//TW: mentions of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, mentions of self harm, domestic violence, swearing\\

Alexander

"Come on!" I urged him, my hand wrapped around his as I pulled him along through the crowded city streets. The air was blessedly cool, a light breeze whipping at my face. There was a certain calmness to the afternoon overshadowed by the looming blanket of clouds, a calmness that didn't feel quite right, all things considered. "It'll be fine, I promise." It took a lot to convince him, but everything would be worth it.

"I don't know," Thomas murmured, a thousand things left unsaid with those three words. "Your friends don't like me that much."

I stopped walking and turned to face him, a slight flash of guilt biting through me as he flinched away at the sudden movement. It would be hard to remember to stay gentle and calm around him, but it was an effort I was willing to make. "Hey, it's alright," I soothed, forcing myself to stay even as I brushed my hand against his shoulder. "They won't mind."

"If you're so sure," Thomas responded.

The truth was, I wasn't sure. I had no idea how everyone else would react to seeing him, the boy who was hardly more than a shadow of the proud figure he had once been. Would they see what I had seen, or would their judgement be clouded?

But we got to talking about more mundane, random things, and I truly got to see him just...relax and become himself when there was no pressure to act a certain way. It was only for a moment, but it was enough. I pulled him across the crosswalk and through the narrow streets until we found ourselves amidst the old oak trees and gravel pathways of the park my friends and I visited constantly.

We found them by the base of the water fountain, a traditional meeting place untouched by the world outside. The park was pure, a haven that no fear or anger could taint. Perhaps bringing him here was just as much for myself as it was for him. Thomas stopped in his tracks the second they came into view, watching silently. I halted next to him, letting go of his hand, but staying close. Just in case he needed me to.

"Listen," Maria said, in the middle of proving something to an unimpressed Eliza who was leaning against her arm. "I'm not saying that murder is the answer. But I'm also not saying that it isn't the answer, you know? I feel like it can be considered acceptable in a few certain situations."

"We can't just go around murdering the people we don't like," Eliza said, shaking her head. "The world would literally be uninhabited at that point." But she placed a soft hand on Maria's shoulder, and it was obvious she was doing everything she could to bite back a smile.

I grinned, glancing up at Thomas, who only looked confused. There was also a slight coating of fear painted across his face, and it took me a second to realize who exactly it was he was watching.

"I feel like, if murder was legal, Eliza would have killed at least three people by now," said Hercules. "You've earned that right, I think."

Maria nodded in agreement, poking Eliza in the ribs. "She looks like a cinnamon roll, but she can and will kill you."

"No!" she protested. "I would never murder anybody!"

"Why not?" Aaron threw in. Thomas swallowed hard at his voice. "Murder's fun." A long pause, and all eyes fell to him. "But I wouldn't know from, like, personal experience or anything."

"Aaron's definitely murdered someone, confirmed," said Angelica, turning to Lafayette. "And I believe you owe me at least twenty bucks."

"I do have a long list of people I would kill, given the opportunity."

"You know you're going to go to jail one day, right?"

Aaron shrugged, grinning.

I cleared my throat to disrupt whatever the fuck kind of conversation they were having, pausing only to glance at Thomas as reassuringly as I could. He stared down at his hands wrapped firmly around the strap of his bag.

"Hey, Alexander!" John greeted with a wide smile, turning to face me. "What's your take on murder? Personally, I—oh." Whatever he was going to say stopped dead in his throat having found Thomas standing next to me, and a silence swept over all of them as they took in the sight of him.

"Everyone, you know Thomas," I said, air suddenly thick as hell. He looked like he'd rather be anywhere else in the world than right here, the subject of nine pairs of hard, unwavering eyes. "Thomas, this is, well, this is everyone."

"Umm...hi," he said softly, barely audible over the rushing water. His stare could have burned a hole into the ground, a hole big enough to come and swallow him away just so he could avoid this. I paused for a moment, waiting for somebody to say something, wondering if I had made perhaps the biggest mistake I'd made in a while.

But Peggy smiled wide. "Hi, Thomas! How are you?"

"Umm, I'm alright. H-how are you?"

"Terrible!" she responded, cheerfully.

"What's wrong?" I asked, glad to have somewhat of a distraction from the glaring elephant in the room. "Did that kid you hate try and flirt with you again?"

"Don't call us 'kids'," she snapped, rolling her eyes. "I'm two years younger than you, bitch."

"Well, what's wrong, then?"

