’t complain after that. 

The taxi ride was quiet. John’s leg was bobbing nervously up and down the whole time. Alexander reached over and took his hand, squeezing gently. It was going to be okay, he kept telling himself. It was only three weeks. What harm could that do?

It was a stupid question, of course. It could do all the harm in the world. John had come so far since Alexander had met him. He was happier, more confident, more comfortable in his own skin. John had admitted one night, or maybe it was morning, when neither of them could sleep, that it was the happiest he could ever remember feeling. That made Alexander’s heart swell with pride. He still wasn’t completely better. He still had bad days. But the bad days were getting fewer and further between and even though John protested about Alexander paying for his therapy, he could never regret it. John was his soulmate. He would do anything for him. 

Including flying down to South Carolina himself and beating Henry Laurens to a pulp. 

If it came to that.

After all, Henry Laurens doesn’t have a soulmate. It wouldn’t be unethical.

Alexander’s phone buzzed and he picked it up to see a few new messages in the groupchat. 

Laf: Good luck on your trip, John!

Herc: Yeah, and remember to let me know if I need to beat anyone up. 

Alexander smiled before typing out a message.

Alex: Not sure how successful you’ll be at beating someone up from halfway across the country, but sure.

Herc: I have my ways.

“Who’re you texting?” John asked. 

“The groupchat. The guys wish you good luck. Well, Laf wishes you good luck. Herc offered to beat someone up for you if needed.”

John smiled. “I think I’ll be okay on that one, but if I’m wrong, I’ll hit him up I guess.”

“Might come in handy with your dickhead of a dad,” Alexander muttered.

“Lex, he’s an asshole, but threats of violence aren’t going to change that. I need to stay on his good side so he’ll keep paying for my college. I just need to get through this.”

Alexander hated to hear those words come out of his beautiful boyfriend’s mouth. No one should just have to get through the beatings of an abusive parent. But he was right. They were both broke as hell. John was lucky that his father was paying for him and that he wouldn’t be stuck in immense debt for the rest of his life. 

Privately, Alexander thought it would be better to be in immense debt while doing a career that doesn’t bore you to death, but he supposed he couldn’t blame John for disagreeing. Still, he hated the idea of John being stuck doing law his whole life just because it’s the only thing his stupid dad would pay for. 

“Well, I’ll only be a pinch away,” Alexander said instead, squeezing John’s hand tightly. To prove his point a little, he pulled his hand away from John’s and used it to lightly pinch his left wrist. John smiled and pinched back. 

It was something they’d done most of their lives, a little reassurance that someone was there, enduring your pain with you. That you weren’t alone. It was still surreal doing it in person. Meeting your soulmate was never something that anyone expected. It’s not something you imagine. Which is what made it all the more exhilarating. 

But now John was going back to South Carolina, and maybe it was a bit overprotective, but Alexander wanted nothing more than to wrap him up in his arms and tell him not to go. But he couldn’t keep John from his siblings. He had to let him go. 

Just for three weeks, he kept telling himself. Just three weeks. It wasn’t even that long. Three weeks, two weekends. 

Too long. But they would have to make it through. 

The taxi pulled up outside the airport a half an hour later, and Alexander helped John unload his suitcases. He slung John’s backpack over his shoulder.

“I can carry my own backpack, Lex.”

“And what kind of boyfriend would that make me look like?” he responded with mock offense. 

John just rolled his eyes with a fond smile and grabbed his suitcases, walking into the building. 

“Ah, ah ah, give me at least one of those,” Alexander said, reaching for a suitcase and successfully swiping it off of him. 

“Alex…”

“John…” Alexander gave him the puppy dog eyes again, and John relented.

“I swear, you are insufferable,” John muttered underneath his breath. 

“Yeah, but you love me.”

John smiled and even though they’d been dating months, the words still made him blush from his forehead to his neck. It was the most adorable thing Alexander had ever seen. He loved making John blush.

“I do,” John sighed. “I really do.” 

After helping John check his bags in and giving him one last kiss, they finally broke apart. And Alexander had to watch him go through security, leaving for the next three weeks to a hellhole that almost made him kill himself last time he went. He stayed standing there, feet glued to the airport floor, until John finished going through TSA and disappeared into the endless maze of the airport.

——

John was really planning on sleeping his way through the entire flight. Alex pinched his wrist about three times before they’d even taken off, and John had to message him to assure him that he was fine, and that he needn’t worry so much. 

Not yet. 

He woke up about an hour and a half in, though, and not feeling like sleeping any more after spending the entire day lazing around in bed with Alexander, he decided to go to the bathroom to use the toilet. Maybe he could freshen up a bit in the mirror so that he at least looked somewhat presentable when he arrived. Luckily, he had an aisle seat, so he slipped out and headed down the aisle before reaching the bathroom. 

He used the toilet and then washed his hands before looking at himself in the mirror. The first thing that caught his eye was the untidiness of his ponytail. The second was the dark bruise starting to take shape on his neck.

Shit. 

Coming home to South Carolina already sounded like a nightmare. Coming home to South Carolina with a hickey on his neck? He was going to have some serious explaining to do. 

Chapter Text

“Oh mon dieu, he hasn’t even landed yet, stop panicking,” Laf said as Alexander paced around the new apartment. This had been going on for approximately the last fifteen minutes, since he had finished dumping his suitcases in the guest room. 

“I can’t, Laf. What if he has a panic attack on the plane? What if he’s delayed and his dad gets pissed? What if there’s a plane crash–”

“There’s not going to be a plane crash.”

“You never know!” 

“Alexander. He would pinch his wrist for you if he had a panic attack, yes?” They raised their eyebrows.

“Yes…”

“And has he?”

“No, but–”

“And he messaged you right before the plane left. It’s on time.”

“I know, but–”

“And I’m pretty sure you would feel it if there was a plane crash.”

Alexander sighed. Yes, he knew that John should be fine. He hadn’t even landed in South Carolina yet. This wasn’t the hard part. But he couldn’t help but panic anyway. 

He climbed onto one of the barstools, trying to get his breathing back under control. Laf was wandering around the kitchen, making pancakes for when Hercules came home. Breakfast for dinner. Well, not really dinner, it was a bit early for that. Alexander hadn’t eaten anything all day. The pancakes smelled heavenly, but still, he found it hard to muster up an appetite as Laf dumped four onto a plate in front of him.

“Eat up, mon ami.”

“I’m not really hungry.”

“Don’t lie. I know you haven’t eaten anything today.”

“What? How?” 

“John told me.” Laf had a triumphant smile on their face. They served themselves five pancakes, leaving the rest of the pile for Hercules, who had a monster of an appetite. They grabbed the maple syrup and drizzled it over their pancakes.

Alexander groaned. “Seriously? He didn’t need to do that.”

“Mmmm, I think he did, given I know you wouldn’t have had a bite if he hadn’t. Syrup?” they asked, offering the bottle.

“Nah, I’ll just have them plain.”

“Ew.”

Alexander rolled his eyes and grabbed a knife and fork. He gloomily stabbed a piece of pancake and stared at it as if it had personally offended him.

“Staring at it isn’t going to make it go away, mon ami,” Laf said.

Alexander groaned. One, two, three. He placed the bit of pancake in his mouth. It tasted lovely. Still didn’t change the fact that he had to force it down his throat. 

After twenty minutes, Laf had finished about three pancakes, while Alexander had managed to make his way through half of one. It was the most he’d eaten since last night, so he considered it sufficient. He was just about to place his fork down for the last time, the apprehension starting to leave his body, when he felt something press on his neck. He instinctively reached for it, but there was nothing there. It was a dull sort of pain, almost like a bruise.

Oh. Shit.

“Fuck,” Alexander murmured.

Laf immediately looked over, their eyes resting on where Alexander’s hand was on his neck. “Did something happen?” they asked. 

“I– Oh, god, this is embarrassing.”

“What’s embarrassing.”

“John’s– pressing down on a bruise.”

Recognition washed over Lafayette’s face. “A bruise… on his neck?”

Alexander gulped. “Yep.”

“Oh, you idiot.”

“What should I do? He wouldn’t have landed yet, I can’t message him. What if his father sees it? What will he say? What if he–”

“Alexander, calm down.” Laf rose from their seat and walked over to place their hands on his shoulders, steadying him. “John will be okay. And hey, maybe it’ll help. He could say he has a girlfriend or something.”

Alexander absolutely hated the idea of John saying he has a girlfriend, but he still recognised that it would be a good cover story. “Yeah, I guess so,” he murmured.

The sound of keys jangling brought their attention to the door, where Hercules was coming back from work. 

“Hercules!” Laf called, rushing down the hallway to greet him with a kiss. “I made pancakes, come on!” They grabbed his hand and practically dragged him to the kitchen.

Hercules wore a bright smile. “I thought you said that pancakes were, and I quote ‘a gross caricature of French culture and incomparable to crepes.”

“I still stand by that,” Laf said, dumping pancakes onto Hercules’ plate as he placed his bag and keys down, “But I did not have the time for crepes. I was busy consoling poor Alexander here.”

“Ah, I see,” Hercules said, grabbing his plate from Laf. “Worried about John?”

Alexander just nodded. 

“He’ll be alright. And if he isn’t, he’ll tell you,” Hercules said.

“What if he doesn’t?”

“He will, because I messaged him earlier today telling him that if he didn’t, he’d have me to answer to, and he hasn’t replied, meaning he’s definitely intimidated.”

Alexander chuckled. “Sounds like a foolproof plan, then,” he said.

“Mhmm,” Herc agreed through a mouthful of pancake.

A buzz from his pocket. Alexander looked down and grabbed it immediately, scrambling to check the message. It was from John.

John <333: Just landed. All safe. Talk to you tonight xxx

Alexander typed out a reply as quickly as his hands would let him.

Alex: Oh my god I’m so sorry about the hickey

John <333: Don’t worry. My dad doesn’t get back until later tonight. I’ll just borrow some of my sister’s makeup.

Alex: Are you sure?

John <333: I’m sure. I’ll be fine, you don’t need to worry.

Alex: Okay, I’ll try. Talk to you tonight <3

John: Love you

Alex: Love you too.

Alexander sighed and placed his phone down on the counter, staring at it. He half expected it to start ringing immediately, a call from John to tell him that something awful had happened. But it didn’t, because John was fine, and Alexander was being dramatic. He knew he was. But he couldn’t help but feel uneasy anyway.

“What’d he say?” Hercules asked, placing his fork down. 

“How did you know it was him?”

“You look like you’re about to combust, so I suspect it wasn’t Burr or something.”

“Right.” Alexander looked back down at his plate of barely-eaten pancakes. “He’s fine. Says he’ll cover the hickey with his sister’s makeup.”

“See, he’s smart. He knows what to do. He’s lived there his whole life,” Laf said, leaning on Herc’s shoulder.

“I know, I know. I just… I love him so much. And that man…” He feels his blood boiling at the mere thought of Henry Laurens. Alexander wants to make it to the senate just to spit in that man’s face. And also to be a politician. But still partially to spit in Henry Laurens’ face. 

“He’ll be okay,” Laf murmured, their voice more sympathetic now, instead of annoyed. They could probably tell how genuinely scared he was. “And if he’s not, we’ll go to South Carolina ourselves and pick him up.”

“And jump his father.”

Lafayette chuckled. “And jump his father.”

He was still terrified, but the reassurance made Alexander feel a little bit better. It was only three weeks. And if John was hurt, he would know. 

——

John took a deep breath. And another. And another. He looked out at the trees that lined the perfect street. The houses that sat side by side were fancy, and quaint, and probably cost millions of dollars in today’s market, but John hadn’t yet reached his childhood home.

No, that stood in the center of the huge private neighbourhood in the middle of this town just outside of Charleston. The taxi driver gave him a strange look as he instructed the man to drive up to the gate. He didn’t blame him. John didn’t like this place either. 

The fence stood like a foreboding cage around the area, far too tall for what was reasonable and shaped in a gothic style that made it feel like they were entering a haunted house. The houses in here were even more expensive, the lawns perfectly cared for, (though not by the owners) the pretty little flowers sitting cheerily in the garden beds as if trying to mock him. It’s so happy here, they said. Why aren’t you happy? 

They drove up the drive to John’s childhood home, and he felt his blood grow warm as his nerves started to climb. His father wasn’t even home yet. He didn’t know what he was so scared of. He should be excited to see his siblings. 

“Thanks,” he murmured to the driver, tipping him generously before hopping out the door and grabbing his suitcases from the trunk. He dragged them up the gravel driveway as the taxi pulled out. This was it. He was stuck here. For three whole weeks. Great. Just great. 

He grabbed the handles of his suitcases and carried them up the stairs that lead to the grand double front door. He pressed the doorbell. The few seconds that he waited felt like hours. His last few moments before being sucked into the black hole that was the Laurens family. 

The door creaked open, and the glowing face of his sister, Martha, appeared. “Jacky!” She threw the door open and encircled him in a hug. “It’s so nice to see you. Come in, you’ve got a visitor.”

“A visitor?” John was a bit confused. He didn’t really know anyone else in South Carolina, he didn’t have many close friends, hadn’t since Francis. 

“Here, let me grab one of those.” Martha took one of his suitcases and helped him drag it into the foyer. The room was huge, with a very high ceiling and a grand double staircase leading up to a mezzanine on the second floor. A crystal chandelier hung down from the very top of the room, casting little rainbows across the floor in the evening light that shone through the windows. 

“You can unpack them after, but right now–” Martha stopped short.

“What?”

“Jack, is that a hickey?”

John’s eyes went wide. “Uh… maybe?”

“Oh. My. God. You have to tell me. Who is she?”

“Um.” John had never told anyone else that he was gay. No one except for Francis and–

“John Laurens!” 

Martha. The other one. Martha Manning. Mannie.

“Uh. Hi?”

Mannie placed a hand on her hip, giving him an incredulous look. Her hair was up in thick twists, and she flicked one behind her back. “That’s it? You go off to college in New York, barely call me, and that’s all I get? Hi? How about ‘I’m sorry, Martha, I never meant to hurt you, let me give you a foot massage to make up for–’” She paused. “Is that a hickey?”

John looked awkwardly between the two Marthas, both looking up at him expectantly. “Maybe?”

“Oh my god,” Mannie said. “Mar, grab your concealer. John, we’re going to the couch. You have a lot of explaining to do.”

John couldn’t really argue as Mannie led him to the informal living room, laying back on the couch and gesturing for him to do the same. 

Martha lived in the house just across from theirs. The Mannings and the Laurens’ were the only two non-white families in the neighborhood. Due to the fact that the area was about as deep red as you could get, the other children tended to be hesitant around them. And so, they had gravitated together. He and Martha had shared childhoods, and their parents were definitely hoping that they’d end up together. They had played along when they were younger, but unfortunately for their conservative families, both of them were painfully gay. Just another thing that pushed them further away from everyone else and closer to each other.

“So. Apologies can wait. For now, I need to know who gave you that so I know if I need to either beat someone up or flex my shovel talk skills.”

John smiled. Even if he hadn’t spoken to her much in the last year, Mannie still hadn’t changed. She was still as determined and passionate as ever.

“No beating up is necessary. And my friends have already shovel talked him plenty,” John said.

“Your friends! You made friends!”

“You that shocked?”

“No, no of course not.” Mannie paused. “Okay, maybe a little. But I’m so happy for you. Now. Tell me. The boy. How did you–”

John was getting a little sick of people cutting themselves off in the middle of their sentences. He turned around to see what Mannie was looking at and saw Martha standing in the doorway, concealer in hand.

“Oh, hey Marty.”

“Did she say boy?”

Oh. John’s heart rate picks up. Marty grew up in the same house as him. Heard the same shit that their father spouted. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was just as bigoted as him. But he didn’t see much reason in hiding it from her. Even if she was against it, she would know what their father’s reaction would be, and he couldn’t imagine her wishing that on him, even if she was homophobic. He swallowed. “Yeah. Is that– Is that okay?”

“Yeah, of course! I just wasn’t expecting it, is all,” Marty said, walking over to sit down next to John on the sofa. “As long as you’re happy. You are happy, yeah?”

“Yeah, I am. Really happy.” John looked down to hide the humiliating blush that spread all over his face and his neck. He couldn’t stop the stupid little smile that took over his face. 

“Oh god, you’re smitten,” Mannie groaned. “Okay, tell me about this boy before I die of suspense.”

John felt the cool sensation of Marty applying the concealer to his neck as he took a deep breath. “Well, his name’s Alexander,” he said. “He’s an international student from St Kitts and Nevis. He’s studying PoliSci.”

“Arguing type, is he?” Mannie raised her eyebrows, very clearly trying to judge whether or not Alexander was suitable for him. 

“Yeah, but not with me or our friends. With dickheads. I’ve witnessed him absolutely tear apart some bigots in the middle of the student cafe. I met him for the first time when he was yelling at some racist guy.”

