John Laurens's morning routine was simple: wake up, check FWN, eat breakfast, shower, throw on some clothes, and leave the house as quickly as possible.

The Laurens household had two options in terms of volume - everyone was either quiet and tense, or yelling at each other. It was just him, his Dad, his younger sister Martha, and their three cattle dogs, Henry, James and Mary. And to say that John Laurens and Henry Laurens (his Dad, not the dog,) didn't get on, would be the understatement of the year. Henry wanted John to do law - John wanted to do natural sciences, or art. Henry was conservative right-wing, John was left. John liked pineapple on pizza, Henry did not. There was literally not a single point where they completely agreed.

After leaving the house, there would be a 25 minute commute to his school, St Paul's. Co-ed, anglican, private as hell. But he enjoyed the bus ride. It meant 20 minutes each day, when he could just escape from everything and write, with zero judgement. Every time he got in that bus, a blanket of calm would settle over him - he didn't constantly have to check over his shoulder, and watch his mouth. He didn't know anyone on his route, and no-one knew him.

School itself was an interesting ordeal. He was in senior year, and was pretty sure he'd reached the stage where all the petty drama had passed. His only close friend was his girlfriend, Martha Manning.

Martha and John were pretty similar - both kind of enjoyed confrontation in a strange sort of way, never hesitating to stand up for their beliefs, assuming the other person had a shred of intelligence. Also, they were both total fandom trash. On the whole, she was just a seriously cool person. She was a master of puns, with a brilliant fashion sense, the maker of the most incredible curry the world has ever seen, and a damn good baseball player, with three immaculately maintained and aesthetically pleasing tumblr sideblogs. She was Korean, with sleek, long black hair that made John jealous as hell, and had a thing for oversized shirts and jumpers, which weren't at all difficult for her to find - she had tiny shoulders.

And he liked her. A lot. He really did, heaps. Seriously. Like, she was so fantastic, how could he not? He was absolutely falling for her. Just - slowly. Yeah. That was absolutely what was happening. Yup.

He stepped off the bus into the warm, slightly humid morning, headphones in his ears, doing his best to savour that sense of peace that was driving off with the squeal of brakes being released, doors hissing shut. He adjusted his bags, trying to distribute the weight more evenly across his shoulders, smiling as he caught a familiar face stepping off the second bus pulling into the stop. "Yo, Mattie!"

She grinned at him, returning his wave, adjusting her Slytherdor snapback which was 2000% not part of the uniform because obviously. "Hey. Your art essay done?"

"Nope. Your psychology prac?"

"Noooope. I read your TTBMOA update though." (She pronounced it tee-tee-bee-moa.)

John smiled a little sheepishly. "What'd you think?"

"Your followers don't deserve this. Stop crushing their dreams. Make them kiss already."

He grinned. "It's what I do best, though. Dream crushing."

She rolled her eyes, bumping against him affectionately. "It was well written, I'll give you that. But I guess it's always well written."

"Ha, I'm glad you think so. I'm still not sure if I'm doing dialogue tags right...am I using them too heavily?"

She shrugged. "If you are, I didn't notice."

"And the pacing? Is it too slow?"

She brushed a strand of hair behind one ear, casting him a fond sideways glance. "It's slow burn, John. I'm not sure that's possible in a genre like this."

As she spoke, his phone buzzed. He grinned. "It's a comment."

"Ooh, what's it say?"

---HAM4WALLS has commented on Tomorrow There'll Be More of Us - Chapter One: *reads story title* TELLING THE STORY OF TONIIIIIGHT (theyll tell the story of tonight) RAISE A GLASS TO FREEEEEDOOOOM lol---

Martha frowned. "What the...what? Is that a reference to something?"

Laurens shook his head, grinning. He had no clue. "I love the internet."

***

Honestly, Alex should probably just take his timetable, cross out the word "English" wherever it appeared, and replace it with "Gay Subplot Trash Time".

He and Laf had descended into a fit of giggles for literally the third time that lesson. Nicola had been making a point about how parts of the novel could potentially be making a comment about heteronormativity - it was basically Alice's entire cover, what with her being able to pass off any affection she felt for the legitimate guys in the book as bros being bros. And all she had to do to reinforce this was to flirt with some women in that one bar. (Hands down one of Alex's favourite scenes in the novel, which was already becoming a little bent at the corners.)

