Chapter Text
James Madison had never been much of a morning person. He generally preferred being just left alone for the first hour of the day or so. Maybe a cup of coffee or something and then he would be fine, really.
But today he was feeling even more grumpy and exhausted when he woke up. Something was off, but he couldn't quite say what it was. James groaned sleepily and rubbed over his eyes, his vision blurry and his head feeling dizzy. What the hell, he hadn't been drinking last night at all!
Deciding he would go look for some coffee and maybe painkillers for the headache he was beginning to get. It felt disgusting. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, immediately tripping when he shifted his weight on his feet. With a loud thump he planted his face on the floor. A frustrated moan came from his throat as he worked up the energy to list his head and torso up.
This was the exact moment when James noticed that something was off. Way more off than just having a weird hangover without ever been drunk. This wasn't his room. He certainly didn't have weird clothes strewn all over the floor of his apartment. Or all those books in... French? Where the heck was he?
But when he actually managed to take a closer look around the room it dawned to him. Yes, he had only just turned nineteen, but apparently his soulmate was already somewhere around their twenty-first birthday.
Nervousness rose in James's chest as he sat up and took a proper look around. The room was of medium size. A large twin bed was in one corner, a large desk with papers all over it was on the opposite wall. Next to the window were a couch a big TV on a small table. But the thing that was way more interesting than the furniture right now were the books and folders that were on the desk of the person.
James stood up carefully. It turned out that his soulmate was quite tall and he had to get adjusted to the new length of his legs.
But what he discovered on the table made him swallow. All of these papers were, like the books he had seen a moment ago, in French. And so was nearly everything in this room, including the posters on the walls. Oh god, what have they gotten me into? If this really was France there was no way in hell he would be able to survive alone out here. After all the French weren't the best at speaking English he had been told.
James cursed quietly and took some deep breaths to suppress any panic that might come up. When he heard a loud vibrating sound right in front of him he nearly toppled over a second time this morning. Should he pick it up? He thought about it for a second, before he hastily decided that, yes, this was his chance to get himself some help. Maybe the other person knew some English. After all this seemed to be a college, they had to teach some English, right?
So he picked up the call and was already starting to say something, but before he could even get to open his mouth he was interrupted my a rush of rapid French words. He would have to wait. When the person had finally finished after talking non stop for about an entire minute, he had the chance to speak up.
“Uhm, hi... Since you probably know this person, could you help me? I am his soulmate and we seem to have swapped bodies today. Oh, I'm sorry, do you even speak English?” he asked slowly and awkwardly. But what way wasn't awkward to tell a person (who might speak English, or maybe not) that they just wasted their time on telling a stranger a probably really exciting story. For a solid minute.
But what he got from the other line wasn't annoyance. There was some kind of giggle, which turned into a squeal.
“Mon dieu! Of course I do! You are Thomas's soulmate, how exciting!” the voice was heavily accented, but the English was quite decent, James noticed. “My name is Lafayette! I have some first names too, but no one ever bothers with those, so just say Lafayette.”
“I'm James Madison. And I actually really don't want to bother you, but could you help me? Or tell me where I am, or something?” he asked. This was not the moment to talk around the subject.
“Parbleu! I'll be over in a minute!” Lafayette practically shouted into his phone and hung up. James sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. When he moved his hand further upwards on his face to brush through his hair like he used too, he discovered that his hair seemed to be tied back into a low ponytail. Curious about his soulmate's, apparently Thomas's, hairstyle, he took off the tie, just to be surprised by hair basically exploding around his face and falling into his vision.
Now even more interested in the looks of the man in who's body he currently was, James looked around for a mirror. Fortunately there was one on one of the walls and he began to examine his appearance. The first impression he got was hair. There was a mountain of beautiful, thick black curls were piled on his head and around his face. And when James pushed them away to actually get a better look on Thomas's face. When he saw he sucked in a deep breath.
