#timestamp meme

[scrawlingwithstyle]

My handwriting is atrocious, so I cut it out.

6-7 yrs

Lisa Frank-obsessed

Gramma haircut

Wants to be the best at everything

Reads SO MUCH

15-16 yrs

“Great” Clips haircut

T-shirts every day

Braces - the HORROR

Wants to be an author but doesn’t know the definition of “cliche”

low-key bullied

24 yrs

$25 haircut

Overweight & under-dressed

Bilingual

Smol

Majestic AF

D&D nerd

[mcccrree]

dude thats. me 

[fourteenacross]

Sorry to add to the long list of timestamp prompts and i bet someone has already said this one but I gotta say it because it's coming up in real life soooooo...VALENTINE'S DAY 2015. Please tell me John finds the whole thing uncomfortable because feelings

So, anon, this turned into A Thing.

*

Commercialism, Merit Badges, and Liquid Courage (8180 words) by pocky_slashFandom: Hamilton - MirandaRating: Teen And Up AudiencesRelationships: Alexander Hamilton/John LaurensCharacters: John Laurens, Alexander HamiltonAdditional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Graduate School, Established Relationship, Valentine's Day, feelings are hard

Alex has never celebrated Valentine's Day and John has no problem with it, so a Valentine's Day date shouldn't be such a big deal. And yet....(AKA Alex plans a date, some Girl Scouts are skeptical, and John is bad at feelings.)

“John is Bad at Feelings” should really be the subtitle for this series, probably.

[fourteenacross]

Alex, before John wakes up and when/after he finds out about the tattoo, the constellations aligned

Can do! x

*

When Alex is high, he sleeps like a dead thing. When’s he’s drunk-drunk, he wakes up every hour or so and then immediately falls back to sleep. When he’s tipsy, he drifts in and out of sleep, never going all the way under until he’s sobered up. When he’s in an unfamiliar bed, he can never quite allow himself to give entirely into sleep.

Tipsy and high, post-orgasm, in von Steuben’s library, he seems to be falling somewhere in the middle. He drifts for a while and then sits up straight, wide awake, and then falls back into his half-sleep when he decides not to get out of bed. It’s a few hours into the night when he gives up and props himself up in the bed, hoping maybe he can sober up entirely and then at least nap until it’s time to go home.

Next to him, John sleeps on, undisturbed. He’s on his stomach, his hair a riotous mess of tangled curls that’s mostly up off of his neck and back, bare in the cool air of the room. Alex shivers—John is beautiful, this ethereal being that he’s somehow allowed to touch, something otherworldly and precious.

He would blame the affection on the lingering alcohol and marijuana sluggishly crawling through his system, but he tries not to lie to himself—this is how he always feels about John, deep down inside.

There’s a single curl hanging down at the nape of John’s neck, and Alex pushes it away with soft, delicate movements. His fingers glide away, still hovering over John’s back, just above the heat of his skin. There are freckles scattered across his back. There are freckles scattered all over him, really, but spread across this smooth, unblemished expanse of skin, they’re particularly striking.

I’m going to kiss each one, Alex told John once, on an unseasonably warm evening in early-September that found them lounging shirtless on the roof of their apartment building.

Freckles are triggered by sunlight, so they come and go depending on what parts of my body are exposed to how much UVB radiation, John told him. Thus, it’s impossible to keep track of how many there are, let alone where they are and if you’ve kissed them or not.

I’m trying to be romantic, you dick, Alex whined.

Well, next time have better science on your side.

It led to a kick fight and then an impromptu wrestling match and then the two of them hidden between the side of the storage shed and the wall, just out of sight, pressed together and panting with their hands on each other’s dicks.

It was a nice night.

But, John’s pedantry aside, Alex really does love his freckles. Sometimes it borders on a fetish, although he’s not sure if he can call it a fetish if it’s limited to one single person. He thinks that if John had an excess of chest hair or scars, he might find himself obsessed with chest hair or scars. As it stands, he traces between John’s freckles in the low light of the library, mapping out his back, his fingers still hovering just above John’s skin. It’s like a road map to John’s body, or maybe a star map. That seems to make more sense, somehow—constellations spread across John’s skin, countless stories to tell and worlds to explore. That’s his John—beautiful and frightening both, unknowable and ever-changing and full of so many stories that Alex will never be able to learn them all, though he’s going to spend the rest of his life trying.

It’s possible he’s still a little high.

