Alex did what any other teenager would do when faced with a life-changing decision: he ignored it.

Of course, there were a few times when the headmaster or editor at King's College called him to congratulate him. Alex did his best to ooze politeness and make no commitments during those calls. The conversations always ended with a cheery "looking forward to seeing you here at King's College!"

Alex never disagreed.

But uncertainty hung around him, like a smell he couldn't wash out of his shirt. Nothing was what he expected. He couldn't remember if what he was living was more than what he wanted when he had first realized he was moving to New York, or less.

He really didn't know.

Most of the time when the idea racketed around in his head, he couldn't believe it was a decision at all. It felt definite. He won. He may have involuntarily, unknowingly, unwittingly, but he did. On one hand, there was no way out, no way to say no. But he felt he could hardly say yes. And there were so many other options. Once, briefly, Laurens had mentioned skipping the pre-planned college his father had picked for him and joining the Peace Corps. Alex was so shocked at the brilliance, and suddenness, of that idea that he could hardly respond. It seemed so good, so right, especially for Laurens. And that only opened Alex up to all the other possibilities. There were so many other colleges, too. So many other paths he could take.

Laurens didn't push him on it, though, for which Alex could have wept. Alex had nothing new to say on the matter, anyway; the mess in his mind was exactly the same and was driving him to near madness as it was. And Laurens had an inerrable sense for when Alex's mind needed to be left alone to untangle itself.

Once he'd gotten into the habit of ignoring it all, everything was fine. He did great, if not better than before in school, and was starting second semester with a four-point-oh. He could tell that he was about to get promoted at work, which was the only reason he wasn't stressing about trying to find a second job.

Which would sort of be stupid anyway, if he did end up taking his full ride scholarship. Besides, he liked his job.

"I can feel it," he'd told Laurens during one of their finals study sessions. "They can't keep me on the backburner any longer, considering."

Laurens had snorted. "Yes, they can."

Alex tried to whack him, but missed, and after Laurens laughed at Alex's poor aim he said, "No, you're right. They really can't. You're too good for them, anyway." Though Laurens had said it with a smile, something in his voice turned faint and thin, like a dimmer-switch. Alex bit his lip, then ran his thumb over Laurens' knuckles. The only reason he didn't kiss him full on right there and then was that they were in the school library for a quiet study hall.

It was late January now, and Alex was once again on his way to the library, wishing Laurens were with him. But Laurens hadn't been there all week, off on a show choir trip. Alex hadn't even known that Laurens was in show choir until he'd told Alex he'd be gone on this trip, about two days before he left. In Alex's bag was one letter for every day Laurens was gone, a way to keep Alex from going insane since Laurens wasn't there to help with that endeavor especially with his brain in the state it was in.

His gloves had holes in them and the cold wind stung every part of him that wasn't covered. Only then did he begin to reconsider getting a second job. Then he could invest in his own car.

Not like he'd be able to drive it.

Alex sprinted up to the doors and felt himself melting when his cold body met the warm heated air and word-filled atmosphere. All the stress stinging his nerves lulled, as if it had been buried under a blanket of snow and was nowhere in sight. His vision cleared, his shivers eased, and he was home. A smile crept on his face and he did his best to restrain it.

He walked through his usual routine: waved hello to the libraries, slipped the book he'd just finished into the book return, and stomped off to his corner, ready to write his daily letter to Laurens and read until he went blind, but a slumped figure at a table he was passing stopped him in his tracks.

"Burr?"

Burr jerked awake, glancing around quickly before focusing on Alex and groaning, then sprawling back onto the table.

"Are… you okay?" Alex asked, half stepping towards the disheveled thing before him and half flinching away. Like a car crash. But with a human. Who'd only collided with their self.

"What do you want, Hamilton?" Burr asked, heavily muffled, as his head was still buried in his arms.

"Whoa, whoa, okay, what happened to you?" Alex sat down and put his hands on the table, concerned, but also curious.

