Chapter Text
Fuck the humid continental climate, fuck the utilities, fuck the fucking ChrisTMAS. Hamilton has two jackets on, chin ducked in the collar zipped to top, window shut tight, both hands forced out to type, warming them occasionally on a mug of hot water from the coffee machine. I'm living like a friggin' Chinese right now, Hamilton cusses to himself, and raises the university's souvenir mug up, ducks his head to check the bottom of it. MADE IN CHINA. Oh. He sighs, shuts his laptop, and opens a book. Better to use one hand than both. I'm not drinking coffee 'cause I'd better sleep through Christmas eve. And get my work done when everyone else is hating to get out of bed the next morning.
No “Santa Claus is coming,” '
Cause Santa Claus ain't coming.
Ugh why is this coming up to me? I'm not a theater person. I can never be a theater person! Still don't know why the Jewish school will ask, nay, force the students to see Broadway shows. Especially RENT! And Joanne is the dumbest of all; if I'm a lawyer from Harvard, I am not going to let myself be daunted by some fickle hot dude. That's why she's in rent. ...And I'm paying FUCKING rent too. Hamilton shoots a hatred look to the powered-off heater. C'mon, this is not your first year in New York. Be more chill! He thinks to himself and cusses with a shiver of chill.
The buzzer goes off. Hamilton swears loudly and lazily goes to answer. "Hello. Delivery?" It must be Mulligan sending something. Herc you're so nice. Still thinking of your freezing (future) lawyer friend, —
"Hey, Alexander— Sorry, are you free?"
"Laurens? What are y—"
"And me am here too!"
Hamilton then opens his apartment door, standing on the corridor to see Laurens and Lafayette in, half-annoyed to move from his seat and half-surprised at the two showing up with plastic bags and recycle boxes. "Hi—? Come in, if you don't mind my heater's off and, um, uh-yeah. Come in! Do you need a drink or something..." He kind of fixes his hair with his palm as he is talking and before Laurens turns from the stairs following Lafayette. "Merry Christmas, mon ami!" Before he can react Lafayette is already in his apartment, mysterious cargo — smells good like food, though — laid on the ground, his arms around Hamilton. "Merry Christmas, Alexander." Laurens, carrying boxes too, says with a big smile. "Can we stay here to spend the Christmas eve?"
Hamilton soon dives deep down into takeout Jerk chicken with too much cold ketchup topping, Laurens saying around his food in the mouth something like they say this is Caribbean, we think you'd like it does it taste right, Lafayette asking, as usual, is this something AMERICAN? Before he can notice and, curse that he has got only one chair, he has found the three of them sitting on the floor in a tight circle with the food in plastic plates in the center, and no one has taken off their jackets. Lafayette even keeps his big purple wool scarf on, getting in his way every time he lifts food to his mouth. "Em, sorry I can't turn on the heat, it's kinda expensive, y'know?"
"It's FINE! It's making part of my American experience, a New York apartment experience—"
"Oh by the way," Laurens suddenly adds in, "Is this yours, from someone? We found it on the shelf at the gate, it reads your room number." Laurens hands over a delivery box.
"That's Mulligan — ah thanks! — Mulligan sends me things sometimes."
"Yeah, he gave us your address,"
"Hey what's in there?"
Hamilton opens the box, uncovering a dick ...shaped cake.
"Oh."
"Oh."
"...Is this peanut cream?"
"This is freezing to hell," There is only one fork so they pass it around to take turns to the cake. Hamilton stabs it into one of the sacs and hits something hard. "Is there ice cream in there? Or ice."
"But this is a moist, I mean, yummy cake."
"True." Laurens nods, wiping off the cream sticking around his mouth.
"Herc's got a taste." Hamilton takes a large bite and winces, then hands the fork to Laurens, who shakes his head. "The team is not playing in the holidays, so I'd better..."
"Oh, it's fine! Don't worry—"
"But you are finishing your chicken."
"This is protein, Lafayette. And it goes with the drink."
"You know that me and Alex are both under 21 right."
Hamilton had already dug out cans of rum and opened them.