He leans over to ghost a kiss against the nape of John’s neck and then, finally, lowers his fingers to brush John’s back. John makes a quiet, sleepy noise, but doesn’t otherwise stir, even once Alex’s fingers are tracking paths back and forth against his skin.

If he’s going to be doing this for a while—and he can’t sleep and his brain is too sluggish to read, so he probably will be—he needs to get comfortable. He shifts carefully, so as not to disturb John further, and sits for a moment to stretch. He reaches over to the desk near the bed to check the time on his phone. When he puts it down again, the illuminated screen shines on a felt tipped pen sitting near the edge of the desk. Alex stares at it for a moment before swiping it and then settling back into the bed, his body curled around John’s. He takes the cap off and the tip hovers over John’s back for a moment.

It’s stupid. Silly. But god, something in him wants to mark John. Not to claim him, no, but rather to bring these stories out of him, trace them across his skin, the history of John Laurens.

Sentimental. Maudlin. But Alex doesn’t shy away from being sentimental, not about John. Plus, it’s not like they’re going to be permanent. One shower and they’ll wash away down the drain, a secret between the two of them disappearing before anyone else can question it.

He sets the tip of the pen near a freckle on John’s shoulder and slowly, steadily, begins to trace constellations across his back.

*

John got a tattoo. John got a tattoo.

The words keep whirling around Alex’s mind as he tries to make sense of them. John—his John—went out and got a tattoo. This afternoon! Just, randomly! With no forethought!

And, okay, the “no forethought” part isn’t a surprise, John isn’t exactly known for his patience and good sense, but still! He didn’t even call Alex or tell him or…anything. Alex isn’t sure whether to be offended by that. He’s not sure of very much at all right now.

A million possibilities are whirling through his mind. John’s an artist, maybe some art or something? And he sort of implied it has something to do with Alex, so maybe Alex’s name? Maybe something parapsych related or a famous quote? It’s not all that big, judging by the gauze currently taped to John’s shoulder, but there are still a million possibilities, more than he can reasonably imagine in the few moments he has before the gauze is peeled away.

In the bathroom, John leans over a crumpled piece of paper with aftercare instructions printed on it. Alex watches him carefully in the mirror.

“Okay,” John says, “I’m supposed to take off the bandage, then carefully wash away the gross shit that’s left on it with warm water and mild antibacterial soap. After that, I’m supposed to put this goop on it.”

“I can do that,” Alex says. He wants to rip off the bandage already—he’s so curious he has to know. But it’s John’s secret, John’s body, and Alex is going to follow his lead, even as his palms itch to pry away the medical tape. John runs the tap, waving his fingers beneath it to test its temperature. Alex taps his fingers against his thighs impatiently and wonders what’s waiting under that tape and wonders why John put it there to begin with. He bites his lip, just as John turns around.

“What?” John asks.

“Just…you know I was joking last night, right?” Alex says, and John freezes. For a horrible moment, before he places the panicked expression, Alex is afraid that this i about what Alex said last night when he was teasing him about Ben Walker’s new tattoo. “When I was ragging you about not having a tattoo even though we’ve been together longer than Ben’s been fucking Steubs.” John relaxes after that, and Alex releases a matching breath of relief.

“I know,” John says. “This isn’t about that. I mean, I guess it is, since that’s why it was on my mind, but it’s not even about you, really. Except, I guess it’s about you too, but it’s mostly about—fucking, just take the bandage off, okay? Jesus.”

Alex laughs, feeling more centered and less guilty. He turns John around again so he’s facing the mirror and hesitates for only a moment longer. Then he’s pulling the tape up gently and peeling away the bandage and then….

Then.

Wow.

He goes still for a moment, just staring at the stark, swollen black ink. It’s Alex’s stupid drawing, Alex’s dumb, sentimental constellations from last night. Alex scribbled a romantic notion all over John’s back and John turned around and put it there permanently.

Just. Wow.

He swallows and gently nudges John over until his shoulder is near the running water. Alex splashes the new tattoo with wet, soapy fingers, washing away the ink smudges and droplets of blood. He cups some more water in his hands and then pours it over John’s shoulder once, twice, and then again. John stands up and Alex grabs a handful of tissues and pats the constellations dry, then takes the tube of aftercare goop from John and tenderly massages it into the lines and dots. He can’t stop staring at it, staring at his marks made permanent. His silly love letter frozen in time on John’s skin.

He swallows against a lump forming in his throat.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you stay this quiet while you were awake,” John says. He’s going for irreverent, but Alex can hear the anxiety in the words.

