TRIGGER WARNING: Suicide and depression

Author's Note: I've written something! Yay!

No idea when LLJL will be updated. Sorry bout that.

This is almost an AU, like 5 years in the future, continuation of Life, Liberty, and John Laurens, but it's also not, even though I include little references and stuff. That one is definitely more happy than this one. Read that one if you aren't very happy with a lot of sadness and angst. You don't have to read that one to read this one, though.

Inspired/somewhat based off of the short film Tick Where It Hurts by Bertie Gilbert. It's on Youtube. I definitely recommend watching it.

Cheerios for Sierra.

I wrote most of this in the past two hours, in which I've been incredibly tired. I only edited it once. If it's really terrible in the light of day, I'll come back and fix it.

Playlist at the bottom.

x x x

x x

x

I haven't written anything in three months. Not one word. Not even a fucking grocery list.

My professors took my excuses for all my late assignments and skipped classes in stride, with a sad glance at the empty seat next to mine. But now agitation is weighing down their patience. They're frustrated with me. I should just tell them that I won't be doing those assignments, ever, not even if they were the only thing that could keep me alive.

I should tell them that I'm frustrated with me, too.

x

x x

x x x

Alex stared at the blinking cursor, his heavy eyes squinting at the blank space after his words.

He supposed the words were his, even if he wasn't able to recognize them as that.

He trained his sight on the white even though he was growing more discomforted with it by the millisecond. The only reason he sat there and let the light burn his eyes was because he knew that if he didn't focus on it, he'd look at the picture above his desk, and he wouldn't be able to sleep for another week.

Alex couldn't bear to rip that one down when he did so to the rest of them. The emptiness in the apartment after he took down all of John's drawings, John's pictures, ticket stubs, band posters, Alex's favorite quotes scrawled on Post-it notes, John's papers with a bright red A circled at the top, was blinding. All that was left was the only self-portrait John ever did.

Alex couldn't bear the sight of tearing it to pieces like he'd done with all the other drawings John had let him put up, so he didn't. Now he couldn't even bear to look at it.

Alex sighed and rubbed his face, trying to shove away the numbness and failing. He fumbled in the feeble light for his phone and called Eliza. It was slightly past two in the morning, but she would answer for him. She always did.

Alex may have been abusing Eliza's kindness and her worry for him, but she had been the one to tell him to write. And she was going to hear him complain about it.

"Alex."

"Hi, Liza."

"What do you need?"

"I'm writing."

Pause. "You are?"

"Yeah, and I feel like shit."

"Well, you've been feeling like shit for a while now, so is it any different from your usual shit?"

"It is, because writing has never been shit for me. Much less writing about him."

Rustle. Sigh. "Alex, what else are you going to do?"

Numb.

"Alex?"

Burn.

"…"

Ice.

"You still there?"

Shatter.

"I don't know, Eliza."

"Well, all that matters is what you do know. Write that. Write what you know."

"I don't know anything."

"Write that."

"…"

"Sweet dreams, Alex."

Sigh. "Goodnight, Eliza. I'm sorry for waking you."

"Get some sleep, for once. Please. It will do you more good than you think."

Click.

Buzz.

Sigh.

x x x

x x

x

I loved him. I don't know if he knew that I did, but that's the truest thing I know at the moment. Other than that, I know nothing else.

It's all that I know.

And if he did know…

…

…

…

I hope he didn't know.

x

x x

x x x

Alex wrote until he went on full shutdown. His fingers were still hovering over the keyboard when he fell face first onto his desk, exhaustion devouring him.

Unlike Eliza's wishes, his dreams were as sweet as burnt salt in a cut.

Alex saw the car before he saw John. It was the car John's father had given him, not the car he actually drove. Not the car John had taught Alex how to drive in.

It was gray, and it was expensive, and it was a gorgeous vehicle, and there were three dents in the left side passenger door from when John had taken a baseball bat to it after a bad visit home. Alex had watched, just hoping that he wouldn't smash a window. Not that he would have cared if he did.

It was the car, and when Alex had first been told, he'd thought that that piece of shit, even smashed to bits, ugly, smoking pieces scattered all over, did not deserve to bury John's pieces inside of it.

And then John was there.

