Work Text:
What do you want Burr?
What do you want Burr?
If you stand for nothing then what'll you fall for?
- Hamilton: The Room Where It Happens
"Are you out of your mind, Burr, women's suffrage? Don't you know how stupid women are,” said Alexander, storming into Burr's office, ”and subsidizing estate owners out of their slave contracts for releasing slaves? That's a lot of money. It'll destroy the economy!"
“Alexander, I thought I told you to knock when you came to see me?” Burr raised his eyebrows at his old, anxious friend and gestured to the seat at his desk, “Sit down.”
“Burr, this isn't the time to worry about that, I...” Hamilton ignored Burr's hand and began pacing furiously around the office. Honestly, Burr had gotten used to the sight... He even missed it.
When they were young, every time Burr cut Hamilton's defense speech, Hamilton would break down like this, like a trapped animal running around the office.
“Hamilton, shut up and listen to me.” Alexander finally stops, “This is just a general direction, there's no plan, and I'm asking you to help me with the plan.”
“But it's impossible, especially with this emancipation of the slaves, it's going to cause a huge backlash, it's going to cause a war, it's going to...”
“I can't believe I'm saying this, but, Hamilton, do you remember John Laurens?”
Hamilton stopped and stiffened. Burr knew it was a dick move, John Laurens had always been a old scare in Hamilton's heart. But he had to convince Hamilton.
"Remember his dream? You've been Secretary of the Treasury once, got nowhere, and now you've got a second chance, you're even Secretary of State, and you're going to give it up again?" Burr handed out a pen, “Where's the guy in the bar who yelled ‘I am not throwing away my shot’?”
Hamilton took the pen and turned it over and over in his hand “What about women in politics? Burr, even if you love your daughter, you have to recognize that women are inherently flawed."
"Hamilton, do you mean to say that your wisdom comes from your dick? So if I castrate you today, you'll be an idiot?"
Hamilton looked at him with an expression of horror, unsure whether it was his own genitals being threatened or the fact that Burr was using vulgar language.
“Theo is currently fluent in five languages, Hamilton.” Burr looked at a shocked Hamilton and said, “We just never had to show off.”
"That's... a lot." Hamilton admitted reluctantly.
“Think of Angelica.” Burr laughed. “I knew from the day I first met her that she was one of the smartest people I'd ever known. If she had the same status as a man, I'd have been out of the running when I fought Skyler for the position, and you'd have been finished when the Reynolds scandal broke, and the two of us wouldn't be able to be in this room."
“This is probably the most I've ever heard you talk in my life, Burr, and you said even less in court.” Hamilton said sarcastically.
It's not true that the most he's ever said in his life was in the early morning hours on the banks of the New Jersey River, when he did everything in his life to talk two young men out of fighting each other in order to save his godson and future son-in-law in half an hour, with all his tongue-plums condensed into a lotus flower. But Hamilton didn't need to know that fact.
“Since when do you have so much ideas, Burr?”
“I've always had a lot of ideas. just don't talk about them.” Burr smiled. “I've waited a lifetime for this moment, Hamilton. My wife is at peace, my daughter is married to a fine young man, and I am the President of the United States, with the highest authority. This is my moment, Hamilton, and now I invite you to join me and share it.”
“You're destroying this country, Burr.”
“When you came up with your debt plan, everyone - except Washington - thought you were destroying the country.”
“...”
“So will you sit down, Alexander?” Burr gestured again to the chair.
Hamilton took the pen and shoved his body stiffly into the armchair.
Burr looked with satisfaction at Hamilton, who was trying to formulate a plan for his “whimsical” idea, and felt that he had been compensated for all the frustration he had received from Hamilton during the first half of his life.
“Burr, I'm going to kill you.” Hamilton yelled as he slammed down his pen for the fourth time that afternoon.
“If that happens,” Aaron responded nonchalantly, “Jefferson will be the president.”
Alexander immediately picked up his pen and pored over the papers on his desk.
Ah, it's good to be president. A cure of his traumatized soul.
(Of course, when Hamilton quarreled with Jefferson for the five hundred and sixty-second time, Burr confessed his entire life.)