John hadn't been quite sure what to make of Alexander's text. On one hand, it had been sent after he had told Alexander to go to sleep, but insomnia or waking up in the middle of the night was always a possibility, so he wasn't about to drag his friend on that. On the other hand, though, it was so out of character for the way that Alexander had been acting the last few days. Either way, though, John wasn't about to question the first nice thing that Alexander had said to him in days.
When he got to class, Alexander actually acknowledged his presence, with a grin that left John reeling. The grin didn't vanish after receiving his laptop back, so John assumed that Alexander wasn't just playing him.
"I'm sorry? About the whole past thing?" John said slowly, unsure what he was supposed to do.
Alexander's grin fell, but he shrugged. "What's done is done. I guess that the reason that I didn't want anyone to know was that I didn't want to be judged for my past. I was at another school before here, and they knew everything, from icebreakers and whatnot, and they were terrible to me because of it. Because I wasn't from a rich family, because I'm an orphan, because I'm a bastard." His voice was harsh. "And then I met all of you and I've never had a group of friends before, and I didn't want to lose that."
John ducked his head to pull things out of his bag, as well as to hide his face from Alexander. He didn't want the other to see how mad he was. Not at Alexander, never at Alexander, but at the people who hadn't even tried to look past a rough upbringing and everything that went with that to see the heart of gold underneath.
Once he was calm, John looked back to Alexander. "We would never judge you on your past. It doesn't define who you are as a person. I mean, there are some people who had the same upbringing as most of us that we can't stand—take Thomas, for example."
Alexander laughed. "Fair enough."
"John. Alexander. The class is waiting on you."
Halfway through class, Alexander slipped John a note.
I forgot to mention—I saw the letter you left. It means a lot, really. I mean, you actually apologized. I didn't treat you entirely right either (and I'm sorry), but at least you owned up what you did. I still have something I need to tell you, though.
John bit his lip, nervous, then caught Alexander looking at him out of the corner of his eye.
"Later," he whispered, and Alexander nodded.
Alexander had to run off to his next class immediately, so John didn't get to talk to him then. He also didn't come to lunch, but that could have been because of his schedule.
"Alexander's talking to me again," John reported to his friends that were at lunch. Mulligan grinned and Lafayette applauded. John stuck out his tongue at his friends.
"You're both such assholes."
"You love us."
"Mm."
"So, Alexander is talking to you again?"
John nodded. "Yeah. Thomas Jefferson actually started it, go figure. Forced me to get Alexander to sleep and stuff—he was disturbing Thomas. So I did, left him a note apologizing, and now he'll talk to me."
"Thomas talked to—you know what, never mind. Whatever works, I guess. Is Alex joining us for lunch?" Mulligan asked
John shook his head. "He has class. Or, well, he has class soon and would have to bolt out on us. I'm meeting up with him later tonight, though. He said that he has something to tell me. The same thing that he had to tell me before I fucked everything up."
"Should we add Alexander to the group chat?" Lafayette asked, looking up from their phone.
"I'd ask him first," Mulligan advised. "We know he's not mad at John anymore, but he might be with the rest of us. There's really no way to know."
To: Alexander
Do you want to be in a group chat with me, Laf, Mulligan, and the Schuyler sisters? I know you're talking to me again, but I just want to make sure that you're talking to them too before we add you.
From: Alexander
Sure. I can't avoid and hold a grudge against them forever. Well, I /could/, but I don't want to. They're your friends, as well as the closest thing I have to friends. And I feel as if it would be a good idea to be on good terms with them anyway.
That last sentence really didn't make much sense, but John wasn't going to try and figure it out.
To: Group
I'm adding Alexander to the chat.
From: Eliza
Oh no now we can't talk shit about him anymore ;)
From: Peggy
You're terrible.
From: Peggy
I mean my sister, not John.
