For Your Entertianment

by Child of the Dragon

Alexander Hamilton is putting himself through college by working as an adult film star. John, who follows his work, just so happens to be his new roommate this year. Alex doesn't that John knows what he knows, and Lafayette can't mind his own business. 16/28 in the For Your Entertainment Series, if I can manage to write all of these stories out. Lams slooooooooowburn

6. Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6:

Aaron shifted in his seat, closing the file he'd been looking through and opening another. The organization was meticulous which made his task almost too easy, the trick was just understanding that some of the files he wanted to sort through were not in fact labeled so clearly with exactly what they actually were. Ironically, that also made this job incredibly easy as it meant he would be able to hide what he needed to hide in plain sight if he wanted too. But of course, he wouldn't. The last thing he needed was for his target to find his little program and figure out their personal computer had been hacked. He already had everything he needed to absolutely destroy their life if needed, it was amazing what one could do with a silly little thing like a social security number, but if he intended to keep Alex safe and sound and completely oblivious to the situation he was in then Aaron would need far more then that. Aaron would need leverage, and a fair amount of it. And a game plan. A well thought out game plan to get exactly what he wanted.

The simplest solution would be to get Alex to agree to move into a private room, possibly even pay for a simple apartment for him. Honestly, Alex really should just be living on his own at this point anyway, Aaron knew he made way more then enough money for it. But the stupid kid insisted on doing things his way and he wanted "the full college experience," so even though the tuition was crazy stupid high Alex opted to live in the cramped student dorms with a different roommate every semester instead of a nice comfy apartment close to campus. Aaron supposed he really only had himself to blame for that one, but really he'd thought Alex would take the bait and agree to stay in the high end apartments he owned on the side. Stubborn boy was too clever for that tho, and Aaron often had to run extra laps just to keep him satisfied; thankfully, he was also just this side of too dumb to figure out just how much of his life Aaron actually ran.

So Alex would give him resistance if he tried to prompt him to move. What other options did Burr have? The second simplest option would be to snuff out the threat, and if he only had one body to worry about then he'd have already made a call. The problem was that his eavesdropping had confirmed three things for him: the target had went and stupidly told another person about the situation they found themselves in, they were incredibly scared of anyone outside of that room knowing about it, and they had no fucking idea how much shit they were in just yet. So Burr really didn't have just one target to deal with, he had two, at least. One body was hard enough to get rid of. Two was a much steeper price to clean up, like, ridiculously more expensive and time consuming. He could try to sell them for parts or snuff films on the black market, but that would require their capture and live storage until he could find a buyer to take them both off his hands. Not to mention he never liked the idea of seeing a parcel shipped off and never knowing what became of it. Better to know a target's life was cut short then to find out they were a persistent asshole who survived whatever cruel tortures were inflected on them and were now on a war-path of revenge. Even if those stories were more Hollywood fiction then fact it still gave him reasonable pause. So of course, selling them into the sex or human trafficking trade was out of the question as well even if the contacts he had on the other side of those operations could ensure that the targets would be well taken care of.

Alex shuffled down the hallway then and Aaron brought up a simple game of solitaire to cover his screen. He smiled at the man as he brushed his hand through his now loose hair. "Alexander," he greeted. "I saw Maria leave about an hour ago, I figured you'd be right behind her."

"Eh," the other male shrugged as he dropped his bag at his feet and once more hopped up onto the counter. "I was just cleaning up for her. She had to go pick up her kid from the babysitter. Hey by the way, do you happen to know what shoe size she wears?"

Aaron raised a brow. "9½ in womens, why?"

Alex shrugged. "She needs new shoes."

"And you were gunna buy them for her?"

"Yeah."

Aaron sighed and reached below his desk, pulling out a box of brand new red tennis shoes, size 9½ in womens. "Something like these, perhaps?"

"Oh shit," Alex said, eyeing the box. "Air Jordan? Those are like, one of the most expensive kinds."

"She's worth it."

"Yeah but, they aren't really her usual style," Alex said hesitantly. He held out his hand and Aaron handed them over so he could examine them more closely.

"They're red, just like everything in her room."

Alex looked unsure. "The shoes she wore were black..."

