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“Alexander this is not a good idea.” Eliza’s voice can be heard through the speakers of his phone while he’s making his way through the busy New York streets.
“I agree, this is a very good idea.” He bumps into someone and hastily shouts out an excuse while continuing his journey, he has places to be.
“You can’t hold this guy responsible for his father’s actions, you, out of all people should know that.” That’s a low blow, and it kind of stings, but he shrugs it off for now. Time for wallowing in self-pity is later. Eliza seems to have realised her mistake though. “Sorry, that was mean.”
“Yes. Now. Henry Laurens has always said how much of a family man he is so it’s only fair I ask his family about his views.”
He can hear Eliza sigh over the other end of the phone. “Just promise you’ll be nice?”
“I would, but I’d rather not lie to you, so I won’t.” Queue sigh number two.
“I should go now, call me when you’re done.”
“I will, love you, bye.” He hangs up before she can say anything else or further try and convince him to turn back. He’d worked so hard on finding out where this guy lived, the whereabouts of Henry Laurens’ children was common knowledge, they were all under eighteen and they all lived with their father in Charleston. All of them off limits. At least, that’s what he’d thought until he found out there was another, older, Laurens child in New York.
Apart from his name and age there wasn’t much known about the guy, the late Eleanor Laurens had kept her children pretty much out of the media, and when she passed away this older Laurens had already been sixteen. Apparently, you don’t want to introduce your son to the world when he’s in the middle of puberty. Alexander understands that. Still, he really wants to know who the 21-year-old John Laurens is and why in god’s glory Henry Laurens was such a homophobic piece of shit.
Alexander Hamilton is on a mission.
Alexander Hamilton is also hopelessly lost.
In his defence, he hasn’t been in this part of town before, his action radius mostly being confined to the route between his dorm, the nearest Starbucks, the library and his lecture halls. Some would say he’s a hermit, Alexander likes to call it focused on the job. And currently that job is tracking down Henry Laurens’ son in Washington Heights. Luckily for him, Google Maps, god’s greatest gift to humanity, is still a thing and in a few seconds he knows exactly where he went wrong. He should’ve taken a left. What a life. He’s close though, it’s only a two-minute walk to the address he thinks belongs to John Laurens. He’s pretty sure of it. He’s also just now realising that he doesn’t have a back-up plan for if it isn’t. Nor does he have any idea what to do if John Laurens turns out to not be home. He’ll probably just camp out at the front door.
He turns a corner, and, wow, that is not what he expected. He’d expected some fancy ass apartment building, where else would a wealthy senator’s son live? It’s not though, it’s not horrible, it’s just, average. Just your average six story New York apartment building. It’s slightly disappointing, but the lack of expensive doorman does make it easier to get in. The elevator’s broken, so he takes the stairs up to the fifth floor, his lack of stamina is honestly shameful and when he’s finally there in front of apartment 5F he has to take a second to catch his breath.
He knocks and in just a few seconds the door is opened by a short latino guy, he’s only a few inches taller than Alexander with an abundance of freckles scattered across his face and arms. His long curly hair is fastened in a ponytail behind his head and he’s wearing a shirt that says: always be yourself unless you can be a turtle then always be a turtle. Alexander can see a pride flag hanging on the wall behind the guy and he’s also wearing a rainbow wristband. He looks breath-taking.
“I’m looking for John Laurens?” There is absolutely no way this guy, with his pride flag and his coloured skin is John Laurens, son of racist homophobe Henry Laurens.
The guy smiles, Alexander feels the butterflies in his chest organise a rally. “That’s me.” There is no way this beautiful, adorable man is the son of Henry Laurens. For the first time in his life Alexander hopes he’s wrong and this is not, in fact, John Laurens son of Henry Laurens but another, completely different and very available John Laurens.
“John Laurens? Son of Henry Laurens?” The guy, John, stops smiling at that and Alexander immediately feels guilty for being the reason that smile disappeared.
