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God knows he’s just walking. He’s walking, trying to read, ironically enough, Torbern Bergman's De attractionibus electivis. “A Dissertation on Elective Attractions,” written by the Swedish chemist. It was published last year, but it’s taken that long for the book to reach the colonies, where it has taken even longer to arrive safely in Aaron Burr’s hands. He’s waited this many months to read it, and it seems fate is conspiring to force him to remain patient for a while longer, as a sharp, somewhat nasal voice shouts his name.
“Aaron Burr, sir! You are Aaron Burr, are you not?”
He thumbs a bookmark into the pages of his chemistry book, taking his time to arrange it in a manner that underlines the next sentence he has to read. The silky ribbon slides a line lower on one side, so Burr uses a single finger to straighten it. The voice loses patience. Calloused, ink-stained hands press his book away from his face. The scrap of ribbon floats to the dusty ground.
“My name is Alexander Hamilton, sir.”
Burr couldn’t care less who he is or what his name is. This stranger, this Hamilton, begins to recount his misadventures at Princeton, attempting to take the same accelerated study courses that Burr did. He feels a slight sense of accomplishment at having one-up on this annoying man, who stops talking only to take a huge gulp of air before continuing again. Even so, Burr does pride himself on a mellow temperament and an ability to see all sides of a situation. As Hamilton continues his torrential flood of words, Burr looks him up and down, analyzing and forming hypotheses.
He carries a rucksack packed to overflowing. Far too much to carry on a day-to-day basis. More likely it’s everything he owns. His clothes are cheap but in excellent condition, and his shoes, though well worn, are polished and clean. A man whom wishes to give the appearance of more money than he has, Burr surmises. He smells of the salt of the ocean, and a clean sea breeze. Hamilton’s hair is long and unwashed, but the man still has forced it backwards in a well tied queue. Burr’s finger itch to grab the man by his ponytail and force him into a barrel of water. It might not only cleanse it of oil but also remove the ink stains left on the man’s face from fingers that stray and explore while their owner is deep in thought. As an added bonus, the water would have a sporting chance at silencing Hamilton for more than a millisecond at a time.
Silence. Ah yes. Even his style of speaking reveals information about the man. A non-stop flow of verbiage combined with physical attempts to block Burr from leaving. It’s the desperation of someone who is too used to being ignored and swept aside, who feels the clock ticking down on how long he can maintain an audience and won’t waste a second of that time.
In just a few minutes, Burr knows exactly who Alexander Hamilton is. He’s bright and ready for a formal education, yet has come from the bottom, poverty and malnutrition, if the way his clothes cling to thin, bony wrists means anything. He’s a fighter, prepared to clamber his way to the top, to the spotlight, where people will listen to him, and his opinions and ideas will have purpose. Hamilton is dangerous, unstoppable. Burr admires him.
Their one-sided conversation continues, past Burr’s attention span, but he reads body language cues with ease, lost in his head yet able to nod at the appropriate times, feign interest via insertion of an acknowledging hum, or even state a relevant fact if his attention is called into question. By the time he’s checking in, Hamilton is rambling about their mutual lack of parents, and Burr finds he can’t even remember when he revealed his orphan status.
“Let me buy you a drink,” he hears himself saying. Hamilton accepts and the pair head to Fraunces Tavern, ribbon left forgotten in the dirt.
From outside, Fraunces looks quiet and still, another building on a dark, unlit street. Then the door opens, expelling a drunk who can hardly stand but is still attempting to swing fists at the bartender kicking him out.
“Come back when you can hold your drink.”
“Hold my ass!” the drunk slurs, stumbling and ending flat on his back. The bartender gives him a withering glare and wipes his hands on his apron. As he returns inside, two men exit, obviously tipsy.
One, tall and slender with curly hair pulled back in a tight queue, grabs the drunk under the arms. Flexing, he lifts the man with ease, shaking the floppy body.
“Laurens, this is the third time this week. If you insist on drinking yourself into a stupor, at least have the courtesy to do it in a manner that does not reflect poorly upon your friends!”
Laurens flails out of the taller man’s grasp, standing on his own once more. Burr recognizes them now, close enough to see by lamplight.
“Keep your head down. Don’t make eye contact,” he advises, but Hamilton is already staring directly at the trio.
“Princeton Burr! From Aaron College!” Laurens shouts, wobbling over. He doesn’t quite make it and ends up draping an arm over Hamilton’s shoulder for support. “What’s a guy like you doin’ out here?”
“I come here every other night,” Burr says tightly.
The four aren’t strangers to one another. John Laurens is the son of rich and powerful Henry Laurens, but the two are on the worst of terms. A part of Burr likes Laurens, likes his raw, unabashed emotions. He’s brave and unafraid, if you want to be polite; he’s reckless and has no sense of self preservation if not. But Burr can’t deny that Laurens is gutsy, can do what Burr can’t and takes a stand for what he believes is right, so he remains an acquaintance, but nothing more.
There are rumors. Rumors about Laurens’ inclinations. He’s a sloppy drunk, inebriated more often than sober, yet he never seeks out women, has never been spotted sneaking out of a brothel or leaving with a bar waitress on his arm. Burr has no time for mere gossip, but Laurens has yet to provide contradictory evidence against the claims, always shrugging it off as if being accused of sodomy doesn’t mean the looming threat of a death sentence.
Burr wants to be as far from such distasteful topics as possible, but Laurens still has a sick and twisted sort of attraction, like the pull of a gas giant close to implosion. Hamilton most likely has no clue about the rumors. Everything about him screams he’s an immigrant, fresh off the boat. He’s holding Laurens up still, one arm under an armpit, the other around his waist. Their faces are close, and the lantern light reflects off the drunken man’s onto Alexander’s, illuminating his look of awe.
