Being one so close to write upon my arm

-             -            -

A testament I've since torn apart

Alexander Hamilton IV

I wake up, and rub my eyes, reaching to turn off my alarm clock that wasn't ringing? Where am I, this couch is way too nice to be something I own. Wait, I think back to last night, am I, dead? I check my hoodie pocket, the gun isn't there.

"You won't find your gun in there buddy," an unknown voice calls from behind me. I must be dead. A small smile creeps onto my face, the balance was restored. Mom would have him back and the balance would be all right because I was gone. A full smile and a little laugh escape me.

"Aw," a different voice says from behind me, this one has a French accent, "He has such a cute smile."

"Like a little kitten," the other voice said.

"More like a small hedgehog." the French accent replied.

I slowly turn around, not sure what I was going to see-- it was the afterlife. And I'm greeted by, John's friends from Denny's yesterday?

"Ah, and he finally, turns around," the french guy says. The other guy elbows him in the ribs and whispers something in his ear.

The other guy, the one in the suit, asks, "Do you want something to eat or drink? You're probably hungry."

"Who are you?" I ask pointing at them, ignoring their question. It was the afterlife. Everything was in balance here, no need to worry. And anyway he wasn't here to come and mess with me if I messed it up. I never did get how everyone else kept the balance so easily. I should ask someone while I'm here. "And where am I?"

"I'm Hercules Mulligan," the non-french guy said, "and this is Lafayette. His name is very long and a pain to say so we just call him by his last name or just, Laf. And you, Alexander, are in my apartment. It is 10:00 am on Tuesday."

"Your apartment?!" the panic starts seeping into my tone, and I can feel the knot growing. This would mean that the balance was all off. So very very off, "I need my gun."

I don't care that they would know. I just need things to be set right, they need to be set right. THEY NEED TO BE SET RIGHT.

"I NEED TO SET THINGS RIGHT," I shout, not realizing that my mumblings had turned into shouts.

Hercules started approaching me, palms out so he knew he wasn't going to hurt me. I always wondered why there wasn't something that you could say that'd be an equivalent. Saying "I'm not going to hurt you" could be twisted by what the person's definition of 'hurt' was, or just the 'I'm' loophole in it.

"Alexander, you aren't killing yourself. I'm still not entirely sure what you'd think it'd fix, but let me assure you it wouldn't. Now I'm going to keep your gun on me. Is that okay?"

The balance is so off right now, I can't say anything. It's so messed up, I messed it up. I couldn't even kill myself and I tried to call myself an Alexander. I was an Alex.

"Call me Alex," I mutter softly. It hurt to say, but it's what the balance needed.

"Why?" Lafayette called from the kitchen, "You obviously don't like it. Why go by something you don't like."

Hercules glared at him, but asked the same question, "Yes, Alexander, why do you want to go by Alex, you obviously hate it."

"I don't deserve Alexander. Alexanders can actually kill themselves, Alexanders keep the balance in check. I can't do that, I'm an Alex."

I kept listing more of my shortcomings when Hercules started talking, "No, Alexander you do deserve your name. What you do doesn't make you more or less worthy it just makes you, you."

I kept listing over him, "Alexanders can go to work every day. Alexanders can make enough money so that they don't have to rent out his house. Alexanders don't try to write a book when they should be taking care of their mom. Alexanders don't scare away their fathers."

"An Alexander killed thousands of people," Hercules yelled over me, making me shut up, "Your name doesn't reflect your worth."

I start calming down a bit, everything was still out of whack, and I shouldn't be calming down, but I was.

"I need my medication," I eventually whisper out.

"Laf here would be more than happy to walk with you over to your place to get it. But don't you think you can get away from him, he's a soccer whiz."

Lafayette cracked his knuckles as a confirmation, "Come on Hamilton, let's go get your pills."

Hercules came up to whisper something in Lafayette's ear, something that I wasn't supposed to catch on to, but I end up hearing it anyway--"Don't let him kill himself along the way, John would kill us."

