Orphanage AU: Lams

Chapter 57: Write them Up

God, I need to get back to Lams. There's just so much ground I have to cover for the other guys.

---John's POV---

I threw my phone down, the cloud of happiness falling away.

Alex, on the couch beside me, as awkward as a nerd as a football party, lay a hesitant hand on my shoulder, still stiff with thick bandages. "What is it?"

I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, face in my hands. "Michael got a girlfriend." God, fuck. It must have been my fault too, because I told him to act straight. It didn't feel fair that I was dancing around in heaven with my crush while he drowned himself in a pool of misery.

To even imagine Michael pretending to be anything but himself- it hurt like hell as an idea dressed up in ribbons, tied with a crimson bow, but as a reality the sugarcoat fell off like rain, like plummeting stars that blew the sky into darkness. It tore my heart to pieces.

Alex's tone was almost guarded as he asked, "Who's Michael, again?" and in that moment I wanted to laugh at his concealed jealousy, to let hysteria bubble and burst out of my lungs in a delusional form of pain and tears.

"Brother." I managed, and then in explanation, "Gayer than..." Michael's deadpan voice sounded in my head. Two rainbows making love. I gave up the struggle to speak and just leaned into Alex, who probably split open ten cuts, bandages rubbing and tugging at his skin as he wrapped an arm around me.

Alex ran his bare fingertips on my arms. "He's playing it straight." The infuriatingly genius Alex probably didn't even notice his instinctual play on words. Playing it safe.

I swallowed my pain. "He's prouder than a peacock... it must hurt like hell for him to..." I shook my head and lay down with my head in his lap, the skinny jeans he wore rough against the back of my neck as I looked up at him.

Alex's hand went up to his hair to tug thoughtfully, a habit I knew from too many hours staring bashfully.

Alex reached over me to the table in front of the couch, grabbing his laptop from the rich brown wood and putting it on the armrest on his side because his lap was taken.

I sat halfway up. "What are you writing?" Alex had picked up his computer the moment I plucked up the remote to turn off the TV, the second the credits of Love, Simon began to roll.

Well, after a few chaste kisses and tearful hugs.

Alex flashed a rueful smile laced with caffeine and sleep deprivation that followed him like a cloud since he came back. He was determined to finish all the work he'd missed. I figured it was a paper, but he replied, "I'm writing up Jeffershit for being a dick because words are, contrary to popular belief, capable of working miracles. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words are what restrain me." He recited this like a mantra, or as though he was quoting someone, but when I asked, his only response was a nonchalant shrug. "I was just thinking off the top of my head."

I rolled over just a bit to kiss the closest part of him, that being his jean-clothed inner thigh, and he flushed adorably, his quick fingers flying to the delete button at the flustered mistakes.

"Also..." he trailed off, switching tabs to another essay-like document filled with big words, legal terms, and academically veiled fury. "Henry. I was writing up a complaint for him based on what you told me but..." He looked at me, to which my wide eyes could only blink at. He what? He was writing up Father?

I mean, sure, he liked to write, but damn he wrote all that for me?

I raised an eyebrow as his furrowed hesitantly. "...But...?"