"I know what kind of shoes she wears now, Alex. They're simple, black, and worth exactly $10 at Walmart which is where she got them from, and where she got the last three pairs before them from. These are higher quality and they'll last longer. If she would just accept them."

"How long have you had these?" Alex asked taking the box and peeking inside.

"Long enough that they went out of season, came back into season, went out again, were retro for a hot minute and are now back out of season again. Honestly, I don't know what her issue with them is. It's not like they wouldn't look good on her."

"Well, maybe she wanted black shoes?"

"Well, I got them for her in red," Aaron sighed. "I figured it was her favorite color. Green is yours. You two look like a Christmas card when you're together sometimes." Alex grinned, and held up one hand which was covered by one of the red sneakers. His own green hoodie contrasted horribly with it and Aaron just shook his head at what an eyesore it was to see those shades of colors so close together. "I should honestly just return them, it's pretty clear she doesn't want them."

"Let me try giving them to her and see what she says," Alex replied. "I know how you are with gift giving, you just leave stuff in our rooms with no note or anything and maybe she just feels weird accepting something from her boss."

"Would she feel any less awkward accepting them from you?"

Tucking the shoes back into the box carefully Alex nodded. "I mean, I think she likes me a little better then you. She kisses me more."

"Ass," Aaron said with a bemused smile. "Well, go ahead. Let me know what she says. If she doesn't want them I'll return them or something."

"Okay, but let me know the next time you're gunna do something like this for her. I wanted to help."

"You almost sound like you like her, Alex."

The man shrugged again. "She needs new shoes," he repeated. "And she's a busy mother, working hard to provide for her family. Woman like that will sacrifice their own comfort for their kids well being first and foremost. I've seen what that looks like."

"Alright, now you're starting to sound like you love her, and you know what The Company's policy about inter-office dating is—"

"Don't date co-workers," they recited together, tho Alex's was more exasperated then Aaron's.

"Besides," Aaron went on. "She's a married woman, you wouldn't want to be a homewrecker to that family she's working so hard to provide for, right?"

"I know," Alex said with a roll of his eyes. "Believe me Aaron, it's not like that. I like her, she's like my best friend. A best friend I happen to work with and that work just happens to entail having a lot of sex. But my feelings are more...paternal..."

"That's a bit on the creepy side, Alexander."

"No, no, like, she reminds me of my mother."

"Not really better."

"But she does, and I just—"

"Alex, baby," Aaron said with a smile and a wide sweep of his hands. "Talk less. You don't have to explain yourself to me, you like her, I get it. Exactly how doesn't matter as long as your chemistry is good and people want to see you two fuck. Just follow the rules, that's all I ask, okay?"

"Okay," Alex said with his own nod. "You're right, I don't know what I was trying to say anyway. Like, I don't want to marry her just—"

"Alex."

He bit his lower lip for a second, realizing he'd tried to keep talking even after he was told to stop. Alex fidgeted for a moment under Aaron's level look before he finally put on his best grin, the one he reserved for cameras as he worked under the alias Lin. Aaron smiled back approvingly.

"Don't fuck her without a condom again," his boss told him. "I'll bring in some lambskin ones if the latex is bothering her, but the last thing she needs is to get pregnant again."

"She's vegan," Alex countered.

"Not vegan enough; her birth control is hormonal and nearly every form of contraceptive has been tested on animals before being passed on to humans, not to mention latex still uses casein, which is found in milk," Aaron replied. "But I'll go ahead look up vegan condoms for her and order some of those. I'm sure they exist now."

With a huff of a sigh Alex slid off the counter. "Okay, just don't be so damn demanding about what she should do with her body. I mean, if she wants to go bareback because she trusts her contraceptives then we should respect that, right? And whose to say they haven't made vegan birth control either?"

Aaron swept his hands again and shrugged. "If you say so."

"I know you're just looking out for us," Alex replied. "And...I appreciate it even if others might not all the time."

"I know you do, baby. I'll see you on Saturday for your scheduled appointments? You're just seeing your most frequent customers."

"Okay," Alex said as he headed for the door. "I'll see you on Saturday!"

