Chapter Text
ALEX
Chlorine smelled like memories; of early, bleary-eyed mornings and long nights stretching on as the moon soared higher in the Caribbean night sky. Chlorine smelled like his mom’s hair, teaching him to hold his breath in the community pool in the short years between his birth and her sickness. Chlorine smelled like comfort and sweat and healthy competition, chlorine smelled like home.
This didn’t smell like home.
Alex hiked his backpack higher on his shoulders, dragging his wheeled suitcase closer to his feet in the same movement. He’d gotten a full ride to New York City’s King’s College off a few essay writing competitions, not a swimming scholarship, and he doubted if he’d even see the pool. He hadn’t swum in years, anyway, and a college-level team didn’t need an ex-freestyler who hadn’t even stepped a toe in a pool since junior year of high school.
Still… He took a deep breath in. It was either a trick of the changing winds or he could smell the chlorine, the latex, the baby powder girls back home used to ease their caps over their long coils of hair. He took another breath in, and caught a lungful of some guy’s vape smoke.
He coughed. Wonderful..
As he made his way to his dorm assignment, he kept passing signs that pointed to either his swimming radar being off-the-charts, or his new school was more than a little intense about the sport. Photos of past teams lined the backsplash of full to bursting trophy cases; tiny teams of twenty or less people, arms flung around each other and medals glistening on their water-beaded chests. Alex’s own chest ached.
He missed it. Piling into buses to head to meets, falling asleep on a pre-designated teammate’s living room floor, washing off in community showers in their local pool’s bathhouse, throwing soap at each other and being late for practice. His high school team had been his family when he hadn’t had one, and somehow that had been put on the back burner when he started studying law.
Law. That was his new future; that’s what he got scholarships for, that was what brought him to New York City. He buried his nose further into his map, making a turn and climbing two sets of stairs. The men’s east dorms. His new home.
“Franklin Hall,” he muttered, making another turn. The words glistened above his head in gold, along with a taped up, torn piece of notebook paper with the words MICHAEL PHELPS HALL scrawled in Sharpie. He raised his eyebrows and took another deep breath in.
It smelled like a normal college dorm; food cooking, fresh and not-so-fresh laundry, someone’s potent joint, but with a definite, unmistakable undercurrent of chlorine. This was a swimming dorm.
He made his way through the common area and to his door, which already had a plaque with his name on it, along with one other. Hamilton, Laurens.
“Laurens,” he said before inserting his key, testing out the name, rolling it along his tongue. He was going to spend the rest of the year in really close proximity to this guy, might as well get used to saying his name.
He pushed open the door, suitcase first. Laurens wasn’t home, no one was, and Alex let out a tiny sigh of relief before throwing his backpack onto the bottom bunk. Laurens had already claimed the top, and his stuff was in a pile on the other side of the room. Alex noticed that he’d brought a mini fridge and a TV, and a cardboard cutout of Darth Vader. He raised both eyebrows.
I mean, it could be worse. It could be a cardboard Jabba.
He stepped further into the room, stopping in his tracks when a piece of paper crinkled under his shoe. It was thumb-worn and old, and Alex smoothed the creases on his pants before looking at it.
The aqua blue flyer was bordered by MS Paint waves and really awful font choices, advertising the King’s College Rebels, the college’s nationally acclaimed swim team, and their new season tryouts, the last day of check-in, at four in the afternoon.
Alex checked his watch. It was three forty-two.
His jammers, pair one of two, were in the outside pocket of his suitcase. He didn’t have a cap (since high school he’d let his hair grow out, and at that time he had enough to make a ponytail), but where there was a pool, there was a lost and found. His goggles were in his backpack’s innermost pocket.
Before he had a chance to really think about it, he was changed. He’d thrown a sweatshirt over his bare chest and a pair of basketball shorts over his jammers, slipped his feet into his black wide-strap sandals, slipped his goggles into the sweatshirt’s pouch, and headed to the help center.