“I’m John Laurens.”
“Alexander Hamilton.”
The two stare at one another. Laurens’ two friends start to look uncomfortable. The one with the ponytail steps forward. Burr is well acquainted with the Marquis de Lafayette. He’s as rich or richer than Laurens, but he has self control, knows when to hold his tongue to get ahead. The other man is Hercules Mulligan, a tailor’s apprentice. He looks more like a dockworker, all hardened muscle on his solid form. He uses his strength now to pull Laurens away from Hamilton.
“We should be leaving. This one needs to get to bed.”
Laurens looks up at Hamilton through drooping lashes, a crooked grin on his face that shows too much canine. “There’s always room for a guest,” he drawls, southern accent heightened with drink. Hamilton’s eyes widen, and his mouth opens to respond. Before he can, a crack rings out into the night; Lafayette’s hand swishes in the follow through of its arc and Laurens gapes at the ground, a red mark already blooming on his face.
“Don’t say stupid shit, mon ami,” the Marquis hisses. No longer frozen with shock, Laurens wrenches himself from Mulligan’s grip, fists raised as he assumes a fighter’s stance. Even this inebriated, he manages to land a single blow to Lafayette’s cheek before the tailor pins him again. “We’ll take our leave. Bonsoir,” Lafayette says, French accent crisp and cold like a knife. He spits blood into the dirt and turns sharply on a heel, followed by Mulligan. Laurens struggles and writhes like a beached fish in his arms, thankfully silenced by a large hand clamping his jaw shut.
By the time the trio has vanished down the dim street, Hamilton has begun to speak again. He’s asking questions. Who are they? Are they Burr’s friends? Why did the Frenchman slap Laurens? Burr grits his teeth and pushes inside the tavern. He doesn’t want to talk. He wants to get a good, strong drink and return home to finish his book. He’ll have no such luck, but he can dream. Burr orders them each a drink and sits down in his usual seat, a booth in the dark back corner. When the two tankards arrive, he drains half of it before leaning on his elbows across the table.
“Let me offer you a word of advice. Keep your head down. Don’t attract so much attention. You start reeling in the like of those three, and pretty soon you’re the talk of the town. Not in a good way. They’ve got enough gossip about their little group to fill a book.” Burr raises and shakes “A Dissertation on Elective Attractions.”
“Gossip,” Hamilton says in what is most likely his form of a whisper. “What kind of gossip?”
“I don’t make it a habit to repeat unsourced information, but if I did, I’d tell you about the sodomy rumors Laurens has yet to dissolve, the talk of Lafayette running away from France against the wishes of his government, and the suspicions that Mulligan is a spy for the Patriot’s resistance.” Burr punctuates his statement with a swig of drink and a pointed raise of an eyebrow. “Hamilton, please don’t make a habit of hanging around men like them.”
“Please, sir, call me Alexander.”
“Alexander, then.” Burr doesn’t request the same informality with his name.
“Are you a Loyalist then?” Hamilton inquires with a tilted brow and his voice echoing into his mug.
Burr sizes him up and decides he trusts him well enough. “Certainly not. I’d just hate for any speculation about Mulligan’s political views losing us a good source of information.”
Hamilton nods agreeably, and Burr knows he’s said the right thing. The pair finish their drinks in relative silence, and at long last say their goodbyes and part ways at Burr’s front door. He enters and climbs into bed. It’s far too late for any reading, but he does take a moment to mark his page with a scrap of paper on his desk. With a puff of air, he extinguishes his candles and lies down to sleep.
Burr is well aware that by walking home with Hamilton, he’s shown his hand, revealed his address. He expects a visit in the near future, but five in the morning the following day would not have been his first guess. Burr himself normally awakens at five-thirty, so to have had time to get dressed and walk over, his visitor would have had to rise at nearly four.
“Alexander,” he grits out, through morning breath and squinting eyes still half-shut with sleep.
“Aaron Burr, sir. I’d like to take you out for a drink this evening, on me.”
Burr rubs his face with the entirety of his right hand and asks, “And for what reason did you feel the need to tell me this early?” without ever separating his grinding molars.
“I’d hate for you to have to cancel any other plans, sir.” And there it is. The unintentional narcissism that assumes Burr would ever deem a drink with one Alexander Hamilton to be of more importance than anything else.
“I try not to make a habit of drinking more than one night in a row, Hamilton,” Burr lies.
“It’s Alexander, and please, just this once.”
Burr didn’t think “please” was a word in the other man’s admittedly impressive vocabulary. Its usage soften his resolve, and he’s agreeing before he knows what he’s saying. The plan is made and Hamilton takes off down the street, bulging bag still swinging at his side. It’s damp, as is the back of his coat, darkened like the stones on the ground in the morning fog. Does Hamilton have a place to live? Where did he spend the night? Burr shakes his head. He only has Aaron to think about right now. Aaron first, anyone else second, and Hamilton third.
He retreats to his desk and finally begins his chemistry text again. It’s all he’s wanted to do for days now, yet his mind can’t focus. Burr’s brain tangles with the words “Elective Attractions” and a mental image of the night before, Laurens’ flushed face leaning in close to Hamilton’s own, equally reddened but no drink to excuse it. With a sigh, Burr admits defeat and slams his book shut, the gust blowing the scrap bookmark from his desk into the wastebasket. He fights the urge to congratulate himself for excellent aim then grabs a pen and begins to outline what he needs to tell Hamilton that evening. He’s not sure where the immigrant is from, but here in the colonies it’s unacceptable to get so close to another man, especially John Laurens. Burr can’t say he is fond of Hamilton, but he recognizes drive and initiative when he sees it. Alexander might be helpful someday, so he won’t take any chances and burn the wrong bridges. He’d hate to see all that potential swallowed up just because the wrong allies were made.