He smiled at Alex and waved his keys. "You coming with?"

Alex looked around him, spinning in circles, trying to find something familiar and coming up dizzy and empty handed. Utterly lost.

John was still smiling when Alex turned back to him.

"Where are you going?"

John's grin, a grin that Alex saw whenever he closed his eyes, that he dreamed of assaulting with kisses, a grin that Alex always returned, was empty. Dead. Alex felt as hollow as John looked.

"Far away."

"Why?" Alex was nervous, his hands sweating, and he couldn't figure out why.

"I've always wanted to go there. And now, I've got nowhere else to go."

"… what would we do there?"

Grin. "That's the fun part. So, are you coming?"

Alex hesitated, and John noticed. Something was off, feeling like he was being held back against a wall, like even if he tried to step forward, his feet would tangle with themselves. He'd do anything for John, follow him anywhere and everywhere.

But he just couldn't.

"I… I don't…"

"You don't want to go with me?" John sounded mad, and Alex, for once in all the time he'd known John, was scared of him. A baseball bat flashed through his mind.

"John, no."

"Alex," John had softened his voice now, and reached out to grab Alex's wrist. The keys pressed against the inside of his wrist. Numb.

"I want you to come with me, Alex. I need you."

"John, what are you doing?"

"What I have to. And I need you with me to do it."

"I don't think you need me." But I need you.

"But I do, and you need me." More.

"What?" Than I need.

"You think you'd do this without me? No, you'd never. But together we can. Everyone does at some point. We both just need a little leg up." Anything in the World.

"But John-" And still.

"Alex." We.

"I-" Were.

"You." Never.

Light.

Enough.

Alex woke up with his heart pumping, his tears sticky on his face, puddling on his keyboard, small circles dotting the worn wood of his desk.

x x x

x x

x

I really just don't understand.

How he could do that.

How he didn't know how much everyone cared about him and how much they'd hurt.

How he thought that that was his best option.

… How he could leave me.

x

x x

x x x

Alex cried until he had nothing left inside him, and the next time he fell asleep, he made it to his bed before he passed out.

x x x

x x

x

I had nothing. But I had him. And it's selfish and horrible and awful of me but he was mine, and he was enough.

But I guess I wasn't.

He'd always had more than I did. Of everything. And maybe it was just too much.

So how can it hurt both ways?

Because I have nothing now.

And he still has everything.

x

x x

x x x

Alex woke up, positive he had gone blind. He promptly rolled over and fell out of his bed, feeling the hard floor in his elbows and knees and legs and chin, deep into his core. Groaning, he turned away from the window, and curled himself into a ball until he could convince his mind and body to wake up. It took a while.

By then, the light passing through the blinds was orange and low in sky. Alex untucked his knees from his chest and stood, stretching his sore limbs. Trying not to think about how John would have been sitting out on their fire escape, trying to capture the perfect, vibrant colors of the sunset outside right then.

Tugging his phone from the charger as he went, Alex took off to the kitchen and poured himself a bowl of lonely Cheerios. He was pretty sure that the milk was expired, but he drowned the bowl, anyway.

The number of messages on his screen was startling, and he nearly choked on a big bite when he clicked on his lock screen.

Laf: Hey, Alex. Herc and Peggy and I were planning on stopping by later. Want to go out to see a movie or something? On us. Or we can bring some take out over there. But WE ARE COMING OVER so you best get your ass out of bed

Laf: are you dead? are you ignoring me?

Laf: would you rather talk to Herc? you probably want to talk to herc.

Hercules MULLIGAN: yo we is coming over soon

Hercules MULLIGAN: hope you like orange chicken and a fuck ton of fortune cookies

Hercules MULLIGAN: Laf thinks you're mad at him.

Hercules MULLIGAN: please tell him that you are not mad at him

Hercules MULLIGAN: Seriously. If you're dead, your grave stone better read "I am not mad at Laf"

Hercules MULLIGAN: I just told him that you told me that you aren't mad at him, so you better not be. Otherwise, take it out somewhere else.

Hercules MULLIGAN: we'll be over in an hour

Angelica Schuyler: Call me when you have a chance, Alex. And I do not mean several weeks from now. I mean your next spare moment. I don't care if you're in the shower, just fucking call me. Ok?