The face that met his eyes was gorgeous! Thick, but neat eyebrows and a trimmed beard decorated the dark skinned face. Deep brown eyes were looking back at him while impossibly plush lips pulled into a fascinated smile. God, his soulmate was hot. All sharp angles, where James himself was soft and round. Long wild hair where James kept his short and orderly. A somewhat devilish look. It was downright stunning.
It would be even more stunning, if his eyes weren't all red, from whatever he had drunk or smoked last night, but whatever.
Knowing it was kind of weird to do something like this, James blushed as he looked down his body. But hey, what else should he do when the only other option he had was sitting and waiting. Thomas sleep wear seemed to consist of a purple (or was it pink?) tank and boxers. From what he could see of his arms and chest they were pretty lean, more on the muscly side. And so long!
James was really tempted to strip his shirt of and look at the rest of this toned body, when he was suddenly pulled out of his thoughts by a knock on his door.
What am I supposed to do, I don't know French!
There was yet another and also longer knock and James hurried to the door. When he opened up he was immediately greeted by and excited grin and this weird dude up his face.
“Oh god, so you're James! This is, uh, kind of weird, but exciting!” a heavy French accent hung over his sentences. “I'm sure you have some questions!”
James couldn't do much but nod at that and followed Lafayette to sit on the unmade bed.
“How did you get over here so fast?” James asks and even if this wasn't the most important answer he needed, he hoped that this Lafayette lived nearby so he could rely on his help more often.
“My room is just down the hallway! We're in college, by the way. But I guess you figured that out. God, you look like you got stoned yesterday!” he giggled the last part. And gave James and sympathetic looked when he rubbed his aching temples. “Does he do that often?” James groaned.
“Only when it's after the finals.” the Frenchman laughed.
“So where do you come from?”
It was James turn to answer questions. “I'm from Virginia. And I don't speak a word of French, so this sucks. We're in France, right? Not Quebec, or something?”
“No, no, it is France! And you're from America, how exciting! I love America, see, I usually live there too! I am only doing one semester here in my beautiful France-” in this moment Lafayette seemed to realize something. He gasped and his smile grew even wider even though James hadn't thought that possible.
“So where did you say you're from? Because I think I got something you'd like to hear, mon ami!”
“Like I said, I'm from Virginia.”
Still laughing Lafayette said something in French, more to himself than anything. “Thomas is too!” he finally burst out, “He is an exchange student here and originally he is from Virginia! Actually he was going to go back in a month, your timing is really bad!”
It took Lafayette a moment to come down from his laughing fit and James wasn't sure if he should laugh to, or rather cry. Sure, it was good if you looked at the bigger picture, but just bitter, if you considered the fact that he was stuck in France and had to buy a plain ticket to Virginia now. When they could have easily just both met up in Virginia by using the train or something!
“You're right. This timing sucks.” James sighed, but a small smile stole on his lips. “But I'm glad we won't have too much trouble with finding each other once he's finished here.”
As an afterthought he added: “So, kin of a weird question, but what is Thomas like? No, actually I've got another question first: Does he wear glasses? Because I cannot see.”
“Oh, of course! Well, he usually wears contacts.”
“There's no way, I'm gonna put those into my eyes. Does he own glasses?” James asked.
“I think so. He hates wearing them, so I'll have to look!” Lafayette smiled and began to rummage through the night stand. “Wouldn't he mind, if you just looked through his stuff like that?” James questioned as Lafayette opened the drawers and picked all kind of stuff out of them.
“Believe me, sweetie, I've seen more private things of Thomas than his, uh,...” he took a random item from the drawer he was currently searching in, “Eww! Okay, maybe not than his raspberry flavored lube, but you get my point. I picked this night stand out for him, I get to sneak around in it.”
Lafayette dropped the pink bottle back with a disgusted, but amused look on his face. “How did I not know he has this? He's never going to live that down!” he snickered. James was blushing at the news of his soulmate owning something like raspberry lube, why do they even flavor lube, but was also holding back a laugh. It was somewhat hilarious.
“So, you wanted to know about Thomas?”
