A few days after the dance, they had all gathered at a pizza place near Mrs. Ross's house. It was feeling less and less awkward to be with Laurens, although Laurens had been acting strangely since the night of the dance. My fault, Hamilton thought to himself.

Laurens knew that he had no right to mistreating Hamilton just because he was with Eliza. But he couldn't help it. Hadn't it only been minutes before that Hamilton had been asking Laurens to dance? Had Hamilton rebounded that quickly? Or—Laurens hated himself for thinking this—had Hamilton seen how Laurens had been pining after Alex and asked him to dance out of pity?

Laurens couldn't bear the thought. He watched silently as Hamilton joked around with Lafayette and Mulligan. They were probably teasing him about Eliza, and Hamilton seemed fine with it, laughing along with them.

"Seems like Alex finally got himself a girl," Lafayette laughed, "Mon petit lion, all grown up."

"You'll do well with her, Alex. You definitely could have done worse," Mulligan teased, bumping Hamilton's shoulder.

Laurens looked away. Playing in an awful loop in his head—Hamilton and Eliza spinning around, dancing, talking, kissing—he couldn't get it out of his head. A ripple of jealousy passed through him. He saw himself in Eliza's place. Saw he and Alexander spinning around the dance floor to stupidly sweet, nostalgic sixties music, arms wrapped around each other. Whispering to each other as they slow danced, kissing each other as soft, slow music played in the background. Laurens stared at the linoleum floor.

"Hey, Laurens." Mulligan's voice tore him out of his reverie, "What do you think of Hamilton and Eliza?"

Laurens forced a grin, "If the tomcat can get himself a date, there's hope for our asses after all."

Mulligan and Lafayette roared with laughter. Hamilton squinted at Laurens, who had gone back to staring at the floor. Should he tell him?

"Laurens," Hamilton blurted out, "Can I talk to you?"

Laurens looked up from the suspicious stain underneath the table, "Yeah?" He refused to get his hopes up. Probably Hamilton just wanted to talk to him about Eliza. Maybe apologize in some kind of patronizing way for asking him to dance before.

Laurens and Hamilton stood outside the pizza place as the moon shone down on them, bathing them both in a soft, silver light.

"How was the dance for you?" Hamilton ventured to ask him, "Dance with anyone?"

"No." Laurens kicked a small stone. It hit Hamilton's shoe and bounced off.

There was a small silence.

"Have fun with your dear Eliza?" Laurens asked bitterly.

Hamilton rubbed the back of his neck, "Uh, yeah, about that. We're—"

"It's fine, Hamilton. You don't need to spare my feelings. You're happy with her. That's fine. Go date her and have fun." Laurens had a sour taste in his mouth. He turned around to walk back into the pizza parlor.

"John, come on." Hamilton grabbed his hand and yanked him back.

"Stop it, Hamilton. Leave me alone." Laurens spat out, yanking his hand out of Hamilton's grip. A sick feeling wound its way through his stomach. He stepped back, "I don't need your pity."

"John," Hamilton looked desperate. "John." He stepped closer.

"Fuck off, Hamilton." Laurens growled.

Hamilton stopped, a hurt look in his eyes, "So you won't even listen to me? Hear me out, John. That would be enough."

Laurens stopped. There was a beat of silence.

"Eliza and I are just friends, John."

"Yeah, sure. You two looked so chummy-chummy on the dance floor. Obviously all that kissing was completely platonic."

Hamilton stepped closer, "I'm serious. I don't like her like…like that."

John barked a bitter laugh, "Hamilton, you could see the heart eyes from you from across the room."

Hamilton flinched, "Sure, but did you see anything from Eliza?"

"Oh, let me count. Maybe when she held your hands. Or waltzed with you. Or embraced you. Or maybe, just maybe, when she kissed you. Gee, I wonder." He punctuated his sentences with aggressive air-quotes: "Wow, look at all that platonic kissing." He waved his finger quotation marks around.