"Apparently," she said, with a laugh that was far from humorous. "Dolphins can get depression. And that little fact absolutely ruined my day."

"Hey Thomas—" Hercules started, but he didn't get to finish whatever he was about to say.

"Why are you being nice to him?" Lafayette snapped wryly, grabbing Hercules by the arm and pulling him away. Thomas seemed to shrink with that comment, but he said nothing, and he did nothing, and Lafayette got away with the flash of anger that was justifiable but still so inhumanely horrible.

"Uh, because I like to believe that I'm a decent human being?" Hercules asked. "And decent human beings are typically nice to other decent human be—"

"What are you doing here?" Aaron demanded, glaring up at Thomas with a vehemence that I had never seen in him before. Like raw and utter hatred, with a foundation made of the hardest stone that would take a lot more than a few words and a well-meaning smile to corrode.

"Umm, I—I—well, uh." Thomas took a step backwards, his hands tightening around his wrists just as they had done the week before. It reminded me of an animal so desperate that it tried to tear off its own skin, lost in its confusion and resorting to violence and panic. "I'm sorry. I—"

"I asked him to have lunch with us," I said, lifting my chin in challenge to Aaron's sudden coldness. "And if any one of you motherfuckers has a problem with it, you can—"

"Okay!" Eliza exclaimed, crossing her arms. "We get it, Alexander. Geez. You always have to go that extra step, don't you?"

My shoulders fell, the anger fading as quickly as it had risen. "Yes. I do." I started forwards, then paused and glanced back at Thomas when I realized he wasn't following me. I did my best to give him the softest smile I could manage. He stood still for a long moment, glanced at the others, then gave in and followed me to the open spot just under the rushing fountain. He sat down next to me, edging himself a little ways away, and tucked his legs under his body. His gaze rooted itself firmly to the ground. 

Awkward silence stretched for what seemed to be forever, filled only with the careening water down the fountain. I watched Thomas, and I watched the others stare him down, and my throat burned with an unhealthy amount of frustration. There was so much to be said, so much that couldn't be put into coherent words, so instead I got to sit there and watch as Thomas plucked at the grass.

"So, uh, Thomas," John started after a moment, meeting my eyes and looking just as lost as I felt. "How'd the final go? Did my expert question-asking pay off?"

Thomas's smile was a flicker, but it was real for that one, wonderful second. He nodded, glancing up at John momentarily, then returned to picking at the grass.

God, the tension was so palpable I could practically taste its bitterness in the back of my throat. "Okay, well," I said, nudging Thomas lightly with my shoulder and grinning. "Any plans over the break?"

"Not really," he returned, a hint of amusement touching his voice. "Just surviving the cold, horrid winter I guess. Not a fan of snow. What about you?"

"I'm going to go to Mars."

Thomas looked up at me, both startled and delighted by the suddenness of my decision. "Mars?" he repeated, a gentle laugh lifting his voice, and God, it was wonderful. "May I ask why?"

I shrugged. "Why not? Life's too short to not want to go to Mars, you know?"

"Okay, honestly?" Lafayette interjected almost the second I got the words out, so sudden and loud and demanding that Thomas shrank into himself, as though waiting for a blow that wouldn't come. "Did I fucking miss something?" He pinned Thomas under his steel gaze. "What the fuck are you doing here? What the fuck do you want from us?" And years of hurt, pent up and hidden, exploded in that single moment, though I doubted Lafayette would have ever let us seen it otherwise.

"Lafayette," I began sharply, but Aaron cut me off briskly.

"No, I want to hear what he has to say."

Thomas opened his mouth to speak, but he was drowning. The air was choked straight from his lungs by whatever tentacles of fear still lodged in his throat, and all that came out was a deep inhale with an excuse that could never be spoken. I longed to reach forwards, to brush my hand against his as a soft reminder that I wasn't going to let anybody hurt him, but he was slipping backwards. Trying to escape.

Aaron scoffed as Thomas remained silent. "You don't get to treat us like shit, leave, and then come back and pretend everything's fine."

"I have an idea!" John threw in, gazing at me desperately to intervene. "Why don't we all just, I don't know, relax—?"

"Why do you have to yell at him, huh?" I demanded. "Can't you see you're making him uncomfortable!"

"Why do you care what he thinks?" Lafayette hissed at me, but never once did he take his contemptuous stare away from the terrified Thomas. "You're supposed to be on our side, Alexander! Not this fucking whore."

He curled in on himself as the sharp word sizzled through the air like lightning. Terror loomed over him with its palm raised and ready to strike. "I'm s-sorry—" Thomas began, but he had no hope of getting anywhere.