Burr spends his day writing, first for Alexander, then academic papers. He finishes a pot of ink and wipes his hands clean so it won’t stain. The idea of arming Hamilton with a quill keeps coming to mind. Would he write as fluidly and loquaciously as he spoke? Burr is almost frightened by the concept.
The sun sets far too soon, and he’s making his way back to Fraunces Tavern. Upon entering the atmosphere, the cool air of the street is replaced with thick, sweat-scented humidity. The tangy smell of alcoholic brews swirls from mouths, and the voices mingle to drown out even his thoughts. He heads for his table, when he hears Hamilton calling his name, voice high-pitched and raspy in a way that manages to overpower the crowd. Burr fights a flinch when he sees who Alexander is sitting with. The trio from the night before waves him over, grins lazy and languid. Laurens is slouched low in his seat and has an arm flopped around Hamilton’s shoulders. Burr feels a nervous scratching in his stomach. Lafayette embraces him when he reaches the table, and Mulligan manhandles him across powerful thighs to squish between the tailor and Marquis.
“What do you want to drink?” Mulligan shouts, but Burr has no time to answer before Hamilton interjects, unfairly.
“Burr doesn’t have much of an opinion on anything. He’d sooner sit around and wait for the king to let us go!” and the talk turns to politics.
Even so, Alexander purchases his drink, true to his word. Burr almost offers to pay for himself, watching how empty Hamilton’s purse becomes but decides that wounding the man’s pride is not the wisest of choices. His drink tastes heavier, weighed down with its importance and the struggle it had been to afford. Burr nurses his single glass all night, but the others show no such restraint. Lafayette has downed five but seems merely tipsy. Mulligan has had the same amount and still seems completely sober, if a bit red in the face. Laurens is on his third, speech slurred in incoherence and motor control missing in action. Wild gesticulations lead to a facial pummeling for Hamilton, and one flailing arm clears half the table of glasses.
Lafayette is regaling the group with his motivations for leaving France to help the colonies when Alexander’s spine stiffens and his dark eyes widen to show the whites. Laurens is suspiciously missing from view. Hamilton’s knees fly up to hit the underside of the table, and the remaining glasses jump as if on strings. Burr feels something bump his knees.
“Laurens! You incorrigible idiot!” Lafayette shrieks, kicking long, toned legs violently. He spits curses in his native tongue, brow furrowed.
Mulligan has no such qualms about his swearing being overheard.
“John Laurens, get your fucking ass out from under there before I come down and beat it.”
A pissed and scowling face emerges as the man rolls out from beneath the table and into the walkway. Hamilton has yet to relax, sitting as if a rod was jammed down his back.
“You always regret this when you’re sober, man,” Mulligan says into his own hand. “Switch with me, Ham.” The two trade seats, and Laurens is tugged down next to Hercules.
“Maybe,” he growls, struggling in the tailor’s arms once more. “Maybe this time I won’t regret it! Look at ‘em, Herc; he’s the one for sure! He doesn’t pull away in disgust like the others all do.”
“Okay, bed time for naughty children who can’t shut their fucking mouths,” Mulligan says, hoisting Laurens over a shoulder like a particularly bony bolt of cloth. Lafayette plays crowd-control, telling the staring crowd that he’s simply worked up about paying their drink tab. Infuriated by Mulligan lifting him, Laurens sinks his teeth into a meaty place on his shoulder. With a shout of pain, Hercules lives up to his namesake, tossing the smaller man to the floor, face first. John scrambles to his feet, fists raised once more. Blood drips from his nose and new split lip, and he brushes it away, leaving wet tracks across freckled cheeks. Mulligan holds his hands up in defeat.
“Give it a rest, Laurens,” he says tiredly.
“Yeah, get the little rich boy outta here,” laughs a large man seated at the bar. The tension immediately drains from Laurens’ body. He turns, limp and pliable towards the shouter.
“Excuse me? Did you have something to say to me?”
“Yeah. As a matter ‘a fact, I did. I was thinking just how funny it was that a little rich boy is in here thinking he can hold up two puny fists, and no one’ll touch him because daddy’s fucking loaded.”
Laurens starts to laugh. He slings a companionable arm around the man and laughs harder. He laughs until it starts to sound raw and unhinged. He laughs until he stops laughing, because he’s drawn a knife from somewhere, and he is currently plowing it into the man’s upper thigh.
“Laurens, merde--” Lafayette shouts, vaulting the table and wrenching him away. The crowd is on them both now, hands tugging them backward, shouting drowning out all but the man’s cries of pain and Laurens’ wild screeching. Burr catches a glimpse of him, spittle flying from his mouth, mingling with blood from his still dripping nose and lip. His eyes are dark and wild, inhuman, and his fingernails are bloody from where he’s dragging them through the skin of anyone he can reach. Burr has to look away, stomach turning not at the blood, but at the passion. Laurens has more feelings and emotion than he has body to keep them in, and Burr is too frightened to look at it.
He turns instead to Hamilton, seated beside him, and his face is enough to make Burr almost forget the bar fight in the background. He’s seen that look before a hundred times. It’s the face a young man makes when he first enters a brothel. It’s the face drunks make when they see a lady walk down the street. It’s a face of pure, unadulterated lust, and it looks out-of-place on Hamilton. Because Burr knows there’s no scantily-clad lady walking by. Alexander is looking at John Laurens, and his scrappy, below-the-belt fighting and is gone. He sees the untameable instinct and doesn’t recoil like Burr but is drawn in like a moth to the flame. He stands slowly, for once in his life totally silent and wades into what remains of the fight that the bartender is already breaking up.
