Hi! If you read Hamilton fic over at AO3, you might recognize this story. I'm cross-posting it here, and I'll put a chapter up each day until we're all caught up. I hope you enjoy!
SUMMARY: Alex Hamilton meets Burr, gets a free drink, and maybe more than he bargained for.
PART ONE
"Hey, Burr! Aaron Burr!"
Alex skidded to a halt and immediately doubled over, hands on his knees, air coming out of his lungs in heaving breaths. He really needed to utilize the on-campus gym, or at least start jogging. Oh, who was he kidding. He wasn't going to start jogging.
"Excuse me?"
"Oh, shit, uh…" Alex stood up, realized he had said that last bit about jogging out loud, and gave the object of his pursuit his best winning grin. "Aaron Burr, sir, my name is Alexander Hamilt-"
"Okay, I'm just going to stop you right there." Burr held out both of his hands in a whoa gesture. "Don't call me sir. I'm not your dad. And why the hell are you chasing me around campus?"
"I heard you've been interning at Edwards and Howe for over a year now, which is really impressive for an undergrad, well, I'm an undergrad too, and I actually just applied to Franklin, Greene, and Rall's firm and, well, I guess I was just wondering how you got hired so early? I've been looking into every possible way and I applied as early as I possibly could, so how'd you do it?"
"Edwards. My mother. She put it in her will before she and my father died."
"Your mom was an Edwards? Oh, shit!" Alex ran both hands through his dark hair. Well, there went his brilliant follow-in-Burr's-footsteps idea. Family connections were something that he didn't have. "Well, I'm sorry about your parents. I'm an orphan, too, you know, was shipped up here from the West Indies, to, I don't know, make something of myself? Anyway, I-"
"Alexander," Burr cut in, "ah, Hamilton? Can I buy you a drink?"
Alex stopped in his tracks, hiking his backpack up over his shoulders. "That would be nice."
"There's a place not too far from here, if you're free now."
Alex nodded, following Burr down the street, and then narrowed his eyes at him. "It is like nine in the morning, Aaron, I mean, I'm all for day-drinking, but don't you think-"
"It's a coffee shop, Alexander, good God. Talk less."
"What?"
"Smile more." Burr held open the door to a nondescript, red-brick building, the bell on the doorknob jangling. Alex caught a glimpse of the wooden sign hanging outside, swinging in the breeze. A stylized American flag, weather-worn and with only thirteen stars in the shape of a circle.
Burr's coffee shop was called Sons Of Libertea. It was written across the flag in black 18th century script. Alex felt a grin start to creep across his face.
"Aaron, this is adorable-"
And that's when a hefty handful of coffee beans sprayed the wall behind Alex, a few pelting him right in the forehead. Burr sputtered. He must have caught a few in his mouth.
"Burr, you cheap fuck, I thought I told you to never come back here again!"
Another voice came from the back, light and accented. "Language, petite chienne, language!"
"But you-"
"I said it in French, John, no one cares if I swear in French."
"Okay, fine." the coffee bean slinger, presumably named John, let out a longsuffering sigh. "Burr, toi bon marche putain--"
Alex cackled. He couldn't help himself. Burr shot him a scalding over-the-shoulder glare, and the gutter mouthed French speaker leaned over the counter into Alex's line of vision.
"My God, does Burr have a friend?"
Alex's first impression of John French-mouth What's-His-Name was that he had no idea there were that many freckles in the entire universe. They scattered over the bridge of his nose, over his cheeks, down his neck, and they were even all over the part of his left arm that Alex could see slung over the bar.
"We're not friends. This is Alexander." Burr dodged the line and walked right up to the bar, and Alex followed in his wake. The people they skipped complained, but Burr paid them no mind. Alex figured that was a perk of being a regular.
Someone else peeked out of the back room, a very large someone, with an apron tied around his broad chest and a green beanie covering his head. "Back of the line, Burr!"
Well, nevermind.
Burr grumbled something under his breath and went to go stand in line again, and Freckleface John grabbed Alex's arm across the counter.
"Hey, hey, you can stay up here. What was your name?"
"Hamilton," he said, and slid into one of the seats attached to the bar. "Alex Hamilton."
"Well, Alex Hamilton, any non-friend of Burr is a friend of mine." He took the order of some old guy in a pressed suit -medium latte in a large cup, 106 degrees, five shots of espresso, a packet of Splenda, some other bullshit-- and turned back to Alex, making the drink and not breaking eye contact. "I'm John Laurens. Libertea's star barista. You're welcome."
He slid the drink over the counter, the man muttered something about how he paid for fast service, not watching the employees flirt, until John winked at him. He left immediately, red-faced and flustered.