Hamilton looked like he was building himself up to do something. John didn't notice.

"All that platonic hand-holding. Completely friendly slow-dancing. Those no-hetero-though whispered confessions of love. Get over yourself, Hamilton. I don't need your sympathy."

"John." Hamilton whispered, stepping still closer.

"What, Hamilton, are you still trying to convince of your friendship with Eliza? I—"

"Can I kiss you, John?"

"What?"

Then Alex kissed him and John felt the world explode around him.

Quickly, all too quickly, Alexander pulled back. "Holy shit I'm sorry, I should have waited for you to say yes, I completely violated your consent, I am so sorry, holy shit—"

"Alex."

Hamilton turned bright red at the use of his first name. "Yeah?

"Shut up and kiss me again."

He did.

It's fine, Laurens told himself. It was all good. It was all just fine and dandy—except it wasn't because Alexander Hamilton was kissing him and it was beautiful and amazing and he wanted to stand there forever, kissing Alex under the milky light of the moon.

They walked back into the pizza parlor with their hands awkwardly clasped. Lafayette squinted at them. "Alex, John, how you say … what the fuck." Mulligan looked equally confused.

Alex sighed. "Eliza and I aren't together. John and I are." Alex reached nonchalantly for a slice of pizza as Lafayette and Mulligan stared at them. It sounded simple when he said it, but Alex had a weird feeling in his stomach. He liked John, obviously. But he also liked Eliza, and even though she was aro/ace, it still felt weird to be kissing John when he had also been kissing Eliza. Alex suddenly felt suffocated with John sitting next to him, thoughts twisting nauseatingly fast around in his head.

Laurens leaned on Alex's shoulder, a giddy feeling coursing through him. He wasn't completely sure if the nerves in his stomach were due to the idea of his dad somehow hacking the security camera and watching him cuddle with a guy, or due to the fact that Alexander Hamilton and him were dating and John really, really liked him.

The bell over the door jingled.

"Well, it isn't Aaron Burr," Alex grinned, sweaty hand clutching John's under the table. "Come on over, sit down! We'd love to have your company, or I mean, I would love—never mind." Talk less. Alex gestured to the seat next to him.

Burr took the next table over. "I'll have to decline."

"It's been awhile since I've seen you here," said Lafayette.

"I don't think we come here at the same times."

"Sometimes I think you don't like us, Burr," said Lafayette.

Alex didn't know what was happening, or why Burr and his friends seemed to dislike each other. But—

"I saw you at the dance, for a few minutes," John said. "Were you there with somebody?"

"No."

Mulligan laughed. "I've heard some, um, things…"

"All of which are untrue." Burr let out a sigh as he looked at the pizza spinning in a case, and then left again. He didn't want anything to eat, anyway.

Alex got up and ran after Burr. "Hey! Burr!"

"Hamilton. Do you need to follow me everywhere?"

"I just wanted to say sorry. For how they were acting. I mean, they were kinda being jerks, and you didn't deserve any of that, and—"

"Talk less, Hamilton."

I'm trying. "Are you...are you okay?" Alex could see something in Burr's eyes that he didn't like.

"I'm fine."

"Do you have a girlfriend?"

"I don't see how that's any of your business."

"Okay, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to pry, or anything, and I guess that was a jerk thing of me to do, so, yeah—"

"Hamilton, you're hard to be around."

"So I've been told." Alex went red, grinning.

"She's...she's with someone."

"What?"

"The girl they were talking about. She's not my girlfriend, per se."

"Oh." Alex was surprised that Burr had opened up to him. "Then...why are you...do you like her, Burr?"

"Of course." Burr didn't know why he was opening up to Hamilton.

"Then go get her!"

"Goodbye, Hamilton."

X 

I didn’t post yesterday cuz I had writers block and ended up getting ideas at 2:08 in the morning and wrote the next four chapters of the story so yeah