"Alexander!" John yelled from across the house. "Take a break already and get your ass to bed."
It had been a long day but that wasn't new in the Hamilton family. Alex being at the end of his year for medical school, he was being crammed with all the homework and don't even think about mentioning finals to the already exhausted man, oh and may I also mention father?
Right at the moment, young Philip walked out from around the corner. Alex's head immediately popped up to see what his son was doing up this early. With a quick glance at the clock and learning is was 2:23 am, Alex stood and walked over to his son.
He crouched down to be at the same height as him. "Hey, buddy why are you up this early. You need your sleep so that big mind of yours can get the rest it needs." He rubbed his hand up and down is arm in a soothing way as Philip seemed to half awake, and ready to fall over at any moment.
"I heard dad yelling." He replied back wearily. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands. Alex made a mental note to remind John that their kid was kind of asleep at their house at 2 am. They really didn't need to wake him as it's already hard enough to get Philip asleep in the first place. Philip was known for having nightmares, it just became part of the routine. But when the nightmares had come around, he started to refuse to sleep. Everything to tried just didn't seem to work with him so it just started to come down to pure luck if he would sleep or not.
"Well, I'll have a talk with dad. How about we get you back in bed?" Alex stood up and reached out so Philip could take his hand.
With a small nod of the head, he started to walk him back but noticed in Philip's tiredness he seemed to stumble in his steps.
"Here, let me carry you." He didn't even wait for a response as he scooped up is 8-year-old. The walked back to his dinosaur themed room. Alex lightly set Philip down on his bed and pulled his covers up and made sure is was comfortable before slowly walking out of the room. He pushed his hair back out of his face as he walked back over to his desk; only to find John looking over his books and notes.
"What are you doing? Alex asked as he walked up to John, putting his hand on his back.
"Oh," John started putting his hand on one of Alex's open books. "Just thought I'd see what is keeping you awake these few nights"
"I see" Alex put his head down in guilt, how could he be a good husband if he was barely even there for him. When he looked back up, he found John making complete eye contact with him. It felt like he was trying to see through him.
"Stop feeling guilty" John stated
"Wait -Wha-" Alex started but was immediately cut off by John. "I can tell when you feel guilty cause you always look down with just that..look"
Alex looked shocked, he didn't realize John actually paid that much attention to him. Well, he was his husband..ugh what is he even thinking husbands are supposed to pay this much attention to each other. After a few seconds with Alex's still shocked face, John stood up and took Alex's hand.
"Hey, lets head back to our room. I'm sure you're exhausted and we shouldn't wake Philip again."
Alex took a gulp and nodded his head still unsure of what to say. He always felt like he should be the one leading their relationship but it always felt like the complete opposite. Anyways, he needs to push that thought away so he can focus more on his family. It was small sure, but he loved them with all his life.
They made their way back to the bedroom, and once john knew Alex wasn't gonna get back out, they fell asleep.
"Daddy Daddy Daddy!" Philip was jumped up and down on their bed and John left out a sigh. He turned to his right to see the time. 7:46 a.m. is what the clock. John felt it was too early to be awake but knew he kinda had a kid to feed. He slowly pushed himself up and rubbed at his tired eyes. He looked at Philip who seemed to be looking at him curiously.
"What is it, Philip? Do I have something on my face?"
Philip tilting his head for a second and then brought his hands up to his face.
"Hey dad, how come we have the same spots?"
John let out a light laugh and pulled Philip up closer to him. He ran his hand through Philip's wild hair, that also looked like his own.
"You will learn about all that kind of stuff once you're older kiddo, it's too early for an explanation." And with that, John let out a yawn and started to pull himself out of bed. Philip followed silently. But just before they walked out of the room, John took a quick glance behind him making sure Alex was still asleep before shutting the door behind himself.
As soon as the door was closed Philip began to race ahead to the kitchen. John stayed at a slow constant pace. Once he reached the kitchen, he had a mini parent attack as he saw Philip standing on the counter trying to reach a pan that was hanging from the wall. He rushed forward and grabbed him before anything could happen. He softly placed him back on the ground and gave him a stern look.
"Philip what the hel- heck were you doing!?" He had his hands placed on his shoulders as he waited for a response.
"Daaadd I was just getting the pot down for some eggs." He replied back calmly. John just gave him such a dumbfounded look for how casually he had responded back. He ended up just giving him an eye roll and telling him to not do that again.
Once John had situated Philip with watching the morning cartoons with a blanket, he went back to the kitchen to start making some breakfast. He had been getting the eggs out when he heard their bedroom door open. When he turned around to walk over to the stove, he found Alex walking in a taking a seat at the table.
"Goodmorning Alexander" John practically sang out as he continued his cooking.
"Mornin' love." He responded with and stood up to walk over to their son once he saw him curled up on the couch watching the television. They were sure adorable together as Philip began to explain the show to Alex.
John let out a soft laugh as he turned around the finish up their breakfast.
Once he had finished, he placed their plates on the table and called them over. Philip immediately jumped up and ran to his usual seat and Alex followed slowly after. They ate in silence, with the occasional moments Philip would bounce up and down in his seat. Once they had all finished their meals, John cleaned up their plates and began to help Philip get ready for school.
John was handing Philip his lunch bag when Alex walked by. All he heard was Philip's complaints- "But Daaddd, I don't wanna go to school." He gave him his puppy dog eyes but they no longer worked for a number of times he had already used them.
