For once, downtown was empty as he cycled through icy streets. The rain had given way to freezing conditions, and Hamilton had to take care when navigating the brightly lit avenues of Manhattan at night. The suitcase he'd somehow managed to strap onto the back of his bike didn't help with balancing and he wobbled about, contemplating the nights phone calls, hardly staying upright in the process. By the time he arrived at the door to Laurens' apartment building, he was sweaty and breathless, much to Laurens' amusement.

"Are you moving in? How the fuck did you carry all that across town?" His eyes were so happy, Hamilton couldn't keep himself from replying with a kiss, catching the back of his boyfriend's neck and standing on tip toes to reach.

"Aren't you happy to see me?" He teased.

"Obviously. Give me those-" Laurens took the bags he had been failing to successfully prop up between himself and his bicycle. "You need to give me all the deets on both Burr and Jefferson's beef with you. What's going on?"

Once they got up to Laurens' apartment, Hamilton let loose all that had happened in the few hours prior. "Jefferson's going to do me wrong. Every time we talk ...the subliminal things he says, how he sounds... it just really seems like he's out to get me. Or us..that might be it. He is homophobic, or seemed as such?"

Laurens just hummed a single note, his features paling. He was standing with his back against the island countertop, both men in the kitchen. Hamilton had made himself a coffee and was drinking it slowly, trying to soak up all the caffeine he could. It probably wasn't helping his anxiety, but right then he didn't care. He wanted to be awake. To figure this out. "I should write my way out, write him bad before he has the chance to get me or us. I could-"

"Hamilton."

"-ruin him, it'll be great, I'll do the same to Burr-"

"Hamilton." Laurens' voice had gained strength and became a stabbing force, stopping him in his tracks, and stalling his train of thought. "For once in your life, calm down and think things the whole way through."

Hamilton sighed. "I'm calm, I'm calm," he breathed, very evidently lying.

"Why don't you ring him up and ask what he's planning?"

"Are you actually trying to induce a panic attack, Laurens?" He let his head fall, chin tucking into his chest, hair falling over his face, defeated. How was he supposed to win or even fight, if he didn't know what he was facing? What was Jefferson laying out, planning, that was so monumental and destroying that even without knowing, it made him feel this way?

Laurens crossed the room slowly, tutting at Hamilton's caffeine obsession. "If anything's going to induce a panic attack, it's going to be the amount of coffee you've been drinking lately." Hamilton couldn't even force a laugh in reply. "C'mere." Laurens held him until the tension in his shoulders relaxed, planting occasional kisses in his hair and rubbing the sides of his arms, trying to comfort him.

"I just want to know," Hamilton whined, so quietly, his voice quavering slightly.

"I know, I know, babe."

"It's days from hitting shelves, he could ruin me. Or us..." When Laurens didn't reply, fear started to swarm around the edges of Hamilton's consciousness. "You won't leave me, right? Whatever it is? If he's fucked it up? If everyone thinks I'm an abomination?"

"Of course, not. But... listen to yourself, Hamilton. You sound like you've lost a fight you haven't even had yet. You were talking about ruining him a second ago. Where did all your fight go??"

"I don't know, you're right Laurens, I rush things, maybe this is a reality check. It feels more like a hurricane, though. I'm a little overwhelmed."

"I know you are." Laurens pulled him tighter again. "It's late, you're probably sleep deprived too. I'll text Lafayette and Mulligan, ask them to come over in the morning to discuss your article and hang out? We can get some work done before...do you have classes tomorrow?"

Fuck. He'd forgotten all about his academic responsibilities. "Yes.." He thought of Burr being there, glaring at him with that slowly un-swelling black eye, and of Lee, up there ranting of things Hamilton himself knew so much more about. Maybe he'd get lucky and have Washington as a cover for him. There was nothing Hamilton wanted less right then, than to be in the same room as Burr and Lee. "I've been missing classes, so I have to go but..." he trailed off and just groaned, a suffice end to the sentence.

"If Burr's there, you could confront him and ask him not to write?"

"I could..." But the fight had left him, there wasn't a trace of it left, no matter how hard he tried to search through his thoughts and emotions to find something salvageable. He had never been one to roll over and take things, but he had never had anything to lose before. Now he did. He had a good job, an education, the start of a reputation and maybe what he cared most about, Laurens. He felt a mess even thinking about losing him, and the thoughts of someone or something threatening what they had was enough to make him feel physically nauseous.

Laurens slept quickly, even though he assured Hamilton he'd wait up for him to fall asleep first. There was no blaming him though, Hamilton knew that he wouldn't be able to get any sleep, not when Jefferson's words and that tone of his voice was racing through his brain, scrambling up the sane thoughts and fortifying the half-mad ones. He found one of his many notebooks in the drawer beside the bed - he'd left numerous lying about Laurens' apartment, knowing that they'd all come in handy sometime. But instead of writing his way out of the hurricane he felt growing over his head, he just stared at the blank pages, unable to even lift his pen and press it to paper. For once he was out of words, and there was no great feeling in his chest that he felt when it was Laurens stealing them from his mind. This just felt empty, hopeless. He felt as though he had lost the very thing that defined him. And now he was left in this hurricane of bullshit, with no defences. He'd lost who he was in it all, and he'd lost his fight. He still hadn't moved from that spot, pen suspended in the air over the blank page, when the first light of dawn pooled though the windows. It wasn't a warm light. It terrified him. Everything was starting to.