He takes Laurens by the arm and says matter of factly, “I’ll take him home. Good night and my deepest apologies.” The crowd is instantly stilled. The bartender gives a nod of acknowledgement and retreats behind the bar. The only sounds are heavy breathing, cloth rubbing as the people part, and the whimpers of the man John stuck like a pig. The air is electric, sentences passing between Hamilton and Laurens’ eyes rapidfire, and Burr’s heart is pounding. No one else seems to feel it. Lafayette and Mulligan look uneasy but tired. Only Burr seems to understand what’s in the pair’s eyes.
Hamilton is wrong. Burr has many opinions about everything from politics to what drinks he prefers. He merely doesn’t feel the urge to share his thoughts with everyone he meets. Burr’s opinion of the crime of sodomy is quite firmly aligned with that of the masses. But Burr’s opinion of Hamilton is much higher. Whether he likes him or not, Alexander is obviously bright, and that intelligence shouldn’t be wasted. Not on the likes of John Laurens.
So Burr weighs his options. He calculates impact on his reputation, chance of backfire, and protection of Hamilton. And Burr stands up and steps forward. He can see the gallows Laurens and Hamilton are facing and feels the noose tighten around his own neck. He struggles to speak past the rope at his throat.
“I’ll come with you.”
Hamilton finally drags his focus from John. His eyes say he wants to argue, but the last thing anyone needs is yet another fight. He nods sharply, a quick snap of the neck. They each take one of Laurens’ arms; his eyes are still trained on Alexander’s face. They leave the tavern, stumble as a group to Burr’s house, where he throws open his door and helps drag a now half-conscious, gagging Laurens inside. Hamilton turns him onto his side, knees to his chest, and Burr brings out his chamberpot.
“If he vomits and a single drop gets on my floor, you are going to clean it.”
Hamilton nods, face serious as though he’s been given the ultimate responsibility. When Laurens inevitably does hurl, he dutifully holds his head over the pot, fist clenched in sweaty, brown curls.
“Alexander. You can’t do what you did tonight ever again.”
“Burr--”
“No, Alexander. Need I remind you that sodomy is a crime punishable by death, or is it different wherever you immigrated from?” Burr has that nervous scratchy feeling again. It’s clawing inside him. Hamilton can deny it now, claim he has no interest in John like that. He can recoil in disgust and prove he still has potential. But of course, he doesn’t know how to shut up, and he stands. Burr feels his gut clenching, rising into his throat. Alexander is fuming.
“Shut up, Burr. You’ve never stood up for anything in your life. You don’t-- You don’t understand what it’s like to-- to...” Hamilton’s precious words are failing him. He’s shaking, and Burr sees the parallels instantly. Passion and drive combined, too much for their Alexander Hamilton-sized package.
“I stood up for you,” he says, a near whisper. “I walked you both back, so you wouldn’t do anything stupid. So you wouldn’t ruin the life you’ve obviously worked hard to build.”
Hamilton doesn’t drop his guard; his fists clenching and unclenching.
“You deserve him,” Burr spits. “Get out of my damn house.”
He’s not sure what he’s expecting, but it’s not Hamilton scooping Laurens up under the arms and struggling to the door. Alexander kicks the chamberpot over, spilling its contents. Burr wants to stop him. He wants to reach out and catch his shoulder and apologize. They could blame everything on the stress of the evening. But Burr can’t open his mouth or move his tongue. It’s easier, somehow, to just stand silently and watch Hamilton and Laurens disappear into the fog and darkness. So Burr doesn’t say anything. He waits for the sound of dragging feet to fade away before shutting his door. His coat catches on the wood of the door as he slides down to the floor. Those two are out there, alone except for each other, and Burr is in here, alone except for the smell of the piss and vomit on the floor.
Time flies faster than it has ever seemed to. Redcoats flood the city, clogging it like a clot in an artery. They demand quartering wherever they please, and Burr finds himself with seven roommates against his will. One sleeps in a bag on the entrance room’s floor and almost completely covers the stain from an upturned chamberpot. His wife visits what was once Burr’s house to deliver a warm meal. She sees Burr, standing on the staircase, and he sees her.
Theodosia is her name, and she takes his breath away with her thick, brown curls and round, freckled nose. Her skin is dark like his, and when she meets his eyes and smiles, it squishes her cheeks upward, almost closing her eyes, and shows all her teeth. While the man who sleeps on the stain stays with Burr, she stops by on occasion. At first it’s to bring food to her husband, but soon she’ll come by even when he isn’t there.
“Is my husband home?” she’ll ask, as if he isn’t away doing drills at the same time he always is.
“I’m afraid you just missed him,” Burr returns. “Why don’t you wait for him? Sit down. Make yourself comfortable.”
The man is restationed in Georgia, and Theodosia stops visiting, so Burr calls on her instead.
“Is your husband home?” he’ll ask.
“I’m afraid he’s in another colony at the moment. Why don’t you wait for him? Come in. Make yourself at home,” she teases, face squeezed by her grin.
He hates returning home after his visits. Hates leaving her home where the world narrows to just Aaron and Theodosia, just to come back to one comprised of Burr and seven British roommates.
The redcoats aren’t always the same men, though the number doesn’t change. They swarm in and out as if they own the place, eating his food and using his water. Burr plasters on a fake smile and retires to his room to read earlier with every successive evening. They keep him awake late into the night with deep voices and loud laughter, so each morning he feels no remorse if his steps are a bit too heavy or if his silverware clatters more often than it should.
