Another Scottish Tragedy [LAMS AU]

36

A/N: This chapter is very sad so have some tissues ready. The soft ones that don't irritate your nose, not the rough ones that feel like sandpaper and turn your nose all red. 

Later that day, John and Alex were hanging out in John's room. John was drawing in a sketchbook and Alex was reading a book. 

"Alex, can I talk to you?" 

Alex set down his book and turned towards his boyfriend, who was lounging on his bed hunched over a sketchbook. 

"Sure." 

"What happened in Nevis?" 

Alex's body went cold. His hands started tremblingn in his lap. His mouth went dry. 

He didn't want to talk about this. Not now, not ever. 

When John's father had asked about where he was from, Alex had been terrified. He'd been powerless as he'd sat there with a fake smile plastered on making up some bullshit about his English teacher and the local newspaper. 

Talking about the hurricane had made him sick to his stomach. 

He never wanted to think about that blasted hurricane again. 

He'd spent so many years reliving that horrible night every time he closed his eyes. He never wanted to relive that night again.

"Unimportant." Alex said, smiling in a way that he hoped was convincing. 

"Alex, I'm not stupid. I can tell something's wrong. What happened in Nevis?" 

"I don't like to talk about it." Alex said. 

Nobody knew about the hurricane. Nobody besides himself. Even when he'd gained popularity from his book, he'd never told any fans about the hurricane. They knew that he was from Nevis and that he'd left when he'd gotten a scholarship to Columbia University. But they didn't know why he'd left. They knew that the scholarship had been for writing, but they didn't know what he'd written about. They didn't know about his family. 

And Alex intended to keep it that way. 

"Alex, you can tell me." John said, climbing off of the bed to sit on the floor beside Alex. "I tell you everything and you make me feel better. Let me return the favor." 

"Talking about it won't make me feel better." Alex said. 

"Yes it will." John sighed. "Look, I know how you feel. I know what it's like to not want to tell anyone about something, whether it's because you're ashamed of it or thinking about it is too painful. But keeping it bottled up inside isn't good for you. You think that if you just keep pushing the memory away eventually it will fade and you won't feel bad anymore, but that's not how it works. If you want to not feel bad about something anymore, you have to talk about it. Get it off your chest." 

Alex knew that John was probably right, but the thought of telling him about his past made him sick. The thought of opening up about that horrible night, about that horrible hurricane, made him sick. 

He trusted John, but John wasn't the issue. The issue was with Alex himself. Alex and his fear. 

He'd spent his whole life being afraid. 

But maybe he didn't want to be afraid anymore. 

Alex took a deep breath and looked at John. 

"When I was seventeen a hurricane destroyed my town." Alex said. "We were used to hurricanes. It's the Carribean, we get hurricanes all the time. No one knew that this one would be so bad. We thought it would be like all the others: everything would be awful for a little bit and then it would all go back to normal. But it didn't. My entire town was flooded. Everyone was rushing to higher ground, trying to escape the water. I managed to escape, but my brother wasn't so lucky. He drowned in the flood. He was screaming and fighting for his life but it was no use. He never had a chance of escaping with his life. I found his dead body a few days later. Just lying in the sand. He looked so peaceful, he could have been taking a nap on the beach the way we used to do when we were little." 

There were tears in Alex's eyes now. John reached over and wiped them away. 

"I wrote a letter to my dad about the hurricane. He'd left when I was ten. I don't remember much about him, but I remember that my mother was begging him to stay. But he didn't stay. I remained hopeful that he would come back. I was too young to understand what was happening. I thought he was just going on a business trip and he would be back any day. I kept waiting for him to come home but he never did. I wrote him letters and he never responded. My letter described the hurricane in such detail that the local newspaper decided to publish it to tell people what happened. The people... they loved my letter. They thought I was a brilliant writer. Some wealthy men read it and decided that I was too smart to let my mind go to waste, so they contacted King's College and got me a scholarship. I left a few months later." 

"Alex..." 

"I didn't deserve to survive that hurricane." Alex's voice broke. He was sobbing so hard he could barely speak. "It's my fault my brother died. I have a lot of health problems and can't run very well. My brother had to keep slowing down so I could keep up with him. He could have escaped if I hadn't been so slow. When I saw the wave coming, I froze. I just stood there like a moron staring at it. I couldn't decide if I should run or just let the wave kill me. I wanted to let the wave kill me, I wanted to die. But my brother made me run. He told me that mother would have wanted us to run. But it was too late. My brother died because I couldn't run. He died for me.

"My brother was brilliant, a million times the person I'll ever be. He deserved to live. He could have done amazing things. But he died for me. He died for my stupid useless self. Sometimes I wish that it had been me. I wish I had died and he had gotten out. He deserves to live. I don't. Every time I fuck something up, I remember my brother. How he made the ultimate sacrifice to keep me alive and I just took his sacrifice and shit it away. He gave everything for me and I can't do anything right. I should have died in that flood. Not him." 

Alex was shaking. He'd never told anyone about his brother, about how he wished he'd died instead. 

Alex felt John's arms wrap around him. John was kissing his cheeks and running his hands through his hair. 

"Alex..." 

"I keep thinking 'I don't deserve this.' As I boarded the ship to New York, I thought 'I don't deserve this.' I don't deserve to be alive. I really don't." 

"Alex, of course you deserve to be alive." 

"I really don't." 

"Yes you do. I promise." 

"I don't believe you." 

"You should." 

"I love you, Alex." 

"I don't deserve you." 

"Yes you do, my love. Yes you do."