Work Text:
Hamilton marches into the breakroom with the same unwarranted confidence he seems to constantly exude, his laptop balanced on one arm while he uses the other to type. Laurens and Lafayette trail after him, nodding enthusiastically at whatever bombastic, pretentious political argument their friend is making today—probably something about freedom of speech again, he’s been on that kick for nearly a month now. Burr does his best to ignore them and turns back to his stir-fry; maybe they’re just grabbing something from the fridge. But no, no such luck. Hamilton sits down at the counter and smiles almost maniacally at Burr.
“Well, if it isn’t everyone’s favorite intern. I didn’t realize you were in today.”
Burr takes another bite of the stir-fry to ensure his mouth is too full to talk, and nods.
Lafayette sits beside Hamilton and gestures to Burr’s food. “Where did you get that?”
“Cafeteria,” Burr mumbles, silently wishing he’d brought a magazine, or a book, or anything he could pretend to look at so these guys would let him eat in peace.
“We don’t have a cafeteria.” Hamilton’s brow is knit in confusion, like it genuinely bothers him that he might not know something.
“You don’t have a cafeteria, he’s talking about ours.” Angelica Schuyler sweeps into the break room with her own styrofoam box of stir-fry, looking as ridiculously put together as she always does in a leather-accented blazer and glossy red pumps.
“Who let you in here? She’s not supposed to be here, who is she?” Hamilton says with mock indignation, but Burr can already see the gleam of predatory interest in his dark eyes.
“Aaron and I have an arrangement: I let him use the magazine cafeteria, he lets me use your breakroom.” Angelica smiles teasingly. “Are you complaining?”
Hamilton practically dives over the counter to shake her hand. “Alexander Hamilton.”
Angelica throws her head back and groans in a playful pantomime of despair. “Oh my Lord, you’re Alex Hamilton?”
“Whatever Burr’s said about me, he’s lying. I’m an excellent conversationalist and I don’t steal pens from his desk.”
“You definitely do,” Burr cuts in.
“I might steal pens from his desk, but you know what, technically they’re company property and he’s just an intern, so—”
Angelica laughs, which catches everyone’s attention because it’s gotta be one of the most charming, beautiful, attractive laughs any of them have ever heard. Even Laurens turns away from the coffee machine for a moment, and Burr is 99% sure the guy’s gay.
“No, no, you know my sister. Peggy. She said you worked in the area, but I didn’t realize we shared a building.”
“Oh my god, you’re Peggy’s sister? Okay, she’s definitely mentioned you. Angelica. Okay. Holy shit!”
“Peggy said you tried to pick her up.”
“I was just being friendly,” Hamilton scoffs, but Burr doesn’t doubt it.
“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Alex.”
He grins. “Stop by my desk next time you’re up here.”
“Hey, Alex,” Laurens interjects hastily. “Can we get back to the case you were talking about?”
Now, that’s interesting. Burr raises his eyebrows but says nothing. Angelica catches his eye and stifles a giggle behind her hand. Hamilton, oblivious as always to social cues, jumps up from the counter and back to Laurens without a hint of self-awareness. Poor, poor Laurens. Even Lafayette seems to have noticed the sudden tension in the room, and that guy is almost as poorly socialized as Hamilton. If that’s possible.
“Sorry, Laurens, what was I saying?”
“You were saying something about Ray Gates.”
“Oh, right!” Hamilton pulls a red dry erase marker from his pocket and taps it against his chin. “Mr. Gates has a very specific opinion on how to prepare the amicus brief for the Alvarado case.”
Oh fuck. They’re going to start gossiping. Ray Gates is out of the office today, but that doesn’t mean Burr wants to stick around for Hamilton’s condemnation of him. He starts to gather his things, but stops at the last second when his curiosity gets the better of him. If he just sits in the corner with his food, no one’s going to hold him accountable for whatever terrible life choices Hamilton makes. Not even Washington, who seems hellbent on finding flaws in Burr’s work.
Lafayette, on the other hand, seems to have a bit more sense than his two friends. “Alex, maybe we should talk about this somewhere else.”
Hamilton uncaps the marker. “I won’t name any more names, let’s just say ‘G’ and ‘A’ and you’ll know who I mean.” He walks over to the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Manhattan and doodles an awkward little stick-figure. “Let’s call this A. You’re not familiar with the case, right, Laurens?”
“Just what I read in the paper.”
“Okay, well, they got it mostly right. So A started in Columbus Circle on August 5th of this year, yeah?” He draws another two stick-figures then hesitates before drawing the worst dog Burr has ever seen. “Um. Okay. So three police officers, two K-9s on duty.”
“Hold up,” Laurens laughs. “What the hell is that?”