Burr won’t speak out against his mandatory guests, but he wonders what Hamilton would have to say about the matter. As often happens when his thoughts stray to the loud-mouthed immigrant, he shakes his head hard until there’s a pressure at his temples, and Burr remembers he has much better things to do with his time than muse about a man he hasn’t seen since the Laurens incident.
As much as he hates to admit it, he does keep up with Alexander’s writings, whether published in a paper or printed as a pamphlet. The man is nonstop and writes ceaselessly, having taken on a position at General Washington’s side. Burr is almost reconciled with the fact that their paths may never again cross, when an invitation arrives with the post.
Alexander Hamilton. Elizabeth Schuyler. Alexander Hamilton was marrying Elizabeth Schuyler. He can hardly believe it. Relief mends the dull background scratching that’s rested in his stomach for months. Elizabeth Schuyler is both rich and female, a combo Hamilton was in dire need of. Burr wouldn’t miss their wedding for the world.
He’s walking up the path, heading for the music and chatter, when he hears a shout and his name, punctuated by the signature use of “sir.”
“Alexander!” Burr grasps him by the shoulders, looks him up and down to admire his expensive clothes, and laughs in shock. “I came to offer my congratulations! Aren’t you doing well, all dressed up and a gorgeous wife to boot!”
“Burr, I didn’t think you’d come, to be honest, after you made such an ass out of yourself that night with Laurens. But no worries, I’ve forgiven you and hope to return to our previous friendship.”
Burr isn’t certain he’d call two drinks and an argument the best grounds for friendship, but he’s so glad to see Hamilton doing well that he’s even willing to overlook the backwards apology for their fight.
“Hamilton,” he says seriously. “I have to say, I’m relieved to know you’ve taken my advice and stopped fraternizing with people like Laur--”
He’s cut off by drunken laughter and slurred attempts at speech.
“Speak of the devil,” Burr spits as John Laurens himself drapes an arm around Hamilton’s shoulder and beckons to Mulligan and Lafayette.
“Well! Looks like our boy Hammie here can’t keep em away! He got three Schuylers practically sprawled in his lap, then our gay little trio, and now, who should appear but Aaron Burr, eating outta his hand and looking like he almost missed him!”
Refusing to let the drunkard ruin his good mood, Burr pressed on in the conversation, attempting to piece together how exactly Alexander managed to convince at least one out of three of the brightest and most beautiful ladies in the colonies to fall for his skinny, immigrant ass. But Laurens will not be deterred.
“Yo, Burr, I’ve heard tell that you got a special someone too? You’re awfully closed-lipped about the whole affair people say.”
Affair. He means affair as in an event or occurrence, Aaron. He doesn’t know she’s married. He doesn’t know her husband is an officer in the British army. Burr’s silence is accurately read as guilt, the quartet facing him laughs in unison.
“Burr, you don’t say!” Hamilton is chuckling. He shoos away his three drunk friends with little difficulty and draws Burr in close. “Who is she?” Alexander presses, and he spills. He can’t stop, and he’s rambling about Theodosia and her husband and how he’ll wait for her until the day he dies. When he’s finished, breathless and shaking, Hamilton punches his arm with an authentic smile and goads him to head straight to her home, propose, and ravish her. Burr pushes him away without any malice; he’s grinning too.
When the ceremony and reception are over, Burr is just thinking that he might go home in a good mood for once, when he sees John. He’s on his feet in the corner, staring wistfully at the happy couple. His expression is full of pain and a raw jealousy. Laurens sees Burr staring and teases him loudly about a mystery woman, acting as drunk as ever. But Burr knows the truth. He sees Laurens barely swaying on his feet and knows he’s sobering up. The resentment he feels for the wedding is honest, and Burr of all people understands how hard it is to see someone you love with another. He wishes he could walk over and comfort the man, sodomy be damned, but he can’t talk to Laurens. They communicate on different levels, practically in different languages, so they both pretend John is drunk, and Burr heads home.
The war really truly begins, and men sign up and trade warm homes for rows of frozen tents. Burr is among them, and as it happens, so is Hamilton. They’re together at the same camp, both Lieutenant Colonels, though Alexander is an aide-de-camp for General Washington himself. Laurens and Lafayette are as well, it seems, and Burr cannot believe his horrible luck. He’d hoped to avoid them, but it seemed they are fated to reappear in his life no matter how hard he tries. Why they are Washington’s favorites he has no idea, though Burr is aware that the General holds an unexplained dislike for him. The man in question rubs his face briskly with a gloved hand before passing a folded paper to Burr.
“Take this to Colonel Hamilton. Tell him to draft a reply and have it to me by dusk.”
Burr accepts the note and exits, fuming over his position as a glorified gofer. He tromps through the thick snow coverage until Hamilton’s tent comes into view. It’s a good distance away from any others, almost hidden amongst the trees.
“For solitude,” he’d explained while erecting it. “I need quiet to produce the highest quality and quantity of writing.”
Already grumpy from the lack of feeling in his fingers and the cold dampness on his toes, Burr marches into the tent without the courtesy of an announcement. He regrets it instantly.
Hamilton meets his gaze from his position on the floor. He’s on his back, hair splayed across the canvas, form hidden under both a thick, woolen blanket and the body of one John Laurens. Laurens jolts as if slapped, panic in his eyes and hands curling to fists where they lay on either side of Hamilton’s head. The two men separate, covering their privates with the blanket and clothing that is strewn about.
