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Your name is James Madison and you have multiple times regretted introducing Thomas Jefferson to Alexander Hamilton.
Sure, you hated the second guy, the first one was your friend, and sure, you had all the rights to want some backup against Hamilton, whose ability to come up with counterarguments and, worse, insults on the spot was well known amongst your co-workers. Thomas, fortunately as you thought, had a similar talent, and you decided that letting them meet could result in you finally being left alone.
Probably the worst decision of your life, come to think about it.
Because you, of course, strongly dislike Hamilton. He is arrogant, hypocritical, even rude, abrasive and just continues talking far beyond the point at which it stopped being polite. He is a mess, barely gets enough sleep and has fainted multiple times during meetings. Somehow he is Washington’s favourite worker, which means he gets a lot of privileges that he, and you can argue this point almost infinitely, does not deserve. Yes, you dislike Alexander Hamilton.
Thomas though, he doesn’t just dislike him. He hates him, to the point where you are almost certain that if Washington wasn’t around to stop their disputes, Jefferson would’ve already gouged his eyes out. Instead they fight verbally, throw insults back and forth and dismantle each other’s arguments brick by brick, finding an imperfection in every single one, be that imperfection something global or barely noticeable to anyone else. They stare each other down and everyone can almost physically feel the sparks of sheer hatred heating the air around them.
In short, you regret the day when you first mentioned Hamilton’s name to Thomas.
Of course, it wasn’t your fault entirely, it was only a matter of time before they would’ve met after Jefferson has returned from a business trip to France even without your intervention. And yet you can’t help but feel that if it wasn’t for you talking, honestly, shit about Alexander before they even had a chance to be introduced to each other, Tom would not be as prejudiced against him from the beginning.
But what is done is done, you guess, time to see what comes around.
What does come around are, in its simplest, hundreds of arguments. Every time they are in one room, chances are, one of them will throw a provocative comment at another, and then… well, you always try to leave the place as fast as possible when that happens. Because you are just really tired of them by now. It was amusing at first, but two damn years? Now that’s just going overboard.
They hate each other, that’s not a question nor is it a topic for debate. “I fucking hate Hamilton,” Thomas tells you almost every time you have a conversation. “Alexander hates Jefferson so much,” John Laurens sighs whenever you two go out for a drink. (You weren’t exactly well acquainted for all the years you have worked together, but then two of your own best friends started acting like angry kindergarteners towards each other, and of course Laurens needed someone to complain to about it. And, in short, so did you.)
Thomas and Alexander hate each other. They really do.
And yet.
Hamilton shows up to work without having breakfast almost every day. Even Washington has given up on him by now — Alexander just believes that eating is a waste of time, albeit this waste of time being necessary for survival But then he often doesn’t have lunch too, because he is too busy working, and of course who would even bother about dinner, not him definitely — so sometimes he doesn’t eat for days in a row. Laurens tries to reason with him, but reasoning with Hamilton is at the top of the list of impossible-to-do things, so it doesn’t work too well. Washington threatens suspending him from work for a while — and Hamilton is probably the only person this threat could work on, honestly — but even then it helps maximum for a few weeks. You can literally shove the food at his face and he will turn away and continue writing. You know that perfectly well.
Until one day he sits behind one of the tables in the lounge, typing something without looking at the keyboard, entirely concentrated on his work. You are quite sure that if he wanted to, Alexander could beat the world record in speed typing, if such thing exists, because he can type in a whole page in just under five minutes without even having a plan of what to write beforehand. But while you are looking absently at his fingers flying millimetres above the black keys, John sighs.
“I’m gonna pay five dollars to anyone who makes him go and have lunch,” he murmurs. You snort:
“Your five dollars are safe.”
“Unfortunately,” he agrees, and next moment Jefferson, who just so happens to pass by, grins mischievously.
“Hey Hamilton!” he yells across the room. Alexander flips him off without even stopping to type with his left hand. “Hamilton, I’m talking to you!”
Tom walks over to his desk and rests his arms on its surface.
“The fuck do you want, Jefferson?” Alex mutters not much louder than the clatter of keys which he hits furiously.
“You to go and eat some food,” Thomas smirks. Laurens gives you a quizzical gaze, you shrug. Realistically, Tom has just decided to prove to you two that the task is not beyond impossible, but he definitely would be the last person who could, you think, and that is why it comes as a shock when Hamilton sighs tragically, saves whatever he was working on and shuts his laptop.
“Hope this will make you leave me alone,” he tells Jefferson before walking over to the dining room. Thomas grins in smug satisfaction, salutes to you and Laurens and walks out after him.
“Okay, what the hell?” John raises his eyebrows and the only thing you can do is shrug in confusion once again.
“If you think I understand Thomas, you are thoroughly mistaken.”
You forget about it almost instantly after Hamilton returns from lunch, snorts quietly and looks back at his work. But from then on you notice more and more of these little moments, maybe because you start looking for them. And when you think about it, you realise there were similar situations before, situations, which did not in the slightest fit in the image of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton who hated each other.