James nodded, curls flopping up and down around his face.
“I met him here when he first came to France one and half years ago. He is a bit hot headed and likes to argue and maybe he says fuck just a little too often, but he is a good person, really. He is here for me when I need to talk, but he is also good to go partying with. From what it looks like, he did so yesterday.” Lafayette chuckled the last part. “Oh, and he's loaded! He could probably buy this school if he wanted to. But I'll just trust you that you won't let yourself get blinded by that.”
Despite saying this Lafayette still shot James a sharp look which promised pain, if James did it.
“Don't worry, my parents own a big company. So I'm not that bad off either. Not that I'd care anyways.” James smiled, because really, he didn't. There were enough of his friends or people he was hanging out with in general, who were not as rich as him. It didn't change who they were.
“So do his. If you're from Virginia you might have heard of them, now that I think about it. His surname is Jefferson!”
The sound of this name immediately lit something in his head. Of course he had heard of the Jeffersons! And of course he had also heard of Thomas Jefferson, pretty everybody had heard of him when they knew Alexander Hamilton. God, if Hamilton would get involved everything would get complicated. That rule applied to everything, ever.
“Oh god..”
It seemed like that wasn't the exact reaction Lafayette had hoped to get out of this.
“Is something wrong? I know a lot of people don't like him in the states or don't agree with his political opinions or something. But you don't have to! You know he can be pretty civilized about all of this if you don't go and jump at his throat!”
“No,no that's not it!” James reassured the other man. Because really, he liked all he had heard from Thomas Jefferson yet. Which might have to do with the fact he pissed off Hamilton on a daily base and he highly enjoyed Alexander Hamilton getting annoyed by someone. “It's just... Do you by any chance know who Alexander Hamilton is?” he asked with an apologetic smile. It was a little much to ask someone in a country on the other side of earth if they knew some asshole from America, but if he knew Thomas Jefferson it was worth a shot.
This time Lafayette turned his full body to James to answer him and stopped his search for the answer.
“How did you know? Alexander is a good friend of mine! Are you friends with him to? What even are the chances of that?”
James raised an eyebrow at that. “So, you're Thomas Jefferson's best friend?” he got a nod from Lafayette. “But you're also a good friend of Alexander Hamilton?” another nod. “How does this work I haven't heard Hamilton not complain about Thom”ass” “Fucker”son one day since, like, a year.”
“Oh yeah. They certainly are something together. But I love them both! And I am friends with everyone, you know! That works out for me.” the Frenchman laughed. So did James.
“You can't possibly be friends with everyone. Things don't work like that.”
“They don't for everyone. They do for me, however!”
“I still don't buy it.”
“Wanna take a walk around campus and see how many people will come up to me and greet me with a smile and know my name? You really wanna see for yourself?” Lafayette gave him a confident smirk.
“Alright, alright. I believe you. But only because you managed to befriend both of those.” James stretched his arms.
“Here, the glasses. I can't wait to see Thomas face with them on, he never wears them!”
He took the glasses and put them on with a grateful hum. They were black framed and sat heavy on his nose. It was a weird feeling, he didn't usually wear glasses.
“Mon dieu! He looks adorable! Let me take a picture, s'il te plaît!” Lafayette pleaded and was already taking out his phone and making puppy eyes at him. Some really good puppy eyes, he had to admit. Should he just let him? On the one hand he didn't want to ruin things with Thomas right from the beginning, but on the other hand the man had to pay for having wake up in France.
“Yeah, sure.” he decided to say and smiled at the camera. Because it would be waste of this gorgeous smile not to show it off on pictures.
“Hey, if Thomas is so rich, he surely has a shower around here right? Cause I feel kinda disgusting.”
“Of course, it's just over there!” Lafayette pointed to a door on the same wall as the desk. “Let's grab something to eat when you're done. And take some clothes with you!”
* * *
A sigh escaped James's lips when he stepped into the shower, warm water engulfing him. Now he was finally able to relax the muscles that were cramping in tension ever since he noticed he wasn't in his body a few hours ago.
