Chapter Text
It’s fitting, he thinks, that this shitty fuckin’ tragedy tour of his worst memories takes him back to the Beekman of all places. But here he is, trying desperately to not feel sorry for himself, trying to claw at whatever shred of optimism he used to be able to manage about crushing the LSATs, about getting accepted to goddamn NYU on his own fuckin merits and not because of some – whatever.
The point is that he made it pretty damn far, and he should be proud of that. He should be eager and ready to face this new chapter of his life, except…
Well. Never mind that.
“What’ll you be havin’, man?” The bartender is gruff in that trademark northeastern way, attentive, but all business.
“Oban. Double. Neat, please.”
There won’t be anyone sitting next to him. No one to tell him how tragic he looks, drinking alone. The warmth is a ghost.
Has been for the past too fuckin’ long.
So anyway, he should be proud of himself, should be celebrating or whatever. It’s just that somewhere along the way the high of his achievements gave way to the fact that he’s not sharing them with the person who had a big part in inspiring them, because he can’t.
That door was closed in his face pretty literally. So, you know.
Alex half-heartedly raises the tumbler in a vaguely eastward direction before slamming the whole thing back, grimacing at the burn as it goes down. Salud.
One drink turns into two, the burn down his throat accompanies the way his phone burns in his pocket.
He doesn’t use it.
He slows down on the third drink, staring at the amber liquid and the way it reflects against the bar top like it’ll somehow give him some fucking answers. To what? He doesn’t know anymore. Just. Answers.
It doesn’t. But it does give him the motivation to peel his ass off the chair and head out. He wasn’t nearly masochistic enough to book a room here.
Not when his equally sad, empty apartment on Bleecker is just three stops away.
What makes this whole thing exceptionally shitty, when he lets himself think about it, are the fleeting moments where he’s genuinely enjoying himself – among the crowds at NYC Pride, tracking down all the pieces Keith Haring left of himself around the city, in quiet cafes and sprawling bookstores and thriving city parks – and he ends up welcoming those bitter ghosts of possibility. Henry would like this, or Henry would be happy here, or –
He hates that even the places they don’t share are fucking haunted. By the them that existed, by the them that could have existed.
Work isn’t enough to stop the damn things from creeping up to bite him in the ass, either.
No matter how long he works, no matter how exhausted he makes himself, how far he runs, how many coffees he main-lines to get the side-projects done that he really shouldn’t have picked up in the first place…
He dreams.
He dreams of people with broad shoulders and spun-gold hair, echoes of touches and laughter and water and drowning and so much cold –
It’s almost been a fucking year, and he still dreams.
He’s so, so tired of dreaming.
There are two weeks between the end of his ACLU internship and the start of the Fall semester.
The empty boxes in his calendar app make him supremely uncomfortable. Because if there’s nothing there, he’s not doing anything, and if he’s not doing anything that means he’s got time to think.
He’s been doing a great job of not doing that so far, just using his brain for things that matter and not –
Things that he shouldn’t be spending any time on.
His dad offers to fly him out to LA. June sends him pointed summer break suggestions. Even his mom tells him to take advantage of the time and rest, because 1L is brutal no matter where you go, and he just happened to decide that NYU was where he was gonna be but the thing is.
The thing is.
He can’t. Because they know , and they still look at him with those looks that are all sad and knowing and it makes him itch. He just needs something.
Volunteering. Research. Shit, he’ll even take an appearance or whatever. If he doesn’t do a task , he’s going to lose his mind.
His phone doesn’t even start ringing before he’s answering it. “Tell me you’ve got something that I need to be in DC for.”
“Alex,” and there it is, that fucking tone. “If this is about the two weeks you’re supposed to have for vacation, then no . You won’t be getting anything from Zahra, either.” Fuck. There went plan B. Of course she’d block it.
“Ma, come on! I really just –”
“Sugar, you really just need to slow down. You can come back here for the break, but it won’t be to weasel your way into any projects involving my staff.”
Maybe not her staff. But…
He huffs out a frustrated sigh. The one time they’re a united front on something, and it’s to fucking stonewall him. Him! “Fine. I’ll – I guess I can find something up here to do. Maybe some tourist shit.”
Because that’s the other thing. He still – they’re good, maybe, but the one-two kidney punch of Raf shutting him out and then getting the gates slammed in his face at –
It still stings a little. He’s not too proud to admit he needs to nurse that wound. The Raf one.
They haven’t talked much, is the thing. Not since the right before the election, when he dropped that massive fucking bombshell of an “anonymous” investigation into the Richards’ campaign.
So that’s like, the entirety of his “get out of his own head” plan completely shot to shit.
And really, in a city of nine million people that runs practically 24/7, there’s no way he can’t figure out some kind of plan.