Aaron smiled until the door shut behind Alex. Saturday. He dropped the untouched game of solitaire and looked at the appointments lined up for Alex on Saturday. Of course A. Ramos had an appointment, last one on the block, same as usual. So Burr had until then to figure out and execute a plan for exactly how he wanted to deal with the problem that was actually named John Anthony Laurens.

Adams House seemed a bit more lively to Alex as he headed up the steps on his way home. The other students that would be living there chatted in their rooms as they unpacked and decorated, with doors anywhere from wide open to semi shut. He said hello to the people he crossed paths with and chatted very briefly with those who seemed interested in socializing. He liked socializing, but of course every new face came with the risk of being someone that would recognize him from the work he did. Statistically speaking, it was a pretty low risk considering Aaron was so damn selective with the clientele he approved and Alex knew that; sometimes that's the only thought that helped him smile at people at all anymore. He sighed as he reached his door, reminding himself that he'd be done with law school in three years and with that shiny new degree he could retire from porn and make a "respectable" living at a nice cushy law firm somewhere.

It wasn't that he hated doing porn. Out of all the things he'd done to earn money it was by far the easiest, and it paid the best. And hey, it's sex right? Who doesn't love having sex? That's exactly what Alex had thought when he'd started doing it seven years ago. Seven years, holy shit, he'd been sucking dick for money for seven years. By the time he finished college it would be ten. He'd be 25, with a Harvard law degree, a spotty work record that may as well not exist, and ten years of experience sucking dick. He had to lean against the wall to let that soak in for a minute.

He'd only be 22 this winter, but he felt so much older in mind and spirit. A younger him, a teenage him, had thought this was the greatest job he could have ever gotten and that he was so good at it he'd be able to do it forever. Seven years later and despite having lucked into a high class company he felt the threat of burn out starting to creep into the edges of his mind. Of course he knew he couldn't do this forever, he didn't want to. He didn't hate it, he felt no shame in it, it's just that...just that...Just what, Alex? What did you want?

He wanted to stop playing the part of Lin. He liked Lin, he liked being Lin, it was fun, Lin was a fun part to play, but it wasn't him and sometimes he didn't like the mere thought that people might only like him because of the role he played. That's what scared him when he talked to strangers, the wonderings of if they knew Lin and would that be the only person they saw in him? He'd meant to make Lin a mask, a shield of sorts that would protect him and his privacy, give him a buffer of comfort, but he'd never meant for the act to become something greater then him. Each time he had to step into the role he felt like he pulled away a little more from what it was, as if there was a splitting of himself inside and one part of him wanted to stop doing all of this insanity, the sex, the smiling, the studying, the success of his life so far, it just needed to stop, to stop, to stop, to—

"I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory," Alex murmured to himself, his back to the wall, the palms of this hands pressed into his eye sockets. "Swirling deep inside me, my friend turned into an enemy; Lin, by night a part I play, and I become Alex again by light of day; we are one beat with two separate melodies; I feel helpless, but I will not be made worthless in the shadow of which I created, nor will I yield to being hated brought on by the issues I've debated in my mind where I should be emancipated—"

"Hey, are you okay?"

Alex looked up into the face of a young woman, her dark eyes shone with mild concern as her hand reached to touch his shoulder. For a moment he felt stunned by her beauty, and embarrassed she'd caught him talking to himself. "Yeah," he got out, and tried to casually stand up a little straighter. "Yeah, um...I was just...working on an assignment."

She smiled a little disbelievingly at him. "Really? But school hasn't even started yet."

"Personal; a personal assignment, I'm never quite satisfied with it," he tried.

"My name is Angelica Schuyler," she said with a tiny bow and a small smile.

"Alexander Hamilton."

"Well, perhaps you can help me?" she said, and he pulled himself off the wall and straightened immediately. Alex was a sucker for a woman asking him for help. Aaron often joked with him that he'd willingly get kidnapped if a fair lady in distress merely asked him to climb into the back of some sketchy ass van. Alex hated that joke because it was most likely true. "I'm looking for room 37?"

"Uhhh, I'm in room 37," Alex replied. "This one, right here." He gestured at the door with a smile. "Are you friends with John?"

"Yes," Angelica replied. "May I go in?

"Yeah," Alex said as he reached for the door to open it for her. "Yeah, come right in."