"You know what, we should get the light." Lafayette is in motion before Hamilton even moves, and in the sudden darkness a small Christmas tree lights up with plastic bag rustling. The tree is small, even shorter than the one-and-only chair, and it's made of plastic with some simple ornaments sticking out from it's branches. A series of small light bulbs runs spiraling, giving off golden hues. Seeing a paralyzed Alexander, the other two laugh; Lafayette slides back and grabs his drink, "Tchin-tchin!"
"Cheers—"
Lafayette tucks at his scarf and finally gives up on eating the saucy chicken, turning to his drink. "Still can't get rid of this. Well never mind, it's like we're celebrating outdoors."
"Then just imagine that we are out there! I can't see my room anyways. If you two ever say something before coming then I'll be able to clean up my place, and put in my contacts." Hamilton takes a long drink of liquor. "It's ice in my stomach!"
"...A campfire." Laurens swallows and mutters, finishing a can.
"Campfire?"
"Eh I'm just thinking about, like war-time camps? Soldiers,..."
"And it was freezing like this in Valley Forge!" Lafayette gains a sudden enthusiasm, "Let's just be revolutionaries, soldiers, heroes!"
"The French revolution?" Hamilton attempts to take a long drink but fails to swallow it in one shot, sounding cracked from the alcohol.
"Non, la Révolution américaine! And I am your dear ally from France. I shall come across the ocean in a boat, and join your continental army."
"Aren't you seasick?" Laurens has three empty cans beside him, sorted and placed orderly (Hamilton, noticing the scene, doesn't know how to comment on this weird care taken) and he opens another one, interjecting without even looking at Lafayette. "Plus, 18 century people usually move from America to Europe, not the other way around."
"You said usually, and you told me 'usually' means 90%, not 100%. —Don't cut me off I'm saying I will buy a fleet to join you, and I will serve at my own expense. I—"
"Are you still being a Marquis?"
"I..." "So that you can buy a fleet." Laurens answers the frenchman who have been thrown out of words, who takes it as a save. "It's not my fault to be a Marquis!"
"Yeah we are not blaming you," Hamilton feels the rum burning and dizzying his brain. It gets warmer now. Laurens glances at him once and resumed drinking. "And you are making a good point. Also, romanticizing dead history is fun. John, what are you going to be?"
"Um? A soldier, that's it. Fight every fight to be fought, be among the first to push forward and fire a gun, that's fantastic,... Should there even be anything else?"
"Non, you s-"
"Well—I would want a rank, obviously. Not for the title; you prove you deserve to exist. I’d take a handful of men, nothing grand, and I’d lead them somewhere dangerous and necessary, but like, in a smart way—raid the British, win messy, come back loud. If a few of us are scarred, so be it; scars are just evidence that you were present when history needed volunteers. And then moving through the army you meet people, don’t you?," A ranting Hamilton, made by liquor, "Someone sharp, young, impossibly well put together, born knowing rules I had to learn by force. Well bred, infuriatingly principled, generous to a fault. The sort of person who looks like he belongs everywhere I’ve had to fight my way into. And you tell yourself it’s practical, that companionship is useful, alliances matter. And your name sticks between honor and ambition and war, which is useful as it is, you can actually DO something." He is cut short by Lafayette literally falling on him, who has just finished his can and being put to sleep. "Seriously? Is this why they restrict underage drinking or is it just he can't drink?" Hamilton carefully sets Lafayette against the cupboard, and Laurens just shrugged, still drinking, one more empty can joining the line.
"...You are convincing me that 21 is some magical barrier."
Hamilton chugalugs his drink on hand. His vision gets darker and his head get heavier, making the scene even more like a camping daydream set. He sees the hard lines and junctions of Laurens's shape, underscored in the half-lit light from the side. "John, what do you think? Say something, I know you are good at elaborating. I heard you at the student council." He leans in, "One like you surely can't stay as a mere soldier for long, y'know? 'Caus..." He trails off with a halt. It's getting too close, jaw-to-jaw, noses staggered, lips hardly half an inch away before he noticed. Laurens jerks off.
"...Well," Laurens takes another long drink, "The revolution did make death way more glorious," Golden light bounces off his eyes.
