Hey dudes. New chapter.

Trigger warnings: self harm, xenophobia, violence/fighting, anxiety, kinda panic attacks, brief mention of police brutality, self hatred.

(I never know what to warn for, tell me if I miss anything. I think I warn unnecessarily sometimes but better safe than sorry I guess.)

The scene of self harm might be a bit upsetting, it's obvious when it's about to happen so you don't have to read it. It's not graphic or explicitly described; I don't write that stuff, but it could be triggering.

Yo, any French or Spanish (or both) speakers willing to help me out? I speak French at a fairly conversational level (slightly better than public school standard) but it's not amazing. Understanding is one thing, writing with correct grammar and usage of slang is another. Spanish though, I have no clue about. So, if you can help, it would be much appreciated.

Lafayette walked into maths class with his fist clenched and his jaw set. His gaze fell upon Charles Lee and George Frederick and he walked over to where they were sat in the corner of the class room. His sneakers squeaked across the linoleum floor like a record scratching, the preamble to a fight song.

Charles Lee looked up at the noise and did a double take when he saw the furious expression on the French teenager's face.

"What the fuck did you do to Alex yesterday?"

Charles Lee grinned that aggravating, complacent, smug, 'asking to be punched in the face' grin and turned to George, who was sat next to him.

"Do you know what he's talking about George?"

Lafayette turned his attention to the blond teenager and glowered at him. He looked away slightly awkwardly and shrugged, not bringing his eyes up to look at Lafayette.

Lafayette, seized with frustration and fury, grabbed one of Charles' textbooks and threw it forcefully at the ground, his hand trembling. It landed with a dull thump, open on the floor like an oyster.

Someone was standing behind him now, he turned around, expecting to see Seabury or one of the other stuck up, arrogant, obnoxious, elitist, small minded-

It was John.

Lafayette ignored his friend, too concentrated on the anger burning in his chest to say anything to him. He focused his attention back on the pale, dark haired teenager in front of him.

"I'll repeat myself. I suppose you didn't understand me the first time. What did you do to my brother yesterday?"

He laid a heavy stress on 'my brother', not once snapping his vision away from the rain coloured, cruel eyes in front of him. His French accent was more pronounced this time, his 'r' sounds harsher in the back of his throat and his voice heavy with sarcasm.

Charles Lee had sat up a little straighter in his chair, his eyes narrowed and his arms folded across his chest.

"Exactly what I'll do to you if you don't pick up my book right now."

Lafayette scoffed and he felt John move to stand closer to him. This gesture of camaraderie made a warm feeling bloom in his chest and he smiled slightly to his friend.

"Why don't you? Maybe you're not used to having to do things yourself, but I assure you, it's not too difficult even for the likes of you."

John hissed this comment, opening his mouth before Lafayette even had time to formulate a response.

The French teenager shot a grateful look at John who nodded slightly and glared at Lee, his eyes furious.

George had leaned in closer to the three of them, his eyebrows furrowed and his expression one of defensiveness and disbelief.

"Pick up his book and piss off."

Lafayette raised his eyebrows and looked down at the book in distaste. He nudged it with his Adidas sneaker-ed foot before shrugging and turning away from Lee, walking back across the class room to his seat and flopping down casually, facing the front. John leaned in to Lee, scowling at him.

"You'll regret what you did to Alex."

Lee raised his own dark eyebrows and smiled slightly, running his eyes up and down John condescendingly.

"I'm positively trembling with fear, Laurens."

John rolled his eyes and turned around, not sparing another glance at the two boys behind him. He strode towards his seat next to Lafayette and sat down, sighing at his friend and nodding his head wearily towards the two boys at the back.

Lafayette clenched his fist and looked towards the front as their teacher walked in, logging on the computer and starting the lesson.

oo

It was after school when Lafayette next saw Lee and George. They were sitting on a bench outside the main building about fifteen minutes after the bell. He and John had gone to the library to find a science textbook and Hercules had a late detention in his homeroom, so they were delayed leaving school.