Burr forces words out of his closed throat. “You are both married. You have wives. How would Eliza feel if she knew you were having an-- an--,” he struggles with the word, “an affair.”
Hamilton snorts, running fingers backwards through his long hair to settle it. “Why Burr, that would imply that she didn’t already know about this.”
Laurens’ expression has morphed from fear to the self-satisfied smirk of a cat who has caught a canary. He stretches, continuing his feline appearance, sprawling into Hamilton’s lap as if this scene wouldn’t be grounds for immediate hanging.
Burr is sputtering. What a ridiculous idea, Eliza Hamilton knowing about this little arrangement, much less the implication that she might be okay with it. And yet here they were, John and Alexander twisted together. Laurens is reaching up to trail a gentle hand along Hamilton’s jawline; Laurens, the man who could never be gentle with anything. Their faces are lax and open, with matching grins as if Burr isn’t still there, frozen in place, watching. Laurens’ hand entangles in hair and pulls downward. Their mouths meet and a flash of pink tongue is visible between their lips. Hamilton groans deep in his chest, and it makes itself visible in the form of a soft cloud in the cold air.
“Stop,” Burr grits out, the paper from Washington crushed and forgotten in his hand.
Alexander does, breaking the kiss to look up. Laurens lacks such restraint, moving to sit behind Hamilton and attaching his mouth to the other’s neck. Burr thrusts the message forward, and his hand is shaking.
“The General… He wants a draft by dusk tonight.” Then Burr turns on his heel and leaves as though the tent is alight. Laurens’ half-lidded, dilated eyes follow him, tongue tracing a dark mark on Hamilton’s neck and hands tracing circular patterns on his chest and abdomen. Alexander reaches for the blanket, shivering, and Burr doesn’t have time to decide if it’s from the cold or John’s nimble fingers, because he’s sprinting away.
Imagine. Eliza Hamilton knowing what her husband was doing, or perhaps who was doing him, and approving. Burr wants to laugh it off, but now he’s remembering. He can see the impish gleam to her eyes and the mischievous tones to her laugh, and suddenly it doesn’t seem so impossible. Burr can almost hear the woman, consenting to the two men’s arrangement so long as Hamilton always comes back to her.
One thing is certain, Hamilton took a gamble back in that tent. He knows Burr’s affinity for staying quiet and protecting him. He bets that Burr will keep their secret, just as Hamilton had kept Theodosia and Burr’s. And he’s right. Burr does what Burr does best and says nothing. Whenever he meets Alexander or Laurens’ eyes, he is careful not to betray any emotion. He goes about his duties as if he has no idea that two of Washington’s favorite aide-de-camps are engaging in illegal behavior with the permission of at least one of their wives.
Of course it doesn’t stop. Burr dreads those fateful words: “Take this to Colonel Hamilton.” It means prim and proper, rich little Daddy’s boy, Laurens will put on a show. He’ll be on the other side of the tent, content to write letters on his small lap desk, as Alexander warms the space singlehandedly via the friction between his quill and paper. He doesn’t look up, merely extends a hand, perhaps even snapping his fingers if Burr lingers too long. Burr takes offense to that, being treated like a trained dog, and he passive-aggressively draws out the simple action of delivering a paper to Hamilton. This petty act of revenge never pays off. The stall gives Laurens enough time to set his ink pot aside and cross to join them.
“Alex. You have a letter,” he whispers into an ear. Laurens’ hand grasp Hamilton’s shoulders, then slide down his clothed chest, lower and lower still. Burr drops the paper on the desk and spins to leave. “Say thank you, Alexander.”
Hamilton’s eyes meet Burr’s own. The pupils are blown wide, but they still manage to focus on the tent flap opening then closing, signalling Burr’s departure. He wishes he had left earlier, before he’d had to see Laurens’ hand slipping into untied breeches or heard the way Alexander’s breath caught in his throat.
Once, Burr fails to deliver Washington’s message at all. He approaches Hamilton’s tent to find an eerie silence. If Hamilton is not in his tent, he’d be at the General’s side, which Burr himself has just vacated moments ago and thus where he would have seen the aide-de-camp had he been there as well. So he must be in the tent. But if Hamilton is awake, Burr would be able to hear, even through a well-tied flap, the scratching of pen on paper. But if Hamilton is asleep, as rare as such an event is, Burr would be greeted by the deep snores that seem too vast for such a small frame. So such silence is suspicious. It doesn’t last long.
A cutoff moan slips through the canvas, and Burr is instantly exhausted. The sound of rustling fabric and disgusting bodily noises grows in volume rapidly. Burr shreds the message, a promise of a group of men for Alexander to lead in the upcoming battle at Yorktown, and shoves it into his lantern, tilting the metal frame to allow the flame to snag every scrap. He’s just so tired.
The war seems it’ll never end, and the losses are heavy and demoralizing. At its conclusion, Burr drops to his knees and cries. It’s over, and they’re free, and all of their suffering was worth it. He returns to his home. His home, once more. Burr has just turned the corner when he sees her skirts, almost hidden behind the vine-encrusted trellis his neighbor owns. She’s there and waiting for him, just as he’s waited for her all this time. Her husband, the man who’d slept on the stain is dead. He died a week prior. Theodosia is single for all of eight days, and then she is married once more. Aaron and Theodosia Burr. He could get used to this. He shoots a prayer to the heavens, thanking them for death and war.
Alexander does not share his sentiments.
Burr goes to call on the Hamiltons, curious to see their new son, Philip. He’s bursting with excitement, his own daughter, Theodosia like her mother, has just been born as well. He’s not sure which he expects more, Laurens having made himself at home with the happy couple or Mrs. Hamilton none the wiser to her husband’s proclivities in wartime.