"Oh, great. Well that makes everything better, doesn't it?" Aaron snapped.

"You're acting like a child."

"Shut the fuck up, Alexander!" His voice was growing dangerous now, and Thomas's silence, combined with the refusal of the others to intervene, completely validated his anger. "You don't understand what he fucking did to Lafayette and I, okay? We were his friends, but the second that couldn't benefit him anymore, he just suddenly seemed to forget about us! He treated us like we were nothing the instant he ran off with James." The simple mention of the name brought Thomas completely still. "Isn't that right?" Aaron demanded, crossing his arms as he glared at him. When Thomas made no effort to respond, Aaron and Lafayette went on and on.

And still, Thomas said nothing. He sat there and he took it all, and something inside of me broke wondering how much he was used to shit like this. Having the people who you care about mocking and belittling you every chance they got had to be one of the most destructive things in the world, and he must have been so fucking used to sitting there and silently absorbing all of it.

"Can't you see you're upsetting him?!"

"I don't give a shit!"

"I'm sorry," Thomas whispered, making it so the formless apology was meant for me and me alone. His fingers curled against his wrists. "This was a mistake. I'm so sorry for ruining this for you."

"Thomas, this isn't your fault," I said, words mashing together. I couldn't have him leave, not if it meant shoving him back into the awaiting arms of James always seconds away from hurting him. "You don't have to apologize for anything."

"That's such bullshit," Lafayette hissed, rolling his eyes.

"Maybe we should all just shut up and eat lunch," Peggy tried, but she was promptly ignored as once more, the two of them fed off each other's anger that had been festering for years and years, never acknowledged, never touched.

Well, this was going great.

This was all my fault. I never should have brought Thomas here.

"You still haven't answered my question. What exactly do you think you're doing here?"

"Alex—Alexander asked me to come."

"Honestly, Thomas, you're pathetic," Aaron spat, and the effect that single word had on him was indescribable. I reached out to touch his shoulder, but Thomas recoiled from me like my touch burned. Even though his eyes were fixated on the ground, I could see them begin to glisten as they pooled up with tears, thousands of painful memories flashing past. Memories that he kept locked and separated from the world.

Aaron and Lafayette continued with their rapid-fire assault, and there was nothing I could do to stop them, as much as I tried. They plunged on, every insult and demand they hurled at him even worse than the last.

"So why don't you just run back to James like the selfish whore you are and—"

"I-I was just—just trying to pr-protect you."

An unforgiving silence swept over the group. Harsh and empty, leaving far too big an opportunity to guess at what he meant. And Thomas never shifted his gaze away from the grass in front of him, never looked up to acknowledge them or the words spoken so softly I couldn't have been sure they were real in the first place. He held himself tightly, as thought that could protect him, and breathed. Breathed and breathed and breathed. Because that's all he could do.

Finally, Lafayette scoffed. "Sure."

"What do you mean?" Aaron demanded, still glaring, but there was an obvious hesitation in his stance as his arms fell to his side.

Thomas finally looked up. Ugly tears streaked down his face, and when he spoke, he might as well have been underwater. "H-he said...he said that if I—if I j-just did what he asked, he—he wouldn't h-hurt you." He wiped at his tears with his sleeve, did nothing to affect their barbaric onslaught, and persisted on. "He pr-promised me."

The air thickened, the scent of a storm heavy on the wind even if the sky showed no signs of one. Thomas clutched at his wrists, fingers digging into skin, and I reached over and gently took hold of one hand so he couldn't hurt himself anymore than he already had. He glanced down at our hands, taken aback, and then looked up at me. I smiled, as softly and encouragingly as I could, fully aware that it was not enough and it could never be enough.

"Who?" Aaron asked, as if the balance of the entire world depended on the answer. "Who told you that?"

"J-James," Thomas returned. He ducked his head as the name flooded out, as though the very utterance of the word, the very acknowledgement of the pain he had inflicted, was something Thomas felt he should be ashamed of. "He t-told me that if I just did what he asked, he would...he would have no reason to h-hurt either of you. I couldn't let you guys get hurt because of me, okay?" A sob broke through, a devastating sound crushing all the goodness in the world and morphing it into a withered, ugly mess. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. All...all I wanted was for you to just—for you to move on and be happy."

"Thomas," I said softly, a reminder just as much as it was a plea. I don't know if I could take this for much longer. "It's not your fault."