Tom spends the whole day complaining about how he wants to read this French book because the original is always better than any translations, and next morning Hamilton passes him a small volume entitled “Notre-Dame de Paris” and sarcastically adds that “Your knowledge of the language is probably nowhere near good enough to understand even half of it though”. Not in a week’s time Alexander, at work long past the working hours, just like you and Jefferson, moans about having to proofread a document which is due to hand in to Washington first thing tomorrow, and Thomas rolls his eyes:
“Just send me the file. I enjoy seeing your mistakes even despite how idiotic they are most of the time.”
“Don’t you dare change a single word because “there is a better way to say it” though,” Hamilton sighs. Jefferson… actually doesn’t. Sarcastically comments on almost every sentence, but finishes checking the work in under an hour and places a printed copy on Alex’ desk.
Thomas complains to Washington about the office building being too grey, Alexander shows up with a bunch of flower pots next day, claiming that “I just want to see how soon will something you care about die.” Next moment he accidentally cuts himself with a paper knife (specifically designed not to have someone cut themselves on it accidentally!), and Thomas goes out of his way to buy him some (bright purple) band aids because “Hey, now everyone will see how much of a dumbass he is! With a paper knife, can you even believe it, James?”.
It’s like they’re having a competition on which one of them can be nicer to the other without admitting that he is being nice. You and John almost bet on the outcome, but of course judging who won would have been rather hard, so instead you just take satisfaction in spectating the two — in all truths, it is hilarious. They still claim they hate each other, barely manage to stop arguing over the smallest of topics and go far and beyond to prove that one is better than another. And yet somehow Alex gets a new laptop as a present for his birthday (“Oh, I specifically looked for the shittiest one I could find, but nothing can be worse that that stone age technology you’re using right now!”) and Thomas goes to the international conference which the whole of your company buzzes about from the moment it has been announced, because Hamilton says he will be busy on the day and suggests Jefferson as a replacement (“I’m just looking forward to hearing about you making a fool out of yourself!”). It gets, honestly, ridiculous.
“Thomas spent almost a week looking for the best laptop he could find, I actually thought he was choosing a new one for himself,” you admit to Laurens. He chuckles:
“Alex was so excited about going to this conference when it was first announced, you won’t even believe it.”
“I don’t know who is more fucked, them or us,” you sigh. John agrees.
This continues for two months or so, although you are not exactly keeping track of every nice thing these two have done for each other. It’s not like nobody notices, on the contrary, even Washington has, you are quite sure of it, ask each of them separately what exactly is going on, but both Jefferson and Hamilton deny that anything is happening. It has developed quite a lot from a simple competition, too — now sometimes after doing something nice they don’t even bother coming up with an insult to cover it. Thomas leaves chocolate bars and sandwiches on Alex’ desk, and it has become a habit for the second man to bring Tom a mug of coffee to his office every morning. They yell at each other, straining their voices, and then clink cups of overly-sweet fruit tea, sitting on tables of the meeting room in silence. (Their tastes are surprisingly similar, too.)
And you can’t help but feel that all of it leads up to — something. Crescendo-ing, like some piece of classical music which Thomas listens to much too often. Because there are only so many peaceful conversations two enemies can have before not being enemies anymore, and Hamilton and Jefferson are a few past the limit.
(And those who wore a proud title of enemies for so long simply cannot settle for being just friends.)
The clock shows ten in the evening and the four of you are still hanging out in the office building despite the darkness seeping through partially-drawn blinds. Tom and Alex talk about something, and of course it is an argument, but not a fight, rather an intellectual debate which both of them visibly enjoy. You watch them from behind your laptop screen, John is making coffee because you are definitely not planning to leave any time soon.
Then, click, and both Jefferson and Hamilton are on their feet, staring each other down, just like all those months ago, but this time it is not at all anger you can see in their gazes. Alexander grabs Jefferson’s collar, Thomas cups Hamilton’s face in his hands.
The office is silent, only the coffee machine exerts low grumbles.
“You do know there is no going back after this, right?” Tom confirms. Alex chuckles.
“Who cares?”
And then, boom, just like that, they are kissing, Jefferson pinning Hamilton to the wall covered in motivational posters and clutching his fingers on his wrists. Neither of them even notice anyone else is around, or if they do they don’t care, and you can’t help but roll your eyes at how not at all surprising it is. John comes up to you, two cups of coffee in his hands.
“On second thought, I think I could probably drive you home,” he whispers, a wide grin on his face. You smirk back and nod, picking up your laptop and following him to the exit from the building.
“I think it is safe to say Tom won that one?” you ask smugly. He giggles.
“Fuck no, it was totally Alex.”
Well, your name is James Maddison and you still absolutely regret introducing Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton to each other. But at least you don’t have to worry about them murdering each other anymore — and for now that would be quite enough.