“I spent the last few minutes thinking about a million possibilities, but this didn’t even occur to me,” Alex finally says. He meets John’s eyes in the mirror and has to swallow again. His stupid, beautiful John. He can’t fight the smile starting to spread across his face.

John takes a deep breath and looks away, down at his hands. He says, “I was thinking about it. About you…about…about what you said about us being together just as long. Longer. And I didn’t…I didn’t do it because you said that. It wasn’t like…a challenge or a contest. But I was thinking about how we were joking about it, about Ben and von Steuben, but I’ve known you just as long, and I know. I know I love you. I know—I know even if you walked out on me tomorrow, I’ll never love anyone else the way I love you.”

John pauses and Alex has to stop himself from wrapping his arms around John and kissing him breathless or holding on to him for the rest of their lives.

“I was thinking about that,” John continues carefully. “And I was thinking about how you love these dumb things about me that I’d never think to love. How I love dumb things about you that probably aren’t, you know, objectively attractive. And the drawings on my back and and how you…you, um. You love me enough to map out my body like that. To learn it and leave your mark. And I looked up and I was standing in front of a tattoo parlor and….”

Their friends make fun of them, sometimes, for being in sync. They’ll have conversations in the field without uttering a full sentence between them, or pipe up to finish each other’s thoughts in classes, or answer questions for each other without looking up or thinking about it. They’re in tune, thinking on the same frequency, and it happens all the time, but this seems particularly stark. The things about John he doesn’t love about himself, the things that drive Alex crazy because of John specifically—hadn’t that been what he was thinking about last night when he first started to trace John’s freckles? How he loves them because they’re John’s, how he’d love anything about John, how he wants to learn his body and leave his mark and hold all of that potential and mystery, all of those stories in his hands?

He struggles for words. He always struggles for words around John. John is so much more than he can ever articulate.

"John," he says softly, but that's all he can come up with. He looks down to the tattoo again, the delicate lines tracing the paths that Alex has carved out. He brushes his fingers over them, feeling the swell of them beneath his fingertips. This is the story Alex wrote across John’s skin, and now it’s a permanent part of him. Fuck.

John twitches. Alex watches him flush, watches the pink heat spread from his neck down to his shoulders. "Don't get, like—"

"What," Alex says, "sentimental? You got my fucking doodles tattooed on your body, you utter sap!" He laughs then, because it’s so absurd. John got a tattoo of Alex’s absent sentimentality and now he’s twitching because Alex is being to emotional? It’s so John that he can’t stop laughing and John elbows him and he shoves John back and something eases between them. He can feel John’s anxiety dissipate as they push and shove and smack and wrestle until John’s weight pins Alex’s back to the door, his arms around Alex’s neck, their foreheads resting together as they pant and laugh and smile at each other with naked joy. 

"You like it?" John asks, almost shyly. 

"I love it," Alex says, and John relaxes all at once, sagging against him. "I love you."

"Now who's the sap?" John says, grinning.

"Uh, still the person with the tattoo, actually," Alex says, and before he can say more, John is kissing him. He presses close, presses Alex against the door, kisses him almost desperately. Alex’s fingers drift up to brush the edge of the tattoo again, his heart too big for his chest. He loves John—he loves John so fucking much, he loves John more than he’s ever loved anyone or anything. He’ll always, always love John and now he’ll always be a part of John. John will carry and physical part of Alex around with him every day for the rest of his life, a manifestation of what they can do together—create new stories, entirely new worlds.

It’s a lot. But god, John is so, so worth it.

[fourteenacross]

I want to see the body shots from Birthday Shots from John's POV! (I want to see more of John's POV in general it's so great!)

Thank you, anon! I love writing John 💜

(I’m still slogging through these, I was out of the office at meetings all day and thus away from my computer, SO.)

I would say this is NSFW text-wise, but probably really only a PG-13 rating or so. Lots of licking of body parts and innuendo and discussion of sexual acts, but no actual sex.

x

*

Molly was the one who wanted body shots and she was the one who forked the money over to Maggie at the bar for free reign of the bottle of tequila and John wants to tell her that she’s so pretty (for a girl) and she doesn’t have to make up dumb reasons to kiss girls she should just go for it and she didn’t have to pay but he’s glad she did because he’s not sure what he did with his wallet and–

He wants to tell her a lot of things, but they’re all distant now, muted, a list his mind is making for later, because right now there’s Alex and a salt shaker and a lime wedge and a bottle of tequila and that’s really just…the main attraction. So to speak.