“I’ve gotta hear that story,” Marty said, now pounding his neck with some kind of weird spongy thing.

“He was friends with my friend Laf, and they kept raving about how cool he was, but I was exhausted with– with class and stuff, and so I didn’t really pay it any mind until we ran into him in the middle of campus and he was ripping this guy a new one for saying something stupid about immigration. It was really impressive, honestly.”

“You find him arguing hot,” Mannie deadpanned.

“What? I didn’t say that!”

“Yeah, but your face when you talked about it did.”

John rolled his eyes. He couldn’t deny it. Alexander arguing with people was hot. “Whatever. Anyway, the guy shoved him, and Laf and I tried to break it up, but they started to fight, until the racist guy landed a punch in his stomach and I yelped. And then everyone–”

“Wait, what? Why did you yelp?” Marty asked. 

Mannie’s eyes were wide, nearly falling out of her head. “No. John, don’t tell me he’s your soulmate!”

“Oh my god!” Marty exclaimed, dropping her weird sponge thing on the couch. “Is he? Is he, Jack?”

“Yeah,” John breathed, grinning wide. He had gotten so used to being Alexander’s soulmate that he had forgotten how rare it was. “Yeah he is. When I yelped, everyone went silent. And then… Well, I may have asked the guy to punch him again.”

“You did not ,” Mannie wheezed, bursting into laughter. “Did he?”

“He did. Hey, in my defence, I was in shock, and I couldn’t think of any other way to confirm at that moment!”

“What about, I don’t know, pinching your wrist? Like you’ve been doing your whole life?” his sister asked.

“How do you know about that?”

“I’ve lived with you for seventeen years, dumbass. I’ve seen you do it heaps.”

John probably should have assumed that Martha would pick up on that. She’s very smart, very perceptive. “I did pinch my wrist. Just, after he got punched again,” he admitted. 

Mannie was still wheezing, holding her stomach. “Oh, that’s hilarious. You’ll have to introduce me to your soulmate sometime. He sounds like a decent guy.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, anyone who’ll punch a racist is in my good books,” she said. In sync, she and Marty reached out and bumped fists right in front of John’s face.

“Are you two, like, best friends now?” John asked.

“Well, had to find someone after you moved away and then barely called me,” Mannie said. “Plus, she has a great name.”

Marty winked at her. “I know, right?”

The sound of the front door opening in the hallway made everyone freeze. Echoing footsteps made by sharp dress shoes came closer and closer to the informal living room. 

“Crap, Marty, is the makeup done?”

“Oh, uh,” Martha dabbed a couple more times at his neck with the sponge. “Yeah, it’s all good.”

Just in time, because the door creaked open, and there stood Henry Laurens, his suit perfectly tailored and his hair slicked back. He was the image of a respectable conservative politician. His eyes ran over the three teenagers, and each of them shrunk into themselves a little bit. His gaze had the tendency to do that. Make you feel like you were inferior. John knew that it was intentional.

“Miss Manning, I did not know you were coming over today.”

Mannie gulped. “Sorry, Mister Laurens. I just wanted to see John when he arrived.”

“Hm. Well, it’s probably time you get going, huh?”

“Of course.” Mannie stood up from the couch and gave John a reassuring look before bolting out the door. John couldn’ blame her. He would want to get the fuck out of here as well. 

“Martha, you can go upstairs. I need to speak to your brother.”

“But–”

“No buts, young lady. Go upstairs before I make you.”

Martha looked down at her lap and nodded. “Yes sir.” She got off the couch and left, shooting John an apologetic glance. 

Once she was gone, Henry Laurens closed the door to the room. He walked over to the front of the couch, so that he was staring directly down at John. Watching his son with an unreadable expression, he took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. He took a drag and blew the smoke right down into John’s face.

Either John was about to be beaten, or he would be in his room unpacking in two minutes. There was no way of telling. That’s part of what made living with this man so torturous. In the months he’d spent away, he had almost forgotten about this. But now he remembered. Oh, he remembered. The smell of smoke and the taste of it at the back of his mouth brought him right back. Bruises littering his body. Red marks on his face in the shape of hands. Cuts he gave to himself after the fact to stop his mind from thinking about it. 

Maybe Alexander hadn’t been overreacting.

No. You can’t think about him here. Not in front of him. He couldn’t let his father take that from him. He wasn’t going to taint his thoughts of his soulmate by intertwining them with this man. He just had to focus on the task at hand: getting out of here bruise-free. 

“How has school been?” His father finally asked.

“Fine,” John responded blankly.

“That’s it? Fine? I expect more than that after you’ve been away for an entire year, Jack.”

John tried to hold in a sigh. “It’s been enjoyable. New York is nice, I like getting to explore the city, even if it is very cold in winter. I’ve made some friends. I’m pretty settled.”

“And your studies?”

“They’re fine. I’m getting straight A’s in all my classes.” It wasn’t a lie. John was passing college with flying colours. But that didn’t mean he liked it. He could feel his sanity slowly and slowly being chipped away at with every law lecture. He fucking hated law. Something like political science might have been a bit more interesting, he supposed, but that wasn’t prestigious enough for his father. Even that, though, didn’t really interest him. He would much rather be studying medicine. Or art. Something that didn’t make him want to rip his hair out. But he couldn’t say that to his father. So ‘fine’ would have to do.

“That’s good. And what about girls? Have you managed to find a respectable girlfriend yet?”

“No, I haven’t. I’m just focusing on my studies for now,” John lied. He hadn’t found a girl, of course, but he also was definitely not focusing on his studies. Unless you counted studying Alexander’s face…

No. Don’t think about him right now.

“Hm. I suppose there’s still plenty of time. You know, that Manning girl is still a decent option–”

“Martha and I are just friends, father.”

“I am not trying to argue, Jack. I am merely trying to help you.” Henry Laurens took another drag of his cigarette, leaning his head upwards to blow the smoke. He sat down on the couch with his son as if they were having a normal, familial heart-to-heart. “You know that it is time for you to start focusing on finding a wife. You spent far too much time in high school faffing around. It is time to grow up.”

John felt the words like shards of glass piercing through his skin. Grow up. He pushed it away. He is mature. He doesn’t need to grow up. His therapist had told him that he needed to reassure himself of these things, even when he didn’t believe it. It seemed logical at the time, but right now it felt a bit fruitless. After all, hadn’t he just spent the last half an hour giggling and gossiping?

“I’ll think about it, father.”

“Good lad.” Henry patted him firmly on the back and John coughed a little, mostly a result of the smoke that was now filling the room.

“May I go upstairs to unpack now?” He asked.

“Yeah, yeah.” His father brushed him off. “Just make sure to be down for dinner in two hours. I don’t know what you’ve been doing at that college of yours, but when you’re in this household, you eat dinner with your family.”

John ignored the way the demand made his stomach churn and headed out into the hallway, focusing on getting his suitcase into his room and going to reunite with his brothers.

That was okay. It wasn’t too bad. John could survive this. He just had to grow up a little.

Yeah. 

Chapter Text

It felt like a lifetime until John finally called him that night. Alexander had been waiting in anticipation, already in the bed in Laf and Herc’s spare bedroom, with his laptop open, half focusing on an essay, for the past hour and a half. It was hard to focus on essays, though, when your boyfriend was halfway across the country in the house of a man who made him almost kill himself.

Alexander was elated when he finally saw John’s name lighting up his phone screen. He quickly shut his laptop and set it aside before answering the phone. John’s beautiful freckled face appeared, and Alexander immediately relaxed. Obviously, he knew that John was fine. They share pain. He would know if something terrible had happened. 

Actually, correction. Something terrible didn’t have to be physically painful. So something terrible could have happened, and Alexander’s panic was totally justified. Totally. 

“Hey, John,” he breathed.

“Hey, love.”

“How was your day?”

John shrugged, disrupting the smooth white sheets that he was laying on. “Fine. Bit of turbulence on the flight, but it was okay. My sister used some of her makeup to cover up the hickey. And my friend Martha was here to say hi. I haven’t seen her in a while, so that was nice.”

Alexander nodded. He wasn’t an idiot. He could see the subject avoidance. “And your dad?”

John shrugged again. “Same old, same old.”

That made Alexander’s heart twist. Same old Henry Laurens wasn’t a good thing. “Are you doing okay? Did he say anything shit?”

“Oh just the usual stuff. Have I found a girlfriend yet, I need to get more mature. Then, at dinner, it was ‘what kind of friends are you making’ and ‘those people aren’t going to get you any good connections, John. You’re not going to get anywhere in life by befriending ambitionless queers.’”

“Are… are you okay?”

“I’m honestly used to it by now.” John grimaced. “I’ll be okay, Alex.”

“You promise?”

“Well, I can’t promise that. But I’ll try.”

Alexander nodded. “And you’ll tell me if you aren’t?”

“Of course.”

“Good.” 

They stayed like that, just staring at each other, for a few moments. If Alexander squinted, he could almost pretend that John was right there, laying in bed with him. 

“How was your day, then?” John asked.

“Eh.” Alexander shrugged. “Laf made pancakes for dinner, because of course they did.”

“Hah. Sounds nice. Did you eat them?”

“A bit…”

John smiled. “Good, then. At least your night was probably better than mine.”

They kept talking long into the night, until the sun had set long ago, and the room was cloaked mostly in darkness except the small amount of light produced by the crappy table lamp. It was 12:30 am when John finally said he had to go to sleep. 

“Okay, good night,” Alexander murmured.

“Night, my love.”

They hung up, and then the room was quiet. Too quiet. It was eerie and strange. Sure, they didn’t always sleep together, given they didn’t have the same dorm for their first year, but it was still strange to be so far away. It shouldn’t have been. They’d spent most of their lives miles apart, after all. But John had come into his life and brought so much light and laughter and noise that when he left the world was suddenly so much darker and quieter. 

Alexander leaned over and plugged his phone in to charge. He spread himself out on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. He didn’t have any motivation to work, which was concerningly out-of-character for him. Instead, he focused on trying to go to sleep. 

Just go to sleep. Just go to sleep. Just go to sleep.

He rolled over onto his side and groaned. This was going to take way too long. 

——

John’s alarm went off at seven a.m. sharp. Usually, of course, he would wake up late during summer break, but not here. No, his father would be expecting him down for breakfast in half an hour and he definitely did not want to have to face the consequences of being late. So, he dragged himself out of his bed in the room that he barely recognized anymore, and managed to pull on some clothes that looked moderately respectable. It felt stupid putting on a button-down for breakfast, even though this is what he’d been doing his entire life. 

When he made it to the dining room, his dad wasn’t there yet, and so he got to spend a few blissful minutes just chatting with his siblings. The informal dining room was actually quite nice. It was small, with only seven seats, just enough to seat everyone and leave one chair notably empty. There was a large bay window that looked out on the backyard, and the table was still decorated with a sweet yellow tablecloth that their mother had embroidered before she died. It was a cheerful room in a not-so-cheerful house. 

John took his usual seat at the table, saying good morning to his two brothers, who were sitting down to eat some of the platter that the chef had set out. 

“What’re your New York friends like, Jack? All my friends here are getting boring. All they want to talk about is football and girls.” James asked, grabbing some toast and spreading butter on it. Breakfast was the only meal of the day when they were allowed to start eating before everyone arrived. 

“They’re pretty cool,” John said, and he grabbed a slice of toast for himself. “My friend Hercules is studying fashion design. He embroiders all these designs on jackets and stuff.”

“Hercules like the movie?” Junior asked. 

John chuckled. “Yep, that’s his name.”

“Is he really strong?”

“Oh yes, but not quite as much as Hercules in the movie.”

“Wow. New York people are so cool.”

John laughed. It was cute how amazed his ten-year-old brother was at the idea of people who weren’t from the South. They hadn’t really left the state much, and even then, it was either to surrounding states or overseas. To Junior, New York probably seemed like a whole other world. 

Martha joined them a couple minutes later, Mary Eleanor following behind her. The Laurens siblings ate happily together for approximately 15 minutes.

The air grew thick when Henry Laurens arrived. The room went silent. The cheerful yellow of the tablecloth seemed to dull a little. Even Mary Eleanor, at eight, knew that their father arriving wasn’t a good thing. She went silent and placed her fork down, burying her little hands in her lap. John wanted to punch his dad. 

What’s new?

“Good morning,” said Henry Laurens, a stern expression planted on his face, as usual. He was wearing a suit. It was a Saturday. At least he didn’t have a tie. 

“Good morning,” the siblings chorused in unison, like a group of schoolchildren greeting their principal. 

Henry Laurens took his seat at the head of the table, and he reached out to pour himself a glass of water. “Elbows of the table, Martha,” he muttered as he did so.

“Yes sir.” Martha placed her hands back into her lap.

There was no more conversation for the rest of breakfast. They all ate in silence, none of the kids looking up from their plates the whole time. John was reminded of why every day here felt like an eternity. And he would have to survive three weeks of this. 

“I’m going golfing with some friends today,” Henry Laurens said eventually, breaking the silence. “I thought you might want to come with me, Jack.”

“I’m not really interested in golf, father–”

“Ah, it doesn’t matter.” He waved a hand in dismissal. “You don't have to play, if you’re that lazy. But I thought I might introduce you to my friend’s daughter, Katherine. She’s a very nice young lady, I’m sure the two of you would get along.”

John took a deep breath. As much as he was sure this Katherine woman would be nice enough, he hated the idea of going on a date with a woman when he was gay and had a boyfriend. You know, just a little uneasiness at the incredible pile of lies that would be. “I’m sure she’s wonderful, father, but I don’t really think it’s advisable to date a Southern girl when I live in New York most of the year–”

“Oh, don’t be silly, Jack. Give it a go.” His father gave him a look that made the implied ‘ or else’ obvious. John looked at his sister, who was looking at him with warning in her eyes. Warning not to give him more things to hate John over. 

He sighed. “Okay, fine then. I’ll meet her.”

“Good. We’ll be leaving in an hour. Best get yourself cleaned up before then.” He looked his son up and down scathingly. John had thought he had dressed up pretty well, but apparently not well enough. With that, his father placed his cutlery down, stood, and left the room.

“Looks like it’ll be another day of me looking after the kids alone,” Martha muttered. 

“I’m sorry.”

She shrugged. “Not your fault.”

Fifteen minutes later, John was back up in his room, changing into a nicer pair of pants, and a different color shirt. He hoped that would be enough to satisfy his father. 

Oh, who was he kidding, satisfying his father was a lost cause. But he couldn’t help but try anyway. 

He walked into the bathroom and grabbed a hair tie, pulling his hair into an even tighter bun than before. He got out some gel and slicked back the sides so that it would be perfect. Of course, Henry Laurens would far prefer he cut it short, but John loved his long hair, and wasn’t going to sacrifice it for a dickhead who didn’t even believe in gay people.

He was probably being a little too grumpy, given that he was going to have to put up with the man for the next 20 days. But hey, if he couldn’t complain about his father to himself in his own head, who was he going to do it to?

His phone buzzed with a message as he put the hair gel away. He was hoping it was from Alexander, but alas, it was not. Mannie wasn’t a bad alternative, though. 

Mannie :p : is your dad also forcing you to go to some stupid golf thing today?

John: YES ugh it is going to be torture

Mannie :p : At least we’ll have eachother. We can just chill in the gold club the whole time.

John: In the club? Like, the stick you hit the ball with?

Mannie :p : No, you idiot. In the building there. The one with the fancy ass bar and lounge and shit.

John: ohhhhhh right of course. Well, my dad wants to set me up with some girl called Katherine so :/ that’s nice ig

Mannie :p : Wait, Katherine Oswald?

John: Idk, I didn’t get her last name. Why, do you know her?

Mannie :p : maybe ;) anyway I’ll leave you to get ready

John: Okay? See you

Mannie :p : see ya!

Feeling slightly bewildered but at least hopeful that since Mannie knew this Katherine girl, she wouldn’t be an asshole, John put his phone back in his pocket and walked out of his ensuite. 

The drive to the golf place was quite possibly the most excruciating thing that John had ever experienced. Spending any time with his father at all was already torture, but an hour long drive, stuck in a tiny metal box with him? God, just kill me now. 

John was sitting in the passenger seat, itching to just grab his phone and do anything. But he knew his father would be livid if he did so, even if they weren’t even talking, so he just stayed, watching out the window, wishing Alex were there with him. He could imagine that it would be fun to go on a road trip with him. Yeah, that would be nice. Not that either of them owned a car. But it was a nice thought that managed to distract John for a minute and made the ride just slightly more bearable. 

“I still don’t understand why you insist on having your hair so long,” his father said, randomly, in the middle of the ride. “I doubt girls like it that way.”

John shrugged. “I like it that way.”

His father barked a laugh. “Ah, well, if everything got to go your way, Jack, we wouldn’t be here, would we?”