“Fuck you, it’s a dog.”
Lafayette shakes his head. “Putain de merde, tu es un artiste épouvantable.”
“Ferme ta gueule, dickbrain.”
“I don’t think anyone has ever called me a ‘dickbrain’ before,” Lafayette says, and puts a hand to his chest. “What an honor.”
“You guys’ve exhausted my swearword reserves. And I can curse in three languages, so that’s saying something,” Hamilton grumbles as he turns back to the window-cum-dry erase board. “Anyway. Alvarado—”
“Mr. A.”
“—Mr. A entered the subway station, saw the K-9s, and bolted. Relatives claim a lifelong fear of large dogs. One officer pursues A out of the station, chases him three blocks north.” He draws an arrow. “Shoots him in the chest and neck four times outside the 63rd street Central Park entrance.”
“He chased him three blocks before pulling his weapon? What the fuck?”
Now Burr is having a little difficult hiding his curiosity, and he glances over to find Angelica Schuyler similarly entranced. There's just something about Hamilton’s body language that draws people in.
“Three blocks, and he claims he wouldn’t have fired, except A turned around and advanced on him. Which, you know, considering the location of the bullet wounds, the cop might be telling the truth. Or A turned around to surrender and end the chase. Either way, he died en route to the hospital.”
Laurens walks over to the window and traces a finger along the arrow. “They didn’t find a weapon? Drugs?”
“No weapon, no drugs. Not even a dime bag.”
Burr can’t help himself: “There must have been witnesses. Central Park West? Someone must’ve seen what happened.”
He tries not to resent the small smile that flashes across Hamilton’s face when he realizes he’s caught Burr’s attention. “There were. Five teenage girls exiting the park, and a middle-aged white man across the street. It was late on a weeknight, or we might’ve expected more.”
“Okay, so what’s going on with G?” Lafayette asks.
“G?”
“Gates,” Laurens reminds him.
“What the hell is the point of assigning codenames if you can’t concentrate long enough to remember them?” Burr asks, exasperated.
Hamilton blushes furiously, but ignores him. “The girls and the man saw things…very differently. G’s preparing the brief, and he’s gone with the man’s testimony. Which favors the cop.”
“Why the fuck would he do that?”
“Keep your voices down,” Burr hisses.
“G’s basically given up,” Hamilton says, and Burr swears he’s raised his voice an octave or two out of spite. “He doesn’t think the girls’ testimony is credible, implied they’re probably lying cause three of them are Latina and two are black, so they’re…I dunno, cop haters. He decided he was going to ‘salvage’ what he could and agree with the prosecution that A advanced on the cop.”
Lafayette and Laurens both throw their hands up in the air and make sounds of outrage, but Burr’s caught on one small detail.
“How did you hear about the plan for the brief?”
Hamilton shrugs. “I get cc’d on a lot of emails.”
“Pretty sure that doesn’t mean you get to recount them for your friends.”
“Oh, Burr, I’m so glad to hear you think of me as a friend,” Hamilton smirks.
“Nope.”
Angelica has barely touched her stir-fry, her eyes locked on Hamilton. “Burr never talks about what he does here, I had no idea it was so interesting. Do you think after work today we could—”
She’s interrupted by the sharp beep of the coffee machine, followed by Laurens’s unnecessary (and unnecessarily loud) exclamation: “Coffee’s ready!”
Hamilton is successfully distracted from Angelica’s overtures and beams at Laurens like he’s just shared some sort of brilliant observation.
“Aaron, Angelica, you guys want coffee?” Laurens asks.
Angelica nods enthusiastically. “Why do you think I come to your breakroom? The Couture office uses those stupid automatic machines, tastes like crap.”
“None for me,” Burr says.
Laurens hands Lafayette and Angelica cups of coffee and sips his own, but Angelica takes hers with some confusion. “You forgot about Alex.”
Hamilton’s already got his back to the four of them, and seems to be tracing the outline of the city onto the glass with his obnoxious red marker. He waves a hand at them dismissively.
“Alex doesn’t drink coffee,” Laurens supplies for him.
Burr snorts involuntarily, which has the unfortunate side effect of drawing everyone’s attention—except for Hamilton, who resolutely continues to scribble on the window.
“What’s so funny?” Lafayette asks.
“Hamilton drinks coffee.”
“What? No, he doesn’t.” Laurens sounds almost indignant.
Burr glances at Hamilton, who remains silent. “Well, normally he does. We spent a summer working as research assistants for Professor Prevost over at Columbia. Hamilton’s, like, a caffeine addict.”
“Yo, Ham, is that true?” Laurens asks.
Hamilton ignores that and beckons Laurens over. “C’mere, I wanna try something.” Laurens, lovestruck fool that he is, obediently walks to the window and lets the question go unanswered.