“I’m looking for the pool,” he said quickly as soon as he reached the first floor’s main desk. It was bustling; there were a lot of kids that needed help finding their dorms, a lot of parents needing help finding their kids, and a lot of kids just wanting to get rid of their parents. One guy, his brown hair undecidedly rumpled, looked up with wild eyes.
“Listen, you’re going to have to wait a minute, I have Mrs. Adams on line one and a donor on line two--” He gave Alex a once-over. “Did you say the pool?”
“Yeah,” Alex replied. “Aren’t tryouts in like fifteen minutes?”
“But they’re for swimmers.”
Alex gave the guy a deadpan stare. He was more than aware he didn’t look like an athlete; from his less-than-average height to his less-than-godlike body, he’d poked and prodded and stressed his way through high school and beyond. But he’d be damned if anyone kept him from that chlorine and feeling at home, finally, let alone some help-desk guy who didn’t even know his name.
“Just tell me which way to go.”
“Here.” The guy slammed down the phone and beckoned Alex to follow him. “I’ll show you.”
Alex clutched the goggles in his pocket and followed the guy, who turned out to be named Charles Lee. Lee, as it turned out, was quite the team follower, and had been a fan of the Rebels before even coming to King’s College.
“And Arnold, he was the captain a few years ago, he went national before, you know, deflecting,” he commented as they climbed a humid set of stairs to the pool’s bleachers. “He went water polo, can you believe that?”
“What a traitor,” Alex replied, only half listening, as they climbed into the bottom row. The ceiling bleachers had a full view of the entire pool; red and blue lane lines cordoning off eight lanes, starting blocks at the far end, big containers piled high with kickboards and flippers and pull buoys at the other.
“This is the practice pool,” Lee said. “The big one’s across campus. It’s Olympic sized. Pretty intense.”
Alex just nodded, still scanning down below. He liked this pool; the twenty-five yards of bright blue chlorine reminded him of his high school pool back in Nevis. A few people were already pacing the deck; a few guys, a few girls.
“Recognize any of them?” he asked Lee.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “That’s the current team. They keep it small. I think they’re only planning on taking on one or two newbies this year; that is, if there’s anyone good out there.”
The biggest guy on the deck by far started stretching, tugging one arm over his broad chest.
“Who the hell is that?” he asked. “He looks like he should be a wrestler, not a fucking swimmer.”
“That’s Herc Mulligan,” Lee said. “He’s also on the football team and he can move. Not the best form I’ve ever seen, but I heard he literally kicked a guy right out the water.”
“I believe it.”
“That guy next to him?” Lee pointed to a bouncy guy with the most hair Alex had ever seen. “That’s Lafayette. His real name’s Gilbert, but he goes by Lafayette. It’s on his cap and everything. Him and Herc are roommates, best friends, whatever.”
He pointed to a small clump of two beside the clean whiteboard. “The bigger guy is James Madison, the smaller one’s Aaron Burr. Burr is insane with backstroke, you have to come to a meet just to watch the guy. He almost singlehandedly brought us to Leagues last year.”
Burr turned and scanned the bleachers, and for a second Alex almost hid in his sweatshirt. He had the most intense gaze Alex had ever seen, even from a distance it felt like he was looking into his soul and the guy’s eyes had barely even touched him.
“What’s his story?” he asked. Lee shrugged.
“He’s kind of the opposite of an open book. Him, on the other hand--” Lee pointed to someone who’d just walked in from the locker room, one hand pushing back his mane of hair, the other holding a bright purple cap and a pair of goggles. “That’s Thomas Jefferson, team captain.”
Jefferson stopped and posed like he knew people were watching. Alex caught a glimpse of his jammers (purple, because why not) as his shorts slipped down over his hips.
“What’s he like?”
Lee shrugged again. “I’ve never met him.”
“He looks like a dick.” Alex squinted. “No one with abs like that can be a nice person.”
Jefferson’s abs, eight of them, Alex counted, were defined like someone had taken a marker and drawn them on. Lafayette and Mulligan approached him, pushing shoulders and laughing like they were old friends, and they were joined by Burr and Madison.
