No Matter How Blessed You Are By Luck - December 26, 2019
Part of my Resolution19. Read it on AO3.
Prompt: Hands Made of Moonlight and Wind (x)
December is a month of remixes and sequels!!!
Fandom: Hamilton
Title: "It is impossible - no matter how blessed you are by luck, or the government, or some remote invisible deity gently steering your life with hands made of moonlight and wind - it is impossible not to feel a little sad." Welcome to Night Vale, Ep. 21
Words: 1887
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"This is never going to work, Dad," Philip hissed, leaning over the back of the bench seat.
Alex didn't look back at him. "It will, Pip," he assured his son. "Go look over the schematics again. Ask Theo what she thinks about using The Battle Hymn of the Republic for the timing."
"It's Philip," he corrected haughtily, before vanishing back into the rear of the van.
Alex could hear him and Theo talking in hushed voices behind him as he scanned the parking lot for the nth time. A glimpse of movement caught his eye, and he straightened up. Showtime.
He rolled down his window, ignoring the groans of complaint from the back as cold December air blew through the van. "Aaron!" he shouted. "Aaron Burr!"
Across the icy parking lot, Aaron Burr looked up and gave a wave of acknowledgement. He cut a dashing figure in a long coat, practically the dictionary definition of tall, dark, and handsome. As Alex watched, he turned from his original path toward the small French patisserie two shops down from the municipal parking lot and instead headed for Alex's van. He hurried, but stepped carefully, and even then Alex could see him slip once or twice in his smooth-soled dress shoes.
The grumbling behind Alex had gotten louder, but he'd been content to watch Aaron's approach, until Phillip's plea - "Dad, close the window; it's freezing back here!" - spurred him into action.
He quickly rolled up the window, then opened the door and stepped out of the van, shutting the door firmly behind him. "Aaron!" he greeted cheerfully.
A dozen feet from him, Aaron stopped, hunching his shoulders slightly against the wind and tucking his chin further into his scarf at the same time. "Alex Hamilton," he said, and his voice was a low, warm rumble. "I was hoping to run into you."
He'd expected Aaron exasperated, or even irritated. He'd expected Aaron polite, friendly, and distant. He wasn't sure what to do with Aaron warm and rumble-y. His grin faltered. "Aaron. I was just--" And while he was faltering, he suddenly remembered the Plan. The very good Plan. No, not the plan Philip and Theodosia were cooking up in the van behind him. No. this was a much better Plan that involved himself and one long-lost, recently relocated ex-boyfriend. His seduce-Aaron-Burr Plan. "I was concerned," Alex continued smoothly. "We need to keep a closer eye on Pip and Theo," he confided in Aaron, inching closer on the slick pavement. "I think they're concocting a scheme. I mean," he explained, "I know they're scheming: I've seen Pip's notebook and I swear that boy lays them out the same way I did." He barreled on before Aaron could interject. "Anyway, I think they're planning something big." He inched closer. "I've seen the schematics," he confided in Aaron, jamming his hands in his pockets for warmth.
Aaron sighed and hid his face behind his black leather gloves for a moment. "Alex," he said, his voice muffled before he let his hand drop to show a hint of warmth and good humor in his eye. Alex's heart skipped a familiar beat. "I don't know how you got Theo roped into this," Aaron continued, and his eyes were dancing, "but you and I both know that if Philip Hamilton is plotting anything, it's because you taught him."
"Well, I never--" Alex started haughtily, feigning indignation.
Aaron waved him off with an amused half-smile. "Now I don't have all day, so if you could just tell me what your harebrained scheme is so I can go buy a croissant, I would greatly appreciate it."
He looked warm and welcoming and like every good memory Alex had from his early 20s. A gust of cold wind blew across the parking lot and Alex shivered in his coat. Aaron braced his shoulders against the wind and Alex made a snap decision.
"Let's go get your croissant," he told Aaron. "And I'll buy you a cup of coffee." He'd meant it as a statement, but it turned into a question once it hit the air.
Aaron did a subtle double-take, and Alex tried to hold a confident smile. Yes, I did just inadvertently ask you on a date. You interested? Aaron had been his first boyfriend, his first real love. And then Aaron had gotten a different job and moved away like they hadn't been building something at all. And Alex and Eliza had found each other and gotten married and had children together and gotten divorced.
Meanwhile, Aaron had apparently gotten married himself and had a daughter before becoming a widower. And then two months ago he'd come back to the same corner of the world he'd left two and a half decades earlier. Why? Alex wanted to ask him. Why here? Why now? ...Does it have anything to do with me?
But of course he hadn't asked those questions, because Alexander Hamilton might have had a rambling tongue, but Aaron Burr was as silent as a tomb when he wanted to be. He'd yet to get up the nerve to say anything the half-dozen times their paths had crossed in the last few weeks. And Alex didn't know if he'd get the answers he wanted by asking anyway.
So apparently that meant he'd asked Aaron out instead.
"Okay," Aaron agreed slowly. "Coffee and croissants."
"Okay," Alex repeated. "Let me tell the kids we're going." He turned around and stepped carefully back to the van. He knocked on the window twice and loudly announced, "We're going for coffee. Don't get lost."