Burr slowly brought his head up off the table, moaning the whole while. Alex had no other way to describe it: the man looked like hell. His face was thin, deep, dark circles seemed to be the only thing weighing down his eyes to keep them open. Hints of stubble traced a shadow across Burr's jaw line, and it looked as if he hadn't changed his clothes in several days.

Or taken a shower.

"Why are you here?" Burr demanded, though he seemed too exhausted to be interested.

"Um, well, it's the library. I come here quite often. But, you… Aaron, are you okay? Is there something I can-"

"You could leave."

Both of them sat with stern, clamped jaws.

"What's wrong?" Alex asked one last time. If Burr returned with hostility, Alex would leave him alone.

Burr sighed sharply and rubbed his face, and while his hands were covering it he seemed to choke out a single sob before wiping his nose and folding his hands together and placing them on the table, his worn eyes meeting Alex's calmly. "I'm studying."

Alex couldn't help himself. He snorted and chuckled, then cut his laughter off seeing Burr's fuming waves of anger. They only made him look that much more miserable. "Sure as hell you are. It looks like you haven't slept in a week."

"That's more or less true."

"… Finals were over last week-"

"It's not finals, dipshit."

Alex was taken aback, not by being called a dipshit, but by Burr's overall demeanor. He stayed quiet and let Burr sigh and compose himself.

"I'm a bit overworked. Lots of college applications, job applications…"

"You haven't been at work lately."

"I've been doing it from home."

"Uh, well, ok. Hey, if you need help with application stuff, the library has a lot of-"

"I'm not applying for anything right this second so mind your own business!"

Once again, silence hollowed the air. Alex really didn't know what to do. He was scared, for Burr, and a bit for himself.

Burr, despite being royally ticked at Alex, looked him in the eyes, his head drooping as he made his confession. "I failed one of my finals, and now I have to get in all the coursework I did wrong or missed and redo my final thesis by the end of the month, or I fail the course."

"Ah," Alex responded.

"Yep. So as you can see, you can do nothing to help, Mr. Full-Ride, so please leave."

"Whoa. What did you just call me?" Alex mentally griped at himself for letting Burr tick him off like that. It was not a good time for that. But, Alex had never been great at restraining himself, and there was nothing around to act in place of a good judgement. No one, for that matter.

"You got the King's College scholarship, didn't you? Or are you so caught up with-"

"How do you know about that?" Alex questioned.

Burr gave him the 'why are you such a dipshit' look again. "Everyone applied. And yet, you got it. With a piece quite unoriginal and bland, if I may add." Burr sniffed, which made Alex both want to punch Burr right then and there, and also brought him back down to earth. Made him realize who he was talking to, what they were implying. Alex took a deep breath.

"Well, I can tell you that it wasn't my intention to apply for the contest, and I can't help that I won, so if you could calm your dick, that would be great. Now, as for you failing a final, you're not going to do better if you kill yourself trying to study. You have to take care of yourself, even though it feels like you're wasting time. Something I've learned and relearned many times," Alex began lecturing Burr as he set his backpack on the chair next to him, shook off his coat, and walked to the back room. Burr watched him the whole time, saying nothing, even as Alex walked away, still talking. He came back a few minutes later with a tea offering, which Burr took hesitantly, but took it, nonetheless.

"-and you have to know what you're doing before you do it, especially with things like this, otherwise you won't know what you're doing and it won't get done. Or it will just take way longer to get done, and you will be dead before it is finished. You are clearly in worse shape than your grade, so I would recommend that you go home and rest, but you're quite determined, stubborn, self-loathing, and pissed at the moment, so I'm not seeing that happening. So, do some small things to get yourself in order and ease your mind, and then, for the love of god, sleep a bit."

With that, Alex was done, Burr was no longer his concern, so he sat and pulled out his notebook, scrawling out Dear Laurens, I'm really fucking mad right now but I'm doing a pretty good job of being calm and helpful, you would be proud before Burr spoke again.