"Philip, for the last time you have to go to school, there are no buts."
Alex let out a light laugh as he began to walk over to his husband to say goodbye for the day.
"Leaving so soon?" John said looking at Alex.
"Well, I have to make sure I have enough notes for my finals coming up so I was gonna ask for some extra notes from fellow classmates." he said as he gave John a kiss and bent down to Philip.
"You've got to go to school just like Daddy, alright?"
Philip gave him a pouting face back but nodded his head in agreement. With that being good enough for Alex, he stood up and headed for the garage to get his car and head over to his school.
Going back to Philip and John, John made sure Philip had everything he needed in his backpack before sending him ou the door for the bus. He ruffled his hair before turning back inside once he had seen Philip turn at the end of the road.
It had been going a normal day for John while at home, watching his Tv shows, cleaning the house, etc. But when the phone rang he assumed it was just Alex calling him during his lunch break. When he read the caller ID being from Philip's school, he dropped everything he was doing and started thinking of the worse reasons why his son's school would be calling him in the middle of the day.
"Hello?" He tried to answer calmly.
"Is this the guardian of Philip Hamilton?"
"Yes, what do you need?"
He didn't mean to come off as rude but he just wanted to know why the school was calling him.
"Would it be possible for you to come up to the school and pick Philip up?"
"How come?"
The man on the phone was seriously giving him no information.
"Philip came to the nurse's office after..." there was a moment of silence before he continued, "well he was unable to keep his lunch down so if he has caught an illness we would rather it not spread to other students."
John let out a sigh of relief before sucking in more air. Sure, he was glad he wasn't being called because of a fight but learning his son may be sick wasn't that good of a feeling either.
He started to walk over to get his car keys as he tried to wrap up the phone call.
"Of course, I'll be right over."
"Thank you"
and that was that.
John shut the car door and started to walk up to the entrance of the school. He tried his best to keep a calm-looking face as he opened the office door. He looked around seeing a rather normal school front office, chairs, posters, and the desk. He walked up to the front desk lady to ask where he could locate the nurse's office.
"May I help you?" The office lady had a more calming voice than he had expected.
"Yes, I was called to come pick up my son."
"Oh, the nurse's office is that door over there" She replied, as she pointed to a door across from the desk. There was, of course, a sign on the door that John felt stupid about not noticing it before.
"Thank you." He swiftly turned around and walked to the room.
When he stepped into the room, he saw 3, plastic wrapped beds and chairs laid up against a wall. He saw Philip laying on his side curled up in a ball on one the beds. He started to walk over to him when the nurse walked over to him.
"Are you his father?"
John turned to look at her "Yea"
"Well, Philip was sent in here after his lunch that he threw up. He does have a slight fever that came up about 10 minutes ago."
John just nodded his head as a response.
"I am just a school nurse but I'd recommend to just let him rest for the rest of the day and if his fever doesn't break tonight, I wouldn't send him to school tomorrow"
"Of course" John walked forward to Philip and bent down.
"Hey buddy, I'm just gonna give you a piggyback ride to the car alright?"
Philip let out a small squeak as in saying 'okay'
With that, John pulled Philip up onto his and bent down once more to pick up the red and blue backpack.A quick thank you to the nurse, John started walking out the nurse's office, and then out of the front office to the car.
"Were you feeling sick this morning?"
Philip shook his head no but look hesitant, John decided to not pester him anymore since he was sick.
He lightly put Philip down in the back seat, trying his very best not to move him around too much and make his stomach feel worst. He fastened his seatbelt and shut the door, walking around the car to get to the driver's seat. His phone started to ring as he slid into his seat, Alex, of course. He clicked decline and sent a fast message saying 'call you later' and put his phone down. With one last glance to check up on Philip, he started to drive home.
The drive went rather smooth, he was constantly looking up at the mirror to check on Philip though as his face seemed to show he really wasn't feeling any better. He tried his best to drive as peacefully as possible and did rather well at that. Once they had reached the house, he walked around to the backseat and lightly lifted Philip up, put his backpack on, and walked into the house. He threw the backpack onto the kitchen table and walked back into Philip's room. Placing him on his bed and pulling the covers over him. He grabbed some of is and placed them on the nightstand just in case Philip had enough in him to change later. One final look to make sure Philip was okay, he turned around and walked out. Closing the door as quietly as possible.
He walked back out to the front room and sat down on the couch with a heavy sigh. He pushed his hair back and pulled out his phone from his pocket to have a spam of messages from Alex show up on his lock screen.
"Geez, he panics way to fast," John said in a whisper.
He unlocked his phone and didn't bother to read te messages and just went to call him instead.
the first ring didn't even finish before Alex picked up the phone.
"John! John! is everything all right?" He practically yelled.
"Yes, everything is fine no need to be all panicked like that."
"Oh sorry but you made it sound like something was wrong."
"Well, I ended up getting a call from Philip's school-"
"Did Philip get into a fight!?"
"No No, I guess he got rather sick after eating his lunch and while waiting in the nurse's office he started to run a fever."
"Oh our poor baby."
"Yea, you had called while I was trying to get him in the car was all."
"Oh, all right. Is there anything I can pick up to help? I'll try to come home early today."
"Well, you could pick him up some medicine maybe and some soup. Also, no need to rush your schoolwork. I can take care of him just fine on my own."
"Of course, love you see you later"
"love you to"
And that was that.