"I'm sorry," he said, to nobody and to everybody. "Th-there's no excuse for what I've done. I just thought...I thought that you wouldn't get hurt as long as I stayed away." A laugh, riddled with sadness and pain and so much damn fear. "But you did anyway. It's all my f-fault. I'm so sorry. I know it m-means nothing at all. And it shouldn't. Because there's no ex-excuse, but—but still. I'm sorry." And that silence fell once more, heavy and cruel, broken only by Thomas sobbing and the water fountain. And one was much more powerful than the other.

Aaron and Lafayette said nothing. They just sat there, faces frozen in looks of complete horror as the realization slowly settled over all of us. It was cold and quiet, like a thick layer of snow, but missing all of the natural, crystalline beauty of the sun reflecting off of its surface. Instead, there was just an unforgiving darkness.

I sighed, withdrew a napkin from my bag, and handed it to Thomas. He mumbled a word of thanks, desperately trying to regain as much control of his breathing as he could, and wiped the rest of the tears away. And by doing so, he destroyed the rest of the mask of makeup and concealer, uncovering to them all the same bruises and cuts and scars I had seen just a week prior, a week that felt like decades.

Thomas rose to his feet, shakily, slowly, clutching his bag tight. "Th-thank you. For letting me sit with you guys. And for being nice to me, I guess, es-especially when you have no obligation to do so. Especially, um, when I don't deserve it." He took a deep breath. "I should be going. And I'm, uh, I'm sorry for ruining this for you guys." His eyes fell to Aaron and Lafayette, and he ducked his head in shame.

"No!" I exclaimed, once I realized what he meant after a long moment. My hand shot up to wrap around his wrist, a movement that threw both of us completely off guard. He stopped in his tracks, blinking down at me. "You can't go! Please, just..." I paused, so unsure of what I was supposed to say or do. Everything hung on this moment, and I was so painfully aware of that bleating fact. He couldn't disappear, he couldn't. So I swallowed down my pride, my inhibitions, and let the words rise from some place from deep within.

"Just stay."

Thomas laughed lightly, but it wasn't a real laugh. How could it have been? "Alexander, it's okay. I don't mind. They don't want me here."

"I want you here!"

He stopped, his shoulders falling as the words swept over him.

"Please, stay. Just for a little bit longer." I let my hand fall to my side, ultimately leaving the decision up to him and him alone. All I knew was that despite everything, I couldn't let him fall back into the arms of the person who hurt him.

After an agonizing moment where I was so sure he was going to shake his head and leave me sitting by the fountain, my blood feeling like its shockingly cold water, he dropped back to the ground, back to my side. I swallowed, not quite certain how I was supposed to continue on. But I had to ask. Part of me knew that I would never be okay not knowing, that I would never be the same if I just let him disappear. It was my moral duty, an obligation that made me a decent human being. Not a hero, not a savior, just a decent person.

But, regardless, the fragments scraped along my throat like broken glass as they came out, perhaps the most difficult question I ever had to ask.

"Thomas, does James..." I stopped, holding my breath for a second. "Does James beat you?"

He didn't answer, but the silence was more of an admission than any words could ever be.

I nodded to myself, my fingers numbing as the full weight and causes of the bruises crashed down on me, crashed down on all of us.

"Does he hurt you in...other ways?"

And once again, Thomas didn't deny it. He squeezed his eyes shut and inhaled the late autumn breeze now poisoned by the meaning of his inability to answer.

"He abuses you," Angelica said softly, sliding backwards. I'd never seen her so...resigned. Horrified.

"What?" Thomas said, glancing up quickly. "No! No, he doesn't...he doesn't abuse me! It's...i-it's nothing like that!"

Something inside of me cracked even more as he went on, grabbing onto his wrists and shrinking away. He wanted to disappear; the desire was written clear across his face no matter how hard he tried to hide it.

"No, you don't understand," he persisted, shaking his head. "James loves me. He would never hurt me if I didn't deserve it." Meaningless husks of words said with just enough conviction to make you realize that Thomas truly believed what he was saying.

"Thomas, nobody deserves this."

"I—" He glanced at me once, a wild, desperate look in his eyes. "No. James loves me. He has to punish me. H-he's doing it to protect me, okay?"

"There's no excuse for hurting somebody you care about."

"He does it because he loves me."

"He doesn't love you, Thomas."

Thomas fell silent, his shoulder slumping as he once more returned to the plants he had been plucking from the ground. In his fingers rested one of those clover flowers, one that he twirled around and around. My eyes caught on it. Such a beautiful, effortless thing, but the truth of the matter was that it was just another weed. Another lie, and another thing that we wrote off as a waste of space, all because we were unable to see the simply beauty in its small existence.