The outside courts were empty aside from a few seniors studying for finals on the far side of the field, not far from where Lafayette, John, Hercules and Alexander often sat at break.

When John and Lafayette stepped out of the building, Lee and George looked up immediately, the former with a wide, ominous looking grin on his face and the other looking slightly nervous but none the less angry.

John and Lafayette stopped in their tracks, eyeing the other teenagers in with apprehension and suspicious resentment.

They stood there for a few moments, rather like how cats watch each other, stock-still in the moments before one pounces.

Lafayette made to turn left and take the longer route away from George and Lee, past the sports building and out the back gate usually reserved for school personnel or deliveries.

John however subtly grabbed his elbow and steered him towards the main gate, in the direction of Lee and George. He held his head up high, he was not afraid of these bastards.

They drew closer to the beach and Lee stood up, quickly followed by George.

"Dreadfully sorry Alexander couldn't come in today. Give him my best."

Lafayette stopped and turned to Lee, his face hot. He saw George glance at Charles in wary apprehension before running his eyes over Lafayette's expression.

He took a few steps towards Charles until he was less than a meter away from him, staring him straight in the eye. They were just as tall as each other, their builds both more a less equally muscular and lean.

For a moment, he fancied a flash of intimudation in Lee's eyes, but if it had indeed been there it was gone in an instant.

"You need to grow up and get a hobby that isn't being a racist, homophobic asshole."

John was next to him, his clenched fists outlined sharply in his jean pockets and his face set.

Lee took a step closer to Lafayette and George to John, who raised his chin up to stare defiantly at the taller teenagers. John was tall, sure, but next to George he seemed smaller than usual. Nevertheless, his strong, defined muscles were taught and his face indignant. He wasn't exactly someone you'd like to make angry.

"I think you need to pay closer attention to your so-called 'friend'."

Lee, his eyes bright with sadistic amusement and smugness, smirked.

John looked from George to Lee to Lafayette and then back to Lee again, his expression confused and possibly even slightly scared.

Lafayette shot a glance in his direction but quickly looked back at Lee, frowning.

"Excuse me?"

George smiled slightly at his friend and took over, his apparent nervousness disguised almost convincingly with an aggravating smirk.

"He must not trust either of you very much, Charles nearly broke his finger and he didn't care to mention it?"

John's eyes widened and he stiffened, his posture suddenly straighter and more alert.

Lafayette's mind was reeling, what did this mean? Had Alex been hurt more times then he'd let on?

Lee took over, incited by their silence and expressions of outrage. He allowed himself a loud, sharp laugh.

"All those times I laid into him and you didn't once notice anything?"

Lafayette moved closer, backing Charles closer to the chain link fence of the school grounds. The dark haired teen kept goading him, that detestable smile unwaveringly plastered across his face.

George shot his friend a look and nudged him, nodding toward the gate as though signalling for them to leave. His face was anxious and his eyes narrowed. Teasing and insulting them was one thing, the fist fight that was crossing the bounds into inevitability was another.

Lee however shrugged off his friend and sneered at Lafayette.

"He has a creative repertoire of insults, until you get a punch to his stomach. That tends to shut him up."

Lafayette snarled and reached back his fist, ready to swing towards Lee. His vision was obscured by a wave of anger, his brain frantic and overwhelmed.

All those times Alex had winced when he moved, dismissing it as leftover pain from his rib or a muscle cramp. How he had worn that hoodie constantly, even when no cuts marred the skin on his forearms.

Lee caught his fist in mid air and glanced at George, who had assumed a defensive stance, his eyes watching John's livid expression with determination. John was struck by his unrelenting loyalty (misplaced, yet vehement) and refusal to abandon his friend. George so clearly didn't want to be there but had yet to leave.

It would have been admirable, but because of the circumstance of his allegiance, he considered the action cowardice. A refusal to stand up for personal morals. Loyalty to a person on the wrong side undermines the positive connotations associated with the quality. Instead, this 'loyalty' could be better named as chauvinism. John decided he liked that descriptor; chauvinism. It suited George.

"Fucking stay away from my brother."