Eliza: Morning, sunshine. Did you sleep at all?

Alex didn't bother to reply to anyone but Eliza, knowing she'd knock down his door in a few hours if he didn't.

You: slept like shit, feel like shit, am eating cheerios to dull the pain.

Eliza: Cheerios. That bad?

You: I may try to impale myself with this spoon

Eliza: Well at least you slept.

You: The cheerios are stale

Eliza: I'll bring over cookies later.

You: don't bother. Herc/Laf/Peggy are bringing Chinese.

Eliza: ooooo I could use some take out. It's been a long week.

You: Oh, so now I'm having a house party?

Eliza: Yep. I'll be over after I finish up my last lesson.

You: Is it the brat with the trumpet again?

Eliza: No, it's the brat with the oboe. Gtg. Btw, Angelica needs you to call her.

You: So she does. See you later.

Alex paused, knowing Eliza was gone, but feeling like he should still be talking. She was busy, and he wasn't, and she had to leave and he was left alone. It wasn't her fault, but Alex felt rejected.

It was probably just the Cheerios.

x x x

x x

x

He always stuck to his gut, which was why he was the best partner. In anything, really. He could do anything if he tried. If he really wanted to.

We had plans.

Well, I guess, I had our plans, and he had his own.

His were fairly simple.

I always over-complicated mine.

x

x x

x x x

The Cheerios didn't make good company, so Alex was glad that Hercules and Lafayette and Peggy knocked at his door only a short time later. By inviting themselves over, his friends gave him no choice in the matter of seeing them again, which he'd been avoiding as much as he could. He supposed he was grateful for it. But he couldn't help the clench of his gut, the sick feeling as he unlocked the door to let them in.

"Mon ami!" Lafayette squealed upon arrival, backing up against Hercules broad chest when he saw Alex. His bright eyes were wide, and he gripped Alex's shoulders. "You look like shit."

"I'm trying out a new look. Maybe I'll start a trend."

Hercules snorted as he passed through the doorway, and Lafayette mumbled, "Not any trend I want to follow," before kissing both of Alex's cheeks and following Herc. Peggy smiled at Alex, her bright yellow hair bouncing behind her.

"Hi, Alex!" she pulled him into a tight hug, stuffing his face into her curls. "It's nice to see you," she whispered. Alex hadn't seen her since the funeral.

"It's nice to see you too, Peggy," he admitted softly in the safety of Peggy's hair, and returned her embrace. She didn't seem like she wanted to let go, but he pushed her away gently when it became uncomfortable.

"Your sister should be stopping by soon."

Peggy's brows crinkled, and she pouted her lips. "So you talked to Angelica? Hm. I though she wasn't coming for another week."

"What? No, Eliza's coming over."

Understanding shook her features. "Oh. Okay. I hope she's bringing cookies."

"She should be. And what about Angelica coming next week?"

Peggy shrugged. "You gotta call her."

"So I've been told."

Closing the door behind him, they followed Hercules' and Lafayette's loud arguing to the kitchen, where bags of Chinese take-out had been unpacked across Alex's small table.

Ignoring Lafayette's rushed criticisms, Hercules turned to Alex and asked, "Dude, I know you haven't been out in a while, but you do still own silverware and plates, right?"

"Do you not know how to open drawers?"

Hercules rolled his eyes in sync with Lafayette, who made a rude gesture at the larger man and shook his head at Alex, who chuckled.

"Go put on some lame TV show. I'll set up the buffet," Hercules grumbled, already setting out to work.

"Oh, so fancy," Alex mumbled to himself. Peggy heard and they laughed, following orders and settling on the couch in the living room.

Flipping through channels with little luck, Alex turned to face Peggy. "How are your classes going?"

She rolled her eyes and groaned, which made Alex chuckle. "About as well as they can be. Though, my Psychology teacher is sort of cute…"

Alex tsked playfully. "Oh, Peggy. I always knew you'd be the one to sleep with a teacher to get an A on a final."

"Funny, Eliza and I thought the same of you."

"Touché."

"How are yours going?"

Alex was quiet for too long.

"Alex? Are you still not going to your classes?"