John looked down at his lap. “No.” It was strange to hear his father acknowledge it, even if he knew that he knew John would literally rather be anywhere but here. 

Finally, after what feels like a hundred years, they finally arrived at the golf place. John’s father pulled into the underground car park. When they came up the elevator, the club was already filled with a bunch of rich white Southerners, all mingling and chatting about who-knows-what. The room was painted a clean white, with a bar at the far end and plenty of couches and tables scattered around the place. One of the walls was almost entirely windows, looking out onto miles and miles of grass. 

John’s father went to go talk to some of his asshole Republican friends from state politics, and John tried to avoid going along with him by pretending to be interested in the bar. It was a pretty stupid move, given that John is only 19. His father shot him a glare and he internally groaned as he followed along with him.

After being dragged around and introduced to various state senators and one man who John thinks might have actually been the governor, (he wouldn’t know, he wasn’t paying attention) His father pulled him over to where Mannie was standing and chatting with a blonde girl, around their same age. The two girls looked up when they started approaching, and Mannie shot John a sympathetic glance. 

“Mr Laurens. It’s good to see you,” the blonde girl said in a thick Southern accent.

Henry Laurens smiled down at her kindly. It was a strange look for the man. “You too, miss Oswald.” He gestured to John. “I wanted to introduce you to my son, John. He’s studying law at Colombia.”

“It’s nice to meet you, John.” Katherine extended her hand and John shook it. 

“The Oswald family own a large manufacturing company down here,” His father explained, and John nodded along as if he gave a single shit about that. “I’m sure Miss Katherine here would be a good person to get to know.” 

By that, of course, he meant a good person to marry.

“Oh, would you look at that!” Katherine said suddenly, pointing to something across the room. “The round is fixin’ to start soon.”

Henry Laurens turned around. “Ah, would you look at that, it is,” he said. “Well I’ll leave you kids to chat, I best be going.” He gave John a parting look that said ‘ You better get to know her.’

“Well, he’s a personality,” Katherine said when he finally left them alone.

John snorted. “You could say that again. Thanks for distracting him, by the way.”

She waved him off. “Ah, no problem. I know what it’s like to always have a parent on your back like that.”

“I should introduce you two properly,” Mannie said. “Kattie, this is my friend, John, the one who has been ignoring me for the past year. John, this is Kattie, my girlfriend.”

John’s eyebrows flew through the roof. “Your– Oh, thank god.”

Katherine laughed. “Yeah, sorry if you were actually expecting to be set up. I’m very much taken,” she said.

“Oh, yeah, so am I,” John replied.

“Yes, John has apparently been too busy to contact me this past year because he met his soulmate in New York.”

“Aw, that’s nice that you found someone.”

“No,” Mannie said. “Not soulmate in the figurative sense. In the literal sense.”

“Wait, what?” Katherine gaped at him. “You met your actual soulmate?”

“Hah, yeah,” John replied, feeling a little self-conscious with all the attention. “I got real lucky.”

“I’ve got a soulmate too,” Katherine said. “I always just see it as an inconvenience. Whoever it is likes to get into a lot of fights. But it's crazy to meet them in real life. What’s it like?”

“Well, it’s nice, I suppose. It’s a little weird that this stranger who you’ve never even spoken to knows literally everything about your pain, and it requires a lot of trust. So, quite strange at first. But it’s also really nice. We just click so well. Plus, when he gets into fights, I know, so I can go make sure he doesn’t beat someone up or something.”

“Is he the kind of person to do that?”

“Uh, well… Kind of? Like, if there’s a racist asshole spurting crap then yeah, he’s not the best at reigning in his anger.”

“Mmm, yeah but I think John likes that,” Mannie said, wiggling her eyebrows.

“Martha!”

“Hey, am I wrong?”

John rolled his eyes, unable to deny the simple truth that yes, he found it quite attractive when Alex got into fights with people. Not when he got hurt, of course. But verbal fights? John could watch that all day.

“Anyway, enough talk about me. Tell me about you guys. I didn’t know you got a girlfriend, Mannie.”

“Yeah, well you would know that if you had bothered to actually keep in touch with me.”

“Sorry. You know I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, I know. Anyway, Kattie and I met when my dad tried to set me up with her brother.”

“Oh my god, really?”

“Yep,” Katherine confirmed. “Except, my brother’s a dick, so, of course, she had to go for the better Oswald sibling.”

Luckily, Katherine was funny, and kind, and so the rest of the day wasn’t too much torture. The three of them sat in some of the plush leather couches that looked out over the green, making fun of all the old conservative assholes who spent their time claiming that there wasn’t enough room to build houses to house the homeless while hitting balls around on acres and acres of open land. 

It was nice, to be able to sit with good company, laughing and not worrying about the outside world. There weren’t too many people still milling about the centre, and when the few people who were there gave them strange looks, John ignored them. Maybe this won’t be so bad, he thought. If this was what every day was going to be like, he could easily survive three weeks of it. He would get used to the endless breakfasts with his dad. The endless criticisms. 

Suddenly, John feels a warm hand on his thigh. He looks down to see Katherine's manicured fingers resting there. He was about to ask what the hell she was thinking when he followed her gaze and saw his father coming back into the room. Crap, how long had it been? Henry Laurens was walking over to them, and smirked when he spotted Katherine’s hand. 

Even though John knew that she was only doing it to keep him safe from his father, he hated it. He felt the warmth of her skin as if it was burning his thigh. He wanted it gone. 

“How’ve you kids been doing?” His father asked, standing over them and casting a shadow over their faces. 

John’s throat was tight. He didn’t know if he’d be able to speak normally–

“It’s been great, Mr Laurens,” Katherine said, a bright smile on her face. “John’s a decent guy.” She pointedly gave John’s thigh a little pat.

Henry Laurens smiled. “Well, that’s lovely,” he said.

John had never heard his dad use the word lovely. It was like he was a totally different man. Was this what it was like when his father respected him? One look at the man’s face told him that no, it wasn’t. He didn’t respect John. He never would. He was just glad that he finally seemed to be getting close with a girl. He tried his hardest to put on a brave face, but it was hard when his brain was buzzing so hard. 

Getitoffofmegetitoffofmegetitoffofme–

“Well, we can hang around here a bit longer, if you’d like–”

“Oh, well, I’m terribly sorry, but I have dance practice this evening,” Katherine says. “I’ll be going in a couple of minutes.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. We’ll get going then, too, huh Jack?”

John nodded numbly and stood up as quickly as he could. It probably looked robotic and unnatural, but he didn’t care. He just wanted that hand off of his thigh.

His father gave him a strange look but nonetheless turned to leave. John followed, his head down.  

Chapter Text

The car rumbled along the street, no buildings visible for miles. John sat with his head resting in his hand, watching out the window. Farmland rolled past, a stark reminder of how utterly alone he was, the only company his goddamn father, who barely counted anyway.

The man in question was looking uncharacteristically jolly. “I’m glad you’ve gotten to know that Katherine girl, Jack,” he said. “The Oswalds are a respectable family. She would make a good wife.”

John was 19. Even if he was at all interested in women, he would in no way, shape, or form be looking for a wife. He was barely an adult. He didn’t need to settle down.

“She’s nice, I ‘spose,” he muttered. His voice was still a little shaky. He didn’t know why he got all like that, when she put her hand on his thigh. It was obviously fake, a way to help John get in his fathers good books. And it looked to be working. But the place where her hand had been still felt weird. He squirmed just thinking about it. “I’m not sure I’m really ready to look for a wife just yet, though.”

“Ah, I suppose it won’t do too much harm to wait a few years. But it’ll be good for you to get a girlfriend. Perhaps we can have Katherine around a few more times in the next couple weeks.”

John shrugged.

“You know, I had been pretty worried for a minute there,” Henry Laurens said.

“Worried about what?”

“Well, you never were the most boyish child. I remember having practically beat the football into you!” He laughed.

He laughed. Talking about beating John. He still remembered that like it was yesterday. John had never liked sports, he preferred to spend his school nights indoors, studying or painting or hanging out with Martha. His father had beat him every night until he finally agreed to play football. And he’d been good at it. He hated it, but he was good. He was the team’s star player. He would go out onto the pitch, win every match for them, and then go and cut himself in the locker room showers. 

John just hums to indicate that he’s heard him. He doesn’t trust himself to speak. 

“I was half worried you’d end up as one of them queers.” He shuddered as if the very thought of queer people existing was horrifying to him. “I’m glad that you’re not weird like that, god knows this soulmate business is bad enough already.”

If you only knew. A part of John just wanted to shout it to the rooftops, fuck what his father thought. But he couldn’t do that, because his father paid for his college, and he had to be there for another three weeks, and he didn’t think being kicked out in the middle of nowhere with no-one to help him sounded appealing. 

“Mhm,” he said instead. His throat was getting tight. He tried his best to think of anything else. Discreetly, he reached down and pinched his wrist, careful not to let the sleeve of his shirt ride up at all. It was only a couple seconds later that he got a pinch back. It helped steady him a little. 

When his father finally pulled into the long gravel driveway a while later, John bolted out of the car as quickly as he could. Henry Laurens gave him a strange glance but ignored him as he went to knock on the door. 

John was pretty sure that Martha could tell something was up for the rest of the afternoon. They sat in the media room with their siblings, the three youngest playing MarioKart while Martha read and John scrolled on his phone, occasionally looking up to see who was winning the race. 

He couldn’t sit still. He kept re-adjusting his position on the couch. It was starting to itch at him. What was the end result going to be? He was never going to give up Alexander, that was for sure. They were soulmates. But he also couldn’t imagine ever coming out to his dad. He would beat him, for sure. Kick him out. Cut him off. Hell, John wouldn’t be surprised if he actually killed him for it. Maybe not sober, but get a few drinks in the man and he most likely wouldn’t even hesitate.

It was all swirling around in an endless pool in his head, and he wasn’t even really looking at the things on his phone. He just had it there more as an excuse for why he’d been staring at the same spot for an hour. 

“What’s up?” Martha murmured, schooching a bit closer to him on the couch and putting her book down.

“Nothing.”

“Ha. Nice try. Seriously, I can tell something’s got you stressed. You’re doing that thing where you bounce your leg up and down.”

John looked down at his knee, which was frantically jumping up and down. He stilled it. “I just…”

“Dad?”

“Yeah.”

She wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Someday we’re all gonna get out of here and then we’ll never speak to him again and he’ll be sitting alone in this empty house wondering where he went wrong.”

John smiled a bit. “That sounds nice.”

“Mm, you already got out, me next.”

“I didn’t really.”

Martha gave him a strange look. “You go to college in New York. You have a boyfriend.”

“And I’m still here.” John gestured around at the room. God, how desperately he wanted her to be right. His life in New York was better than he could have ever imagined. Sure, he still struggled with his mental health, but it was steadily improving, and he had the best boyfriend, and the best friends, and even if he hated his course, at least the university was nice. 

But the leash being longer didn’t mean he’d been released. He was still tied to his father’s money. He didn’t want to be in debt for the rest of his life, and so he stayed studying law, and he came home for the holidays, and he hung out with Katherine. Thinking of her again made him shudder a little. It wasn’t fair, of course, she was lovely, and only trying to help, but he still couldn’t forget the spot where her hand had touched him. 

Martha sighed. “You know, I’ve been thinking about college applications,” she said. 

“Really?” John lit up, forgetting the last subject. 

“Yeah, still a little early, but I’m hoping to go to NYU,” she said.

“Oh my god, please do.”

She smiled. “Dad would hate it.”

“Fuck him. What do you want to study?”

“History, I think.” She said it so casually, like it meant nothing.

But it didn’t mean nothing. “You know he wouldn’t pay for that.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not an idiot, John. I’ll just take out a loan. And then I won’t be forced to come back here every year to make sure I keep his money.” She gave him a pointed look.

“I…” He looked down at his lap. She was so brave. “It’s a lot of money.”

“Hundreds of thousands of Americans take out student loans every year. Hell, I bet most of your friends have them.”

She was right. Alexander had a full ride, but Herc and Laf both took out loans to pay for college. John was, compared to them, very lucky. He had grown up not worrying about that kind of thing, and so when it came down to it, the idea of having to take out loans seemed outlandish. 

Martha smiled. “Just something to think about.” She picked her book back up and continued from where she left off.

Goddammit, John already had enough to think about. 

Dinner was an even more painful affair than breakfast. Henry decided to spend the entire time that he wasn’t eating to go around the table and nitpick everything that he found wrong with each of John’s siblings.

“Mary, sit up straight, and keep your elbows off the table, I would expect better of a respectable young lady.”

“Dad, she’s only a kid–”

“So there’s no better time for her to learn.” He glared at Martha. “You should know that, Missy. And next time, brush your hair before you come down to eat. You look scruffy.”

John thought his sister’s hair was beautiful, but he knew that voicing that out loud wasn’t going to be productive. It wasn’t ‘scruffy’ at all. It was literally just curly. John sat through dinner, listening to his siblings being told off one by one, waiting for his turn. He knew it would come, it always did. What would it be this time? His hair? His posture? His clothes?

Henry turned to look at him. “Jack here has had a very nice day with me today,” he started with, which caught John off guard. “He’s been having some very polite conversation with a lovely young lady. You kids should learn from that.”

It was humiliating. Martha shot him a strange look. He didn’t blame her, he would too, if he heard that she had been flirting with a guy while she was dating someone else. The praise was almost worse than the criticisms, because it meant that he was doing something that made his father happy , and it made him feel a bit sick. He didn’t want to become like that man, under any circumstances. And yet here he was, telling his siblings that they should be more like him. One day, and he had already started to impress his father. Logically, he knew it was for the best, it would make these three weeks much smoother, but the new part of John, the part that had been awakened in New York, was horrified by it.

He tried to put on his best fake, polite smile and move on, having a couple more bites of his chicken, which suddenly seemed so much less appealing. 

After dinner, John helped Martha get the other kids to bed. While she settled the boys, he read a story to Mary, who, much to John’s dismay, had grown out of picture books and had moved onto chapter books. It made his heart cry a little, how much she’d grown up without him here. He read her a chapter of the third Percy Jackson book as she lay down with the covers tucked up to her chin, watching him with wide eyes. He realized that this was probably the only time she’d been read to since their Mom died, and he had to pause for a few seconds between sentences to keep his breathing under control. She probably didn’t even remember Mom that well.

“One more, please!” She begged when John got to the end of the chapter.

“Nuh-uh, it’s already fifteen minutes past your bedtime,” John replied, nodding to the clock on her nightstand. “I’ll read to you again tomorrow night, yeah?”

“Really?”

“Of course, Mary.” He reached over to place the book down on her nightstand, before standing up to leave the room.

“Wait, Jack?”

He turned back around. “Yeah?”

“That girl Dad was talking about at dinner, is she your girlfriend?”

“No.” John said it without hesitation. He smiled at his sister. “Just a friend. I think Dad wants her to be my girlfriend, though.”

“Oh.” She looked down at the covers for a second. “Are you gonna ask her to be your girlfriend, then?”

“Nah, I don’t like her like that. I want to make sure I really like the person I date.”

Mary was quiet for a moment. “Even if Dad wants you to?”

“It’s my life, not Dad’s.”

“That makes sense.”

“Good. Goodnight, Mary.”

“Night, Jack.”

John softly closed the door and met Martha downstairs in the informal living room, settling on the couch and finally letting himself relax a little. Between the Katherine fiasco, his father’s comments in the car, the unwelcome praise at dinner, and the little life lesson he gave to his younger sister, he was emotionally exhausted. Very much tired of thinking. 

Which is why he sighed in exasperation when Martha asked, “What was Dad talking about at dinner? You weren’t actually flirting with someone else, were you?”

“No, of course not.” He rolled his eyes. “You know what Dad’s like. He tried to set me up with this girl, who is lovely by the way, but, you know.”

“You’re gay.”

“Yeah.” He hadn’t said it to her explicitly, just that he had a boyfriend, but living in the South with their father, she probably didn’t know any of the other terms. Plus, it’s not like she was wrong. 

“We mostly just chatted about regular stuff, I made it very clear that I wasn’t available, and she wasn’t either, anyway. But when Dad came back she kind of… turned up the flirting a bit. I know she was just doing it to help me, but…”

“But what?” Martha had genuine concern in his eyes, and he worried that he was being way too dramatic.

“It made me feel… weird. I just wanted to get the hell out of there. My mind was buzzing and–” He cut himself off before he started sounding crazy again. “I dunno, it’s probably stupid.”

“You should let her know how it felt.” Martha didn’t look like she was joking when John looked up at her. “Seriously! I don’t know why you’re looking at me as if I’ve grown a third ear. You’re here for three weeks, and god knows dad’s going to drag us both to a whole bunch more events, so you’ll probably run into each other again. If it makes you so uncomfortable, you should work something out.”