Then Harriet had gone and asked Washington what he thought about the fan theories headcanonning Alice as genderqueer, rather than simply feigning being one gender for the sake of not blowing her cover. (She'd been in Washington's class for two years now - long enough to know that it was perfectly safe to use the words canon and headcanon in the context of a class discussion without having to explain what she meant. The fact that he understood these terms could be attributed to Elizabeth Schuyler. At least, Eliza claimed that to be the case. She'd had Washington as a freshman.)

Washington had sat back a little in his chair. "They're interesting, to say the least."

John Adam's hand shot up. "But sir, did Fisher...did Fisher intend this?"

Washington just shrugged. "Does it matter?"

The class collectively hesitated. Washington did this a lot - posing a question to them, where no one could really be sure if there was even an answer in the end. Hamilton and Abigail exchanged a glance, eyes meeting from across the room. Alex shrugged, so Smith tentatively put her hand up.

"Um...yes? It does matter?"

Washington nodded. "Go on."

"If we completely disregard authorial intent, then don't we lose...something? I don't know, like..." she paused for a few moments, working out how she wanted to word it. "I mean, if we leave everything up to the reader's interpretation, then you miss bits of meaning which are inherently part of the text. It would be like reading Shakespeare without fully understanding the old language, but concluding that whatever you understood of it was correct, regardless of the gaps in your knowledge." (The expression on her face revealed that she wasn't certain that she'd made much sense.)

Washington nodded slowly. "Kind of. Anyone else?"

Lafayette had his hand up. "I mean, it's not like that's a concept that we don't apply to the world outside of literature, though. What we mean and how we're interpreted being seperate. Like, if I were to call Alex a potato and he found that offensive, the fact that he's offended is more important than the fact that I didn't mean any offence. Right? So in this case authorial intent wasn't as important?"

Washington nodded in his direction. "That's also true."

Burr spoke up next: "But if I were to call Hamilton a potato, then it probably would be an insult, although the words are the same." He wasn't quite sure what point he was making, or even trying to make, but kudos to him for trying. He tried to turn it into an actual point, adding, "So does that mean that there can be the potential for these words to mean different things?"

Theodosia raised her hand again, springboarding off Burr's point and turning it into something more weighty. "And if readers aren't allowed to interpret things in different ways, doesn't that limit that potential?"

"Possibly. But if it's Lafayette calling Hamilton a potato, not meaning any harm, but we say that he potentially meant it, doesn't that harm him?"

Theodosia paused, then nodded. Hamilton, who wasn't sure what to make of everyone calling him a potato, (especially Burr,) stuck his hand in the air. Washington's eyes met his, an all-too-familiar oh boy expression passing across them. "Alexander?"

"But sir," he started, unconsciously sitting forward in his seat, "that would be erasing the fact that I was theoretically offended by Laf calling me a potato. Like, we can't separate the potato insult from other insults - if Laf were to say 'I'm not racist but', etcetera, to me, I'd be offended and he'd be a douchebag even if he meant no offence."

Washington nodded. "But we consider it far more offensive to be racist than to call someone a potato, because of the social context. When analysing both written text and real situations, without the social context, what people mean is lost."

Maria paused, then raised her hand, pen hovering over her notebook. "But when the social context does allow for multiple interpretations?"

"Well, how do we know what a particular author meant?"

Silence. Washington continued: "Exactly. It is impossible to say with complete certainty what an author did or didn't mean without asking the author themself."

Herc raised his hand. "So...everything is open to interpretation? Within the social context?"

"If you have sufficient evidence to back it, and can make a valid argument, I suppose so."

A few seconds later, a text appeared on Alexander's locked phone, which was face up on the table. It was from Laf: #usinggwashtojustifygayships2k16 because omg we have so much proof for this

Hamilton couldn't help but glance at his friend, then crack up - Laf did the same thing. Washington looked at them both strangely, felt a swell of affection, and wondered why their class invariably ended up getting incredibly off topic while somehow being on topic at the same time.

The bell went, and the duo took their leave quickly for once. Hamilton dramatically fell against the wall on the other side of the corridor, hugging his books close to his chest, still laughing a bit. "I regret everything, Laf."

"Pshhh, no you don't."

"If I fail English, it'll be your fault. Or TurtleLaurens's."