"Hamilton."

"Mhm?"

"What are you still doing here?"

"Working and making sure you don't die."

Burr had nothing to say to that, especially after Alex gave him a solid stare to let him know how serious he was.

Alex finished his letter while Burr sipped the tea, pulled out a few of his papers, scratching at them every here and there. Alex was surprise at how at ease Burr seemed now. There was a bit of structure back in his posture, a little less misery stretching his face. Alex was proud of himself.

Then he realized that as he may be able to take care of other people's crap, he was pretty helpless when it came to his own. He sighed and muttered curses to himself under his breath and closed his notebook.

Alex dug through his backpack to find his novel for English, but got lost in the sea of disorganized papers half-hazardly shoved in every pocket of his bag. He began pulling out thick stacks of pages. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Burr's widen in awe (or horror) as Alex worked.

Once they were finally all out, he began riffling through to see if there was anything he could throw away, anything to alleviate the mess. Before he could get very far, though, he noticed one that he'd dropped and bent to pick it up, then saw that it was the envelope Mrs. Livingston had handed him weeks ago.

Oops. He hoped it wasn't important.

Leaning back in his chair, he opened it, not sparing the address labels a glance.

But he went back and looked at the return address as soon as he'd skimmed the first line.

No.

No.

Mother of shit, no.

Alex felt Burr looking at him, and fought to remain calm as he reread the return address again, then set the torn envelope aside and went back to the letter. He tried to not notice how badly his hands were shaking.

Dear Alexander,

You couldn't have bothered to leave your new address when you left, could you have? Well, what's done is done, isn't it now? It just made things a bit harder for me to find you again, but if you're reading this, I obviously did.

You see, I care about you. Is that a foreign concept to you? So foreign that you had to high tail it to America? You didn't give a damn about us back here. You're lucky that I'm trying to help you now.

I'm trying to help you. Yes. Because you're fucked. I'm also fucked, but you'll be fucked worse if you don't come home.

After Uncle Peter went and shot himself, I was going through several documents, arranging the estate entirely by myself, I might add, and I found some not so pretty things. Like the debt Uncle Peter owes for twenty plus years of a heroin addiction. Or the money dad owes to basically everyone that breathed the same air as him.

I already spent a night in jail due to some assholes coming to collect their due. They asked me where you were. They know you left. Everyone does, though you think you did it so cleverly. They think you have the money since you conveniently left days before it all happened. They'll find you, and whatever measly comforts you've managed to find for yourself, they'll take. They already took mom's old house and Peter's old house. I'm working as their drug mule to keep them from forcing me to down some arsenic or find you and shoot you myself.

I found you, Alex. They'll find you, too.

Come home. I have some savings to keep them off our trail and so we can get away, go to Europe. They don't have many reliable connections outside of the Americas. After that you can get rid of me.

If you've ever cared about your family, or even yourself, come home.

James Hamilton Jr.

Alex couldn't breathe. He couldn't even think about breathing. He set the letter down, and froze in his place. Burr must have noticed, because shortly before Alex went unconscious, Burr set down his own paper and reached out to Alex, but didn't touch him.

"Hamilton? Are you okay?"

Hearing his name, Alex snapped out of his mindless daze with a fearful tug in his chest.

Immediately, he began gathering up his papers, though his vision was swimming and his hands were shaking. He was completely unaware of what he was doing, he only knew that he had to get out. That had always been his first instinct. Out, gone, away

"Hamilton? What, where-"

"I'm sorry, I have to go. Get some sleep, Burr. I'll see you tomorrow." Alex barely felt himself tug the zipper of his bag closed and shrug on his coat.

Static filled his head, his ears, his fingers.

James.

His brother.

Alex didn't even think of taking the bus home. By the time he got there, after walking through the beginnings of a blizzard, there was an inch of snow covering him, and he could feel absolutely nothing, numb to his soul.

James.