“I guess so,” John mumbled. While he knew she was right, he also did not want to have that kind of conversation with Katherine. What if she thought he was crazy? “And please don’t remind me about all those events,” he groaned, trying to lighten the subject. “I dunno how I’m going to get through three weeks if I have to sit through any more of those goddamn golf tournaments.”

Martha laughed. “Well, lucky for you, I think that was the final.”

“Ah, so that was why there were so many people there.”

“I can’t believe you watched the whole thing and still didn’t work that out.”

“Do I look like I know shit about golf?”

She smiled. “I ‘spose not. Anyway, the next event I know of is the Oswald’s pool party in a couple days, and that should be fun.”

John suddenly felt as if the entire room had been drenched in ice. “Pool party?”

“Yeah, they got a new pool put in last winter, so–” she paused. “Why do you look like you’ve just seen a ghost?”

Trying to ignore the shivering and the slight itching of his arms, now that he was thinking about them too much, John schooled his expression into his best attempt at nonchalance. “Oh, just, Katherine Oswald is the girl Dad was introducing me to,” he said. It was a pretty good save, if you asked him. 

“Oh, well, it shouldn't be much different, I mean, the Oswalds would be there anyway no matter who was throwing it.”

“Yeah, I guess,” John said, now longing to just go back up to his room and call Alexander to freak the fuck out before he did something crazy. 

“Are you sure you’re al–” Martha stopped short, staring at the doorway. 

John leaned up to see what it was, even though he already knew. “Evening, Father,” he said.

“Evening.” Henry Laurens nodded at him with a strained smile. He was holding a glass of champagne, and from the way his posture wasn’t quite as ramrod straight as usual, John was pretty sure this wasn’t his first. “There’s a program on FOX tonight I thought you two might want to watch with me,” he said. 

For a moment, John let himself hope that this was just a normal father-child bonding idea. Those were rare, especially with John, and especially as he got older, but they weren’t unheard of. But then he registered the word ‘FOX’ and he let his dreams die. Yeah, whatever program was one there was most likely not something he wanted to watch. Still, his father was probably at least a little tipsy, and god knows you don’t want to piss off Henry Laurens when he’s sober, but when he’s drunk? You’d have to have a death wish.

Well, maybe sometimes John did have a death wish. But that was besides the point. 

“Sure,” Martha said, beating him to the chase. Her voice was back into the strained one she used around him, that was slightly more southern and slightly more feminine. John hated how his father made his siblings act. He knew that he got the worst of it. His father had never hit any of the others, and John intended to keep it like that. Still, it couldn’t be easy having him as a father, even if he was the one who bore the brunt. 

Their father slumped into his huge, imposing armchair and reached for the remote, flicking the television on. When he got to the FOX channel, the program was just starting up. 

Everyone went quiet as they watched. From the first few shots, it looked like it was going to be some special documentary, the kind of things that news channels made up every now and then to put on during the late evening. Depending on the channel, they could be about anything from beauty pageants to trans rights. This one was proving somewhat mysterious, though, as the voiceover didn’t start for a while.

“I think you’ll find this one interesting, Jack,” Henry said, gulping down another mouthful of champagne and waving his glass in the direction of the TV.

John didn’t have any more time to wonder what the hell he meant by that before the voiceover started, the sound of a woman with an oddly calming light accent coming through the speakers. 

“It’s a condition that affects nearly one in every twenty people, and yet many do not know much about the true horrors it can elicit. Soulmate syndrome can cause people to become incapacitated with sicknesses that have no real impact on their bodies. But should these sufferers be treated seriously? Or is it really just another excuse to place more strain on our medical system?”

John wanted to sink into the couch and never emerge ever again. During his childhood, his father had made his thoughts on his ‘little condition’ very clear: he thought that John was being dramatic, and that he should pull himself up by his bootstraps, because it was all in his head. Little hard when you feel like you’re dying of yellow fever or drowning in a hurricane. But his father didn’t have a soulmate. It was often genetic, but John got it from his Mom. And then her soulmate had died before any of the others were born, and she’d lost the ability to pass it on. And so John was left alone.

But Alexander understood. They had shared their pain their whole lives, and it brought them closer together, knowing exactly what the other had experienced. Hercules had a soulmate, too, and although he hadn’t met them, and never expected to, it was still nice for John to know that he wasn’t alone. 

In New York, at least. He wasn’t alone in New York. But here? God, he was desolate. Martha and Mannie were wonderful, but they couldn’t know. 

The documentary continued, and John made sure to keep his eyes fixed on the screen, off his father. He didn’t know what he had expected, although he really shouldn’t have been surprised. The show came to the conclusion that Soulmate Syndrome was simply a mental illness, that sufferers were trying to abuse the healthcare system, and that if it were truly so bad, then research should be done on how to identify it in fetuses so that it could be prevented. And that those with the gene should be ‘encouraged to avoid having children.’

So, eugenics. 

John wasn’t fucking dumb. 

John’s father had forced him to sit through a fucking eugenicist documentary on his own condition. He wanted to be surprised, but honestly, he wasn’t. Martha discreetly grabbed his hand and squeezed it.

“Whaddya think. Jack?” Henry asked, as the woman with the (now somewhat unsettling) voice started to conclude her arguments. 

“It was… interesting, I guess.”

“Ha. Thought ya’d say that. See, I told you, this soulmate business is all rubbish. We got it knocked out of you pretty well, after that meltdown when you were in High School.”

John knew exactly what he was talking about. ‘That meltdown’ happened to be the time that Alexander had almost fucking drowned in a goddamn hurricane. “That was pretty awful,” he muttered, not thinking his father would hear.

“What’d ya say, boy?”

“I mean, it did kind of feel like I was drowning,” John said, still quietly, but intentional this time. What was he doing? He was going to get his fucking ass beat, that was for sure. But for some reason, he couldn’t stop running his mouth. Maybe it was, oh, I don’t know, the fucking eugenics.

“Stop being so dramatic,” Henry snapped. “Seriously, it was all in your head, you know that. And it’s all gone now.”

“Yeah, because my soulmate isn’t drowning anymore.”

“You dare give me attitude, boy–”

“Dad, he’s not trying to be rude,” Martha squeaked, her voice still unsure, still scared. John wanted to tell her to shut up, to let him handle this, because he was the one who fought, but no words came out of his mouth. “He’s just trying to explain what it’s like.”

“Did you not see those stories, girl? Those people crawling back to the hospital just to get drugs for some made up mental illness?”

“It’s not made up, he’s fainted from it–”

Henry Laurens stood up suddenly, banging his champagne glass down on the side table so hard John thought it might break. Both siblings went silent. John closed his eyes in anticipation, and sure enough, he felt his father slap the side of his face. 

“I think that’s plenty from you, tonight, Jack,” his father murmured, voice deadly. “Off you go. It’s time you went to bed anyway. Martha, you too, once you’ve got me another glass of champagne.”

They stood up together and went into the hall silently. Martha hugged him as soon as they were out of his sight.

“Are you alright?” She whispered, cautiously touching his cheek where his father had hit him. It still stung, and John knew Alexander would be freaking the fuck out right now, but he shook his head to dismiss her. 

“I’m alright. Thanks, Marty.”

“‘Course, Jack.” She gave him a sad smile before heading to the kitchen. John climbed the stairs and retreated to his room before Alexander inevitably called him. 

Chapter Text

Alex laughed with his whole belly at Laf, who was doing the best impression of Burr that he had ever seen. Even Hercules was laughing, and he didn’t even think Burr was that bad. Well, objectively, Alexander didn’t mind him, and he treated him with decency, of course, but he was still a bit of an imbecile. 

“That was gold,” he wheezed. Lafayette looked very proud of themselves. They even stood up and took a little bow, which made Alexander howl with laughter again. 

“Okay, okay, Mx. Actor Extraordinaire, come sit down on the couch before you ruin all the movies for us.”

Laf blushed as they bounded over and sat in Herc’s lap. “Was I really that good?”

“You were great, cheri.” Hercules kissed them lightly on the lips before reaching for the remote and opening up Netflix. “Now, what are we watching tonight?”

Alexander couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy, looking at the two of them being so happy. And casual. Alex didn’t even miss the sex, or the making out. (Okay, well maybe he missed those a little ). What he missed most, though, was just sitting with John, holding his hand, resting his head on his shoulder, watching him draw. It hadn’t even been that long since he’d left, but the physical distance made the separation even more unbearable. 

“Mon ami, are you moping over John again?” Laf asked, looking at Alex with an exasperated expression.

Alex sighed. “I’m just worried about him.”

“He’ll be okay. And you two will call tonight, yeah? Then you’ll get to ask all about how boring his day was.”

“Yeah,” he breathed, although he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. 

“Ooh, here, I’ve got the best movie decision,” Hercules interrupted. When Alex looked back at the screen, he saw that Herc had switched to Disney+, and had, of course, chosen the movie Hercules. 

“I’m pretty sure we’ve watched that movie like fifteen times,” Laf deadpanned.

“Aw, but it’s a classic.” Hercules gave them puppy-dog eyes, and Laf relented. 

“Fine, fine. As long as Alexander doesn’t mind.”

They both looked over at him expectantly, and Alex shrugged. “I don’t mind,” he said. His mind was elsewhere, anyway. 

They were halfway through I won’t say I’m in Love, when Alexander felt it. 

“Ah!” Instinctively, he grabbed the side of his face, which was starting to heat up and sting badly. Oh, fuck. 

“Alexander? Are you okay?” Lafayette asked. 

‘Fuck,” he muttered. He had to call John. Where was his phone? Where had he left it last? What had happened to John? Who slapped him? He knew the answer to the last two, of course. “That fucking bastard,” he said, his voice raising. “I’m going to fucking murder that man.”

“Is it John?” Hercules asked as Alexander stood up from the couch and started pacing around the room. Alexander nodded erratically. 

“That son of a bitch hit him.” Alex traced a hand over the side of his face where he felt the pain, the stinging still lingering. It was a familiar sensation. 

“I’ll go grab your phone,” Hercules murmured, getting up to walk over to the kitchen. 

Laf stood up and grabbed Alexander’s wrists, bringing them in front of him. “Hey, breathe,” they said. “It’s going to be okay. You can call John in a bit, make sure he’s okay, yeah?”

Alex nodded. “I knew it was a bad idea, he shouldn’t have gone there.”

“You can’t change that now, mon pote. Just relax, yeah? Was it just once?”

Alexander nodded. “Yeah.” He was half expecting another one, but it didn’t come, so it looked like Henry Laurens had only hit John once. Alexander wanted to stab that man once for every time he had laid a hand on John, but alas, he didn’t think that the guy would have enough flesh for that. 

Herc came back into the living room with his phone. “You might want to wait until your agreed upon time, though,” he said as he handed it over to Alexander. “You don’t want to interrupt if his dad’s in the room.”

“I know.” Still, looking down at his phone, the temptation was painful. Alex just had to know that John was okay. And he also had to know how soon he could come down there to jump Henry Laurens. Luckily, he didn’t have to worry about that, because John beat him to it. He almost jumped with excitement when his phone lit up with his boyfriend’s name. 

He answered the call as he retreated back into the guest room. “John! Are you okay? I swear to god, I will tear your fucking father to shreds—”

“Alex, chill, I’m fine.” John’s voice was tired, but he could still hear the hint of an annoyed smirk that he was probably wearing. 

“You’re not fine, your father fucking hit you, do you need me to book you a flight back here? Do you want me to come get—”

“Alexander, stop.” 

Alex paused.

“I’m not coming back to New York.”

“But—”

“No. You of all people know that my father slapping me is nothing new. It would be a miracle for me to be able to get through these three weeks without it, even. I need his financial support, and I need to be able to see my siblings.”

“John, he hurt you.” Alexander tried his best not to sound like a whiny child when he said it. Of course he knew that this wasn’t out of the ordinary. They’d shared pain their entire lives, and so Alex had experienced every slap, every beating. But John was a full grown adult now. A full grown adult who had moved out to college. He thought that it might be different. 

“I know, and I’m not excusing it, but there’s not much I can do,” John said calmly. “I’ll be okay, Lex, it wasn’t too bad, and it’s happened plenty of times before.”

Alexander took a deep breath. “Okay.” For a few moments, they were silent. “How— How was the rest of your day?”

There was another laboured sigh from the other end. “God, it was awful.” John’s voice broke a bit on the last word. 

“Fuck. What happened?”

“Well, there was breakfast, which was like, the same as usual I guess, but usual isn’t good here so…” He took a deep breath. “Then Dad dragged me out to watch some golf tournament or something that he was competing in, and he forced me to meet this girl, Katherine.”

“Was he… trying to set you up?” Alexander cursed his heart for feeling a pang of jealousy at that. John was gay, of course, and he would only be doing it to please his father, but it still made Alexander feel weird.

“Yeah. Turns out she’s actually dating my friend, Martha, though, so that turned out better than expected. But then when he came around to check on us she put her hand on my thigh and—” John cut himself off.

“John?”

A shuddering breath. “Sorry, I don’t know why this affects me so much, it’s stupid—”

“Hey, no, it’s not stupid. How you feel is never stupid.”

“She just… I know she was trying to help, but god, it made my mind go all haywire and I couldn’t speak and even now I still feel weird in the spot…”

“I’m so sorry,” Alexander murmured. “God, I’m so sorry, John. I wish I could be there to hold you.”

“Talking helps.”

“Good. I love talking to you.” It wasn’t a lie. Even the hard stuff. Alexander could talk to John for hours. It was a good thing, given that a lot of the time, that was exactly what John needed. Someone to talk his ear off about something or other to keep his mind occupied while he struggled. “Do you mind if I ask why he hit you?”

“He… well, after the little ones went to bed, he came and asked Martha and I to watch this documentary on FOX with him. It turned out to be–” there was a pause, and some rustling of blankets, and a little sniffle. “It turned out to be a fucking eugenicist analysis of Soulmate Syndrome.”

“No.”

There was a sad laugh from the other end, followed by a small sob. “Yeah.”

“Oh, fuck, I am going to gut that man one day.” Alexander didn’t think it was possible for him to be more angry at Henry Laurens, but here he was. He tried to contain it, though, because he could now hear John softly crying from the other side. “Oh, baby,” he murmured. “You know all the crap those people say isn’t true. Your father is a shit parent for not noticing your suffering.”

“I know,” John whispered. “I just wish he’d care. It really doesn’t help the fact that being in this house makes all my crazy thoughts come back.”

“John. You’re not crazy. Your thoughts aren’t crazy.”

“What else would you call wanting to fucking kill yourself?”

“Depression.”

“Ugh, I know, I know,” He muttered through broken sobs. “I just… fuck, this place is suffocating.”

They talked for hours, first about the rest of John’s day, (which really had sounded like absolute shit), then about the pool party John had to go to, (they decided that John could wear a long-sleeved flannel and probably get away with it), and then Alexander pulled out his number one strategy for when John had a shit day: distraction. It sounds a bit silly, but it really worked. He yapped about the twitter fight he had with Jefferson earlier, about how annoyingly couple-y Laf and Herc were being, and about the pancakes Laf had made the other night.

“Wait, they made pancakes? Aren’t they like strongly anti-pancake or something?”

“I know, right, that’s what I said! And then they said that ‘oh crepes would take too long to make and Herc is coming back soon’. I can’t believe they caved on that so easily, I could’ve sworn we’ve had arguments about it before.”

Alexander was confident by the end of the call that John sounded much better. Of course, the rest of the trip would still be hard, and he was still tempted to fly down there and get John as far away from his father as possible. But John no longer sounded on the verge of tears and so he considered that a win. They would tackle the next day when it arrived. 

——

For how bad the first full day was, the next couple weren’t actually too bad. It was helpful that John was starting to slip back into the routine. By day five, breakfast no longer felt like it took five hours, even if it was still grueling and mind-numbing. John had gotten more used to his father’s comments, and luckily, the man had mostly been busy working and hadn’t had time to show them any more ‘documentaries’. He spent the week with his siblings, who he had missed desperately when he was at college. He chatted with Martha, who was becoming a very smart and mature young woman, played video games and messed around with the boys, and read Mary Elanor to sleep each night. If you took Henry Laurens out of the equation, John would have been perfectly content. 

The big problem, the dark force looming on the horizon, was the pool party. A loud event where a bunch of conservative Southerners are all wearing swimsuits and drinking beer would be a nightmare no matter the circumstances, but John’s… little problem was going to make it even worse. If anyone saw his arms, he would be the hottest topic of South Carolinian gossip. Did you hear Henry Laurens’ son is crazy? And they’re such a nice family… There’s no doubt that it would make it back to his father. And John doesn’t want to think about what he would do if he knew. Probably blow up at him for embarrassing their family and being ungrateful for all that he’s given him. And hey, he probably wouldn’t even be wrong. 