There are a lot of people cheering and wolf whistling and John smirks at them as he has Alex sit cross-legged on top of the table and then wedges a shot glass down against his crotch. Molly hands him the tequila and he fills up the glass and then takes a swig from the bottle and winces because, fuck, right, he hates straight tequila. He tries to shake it off and presses the lime wedge between Alex’s teeth. Alex is staring at him with deep, dark, hungry eyes and John is frozen, for a moment, with his fingers on Alex’s lips and Alex’s eyes burning a hole into him and making his stomach flip and–

“Shots!” someone yells–a stranger, John doesn’t know who–and he blinks and remembers he’s in the middle of vaguely exhibitiony pseudo-sex act. Normally not his kink, not at all, but he’s got more vodka in his body than brains at the moment and he’s reached the point of drunkenness where he doesn’t care what’s going on outside of the bubble of John-and-Alex.

He brushes Alex’s hair aside gently, traces his fingers over the skin and feels him tremble. Of course Alex wants him, Alex always wants him, it’s the one thing that John is always sure of, but it’s still nice to see it in action in front of a crowd of people. He moves close and breathes against Alex’s throat and then licks. Alex’s pulse jumps and his shoulders shudder with a sharp intake of breath. A few shakes of salt and then, after pausing so the crowd can cheer him on, he licks up the salt, leans over and takes the shot glass between his teeth, throws his head back, swallows the shot. It burns going down, and he winces again, but only for a second, because then he’s tossing the shot glass aside and leaning in to take the lime between his teeth, his mouth sealed over Alex’s for much, much longer than it takes to suck on the lime.

There’s more cheering when he pulls away, flushed and suddenly wishing everyone would just go away so he could climb on top of Alex and–

“Hey, hey, hey!” says the girl Molly wants to get with, some stranger they met on the way to the Frog. “If you gonna do fucking body shots like a goddamn tourist on spring break, you gotta do ‘em right! None of this shot glass shit.”

More general agreement from the crowd and John can’t remember if all the randos are people they invited off the street or just regular bar patrons who got pulled into the crowd. Alex has that effect on people. Alex just pulls everyone into his orbit, makes everyone want to go where he’s going and do what he’s doing and fuck John just…loves him. He just fucking loves Alex, fucking out-of-his-mind loves him.

The random girl makes Alex lay back and pulls up his shirt. Alex laughs nervously, the fluttery little laugh he gets in anticipation of John touching him. It’s a laugh that goes straight to John’s dick or his heart or maybe both. 

“Stay still,” John murmurs, stroking his hand across Alex’s stomach. The muscles jump under his hand and Alex’s breath hitches in his lungs. The fluttery laugh returns when John leans over to lick his throat and gets distracted, kissing and biting that soft, warm place where Alex’s neck meets his shoulder, right over the ghost of a mark he left a few days ago.

Salt, then Alex sucks the lime juice off of John’s fingers as he presses a wedge between Alex’s lips, and then the girl he doesn’t know is carefully pouring tequila into Alex’s navel. Alex quivers when John sucks the salt off of him, and John’s amazed the tequila doesn’t go spilling down his stomach. He doesn’t give it another opportunity, sucking it up and delighting in the sounds Alex is making and the way his body jerks and the taste of his skin and the joy of making Alex squirm.

He rests his hand on Alex’s thigh as he stretches to kiss the lime out of his mouth, and Alex gasps against his lips. He presses the lime into John’s mouth with his tongue so his teeth are free to nip John’s lower lip and, fuck, but John really want to be somewhere he can touch Alex’s dick right now.

They pull apart, flushed, breathing heavy, and then hands are urging Alex off the table and pushing John into his place and having Alex’s mouth on his navel won’t be nearly as good as having it on his cock, but it won’t be bad either.

Alex takes his time pushing John’s shirt up, dragging his nails against John’s abs, digging his thumbs into the flesh. Showing off, because John’s pretty hot and Alex likes to brag. He lets John suck on his thumb for a moment before he shifts a new lime wedge into his mouth, then licks the hollow of this throat, his breath hot and heavy and making John just as lightheaded as the drinks and the heat and the arousal coursing through him. 