Lafayette's mouth twisted into a snarl and he wrenched his fist out of Lee's grip, rolling his shoulders angrily.

"Bit late for that now."

Lafayette let out a yell of anger and swung his fist straight at Charles stomach, hitting dead on centre and making the dark haired boy double over in pain. He hasn't been ready for that, he had been expecting a blow to the face.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see John backing George towards the fence, George's lips were moving and his expression taunting but Lafayette couldn't hear what he was saying.

Lee straightened up, gasping.

"Immigrant shit."

Lafayette raised his fist and sent it straight into Lee's face, feeling his knuckles throb as they connected with the vicinity around his left eye.

Lee's head was momentarily knocked sideways, his face jolting to turn in the other direction. He clutched his left cheekbone for a second before letting out a angry, sarcastic laugh and stepping towards Lafayette in fury, throwing himself on top of him and knocking them both down onto the asphalt.

Lee weighed down heavily on the teen beneath him and pinned Lafayette's arms down with his knees so he couldn't move, crushed into the concrete painfully with loose stones grating against his back.

Lee drew back a bony fist, crashing it into Lafayette's face, hitting his lip and chin. Lafayette could feel blood there, his lip had split. The taste was hot and metallic in his mouth and he could feel the pulsing of blood pumping at the cut.

Lee dug his knee sharply into Lafayette's elbow which was still pinned to the ground and backhanded him twice across the face, leaving Lafayette gasping and thrashing to get up.

The French teen, with an almighty effort, wrenched a hand free from under Charles and used the leverage to sit himself up, scrambling and kicking away from the boy on top of him.

His face throbbed, from his left to right cheek there was a sharp stinging where Lee had hit him and blood was dripping down from his lip onto his shirt.

That was a freaking nice shirt, asshole.

He took a step towards Lee, wiping his nose with his hand, streaking it with blood.

Lafayette suddenly jumped at the boy in front of him, not giving him a second to react before he'd knocked them both back onto the concrete, this time him the one on top.

He made to pull back his fist to punch Lee but was distracted by a yell behind him and groans of pain.

Please don't be John.

He spun around, his friend was lying on the asphalt, clutching his nose with a hand that was rapidly being stained with blood.

Putain de merde.

Momentarily distracted by this, Lee shoved Lafayette off him and knocked him to the ground on his stomach, winding him for long enough to be still while Charles sent sharp kicks to the side of his stomach over and over again, each strike sending a wave of pain through his torso and knocking the breath from his lungs.

He rolled away, breathing heavily and tried to scramble to his feet. This proved useless however when he felt someone's hand grasped around his ankle, he kicked out but the grip didn't falter and a second later he was being dragged across the asphalt by someone he realised must have been George.

His chin and palms were being rubbed against the stones hard, shredding the skin and leaving it red and bleeding. Suddenly, the grip around his ankle was gone and above him there were sounds of fist hitting face and groans of pain.

Lafayette rolled over onto his back in time to see someone punching George hard in the jaw and shoving him towards the fence.

Herc?

Herc!

He was being helped to his feet a moment later by his friend and John too was beside him, still clutching his nose.

"What the fuck is going on here?"

Hercules whispered, his fists clenched and his eyes frantic.

Lafayette shook his head and he glared at Lee for a long moment.

"Touch him again and you'll get more than a black eye."

He looked them up and down with a grim kind of satisfaction. Lee was breathing heavily and his hair was a mess, his eye slowly turning purple and his face red. George's mouth was bleeding and John's fingernails were etched into his cheeks in the form of long, red scratches.

Lafayette didn't get to hear a response, in fact, if he wanted to he wouldn't have been able to because Hercules had grabbed his elbow and was steering him and John out of the gate and behind a large cedar tree planted there.

"Laf! What the was that? I come to meet you guys out on the courts and you're fucking being kicked on the floor by those idiots!"

This was serious, Hercules only ever swore when he was really angry.

"We'll fill you in in a minute," he looked at John, "merde, ton nez. It is broken, non?"