"It's sort of hard to think about political agendas and pleading the fifth and paragraph structure when I can barely remember why I cared about them at all in the first place."

Both of them were quiet, listening to the laugh track on the game show and Laf and Herc's bickering from the kitchen.

"Have you written anything?" Peggy asked softly. Alex hardly could hear her.

"Nothing that matters."

"Eliza told me you did."

"Like I said, I haven't written anything that mattered since John-"

The word caught in Alex's throat. It wasn't a word he had ever actually said paired with his name, not sure he'd ever even said it out loud after all that had happened.

"I'm sorry," Peggy whispered. "I shouldn't have brought it up."

"No," Alex rubbed his eyes and started flipping through the channels again. "It's okay."

"But is it? Because you're not."

"Peggy, I-"

"We all feel like shit, okay? And guess what? If you have to live in your own shit, might as well make it a big old pile of shit."

"That was a terrible metaphor."

"My use of rhetorical devices isn't important. But you are. And I am. And John is. You can talk to us, Alex. You don't have to shut yourself out."

"I may not have to, but it sure as hell is what I'm going to do."

"Alex-"

"COME AND EAT YOU FILTHY BASTARDS!" Hercules' thunderous voice called. Alex couldn't have been happier to get out of that conversation, but he felt guilty as Peggy walked beside him to the kitchen.

Eliza was there already, sitting at the table. Both Peggy and Alex had failed to hear her come in. She hugged Alex tightly and squeezed his arm before greeting her sister.

Eliza looked around and sighed, smiling. "Just like old times. Small apartment, sketchy - but delicious - food, and having all night to get incredibly drunk. Bring it on."

"No alcohol for me, folks," Hercules announced. "I got an interview tomorrow."

"Oh thank god. Please, no one get him drunk," Peggy held her arms out, then pointed directly at Herc. "That man needs to get a job."

"And you need to get a better attitude," Hercules chided her snottily, though both of them were smiling. It was one of their roommate things that Alex never really understood.

Sharing an apartment with John had always been different.

"Alright. You peoples better be hungry and better start eating this food, because I did not haul my ass down to the Dragon to get all this fucking food for y'all to stare at it."

They followed Herc's directions as he lined them up at the "buffet", making sure they took something of everything and didn't horde the fortune cookies. He made Lafayette put four of them back after he snuck a handful into his pocket.

Alex's table was too small to fit them all, so the formed a circle in the living room, Peggy hogging the couch and the rest of them in a circle on the floor. After they'd all started eating, Laf got up and brought back two six-packs. Alex popped the top off of a bottle right away, taking a long drink. Eliza did the same, and when Alex gave her a look she flicked a noodle at him.

"So when are we going to crack out the chick flicks or board games? By midnight I either want to be blubbering, wrapped in a blanket of my own sadness, or having Monopoly money being showered over me," Peggy announced decisively.

"We have to do the fortune cookies first!" Lafayette announced, shooting Peggy a deadly stare. She didn't dare argue with him. Lafayette took fortune cookies seriously.

Hercules cracked his open first, clearing his throat as he smoothed out the paper. "'Your kindness will bring you success'… in bed."

Eliza snorted then jumped in with her. "'Your true friends will reveal themselves to you in the toughest times'… in bed." Lafayette howled, and Peggy read hers, shaking her head.

"'Dreaming is believing, but you can't believe unless you dream,'" she threw her hands in the air. "Fuck that. Mine can't be followed with any sort of sexual innuendo and be funny."

"Yes it can," Alex argued. "'Unless you dream'… of your Psychology teacher naked."

Alex laughed when Peggy chucked half of her cookie at him. He caught it and stuffed it in his mouth.

"What about yours, Alex?" Eliza elbowed him.

"Yeah, read it!" Laf chimed in, taking a gulp of beer.

Alex rolled his eyes and sighed, ripping off the plastic and cracking open his cookie. The slip of paper was shorter than his pinky finger. He cleared his throat dramatically. "'Pain will guide your soul to true happiness'… in bed."

"Kinky," Peggy noted while the other three howled. "Maybe you're the one meant to screw my Psych teacher. He knows how to work with the brain," she waggled her eyebrows.

Alex laughed even though he didn't really find her comment amusing.

