Problems

|| Chapter 20 ||

TW: depressive actions, doctor's office
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Alexander Hamilton was on a fucking roll.

Okay, sure, he hadn't gotten more than nine hours of sleep overall in the past few days, and he barely had any time to eat, but that was fine. He was rolling with the punches, he was fine, he was fine.

In the back of his mind, he knew that he probably wasn't fine, that he probably needed to see Dr. Evie and get his prescription changed, but there wasn't time for that. Classes and schoolwork and spending time with John-that all took up enough out of his days, he didn't have time for anything else.

Christmas vacation started at the end of the day, after two weeks of Alex running himself into the ground to keep up with school, and Jefferson, who was breathing down the back of his neck and gunning for the spot at the top of their class. Alex was planning on spending break sleeping and studying and maybe getting up the guts to schedule an appointment with Dr. Evie, because he'd already had 3 anxiety attacks in the past week and that wasn't normal. The buzzing in his chest was always there, and it was starting to interrupt the already short sleep schedule he had.

Speaking of sleep-

"Alex!" John groaned, and sat up in his bed, his hair a frizzy explosion haloing his head. "Go the fuck to bed, it's one in the morning." Alex continued to stare at the book in front of him, eyes burning, a lukewarm cup of coffee sitting beside his hand. "Not tired," he muttered, and turned the page, paper crinkling.

A pillow came hurtling out of nowhere, smacking him in the side of the head, and Alex continued to read, ignoring John's sighs as he dragged himself off of the mattress. "Alex-"

The book slid off of the desk and snapped shut in John's hands, "Seriously, babe. You need to sleep."

Alex blinked. No. This wasn't right. No, he needed to study, because studying shut off the buzzing in his chest, studying helped him keep the top spot and kept failure away, studying kept him on a schedule-

"Alex." John was kneeling in front of him, and Alex felt himself crash back into his body.

Oh. Okay.

He'd been dissociating, that was all.

Well, that wasn't okay, but it was better than a full-fledged freak out.

Yeah...he needed to call Dr. Evie.

"Come on, Alex," John said softly, and got to his feet, gently pulling Alex up with him. Alex made his feet move towards his bed, and he managed to get his pants off, fingers fumbling, and tugged on pajama bottoms before crashing into the blankets, the exhaustion of the past few days hitting him like a bus.

Christmas break started with John dropping Alex's cell phone down in front of him, a firm expression on his face. "Call. Now." Alex turned away from his position a his laptop and sighed reluctantly before picking up his phone. He scrolled through his contacts and hit a number.

A receptionist picked up. "This is Kristen, how may I help you?"

Alex took a deep breath. "Hi Kristen, I would like to make an appointment with Dr. Evie Brown, do you have any available spots open in the next few days?"

The sound of a clicking keyboard floated over from the other end of the phone for a few seconds, then, "Yes, we have an opening at nine in the morning on the twenty-seventh, would that work?"

"Yeah, that would be great." Alex let out a silent sigh of relief. "Alright, it's all set. Have a good day." Alex hit the End Call button and set his phone down, pathetic relief coursing through his veins.