Whatever he thinks he’ll see, it’s not Alexander’s face suddenly darkening, brow furrowed and a downturn to the lips. It’s certainly not the words he spits from his mouth as if he struggles to speak.
“John is dead.”
Burr doesn’t know what to say. It’s not a shock to imagine, young and reckless Laurens charging into a battle he doesn’t need to enter, taking too many risks and paying the ultimate price. Yet somehow, he’d been so full of life and vitriol it’s hard to imagine him motionless and without it. The Laurens in Burr’s mind is all groping hands, fiery eyes, and a mockingly curled lip. He’s a fist interwoven in Hamilton’s long hair or raised in the air with a cry for independence, whether from Britain or from Henry Laurens.
Burr asks to see Philip, just to ease the tension in the air. Alexander brightens and hurries to find Eliza and his son.
Burr had been planning to trick him into confessing his crimes with Laurens to his wife, so she’d finally know he’d been cheating. One look at Philip stalls the words in Burr’s throat. The baby has curls. Alexander’s hair has been known to gain, at the most, greasy waves in the humidity, but Eliza’s is stick straight and smooth. This baby has tight ringlet curls.
“Isn’t he beautiful,” Mrs. Hamilton murmurs.
Burr swallows thickly. “He’ll look a lot like his father.”
“He really will, won’t he.” She doesn’t look at Hamilton, and he doesn’t seem to think this odd. Burr fights a flashback to the first night at Alexander’s tent. Perhaps Eliza had more than just “known” about Laurens and her husband. Another uncomfortable tension fills the room, and Burr does what he does best: silkily slips his way out of the visit and retreats home.
It’s not like he doesn’t keep tabs on Hamilton. Jefferson and Madison tug him into a plot to expose Hamilton’s embezzlement, but it quickly falls through when he reveals an error of a completely different variety. He’d cheated. Actually cheated. And with a woman no less! Burr supposed Alexander had always been attracted to people regardless of gender. The one thing he knew was, whoever this Maria Reynolds was, Eliza hadn’t known this time. It was ruining the family and their reputation, and Burr was fighting conflicting self-righteous and pitying emotions. He vows not to ever go to see the Hamiltons again.
As it turns out, they come to visit him.
The entire Hamilton family is in attendance at the funeral, though Alexander stands separated from them. Burr knows Theodosia, may she rest in peace, would have wanted him to make small talk, so he taps her coffin with an open palm and walks over to thank Mrs. Hamilton and her children for showing their respects. She locks eyes with him, and for the first time he’s the one getting a complete onceover, being read like a book.
“I’m sorry about your wife,” she says, soft and gentle. He has a hard time connecting this innocent woman with the feisty joker that Alexander always depicted.
“She’s no longer in pain. I cannot begrudge her that. And I still have my daughter of course. She helps me fight past it, the loss. She knows what I’m going through.”
Eliza Hamilton fixes Burr with a steely look. “Yes. It’s truly painful to lose one’s spouse.”
He’s always prided himself for his composure, but it nearly breaks now. She’d spoken with an air of understanding, and now he sees the humor. It’s quite a dig at Alexander, and Burr wishes he’d been near enough to hear it. It was so satisfactory to see his feathers ruffled. Burr is just about to make another snide remark about her estranged husband, when he sees the boy. Philip. He’s older now, and he’s grown into himself. Burr’s heart is racing. Does no one else see what is so plainly displayed before them?
Philip still has curls, though they now approach shoulder length. They look clean and springy with youth. He has his mother’s square jaw and that glimmer of humor and wit in his eyes, but one would be hard pressed to find even a semblance of Alexander in his features. Burr would place a sizable bet that the part of Philip that carries after Hamilton is his brain, overly sharp and quick. Physically, however, not a trace of Alex shows through, and Burr can’t stop looking at them. Philip’s freckles. They cover the bridge of his nose, skirt his chin, and breeze across his forehead. An arm lifts to pull his sister close; a sleeve rides up and reveals a spattering on a wrist. The sister says something that pulls Philip’s face into a toothy grin. The dimples on his cheek teleport Burr back to the war and a brash, impulsive colonel with a soft spot for Hamiltons.
Eliza is studying Burr when he looks back up. “Philip. Tell your father we are heading home. It’s been a pleasure speaking with you, Senator Burr.” Her face is open and calm now; it dares him to speak up, to ask a question.
Instead he smiles gracefully and assures her he can deliver the message of the family’s departure himself. She thanks him, and the family takes their leave. He never gets the chance to tell Alexander. Apparently Burr hasn’t been forgiven for the accusation of misappropriating funds, nor for running against former Senator Philip Schuyler. Hamilton sneers at him as if he hadn’t come to Theodosia’s funeral of his own accord. Perhaps he hadn’t. Eliza may have coerced him.
“How badly does it hurt to lose the only person who could love you?” Hamilton spits. Burr is furious and sorely tempted to ask him the same. Instead, he merely intones stiffly that perhaps Alexander should take his leave. The cruel words fight against his throat, and he can’t hold them in. Hamilton nearly makes it to his carriage when Burr calls out to him.
“How badly does it hurt to look at your supposed son and see him instead?”
He’s expecting the punch, but the knee to the groin was unexpected. Burr wonders if Theo would have been disappointed, or if she would have hidden a small smile behind a cough and gloved hand.
The boy dies.
It’s right there, in the papers: “Philip Hamilton, son of infamous ex-Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, is shot dead in duel of honor, while defending his father’s reputation.” The similarities don’t stop, it seems. “He died for him,” Burr thinks, and he’s not entirely sure which of the two people he means.