Hamilton puts him up against the glass and wags the marker mischievously. “I’ll draw your outline, and you can fill in the details.” He shoots a dirty look at Lafayette, who rolls his eyes. “Since apparently I’m a terrible artist.”
Angelica giggles and shares a look with Lafayette. If Burr had any hopes of keeping the beautiful Ms. Schuyler to himself, they’ve been thoroughly dashed by this whole encounter: she seems to have taken quickly to all three of Burr’s co-workers.
“Okay, I have actual things I need to do, I’m gonna go,” Burr sighs as Hamilton gets to work on his ‘project.’ Is he actively trying to torture Laurens?
“Wait!” Laurens holds out a hand and sneaks a look at Hamilton out of the corner of his eye. “Does Alex actually drink coffee? Dude, that is such a weird lie.”
Burr smiles at Hamilton, maybe a little sadistically. “Should I tell him?”
“Go ahead,” Hamilton says mildly.
“Washington doesn’t let Hamilton drink coffee,” Burr says with no small amount of satisfaction. “Which is a blessing to us all.”
“Seriously?”
Hamilton continues tracing Laurens for a few second, then nods, and Lafayette, Laurens, and Angelica burst into laughter.
“Oh my God, what the hell are you like on caffeine?” Laurens asks, shoulders shaking.
Hamilton smiles, albeit reluctantly, and swats Laurens lightly. “Hold still, or I’m gonna get marker on your shirt.”
“So?”
“Apparently I’m…a little unpleasant.”
“He’s a nightmare,” Burr corrects. “Scary efficient, sure, but truly unbearable. Prevost was always terrified his little heart would give out.”
Hamilton’s smile grows wider. “Is it still ‘Prevost,’ Burr? I thought she’d switched back to Bartow. Not that that ever mattered much to you…”
“Okay, shut up now.”
Angelica looks from Burr to Hamilton and back again. “What? What? Oh my God, is this old college drama?”
“We didn’t even go to school together, it was just the one summer—”
“Professor Prevost really took a liking to you, didn’t she?” Hamilton interrupts. “I mean, the two of you would stay late after we’d all gone home, just to make sure every little thing had been taken care of. Every last detail…”
“Hamilton,” Burr warns.
Hamilton grins. “…Attended to.”
Burr whips his pen out of his pocket and hurls it at Hamilton’s head, but the other man ducks—simultaneously leaving a stripe of red marker on Laurens’s button-down—and the pen strikes the window and…
“How the fuck did you crack the glass?!” Hamilton cries out.
Laurens leans in to inspect the crack, eyebrows raised in surprise. “What the hell.”
Angelica is shaking with laughter, and Lafayette looks torn between amusement and fear. “We’re seventy-eight floors up,” he stutters. “Those things aren’t supposed to crack.”
“Okay, bye,” Angelica giggles, and closes her foam take-out box. “I can’t be here for this, y’all fucked up.”
Burr doesn’t say anything, just stares at the window in horror. He only turns around when he hears the heavy, distinctive footsteps of George fucking Washington, who walks in with a smile that makes it three steps through the door.
“Is Gilbert here, I wanted to—”
He stops to take in the tableau in front of him, his expression rapidly cooling. Burr can practically hear the string of violent curse words that Washington, a steadfast professional, wouldn’t dare say aloud. Instead, he takes a deep breath and turns to Angelica Schuyler.
“Who are you?” Washington asks, though it doesn’t sound like a question when he says it.
“Angelica Schuyler,” she answers meekly.
“Do you work here?”
“No.”
“You should go.”
“Yup.”
Angelica shoots them all a nervous grin as she makes her retreat and mouths the words, “oh, fuck!” Burr can’t help but agree with her assessment.
“The rest of you,” Washington growls, “need to get back to work. This is a breakroom, meaning you are to use it for breaks, which should not exceed fifteen minutes.” He turns to Hamilton, who practically flinches. “You’ve been away from your desk for twenty, Hamilton, and as I understand it you’ve already taken your lunch break.”
“Yes, sir.”
Washington sighs and waves at the glass. “Laurens, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to clean this up; I need Hamilton back at his desk.”
Laurens nods nervously, still flat against the window. “Yes, sir.”
Washington looks them all over one more time, sighs once again, and leaves. Hamilton, Laurens, and Lafayette wait until his footsteps have faded, then break out in laughter.
“He didn’t notice!”
“How the hell did he not notice?”
“Are we seriously gonna leave a crack in the window?”
“Fuck yes, we are. I’m not telling him.”
They look at Burr. He tries desperately to maintain his stony silence, but it shatters under their expectant stares, and he finds himself doubled over with laughter.