A girl, long, lithe, and dangerous, came out of the girl’s side of the locker rooms. Her suit was black but she wore a ripped pink drag suit overtop, and her long hair was braided down her back.
“That’s Angelica Schuyler,” Lee said. “She’s the captain for the girls’ team. She’ll fuck you up.”
“I believe it,” Alex said. Three other girls joined her; an Asian girl with two blue suits layered over each other, a tall girl with dreadlocks and a bright orange neck-to-knee suit, and another girl with waterproof winged eyeliner that Alex could see all the way up in the bleachers. “That’s the whole team?”
“They lost three girls last year,” Lee said. “Graduation. Blue suit is Eliza Schuyler, they’re adopted, sisters. They have another sister who’s trying out this year and she’ll probably get in.”
“Even if she’s not good?”
Lee shrugged. “There’s two ways to get on this team; get grandfathered in, or be good as fuck.”
Alex did another scan of the pool, his palms sweaty.
“Orange suit is Theodosia Bartow, and the other girl is Adrienne de Noailles. Both kickass, both record breakers. This whole team is just…” Lee sighed. “They’re incredible.”
“Why haven’t you tried out if you like the sport so much?”
He laughed at that, and slapped Alex in the chest. “Come on, man. That’s like you trying out. It’s not going to work. Speaking of…” He stood. “The desk calls. Let me know how tryouts go.”
He left, and his laugh trailed after him, lingering far after he’d gone and left Alex alone in the bleachers.
•••
After Lee had said it was impossible for him to make the team, there was no way Alex wasn’t going to try. So he left his sweatshirt and his sandals in the bleachers and joined the group of about twenty people gathered on the damp pool deck, hiding in the back with his hands in the pockets of his basketball shorts. Team Captain Jefferson was pacing on the other side of the pool, talking in a muttered undercurrent to Burr, while Angelica leaned on the wall nearest to the group of trial swimmers, texting.
“What do you swim?” someone asked. He turned and was met with a sudden splash of curls and freckles, quirked eyebrows and white teeth in a wide grin. “Name’s John Laurens, and I don’t fucking want to be here.”
“Alex Hamilton,” he replied. “Are you my roommate?”
Laurens held out his hand and Alex shook it. “The one and only. Hope you don’t mind Darth Vader?”
“Not at all, man. And I like breaststroke the best, but I can freestyle pretty well, I guess.”
“I don’t think pretty well is going to cut it for these guys,” Laurens said, crossing his arms over his, rather scrawny (compared to the competition), freckle-covered chest. “I hate swimming, I really fucking do. But that’s what I did in middle school, that’s what I did in high school, that’s what I did my first two years of college in South Carolina, and my dad’ll be damned if I don’t do it here, too. Fuck swimming, man.”
“Are you any good?”
Laurens shrugged. “Free and back, yeah, I’m decent. We’ll see after today, huh?”
“Why don’t you just blow the tryouts? Tell your dad you couldn’t make the cut?”
“See, that’s a good idea,” he said, grinning, “except for the fact I’m the most competitive motherfucker alive, so, not going to happen.”
Alex laughed as Madison blew a whistle, loud and shrill, making everyone stop in their tracks. Burr stepped forward.
“Good afternoon,” he said slowly, rather formally, in Alex’s opinion. “My name’s Aaron Burr, and I’m team captain for the men under our senior captain--” he threw a salute towards Jefferson “--and if you have any questions during this hour of tryouts please come see me. Ang?”
Angelica Schuyler stepped forward. “And I’m Angelica, senior captain for the women. Please don’t have any questions. Just swim.”
A ripple of laughter, some genuine, some unsure, swept through the assembled swim team hopefuls. A girl on Alex’s other side cackled. She had a butter yellow suit on and her hair was undone, tumbling over her shoulders.
“That’s my sister. She fuckin’ means it.”
Alex grinned over at her. “I’m Alex.”
She returned it. “Peggy.”
