Trust [Lams AU]

2

A/N: sorry for the late update I was sick and had lots of summer homework.

Trigger warning: mentions of abuse, they talk about skin cancer at one point (it makes sense in context I promise)

When Alex woke up, it was dark outside.

He was confused. How had he been allowed to sleep this late? Usually if he slept one minute past 7:00am Mrs. Jergensen would be pounding on his door screaming at him to wake up.

Had Mrs. Jergensen finally realized that forcing teenagers to wake up ridiculously early accomplishes nothing but making them hate you with every fiber of their being?

Had everyone just forgotten he existed?

Had they decided that he wasn't worth the trouble so they'd just decided to ignore him until he turned eighteen and could leave the orphanage?

Then his eyes adjusted and he could make out the details of the room he was in.

Then it all came rushing back.

Mrs. Jergensen. The airplane. The Washingtons.

He wasn't in Nevis anymore. He was in America with the Washingtons.

Alex pulled the covers up over his head and rolled over. This bed was infinitely more comfortable than the beds they were given at the orphanage. Then again, a rectangular swarm of hornets would have been more comfortable than the lumpy moth-eaten things the orphanage gave them.

Alex wondered how long it would be until the Washingtons took this bed away from him. 

That was how it always went with Alex and adults. 

They would be nice at first to make him trust them, and then they would take everything away and treat him like absolute garbage. 

One foster family had let him share a room with their children for the first week of staying there. Then they had called him a filthy pig and forced him to sleep in the spider-infested cellar. 

Another foster family had sent him out one night to get something from a nearby store. They'd ended up locking him outside for days in a terrible storm and refused to let him inside even when he stood by their window soaking wet and covered in mud and screaming for help. 

In a way, his own parents had done it to him too. They'd treated him wonderfully when he was a young child, then they'd both left him. His father had packed up and left when he was ten, and two years later his mother had died. Alex had gone to sleep one night when a family who loved him, and woken up the next morning alone and afraid. 

He wondered what the Washingtons would do to him. 

Would they beat him? Starve him? Send him back to Nevis? 

Only time would tell.

Alex sighed in frusteration, realizing that he wouldn't be able to fall back asleep. 

"Good morning, Alex." He whispered to himself. He gently patted his own shoulder, pretending that someone else was waking him up gently. It was a nice contrast from the way he was usually woken up, which involved screaming and cursing and aggressively pounding on the door. 

"Alexander, you're awake." A voice said, pulling Alex out of his thoughts.

Alex looked up to see Mr. Washington standing in the doorway.

"You've been out for two days." He said. "I was going to try to wake you up, but I've heard many stories about the terrible things that happen to people who wake dead men."

Alex couldn't help but laugh.

"I brought you some breakfast." He said, setting a tray of food down on Alex's nightstand. "I have to go make a phone call. Call me if you need anything."

The door closed gently behind Mr. Washington as he walked out of the room.

Alex picked up the tray of breakfast. It had a piece of toast, some scrambled eggs, and orange juice. Alex didn't particularly feel like eating, but he knew that he should probably eat something.

If he'd learned one thing in all of his time in Nevis, it was to eat when you have food, cuz you don't know when you're going to have it again.

Alex took a sip of orange juice and gazed out the window of his bedroom. The yard below was beautiful, a seemingly endless expanse of green grass and daisies and cherry blossom trees. It was the most beautiful yard Alex had ever seen. Nevis was, of course, a Carribean Island, and, of course, had all of the beautiful white sand beaches and crystal clear waters and gorgeous tropical foliage that came with it, but Alex himself had never been able to appreciate any of it. He'd found everything beautiful and lovely when he was a child, but as he'd gotten older and had delt with the loss of both his parents, he'd lost the ability to associate Nevis with anything but pain, loss, and destruction. 

Perhaps that's why he found this yard so beautiful. It wasn't the yard itself, it was the location. America was a land of freedom and opportunity. Here, nobody knew who he was. Nobody knew about his past. America was a fresh start. 

Alex finished his breakfast and set the tray down on the nightstand. He climbed out of bed and walked downstairs. 

When he got downstairs, he found Mrs. Washington standing by the door watering a potted plant. 

"Good morning, Alexander." She said with a smile. "Did you eat your breakfast?" 

"Yes, Mrs. Washington." Alex said, his eyes fixed on the small white flower in the pot. "I'm going for a walk." 

"That sounds lovely, Alex." 

"The yard out there is beautiful. Is it all yours?" 

"Yes, Alexander. It is all ours."

Alex couldn't help but me amazed. Very few people in Nevis owned more than a few acres of land. It was nearly impossible for him to imagine this much land being owned by one family.

"Wow. What did you do to get all of this land?"

Mrs. Washington smiled. "It came with the house. When George and I bought this house, we got the house and all of the property surrounding it."

"Whoa."

Mrs. Washington smiled. "Here. Put on some sunscreen before you go outside."

"I don't need sunscreen." Alex said, holding out his arm to show the brown color of his skin.

"Skin cancer doesn't care what color you are." Mrs. Washington said, spraying some sunscreen into Alex's hands.

Alex sighed and rubbed the sunscreen onto his face. The sickly sweet perfume scent of it burned Alex's nose.

"Enjoy your walk, Alex."

Alex smiled as he stepped outside, enjoying the warm feeling of the sun on his skin.

He'd always loved to take walks. Even back in Nevis he'd snuck out of the orphanage and just walked around town. Eventually he'd had to go back, but he liked the opportunity to just walk around and be normal.

Alex continued walking. He wasn't paying attention to where he was going, he wasn't paying attention to anything at all.

Do I really have to go back to the Washingtons? He wondered. What if I just kept going, what if I just left the Washingtons and went off on my own?

The thought was incredible, intriguing, wonderful in every sense of the word.

Alone in a new country, fending for himself.

Alex was used to fending for himself. He'd been fending for himself his whole life. He was the only one he had, the only person who cared about him.

Alex was the only person he could trust.

He wasn't in Nevis anymore. Mrs. Jergensen couldn't take him back. Nobody knew who he was. Nobody would find him.

Alex started to run.

And run.

And run.