John pinched slowly along the bridge of his nose and shook his head, tilting it back to stop the blood flow.

"Just hurts like hell."

Hercules looked from John to Lafayette, his mouth wide.

"Are you gonna tell me what happened or..."

John sighed angrily and held the end of his hoodie to his nose, stemming the blood flow.

"Apparently Lee and Frederick have been beating Alex up for weeks. Of course, a fight ensued."

Hercules was silent for a long moment, his eyes slowly taking on the rare, formidable anger that Lafayette had only seen a few time before.

"Why did we not know?"

John shrugged and winced, pressing down on his nose tentatively.

"You'll have to ask Alex. I've been thinking though, the day we went to the cinema he was fifteen minutes late to meet me. When he showed up he was limping. I didn't think much of it but..."

Lafayette held his face in his hands and groaned.

"Putain. This is all my fault, I should have noticed."

Hercules moved towards his friend and wrapped his arm around him in a hug, holding him tightly and shaking his head.

"No, it's their fault. We can't blame ourselves."

John patted Lafayette on the back a few times and murmured in agreement, joining in on the hug himself a second later.

Hercules stepped back and looked them up and down, his eyes concerned.

"We need to patch you up."

John and Lafayette looked at eachother and flipped up their hoods as the three teenagers started to walk in the direction of Lafayette's house.

Hercules moved behind them and pulled their hoods back down quickly, guiding them across the road to a shortcut down a side street all the while looking around them with a wary expression on his face.

"Hey! I don't want someone seeing me like this!"

Lafayette made to pull his hood back up and gestured to his face.

Hercules caught his hand and they kelt walking.

"One latino and two black kids wearing hoodies and looking the way you two do, we'd be stopped by cops in a second, Stephen Rankin served here. Remember him? I ain't about to get shot."

He made his posture straighter and guided them past some low hanging branches.

"Just fix your hair or wipe away some of that blood."

Lafayette rolled his eyes but stopped trying to put his hood back up. John had to grudgingly agree that his friend was right.

"What exactly happened?"

Lafayette filled the silence with a cough, spitting blood out onto the pavement.

"That's not internal. Don't worry. Or at least I don't think it is."

He waved away Hercules' look of horror and continued.

"In maths this morning I asked Lee about yesterday. Évidemment, he was an asshole. When we came out from the library, he was there with George on the bench. He kept talking about Alex and about hurting him so I punched him. Then we fought."

Hercules rubbed his forehead, his eyes wide and his jaw tense.

"So what the hell do we do now?"

oo

Alex put down his pen and looked up and glancing at the clock. He'd been writing for hours now, worked his way through many essays; none of which he was totally happy with.

His sentences seemed safer and flatter than usual, far from the controversial and daring statements that were the hallmarks of his writing. His ideas seemed uninspired and his pace was slower than usual. He found himself pausing for long periods of time, trying to figure out what to say.

Rationally he could attribute this to his concussion, but part of him worried that he was losing his nerve, that he for some other reason just wasn't able to write. This idea terrified him, it overwhelmed and controlled him. If he couldn't write, who was he? He wasn't Alexander Hamilton, that was for sure. Until he could build palaces out of his paragraphs and raze or create with his sentences, he wasn't himself.

He tidied away his pens, deciding he'd take Martha up on her offer to sit downstairs and watch TV or something. He turned around and his eyes fell of the breakfast Martha had brought him up a few hours ago. He hadn't taken a single bite.

He picked up the plate slowly and opened his bedroom door, taking light and noiseless steps downstairs. He padded silently into the kitchen and tipped the food into the waste bin, there was no point eating it now. It was stone cold.

He pulled some tissues from a box next to the kettle and threw them on top of the food in the bin, just so Martha didn't notice that it had been dumped there.

He rinsed off his plate at the sink and slid it into the cupboard before walking into the living room; hands in his pockets, hair half hiding his face.

Martha looked up from her laptop and smiled at him warmly, saving her work and closing her laptop.

"Was the breakfast okay?"

Alex nodded, a sick feeling in his gut.

"Yeah, it was good."