John stood in his closet, looking at himself in the mirror. He looked a little stupid, wearing his swimming trunks and a long-sleeved flannel shirt. It could… probably fly mostly under the radar, but he still thought it looked weird. Plus, it wouldn’t take much for the flannel to slip off, and since he wasn’t wearing a shirt underneath it was a bit risky. But it wasn’t like he could’ve worn a long-sleeved t-shirt to a pool party, especially not in 90 degree heat. He grabbed a baseball cap and slipped it onto his head, walking out of the closet before he could fiddle with his outfit any more. He would just have to avoid the pool, which probably wouldn’t be too hard, as it was usually dominated by the little kids and no adults went in anyway. He took a deep breath. It was going to be fine. No-one would know. On the outside, he was still Henry Laurens’ perfect little straight Christian son. Nobody needed to know otherwise. 

“Why the flannel?” was the very first thing that Martha asked when he came downstairs. She was wearing a lacy white pool dress over her teal short-sleeved swimsuit, a large broad-brimmed hat on her head. 

John shrugged. “I dunno, I just chose something random,” he lied. He had, in actuality, spent about forty-five minutes deciding which shirt would be the most inconspicuous. 

She rolled her eyes. “Well, it’s your choice,” she said. 

Luckily, they were interrupted by the kids bursting into the room from the informal living area. Mary and Henry Jr chased James into the entryway, giggling excitedly.  

“Chill out, guys,” Martha said, laughing a little. “Save the game of tag for when you’re around the other kids. 

“Aw, but we almost caught him,” Junior complained, panting a little.

“You shouldn’t be running in the house anyway. You know Dad will get mad.”

Everyone went silent, and John saw Martha cringe a bit at her own words. Neither of them liked reminding the younger kids of their father’s wrath, but sometimes it was necessary to protect them. 

As if summoned by the bad vibes, Henry Laurens walked into the room. His harsh expression in no way fit what was meant to be an exciting day of waterside fun. He scrutinized each of them silently, and John couldn’t meet his eyes as he looked at him. Luckily, he didn’t mention the flannel, and he held in a sigh of relief. 

The party was already buzzing when they got there. People lounged around the Oswald’s large living room, which had huge accordion doors that opened to the back deck. The new pool was massive, way too big for a home pool in John’s opinion, and it was already occupied by a couple of children playing Marco Polo. John and Martha made sure that the kids got suncream on before they went in, and then they let them loose, Junior and James cannonballing in the deep end while Mary Elanor waded in on the other. 

Someone tapped on John’s shoulder. “What’s with the flannel?” he was asked for the second time that day, this time by the other Martha, who was standing with her hands on her hips. She had on a really pretty pastel yellow bikini which complemented her skin tone really well. Her locs were tied into a loose low ponytail behind her head.

“Hey, Mannie,” he said, before looking self-consciously down at his outfit. “Is it really that bad?”

“Not really, just a strange choice.” She shrugged. “Well, it’s up to you, I ‘spose.”

Katherine suddenly appeared behind Mannie, placing a hand on her bare shoulder which probably looked normal to everyone else at the party, but John could tell that it made Mannie a little flustered. “Hey, John!” She said. She had her blonde hair tied into a high ponytail, sunglasses sitting atop her head. “How’re you doing?”

He nodded politely at her. “Good, thanks. It’s nice to see you again.” As much as he was sure she was lovely, especially since Mannie approved of her, he still felt a little anxiety. Suddenly he regretted leaving his shirt open and his chest bare, even if it seemed appropriate for the occasion. 

“Is your Dad not here yet?” Katherine asked, looking around a bit. “I haven’t seen him.”

John looked around and shrugged when he didn’t spot his father. “He’s probably mingling inside. He’s not really one for leisurely activities.”

“Ah, well, that’s good then.” She paused for a moment. “Not that you’re not great company, of course, but I can’t imagine it’s nice for you either to pretend that we’re all smitten or whatever.”

“No, it’s not.” He’s glad that they can at least agree on that. 

“Okay, can we not talk about how my girlfriend is like, half fake-dating my childhood best friend?” Mannie interrupted.

John felt his body go stiff immediately, as if someone had frozen him to the spot. He shot a few nervous glances around, but no-one seemed to have noticed. Still, it was an extremely close call. “Mannie!” he hissed. “You can’t just say that so loud!”

“Oh, don’t get your knickers in a twist.” Mannie waved him off. “Girls call their close friends ‘girlfriend’ all the time. They’re all naive as hell, they won’t know.”

John’s apprehension started to seep out of his body a little. “Right, yeah.”

Mannie reached out and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Are you alright, Jack? You seem like you’re very stressed.”

John nodded with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. “Of course I’m fine, why wouldn’t I be?” 

Katherine and Mannie exchanged a look. 

“What?”

“It’s nothing, we just wanted to make sure you’re doing good,” Katherine reassured him. John nodded. He was fine. Sure, he was absolutely terrified at the prospect of anyone finding out what was beneath his shirt, and he still had anxiety around Katherine for no discernable reason, but that was fine. He just had to survive the day, and avoid the pool. 

Unfortunately for John, Mannie, Katherine, and his sister all decided to go in the pool themselves, and so he was left alone, sitting awkwardly on a deck chair on the pavement. He watched them and chatted a bit from the side so that hopefully no one else tried to bother him, especially not his father. James and Junior managed to splash him a couple times, and each time he laughed, even though the water was cold and it made him shiver.

“Oh, come on Jack, why don’t you come in?” his sister asked about an hour and a half after they’d arrived. “You’re already wet anyway.”

“And I don’t want to get any wetter,” he complained, rolling his eyes in an attempt at nonchalance. 

“Booooooring!” Junior yelled from the other side of the pool before disappearing under the water to escape from some other neighbourhood kid, who was intently chasing him. 

John chuckled. “I’m gonna go get a drink, anyway.” He just needed a change of scenery. It was getting uncomfortable just sitting near the edge of the pool and trying to act like he was busy, and he supposed that his father probably wasn’t in the kitchen.

He stood up, shook himself off a bit, and went inside. Luckily, unlike a lot of the newly-renovated houses in the area, the Oswald’s kitchen was separate from the living space, so it provided him a bit of solace from the crowded party. The room was empty save for a teenage girl who was just leaving when John arrived. He nodded politely at her and then headed for the cabinet that he assumed was where the glasses were kept. 

He was pouring himself a glass of water when he heard footsteps behind him and turned to see his sister, standing with a towel around her shoulders and a frown on her face. “Are you alright, Jack?”

John sighed. “I’m fine. Why do people keep asking me that?”

“Maybe because you’re acting like you aren’t.”

“Well, I am, so you can drop it.” He turned the tap off and took a sip. 

Martha held her hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay.” 

John kept drinking as she watched him carefully, like a teacher trying to catch him cheating. It was clear she still didn’t believe him. Her eyes wandered to his shirt, and he self-consciously pulled his sleeve down a bit. 

“Did you get a tattoo?” 

John almost spit his water out. “What?”

“Well, you’ve only ever worn long sleeves the whole time you’ve been down here, you’re wearing a long-sleeved shirt to a pool party, you’re refusing to get in the water, and you keep readjusting it as if you’re hiding something under there.”

Fuck, she’s smart. John can only be glad that the conclusion she jumped to was wrong. Because all of her observations are correct. “I—” Maybe he should just say yes? It would be an easier explanation. But then if she asked to see it he would have nothing to show. “No, I don’t.”

She narrowed her eyes, smirking a little. “I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t have a tattoo!”

“Okay, then show me.”

Static. Creeping in at the edges of John’s mind. He can’t show her. Hecan’thecan’thecan’t—

“No! I don’t have a tattoo, Martha!”

She laughed. “Oh yeah, then why won’t you show me? You know I don’t care about this stuff, Jacky.”

“I know, but I don’t have one!”

“Is it ugly? Oh god, did you get an ugly tattoo?”

At this point she was going to demand that he show her his arm and that was literally his worst nightmare scenario. He’s already far gone, but his sister isn’t crazy. He can’t let her see that. He needs to protect her. 

“I don’t have—”

The entire world stilled as Martha grabbed John’s wrist. Nonononononono—

She yanked up his shirtsleeve and froze. John looked away. He didn’t like to look at that part of himself at the best of times. He couldn’t bear to see the horror he knew would be plastered on his sister’s face. Her nails were digging into his skin. He could hear her breathing, laboured and panicked. 

“Let go of me.” The words sounded unfamiliar out of his own mouth, as if someone else had said them. 

Martha’s hold on his arm, which had by that point grown incredibly strong, dropped. “Jacky—”

He fled. He didn’t even know this house, but he knew he had to get the fuck out of there. What would she say? She was his only escape when he was at home, and now he’d gone and fucked that up too.

Maybe Alex was right. Maybe coming home was a bad idea. It was never going to end well. 

He flew into a random room in the hallway, shutting the door behind him and sliding down the other side until he landed, sitting on the floor. He could feel the heat and tears rushing to his face. He wrapped his arms around himself as tight as possible to try and hold it in. Stop himself from slipping. He tried to control his breathing, but no matter what he did, his breaths got quicker and quicker, shallower and shallower. He looked down at his arm, where Martha had pulled his sleeve up. Angry scars littered the skin. Some were older, less obvious, just flat pink lines. Others were newer. Some even still hurt if he bumped his arm too hard. He traced them slowly with his other hand. 

And then he scratched. He scratched ugly red lines down his arm, not hard enough to draw blood just yet, but enough to be painful. Enough to give him something to focus on.

There was a frantic knock on the door of the room he was in. “Jacky? Are you in there?”

John didn’t respond in hopes that Martha would just give up, but then he felt the door move a little, his weight leaning on it keeping it closed. 

“Jack?” Martha’s voice was smaller than he’d ever heard it. 

You did that. 

He couldn’t open the door. He wouldn’t ruin her anymore than he already had.

——

“Oh god, and I can’t even call him, because he’s at a party and that would look weird, what if it gets worse?” Alex bemoaned. 

Herc and Laf looked on with worried expressions. “Give him a minute, Alex. And pinch your wrist,” Hercules murmured.

Alexander nodded numbly and pinched his wrist. John pinched back, although weakly, and then went straight back to scratching. It was something that John did, when he wasn’t too desperate or just didn't have access to a blade. It wasn’t the first time that Alexander wished he could send anything else across this strange mental communication that they have. Comfort. Love. Squeezing his hand. Anything. But no, due to some cruel joke, they can only send pain. 

And thank god, Alexander’s phone started ringing. He wasn’t sure that he could last very long not knowing that John was going to be okay. He didn’t even think about the fact that John was still scratching his arms and would be unable to call him, just saw his contact name light up the screen and picked up immediately. 

“John?” he asked.

“Um, is this Alexander?” A worried, distinctly female voice asked. 

“What— Who is this?”

“Martha, John’s sister. He’s— well, I don’t know, he— I thought it was just a silly fashion choice at first, and then I ruined it all and— well, he left his phone out here, and I thought you would know—”

“Hey, Martha. Slow down, please. Do you know where John is?”

“I— yeah, he shut himself in this random bedroom and he’s leaning against the door so I can’t get in. But I can hear him crying from the other side— oh god, I’m so sorry—”

Hearing Martha apologize so desperately only made Alex panic further. What on earth had happened?

“Of course he did. Do you think you could get the door open enough to slip the phone in?”

“I could try.”

“Okay.”

He could vaguely hear the sound of the door creaking open on the other end. Alex was almost startled when he felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Laf there, concerned. Herc was right behind them. 

There was a bit of a bump sound that Alexander assumed was the phone being placed on the floor.

“John?” he asked. “John, are you there, love? Can you hear me?”

The silence felt like it stretched on forever, even though it was probably only about a minute. 

“Alexander?”

“Yeah, love, it’s me. Do you think you can stop scratching for a minute? Try to clasp your hands together.”

The scratching stopped, and Alex let out a sigh of relief. 

“I’m sorry,” John mumbled, voice still wet with tears.

“It’s okay. Don’t apologize. Except maybe to your sister, for shutting her out of the room.”

“She— Alex, she saw.”

“She saw what?”

A whimper. “My arms.” 

“Oh.” Alexander’s heart ached for him. From hearing him talk about them, he knew that John loved his siblings, a lot. But John didn’t open up easily. In fact, for most of his life, he and Alex were the only two people who knew about his self-harm, and Alex only knew because of the whole… well, sharing pain thing. The idea of other people knowing was overwhelming for him. It took a particularly bad episode for him to tell Herc and Laf, and quite a few sessions to tell his therapist. 

And that was it. No one else knew. 

All of those people, John told at his own pace. With his own timing. This… god, it must have been awful. “I’m so sorry, John,” he said, and he wished he could do better, but he wasn’t sure that anything would suffice. 

“She— She’s gonna think I’m— And her voice— She sounds so broken, Alex. What have I done?”

“No catastrophizing. Your sister knew you were in trouble and immediately called me, knowing that I would know about this. She’s smart, and clearly cares about you.”

John didn’t reply, but Alex could still hear his quiet crying and heavy breathing. Alexander stayed on the line, listening as his boyfriend’s breath slowly returned to normal and the soft sound of tears stopped. 

“Crap, Alex, I can’t go back out now, what am I going to do?”

“I think you owe your sister an explanation.”

“But she's— I can’t tell her.”

“She’s already seen, John. It’ll be worse if you don’t acknowledge it.”

“Crap.”

“Do you want me to stay on the line?” Part of Alexander wished for him to say yes, because he couldn’t bear to hang up while John was still in this state. But he also knew that this was a private moment, and so he put the offer out there.

“No, it’s okay, I can— I can do it.”

“Okay. You call me tonight, yeah?”

“Yeah, of course.”

And then the line went dead, and Alexander pulled the phone away from his ear, just staring at the CALL ENDED screen. He didn’t know what to do. What to say. When he had been worrying about hypotheticals earlier, he had been frantic, panicked. He’d thought that would only increase if something like this happened. But all he felt now was heavy, crushing, dread. It wasn’t frenzied or hectic; no, it loomed over him like a storm waiting to crash. 

John needed to come home. Alexander needed him home. 

But he also knew that this wasn’t going to be enough to convince him. He probably should’ve expected something like this. John was probably expecting something like this. The trip was never going to be smooth sailing, and no matter how much Alex wanted him home, that wasn’t John’s problem. 

——

John only let himself stare blankly at his phone for a few minutes before he dragged himself up off the floor and looked at the door. He just had to open it. Just reach for the doorknob, turn it, and walk out. 

Easier said than done.

He looked around the random room he’d shut himself in, actually paying attention to his surroundings for the first time since he’d burst in here. There was a large double bed with clean white bedsheets and pink pillows, a desk with a laptop and some books, a flute case sitting open on the floor in front of the wardrobe. John felt kind of bad, as this was clearly someone’s bedroom he’d shut himself in without permission. 

The door. Right. That was what he was meant to be doing. He looked back at it. And hey, to his credit, it only took about forty seconds of staring at the doorknob before he reached out and opened it. 

He almost immediately regretted doing so, as on the other side he found not only Martha, but Mannie, the two talking in low voices. Martha’s face was streaked with tears. 

“Jack!” She practically ran towards him and wrapped him in a hug so tight that he almost forgot how to breathe. “Oh god, are you alright? I’m so sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking—”

“It’s okay,” John whispered, his older brother instincts kicking in as he patted Martha’s hair softly. “I’m okay.”

It was only when she pulled away and John noticed Mannie staring at his arms that he realized he had failed to pull the sleeves of his flannel back down. She had a hand placed over her mouth, her eyes filled with so much sorrow. Don’t be sad for me, John wanted to say. I’m just crazy. It’s not a big deal.

“John…” she murmured. 

He self-consciously pulled his sleeves down. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you guys.”

“No, don’t apologize for that. You didn’t need to tell us anything. I just— is that why you were so distant this past year?”

John looked down, not willing to meet her eyes when he admitted, “I didn’t want to bother you with my crazy person shit. I thought you’d be better off without me.”

“Oh, Jack, you fucking idiot.” Mannie stepped forward and cupped his face in her hands. “You are not crazy, and I am not better off without you. I’m with you through thick and thin. That’s what friends are for.”

He nodded. “Thank you.” It was barely more than a breath, but it seemed to satisfy her, because she dropped her hands. 

“I’m so sorry,” Martha mumbled again. “I shouldn’t have pulled up your shirt, Jack, I’m sorry.” She still had tears in her eyes, and they were big and hazel and begging, just like John’s. 

John shook his head. “You couldn’t have known.”

“It’s not— It’s not recent is it?”

“I—” In truth, the last time had only been about a month and a half before. But that was a record achievement for him. “No. I’m getting better. Alexander is helping.”

“That’s good. I only thought to call him, because, well, I knew he would know, since you…”

“Share pain.”

“Yeah.”

The slap-slap sound of flip-flops coming down the hallway alerted them all to Katherine hurrying in. “Oh, there you all are! I was just looking for Martha, well, my Martha, but then I noticed you two were gone too!” She smiled at John and his sister, and something about the way that her tone was so out of place in this situation actually helped John calm down a bit. 