Peggy clapped, silencing the laughter. "TIME FOR CHEESY ROM-COMS. I NEED ME SOME GOOD CHEESE."

"All I got in the fridge is mozzarella," Alex chimed in. Peggy threw the other half of her cookie at him.

"I was thinking that we should go out," Eliza said, eliciting a furious expression from her sister. Seeing that, she added. "No, out to see a movie. You can pick. I just thought that we should… go… out…"

All of them tried to keep their eyes off of Alex and failed.

Alex panicked. He wasn't getting in a car. He didn't want to leave his apartment. He didn't want to go see a movie on a Friday night with his slightly-intoxicated friends any more than he wanted to rip out his fingernails. They knew that, and he knew that they wouldn't leave until he agreed to come with.

He resigned himself to that outcome.

"Alright," he felt all four pairs of eyes fix on him with shock. "As long as there's a theater we can walk too."

Hercules immediately pulled out his phone, no doubt Googling the nearest theaters.

Eliza smiled. "Great! Well, let's go." She began to gather up the dirty plates and brought them to the sink, stacking the plates and silverware methodically before packing up the food.

"Peggy, you can pick the movie," Herc motioned for her to come look at his phone, which she snatched away from him in a quick swipe and began scrolling through the showings.

Alex unfolded himself from his spot on the floor, and began the hunt for his wallet. He couldn't remember the last time he saw it, and he noted to himself that that was probably not a good thing.

He rifled through piles of clothes, and finally found it buried behind a stack of books on a side table in the hall. Alex went to move the books, his hands circling their spines, before he realized what they were.

John's sketch books.

Alex froze. He couldn't move. Couldn't let go, couldn't hold on. He froze. The top one was propped open, pages folded in the way he knew John hated because then they got wrinkled or smudged.

Alex had to bite his lip to keep from screaming or swearing or sobbing or all at once. His hands shook, but before he even realized what he was doing, he was flipping to the marked page, eyes wide.

Colorful swirls decorated the paper, doodles that John did whenever he had any kind of creativity block. Alex always thought they were just as beautiful as anything else John made, no matter how many times John had told him that they were just scribbles.

Something fell to the floor.

Alex felt hollow and lost and light and burning as he tore his eyes from the pages and bent down to the floor to pick up the scrap.

It was a ticket stub for a rerun of Good Morning Vietnam. John and Alex had always gone to see the reruns at the old theater just on the outskirts of town whenever they could. They were usually the only ones that did, and most often had the entire place to their selves. Alex was sure that the theater had to have gone out of business by then.

He turned the ticket over, and that's when he saw the arrows, precise lines pointing to the name of the theater, Yorktown Films, circled over and over again in continuous loops9. The address under the name was underlined once.

Alex stared at the ticket for far too long. Lafayette appeared at the end of the hall, his voice startling Alex.

"Hey, you coming?"

For a second Alex though he was back in his dream.

"Uh, yeah. You go downstairs, I'll be there in a minute."

Lafayette nodded, and Alex nearly missed the sad look in his eyes as he turned away. Soon, Alex heard the door close.

He blinked himself out of his daze, the tears out of his eyes, and stuffed the ticket into his pocked, and his wallet in the other.

He went after his friends, not bothering to lock the door behind him.

x x x

x x

x

He wanted to join the fucking Peace Corps. And then he does that.

I just don't understand. I don't think I ever will.

Peace Corps.

So much for becoming a Solider of Peace, John.

…

…

…

I don't think it was ever really about Peace.

x

x x

x x x

Playlist:

Collar Full / Panic! At the Disco

Gasoline / Halsey

Midnight City / M83

Quand Tu Es Passee / Naim Amor

Tear in My Heart / Twenty-One Pilots

Papaoutai / Stromae

Glowing Eyes / Twenty-One Pilots

You Can Call Me Al / Paul Simon

Heathens / Twenty-One Pilots

Danger / Twin Forks

Droimeann Donn Dilis /Niamh Parsons

Radioactive / Imagine Dragons

Foreshadows / David Nevue

Together We Will Live Forever / Clint Mansell & Kronos Quartet

Sedated / Hozier

Colors of the Wind / Marilyn Byrnes

Down / Dodie Clark

Flowers In Your Hair / The Lumineers