She smiled and walked over to the television, turning it on and picking up the remote.

"George saved a documentary about the Trump-Clinton election. He said you'd like it, do you wanna watch it?"

George had? But he was furious at Alex? Rightly so he supposed... But hell, Alex was mad at him too.

Alex gave a small nod and sat himself onto the couch carefully, leaving some space between himself and Martha. He didn't want anyone near him, he just wanted to zone out from everything for as long a time as he could.

Alex had to admit though, the documentary was good. It didn't patronize the viewer, it wasn't elementary stuff and it actually called out Trump for more than his orange skin.

It was long, maybe an hour and a hkaf to two hours and it hadn't even finished yet when the clock struck four thirty. Lafayette would be home from school any minute.

Martha got up to put on the kettle and Alex paused the documentary, sitting quietly at the sofa, waiting for Martha. It was around that time when he heard the front door being unlocked and the voices of three people in the hallway.

Hercules, Lafayette and.. and John.

Alex jumped to his feet and felt his heart flutter wildly. John was here. John was here.

He briefly contemplated hiding, behind the sofa or in a cupboard someowhere, but that idea seemed juveniles and pathetic. He stood stock still as the living room door opened and Lafayete steeped in, closely followed by Hercules and then John.

What?

Alex scanned his eyes over John and his foster brother, his heart rate accelerating and his breathing quickening the longer he looked. Lafayette lower lip was bleeding heavily and his chin was grazed harshly, bright red and dark with blood. John was clutching his nose with a pained expression. It was dripping bright red blood and his left eye was bruised and swollen looking.

Alex immediately rushed over, forgetting everything but the fact that his friends were hurt, that Lafayette was hurt, that John was hurt.

He spoke in rapid French to Lafayette, his voice and hands trembling with fear.

"Qu'est que s'est passé! Vous etêz bien? Bien sûr que non! Laf, ta lèvre! John, ton nez! Été-ce George et Lee? Merde!"

He tilted Lafayette's face towards him and examined the cut on his chin and lip, frowning and gently prodding at the dried blood. Lafayette could feel his hands trembling against his jaw.

Lafayette took a step back from Alex and brushed off his hand.

"I'm not the only one who has some explaining to do."

Alexander recoiled as if he'd been struck and seemed to shrink in on himself, taking a step backwards of his own. He looked from John to Hercules who both wore expressions of frustration and indignance.

"Je-Je..."

At that moment however, Martha walked back into the living room with two mugs in her hands and a smile on her face. This smile quickly diminished however when she took in her son and his friend's appearance. She instantly put the mugs down on the table, sloshing some tea over the side but not caring or stopping until she was in front of her son.

She took his face in her hands and examined the cut as Alexander had done, her hands however were steadier. With Martha, Lafayette didn't pull away.

"What happened?"

Her voice was low and her eyes were a mix of angered and concerned, as though she was reserving judgement on which emotion to convey until she'd heard the full story.

John spoke up first, his nose, concerningly, still bleeding.

"I think we should patch ourselves up and sit down first."

Martha frowned slightly, her eyes wide. She led them into the kitchen and pulled gauze, bandages and creams from the cupboard, setting them out on the table with furious urgency.

"Maman, nous sommes- we are okay. It's not as bad as it looks."

She said nothing and instead ran some tissue under the tap, turning swiftly around and stepping closer to her son.

She raised her hand and gently pressed the tissue to his chin, rubbing only slightly to try and remove any dirt from the cut.

Lafayette winced and the pressure Martha was applying lessened somewhat. She let Lafayette hold the tissue in place while she turned to John, a wet cloth in her hand.

"Don't tilt your head, the blood will go to your brain. Just let it flow into the cloth. It will stop soon."

John took the cloth awkwardly and held it to his nose, dabbling gently at the blood already dried there.

Alexander stood in the doorway, his hands clasped firmly together and his eyes darting from one person to another, taking on a restless quality Lafayette recognised from the first few days Alexander had spent in their house, when he was still unsure whether to expect a hit or not.