“Hey, Kattie.” Mannie smiled and kissed her cheek. “We’re just heading back out now.”

“Great! I just found a bunch of ice creams in the freezer, you guys want some?”

And hey, this day was shitty, but what was there that a little ice cream can’t fix?

Chapter Text

John woke up groggily a few days after the pool party. His father had gone back to work, and often left very early, meaning that John was finally free to sleep in and avoid the awkward family breakfasts. 

It was just past nine, and god was he grateful to have finally been able to get a good night’s sleep. It wasn’t just the extra time, it was also knowing that his father wasn’t going to be there when he woke up. 

When he finally pulled himself out of bed, he made his way over to his ensuite to wash his hair. Despite his father’s gripes about it, his hair was still special to him. It was a little form of rebellion that he let himself have in his teenage years, and now that he’s in college, it’s grown even longer. 

He went to climb into the shower, but noticed that he was out of shampoo. Sighing, he dressed again and went out to the family bathroom in the hallway. He knew that there were some extra shampoo bottles in there, so he’d just go and grab some. 

He didn’t notice Martha’s humming until he had already opened the door. 

“Oh, shit!” He practically launched himself away from the door when he opened it to see his sister dressing after her own shower, just in her bra and underwear. “Sorry!” He quickly shut the door. 

It was then, on the other side of the door, breathing heavily from the panic of it all, that he realized what he’d seen. The image flashed across his mind again. 

Because, no, that wasn’t a trick of the light, there was definitely something wrong on Martha’s body. 

Bruises.

On her stomach and shoulders.

He quickly thought back to the other day at the pool, but she had been wearing a one-piece with short sleeves. 

Oh god, no. Henry wasn’t meant to hurt her. He didn’t hurt the others. It was only John. John took the pain. John took the punishment. Why did he lay his hands on her? When?

What if it was while he was here? He’d been here for more than a week, and he was well-acquainted enough with bruises to know that those ones didn’t look old. He could have done something to stop it. He could’ve stepped in. He should’ve protected her. Like he’s meant to do.

The bathroom door opened, and Martha, now fully dressed, stepped out and immediately started walking the other way down the hallway. “You can go in now, Jack!” She called, not looking back. Her voice was more high-pitched than usual.

“Martha!”

“Yeah?” She turned around, feigning ignorance.

“What did he do to you?” John growled. He walked straight up to her and grabbed the sides of her arms. “When? Why? I’ll fucking tear him to shreds.”

“Jack. Chill out.”

“Chill out? Chill out? He fucking beat you and you’re telling me to chill out?”

“Jack, the kids are awake.”

John sucked in a breath. “Tell me,” he hissed.

She looked down at the floor. “The other day when he showed us that soulmate documentary. After you went to bed, I got him a glass of wine… I kind of blabbed and he got real pissed. He’d already had a few drinks by then.”

“Blabbed? About what?”

“I…” She took a deep breath. “He was complaining about you, saying you were ‘too sensitive’ and all that crap, and I defended you. I may have called him ‘a real dickhead and more of a wet rug than an actual father.’” 

John’s heart sank. If only he’d just kept his mouth shut after the documentary, his father wouldn’t have had anything to complain about. This was his fault. He was meant to protect his siblings, and he’d failed. 

“John, I know what you’re thinking,” Martha said, voice quiet. “It’s not your fault. What I said was true, yes, and I stand by it, but I knew what I was getting into. He’d been drinking, he was in a pissy mood. I should’ve expected that.”

“No, you shouldn’t have. He doesn’t hit you.”

She shrugged. “I don’t usually stand up to him.”

“Marty–”

“No, Jack. I know how to keep myself safe if I want to. But I chose to stick up for you, and I’m not going to apologize for that or have you blame yourself for the consequences. That’s all him. We both know it is.”

“You need to tell me if he does that again.”

“Why? Why, Jack? How many times did that happen to you, and you never said a thing!”

“Because I’m older. I need to protect you.”

“I’m seventeen. You’re not here most of the year. I can protect myself.”

And wasn’t that just devastating? John had thought, stupidly, that one three-week trip home per year would be enough to protect his siblings from his father’s wrath. To keep him happy. 

“You’re not Mom, Jack. It’s not your job to raise us.”

“If I don’t, who will?”

“We’ll raise ourselves. Like you did. And I’ll be there for the little ones. We make do with what we have, and when we get the opportunity to get out like you did, we fucking take it.”

He swallowed and nodded. He didn’t want to listen to her, even if her explanation seemed so comforting. If he had the opportunity to protect his siblings from harm, shouldn’t he take it?

“Just… please tell me if he does that again.”

Martha sighed. “Fine.”

He still felt like absolute crap, barely able to raise his eyes from the floor, when he headed to Mannie’s house later that day. 

He knew he probably looked like crap, too. After the whole debacle with Martha that morning, all thoughts of washing his hair left this mind. He didn’t even really look at the clothes he pulled out to wear, didn’t brush or tie back his hair. It didn’t really matter. Mannie wouldn’t mind. Well, she’d probably tease and make fun of him for it, but he could deal. He could. Uh huh. 

“Hey,” she said, opening the door. Her eyes travelled over his dishevelled appearance and John prepared himself for the snarky comment. “Come in, Jack,” was the soft reply he got instead. Mannie was looking at him with so much sympathy in her eyes that it was as if she thought he could break at the slightest prod.

Well, he probably would have. But that didn’t mean he liked it. 

They settled on the couch together, and Mannie brought them boke Cokes. They sat in silence, sipping them in tandem for a few minutes. 

“I’m sorry,” She eventually murmured.

“What? What for?”

“The whole time you’ve been here, I’ve been giving you a hard time about not talking to me while you were gone. I promise, if I’d known why, I wouldn’t have mentioned it, Jack, I can’t believe how inconsiderate I was.”

John really did not want to have a conversation about this right now. Not while his sister had been beaten and he’d almost relapsed the other day and he was down here in South Carolina with his stupid father. But he didn’t want to brush his best friend off. “It’s okay. I owe you an apology too. You didn’t know what was happening. To you, it looked like I abandoned you.”

You did. You did abandon her. Just like you abandoned Martha the other night. And look what happened. 

“I– thank you. You know I forgive you.”

“Yeah. I know.”

They sat in silence for another few minutes, sipping their Cokes. John was a strange mix of comforted and uncomfortable and he really didn’t have the mental capacity to handle emotional paradoxes like that. 

Mannie patted his knee. “MarioKart?”

He smiled. “Okay.”

To her credit, playing games with her did help a bit. It almost brought John back to their teenage years, playing MarioKart for hours in a fierce competition that Mannie inevitably always won, but it was still fun. It was one of the happier memories from his childhood.

He didn’t have a Switch of his own, so he was very out of practice. In the first few games, He came 10th, then 11th, then 12th. Mannie, of course, came first every time. 

“How on earth do you do that?” He exclaimed, throwing his controller aside as Mannie won her fourth grand prix in a row.

“I’m just the superior racer, Jack,” she said, smirking at him. 

“God, I’m going to have to get my own Switch just so I can practice and beat you.”

They stayed on the couch for hours, even after they’d finished playing MarioKart. At one point, Mannie demanded to see whatever photos John had of Alexander. 

“I’ve not actually seen what your soulmate looks like,” she bemoaned. “I gotta see your taste in men. Hopefully it’s improved since Francis.” She scowled.

The mention of Francis sent a shard of pain through John’s mind, but he pushed that aside and laughed along with her. “Fine, but I’m not really a picture-taker.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket, opened up his gallery app, and found a photo to show her, passing the phone over. 

“Oooh,” she said. “I mean, I would rather die than date a man, but if I had to choose one, he’s not too bad. Hair’s a bit greasy, though.”

John smiled.

“Show me more.”

Mannie shoved the phone back into his hands. “Uh… okay.” He pulled up a selfie he’d taken of the two of them when Alexander took him to his first Pride Club meeting. 

“Awww, y’all are so sweet. I wish…” She shook her head. “Nevermind.”

“What is it?”

She gave him a bit of a sad look. “I just– I’m glad I go to school in Charleston, don’t get me wrong, I don’t like being far from home, but… Well, even in the city, it’s not the same here. I don’t think CSU has a pride club. Kattie and I met in class, well, properly, we vaguely knew each other from living around here, but… We were lucky. Barely anyone is out. New York looks a bit like a dream.”

John felt the same way when he first arrived. It was, well, subdued a bit by the other issues that he had been dealing with, but when he had started dating Alexander, he’d introduced him to the queer culture at their school and in the wider city and it was overwhelming but beautiful. To see so many people, all just like you, and not afraid to say it, felt so freeing. It was probably part of what helped John so much with his recovery. Feeling less alone. Feeling normal. 

“Yeah, it is a dream,” he breathed. 

A few hours later he really did have to go home, unfortunately. His father would be arriving back soon and he knew he had to get back before then. So, he said his goodbyes to Mannie and headed back across the street. 

The house was quiet when he arrived. He walked over to the informal living room and found his sister sitting on the couch, reading. 

“Hey.”

“Hey, Jack.” She patted the spot next to her on the couch in invitation, and he happily went to sit next to her. She closed her book. “How was your day?”

“Pretty good. Mannie destroyed me in MarioKart as usual.”

She laughed. “Ah, you never did stand a chance against her.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes. John could still feel that morning’s events hanging over them like a thick blanket. “Martha…”

“Yeah?”

“Has that ever happened before?”

“Has what ever happened?”

“You know what.”

She looked down at her lap. “No. It hasn’t.”

The knot in his chest unwinded a little. “Okay.”

After a little more awkward silence, Martha picked up her book again and went back to reading. Deciding that the conversation was over, but still not wanting to leave the room and be alone, John scrolled on his phone for a while, not really paying any attention to anything he was looking at. It looked like Alexander had started another twitter fight with Jefferson, and he decided not to invest his time into reading that right now. 

His father should’ve been home by then, but he failed to notice just how much time had passed. 

“Jack, can I ask you something?” Martha asked, and John turned his phone off.

“Yeah, sure.”

“When did you know you were gay?”

Well, he probably could’ve expected questions about this from his sister. After all, she had probably only really heard much about gay people from their father, and he certainly wasn’t a fan of anyone out of the norm. 

“When I was fourteen, I think,” He replied. “I had crushes on boys before that. I just didn’t know that’s what they were.”

“Did you ever date anyone before Alexander?”

“I…” He didn’t like to think about Francis. His sharp words were still plastered to the back of John’s mind. You’re just not good enough. You never will be. “Yeah, I did.”

“Was it… different, with Alexander? Him being your soulmate?”

“Yeah,” John breathed. “It’s like floating, Marty. Like, I would do absolutely anything for him, and by some miracle, he would do the same for me. And he’s so fucking beautiful.” He was definitely rambling, but Alexander was the best thing that had ever happened to him, so who could really blame him? “I love him so much.”

Martha smiled warmly. And then her smile fell. 

John didn’t want to turn around. Didn’t want to see what he knew Martha was looking at, standing in the doorway. Maybe if he just never looked, it would never come true.

“John Laurens.”

Nope, the whole pretending that his father is not standing in the doorway thing did not work. Great. 

“Father.” He turned around. There was no doubt, looking at the man’s face, that he had heard what John had just said. That he is in love with a man. His eyes held so much fire that he could’ve burned the house down. 

“Martha. Room. Now.”

“No.” The word felt like ice. She was going to get herself hurt. 

“Excuse me? What did you say to me, young lady?”

“I said I’m not leaving.” 

“It’s fine, Martha.”

She turned to him, tears spilling down her cheeks. “No! I’m not leaving you alone, Jack!”

“Get out of this room now, young lady, before I make you, ” Henry snarled. 

“Dad—”

“Now!” It’s so loud that John was surprised it didn’t rip his father’s vocal chords. He pointed harshly at the door.

Everything was silent for a moment. The grandfather clock in the corner of the room ticked forebodingly, the only reminder that time was still moving. Martha’s breaths came shallowly, and she was clearly trying to hold in sobs. Just leave! John wanted to shout. She was going to get hurt again if she didn’t, and it was clear that their father was losing patience.

She looked at the floor and walked out of the room, shooting John an apologetic glance before she left. He breathed a sigh of relief. 

“Care to explain to me what you were just talking about?” Henry Laurens crossed his arms and looked down at his son as if he was no more significant than the dust on the floorboards. He walked over to the front of the couch and looked down at him. His breath puffed lightly onto John’s face and he could distinctly smell the alcohol. 

Ah, that’s why he was late home. 

But still, there was nothing he could do. The question obviously wasn’t genuine, he knew what it was about. There was no point in hiding it. And yet, he was still scared. He hadn’t been exaggerating the other day when he thought that his father was capable of actually killing him if angry and drunk. 

“I…” He takes a deep breath. “I met my soulmate, Dad.”

——

“I’ve got a friend who has a pin maker, I can have them make some to give out while we’re there,” Angelica suggested.

“Oooh, that sounds great. Anyone up for making the designs?” Peggy asked, scribbling the idea down in their notebook that they always used for Pride Club meetings.

All Alexander could think is that John would have been so happy to make designs for the pins, if only he were there. But he was all the way in South Carolina, and the march they were planning for would happen before he got back. 

After a few moments of silence, Hercules awkwardly raised his hand. “I ‘spose I can give it a go,” he said. “I’ve only used digital art a couple times for designs, but I’m sure I can figure it out.”

“Great!” Peggy scribbled that down in their notebook. “We’ll probably want them within about four days’ time, no pressure though, and we don’t need too many designs…”

The meeting continued mostly as usual. Peggy, as club leader, went around the room, writing down everyone’s suggestions for the pride march. It wasn’t going to be a huge event, given a huge majority of the club had gone home for the summer, but they’d coordinated with some local queer groups so that the general public could come too. Alexander didn’t contribute much, which was unusual for him, but everyone in the room was painfully aware of the reason; he’d been moping about John being gone for the past little over a week since he’d left. He couldn’t help it. Life lost so much of its light without John. Plus, the constant worry about his boyfriend’s safety didn’t help. He was on edge a lot, doing a ton of work, even though it was still summer. He’d already read through all of the books on his syllabus for next year, and he was starting to reread them while adding annotations. It was the only thing that quieted his brain for a little bit. Future him would thank him for the extra help, anyway. 

“Alexaaander, are you zoning out again?” Peggy asked teasingly, poking him with their pen.

He jolted a little as he pulled himself out of his thoughts. “Ah, sorry Pegg—”

The world froze as he felt the pain across his cheek. 

“Alexander? Is everything alright?”

The slap came again. Again. Again.

“Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit.” He held his hand to the side of his face as if that would do anything to stop it. All it really did was alert his friends to what was happening. 

“Is he hurting John again?” Laf asked.

Alexander nodded frantically, flinching as he felt himself being slapped again and again.

“It’s not stopping,” he whispered desperately.

Everyone was exchanging worried glances. Hercules was the only other there who had a soulmate, and he didn’t know his. As much as Alexander loved his friends, they couldn’t know what this absolute terror felt like. 

The slapping stopped for a few seconds, and he let out a deep breath, almost thinking it was over, before feeling a harsh thudding pain all over his back. 

“Alex? What’s going on?” That was Peggy this time.

“He’s—” Alexander got choked up, and god dammit, this was not the time. But it was incredibly hard to focus on the real world and his friends when the punches started coming. On his shoulders and his chest, god, John must have broken a rib. 

“Someone get my phone,” he managed to get out. It was a silly idea, it wasn’t like that was going to do anything, but maybe the ringing would distract Henry Laurens for long enough that John could get out. Maybe. Just maybe. At this point, anything was worth a shot, because the punches were getting worse and harder, and god, he was going to fucking beat him to death at this point. 

Someone, he couldn’t quite tell who, and he honestly did not care, shoved his phone into his hands. He tried his hardest to stop the shaking as he quickly pressed John’s contact. 

He rang three times, and in the time it took to do so, the punches moved from his body to his face. 

Finally, someone picked up.

“Hello? Alexander?” It was a girl’s voice.

“Who is this? Where’s— ah! —where’s John?”

“This is Martha Manning, John left his phone at my house earlier today. I can go drop it ‘round, if you want to speak with him?”

“How far away do you live?”

“Um. Across the street. Why?”

The relief that he felt after hearing that was immense. “Martha, you need to get over there. Now. I don’t know what’s happened but Henry is fucking— agh — beating him to death.”

There was a pause for a few seconds. “Oh my god, you’re his soulmate, I almost forgot.” Then— “You better not be kidding.”

“God, I’m not kidding, just get over there now, please!” he cried.

“Yep, on my way, on my way now. It’s gonna be okay.” 

He could hear the sound of a door opening and rushed footsteps on the other side. He could already feel the dull throbbing of bruises forming, even as the punches continued to rain down. “God, please hurry,” he sobbed.