The door was left slightly ajar, so he pushed it open and bowed for her to go in before him. The room looked vastly different then when he had left and he eyed it with a bit of wonder as he followed Angelica in. White stringed Christmas lights were hung all along the perimeter of the ceiling and gave the room a soft warm glow. Alex spied the extra sitting chair, the colorful circle rug, the long console table with a coffee pot, microwave, and a stack of paper plates on top of it; the mini fridge, the curtains, and the string of pictures hanging on the wall above John's bed of his friends and family; the stacks of books, the calendar and note board, the coat hooks with a few of John's hoodies already hanging from them; the handful of carefully selected nick-knacks, the throw pillows and blankets, the fan in the window, the collection of candles on John's desk. Everything John had brought into the room made it feel like a home and less like the Spartan living arrangements Alex was used to in his dorms.

John's bed was covered in a deep navy blue comforter, as well as Lafayette and John himself, the latter male laying on top of the French man stretched out on the bed. On John's desk sat three empty bottles of Samuel Adams and John himself had another held loosely in his hand, however it wasn't being tended to as John's head rested on his friends chest and a light snoring sound came from his mouth.

"Hey," Alex said in a bit of a low whisper as he noted that John's eyes were closed. Lafayette's fingertips lightly traced lazy circles around the other male's arms and back, and he turned to look up at Alex as he entered. "Is John asleep?"

Lafayette nodded. "Out like the dark," he replied and Alex tilted his head in mild confusion.

"I think you mean 'out like a light,'" Angelica said, her own voice matching the soft hush of the other two. She smiled fondly at him. "Too bad Peggy isn't here to see this."

"I would snapchat her just to tease, but she really needs to get over him," Lafayette said. "I keep telling her he is gay and she will not hear me."

"The problem is that the best ones usually are," Angelica said with a sigh.

"I like the women folk," Alex said, running his hand through his hair and smiling at Angelica.

"Uh-huh, I can tell you're a straight shit shot of adorable yourself there kid."

"Oh really? Well, would you say you like the taste of adorable as a chaser to that drink of beautiful you got or should I mix it with something else?"

Lafayette raised a brow hearing that exchange and when Angelica turned back to try an give him a 'do you hear this boy?' look he mentally noted the rosey tint on her cheeks wasn't just from makeup alone. "Laf, were you almost done here?" she asked with feigned cheeriness.

Lafayette nodded and carefully removed the extra beer bottle from John's hand, setting it on the desk. "Alex, there is two more alcohols in the mini fridge, I saved them for you if you wish. You should drink them soon or else John will have them all." As he moved to sit up John grunted and contracted, coming back to consciousness with a moan and and yawn. "Good evening sleepy head," the French man said, nuzzling John's cheek despite the grumpy toddler protest he made.

"Angelica?" John said as he wiped the sleep from his eyes.

"The one and only," she replied and moved to give him a hug. "Welcome back to the city, kid."

"It feels good to be back," he replied.

"Are you coming back to work at the restaurant again this year?"

Lafayette eyed John in a pointed way, but if the other man noticed he said nothing about it. "That's the plan," he told Angelica. "I'm going down to talk to the boss tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for me."

"I don't think I need to, he hasn't hired anyone else yet and he loved you. You actually work."

"Better then sitting around with my thumbs up my ass."

"Well, I'll be in to see you tomorrow. You should come in early though, in case any of the other students around these parts are looking for a job too."

"Right," John nodded. He groaned some as Lafayette moved to hug him, then kissed him a few times on his cheek, but John returned the affection with his own squeeze nonetheless.

"I must leave you before I turn into a pumpkin," the French man said. "Get some sleep, drink some water, and call me if you need me, oui?"

"Oui," John replied ushering his friend toward the door. "It was good to see you again Angelica. We'll catch up more tomorrow, yeah?"

"Of course. Goodnight John, Alex."