Burr clapped his hands as Madison shrilled the whistle again.
“We’re going to do starts and turns first,” he said. “Line up behind the blocks and at the whistle, swim whatever you want down to the other end, do a turn, and get out. Don’t run into other people, be mindful of your lane. Ready?”
Alex got in line behind Laurens after borrowing one of Peggy’s caps, shaking out his nervousness through his hands and feet. He almost didn’t care about tryouts anymore; the pool was there, crisp and cold and blue, and he wanted to get in. When it was his turn, Laurens jumped in the pool to do his start, the first person to swim backstroke, and Alex caught a glimpse of both Jefferson and Madison watching him, the latter’s eyebrow quirked in interest.
Alex climbed up onto the block after the whistle blew and John pushed off the wall; the sandpaper scratchiness working on the bottom of his feet like it had only been yesterday at his home pool in Nevis. He wasn’t even sure what stroke he was going to do when the whistle blew and he was airborne without a care in the world.
His overlapped hands cut the water first, the cold a shock to his system, the change in environment enough to force his mouth open, letting a few bubbles escape. He pulled the water close to his chest and pushed it away, frog-kicking to the surface and making his way down the lane as quick as he could, coming up for air after each stroke, bobbing his head.
He did a breaststroke turn at the end of the lane, doing his best not to splash, and got out. He met Laurens at the other end of the pool and they both watched as Peggy, a supreme scowl cut across her face, swam backstroke, her powerful arms propelling her across the pool quicker than anyone else they’d seen so far.
“Looks like she got the Schuyler gene,” Alex commented. Laurens laughed.
“Bro, they’re all adopted.”
“Still.”
After a few more rounds of starts and turns, a few people had already been asked to leave the pool. Alex and Laurens were still both there, along with Peggy Schuyler and another girl who’d introduced herself as Maria Lewis. Jefferson and Angelica were now sitting side-by-side on the pool’s farthest benches; Jefferson chewing on the end strap of his goggles and Angelica watching the tryouts with narrowed eyes.
Burr put them through their paces; a one hundred I.M., a fifty free, a mock relay. Alex could barely catch his breath, but he did his best to try and hide it. He couldn’t help that he wasn’t in the best shape of his life. Long hours at the law library instead of the pool tended to do that to a person.
They were dismissed to the showers after an ending pep talk (more like series of threats) from Angelica, and a lot more scrutiny from both of the senior captains. Before the door swung shut behind him, Alex caught a glimpse of the real practice starting; Both of Jefferson’s arms slicing through the water like a knife through butter as he swam butterfly, Mulligan picking up Eliza and throwing her into the deep end, Lafayette dumping a capful of water over his own head before he tried to fit his hair into it.
That same heartache that had started as soon as he smelled chlorine revved back up again.
This was his sport, this was a team, this was family, and he only hoped he made the cut.
•••
He hadn’t talked to Laurens since the previous day’s tryouts; he’d showered and found some dinner in the cafeteria across campus and immediately fallen asleep, head pillowed in his arms and dreams of blue waves and strong arms and purple jammers running through his head. That morning he’d found a note on his suitcase along with his damp suit--
Roomie, tryouts are posted today at eleven! See u there, J.
It was ten fifty-eight, and Alex threw on a pair of sweatpants and a tank top and ran to the campus center. Lee was nowhere to be found behind his help desk, and a clump of people were crowded around a bulletin board.
“Yo, roomie, they’re posted!” Alex could see Laurens’ freckled hand waving to him from the center of the crowd. He started to push his way through. “I made it on, it fucking sucks!”
“Am I there?” Alex asked, ashamed that his voice almost cracked with the question. He couldn’t be disappointed if he wasn’t, he couldn’t be disappointed…
“I don’t know,” Laurens replied as Alex finally made his way through the crowd. “What’s your name, man?”
Alex looked at the fluttering piece of paper, his huge, expectant eyes scanning down the list of names until he saw two familiar words, printed in bold Arial, right under Laurens’s.
Alexander Hamilton.