Martha pulled some chairs out from the table and sat down, beckoning John and Lafayette to do so as well. Alexander turned around and made to leave, his foot halfway out the door when Lafayette clicked his fingers and pointed at one of the chairs, an aggrieved look on his face.

Alex felt his stomach churn but he sat down anyway. He knew what this had to be about, what must have happened for this circumstance to arise.

He kept his head lowered, gaze firmly fixed on his knuckles and ears open and keen for sounds and signs of anger.

"Do you want to tell me what happened?"

Martha's voice here, low and concerned with a pervading edge of irritation.

"You know Charles Lee and George Frederick?"

Unmistakably John's voice now. That subtle New York accent, so welcome and familiar to Alex; not just for belonging to the city he'd lived in for years but for belonging the boy he'd cared about for what felt like even longer.

Martha's voice was tinged with irritation now.

"Why did I even bother asking? It's always those two."

Lafayette's small, wry chuckle.

"What exactly happened?"

John's voice again, so close to Alex, only about a foot away.

"We... We had a fight. It was a fight mind you, they didn't just beat us up. You should see George."

There was a hint of amused pride in his voice now, humour he acknowledged was probably inappropriate but was there nonetheless.

The grain in the wood of the table was compacted close together and swirled in rings. Alexander started to count them, wondering how old the tree had been. There was a word for the study of tree rings, what was it? Something-chronology... Dendro... Dendrochronology, that was it.

"Why?"

Martha's voice quiet and angry now, only slightly louder than a whisper with as much foreboding as a yell laced into it. He snapped out of his daydream, the age of the tree the table had been made from disappearing from his mind. It was of little importance.

The feeling of his fingernails digging harshly into the soft skin of his palm, was that blood he felt pooling in the pit of his hand?

The unmistakable sixth sense of eyes upon him that he didn't dare look up to. Silence and electricity buzzing in the air.

"Alex, I think you know why."

Hercules voice for the first time. Soft, quiet, assured. It wasn't angry, just there.

Alex looked up quickly, glancing around at everyone in the room with frightened eyes. What where the escape routes? Had he planned for this room when he'd first arrived here?

His breathing quickening, the buzz of silence and hot, wet blood gathering underneath his fingernails. He squeezed harder and almost winced.

"Gilbert, what's going on? What's this got to do with Alex?"

Alex took a deep breath and looked up at Lafayette from under a shroud of hair.

"I can explain. Alex knows what's going on, but I can explain..."

Martha sighed and Alex could tell she was losing patience.

Not good, not good, not good. What if she gets angry? What if she tells George and he's even angrier? Not good, not good.

Lafayette shifted slightly and began to speak, his tone sheepish, hesitant and French accented.

"Well, it was after school when we came out to the gate. Lee and George were sitting there on the bench."

He heard Martha let out a small breath.

"He, Lee I mean, said something about Alex. About how he couldn't come to school."

Alex shrank down into himself in the chair, why did this have to have started because of him? Why did he wreck every thing?

"I asked him about it, told him he should grow up and stop being an asshole."

Martha, who would normally reprimand the use of that language, said nothing.

John's voice now, dark and low like the taunts he'd flung at Lee in the cinema.

"He... He said that he'd been hurting Alex. Said he'd nearly broken his finger once and had punched him loads."

Utter silence. Then the humming of electricity and the restless energy of humans, crackling together in a circle, something so alive and corporeal. As though you could reach out and feel the anger in the air.

Alex was aware of a drop of blood sliding down the side of his hand to pool on the table. He stared at it for a moment, watching the light reflect off the crimson liquid.

Hercules, with out a moments notice had jumped out of his chair and headed towards the sink, holding a tissue under the hissing stream of water with a grim expression on his face.

Alex flinched at the unexpected movement but stayed still when Hercules slowly uncurled his fingers from their painful position and pressed a wet tissue to the crescent moon cuts on his palm.

Low words in his ear, comforting and friendly. Their tone sounded more like the jokes your friend whispers in your ear at the cinema or in the back of a particularly boring class.