When Alex gets up, he moves to stand between John’s legs, which isn’t precisely the standard positioning for body shots, but John immediately sees the appeal. The same girl as before pours tequila into John’s navel and he tries not to jump at the sudden cool tickle. A little of it drips down his side, and that’s where Alex starts, licking the trail it leaves behind, then sucking on John’s navel. His teeth drag against the skin and John shakes and resists the urge to buck up against the heat of Alex’s body. He has to lean over the length of John to get to the salt, pressing them tightly together, and John really, really sees the appeal of this position. Alex grinds his hips down while he licks the hollow of John’s throat and when he moves for the lime, John can’t help it–he wraps his arms and legs around Alex and pushes him up and then Alex is lifting him, swinging him off the table with some kind of preternatural birthday strength considering he usually can’t carry a stack of books more than a few feet without complaining.

He can hear someone wolf-whistling and someone else climbing up onto the table for the next round of body shots and the music playing in the background and laughter and mostly his own blood rushing past his ears as Alex stumbles around until he can press John up against a pillar and finally release some of his weight. They’re still kissing and the lime is still in John’s mouth and John’s working on a line about lime juice and blow jobs when the music changes and Alex nearly drops him, he pulls away so fast.

“I love this song!” he shouts, and pulls an unsteady John towards the impromptu dance floor.

“But I was going to suck your dick!” John says, spitting out the lime as he stumbles to follow.

“You can suck my dick anytime, this song is only playing now!” Alex says, only slurring the words a little. “It’s my birthday. You have to do what I say!”

“If you want to play like that, you just have to ask nicely,” John says, the words thick in his mouth as he tries to enunciate them and walk at the same time and, wow, he hit a wall, he hit a drunken tequila wall, he hit the wall where he’s had enough tequila to be drunk, a three-drinks-in-town-and-five-rounds-of-shots-and-then-tequila drunken wall, next level drunk, drunker than stumbling down the streets of Morristown, waiting for an Uber, telling strangers to come to Alex’s birthday party.

“I wanna dance!” Alex says, and he grins like the sun because he’s beautiful and bright and John loves him and John will do whatever he wants because, fuck, it’s Alex.

“I think I’m drunk!” John says.

“Me too!”

“Like…drunker…drunker drunk!”

“I love you,” Alex tells him seriously. “Your…face. I love it. And the rest of you. Your mind–you can totally suck my dick later, because I love you so much and I want you to be happy and that makes me happy too–”

Alex is shouting a little to be heard over the music. A few people are looking at them. John doesn’t care. John doesn’t care about anything but Alex. And maybe sucking his dick later. He maybe cares about that.

“I love you and sucking your dick,” John replies, just as serious.

“I love this song!” Alex exclaims again and laughs and then John laughs and it’s a good night. It’s such a good night! What a good idea this was, to go out and do these things! They have the best ideas!

[fourteenacross]

Hmmmmm Johns perspective from the phone conversation with his father in I saw the whole story unwind?

chapter in question.

*

John is doing okay in Morristown. Really. Truly. He wasn’t sure he would be at first; after the high of defying his father wore off, he was terrified that he’d be out on the street within a week. He’s done well, though. He has friends. His work is highly regarded by his mentor. He’s working enough jobs to keep himself financially afloat. He has Alex. And he misses his sisters sometimes and he even misses his dad and Henry sometimes, but that’s the cost of all the other wonderful things in his life. He tries not to think about it too hard. It’s easier to deal with if he doesn’t think about it.

Of course, it’s easier not to think about it when his father isn’t calling his phone at nine o'clock at night on a random Monday.

A million devestating scenarios fly through his imagination. One of the kids hurt, one of the kids dead, a fire at the house, someone has cancer…the list spirals on and on in the two seconds between looking at the sceen and turning to Alex, hands shaking.

“I…have to take this,” he says. “If only out of morbid curiosity.” Alex looks confused, of course, so John shows him the phone, the picture of his father’s face with Dad displayed over it.

“Shit,” Alex murmurs. John takes a deep breath, then hits accept and puts the phone up to his ear.

“Are Martha and Mellie and Henry okay?” he asks immediately. That’s his biggest concern, his worst nightmare–one of the kids getting sick, getting hurt, and John being hundreds of miles and a world’s worth of estrangement away.

“Good evening, John,” his father says, all calm and collected, and John breathes a sigh of relief. He’s seen what his father is like when one of them is hurt, and there’s no way he’d be this cool if that were the case. Of course, that means he’s back to square one with why his dad is on the phone in the first place. “I’m going to be out of the country tomorrow and I wanted to make sure I wished you a happy birthday.”

A happy–he blinks rapidly. Maybe he’s the one who’s injured. Maybe he hit his head.