When he turned back, Aaron was watching him, an amused, heart-meltingly familiar half-smile lurking around his lips. Alex beamed at him. "On to the bakery."
The pair slipped and slid their way across the blacktop to the sidewalk.
"What's the scheme anyway?" Aaron asked, his breath steaming in the cool air.
"What? Oh, yes. Well," Alex said, getting more animated. "You're going to love this, Aaron. Hang on, wait up." He tugged lightly on Aaron's arm to stop him a few feet down the sidewalk.
"What?"
"I have to tell you before we get to the cafe," Alex explained, ignoring the traffic at his back.
"You're going to freeze to death before then," Aaron said, pointedly looking at Alex's bare fingers.
"It's fine," Alex said dismissively. "Anyway, you'll never guess who owns that French bakery we're going to."
Aaron hummed distractedly in response, tugging off his own leather gloves and tucking them in a pocket.
"It's George LeRoi, Junior!" Alex told him excitedly.
"Really?" Aaron asked. He reached out to pluck Alex's hands out of the air, warming them between his own palms. "The LeRoi from Royal Burger?"
Alex faltered. The gesture was familiar and caring and so instinctual, Alex wondered if he'd done it for his wife. If Theodosia had perennially forgotten her gloves the way Alex so often had. Or if she'd been prepared and practical the way Aaron was, and this muscle memory was reserved for Alex alone.
Aaron looked up at his uncharacteristic silence and gave Alex a small smile that warmed his eyes and told Alex everything he needed to know about Aaron's intentions.
"LeRoi?" Aaron prompted.
"LeRoi," Alex echoed breathlessly. "Right. George LeRoi's only son and heir. He didn't want the burger chain, but he did go to culinary school and opened this patisserie."
"And the heist?" Aaron asked. "Elaborate and over-complicated as usual?"
A cough and a "'Scuse me!" broke through the warm bubble they were standing in as Alex realized the pair were talking up the lion's share of the sidewalk. It wasn't a busy street, but that was no excuse to be rude. Aaron flashed a polite smile at the disgruntled woman trying to get past and stepped forward into Alex's space, never letting go of his hands.
Alex took a sudden breath at Aaron's closeness. He'd forgotten how close they were in height, how a couple inches either way made up the difference. He could feel the warmth emanating from Aaron all down his front, a sharp contrast to the chill up his spine. He hadn't been this close to Aaron since...since their last kiss, just before Aaron had broken up with him and driven away.
"I--I let Pip do a lot of the planning," Alex told him, trying to keep his voice normal. "So it's not as elaborate and over-complicated as, say, the great Christmas Waltz Caper, but it's not bad."
The skin by Aaron's eyes crinkled when he smiled. Oh, those crow's feet were going to be the death of him, Alex thought desperately. "Christmas songs in August," he reminisced, lightly rubbing the backs of Alex's warmed hands with his thumbs. "What do you have now that it's December? Love songs for Valentine's Day?"
"The Battle Hymn of the Republic," Alex told him absently, trying not to melt into him like a Hamilton-puddle. Even if that's totally what he felt like. Somewhere in here, his plan of seducing Aaron seemed to have gotten turned around. He couldn't honestly say he minded.
Aaron laughed, and Alex hadn't remembered how much he had missed the sound. He pulled a hand free and wrapped it around the lapel of Aaron's wool coat. He was just about to pull Aaron forward into a kiss - polite manners be damned, the man had warmed his hands - when Aaron was jostled and pushed forward, just catching his balance on the ice before he and Alex would have fallen into the street.
"Sorry, Dad!" Alex heard, and it took a second to register that that wasn't his child's voice.
He looked at Aaron in alarm, only to see the look mirrored back at him. A second pair of running feet caught his ear and Alex twisted to look around Aaron, only to see his own son skidding intermittently down the sidewalk past them. A glance further down showed Theo, almost back at the van already.
Slowly, Alex turned toward where the pair had come from, still clutching Aaron's lapel, ignoring the low swearing coming from the other man's mouth, to see George LeRoi, Jr himself cursing a blue streak in the door of the patisserie, literally shaking a broom like a cartoon caricature of an angry shopkeeper.
Alex could faintly hear the chorus of The Battle Hymn of the Republic echo down the street. Glory, glory, hallelujah. His truth is marching on...
He wasn't sure if the proper response here would be to laugh, to cry, or to call Eliza and preemptively claim ignorance.
"I'm going to kill you," Aaron told him calmly. "I'm going to pay bail for my sweet little girl whom your son has corrupted over the span of two months, and then I'm going to kill you."
"And then let me kiss you?" Alex asked hopefully, his attention snapping back to Aaron.
The smile that spread across Aaron's face was blinding. "If you like.
Screw later, Alex thought. If Aaron wanted this too, he was damn well going to make sure they got it.
So he tugged on Aaron's lapel and wrapped his other hand around the back of Aaron's neck and pulled him unresisting into a kiss.
Alex's lips were cold, but Aaron's were warm, and they would warm his soon enough. They always had before.