Favorable (Jamilton)

21. Hamilton

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.