Alex watched as John worked his steady way through the line of customers, sometimes being charming -oh, Mrs. Ross, your art show's next week, right? I'll be sure to swing by-- sometimes being surprisingly, scaldingly rude -Seabury, I told you, if you order a venti macchiato one more damn fucking time, this is not fucking Starbucks, you dumb shit- and finally getting to Burr.
"So, where'd you find this one, Aaron?" John asked, tucking a few curls back into his hairnet and flicking another coffee bean at Burr's head. "He's not even wearing a suit. I thought suits were your type."
"He tracked me down," Burr said, accepting the cup John slid across the counter. He hadn't even ordered, Alex noticed, and there was a poop emoji drawn on the cup in Sharpie. "He has a million questions about my internship."
"Oh, wonderful, another lawyer. And here I thought you were cool, Alex." John turned to him, the biggest, saddest puppy-dog eyes present and accounted for, as well as a pouting bottom lip. "I thought. You were. Cool."
"I am cool."
"Alright." And with that, John started staring at him, intently, his deep brown eyes meeting Alex's gaze with extreme intensity. A curl had escaped his hairnet and was resting on his forehead, right along a particularly dense splatter of freckles. "Hmm."
"Uh, Burr, what is he doing?" Alex asked, glancing to the side only to find that Burr was gone, halfway across the coffee shop, sitting with his back to Alex, the Times open in his lap. He turned back to John, who had started squinting.
"Oh, he's giving you the special." The guy from earlier, the one with the beanie who'd yelled at Burr, ducked out of the back. Alex frowned, still keeping John's gaze.
"Well that sounds dirty."
"Nah, it's just a dumb thing he does. Pretends to stare into your soul and then makes a drink you're guaranteed to love. Works on guys, girls-"
"Everyone except Burr," John said, still staring, "because he doesn't have a soul."
"Laurens…" Burr's warning voice floated over the general babble of the coffeeshop, and John winked.
"Okay, I got it. Herc, distract him while I prepare to blow him away."
"Fine." The big guy, Herc, took John's place sitting in front of Alex. For the first time, Alex noticed that his apron was covered in a tapestry of thread, sewn in colorful swirls and patterns. It was so tastefully worked into the apron's original design (a colonial flag, of course), that it was indiscernible from a distance. A needle (looped around with blue thread) poked through the fabric just above his nametag, which read Hercules.
"That's a name," Alex commented without thinking, realizing only a second after he said it that this guy could probably break him in half if he wanted to. "Hey man, I-"
"Hercules Mulligan," Herc interrupted with a slight bow, more of a flourish, really. "At your service. I specialize in mixing tea, lifting heavy things, and fixing rips in shirts, pants, and everything in between."
"So that's all you?" Alex asked, gesturing at the needlework on his apron. He nodded proudly.
"Lee hates it, so of course I gotta keep doing it. I'm going to do Laf's next, or maybe John's." He leaned back. "Hey, John, you want me to do your apron next, or-"
The door to the kitchen slammed open and another person stormed out, his dark hair pulled back into a fluffy ponytail and a supremely indignant expression on his face.
"Hercules Mulligan, you told me three weeks ago that as soon as you were finished with yours, we would-" He took a breath and extended a hand to Alex. "Bonsoir, welcome to Libertea, my name is Gilbert du Motier, nice to meet you-"
He turned to face Hercules again.
"-swap and you would do mine, I have been waiting for months-"
Herc looked over at Alex and waggled his eyebrows.
"I'm in high demand. Also, I know his nametag says Gil, but we all call him Lafayette. He does food, I do tea, John does coffee."
The other guy, the French one -Alex couldn't help wondering what was up with these names, there were completely normal names like John, and then came a Hercules and a Gilbert, Lafayette, whatever- punched Hercules in the arm.
"Do not pick John over me, you slimy little-"
The rest of his insult was lost as John emerged from wherever he'd disappeared to, drink in hand, smile on face. He slid it across the counter.
"First one's on the house, Libertea policy."
"That's not our policy," Herc said.
"It is when Lee's not around," John replied, nudging the drink closer to Alex. "C'mon. Try it. Try it."
Alex did just that, picking it up (okay, so it's an iced drink. Iced drinks in the middle of fall. I can deal with that, fine), taking a sip (this is freezing,why did John think this was a good idea), and falling straight on his ass in love (there is sugar in this and chocolate in this and coffee in this, holy fucking--).
"-shit!" he said, going back in for another long sip. Brainfreeze. Another long sip. More brainfreeze. "This is the best fucking thing I've ever had in my entire life!"
John elbowed Lafayette. "Eight for eight."
Before Alex could ask who else John had created drinks for, the front door opened, bell jangling wildly. Hercules whipped off his beanie and shoved it into his back pocket.
"Morning, sir," John said, adjusting his hairnet, grabbing a rag from out of thin air, and wiping the counter down with it.