Alex waved from where he'd plopped himself on his bed and waited for John to return from waving his friends down the hall. His feelings from before Angelica interrupted him were ebbing back in, but this time they remained more manageable. This was another reason he was looking forward to quitting the porn. Aside from his co-workers, there weren't many people Alex considered himself close with. Over the years he'd just learned to keep anyone on this side of his life always at an arms distance away from him and somehow he'd never really thought about how weird it was that his only close friends were the co-workers he fucked on screen for money. He didn't think there was anything wrong with getting along well with his co-workers, but it was becoming more and more obvious he wanted deep friendships with people he didn't strip for. Angelica seemed nice. Lafayette did too. And then, of course, there was his roommate.

John shut the door behind him and shuffled back into the room with a yawn. "Oh, there's two more beers in the fridge if you want them, Alex," he said. He found his half finished beer and downed the rest of it in one go.

"Yeah Laf told me," Alex replied without moving from his spot on the bed.

"I'm...gunna take a shower and head to bed," John started. "Will you need the bathroom soon, or...?"

"I'm okay," he replied. "I'll likely be up for a while; will that bother you?"

John shook his head, his lose messy curls flouncing around his face before he confusedly ran a hand through them and realized his ponytail had been pulled out. "I have a sleep medication I take, I'll be out for like 8 hours once I'm in bed." Alex chuckled but John fixed him with an even look. "No seriously, if the building goes up in flames, don't bother trying to wake me, just tell the firefighters where they can find my corpse, okay?"

"I'm not gunna let you die in a fire," Alex said with a slight smile, thinking him joking. When John's expression didn't change it slowly faded and he added, "wait, you're serious?"

"Yes," John replied. "My doctors aren't fucking around with the shit they have me on."

"Why take it then?" Alex asked. "I mean, you're just gay, no pill is gunna 'fix' that, no matter what your mother thinks."

"Because if I don't then you'd wake up to the sound of me screaming my head off nearly every night."

Alex tried not to stare as John moved toward the closet to collect his pajamas. He wanted to dig deeper into that mystery but the nonchalant way that John was speaking about it was a little off-putting. So his mother hadn't been lying when she'd said he was on medication for other symptoms. He also remembered the way John's father had acted at lunch, when Alex had jokingly asked John to marry him and the way the rest of the Laurens children had gone too quiet and still. He'd suspected abuse, at the very lease some kind of trauma, but that seemed less like a speculation now and more like fact. Still, Alex wasn't about to go accusing anyone of anything or even trying to pry that deep into John's life right now. He told himself to hold his tongue and let the man adjust to his college freedom, then maybe poke him with a few questions and see what kind of answers he got. If John wanted to talk, Alex could listen. If he didn't, well, that was John's choice and Alex couldn't force him.

As the door to the bathroom shut behind John, Alex backtracked on the idea of whether or not getting to know John better would be a good idea. Kid seemed alright, if not a little broken, but Alex had lived through his own traumas and he was certain he came off as weird and off-putting himself sometimes. Besides, John seemed to have a stable, if not a little secretive, relationship with Lafayette, and Aaron had said that man was basically a living saint. Saints didn't deal with psychopaths. He thought about asking Aaron to look into John as well though, just to be sure.

No, that would defeat the entire point of making a friend on his own. That kind of thing was supposed to happen slowly and naturally, not because he had his hacker boss crack his way into a person's personal computer and tell him all of their secrets. And he couldn't live in constant fear that the next person he talked to was going to know Lin and call him out on that either. Besides, that fear completely over looked the fact that most of The Company's clientele did NOT want the attention of anyone knowing they watched porn, let alone gay porn. In fact, now that Alex really stopped and thought about it, there's was a pretty decent chance he'd already met a client of his who had recognized him and just hadn't said anything to his face about it. It was both terrifying and liberating to think of, that the very thing he dreaded the most in life had just...happened, just like that, one day and that it wasn't the life changing shit storm he had imagined it to be, that it hadn't even been worth mentioning. He thought of all the clients faces he didn't see on the regular, there were far more of them then the ones he did, and so statistically speaking it was probable that he'd been spotted dozens of times and the people who knew him as Lin were just content to keep going about their day like nothing extraordinary had happened.

Huh. How completely silly his fear had seemed in the light of rational thought.