“Okay, uh, thanks, I guess?” he manages to say. Inside, he’s asking a million questions, imagining a million scenarios that would lead to such a cordial message.

“I told you when you chose to leave,” his father says. “You’re still my son, even if you continue to make these choices. I still care about you. And I’m still happy to welcome you back home when you’re ready to come to your senses. Or if you need help, of course.”

John grits his teeth. Only his fucking father would call to gloat on his fucking birthday of all things. “No, surprisingly, everything is fine. I can, as it happens, take care of myself and it turns out I’m even pretty good at it.”

Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration. He’s…managing. But he has Alex, he has his work, he’s even sort of mostly happy for a surprising amount of the time. Things could be worse. And there’s no reason for his father to think he’s anything but ecstatically carefree.

“I know you don’t believe it, but that’s good to hear,” his dad says.

The worst fucking part of it is that he does believe it. His dad is an asshole but he’s still his dad. He’s cold, sometimes, and distant and awkward and stubborn and mean, but he also read John stories growing up and went to all his baseball games and bragged about John to his friends.

And it’s not like John doesn’t deserve the slow decline of their relationship after he…well. After.

“I trust you’re taking care of yourself?” his father continues. “Eating well, sleeping well, exercising, spending time with your peers?”

It’s like his dad has a fucking checklist he’s going down. “Yeah, yeah,” he mutters. “I have a boyfriend. You’d hate him.”

His father snorts. “I don’t doubt it. Let me guess–a tattooed biker college-dropout anarchist?”

John almost laughs. He forces the laugh down. His dad doesn’t deserve to know he still laughs at his jokes. “No, he’s a poor orphan Latino parapsychologist with a temper and a mouth. I’m pretty sure you’d murder each other if you were left in the same room together for more than a minute.”

Plus, it’s possible his dad will hate the truth even more than he hates his worst-case-scenario imagined son-in-law. Alex is watching with interest and John offers him a small smile.

“I see. I imagine you must have a checklist you take out to bars to ensure you’re rebelling hard enough.”

John swallows another laugh. It’s so much easier to hate his dad when he’s a distant caricature of an enemy. “No, I didn’t purposely choose him because I knew you’d hate him, but it’s a nice bonus,” he says.

Alex makes a face and John makes a face back. Alex is right there, inches away from him. No matter how this phone call ends up going, he can immediately fall into his support system the moment he hangs up. He’ll be okay, no matter how this keeps playing out.

“That’s fine,” his dad says. “I suppose it doesn’t matter what I think anyway–I married your mother, after all, against my father’s wises. As long as he treats you well and he loves you, I can’t ask for more.”

A lump is starting to form in John’s throat and, fuck, why did he pick up this call? The guilt is starting to inch in now, the reminder that his father loves him, that his father has taken care of him for twenty-one years and John chose to throw all of that away just to chase ghosts and fuck around with cameras.

But that’s not the whole of it. He knows that’s not the whole of it, even as his brain tries to gang up on him, tries to shove him down into those sticky, lonely dark thoughts. There’s nuance. Things were never perfect.

And, Alex. He has Alex now. He never would have met Alex if he had pushed down this part of him and been the good boy his father wanted.

It’s wrong and it’s messed up and it’s unhealthy and he needs better coping skills, but Alex is everything to him. He’s worth everything.

“He does,” John manages to say to his dad.

“Good. I’m happy for you. I hope he’s good for you.”

John takes a long, slow, measured breath before he says something he regrets. He almost wants to take Alex’s hand, but he’s not that desperate. Not yet, anyway.

“And how’s everyone back home?” he says, clearing his throat a little.

“I think if you really cared how things were back home, you wouldn’t have left. If you’re that curious about their health, perhaps you can check Facebook, since you don’t want to see them.”

Right. Right. Fuck. Right.

Yeah, his dad is the guy who read him stories and taught him how to throw a baseball and comforted him through his coming out, but he’s also the guy who told John in no uncertain terms that if he was going to throw away his chance at law school admission, he was throwing away the rest of his financial support, too. He’s still the guy who said to his baby sister, “Say goodbye to John, Mel-bell, I don’t know when you’ll get to see him again.”

“Thanks, Dad,” he spits out before the anger gets too overwhelming for him to speak. “I appreciate that. Well, this has been fun, sorry this isn’t going to be a phone call where I come crawling back to you. We should do this again at Christmas. Enjoy the rest of your day.”

“John–” his father starts to say with a long-suffering sigh, and John hangs up before he can get anything else out.