The shower was nice and big and a wide collection of hair products were placed on the small shelf inside. James felt a little sorry that he had no idea how to use them and would probably not be able to live up to Thomas Jefferson's usual hairstyle. Which seemed to be fairly impressive.
In the end he just decided on one bottle, which was labeled shampoo, and poured some of it on his hand to rub it in the giant mass of curls on his head. After rinsing the stuff out of his hair he began to wash the rest of his body. Something about it felt wrong. Just touching his soulmate's naked body without any sort of consent, but James had to at least look where he was touching. Turns out that Thomas's body was just as toned as his arms. He had abs! Was that guy even for real? With a chuckle James thought about how he had never imagined to look down his body and be greeted with the sight of nice, tan abs. Okay, technically this wasn't really his body, but his soulmate's but close enough. Closer than he would ever get to it any other way.
When his hands got even further down on his body James blushed and looked up again. He was sure he could figure this out without looking, really. Because touching himself in his soulmate's body wasn't something that was gonna happen. Totally out of question. If everything went right he would get to touch those parts of Thomas when they'd be in a less awkward situation sometime. And after they had found each other in the first place.
Once ready with showering James put the clothes on that Lafayette had given him. He had asked for the least flashy one. And what had this guy given to him with an honest to god serious expression and the words “Pardon, but this really was the most, how you say? Lo-ki? I could find!”
It was a white button-down shirt. So far, so good. Personally, James preferred button-up, but this was okay. Then there was a dove blue velvet suit jacket. It wasn't even the color that was terrible about it; or the fact that it was velvet. James actually liked velvet. No, there were huge golden buttons on it! And James prayed that they weren't real because that would just be the most pretentious thing ever! The pants were fortunately just normal black jeans.
* * *
Just as promised Lafayette took James out as soon as he got out of the bathroom.
The college campus was really nice with trees, hedges, statues and art decorating the huge grounds. The building itself was made of mainly bricks, the walls full of ivy and it looked like straight out of one of these Tumblr aesthetic posts. Not like James liked to look at them.
He was also proven right about what Lafayette had talked about earlier. On their way to the restaurant Lafayette had told him about, they had to stop because someone was approaching Lafayette a few times. Most of them were girls that were giggling and blushing at everything Lafayette said at them in warm French voice. There was so much flirting going on, it almost hurt. And Lafayette flirted back to almost each one of them.
There were also some people who seemed to want to talk to Thomas, but Lafayette always quickly explained the situation to them. Actually there were some people who looked a little disappointed at the thought of Thomas Jefferson being off the market. What did they hope for anyway, it's not like Thomas was planning to stay here anyway. In France. Well, that was unless...
“Hey, this is a kinda personal question, but...” James rubbed at the back of his neck and stepped through the door Lafayette was holding open for him. “Did Thomas have lots of relationships? Or does he have one right now? Because a lot of these people seemed sad that his soulmate is here now.”
“Oh, he isn't dating anyone right now, but I think he has seen a few people since he arrived here. Well, and he has the reputation of being good in bed. From what I heard friends say, he probably is! But he isn't cheap. Dear Thomas doesn't do it more than anyone else around here.”
James nodded. Most people weren't waiting with having sex to find their soulmate. He didn't do that either. Waiting until past twenty wasn't something he was up to.
Though one night stands weren't really his thing.
“Sit down. You like pasta? The pasta here is great!” Lafayette asked and James gave him a nod. “Alright, I'll go and order, you wait here.”
A minute later Lafayette came back at the table and sat down opposite from James. He was just about to say something when his phone made a sound. He fished it out and took a look at the message he just got and burst out in giggles.
James quirked an eyebrow. “What is it?” he asked.
Still laughing, Lafayette shoved his phone up into James's face for him to see. It was Twitter and one message by no other than Alexander Hamilton filled the screen. Unusually short for Hamilton. Followed by another message from a Schuyler, James knew all too well.