"Ready to roll, Hamilton?" Lafayette addresses me in his french accent.

I nod my head and we start out. On the walk to my apartment, he doesn't say anything about my attempted suicide (or how they know about it) he just talks. About soccer, about how much he hates dancing. I wonder how much he had to do to be able to talk that much without messing up the balance.

"This is my house," I interrupt quietly, not wanting to make him mad, "I have a key."

I unlock the house and thankfully Burr is away and my mom is asleep.

"Grab everything you might need. You're going to be staying with us for a few weeks. John's orders, which can very quickly turn into physicists orders. So just go along with it."

I want to argue that mom or Aaron will need me, but they won't. I could disappear for months and they wouldn't notice.

Lafayette sits down on one of the many unused kitchen chairs and just waits. I gather all my clothing-- I only have a week's worth of outfits that I cycle through, plus my work uniforms. I also snag my computer and my notebook, walking out into the kitchen I also grab all my different kinds of medicine.

"Oh my, how many medicines do you need?" Lafayette asks.

Mandy comes out of my Mom's room, "His mom has cancer, they're mostly pain pills. Where are you going Alexander?" she asked noticing my suitcase. "Finally got your own place? You'll be fine if your gone, you have Mr. Burr here and me. She'll be fine. Go live your own life."

I opened my mouth to say something but couldn't. Would my mom be alright? I mean I did hire Mandy to stay here with her. I'll just have to get someone for the evenings when Mandy goes home-- I don't trust Aaron to look after her.

Noticing the silence Lafayette answered for me, "He's going to stay with a friend for a week or two."

"Oh, that makes sense. Have fun Alexander. If anything happens with your mother I'll call you. And about last night, I want you to know that this morning-"

Lafayette cut her off, eyeing me up and down, "I think you should tell me this in private, due to recent events."

Mandy had a confused look on her face but obeyed. They're back in a quick moment, but it's still a long time to be standing awkwardly in your own kitchen. When Lafayette comes back, his face has a sort of understanding on it, and Mandy's face a sort of understanding sadness on it.

I wave goodbye to her as I leave with Lafayette. We walk back to the three of theirs apartment. On the walk back Lafayette keeps rambling like he did on the way to my building, that was until I asked him my burning question.

"Why aren't you and Hercules at work today?"

"Ah. Herc, everyone calls him Herc you can too, is the boss of his own company and today he could just work from home. So he did. You're one of us now."

"Oh," is the only answer I could think of. "Why do you call him Herc? His parents named him Hercules why would you call him something else?"

"Because of nicknames," he starts to say, trying to explain 'nicknames' to me. "Hasn't anyone ever called you by your middle name, or by an inside joke of sorts? That's a nickname, it's a thing friends do."

"I don't have a middle name. And the one time I was called by a 'nickname' it most definitely by a friend, no matter what he said," I muttered the last bit to myself. Lafayette doesn't need to know that.

But judging by the fact that he follows it up with, "Nicknames can also be used to belittle others, but most of the time they're used as a sign of friendship."

The rest of my walk is silent on my part, as I recount all the times that I miscalculated the balance of things. We're back at Lafayette's apartment before I know it. So much miscalculation, all the time. And all these people being nice to me is putting it even more off the hinges.

"What are you thinking about?" Lafayette asks earnestly, "You don't have to share, but it might help if you did."

I take a moment to think about if I wanted to. Talking would most definitely balance things out. "I'm just thinking about the balance of things, and how it's probably so much more jacked up than I thought it was. If you'd just let me have my gun..."

"NO!" Lafayette half-shouts grasping my shoulders shaking me lightly, "You aren't dying today, or tomorrow. Who ever told you that the weight of the world rests on your shoulders and that everything must be perfectly balanced is wrong. They were manipulating you and were wrong. So, what ever part of this balance will be helped by you killing yourself, won't be."