“I am, I am. Okay. I’m going in now, I’ll call you right after, okay?”

“Okay.”

As soon as the line went dead, the punches stopped. Had, by some miracle, Martha’s mere presence in the house stopped it? Alexander let himself hope for that for a moment. 

A very short moment, before he felt an all-too-familiar feeling overcome him. 

He knew what it was intimately. He felt it every night in his dreams, the ones he would wake screaming and gasping from. 

Drowning.

He gasped for air, but it was like all the oxygen around him had been sucked up. This couldn’t kill him, he knew that. But it could kill John. John was dying. 

“A—Alex?” Lafayette asked hesitantly.

All he could do was place a hand to his neck and gasp again. 

It was by far worse than the real thing. Knowing what was happening to the love of his life, understanding intimately what that felt like, while being trapped on the other side of the country, helpless to do anything. 

He scrambled to pick up his phone again, call Martha back, anything. But she didn’t pick up and Alexander could barely hear the voicemail over the ringing in his ears.

——

It should have felt violent. It should have felt awful. It should have felt painful. 

And yet, all that John felt was peace, even as his father held his head firmly under the freezing water of their backyard pool. 

He had struggled for about the first twenty seconds, but it was futile. Maybe his father would pull his head up again before he died. Maybe he wouldn’t. At that moment, John didn’t care.

He’d felt this before, years ago when Alexander almost drowned in that hurricane. A little ironic, now, that John was going to end up being the one to die like that. It was comforting, to know that they were connected in this way. He was grateful that even in death, he was connected to Alexander. He just hoped that he wasn't worrying too much, knowing what it’s like to be on the other end of this. He hoped Alex would move on. He deserved as much. 

He closed his eyes, didn't pay any mind to the harsh hand still holding him tightly around the neck, as the world went quiet. It’s because of this that he didn’t even notice when it went away, when he was pulled from the water, when the paramedics arrived. 

The voices were distant, muffled. They sounded like they wanted to be loud, to shout, but there was something in the way, blocking them. There weren’t any shapes, just darkness. And his only thought was of Alexander.

Chapter Text

“You need to calm down, the flight is two hours, if you stay panicked like this the whole time tu vas t’ é vanouir.”

“How can I calm down? There’s no wifi, and he’s unconscious, so there’s no way to know if he’s alive or not!”

Laf sighed. “Martha has told you that the doctors say he’ll be fine.”

“But what if they’re wrong? Doctors can’t know everything!”

“Alexander,” that was Hercules now, his voice harsh and steadying. “He’s going to need you to be strong for him when we arrive. There isn’t any way for you to know how he is until we get there.”

“Like Schrodinger's cat,” Alex muttered under his breath. Both of his friends rolled their eyes. 

But it was true; he couldn’t know whether John was alive or dead until they landed, so while they were here, in this giant metal box floating across the sky, it was almost as if John was alive and dead at the same time. He wasn't sure what would be worse: the feeling of not knowing right now, or the feeling of opening the box to see what was inside. 

In a way, it was almost peaceful, this last painful two hours before he found out. The last time he would be unaware.

In another way, it was not peaceful at all, in any way shape or form, because John could be dead and he wouldn’t even know. He wouldn’t be there with him. He wouldn’t be able to do anything.  

Logically, yes, it was extremely unlikely. Sure. Alex knew what it was like to almost drown, and he also knew that once you were out of the water and breathing again, it was usually smooth sailing. Usually. But not all the time. And that tiny amount of doubt was enough to make him unable to sit still in his seat.

Except this was an airplane, and he couldn’t get up and pace no matter how much he wanted, so he just sat there, for two hours, biting his nail and staring at the back of the seat in front of him. 

The only reason he even noticed when they landed was the sudden jolt that shook him out of his thoughts. Herc got his bags (which were hastily packed with a few hoodies and a phone charger) while he immediately called Martha through John’s phone again. 

“Hey, Alexander,” she answered, her voice exhausted. It was already past midnight, because their flight was delayed a little. 

“Hi. We just landed. Is he alright?” He tried to keep the panic out of his voice, but he was definitely unsuccessful. 

“Yeah, he’s okay. Still hasn’t woken up yet, but the doctors say he should soon. He’ll be fine.”

“Oh, thank god. We’ll head straight up there now. What’s the place you’re at again?”

She gave him the address of the hospital, and he begged his brain to remember it. 

“Should only be about fifteen minutes from the airport. I’ll see you soon.”

“Thank you, Martha.”

“Of course.”

——

The lights burnt his eyes. He reached his arm to cover them, and immediately noticed the drip connected to his wrist, over the red scars that still lay there. It ruined all illusion of what had just happened; John was still alive, there was no doubting it. 

He blinked rapidly to try to get his eyes to adjust to the harsh fluorescent lighting of the hospital room. Why hospitals can’t have nice warm ambient lighting, he didn’t know, and frankly, that was not important right now.

“Jack?”

The sound of a voice jolted him a little, and he looked up to see Mannie sitting beside the bed, looking at him with a concerned look and bags under her eyes. He had thought, for a moment there, when his brain was still too blurry to determine voices, that the ‘Jack’ had come from his father. 

But that made no sense. Why would his father be here?

“Hi,” he tried to say, although it came out as more of a rasp. He suddenly felt that his throat was incredibly dry and incredibly sore. 

“How’re you feeling?”

“Like shit.” He closed his eyes again, and the relief from the harsh lights was immense. He felt the memories of what had happened slowly was over him in waves. Talking to Martha about Alexander. His father walking in. The alcohol on his breath. The beating. Then, being yanked out to the backyard, not quite sure what was going on until his head was underwater. “Crap,” he muttered. “What— what happened? And where are the kids? They’re not back there, are they?”

“No, they’re at the police station,” Mannie explained. “They wanted to come see you, but I thought it might be too overwhelming.”

He wasn’t sure that leaving his group of traumatised Latine siblings at a police station was too much better than with his father, but John still appreciated the gesture. And, well, they were going to have to deal with the cops one way or another. 

“How did—” His voice cracked, and he wasn’t sure if he would have been able to get the whole question out, but luckily Mannie easily picked up on what he meant.

“You left your phone at my house, you forgetful idiot. It probably saved your life, though. Alexander called.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, he told me that your father was quote ‘beating you to death’ and that I needed to get over there as soon as possible. I half thought he was exaggerating.” She swept her eyes over his body, which he suddenly noticed ached like hell. “Cleary, he was not. By the time I got there, he was holding your head in the pool. I literally kicked him away and somehow managed to stop you from falling in. I think it sobered him up a little. He kept looking between me, you, and the pool with this horrified expression.”

He took a deep breath, and it still hurt his throat to do so. “God, I shouldn’t even be surprised.”

Mannie looked horrified. “Jack, he tried to kill you!”

“He walked in on me talking about Alexander to Martha. And he was drunk.” He shrugged, which alerted him to the fact that his shoulders were also covered in bruises. He winced.

“How can you be so calm?”

“That house was enough chaos for a hundred lives, Mannie. I don’t need any more—”

“JOHN!” And suddenly the door was bursting open, an extremely dishevelled Alexander Hamilton standing there in a hoodie and pyjama pants, panting with exertion. “Are you okay? Oh my god, you’re awake. I mean, I knew you were awake, I felt it, but it’s another thing to actually see you, and the idiot at the reception desk didn’t want to let me in because I’m not family but luckily we got through anyway— But that doesn’t matter right now, what matters is you, are you alright? What happened? Where are the kids? Where is—”

“Excuse me.” Mannie walked over to Alexander, her hand on her hip. Her stern looks were enough to shut anyone up, even John’s very talkative-hyperactive ADHD-future lawyer/politician/journalist–boyfriend. “But who are you?”

John was pretty sure he remembered showing Mannie photos of Alex before, maybe even earlier that day, but he wouldn’t have been surprised if she was just bluffing for the fun of it. 

“I’m Alexander Hamilton, John’s soulmate. Who are you?” 

“ I am the girl you’ve been talking to over the phone with for the past few hours. The one who saved your soulmate’s life?”

“Oh my god, Martha!” And then suddenly, in an extremely bewildering move for John, who had literally just woken up and was still adjusting to the fact that he wasn’t dead, he hugged her. 

It seemed to surprise Mannie, too. She awkwardly patted him on the back. “Okay, okay, go comfort your ailing boyfriend,” she said. 

He quickly looked up and ran over to John’s bedside, holding his face in his hands. “How are you feeling?” He asked desperately.

“‘M fine,” John mumbled, a little muffled because of how desperately Alexander was holding his face.

“You’re not fine, you idiot, he tried to drown you!” He dropped his face and ran his hands through John’s hair, which really did feel quite nice.

“‘M’okay now.”

“John…” He looked down at him with sadness coating his eyes. It was a little surprising, actually. John would’ve expected him to already have the gun out and be hunting down his father. Instead, he was looking at him like he was on the brink of tears. “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe this happened to you.”

He shrugged. “I… didn’t realize he would do that.”

“Clearly not.” His eyes suddenly lit with fire. Ah, there was the Alexander John knew and loved. “I swear to god if that man doesn’t go to prison for attempted murder I might have to attempt to murder him.” 

Mannie snorted. 

“Oh, no he’s serious,” John muttered.

“Oh, I definitely am.” His voice was dark and serious. “I’m so sorry that we didn’t do something sooner. It never should have gotten that bad.”

“We couldn’t have known.”

“But he was hitting you—”

“Way less than in my childhood, you can attest to that.” John sighed, all the talking hurting his throat a lot. “I can’t say I’m surprised, but I still wouldn’t have guessed.”

“You did a good job, Alexander,” Mannie said softly. “He’s okay now, and the kids are safe from him, thanks to your quick thinking.”

“I just had to do something, I—” Alexander cut himself off as he sat on the side of John’s bed and intertwined their hands. “It was a bit silly, calling him, it’s not like it would have stopped it in any other situation.”

“But it did stop it,” John rasped, his throat now burning with the effort. He didn’t mind, though, he wanted Alexander to know.

“Oh, John, I can feel your throat, you know, you need to relax,” Alexander murmured, petting his forehead. It was as if he'd read his mind. Which, well, he kind of had. “Plus, you sound super southern right now and it’s throwing me off.”

John just rolled his eyes but nonetheless stayed quiet. He let himself drift off a bit closer to sleep, and he felt the hospital bed shift a little as Alexander slipped in beside him. He could hear him softly talking to Mannie, although he didn’t pay attention, as he was already slipping back into blissful sleep.

——

It was a relief, now, rather than something to panic about, when Alexander felt John’s breaths slowly even out as he fell asleep curled into his side on the stiff hospital bed. He looked down at John, his John, there, in the flesh. Because John hadn’t died. He was still here, still breathing, despite everything. Alexander was never going to let him go. He was the most precious thing in the entire world.

“You know, I worried a bit when he said he’d got a boyfriend,” Martha said softly. Alex looked up, suddenly worried that she was going to shovel talk him the same way Hercules had six months ago when he started dating John. “He talked about you like you were all the goodness in the world projected into one person. And… well, you’re soulmates, of course, but there’s so few instances of soulmates meeting that there’s no real definitive answer on if that actually means that you’re perfectly compatible.” 

Alex swallowed. “I don’t think anyone is perfectly compatible,” he said, looking down at John. “Even soulmates. But we try despite that. I think that’s what matters.”

She smiled, even though she was still looking at him like a hawk, as if trying to find his entire life story through his facial features. “Good answer, Mr Hamilton,” She said. “I’m glad he has you. And I’m doubly impressed that you came all the way down here. Within the span of a few hours, no less.”

“I was… freaking out a bit. Luckily my friend was able to book us some last-minute tickets.”

“Your friend?”

“Uh, yeah, two of our friends came too, mostly to stop me from dying of a stress-induced mania on the flight over. They’re in the waiting room.”

“He’s going to freak out when he wakes up and is lucid enough to realize that all of you made it halfway across the country within the span of four hours just for him.”

Alex ran his fingers softly through John’s hair, just like how he did every night that they slept next to each other. Some part of his brain was still in panic mode, still expecting to find John lying dead each time he looked down. But each time, John was still there, rosy-cheeked and breathing, and Alex could breathe again. “It’s the least I could do,” He murmured.

“You’re almost too sweet.”

“Hah.”

“Seriously, though, thank you.”

Alexander looked up. “For what?”

“For caring about him. For being there when I couldn’t. I don’t know much, but… from what he’s said, it sounds like the last year has been awful for him. I’m glad he has you. You seem like a good guy, Alexander.”

He hadn’t even known that he wanted Martha’s approval until he was struggling to hold back tears. “Thank you,” he whispered.

A couple hours later, and John was awake again, much less groggy than before, although Alexander could still feel that his throat hurt. The first thing he said was:

“Alex? How the hell are you here?”

He smiled. “I got a flight.”

“Seriously?”

“Yup. Came straight down here after what happened.”

“Are Laf and Herc here?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“Can they come in?”

And so Laf and Herc had joined them in the room, both incredibly worried about John and relieved to see that he was doing okay. Lafayette even started up a conversation with Martha, and the two got along surprisingly well. It felt almost surreal, how peaceful it was, after everything that had happened so little time earlier.

That was, until, a woman in a sharp suit, holding a clipboard, walked into the room, John’s scared siblings following behind her. Alex had never seen John’s family, but it struck him now just how similar the Laurens siblings all looked. Martha, John’s oldest sister, was the spitting image of him. The younger kids followed like baby ducks behind her. 

“Jack!” She exclaimed as soon as she saw her brother, running up to him in the bed. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, Marty.”

“I didn’t think he could do that, i wouldn’t have left—”

“Excuse me,” the woman in the suit interrupted in a commanding tone. Everyone turned to face her. From first glance, Alexander didn’t like her. She had the sharp, blank features of a high school principal that suspends girls for dress code violations. She looked at John. “Are you John Laurens?” she asked.

“No, I’m the Queen,” he deadpanned. When the woman’s expression didn’t flinch, he clarified; “Yes, that’s me.”

“My name is Martha Washington. I’m a social worker.” She smiled and some of the tension left her expression. 

Alex’s first thought was : How many fucking Marthas live in South Carolina? His second was: This woman better be nicer than she seems because God knows these kids need that.

“Oh,” John breathed. He nodded. “Nice to meet you.”

“Would you mind if I ask you some questions?”

“Sure.”

“Do you still want all these people in the room?”

John briefly looked around at the six others, although he didn’t look indecisive. “Yeah.”

——

The questions were awful, but that was to be expected. It was a little awkward with everyone else in the room being so silent, but luckily Mannie, the absolute angel, noticed and distracted the younger kids by chatting quietly with them in the corner of the room. 

“Has your father had a history of physically abusing you?” Mrs Washington asked. Despite the fact that she looked a little intimidating at first, John was glad that she didn’t look like she was trying to pity him. She was to the point, but not harsh, and didn’t mind that John couldn’t meet her eyes.

“Yeah. Ever since I was nine.”

“And with your siblings?”

“No, never. Not until a couple days ago.”

“What happened then?”

John looked up and glanced at his sister, and she shrugged, indicating she didn’t mind him telling her.

“He hit Martha for defending me. I didn’t know until I accidentally walked in on her in the bathroom and saw the bruises.”

Mrs Washington nodded and scribbled something down on her clipboard. She then looked over to Martha. “And this has never happened before then?”

She shook her head. “No. Although he has been getting a bit more angry at me ever since John left.”

Even though John probably shouldn’t have been surprised at that, given the last few week’s events. But it still made his blood boil. 

“Do you think there’s any reason why he targeted you?”

John shrugged. “I don’t really know. I think it started because I have soulmate syndrome and he thought I was being weak or lazy when I complained of pain. He didn’t want me to influence my younger siblings. And… Well, I’m gay, and even though he didn’t find out until yesterday, I’ve always been a little more effeminate.”

“And he has a problem with that?”

“Are you familiar with any of his like, four unsuccessful runs for governor?” It was his attempt at a joke, but Mrs Washington didn’t laugh. 

“I’m not.”

“Ah.” He cleared his throat. It was starting to ache again. Every breath felt like a dull stab, and he could see Alexander giving him nervous glances about it. “Yeah, well, he’s not the biggest fan of anything different.”

“Right. And can you tell me the events that led up to what happened last night?”

He took a deep breath. “Well… I went to my friend, not my sister, Martha’s house earlier in the day, and I think I left my phone there. Then when I went home I was talking to my sister Martha about my boyfriend—” he gestured to Alexander— “And he walked in.”

“And what happened after that?”

“I—” John stopped short. He tried to remember exactly what happened to recite it to Mrs Washington, but he couldn’t. Well, it was obvious what had happened, he could feel the bruises, but… something about his memories went incredibly fuzzy as soon as Martha left the room. The only thing he remembered with any clarity was the feeling of coldness and the hope that at least he’d be dying in a way that connected him to Alexander. “I think he kicked Martha out, but… I— I don’t really know what happened after that. I just remember ending up in the pool.”