He stares down at the phone in his hand, trying to get his thoughts in line. To think he felt bad for his father. To think he felt guilty about leaving.

Fuck.

He can feel Alex hovering beside him, and he looks up, forcing a smile.

“My dad continues to be a fucking prick, if you were wondering. Just calling because he’s going out of town tomorrow and wanted to check in for my birthday.”

“That’s…not nice,” Alex says slowly. He looks concerned and curious both, a blend of questions he’s not asking flitting across his face.

“Well, where the definition of ‘check in’ is more like ‘see if I’m ready to beg for forgiveness and then gloat if that’s the case,’” John says. Something like understanding peeks through Alex’s curiosity. “He wouldn’t even tell me how my siblings were doing–he said to check Facebook if I was suddenly so interested in their health. Fuck him.”

“Sorry, man,” Alex says. He places a tentative hand on John’s arm, and John leans heavily into the touch. Encouraged, Alex puts an arm around him and adds, “He’s an asshole.”

“Yeah.” John sighs, a long, tired exhale, and sags against Alex’s side. He’s an asshole, alright. And one day, John is gonna stop falling for his shit.

[fourteenacross]

for the timestamp meme: laurens, the day before he meets alex?

Original story.

*

“Are you going to get off that couch at all today?” Lafayette asks. 

John slides his computer further up his chest so he has a better view of the screen. Across from him, the latest SyFy Channel original monsters are battling each other in a badly CGIed city.

“Nope,” he tells Lafayette. “It’s my day off. My only day off. Yesterday I worked, tomorrow school starts, today I lay around on my ass and catch up on the internet and television.”

Laf sighs. “If you say so. I’m going to meet Hercules for lunch and then go to Target. You are welcome to join us.”

John hesitates. He does love Target. But his second to last Staples paycheck should be hitting his back account tonight, and that’s it until his stipend starts coming in. He imagines they’re going to be going out for drinks tomorrow and probably Friday, and everything after that is a big question mark. It’s probably better to avoid being wooed by the fifty bucks worth of crap that he doesn’t need that he inevitably leaves Target with anyway.

“Nah,” he says. “I’m gonna stay in. I’m trying to blow through Athenodorus’ link round-up from Sunday so I don’t look like an idiot if anyone tries to make conversation about current events tomorrow.”

“You will be fine,” Laf says dismissively.

“Tell Herc I said hi,” he says, and Lafayette sighs and then leaves.

He knows, in theory, he’ll be fine. Washington chose him, after all–not just to get into the parapsych program at Morristown, but to work in his own lab. He spent the last two months hanging out with Laf and seeing Washington a couple times a week and he’s sure that if he was a total trashfire or Washington had second thoughts, he’d know by now.

But there’s ‘fine’ and then there’s ‘good.’ John wants to be more than fine. He doesn’t want to lag behind his labmates or do well enough–he gave up a hell of a lot for this, and he needs to be amazing at it. He needs to be spectacular, so that when he’s on some cable news program as a paranormal expert, his father will feel even the teeniest bit guilty for spurning his dreams. 

Okay, that’s a very specific fantasy, yes, but the root of it holds–he needs to be good enough to justify leaving home, leaving his trustfund, leaving his family for this. To his father. To the world.

To himself.

He knows he made the right choice. He really does. He feels it in his heart, in the way he’s excited and nervous about the possibilities in front of him instead of just numb with dread. But he’s not naive enough to think that things will work out right just because he made the right choice.

It’s a lot. The whole thing is heavy and immense and it’s balancing on his shoulders and he’s already exhausted and he hasn’t even started yet. If he wants the next five years to be great, he needs to go into them with a clear head and an unshakable determination. That means rallying all his strength, building up all his defenses, psyching himself out. This is the first time in a long time he’s throwing his considerable talents behind something he actually feels passionate about and also the first time he’s doing it without a safety net.

So. Bad movies. Parapsych research. Probably drinking tonight. Getting himself comfortable and prepared. He has a good feeling that his life is going to change majorly tomorrow whether he’s ready for it or not, and he wants to run into it headfirst.

[fourteenacross]

15 years in the future of Team Shithead

I admire your chutzpah, anon. I said “Imma be vague about the future” and you just went barreling right past anyway XD

(I’m answering some of these out of order. This was like, the third one I got 😂)

This is gonna be vague as hell AND actual fic, a very strange combination that will make sense to no one but me and the one person who occasionally tolerates me word-vomiting about the future of this verse.

(Also, I’m not sure if this is exactly fifteen years or not. It might be a little less.)