A tall, imposing bald man in a long woolen coat took a seat at the bar right next to Alex. John was sliding him a drink within seconds, and Alex noted that the cup was bare except for one Sharpie-d star in the corner.
"Good morning," the man said after taking one, two, three sips of his coffee. "And thank you, Mr. Laurens. Impeccable, as usual."
"Anything for the boss," John said, saluting with his rag. "You here for the day? Or-"
"I have an eleven o'clock," the man, their boss, said, taking another long drink. "Lee should be in around noon. I trust that our marquis will keep a tight ship until then?"
He gave a pointed glance to Lafayette, who nodded enthusiastically.
"Yes sir, Mr. Washington. I'll keep John under control. You know, earlier this morning-"
John threw his rag and it hit Lafayette straight in the mouth. After witnessing a long session of sputtering and swearing in French, Washington chuckled and stood up.
"Behave yourselves. I'll be back soon enough, mid-afternoon at the latest."
He threw his cup into the kitchen window, and there was the unmistakable sound of a garbage bag rustling. He grinned at Alex.
"Sorry, I didn't catch your name."
"Uh, it's Alex," he said, taking Washington's hand and shaking it. "Alex Hamilton."
"Well, Mr. Hamilton, thank you for choosing Libertea today. I hope to see you around."
"Wait, sir," John said, and Washington turned back. "Remember what you said when you fired Arnold a few weeks ago?"
"I say a lot of things, John," Washington replied with the well-concealed patience of a dad. Or a particularly resigned coffee shop owner. "What did I say about Arnold?"
"You said, and I quote, the next person we hire needs to be a lawyer or some shit, because I'm tired of dealing with these crooks myself, end quote."
"That does sound like me."
"Well," John said, gesturing at Alex's entire being, "I found him! Our new lawyer! Lawyer slash barista slash French speaker, suck it Mulligan."
"Hey," Herc said, but Washington had approached the counter again, and was looking Alex straight in the eye. It was a weird sort of look, it made him want to run and finish his degree that very second, it made him want to write his dissertation about the effects of freedom and liberty on mankind, it honestly made him want to fight someone. It was exhilarating.
"Are you looking for a job, son?"
"Not really," Alex said, and then revised. "Um, well, yes, but I was looking for something more in the, ah, legal department…"
"And how are you paying for your tuition?"
Damn, this guy cuts straight to the heart.
"Okay, fine, I need a job, well, yesterday. But you really want me to work here? I didn't even have an interview. I don't know anything about coffee except that it smells good and keeps me awake."
"That's really all you need to know," John mumbled.
"You're bright, energetic, and, if you want it, I think you're the man for the job." Washington held out his hand again, and this time, Alex didn't hesitate. Intrinsically aware of Burr watching him from across the room and John grinning to his right, Alex grasped Washington's hand and pumped it up and down.
"When do I start?"
Hercules threw him an apron. "Get back here and I'll show you the ropes before Lee shows up."
Washington smiled at him, and something about that made Alex so inexplicably happy that he would have agreed to anything right there on the spot, just to make this man he'd just met proud of him.
Wow, Alex, this is your inner self. Tone down the daddy issues.
"Boom," his new boss said, and clapped him on the shoulder. Alex just about died, inner self be damned. "Welcome aboard."
His hand landed on Alex's shoulder two more times, he pointed a you'd better have everything under control finger at Lafayette, and was gone, the door's string of bells jangling in his wake. Burr replaced him in an instant, sliding onto the stool next to Alex.
"So, what was all that about?" he asked, exuding a thick layer of I don't really care overtop a core of tell me right now. "What did Washington want?"
"He gave Alex a job," John said, jumping up to sit on the counter. "Because… Of… Me..."
"Yeah, thanks for that, man!" Alex used the stool as leverage to get onto the counter beside John. He looped the apron strings around his waist and tied them in front like he'd seen Hercules do earlier. "Just met you today and I already owe you one."
"More like two," John said, "the drink. Three, I threw those coffee beans at Burr. Four-"
"Enough," Burr said. "Alexander, you took the job? What about your internship?"
"I can still apply for my internships, Burr, I'll just multitask. School, work, internships. Easy-peasy. I'm Alexander Hamilton, bitch!"
He leapt down, into the opposite side of the coffeeshop, high-fived John, accepted a hairnet from Lafayette, and ignored the fact that Burr was glaring at him from the other side of the counter.
"Okay, let's start with espresso," John said, guiding him over to the machine. "Be careful when you're making shots, because even if you screw up, you're not allowed to put anything in the garbage. You gotta drink it. Company policy, here at Libertea, we do not throw away our shots…"
Next chapter: Alex starts his new job, gets to know his new coworkers, and hates his new manager.
Thanks for reading! Reviews are immensely appreciated if you like and/or want more coffeeshop shenanigans, and you can always find me as fihli on tumblr as well!
-Gab