He nodded, despite not knowing what words been said and relaxed in his chair slightly, gripping the tissue so that water ran down his wrist instead of blood. It was thinner, colder too.

Eyes on him, on his hand, picking him apart and examining the pieces.

"Alex, you don't have to talk about this now if you don't want to."

Martha's voice was quiet and gentle, the leaves of a tree being ruffled by a soft wind.

He stood up cautiously, his eyes still on his hand and the wet tissue incarnadined with blood. He walked slowly towards the door, as if nervous the offer would be revoked and he'd be forced to sit back down again.

The scraping of a chair against tiled floors, like the sound of a sword being withdrawn from its sheath. He jumped and looked up, making eye contact with Lafayette. He looked furious.

"He needs to explain what the hell has been going on!"

Alex took a step back from the sudden movement and noise, his breath catching in his throat.

John's voice was weary and resigned, "just let him go. He clearly doesn't want to talk."

He was right, could somebody side with John, could somebody please just let him sleep?

Lafayette's voice pleading now, thick and pained sounding in his throat.

"Alexandre, we only want to help you. That's all we've ever wanted to do."

Alex stood in the door way, his eyes dancing over the people sat in the room around the table, watching him.

"I- I just want to go to my room."

His voice was hoarse and small. He knew Lafayette wanted him to stay, to take a break from his writing and talk to them. But he couldn't. Not with John there, not about Lee and George.

Lafayette hung his head for a second, stray curls that had fallen from his pony tail framed his face and his upper lip was speckled with blood, almost like freckles. His eyes hardened and he bit his lip, gazing at Alex with an expression of rare malice.

"Fine. Go then, I'm evidently not going to stop you."

His words carried the smallest trace of resentment, a touch of spite woven into his voice that made Alexander shiver slightly. He'd never been anything but close with Lafayette, the idea that his foster brother was angry was enough to make his fingernails move to dig back into the skin of his palms.

He stood in the door way for a moment longer, caught between an apology and a retort of his own. He said neither, the words too far away from his tongue to actually threaten spilling over his lips.

He turned around, listening to the soft sounds of his footsteps against the floorboards. They didn't creak. Of course they didn't - nothing in this house was broken, in any state of disrepair or below the standard of perfect. It made him sick.

He walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs, his head crowed and his thoughts overbearing. He just needed to sleep. To lie down and stop feeling anything. Everything.

He pushed into his bedroom and locked the door behind him immediately, walking over to the desk where he'd put his pencil case.

The compass was right at the bottom of the case, as sharp as ever. The smooth silver point shone gun metal grey like a storm cloud.

He rolled back his sleeve, the cuts he'd made on his arm the night before scanned over with a layer of dried blood, the same colour as the inside of pine tree bark or red fabric, faded after being placed for too long in direct sunlight.

He hissed in pain at the sharp stinging on his arm and felt blood run lazily down his arm like a stream.

Of course, he'd done it again. He'd gone too deep. Before he could mess up his arm and the situation even more, Alex dropped the compass onto the desk and rushed to the bathroom and cleaned his arm, the blood running down the tap easily. It mingled with the clear, cold water in the sink and where it pooled when he turned off the tap, it settled above the thinner liquid. Funny, he thought, that blood and water would both flow under the same bridge eventually.

He dabbed at the cut with some tissues, it stretched from the sharp, protruding bone at his pencil wrist and ended about two or three inches up his forearm. It would leave a scar, but perhaps one jagged and irregular enough looking to attribute to a fall or an accident with scissors or some other such sharp appliance, particularly one of the running variety.

He wrapped his forearm with some tissues and pondered buying some gauze or bandaids of his own to keep in his room. That way he could avoid constantly slipping down to the kitchen at night for some. For the moment though, that was what he would have to do.

He pulled himself into bed and closed his eyes. It was only around five o'clock but his head was aching and his heart pounding. If there was anything he needed at the moment it was sleep.

Forget food, human contact, his writings even; he just wanted to not have to think about anything. That was all he seemed to want these days; oblivion. He wondered what he would resort to to achieve it.