John met Alexander later that night. "So, I may have slightly forgotten that LGBT+ club meetings start tonight, in about half an hour. Do you want to come with me? I mean, you don't have to, and if you don't want to I'll text you afterwards to meet up, but you're more than welcome to come along. We like getting new members. Our meetings aren't very well advertised because reasons, so we don't often get new members. And people who are interested in coming end up being unable to find us. We're a little hidden."
"I'd love to come." Alexander grinned at John. "Any excuse to spend time with my best guy."
"Your best guy?" John pretended to be offended. "And who's your best girl?"
Alexander shrugged. "I really don't know that many girls yet. The few that I do know I've spent too much time being angry at to really make a decision. Lafayette's my best non-binary." He smiled. "It's nice having friends. Strange. You know about how I grew up, to some extent. I didn't exactly have many friends. You didn't talk to the whore, or her bastard."
John shuddered at the terms. "Don't say that."
"Why not? It's true. That's what they always said. My mother was cast out of the community for cheating on her husband, and having a kid out of it, and I was bad luck. The only reason that I escaped was because I showed that I was smart enough that they couldn't ignore me anymore. The movement to collect money for me was started by someone who didn't know who I was beyond having read my writing, so he didn't know that I wasn't supposed to be talked to. He was powerful, too powerful to be involved in the petty dealings of the lower classes, which is why he didn't know, but he was also too powerful to be ignored when he took up the collection. Some people donated willingly, others grudgingly. Regardless, it was enough to get me here, and thank god for that."
John had no idea what to say to that. He didn't get on with his family particularly well—they held many outdated beliefs, including that anyone who wasn't straight and cis would burn in hell—but that was nothing like what Alexander had been subjected to.
"That picture you saw of me and my mother, when you said I was an adorable kid," Alexander began slowly, hesitantly, "that wasn't how I usually looked. There had been a festival in town that day, more a showing for the tourists than anything else, and that was pretty much the only time that the two of us were allowed in town. And, since there were tourists, no one could do anything against us like they usually did. We were cleaned up a lot. That was the one time that we bathed in fresh water instead of the ocean. Those were the only good clothes I owned. We had to look good. If the children were adorable enough sometimes the tourists would give us food and gifts, like we were pets, and that was the only time I ate well."
"Dear lord, Alexander," John whispered. "Break my heart a little more, why don't you?"
Alexander's eyes glinted at the challenge. "There was this one couple who wanted a tropical pet. They were all over the monkeys, until they saw the children. They offered parents so much money to be able to take one home. No one took the offer, except one man, but he didn't have any children of his own. So he decided to sell them a child anyone, the one that no one would miss. Luckily, I knew the island a lot better than they did. They were easy to escape. Sure, I would have been well fed and well treated, but they also forgot I was a person. Thought it was the sweetest thing when I spoke our creole, but didn't like the reminder that I also spoke English and French. It wouldn't have been a good life."
"You're pulling my leg." He had to be.
Alexander shook his head. "I wish."
"…right." John glanced at his phone. "It's about time for the meeting. Shall we head over?"
"Sounds good."
The LGBT+ club met in a small classroom in the back of one of the lesser used academic buildings. It was hard to get to, but, according to Angelica, there had been some raids of meetings by campus homophobes her freshman year, so this was better. It also ensured that one of the only ways to actually find the meeting was to be brought by an existing club member, a vetting process, of sorts.
"Here we are!" John said, gesturing at the room as he sat at one of the desks. Already there were the Schuyler sisters, Lafayette, and a few other members.
"Mulligan is bringing food," Lafayette announced before John could even ask where the last member of their group was.
"Awesome."
"Yes, I am," Mulligan agreed, dropping a few bags on the table in the front.
"Do we really want to use that table for food?" Eliza asked, giving Mulligan a pointed look.
"Well, do you see any others? Besides, they do clean in here, regardless of what you may think."