Hamilton moves uptown and vanishes from the public eye. It’s the most prosperous time of Burr’s career, and he embraces it. He’s got quite the campaign going, and he even has a shot at beating Jefferson. In retrospect it’s this success that should have warned him, because true to his dramatic nature, Alexander bursts from the woodwork once more to declaim Burr and endorse Thomas. Burr loses by a landslide.
He’s always considered Alexander a close acquaintance. They’ve been through so many of the same experiences, shared secrets, and even set up their law practices on the same street. Burr might have even stooped to considering him a friend. Hamilton has no such feelings of camaraderie with him. His hatred and disgust for Burr are visible and public. Burr wonders if that might be easier. So he embraces it, releases his emotional walls and lets years of pent up fury wash through his body. A time and place are arranged for the duel.
Burr’s anger thrums under his skin, and there’s a certain power to lack of emotional restraint that makes him twitchy, makes his index finger stroke the smooth metal trigger of his pistol. Hamilton won’t stop fiddling with his gun either. Burr’s heart beats faster. The act of standing and pacing is lost in his fuzzy, overwhelmed brain, but at the internal call of, “Ten!” he snaps back to himself. Time moves in slowmotion. Hamilton’s eyebrows are drawn, as if conflicted. Burr swears he can feel each of Alexander’s breaths puff across his skin. The air raises goosebumps on his arms, makes his armpits sweat, and forces his teeth to grind.
Burr imagines death, not for the first time. It seems so extreme. He remembers a nineteen year old Hamilton, fresh off the boat and full of potential. It’s at odds with the man before him now. He’s not even fifty, but grey streaks his long hair, loose around his face and flickering in the chilly breeze, and there’s shades of white dotting his goatee. His clothes are all black, but expensive, nothing he could have ever afforded in his youth. Alexander seems shorter, a straight spine, but not as desperate and rigid as it had once been, when everything about him had screamed, “Notice me! Notice me! I’m here to change the world!” His posture has rounded out, with the look of a man who was noticed, but for some of the wrong reasons as well. There are no ink smudges on his chin, no fingertips stained black with use. He has deep crow’s feet but no smile to demonstrate how the skin wrinkles there. So much has changed about his appearance, yet Alexander’s eyes are what catch Burr by the heart. Hidden behind thin, wire frames, they’re deep and black, swirling with pain from a life of loss. The fire’s gone out. The passion and spirit has burned out, snapped up too quickly and used up too fast. It’s resignation that sits there instead. Hamilton has accepted his death. There will be no cries of, “Wait! I wasn’t done yet. I still have so much more to do!” But he does. Burr knows it. The spark may be gone, but the embers still glow. He’s a genius and a game changer. The world can’t be done with Hamilton just yet.
Burr’s eyes snap to his opponent’s pistol. Alexander is raising it, leveling it with Burr’s chest. Panic rips through him in a muscle-tensing rush, tightening his body from head to toe. He feels more than hears the crack of igniting gunpowder. Burr is still realizing that it’s come from his gun, that he’s the one who fired, when he sees Hamilton’s gun arm. It’s still rising. He’s not aiming for Burr; he’s aiming for the sky.
“Wait!” The word tears itself from inside of Burr. Waiting has been his motto, a catchphrase of sorts. He’s spent a lifetime paving his throat with the word, a thick coating that clogs his airway, but now that he’s broken his own rule, now that he’s the one acting rashly, Burr no longer feels the human embodiment of patience. “Wait” no longer belongs to him, and it roughly separates from his body, as if every last utterance is being taken away. Burr would do anything to grab the bullet out of the air. He wants to run and slap it out of the way. But much like Theodosia’s death has torn through his very heart, the small metal slug glides into Hamilton’s ribcage. Burr feels it in his own.
He’s back in a tavern. It’s early in the morning and few people sit inside. Burr has a book open on the table and a drink in his hand. Elective attractions. He’d not cared for Alexander the way Eliza and Laurens had, but there had been a draw. There was something magnetic about him that had kept Burr circling and circling, drawing ever closer. They’d collided, and the results had been catastrophic.
He finishes four drinks and stumbles outside. A near miss with the door has Burr laughing, remembering inebriated Laurens, grinning and draped over Hamilton’s shoulder or lap. Laurens snorts at Burr’s laugh and hauls an arm around him to straighten him. Burr freezes. John Laurens stands there, in all his boyish, smirking glory. It’s been so long since Burr’s seen him, that the tables are turned, and all he can see is Philip. Philip steps forward from God knows where, and side by side the resemblance is uncanny. Burr wonders how Alexander would feel, and suddenly he’s with them as well, an arm around each of the people he loves. Burr can’t breathe. Surely it’s the liquor, for if not, he’s gone mad.
“Aaron Burr, sir!” Alexander is grinning. There’s still grey in his hair, but his eyes burn once more.
A hand touches Burr’s shoulder, and a mass of curls grazes his face as their owner walks around him.
“Theo…” he whispers reaching for her, even as she twirls away. She’s beautiful and healthy and her grin still shows off all her teeth. Her hand reaches out and grabs another’s. Burr’s heart stops. It’s Theodosia, his daughter, who should have been on her way across the sea, back from school to keep him company. A ball of lead, much larger than the one that killed Alexander, drops into his stomach.
The group of five starts down the street together, smiling and laughing and looking back at him. They grow fainter as they head into the bright light of the sun setting down the road.
Burr regains his voice and mobility. “Please! Alexander! Theo! Let me come with you!”
Alexander’s smile isn’t cruel or demeaning. It’s bittersweet and friendly.
“Wait for it,” he says, and his voice echoes in Burr’s ears.