In the morning, Alexander woke up feeling surprisingly refreshed and well-rested.
Then he remembered what happened the day before and he flopped back onto the pillow and wanted to go back to sleep for the rest of the day. For once, the possibility of having nightmares didn't necessarily worry him. He was almost back to sleep when a soft knock came at the bedroom door.
"What?" he shouted. He rolled his eyes when no one answered. "Come in!"
The door slowly opened and Thomas came into the room carrying a tray. "I noticed you had some cocoa powder in the kitchen, and Peter told me to just help myself to whatever. . . I figured you might want some hot chocolate?"
Hamilton winced slightly as he remembered yelling at his last living family member. He was still beyond angry with his cousin, but now they're all the other has left. They'd have to stick together for the rest of the time they had left, right?
Thomas flipped on the light and Alexander squinted at the sudden brightness. He took one of the cups off the tray and nodded at the other man to thank him.
"Where is Peter, anyway?" Alex asked after taking a sip of the cocoa, which tasted like peppermint and cream along with the cocoa. He knew that there wasn't any peppermint or sweet cream in the kitchen. The realization then led to the thought that they didn't even have hot cocoa, Peter never bought that until at least November when things really started getting cold.
"He left for a walk a while ago." Jefferson kept his stare on his cup while talking, probably to avoid eye contact. "How you holdin' up?"
Hamilton shrugged and took another drink, falling even more in love with the chocolate than his bed. "About as well as you'd expect, I guess. The five stages of loss just sorta keep going through me. One minute I'm telling myself it's a dream, the next I want to yell at someone for not doing something. I actually considered praying last night, which isn't exactly a common thing but. . ." he stopped and laughed without any humor. "Yeah, I'm doing about as well as you'd expect, I guess."
It was quiet for a few minutes while the two finished the hot cocoa. It's not like either of them was complaining about the silence, they were still technically supposed to hate each other. As far as Alexander knew, Jefferson was just acting nicer because of the death, not because he really cared about how Alex was feeling. And as far as Alexander knew, Jefferson didn't know about the phone call with John.
Suddenly, Thomas stood up. "Okay, come on. We've got things to do today."
"Like what?"
"I'm taking you out. You can't keep yourself locked inside because of this, no matter how much you want to."
Alexander frowned. "It's been less than a day."
"And the best way to prevent it from happening is to stop it before it starts."
"Jefferson, really I don't--"
"Alright, you don't have to go. If you want to go, though, I'll wait out in the living room for an hour, so you have time to decide." He picked up the tray and without another word left the room.
Alex watched as the door closed and flopped onto his back, enjoying how he slightly sunk into the bed. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, the light was still on so it wasn't totally dark with his eyes closed. If anything it looked more red. He sat there for around half an hour, trying to go back to sleep. After that time, he gave up and decided to take a shower.
That took about fifteen minutes. Not nearly as long as he wanted it to. By the time he was done, he decided to just get dressed and go with Thomas to wherever and get it over with. He figured that his mother wouldn't want him to sit around, wasting precious time that could be used to do something more productive, not when everyone knew she wasn't going to make it anyway. That didn't make it hurt any less.
Like he promised, Thomas was sitting patiently on the couch, sweater on and keys in his hand.
"Where are we going?" Alexander asked, making Jefferson jump.
"Just on a drive until we find something to do."
"You have the money for that?"
"Yeah, I'll just have to skip out on hair gel for a week," Thomas joked. Alex couldn't but smile.
"Oh wow, you don't hate me! I must be high up on your Favorite People list, huh? You're giving up hair gel!" He cheered sarcastically. Thomas looked confused for a second.
"Why would you say I hate you?"
"I have an alphabetized list of all the times that you've said that you hated me in the last few months. Or do you want that sorted by date? I have them in order of passion, too, by the way. Or if you prefer--"
"Okay, I get it. Yeah, that would be a great reason to think that." Thomas shrugged and went to the door. "Well, I guess I've learned a lot about you because of this situation, so things change."
"Oh, please. Nothing's changed, you just feel bad for whatever situation you think that I 'didn't deserve'." Hamilton rolled his eyes, starting to question why he even wanted to go in the first place.
"Wait, do you actually think that you--"
"Let's just go before I change my mind."
Thomas nodded and followed Alexander out of the building.
After a couple of hours of driving and stopping at various restaurants and stores, neither of the men had any bags because they were both broke as hell. The day was mostly wasted trying on obnoxious combinations of clothes like they were in some '80s chick-flick movie montage. Cat eye glasses and bright yellow tight pants were a huge hit with them, along with fluffy pink boa scarves.
"Want to pick up something to eat for when we get back?" Alex asked. "I should probably apologize to Peter and he's got a soft spot for fortune cookies."
Thomas nodded with a laugh. "Yeah, I don't mind."
Hamilton pulled out his phone to call his cousin.
"That's weird," he muttered.
"What?" Thomas glanced quickly away from the road at the passenger's side of the car.
"Voicemail. I know he always has his phone on him. . ." Alex tried again, only to get the same result. "It just keeps going to voicemail."
"Okay, let's not freak out just yet, maybe he just misplaced it or he's taking a nap or something."
Alex nodded. He set the phone down, glancing down at it nervously now and then.
"Hey, can I drop you off first? I can grab the food, you can apologize to Peter while I'm doing that, plus we'll pass it anyway. I think you two need some alone time to talk all that out," Thomas suggested, quickly glancing at the passenger's seat. Alex nodded and Thomas dropped him off at the apartment.
Hamilton knew Peter was home because he saw the car sitting in the parking space. Alex told Thomas what to get and watched him drive away before taking the stairs to the apartment. He wanted to take the stairs to go over what he'd say to his last living member of his family. He was still mad, and he'd probably stay mad, but that really didn't make him feel any better about the fight. He didn't even give Peter the chance to explain himself and why he helped Rachel sign the papers.
Alexander took another second to think about what he wanted to say before he actually entered the apartment. After deciding on what he wanted, he opened the door and saw Peter sleeping on the couch. He considered letting him sleep because if he was tired enough to sleep on the old couch, he probably needed the rest, but he had a limited amount of time before Thomas came back with food.
He went over and hesitated before shaking his cousin's shoulder lightly. He didn't get a response, so he tried with a little more force. He kept getting progressively more forceful with shaking and telling him to wake up until he noticed the almost empty pill bottle tipped over on the floor. He quickly checked Peter's pulse.
Nothing.
All the panic and sense drained away from Hamilton and he dialed the emergency number to report his cousin's suicide. He felt surprisingly calm as the operator told him to "hold tight". Not like she could see him, but he nodded and hung up the phone.
"You sick son of a bitch," he muttered, not really thinking of what he was saying.
He sat there until the cops showed up, staring at Peter's pale face. His eyes were closed, but Hamilton could imagine them snapping open, staring into his own eyes and dragging him down too.
Everything seemed to go by so fast that it was going slowly. Paramedics put Peter into a body bag and carried him away, Alex staring at them the entire time. Thomas came back and was saying something that Alex wasn't really taking in. He just occasionally shrugged, wondering why he was being so calm. He knew that he should be hysterical, he should be breaking down and screaming on the floor, but he couldn't bring himself to feel anything.
He stepped away from Thomas, still not processing anything that was being said. He grabbed the only family picture that he had and went to the bedroom. Thomas didn't follow him. Or he didn't notice if Thomas followed him, either way, he just stared at the photo, imagining red exes over the faces of everyone other than himself.
Over everyone that's either left or died.