"I'm sorry," he said, hiding his face with the sleeve of his oversized sweater, the once-vibrant, bright color now dulled by time and overuse. "This... this wasn't how this was supposed to go."

I opened my mouth to speak, but anything I could have said died on my tongue right there and then.

"You don't have to apologize," Eliza said softly, now that Thomas had finally earned the treatment of a human being.

"You're not going back to him," I said.

"Alexander, that isn't your call to make," John said carefully.

"Oh, bullshit." I turned back to Thomas and softened, reaching out to touch his shoulder. He stiffened as my hand brushed against his body, but he didn't flinch away, leaving me confused and unsure of how to continue. I couldn't overstep. I couldn't hurt him more than he already had been.

"You can't go back to James," I said, as softly as I could. "Not if he's just going to keep hurting you. And he will."

"James loves me," Thomas whispered, but there was no way he was trying to convince us any more than he was trying to convince himself. "He does, okay? He just...he shows it in a different way."

"That doesn't matter. He hurts you and you can't stay with him. Please, Thomas." I swallowed. When was the last time I had opened myself up like this, for the world to see? He wasn't the only one who was suddenly so vulnerable. "Please don't go back."

He inhaled sharply. "Where else am I s-supposed to g-go?"

"You can come move in with me," I suggested, the things I was saying beginning to lose their meaning. All that mattered was making sure he never even looked behind him. "There's enough space, and I live far enough away from James. It's an apartment, okay? It's small, and kinda cramped, but it's safe, okay? And I'd be very surprised if James even knew it existed. You'll be safe from him, I promise."

"I-I can't leave J-James. He needs me."

"What about you, Thomas?"

He was silent for a while. Everyone was. And we listened to the mournful song of the birds still awake as fall slowly died. We listened to the gurgle of the water and the people who passed by, oblivious to my world completely changing. We listened and we watched and we waited as Thomas sat there and fought so hard to keep his breathing under control. And just when I was ready to accept that we would have to wait for forever just to get the answer we wanted, Thomas finally spoke. Two simple syllables of a word I had heard thousands of times before, and yet this time was sweeter and far more meaningful than it had any right to be.

"Okay."

And the pressure broke.

"Thank you," I breathed, for I could finally do so again. Thomas didn't smile, not in the way I did, but there was a flicker in his eyes. Something real. "Do you have something to eat? You should probably eat." And despite numerous protests and refusals claiming that I didn't have to worry myself over something so small, I offered him half of my lunch.

Things didn't go back to normal as the storm died away a few minutes later, but there was a renewed sense of peace, drastically different but undeniably better.

"Is that even legal? The whole trading apartment-dorm thing?" Hercules asked, trying to lighten the mood, and I appreciated every damn word. Especially when Thomas glanced up, lips drawn into a tight line. Not a smile, but that was okay. At least, for now.

"Anything's legal unless you get caught," I shot back, still fuming a little bit.

Then, John, trying to be friendly, asked Thomas a question about art or painting, something which I didn't understand but could fully appreciate. Thomas promptly answered and went back to twirling the weed around in his fingers. The others, probably trying to pretend like everything could be as it once was, returned to whatever conversation existed before, about the moral dilemma of whether such an awful, atrocious act like murder could ever be justified, and when it should be acted upon. But I think each of us suddenly found a new answer to that question.

For the rest of the hour we had to ourselves, Aaron and Lafayette never spoke, but they watched Thomas silently, just as I did. There was nothing else I could do, because for that moment, he was the center of my world. He was the single most important thing that existed, proof that perhaps, there was still a sense of goodness to this world. Even if there was no justice, no fairness, there was goodness, and he was that evidence, especially with how he began to weave the clover flowers together.

Finally, he spoke quietly. "You didn't have to do that, you know." A long pause. "Stand up for me, I mean. I can—I can take care of myself."

"I know you can, Thomas," I said, sliding my hand down to his, if only for the sake of touching him. He glanced over at me, the soft ghost of a smile dancing right through his eyes. It was his eyes that revealed more than a smile ever could; it was his eyes that exposed his true feelings and thoughts. "But I couldn't let you get hurt again."

"Did you mean it?" he whispered. There was a spark to the words, the prelude to the warm, soothing flames of hope. And as long as that existed, then everything would be okay. "I can... I can come live with you?"

"Thomas, I meant every word."