A.Ham @HamMan · 5 min
@ItsJMads just punched me in the face???
The fuck, bro???????
#Ithoughtwewerestillfriends
DEVILica @AngeSchuyler · 3 min
@ItsJMads @AlexanderHamilton You up to
pay for that Madison?
#imgonnaripyourballsout
James groaned.
“So, what time is it even in America? Eight in morning? And the first thing Thomas Jefferson decides to do as soon as he notices he is in his soulmate's body is going to Alexander Hamilton and punch him in the face? In my body? And then going without explaining anything?” James didn't even knew how he felt about that. Hamilton had surely deserved it, but not from what he believed to be him! Also, wasn't it kinda unromantic to do that in his soulmate's body? Or was James the only one who thought so?
“To be fair, Thomas has been waiting ages to be able to punch dear Alex in the face.”
“That's not the point of this at all! Can you please clear that up? I don't want to be on the bad side of Angelica Schuyler.”
“Fair point. No one wants trouble with Ange. I'll see what I can do.” Lafayette assured him and started to tip furiously.
It was about ten minutes later, their food had already arrived, when Lafayette looked up from his phone. Before he actually started to inform James about the events he stuffed a spoon full of pasta into his mouth. How did he even still look elegant while doing this? No one could possibly look elegant while eating.
“James Madison,”, Lafayette said and gave him a dramatic look, “I really hope you were bored with your normal and eventless life, because that is going to end. You belong to the club now. And there is no way out.”
“Great.” James deadpanned and Lafayette smiled at him. It wasn't an amused smirk, but a genuine smile. “I like you, James Madison.” and after a second he added: “And Thomas is gonna like you too.”
While saying these words he handed James his phone to look at yet another chat.
Frenchest Fry @LafaYEET · 10 min
@AngeSchuyler @HamMan
Calm down, guys! I've got the real James Madison
over here! But congratulations mon petit lion, u just got
punched by his soulmate!!!
#youregonnalovehim
A.Ham @HamMan · 9 min
@LafaYEET Madison's soulmate is some
random dude from France? Why would some French
dude punch me?
A.Ham @HamMan · 9 min
@LafaYEET oh my god
A.Ham @HamMan · 8 min
@LafaYEET OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
John Laurens @YoImJohnLaurens · 7 min
@LafaYEET @ThomasJefferson
@ItsJMads @ManMan
Please tell me it is who I think it is, Laf!!! Please!
#Tomsbackintown #Jeffermads #ishipit
Frenchest Fry @LafaYEET · 7 min
@HamMan @YoImJohnLaurens I hope
you'll have fun with my dear Thomas until we come
over ;)
#ishipittoo
Eliiiiiiizaa @ElizabethSchuyler · 6 min
I'm so happy for you @ItsJMads !!
A.Ham @HamMan · 5 min
@ItsJMads (or @ThomsassPrettyson I don't even know)
You're gonna pay for your soulmate, James.
AND I'M GONNA KICK YOUR ASS, WHEN I SEE YOU,
JEFFERSON!!! I HAVE WAITED SO LONG FOR YOU TO
BE IN REACHING DISTANCE SO I CAN SHOW YOU
WHERE MY SHOE FITS!
Frenchest Fry @LafaYEET · 4 min
Dear James is informing you, the he would like you to wait
with shoving your foot up Jefferson's ass until he is back
in his own body XD
#alsowaituntilimtheretowatch
Aaron @AaronBurrSir · 2min
@HamMan @LafaYEET @Angeschuy @ThomsassPrettyson
I just found found Thomas Jefferson in James Madison's
body? I'm just gonna keep him until someone comes to
pick him up?
Herc @aspyontheinside · 2 min
@AronBurrSir
Then we hope you like Thomas Jefferson
#yourestuckwithhimnow #havefun #burrson
Aaron @AaronBurrSir · 1min
@aspyontheinside no one asked you, horsefucker
#neverforget
Herc @aspyontheinside · 1 min
@AaronBurrSir one slip of the tongue and
they never let you live it down