He never lied about anything. Never, except whenever he talked to me. But never when he talked to mom. Could Lafayette be right? I should ask John when John gets back. John would know. I wonder when John gets home.

"When does John get back?" I ask. Lafayette's face has a sort of relieved cautiousness on it.

"Why do you need to know?" he asks suspiciousness leaking into his eyes.

"I just need to ask him a question."

I kept walking up the stairwell, until I noticed that Lafayette was standing

stationary.

"I'm sorry, Alexander but I need more information. Herc gave me three strikes

for you today for 'suicidal thoughts' after the third he would've started outright counseling you."

"Oh, it's about something non-suicide related."

"Cool, just had to check."

We continued our walk up to the second floor. I vaguely remember taking this route, I probably took it to get to the apartment last night now that I think about it.

I really want to ask Lafayette about what happened after the alley last night, but I can't. I feel like it'd mess up the balance. And the French probably don't learn about the balance as a child-- it's probably just an American thing.

We make it up to the apartment, and I put my stuff down on the couch. That's where I'm going to be spending the next few weeks (unless I wanted to share a bed with John, but that's his decision and I don't really mind anything anymore).

Lafayette forces me to eat a bit of some sandwiches, before I fall into an early sleep.

- - -

It turned out to be more of a mid-afternoon nap, as I woke up around 5 o'clock. I sit up from the surprisingly comfortable couch, and turn to face the people talking. A feeling of deja vu overcomes me, didn't this happen this morning?

"How did he did he do today?"

"He got two out of three strikes. Both of them direct askings to let him kill himself. So, pretty serious stuff. Had to explain nicknames to him. Oh, and lots of talking about something he called 'the balance.' Talked him down from a ledge at on one of his ramblings, reasoned and tried to get him to see that it wasn't a real thing."

"That was a risky thing to do. His emotional trauma seems to deep rooted for any sort of reasoning to take any hold on him. Based off what John told us this morning it seems that he was abused and manipulated as a child in more ways than one."

No, that can't be. I wasn't abused. He simply used what every child needed to learn and taught it to me. And I wouldn't learn so he had to take harsher methods. It was my own fault that I couldn't learn what I needed to learn to succeed. He didn't like me, but not liking your child isn't abuse, it's an opinion. It wasn't abuse, they're wrong.

"Yah, I can definitely attest to abuse. Do you think we could put the bastard in jail?"

It's finally my time to speak up, "It wasn't abuse. And, he isn't the bastard I am."

The faces I meet when I stand up, look surprised that I was awake.

"Oh, Hamilton you're up?" Lafayette asks confusingly.

Herc gave Lafayette a pointed glance, "Alexander, you're up already. As Lafayette told you earlier, we use nicknames a lot here. You can call me Herc and the french fry here Laf. We have a bunch more obscure nicknames, but the main ones are Laf and Herc. Do you want to be called anything in particular?"

His wording is stiff, like a counselor, it's awkward and stuffy, but I answer anyways.

"Alexander is preferred," I think for a moment, "but Hamilton isn't bad."

Laf laughs a bit and elbows Herc, "See he likes it."

There's a bit of an awkward silence before Herc fills it, "Want to watch some tv?"

I nod my head, tv had always been my happy place. Animated movies held the same magic for me that they held for children half my age. It was never always a mystery to me as to why. I only ever watched movies with my dad and those were some of the best memories I had with him. I couldn't remember large bits of the movies, but I loved the bits that I could.

I start saying something quietly to myself, not expecting to be heard, just wanting to say it. The balance was swayed in my favor at the moment.

But, somehow Herc's eagle ears pick it up, "What do you want to watch, Alexander?"

"If-if-if there's any animated movies we can watch, could we please watch them?"

The two look at each other and nod. Herc scrolls through the channels and then pauses, "Mulan okay with you?"

I give him a small smile, "Mulan would be great."

"Mulan it is."

