Chapter Text
It starts with bloodshed, always bloodshed, always the same running from something larger than yourself story, shoving money into the jaws of a suitcase, cutting your hair with a steak knife at a rest stop, and you're off, you're on the run, a fugitive driving away from something shameful and half-remembered.
They're hurling their bodies down the freeway to the smell of gasoline which is the sound of a voice saying I told you so.
Aaron Burr dies at the age of 80 in 1836. He is old and of poor health, a previous stroke robbing mobility and mind from him. He can barely sign his own name. When he finally passes, it is called a mercy.
Then, something strange happens.
He’s dreaming, except he’s not. But he doesn’t know this, so the scene plays out, as usual. He is no stranger to nightmares.
A man stands no more than ten paces from him, and the muscle memory, it’s there, brain yet to follow. Burr can’t see the man’s face, but knows what he must do. It does not occur to him to stop and ask why, he is a soldier first and person second— even after all the years. He had entered the war a child, emerged a man without fear. And he’s thankful for that. But behind the curtain, that fear has remained. Dormant. Asleep. Occasionally raising its head, like a volcano that makes the valley tremble and a vulture tilt its head. Like today, but he represses it the same way a toddler believes no one can see him if his eyes are closed. He may be a man at that first glance, but behind all the bravado is the same child who knew nothing of the world and despite this sought to burn it.
Something is shouted into the dimly lit morning— yes, that’s right, the sun is red and warning, pressing at his back, printing him a chalked outline that’s wrongly fit, more gold than white, obscenely arrogant, something so disfigured for the crime he’s about to commit— and all of a sudden the fear is in him. Time slows down.
The fog over his mind lifts. He sees the man, properly, for the first time.
It’s Alexander Hamilton.
And Alexander Hamilton’s gun is far too wide to be an honest miss. Burr’s however, flies true. This circumstance was intentional, and the realisation hits like a body blow.
Burr yells, but it’s too late.
You want a better story. Who wouldn’t?