“Yes. Who are you?” He sounds pissed off and Alexander is torn, on one hand he’s managed to piss off Henry Laurens’ son which is a reason for celebration, on the other hand he’s managed to piss off a very handsome and probably very gay guy which is not a good thing.
“I’m Alexander Hamilton, I kind of wanted to ask you to explain your father’s,” At that word John flinches and Alexander really wants to hug him. “Ridiculously racist and homophobic views but you’re…” He trails off and gestures towards the man in front of him.
“Gay? Black? Liberal pre-med student and massive disappointment to the Laurens family?” Alexander’s inner monologue is screaming, because this beautiful person is actually truly gay.
Alexander shrugs. “All of the above, I guess.”
“And I take it you don’t agree with his opinions?”
Alexander makes an affronted noise. “Of course not! They’re inhuman! What kind of asshole do you take me for?”
“Well in that case, come on in, any enemy of Henry Laurens is welcome in my home. You want some hot chocolate?”
And even though Alexander might not be the expert on healthy father-son relationships, he’s quite certain that that is not good. Also, hot chocolate? It’s 71 degrees out. He voices his confusion and John grins and shrugs.
“It’s never not a good time for hot chocolate.”
“Well in that case, hit me up.” John moves towards the tiny kitchen and Alexander’s left looking a little lost in the living room. It’s a nice room though, and aside from the pride flag he’d earlier noticed the walls are filled with posters from other causes. There’s black lives matter posters, posters supporting feminism, several march for science posters and a smaller poster with #metoo on it. Alexander decides not to ask.
John shouts from the kitchen. “On a scale of 1 to where’s the drink, how much whipped cream do you want?”
“I’d say give me a solid titanic iceberg amount.” Alexander’s response makes John laugh and the butterflies in his chest are working overtime. John enters the living room again and gestures towards the couch.
“You can sit down you know.” Alexander does as he’s told and sits down on the brown couch next to John, when John hands him a mug, it’s an I love NY mug, he’s pleasantly surprised to find that it’s about fifty percent whipped cream. “So,” John crosses his legs and turns towards Alexander with a smile. “What inside scoops did you want on asshole politician Henry Laurens?”
“I just… How is he? And you’re so…?”
John finishes his sentence for him. “How is he a racist homophobe while his son is a gay latino kid?”
“That too, but I was actually wondering how he’s such an asshole while you’re so nice.”
“It’s the gay agenda.” Alexander snorts and manages to get whipped cream all over his nose, John can’t help but laugh too. He gestures towards Alexander’s face. “You’ve got some cream… everywhere.” He starts laughing again and Alexander tries to wipe it off his face, but he only further manages to spread it further. “You made it even worse, but don’t worry, you look adorable.” Alexander blushes at that and he’s left silently cursing his body for its betrayal while John laughs some more, he starts giggling at some point too and if that sound isn’t worth all of Alexander’s embarrassment than nothing is.
Luckily Alexander manages to get the whipped cream off his face and John quiets down again. “Let’s just forget that ever happened and live happily ever after.” He takes another sip of his drink and when he looks up again John snorts.
“There’s whipped cream,” He moves forwards and flicks Alexander’s nose. “Right there.” They’re in really close proximity now and Alexander suppresses the urge to scratch his nose. Now’s not the time for bodily functions like itches. However, now he’s shifted his focus from his itchy nose to the fact that John is still really close. He could count his freckles now. There’s a lot of them.
In the end, neither one is quite sure who closes the gap first, but the result’s good so who are they to complain? It’s just a small peck, they don’t even have time to taste the hot chocolate that’s still left on both of their lips. After, the distance between them stays minimal, their legs tingling where they’re just so slightly resting against each other. They both grin.
Two hours later Alexander Hamilton exits the apartment building, it only takes a few seconds for him to call the phone-number at the top of his favourite contacts. He’s got a massive grin splitting his face and a spring in his step. When the person at the other end of the line answers he can barely contain his excitement.
“Eliza!” He makes a small twirl, ignoring the stares from the other people on the sidewalk. “I’ve got a date!”