Chapter Text
John woke up with a headache, pulse pounding agonizingly like a war drum in his ears.
It was honestly shocking that he'd even heard his alarm going off over the throbbing of his head. He reached over, hitting at his bedside table blindly until he found the source of the noise. The light from his phone only exacerbated the pain, and he groaned, both at the intrusion of the harsh light into his cocoon of warmth and darkness, and at the time. 5:20. It should be noted that while John Laurens certainly could stay up late, even pull all-nighters when absolutely necessary, it was a terrible idea. Hey, he was a growing boy, he needed his sleep. In hindsight, taking all of his classes before 11 AM was also a terrible idea. So was staying at the coffee shop so late that he didn't get to sleep until one in the morning just so that some kid could finish whatever paper he was working on, really.
John had some regrets.
He spent exactly 9 minutes convincing himself to leave bed, reaching for his phone just in time to switch off his 'time to literally get up now' alarm. It was a slow process, poking one limb at a time out of the blanket cave he tended to make in the winter, and muttering "there's a hot shower out there," to himself until he finally forced himself fully out of bed, hissing when his bare feet hit the freezing wood floor.
He shivered all the way from his bed to the attached bathroom, hand on the wall to guide him, since he wasn't quite willing to tackle his 'if you flip it at just the right speed and then jiggle it a bit it'll maybe work' lamp this morning.
He didn't usually take very long showers—six minutes at most on days when he had class—but this morning, the hot water felt like a fucking gift, and he stood, eyes closed, under the spray for longer than was strictly necessary, carefully weighing the pros and cons of skipping his first lecture of the day. It was Thursday, he was pretty sure, so that was his Intro to Anatomy. Assuming his professor followed the syllabus (which he did, almost religiously, and the minute there was a single deviation from his scripted lesson, he let the room descend into chaos,) he would just be reviewing the last assigned chapter, which John had managed to finish last night, thanks to one Alexander Hamilton.
So yeah, he could afford to miss one class of Professor Church reading passages from the textbook he wrote (and boy, did John have a lot to say about that,) in a monotone voice, and then summarizing it so that a dog could've understood it.
By that point, he'd probably been in the shower long enough that he'd have had to speed to make it anyways. Ah, well.
John did manage to convince himself to leave the shower eventually, more for the sake of his water bill than anything. The transition was even more stark and unpleasant than getting out of bed, the sudden cold causing all of the air to leave his lungs in a quiet, drawn out "fuck" from between his teeth.
As much as he'd love to be able to put the heating on, every time he so much as thought about it, he could practically hear his wallet sobbing. So, he settled for dressing in as many layers as he could realistically get away with without looking like a freckled, lumpy marshmallow: long sleeved shirt, t-shirt, thin hoodie, thicker hoodie, and his winter coat for when he had to leave the house. He considered just wearing sweatpants, but he was working today, so eventually he sighed, tugging on leggings borrowed from his sister, before squirming into the first pair of jeans he could find.
The kitchen was colder than the rest of the house, enough that John could see his breath in the dull grey light trying halfheartedly to filter through the clouds. He passed his newfound extra time by half-heartedly chewing on a slightly stale protein bar. It was too early in the morning to be truly hungry, but if he didn't eat before he could get to the campus café, he'd probably be sick before lunch. He let himself zone out on the sofa beside his window, mindlessly doodling on the fogged up glass, a snowman here, a turtle there, until he realized that it was time to actually go.
The rest of the morning passed somewhat uneventfully, enough of a blur that John didn't remember much of it. Although, that may have something to do with the fact that, even despite the sugar-overloaded coffee and pastry he'd picked up, he still drifted off in most of his classes. He outright slept through American Lit, and everywhere else, he found his mind wandering, hands drawing instead of taking notes, entirely of their own accord.
At one point, he looked down and nearly jumped in his seat when he saw a pair of roughly sketched, dark eyes staring back at him. Familiar, but missing something—a certain light behind them. It was odd, mainly because by lunch, John had half convinced himself that Alex Hamilton had been something he'd dreamed up.
He spent longer than he'd care to admit trying to figure out what he'd missed, filling two pages of his notebook with Alex's eyes before snapping himself out of it. He felt off-kilter, still not entirely convinced that the entire encounter with Alex hadn't been some kind of hallucination, maybe something about the coffee beans. If he remembered, they'd just switched to a more expensive brand.
It was a funny idea to entertain; yeah, he'd just been high off of the fucking coffee fumes. Even if he hadn't, it wasn't uncommon for students to duck into the shop for one night, never to appear again. Alex had probably just been looking for some shelter from the rain.
Alex was in the coffee shop when John walked in at 2 PM. Because of course he was. He was sitting at the counter, instead of the armchair, rendering the stools to his immediate left and right unusable, due to the laptop, notebooks, binder, folders, and various loose sheets of paper strewn about in a chaotic, semi-organized pile. He looked somewhat less disheveled than he had last night, although, only somewhat. His dark hair was pulled up into a messy bun, loose strands falling around his ears and eyes, and there was a pair of wire rimmed glasses perched precariously on the end of his nose. He was writing furiously in a notebook, no less than three empty mugs balanced on the papers around him.
As soon as Peggy spotted him, she was gone, out from behind the counter as fast as she was physically able. He got a peck on the cheek, and then she was running out of the door in a blur of neon pink, massive backpack bouncing behind her and almost catching on the handle.
Peggy Schuyler was the sweetest person he'd ever met, but she'd never quite forgiven him for offering to trade shifts without warning her about the chaos that was the lunch rush, students and office workers flooding in and out, a never ending revolving door of utter hell and crying over spilled coffee.
There was a small line of bored-looking students and middle aged guys in cheap suits, obviously irritated at the delay caused by the shift change, so John spent about ten minutes taking their orders and trying to clear away the debris on some tables, making some space as quickly as possible.
Finally, there was a lull in the flow of customers, and John sagged against the counter with a sigh. Alex, to his right, had remained utterly unaffected, and was still writing with inhuman speed. He must've filled up half of that notebook, by this point.
John spent a moment carefully considering his options, then decided fuck it, and as casually has he could manage, said, "Hey, Alex. Need anything?"
Alex jumped, almost falling off of the barstool, and taking a few papers with him. Alex beamed up at him, as he tried to pull himself upright. "John!" And really, that smile should be illegal. "I got here like, an hour ago, but you weren't—oh, but Peggy was! And I love her, and she makes great espressos, but yours were, I never told you, but, like, fucking incredible, and I kinda wanted to see you again, and this place is really nice, so I guess I decided to wait?"
John laughed, caught somewhere between bemused and amazed at the disorganized jumble of an explanation. "An espresso, then?"
"Yes, please, that would be incredible."