Anyway, I’m putting it under the cut. Some obvious spoilers and some vague spoilers. As always, anything that takes place after our current place in the story (summer 2015) is apocrypha. If I ever manage to get this far into the future, it’s entirely possible this will change dramatically based on how the story shifts as I write it.

With all those caveats, here’s a little thing for you, anon.

*

Burr picks up on the fourth ring, right when John is sure voicemail is going to pick up and he’ll be forced to actually panic.

“It’s after midnight, Laurens,” he nearly growls, and John sighs with relief.

“I know,” he says. “I’m sorry. Alexander isn’t picking up his phone and Ella had a nightmare and–”

Burr sighs. His sigh hasn’t changed in fifteen years–it still manages to be condescending as fuck. John hears bedsprings creaking and a door opening and then stairs squeaking and then Burr snaps, “Hamilton. Your photographer.”

“What the fuck?” Alex says, and, jesus, John can’t even be mad at Burr for being an ass because he’s so fucking relieved that Alex is breathing. 

Then Alex is speaking into the phone, bewildered. “John?”

“Hi,” John says quietly. “Sorry, it’s not a big deal, but you weren’t picking up–”

“I was checking audio, I left my phone on the table….” Alex getting up, Alex moving across the room. John closes his eyes and slides down the wall until he’s sitting on the floor, his back pressed against it. He closes his eyes. “Okay, I’m gonna call you on my phone. I’ll be right back.”

“Tell Burr I’m sorry,” John says, and then ends the call and waits for his phone to ring again. It takes less than a minute. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Alex says. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” John says, which isn’t precisely a lie. “It’s so stupid.”

“It’s not stupid. What happened?”

“Nothing,” John insists. “Just…Ella had a dream. A bad dream. That something happened to you. And it’s stupid, I know, but I thought–what if there’s a chance–”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Alex’s voice is so soft that John feels every inch of the distance between them. “It’s probably not genetic.”

“How can we know that for sure?” John asks. “There’s no precedent for this. There’s no precedent for what happened to me and there’s no way to know what was there before and what changed because of it and there’s no precedent for Ella and how can we know that it’s not genetic?”

Alex is quiet on the other end of the phone. John is quiet too.

“I miss you,” Alex finally says. He breathes out a soft laugh. “And to think people thought we’d grow out of that.”

“Yeah,” John says. He can’t fight the small smile fighting its way out. “Remember that second summer at Morristown?”

Alex groans. “Remember it? I’m still fucking scarred from that summer. Eight weeks apart. I thought I was going to lose my mind.”

“You did, a little,” John reminds him. “I did too, though.”

“Like missing a limb,” Alex says.

“It still is,” John admits. “Working and teaching and PTA-dading and it’s still like Eliza and I are just like…slightly off-rhythm, you know? I keep turning to talk to you. She makes fun of me.”

“She misses me too.”

“She does, but she’s like…a functional human. I’m pathetic.” He twists his ring around his finger absently.

“We knew we weren’t going to be able to do every trip together once the kids were a factor.”

“We have this conversation once a month.” They play different sides of it. Sometimes John’s the one in Singapore hunting down a spirit and doing research and trying not to feel too guilty about Alex and Eliza going to Philip’s piano recital without him. Sometimes Alex is Facetiming in to Ella’s pre-school’s family day while he’s in Berlin to give a keynote. They still work best together–they’ll always work best together–but there are other considerations, now.

“It’s the middle of the night there, isn’t it?” Alex asks. “Go to bed, baby.”

“I will, I will,” John says. “I just needed to make sure.”

“I know.” Alex yawns and John curls up on the floor, holding the phone tightly to his ear and pretending that Alex is upstairs and not three thousand miles away. “How about you? Did you have any dreams about me, hm?”

John laughs. “Every night, but they’re a little less dire and a little more R-rated.”

“You’ll have to tell me all about them. I’ll be home in two days. We can act them out.”

“That’s one way to ensure they’re from the gate of horn,” John says, and Alex laughs.

“I can’t wait,” he murmurs. “Go to sleep. I love you, gumdrop.”

“Love you too, asshole,” John says. 

He listens to the click of the phone disconnecting and stays on the floor for just a few minutes longer. The panic has receded, now, and left a dull exhaustion in its wake. God, but he misses Alex.

Two days until he’s home. Just two days. Until then, there’s little he can do besides go upstairs, check in on everyone one last time, and then try to get some sleep. Hopefully, all his dreams will be happy ones.