A rattling of the door jolted him from his musings, and a distorted voice he didn't recognize called, "Liiiiiiiiiin..." It dissolved into a twisted kind of laughter. He jumped up from his bed with a small scream and quickly covered his mouth. Logic and rationality be damned! Fear was a powerful pep talker and right now it was telling him he was a damn fool. "Liiiiin Gaaaarlaaaand!"

"GO AWAY!" he screamed, backing around the extra chair John had brought. The bathroom door opened again, John looking between the door out of their room and Alex. A rapid pounding on the door made Alex scream again and duck closer to the ground. It was another stalker, he knew it was another stalker, oh god it was another stalker and he had only just escaped the last one—

"Move," John told him in a stern voice. Alex looked up with eyes wet from tears of fear and just barely managed to scramble out of the way. John threw open his closet and before Alex could see what he was doing the door started to open. He screamed again, even as John stepped between him and the assailant, but then Alex caught the sound of laughter from a voice he, unfortunately, did recognize. And then he saw the stupid man's face, laughing as he entered the room like the asshole he was. And that's when Alex realized John was holding a handgun. "WAIT!"

POP! POP! POP!

"SONOVABITCH! WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MATTER WITH YOU ASSHOLE?!"

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY ROOM BEFORE I CALL CAMPUS SECURITY ON YOUR ASS!"

"John, Wait!"

"FUCKING MAKE ME, JACKASS!"

John tried to advance but Alex held him back. He looked intimidating enough, however, and Charles Lee scrambled out of the room, just barely missing getting shot again by John's air-soft gun. "John! WAIT! I KNOW HIM! It's Okay, I Know Him!"

"It's not fucking okay!" Charles called from the cover of the hallway. "Fuck, Alex, I'm bleeding!"

"You fucking deserved that, Asshole!"

"John, please put the gun down," Alex said and was instantly relieved when his roommate listened. "Okay. I am not going to ask why the fuck you have that when campus rules clearly state—"

"I have it for assholes like him," John interrupted.

"—Regardless, put it away, please," Alex interjected. "I need to go deal with him. I'd better not see that when I come back." He turned and left the room then, finding his asshole co-worker standing outside and wiping at the blood that dribbled from his mouth. "Are you okay?"

"Do I look okay?!" Charles shot back at him.

"Honestly, I can't even see anything wrong with you, except for your fucking head! Charles, what the fuck was that?! Why are you pounding on my door at 8 o'clock at night acting like a fucking creep?! Where you trying to give me a heart attack?!"

"Uhhhh, maybe I was sick of you fucking ignoring my texts? So I decided, 'hey, you know what will get his goddamn attention? If I show up and make him give me his goddamn attention.'"

"Well, you have it now. What do you want, Charles?"

"I need a partner for Saturday, Sally bailed."

Alex hesitantly glanced up and down the mostly empty hallway and leaned in closer. "Keep your fucking voice down," he hissed at Charles. "For fuck's sake, I'm already pissed at you for using my stage name when you came banging on my door, why don't you act like someone with an ounce of tact for once?"

"Aww, poor baby," Charles said, in a lowered voice. "What's the matter, don't want anyone thingking you're chubby baby face sucks dicks for a living?" He tried to poke Alex's cheek and got his hand slapped away. "Look, I just need to know if you'll do Saturday or not."

Alex rolled his eyes. "No. Find someone else."

"I've already asked everyone else!"

"And the fact that everyone declined should tell you something. It really should."

"Aaron says I can't keep working with amateurs not signed with The Company. If I don't find someone to agree to work with me on Saturday, I'm fucked."

"Do a solo act then. I don't care."

"No one watches me for solo acts, Alex. C'moooooon! It's just for one session!"

"No, I have personal sessions on Saturday, I don't want you ruffling my feathers before then."

"So let me fuck you afterwards then."

"You're gunna wait until after midnight?"

"Fuck no. Just push them up a bit."

Alex heaved a sigh. "Listen dickhole, I hold scheduled personal sessions every Saturday, Monday and Wednesday at very specific times, times that clients sign up for because it will be convenient and comfortable for them. I can't just change that on a whim. It's not like they sit in a queue and I pick them at random. So no, I can't move my appointments, and no, you're not gunna fuck me before I have to go earn my bread and butter pleasing them! Figure something else out, Charles."