We got in a little late, so we start the movie in a part that I don't remember. Mulan was singing about her reflection, this seemed like a big part. Why couldn't I remember this? This was like on that one night that Eliza came over and she watched the Lion King with me. I didn't remember Mufasa's death. She amounted it to selective childhood behavior but was it?

About halfway between the 'I'll make a Man Out of You' number and 'A Girl Worth Fighting For' John came out of one of the rooms.

"Mulan," he remarked wringing out his hair still, "Good choice."

Herc looked down at his watch, "Shit, it's 6. What do you guys want to eat for dinner?"

Laf reclined in his spot, "Can we just do pizza?"

That'd balance it out. A dinner full of grease that made my throat ache. That'd most definitely balance out all of the things that happened today. Like talking so much.

I nod my response.

"Pizza it is then."

John sat down next to me on the couch and started ordering the pizza on his phone (two large pepperoni pizzas). The couch was comfortable for me to sleep on. But I'm 5'7" and these people are huge. Not waistlines, but their heights. So by the time that all four of us were sitting down together, there wasn't much wiggle room. In fact, Johns knee was rubbing against mine. A fact that I savored way too much. A fact that was slowly tilting the balance in the wrong way.

I'm going to have to eat so much pizza. I'm going to have to eat until I feel like puking. Until I can feel the grease swelling up inside of me. Then it will be balanced out.

We keep watching Mulan and parts keep coming up that I don't remember, but that thought is dismissed when the pizza man arrives. Laf answers the door and brings the pizza straight to the couch.

"Pizza time!" he said with his french accent.

A small chorus of cheers comes from John and Herc.

"I'm going to have to work out so much to make up for this," Herc muttered.

My interest piqued. Maybe if I eat enough I can overbalance it so that tomorrow it's in my favor still so I can run this off.

But right now I just needed to eat lots of pizza. The first few slices were the worst. Every bit of grease coated my throat. Every piece of fat made my sweatpants feel tight. After the first five slices though, I'm numb to it all. I need to be able to run tomorrow.

At around slice seven Laf notices, "Wow Alexander you must be really hungry. Did those sandwiches earlier not fill you up? I'm sorry if they didn't."

I forgot about those sandwiches. What was in them, I wrack my brain. Ham, lettuce, and mayonnaise. I need to be able to run tomorrow. I need to get this out of my body. The grease. The fat. I need it out. If I eat more than I can probably also shift the balance so that I can throw up as well. Three more slices.

My silence must give Laf some sort of answer, but I keep eating. I need the balance to do this for me.

"Alexander," Herc says threateningly, "Slow down. Take a breath, then you can keep eating."

He must know what I'm doing, why I need to do this to keep the balance in check. He gets it. Herc knows about the balance, he knows why I'm doing this.

So for his sake, I finish my tenth piece slower than the rest, just slow enough that the greasy cheese feels like it's getting stuck in my throat. Like the fat-filled pepperonis are distributing their fat all around me. My shirt collar starts to seem a bit small, so I pull at it -- thankfully nobody noticed, they'd ask questions. People always ask questions about food.

Around 10, Herc and Laf went to their shared room (a queen bed, Hercs, and a twin bed, Lafs). And John had to make the decision on whether or not he wanted to sleep in the same bed as me. I really wanted him to say yes. But I knew that all the happiness it'd bring me wouldn't give me enough wiggle room with the balance to puke on the run tomorrow.

"Um, ah," John stuttered out, "I'd be cool sharing a bed with you? In like a non-romantic way, just two buds chilling?"

I nodded my approval and quickly got ready for bed in the bathroom quickly. I skip brushing my teeth, the feeling of the grease on me all night should be enough to offset this sleeping thing.

When I enter into John's room, I saw that he'd piled a bunch of extra throw pillows(that matched the bedspread) in the center of the bed. I smile a bit, this was perfect. Not too much of a mess up to the balance for me and John isn't made uncomfortable by having to sleep next to me.

It's as perfect as it could be-- as perfect as I could wish it be.