She nodded solemnly and wrote something down on her paper. 

“Wait,” Alexander said. Everyone turned to look at him. “Um. Sorry if this is out of line, but I’m his soulmate. I know vaguely what happened.”

Mrs Washington’s face scrunched up in confusion. “What are you talking about, dear?”

“Uh, we share pain. Have pretty much my whole life.”

She looked between the two of them. “You mean… you two are actually soulmates?”

“Uh, yeah,” John confirmed.

“Oh my goodness, I have never heard of that happening,” She said. “Sorry, not very professional of me, but that is an incredible coincidence.”

“Yeah, we got lucky,” Alexander said.

“Very lucky, actually,” Mannie added. “The only reason his father stopped was because Alexander called John’s phone. Since he left it at my place, I picked up, and was able to run across the street to stop him in time.”

Mrs Washington stared between the three of them for a few minutes, seemingly processing the story. “Well,” she said. “I’m glad you have a good support system.”

The rest of the questions were all in the same vein, and John was pretty sure he knew what they were for. They had to build an airtight case. Finally, the question he knew was coming came. 

“Do you wish to press charges?”

The real answer? No. John, perhaps unjustifiably, was the least angry person in the room. All he wanted was to get away from his father and make sure he couldn’t hurt the kids. He didn’t want the stress of a trial, much less make his already traumatized siblings go through that, and, well, he may not have been much of a father, but it still stung to imagine the man who raised him behind bars. 

But he knew that wasn’t the right answer. He knew what his father deserved. And he also knew that if he did nothing, he would regret it in the long term. He looked up and saw Alexander’s horrified expression at his hesitation.

“John?”

He sighed. “Yeah, I do.” 

She left not too long after that, not before working out that John’s siblings could be placed with their aunt, who had already agreed to meet them at the hospital. 

“So… care to explain how you got here just like, four hours after what happened?” John asked Alexander when she’d left. 

“I already told you. I got a flight.”

“You just… went straight to the airport?”

“Yeah.”

“ Why?” 

Alex looked down at him like he’d grown a second head. “Because I love you.”

Everyone was still staring at them, and John blushed furiously. 

“Wait, what?” Junior asked. John’s little brother was looking up at the both of them with wide eyes, tear streaks still on his face. James and Mary Elanor looked similarly confused. “Who even are you?”

“Um.” Alexander looked awkwardly between the two. 

“Yeah, what’s going on?” Mary added. 

John swallowed, his mouth dry. His young siblings: eight, ten, and twelve, hadn’t never known anything other than their father’s ramrod-straight conservative home. But it wasn’t like he could lie to them. He took a deep breath. “Guys, this is Alexander, my boyfriend. And these are my other friends, Hercules and Lafayette.”

“Boyfriend?” Junior asked. “But you’re a boy.”

“Yeah, I am, we both are, but we love each other anyway. He’s actually my soulmate.”

“Oh.” Junior looked a bit baffled, but not offended, so John counted that as a win. “But why are you in the hospital, then?”

He didn’t meet his little brother’s eye. “Dad heard me talking about Alexander to Martha. He doesn’t think that boys should be able to date boys, so he got very angry and hurt me.”

“Oh.”

“He’s not going to hurt me again, okay? I’m never going to let him.”

Chapter Text

New York hadn’t changed one bit since John left, and oh wasn’t that the most comforting thing he’d ever felt. The taxi drove through the same streets it drove through on his way out, they passed the same buildings, and Alexander was still there, holding his hand. 

Since he hadn’t got access to his new dorm for the next year, he crashed at Hercules and Laf’s place, where Alex was already staying in the guest bedroom. Unfortunately for John, who really wanted to be catching back up with his friends and making the most of his free summer time, Alexander insisted that he get as much rest as possible. 

“Really, Alex, it’s fine,” he complained on his first morning back. “It’s not like I was really hurt that much. It’s just my throat.”

“You have two broken ribs, you idiot,” Alexander murmured back. 

“They’re healing fine! They wouldn’t have let me come back to New York if they weren’t.”

“Yeah, and they won’t be healing fine if you exert yourself too much,” Alexander grumbled back, slipping into a shirt. “I know you, I know you’re itching to go back to the gym.”

John rolled his eyes, even though he knew that Alexander was right. Going to the gym did sound really nice right now. It was something he enjoyed to let his stress out, and, well, it was much better back here, but he certainly still had a lot of stress. 

About a week later, though, he was mostly healed, if a little sore, and Alexander was practically jumping with excitement around the breakfast table. John looked up in annoyance, eating a crepe that Laf had made for him. (They had more time that morning, and so of course they had to make the ‘better’ form.)

“Okay, what’s going on? You’re acting like a jack in the box,” John muttered.

“Oh my god, John, I was gonna keep it a surprise, but I can’t hold it in anymore.”

John raised an eyebrow. 

“The pride club has been planning a march for tomorrow,” Alex said excitedly. “We didn’t think you’d be able to make it so we didn’t want to tell you and make you even more disappointed. But you can come now! As long as you’re careful with your ribs.”

John smiled. The idea of a pride march was truthfully a little nerve-wracking to him. It would feel weird to be so open about it when he had been hiding completely just a couple weeks ago. But he was also excited. He’d never been to anything like this. He wanted to learn, to meet more queer people outside of his friend group. “That’s great!” he said. “Y'all didn’t have to hide it from me, though, I would’ve been happy for you anyway.”

Alex walked over, finally sat down, and grabbed John’s hand. “I know. But you were going through so much shit… I didn’t want to make that worse by bragging or whatever.”

“Well, we get to do it together, now.”

“Yeah. I can’t wait to show everyone how beautiful my boyfriend is.”

John blushed. Even after all this time, he still got bashful every time Alex talked about him like that. It was a little embarrassing, but John knew that he didn’t mind. 

“Well, I can’t wait to be shown off.”

The next day, they woke bright and early. Or rather, Lafayette woke up bright and early and decided that for some godforsaken reason it would be a good idea to bound into the guest room, turn the light on, and exclaim at the top of their lungs:

“Get up, assholes, it’s time to get ready!”

John rolled over and buried his head into the pillow, groaning. Alexander placed an arm over his eyes to block out the light. “Ugh, what time is it?” he grumbled. 

“Eight AM. Come on, we’re going to be late.”

“Laf, the march doesn’t start till eleven.”

“Exactly!” they crossed their arms indignantly. “And I’ve only just gotten out of the shower! We still need to do outfits, and makeup, and bags, and I’ve got to get herc to blow dry my hair—”

“We still have three hours!” John complaints, finally rolling over and being met with the sight of Laf, their hair still a bit wet, standing very determinedly in the doorway. “And I’ve never even heard of you blowdrying your hair before.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve got a braiding appointment tomorrow, and we won’t have time for it when we get back tonight. Now come on, get up you two.”

Alexander just groaned again and rolled back over onto his front as Lafayette pranced out of the room. John finally looked up and leaned over to whisper in his boyfriend’s ear. 

“Hey, if we go shower, we could, you know…”

Alex immediately perked up like a puppy hearing the word ‘walk’. John giggled, crawling out of bed and pulling Alex up with him. 

A very speedy twenty minutes later, they finally joined the others in the living room, where Hercules and Lafayette were sitting on the couch, Laf’s hair tied into a bun, while Herc tried his best at their makeup. John chuckled a little. At least he was giving it a go. 

“So this is why we have to get up at the ass crack of dawn?” Alex asked, dumping himself on the couch next to the two. 

“I need time to achieve perfection.”

Herc snorts. “Sorry, babe, but with me doing your makeup it’s not going to be perfection.”

“Oh, don’t discount yourself, I’m sure it’s great. Plus, I can clean it up later if I need.”

Herc raised an eyebrow as he reached for the eyeliner. 

The next two hours mostly consisted of Laf getting ready while telling them that they needed to start before they ran out of time. John was very aware that they still had plenty of time, and honestly found the entire situation quite amusing. Eventually, though, he and Alex did get dressed and packed bags, meeting the others in the living room with still about half an hour to spare. Way longer than they needed, but it helped Laf not panic. 

“Would either of you like me to do some last-minute makeup for you?” they asked cheerily.

“Nah, I’m good,” Alex replied. 

“John?”

John froze. Truthfully, he wanted to. God, he wanted to. He knew practically nothing about makeup, but he liked the way it looked, and he was always curious. But they were going out in public. And he knew it wasn’t bad, of course. But knowing that didn’t change the eighteen years he spent being told it was. He had his mouth slightly agape, staring at Lafayette for probably way too long.

Alexander squeezed his hand. “You alright, love?”

He snapped out of his endless train of thought and swallowed. “Yeah, I just…”

“You can always take it off if you change your mind,” Laf assured him, somehow knowing the exact right thing to say. “I won’t do anything too crazy, we don’t have time for that anyway.”

John took a deep breath. “Okay.”

They led him over to sit down on the couch and got a few palettes out of their makeup bag, spreading them across the coffee table. Alex happily sat cross-legged in an armchair, watching with a smile. 

“Okay, so do you want something colourful? Eyeliner? I can do a pride flag?”

“Uh, honestly, whatever you think. I don’t mind.” He honestly didn’t really know what was possible or what would look good, and didn’t want to admit that. 

Luckily, Laf looked elated at the prospect of getting to do whatever they wanted. They grinned, picking up a colourful eyeshadow palette and getting to work. 

It was a little uncomfortable, what with all the brushes up in his face, and with Alex watching the whole time. He didn’t mind, but he was still a little self-conscious about this all. What if he looked dumb? What if this was too far? What if Alex didn’t like it? What if he thought this made John less of a man?

Lafayette abruptly paused their brushing in the corner of his eye. They studied his face carefully for a moment. “Are you uncomfortable? I can stop if you need, John.”

“I— A little. But I want to try this. It’s just… scary.” It was a stupid thing to say. It was just colored powder. Laf would probably think he was being dumb.

“I get it,” they murmured, surprising him. “I was terrified the first time I wore makeup.” They smiled. “It gets easier, though. It’s just another thing to make you feel pretty. Like jewellery, or a hat.”

John nodded. “Thanks.”

“Of course, mon pote. Do you want me to keep going?”

“Yeah.”

For the rest of the time, he didn’t let his thoughts spiral again, no matter how much he was tempted. He was still too scared to glance at Alexander, though. He wouldn’t mind, of course. Alex was the most perfect person on the planet. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t stop John’s anxiety. 

Finally, Lafayette finished, after mascara, (something John didn’t even know existed until that point, and included quite the learning curve to apply) and grinned as they admired their work. “There. You look beautiful,” they said. “Wanna see?” They grabbed their phone out of their pocket, opened up the selfie camera, and handed it to John.

He didn’t let himself hesitate, because that would only prolong his anxiety. He looked straight into the camera. 

It took him a moment to register that yes, that was his face. Lafayette’s handiwork was gorgeous. They’d covered one of his eyes with teal eyeshadow, the other with blue, both fading into white at the corners in an emulation of the mlm flag. The eyeliner was perfectly symmetrical and still felt a bit masculine despite being quite long. It was a little strange, but he loved it. 

“What do you think?”

“It’s great,” he breathed, handing the phone back over. “Thank you, Laf.”

“Of course.” They smirked, raising an eyebrow. “I think your boyfriend is thanking me, too.”

John finally chanced a look over at Alexander. His boyfriend was looking over from his spot on the armchair, jaw dropped, a hot red blush crawling its way over his cheeks and neck. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Fuck, you’re hot.”

John felt as if all the blood in his entire body rushed to his face at those words. All his fears fell away with one look at Alexander’s face. “Thank you,” He replied.

As Lafayette, satisfied with their work, left the room to go find Hercules, Alex stood up and walked over to the couch where John was sitting. He stood right in front of him, in between where John’s legs were sitting. “Wow,” he breathed as he cupped John’s face with his hand softly. “God this is gorgeous. I mean— not that you’re not always gorgeous, but this…” He leaned down and kissed John tenderly. When he pulled away a couple seconds later it looked like it physically pained him to do so. His lips were shiny, a little pink, where the lip gloss had rubbed off on him. He considered John for a moment. ”Do you like it?”

“Yeah. I already told Laf that.”

“Yeah, but like… would you wear it again?”

Yes. The answer was yes. But goddamnit, there was his anxiety again. He looked away from Alex. “Yeah,” he said, so quietly he doubted whether Alex had actually heard.

“Hey.” Alexander reached to turn John’s face gently back to face him. “You alright?”

“I just— never thought I’d be here. And I’ve always been taught that makeup is just a girl’s thing.”

Alexander furrowed his eyebrows. “You know that’s bullshit, though.”

“Of course it is. But it’s hard to undo all that.”

“I know,” Alex whispered. He leaned down and rested their foreheads against one another. “I’m so proud of you for giving it a go.”

“Ugh, don’t make me cry, it’ll ruin all Laf’s hard work.”

Alexander chuckled. “Aw, sorry, amor.” He leaned in to briefly kiss John again before leaning back and extending his hand. “You ready to go?”

He took a breath. “Yeah.”

John had only really thought about the whole ‘wearing makeup at a pride march,’ thing, and had forgotten about the whole ‘wearing makeup on public transport’ thing that came along with it. Because while no-one at a pride event would judge him for it, randos on the subway certainly would. Luckily, the ride wasn’t too long, as Herc and Laf’s apartment was very close to campus. Also luckily, Lafayette’s makeup was far more extravagant than his own, and they wore it like a badge of honour. 

John and Alex took the only two available seats and Herc and Laf stood up, holding onto the balancing straps. Laf was holding their head up high the whole time, smiling as they chatted with the group. When an old lady got on and scowled at them, they stuck their tongue out and winked. Their confidence helped John feel a bit better. Plus, it meant he wasn’t the center of attention, thank god. 

Finally, though, they reached their stop and climbed out to campus. John could hear it before he saw it; someone was blasting ‘Good Luck Babe’ at full volume from some pretty powerful speakers. Laf started jokingly singing along as they walked over, and John rolled his eyes even though their singing was actually pretty good. When they rounded the corner and saw the large group of people catheter in the square, it was pretty clear who’d turned the music on. Right next to some massive speakers was Peggy, holding their phone and practically jumping up and down in beat with the music. Their sisters were nearby as well, although they weren’t dancing quite so enthusiastically. Eliza had her arm around the waist of a girl that John didn’t know. It filled him with a sense of warmth to see his other friends again. That was one of the things he hated most about the idea of spending summer in South Carolina: missing out on hanging out with all of them. He was eternally grateful that things had turned out like this, even if the steps it took to get there were god-awful.

“Come on,” Laf said, loud so that they could be heard over the music, “Let’s reunite John with his real family.”

It was, without a doubt, a hundred times better than any day he would have had if he hadn’t come back. He got to reunite with all his friends, meet Eliza’s new girlfriend Maria, and spend time with people who actually cared about him, who wouldn’t drown him for something he couldn’t control. It was exhausting, sure. By the time he got home his feet were killing him and he had to be dragged off the bed by Alexander to go take the makeup off in the bathroom. But the memories were incredible, and John wouldn’t have had it any other way. 

Until he woke up the next day with immense guilt hanging in his stomach. 

He checked the time. 9:47. Breakfast would already be finished, and it was a monday, so his father would already be at wo—

Except he wouldn’t. Because his father was currently sitting in a jail cell. Right. He almost forgot about that part. That somehow made his guilt a hundred times better and a hundred times worse at the same time. Well, at least it would be safer to call his sister.

“Hey, Jack,” She answered not a minute after he pressed the facetime button. She looked exhausted, purple bags under her eyes that rivalled Alexander’s. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay. How are you? How are the kids?”

She sighed. “We’re working on it. Aunt Emily’s been real good. I don’t think the littles really understand what’s happened, but they’re glad to be out of there nonetheless.”

John nodded, more to reassure himself than his sister. “That’s good. I’m real sorry ‘bout everything. I took y’all away from your father.”

Martha scoffed. “Jack, if you didn’t, someone was going to have to. None of us were safe before. If anything, you saved us. I should be thanking you.”

“It still feels like shit.”

“Everything feels like shit right now, Jack. But it’ll get better.”

“Thanks.” He smiled. “I’m so proud of you, you know. Thank you for all you’ve done.”

“All I’ve done?”

“You looked after the kids after I left. You stood up for me against dad. You’re real brave, Martha.”

She looked down at her lap. “Thanks, Jack. You’re pretty brave too, you know.”

“I just had to survive.” He shrugged.

“So did I.”

They stared at each other for a moment, something passing between them. They were both subject to the same wrath, for so long. And now it’s over. There’s still a long while to go. There’ll be a trial, and therapy, and a lot of tears. But things are finally on the right track. John breathes a sigh of relief. They can both breathe freely now.