"Fine, I'll let you suck me off and use your toys on yourself or something, just please say you'll show up so I don't look like an ass."

"You are an ass."

"Alex, please! I'm basically begging here!"

Alex huffed a frustrated sigh again and rolled his eyes. "Fine, I'll show up but only for a moment to suck you off. You gotta fucking do the rest on your own. And I mean it, you're not putting shit inside me where I don't want it, got it?"

Charles grinned and Alex tried not to flinch at the sight of his bloody teeth. He could see where John had caught him and honestly it didn't look as bad as it could have been, Charles was damn lucky. Maybe that's why Alex had agreed to work with him, even though Alex already knew the ass was gunna find a way to wheedle his damn dick somewhere it shouldn't go. "I'll see you on Saturday," he said and turned to leave.

"You're fucking welcome," Alex called after him. "Ass," he muttered to himself when Charles gave no reply. He shook his head and turned to go back into his room, noting that the shower was running and John wasn't anywhere in sight. He picked up his backpack from where he'd left it and pulled out the little red door jammer he always carried with him. As he worked on setting it up he heard the shower turn off and a moment later John emerged from the bathroom.

"Is he gone?" John asked.

"Yeah," Alex replied as he stood up. "Uhh, I like to have some extra security measures when I'm sleeping, I hope you don't mind?"

John looked down where Alex indicated the little device then smiled a bit himself. "Why don't you set mine up too," he said, nodding toward a security bar hanging from the hooks by the door. "Can't hurt to be too cautious, right?"

Alex smiled as he reached for the extra bar. "No, of course not. Is that...uh...is that why you have that gun?"

"It's not a real gun, it's an air-soft pistol," John replied as he plopped down on his bed. "Dad wouldn't stand for his kids not to know how to handle firearms, so we all got personal lessons by the old man himself. And he's former military, soooo..."

"Oh," Alex said. "That explains some things..."

"Yeah. I now the campus rules say we're not allowed to have guns, and I know they probably wouldn't be that thrilled about air-soft pistols either, but my father refuses to let us out into the world without some means of 'protecting' ourselves. I mean, it won't outright stop an intruder, but it'll make 'em think twice about advancing, clearly."

"Only if they're unarmed."

John shrugged as if it made little difference to him and not for the first time Alex wondered what he'd been through to make him act so nonchalant about a topic like facing down a crazed gunman. He was about to shrug it off mentally when John asked him, "are you okay?"

"Yeah," Alex replied with a smile, "why wouldn't I be?"

"You kinda freaked out for a minute."

"My new roommate just pulled a gun on an acquaint—"

"That's not what you freaked out about."

Alex hesitated, the even look John was leveling on him still a touch unnerving. He frowned and ran a hand through his hair, looking away for a moment before making his final decision. "I had a stalker...when I was 17. It's a...really long and complicated story, but basically I was living alone and they broke into my house. Twice. The second time they decided not to leave and I almost ended up in the back of some sicko's van who thought, for reasons I can never fathom, that we were some kind of star-crossed lover soulmates or whatever." He crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. "So yeah, it was one of the more terrifying moments of my life. I haven't liked the idea of living by myself since. But sometimes I'm scared nice people like you would be the next stalker." A humorless chuckle escaped him then. "Kinda messed up, right?"

"No," John said a little quietly. "You went through something that not many people experience, and it must've been terrifying. Even if you came out of it the damage is still real. It's not okay what that person did to you, but you're still here. That's good, right?"

Alex smiled naturally at John then. "Right. We're still here." John nodded, and for a brief second Alex thought he saw a spark ignite in that level stare.

John plopped back onto his bed then. "If it's alright with you," he spoke up to the ceiling. "I really need to get some sleep. I've had a very trying day and I would like it to be over now."

"Okay, John," Alex chuckled. "I think I'll turn in for the night too.

"I thought you were gunna stay up?"

"Nah, Charles took the wind out of my sails."

"...who?"

"Charles Lee, the dumbass that was knocking on our door."

"Oh. Right. Him.

"Hey."

"Hmm?"

"The room looks really nice, by the way. I like what you've done with it." And the last thing Alex saw before he turned off the light was John grinning happily at the ceiling.

END CHAPTER