Lafayette's eyes brightened. "You read it!"

"Yeah." Alex took a deep breath running his hand through his hair. "But you just had to send me one that wasn't finished!"

Lafayette shrugged. "I forgot to filter the incomplete ones out. I'm glad I did, though, that fanfic is so good."

Alexander stared at the Frenchman as if he was crazy. "How do you do this to yourself?! It's legitimately torturing me. Rio's gone and locked himself in the basement and I have no fricking clue whether Adriano will be able to-"

"Relax, mon ami," Laf grinned, throwing one arm around Alex's shoulder, guiding him away from the wall, towards the lockers. Grabbing food was high on his list of priorities. "I'm sure TurtleLaurens loves the characters as much as we do. Nothing truly bad could happen to them."

"Laf, Alice and Rolfe are dead! All the bad things could happen to them!"

Lafayette hesitated. "We don't know they're dead for sure."

"Fine, have your false hope," Alex huffed. "You're only setting yourself up to have your heart more thoroughly broken."

He grinned. "You talk about this as if you've read a lot of fanfiction."

"I live in the same building as Becky Rosen." (A sophomore.)

"Okay, touché."

Alex sighed, trying to release some of the tension building up in his shoulders. "I just wish she could update it already."

Laf blinked. "You reckon TurtleLaurens is a girl?"

He hesitated. "I just figured her name was Lauren. And statistically speaking, in terms of users of that site..."

"Hmm, yeah, that's probably a good call."

He nodded. "I kinda want to send her a message. Just like, 'hey, your writing is amazing, I cried like three times yesterday and it was your fault, please don't stop' or something. But I don't really know what the etiquette is with that kind of thing on FWN."

Laf shrugged. "Send her a PM?"

"I don't know."

The Frenchman cast him a sideways glance. "What's holding you back?"

"I guess - I want to make a good sort of impression, you know? Like...I don't know. She seems so cool. I don't want to mess this up."

Laf grinned. "Alexander, most people stress more about interacting with someone in person than interacting with someone online, you know."

"Yeah, but I don't care if I offend someone in person. If it's not in person, I might be misinterpreted, or-" He broke off, to see Lafayette was laughing. "What?!"

"Mon ami, you don't have to be so worked up about this. It's almost as if you intend to ask her out on a date or something."

"What?! No! I just-" he broke off, this close to actually pouting. "It's almost like if I wanted to write to Riley Fisher. I respect her, and I don't want to mess it up."

Lafayette sighed. "Okay, okay, calm down. I didn't mean to get you all riled up- oh, hey, Angelica!"

The other senior approached them, her stride long and confident, as always, radiating flawlessness. Her long, curly black hair was pushed behind her ears, and she had a ridiculously large pile of books in her arms. "Hey, guys," she said coolly, her eyes brightening. "Why's Alex mad now? Isn't Jefferson in another country?"

Alex's mouth twisted into a smile. "Good one, Ange. How was your break?"

"Too long. But seriously, what's happened?"

"Our friend Hamilton has caught a sudden bout of online social awkwardness," Laf supplied. "So we're teasing him."

"He's teasing me," Hamilton corrected. "You don't have to join in."

Angelica rolled her eyes. "Ordinarily I would, but I have to get to an SC meeting." (aka, senior council. Angelica was captain of Goldsberry house.)

Laf raised his eyebrows. "Of course, I had forgotten. How's our favourite SC treasurer?" He was referring to John Church, and the lilt in his tone was that teasing kind of flirtations which suggested that Laf wasn't the one doing the flirting.

"Don't even ask," she replied, glaring, but there was an amused, fond kind of light in her eyes too. "I'll see you two later?"

They nodded, and Alex pulled out his phone as Angelica walked off, staring at a conversation between 'Hotdamnilton' and 'TurtleLaurens' with no messages, the text cursor flashing as he tried to think of what he should type. Lafayette glanced over his shoulder. "Hey, I know. How about I send something?"

Alex considered this for a moment, examining Lafayette's face for any hint of mischief. He seemed sincere. "Why should I let you?"

"Because watching you is painful, and I'm astronomically less likely to inadvertently start a fight with TurtleLaurens."

Hamilton opened his mouth to protest, the closed it again. He warily handed Lafayette his phone. "Alright. Don't screw it up."

Laf grinned. "Don't worry, I won't."