Reflecting upon this, if by any chance that Alexander will be able to recall the time, he would swear something like fuck me, what a stupid move. He is not going any further to that end, though; Laurens started talking in all of a sudden, "But anyways, the revolution made everyone a common enemy to which we could all fight against, in equal power of a man’s body. I shall be serving serving my country, dying as a martyr and be remembered as such. So easy to have simple devotion..." It trailed off into some intelligible mutter, southern tone coming out heavy in his pronunciation. When did it first slipped out? Hamilton can’t remember.
"John, you are drinking quite a lot." Hamilton finds his head resting against a thick shoulder, smelling fabric softener and alcohol. No one moves, and he stays as such.
The battery is running low of the tree, lights dimming out. "The campfire is going out, John. You are too quiet when drinking."
"Caution you get tracked by your enemy."
"I bet it is not allowed to drink like this in camp. Hey," Hamilton has quitted drinking long ago, holding a bottle loosely in hand, sounding almost asleep, "Tha-t’s the last one? How much have you actually buy? Oh they come in dozens, I should know. The Frenchman passed out." He laughs, or tries to laugh and get muffled in Laurens’s shirt with his chin against the back of Laurens’s neck, arms wrapped around his shoulders. "Wait, how did I get here? J-John, you..."
He trails off. Buzzing of traffic outside remains the only thing to be heard for something like five minutes, and Laurens attempts to lift him somewhere to sleep properly.
"John," Hamilton whispers, "you know what to do when I die on the battlefield."
"Mm?"
"A humid summer, hot and stiff as hell, we lead a battalion out, on horseback; you are there too, I will not die alone."
"Alexander,"
"We shall come back from a pivotal battle, both leading merits in it, confident in our goal safely achieved. We have to see this."
Laurens tries to turn around to look at Hamilton, but Hamilton clings to his back and keeps whispering to his ear.
"We march swiftly, in search of the British whose traces showed up in scout reports — the little that were remaining. Maybe we fight in the south, or in your home state, to drive them out. We fight in the last minute.
"We volunteer to lead our men out. Yes, and we march and march until the men start to get strained. We can’t find the supposed British army around.
"After something feeling like an hour, a gun is fired from the bushes, that the Brits get us. The crossfire commences all of a sudden, and I am among the first to fall.”
"Ale-"
"A bullet catches me between the ribs and I’m thrown to the ground, my horse, startled, runs off and a redcoat catching her reins. I try to shoot the redcoat but I can’t hit him.
"My chest is tight and burning, which hurts even more as I try hard to breathe in need of air, causing more bleeding to flood my airway. I cough, yet without more air to give, twisting and squeezing my body on the ground.
"My breath and heartbeats pull on the hole in my chest with piercing pain but I can’t help it.
"Black specks eat up my vision like falling ash, and light stings. I squeeze my eyes shut, but tears force their way out anyway. My jaws clench together tight, and it feels colder and colder as my body hollows.
"Blood seeps through my uniform, darkening the fabric already dulled with dust, and disappears into the ground beneath me. Swamp, perhaps, or hard-packed mud stripped bare, the air thick with the smell of rot and earth.
"Horses run over me, because no one has time to care anymore. I open my mouth but I can’t make a sound."
"Stop, Alex, w-"
"No I’m not afraid; you are there with me. You can’t save me. You don't get off your horse. That's the habit of the war and you know it well. You have the conscience. You take out your rifle,"
"What are you talking about?" Laurens swings Hamilton off, grabbing him in both arms.
"You take out your rifle, no hesitation."
"—Shut up,"
"You should shoot me right in the center of my brows, and my last look will be beautifu-"
Laurens is biting Hamilton’s lips, forcing back the words, heavy and rough and with a strong scent of rum, knocking Hamilton to the ground, pressing him tight. He then yelps and jumps off, bewildered. Hamilton’s eyes are low, being left lying there dizzy and motionless.
"No, I’m not going to shoot you in the forehead. It will not let you go in a sudden. It should be one bullet aiming at the back of the head, slightly above the foramen magnum... God why am I talking ab—"
Fireworks goes off somewhere in the city, the muffled explosion sounding like a canon.