"Okay," Angelica cut in. "It's 8:50, and since we were scheduled to start at 8:45, I'm going to assume that this is everyone. I'm Angelica, the president of the club. Mulligan here is my vice president, because even straight allies can be good leaders. If anyone has any problems with that, deal with it. Last year's group voted him in, so no complaining. We're going to get in a circle, and I know that you've had enough of icebreakers, but ours is a bit different. It's called the outing. When it's your turn, you stand in the middle of the circle and say your name, pronouns, and major. Then the rest of us have to guess your orientation. If you already know for someone, you're not allowed to say. After that, we'll do shitclouds and rainbows."
The outing went smoothly, then they went into shitclouds and rainbows.
"Shitcloud—classes. Rainbow—definitely being able to be out and proud here. I can't do that at home."
Alexander was next, and last. "Shitcloud…I'm really not sure, honestly. As for my rainbow, I have too many to name, really."
"Great. So, we're really not going to do all the much today. This meeting was really more to get to know each other. I have a lot of big plans for this year. We're going to try for gender neutral bathrooms, again, for one. And educate, that's a big one." Angelica stood, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "So, same time, same place next week. Hope to see you all then!"
The club members dispersed to go their separate ways. "I've still got to talk to you," Alexander reminded John. "Can we wait for a moment, until everyone leaves?"
John shrugged. "Sure."
It only took a few minutes for the room to be clear. "Hit the lights on your way out, please," Angelica called as she headed out the door, and John gave her a thumbs up.
"So, what is it that you wanted to say?"
Alexander took a deep breath. "You know more about me than anyone else in this country. Honestly, I'd have to say that you know more about me than anyone in the world. There's still a lot you don't know, but you haven't run screaming yet, so I'd say that's a good sign. I've always known that I was bi, but sexualities other than hetero weren't really all that accepted back before, so I never let myself have crushes on anyone. I mean, it wasn't like I could get close enough to anyone to develop a crush on them anyway, so there's that. But then I came here and met all of you and there was actually people who didn't know my story and so they liked me. And then there's you, and you know my story, and you still like me. I don't know why, but I'm not going to argue it. That would be against my own self-interest. I guess sort of what I'm trying to say is that I like you a lot, John Laurens."
"I like you a lot, too," John said, confused.
Alexander shook his head, looking frustrated. "No, like I want to take you on a date. Or, I would, if I had any money for that. I want to be able to curl up in bed with you and watch movies, or hold hands while walking across campus, or whatever. That kind of like. But if you don't want that, that's okay. As long as you don't want to stop being friends with me, since I don't think that I could deal with that. Please don't leave me, John, I won't bring this up aga—"
John cut him off. "I want that, too."
Alexander stared at him for a moment, then broke into a huge grin and threw his arms around John. After a moment, John returned the hug, and they just stood there like that for a while.
This is going to take a sharp turn in a few chapters. Not gonna be about college anymore. And it's going to get very, very, very dark. Trigger warnings will be at the beginning as needed. Pay close attention to them. Sorry about this. I was originally just going to kill someone but I decided that I was going to be crueler to them and that is going to shape a lot of things.
The reason that their LGBT+ club meetings aren't well advertised is because I'm basing this off my own experiences, and I go to a Catholic university, so, while we're allowed to have a club and stuff, we don't really advertise and we meet in a room that pretty much no one knows how to get to in a building that barely exists (there are four buildings that are all connected, and we meet in Sullivan, which is the one of the four that only has three rooms). Because of this, I don't really know how one even would advertise the club meeting.
I completely made up a lot of Alex's childhood. Would he have actually been treated like that? I don't know. Do tourists treat natives like pets? I don't know. I wanted to make his story sadder, as well as set up later events.
The question about using the table for food is actually one that was asked at a meeting of my LGBT+ club. Apparently that table is the sex table. Most likely because no one actually goes in that room besides the club (and, apparently, my intro to religious class. But that's irrelevant).
We actually did play the outing at my first club meeting. It's fun. We also do shitclouds and rainbows at every meeting. You say your shitclouds (low) for the week, then your rainbow (high). We also did the bathrooms thing—and finally succeeded.
