Zero Two Three One | John Laurens X Reader [Hamilton]

LXXIII: Fifty Minutes With Journalists

❝Silence is the greatest persecution; never do the saints keep themselves silent.❞
—Blaise Pascal

For a while, I had no dreams. I'd drift into sleep every night and float in a lucid stupor, then awaken as though I were never asleep.

But that changed recently.

Dreams have come back to me... Well, a dream. 

A dream of myself on a beach. In my dream, I am walking along the shore, the tides on my left crawling up just enough to wash over my boots and soak my sock. I keep wandering, a voice in my head whispering not to turn around no matter how much I want to. To keep walking no matter what.

There is a throbbing in my chest unlike anything I have ever felt — an agonizing stinging eating away at my heart as though it were dipped in slow-acting acid, gradually eating away at the stuttering organ.

Even with the voice growing in volume the further along I stroll, the urge to spin around becomes too powerful to resist. So with all the grace I can manage, I turn on my heel to stare at the world that resides behind me.

And I wake up.

This dream comes to me nearly every night. It's the same every time. The beach. The pain. The voice. And I have never seen what else resided on that beach. I don't think I ever will.

♙♟♙♟♙

If I take the time to try to evade a problem that might pop up in the future, I'd like it if my attempts weren't in vain.

A huge tidal wave was coming. A tidal wave caused by social, war, and political influences. What is carried in the waves? A nationwide persecution of Russians.

Alexander was the first to sense it, so naturally, he did all he could to prevent it. We donated massive amounts to charities dedicated to helping Russian refugees hoping to shift the social tides, but it didn't work. We asked Washington to talk to the Russian ambassador to ease the war tensions, but he said he'd never get permission to.

We put all our hope in our political influence. And for a while, it seemed to work.

And yet, we can't control everything...

"Here you go."

"Thank you."

I slip pain pills into Alexander's left hand and shove a bottle of water into his right hand.

"You know," I huff, "you wouldn't have such a massive headache if you ate something other than granola bars and drank something other than coffee."

"Neither of us had time to dine, (Y/N)," Alexander mumbles, quickly swallowing his pills.

"I'm going to get you gummy vitamins."

"I don't need gummy vitamins."

"You need your gummies."

"I don't need that."

I skip out of the living room and into the kitchen, adding vitamins to the shopping list upon the refrigerator before grabbing myself a yogurt.

January 10, 2060.

"It's good to be home," I hum as I slip back into the living room. I nudge Alexander and he scooches to offer me a place next to him. "After going back and forth from New York to D.C, a bit of downtime is just what we needed."

"This is a brief moment of serenity, (Y/N). The quiet before the storm. The eye of a hurricane. It will get bad soon, and then we'll have to get back into the swing of things."