Critical (Jamilton)

18. Dates With The Bois

Jefferson

After thinking about what Alexander had said when Eliza went on her date about them not going on their own, Thomas decided that it was time for them to go on some sort of night out. On top of that, he figured that maybe if they actually got out more together, Alex wouldn't feel like he needed to leave every time something went somewhat wrong. Or hilariously wrong, depending on which situation you're looking at. 

For most of the day, Jefferson was fifty-fifty on going out. He wanted to go to a park or something since it was nice out and not too freezing, but Andre was still somewhere and nobody knew exactly what he wanted. People do say that the best way to move past something is to get through everyday life first, though. He figured that the people that Hamilton was avoiding could be considered part of everyday life since they were technically still out there. 

Just to be sure though, after work Thomas stopped by to ask Peggy her not-so-professional opinion. She, of course, called him a wimp for waiting that long to take Hamilton out. He took that as a yes, they should go out. 

After stopping at the flower shop that Eliza worked at and talking to her about his plans and grabbing some flowers that the Schuyler picked out, he went home. By then, it was the usual time that he got home, so it wasn't exactly suspicious. 

Thomas got out of the car, suddenly excited to be going on a night out. He got a little too excited, though, because he ended up shutting the flowers in the door. 

It's the thought that counts, Jefferson thought as he walked inside with his pretty much dead flowers dropping petals everywhere as he walked. 

As he got inside, the smoke alarm went off and almost immediately Alex and Randolph ran through with towels to cover up the loud beeping. 

"Why are the smoke alarms going off?" Thomas asked. 

"That would be because you walked in," Alexander tried, throwing in a sweet 'hey so don't kill but. . .' smile.

"Uh-huh, now what are you nitwits doing?"

"Cooking," Randy said, waving a towel around in front of one the machines while Hamilton got the other on the opposite end of the room. 

"Cooking what?" 

". . . A baking soda volcano?" the two towel-wavers said at the same time. 

"Why. What, exactly, in a baking soda volcano, requires cooking!?"

"I thought it would help the stuff dry faster!" Finally, the beeping stopped. Randy went back into the kitchen to get a smoky pile of something on a pan and dump it in the trashcan outside. Thomas didn't even want to know what they were doing to that volcano but nothing about what either of them said made any sense for one. 

"So what are those?" Alex asked, pointing to the droopy flowers. 

"Ah, right. I'm taking you on a date and these were supposed to be a corny thing, I guess?" Thomas shrugged and tossed them onto the counter. "I shut 'em in the car door." 

"How romantic," Hamilton laughed. 

Thomas was about to tell him to get his shit on for some time in the outdoors, but Randolph came in and said something that pretty much tossed that plan out the window. 

"Wow," he started, shutting the door. "Those clouds moved in pretty quick." 

"Clouds?"

"Yeah, clouds. Those things that go over the sky and drop water on everything when they get heavy?" Randolph rolled his eyes and went back to his room, but not before muttering something about how his brother wasn't really all that smart if he didn't know what clouds were. 

Thomas groaned and rushed over to the window to see that his sarcastic brother was right. Dark clouds were moving their way and there was no way there wasn't going to be rain. He looked back at Alex, who actually seemed relatively calm for someone that hated storms. 

"I'll be fine," he assured when he saw Thomas looking. "Storms really don't bother me as much anymore." 

"Is it because--"

"Alright, let's just have one day where we don't mention anything to do with any sort of trauma that I may or may not have. How's that sound?" Hamilton raised an eyebrow, daring Thomas to disagree. 

The other man just raised his hands defensively. 

"Fine. But I'm still taking you out on a date. It's just going to be inside now. Like a, uh. .  . A movie! We're going to see a movie!" 

"Or we could stay here and watch a movie?"

"No, we do that all the time. We are going on a date, both of us will have a great time, and we'll both say 'wow that was so fun, let's do that again sometime!' and then the cycle repeats itself!"

"Wow, maybe you do need to get out. You're starting to get cliche."

Jefferson rolled his eyes and shooed Alex off to get his stuff on so they could go see a movie. 

When they got the theater, though, Thomas's day was further ruined by an apparent popcorn machine explosion that they needed to get fixed. He didn't understand why that had to close down the entire building, but it said closed so he wasn't going to break in. 

By that time, the rain was really coming down. He got back into the car practically soaked. 

"I told you--"

"If you say I told you so I will personally fight you. We are going on a stupid date and there is nothing that will stop this! We'll go to a goddamn restaurant!" 

"Tommy, neither of us have the money for that," Alex pointed out. "And you really wanna be surrounded by all the eating noises? People in sit-down restaurants don't know how to not smack their mouths."

"Fuuuu-- You know what? We'll just go to one and eat in the parking lot because we are going on this stupid date."

Jefferson drove around for a while looking for a decent restaurant that wouldn't drain his wallet and wouldn't require him to go inside. They settled on just a burger place that didn't have the option to eat inside. Thankfully, nothing went wrong. 

"So," Alex started as he took an abnormally large bite of a burger that was half the size of his face. "was that burger worth all that?"

"Hey, I had the park in mind originally! But then it started raining and I am not walking around in the mud and rain." 

"And the freak accident at the movies. That was just some bad luck on your part." Hamilton faked a gasp. "Oh no! What if the universe was trying to tell you to not take me out! You've ruined the balance! We're all going to perish!" 

"Have I ever told you that you're dramatic? Because oh my, God, you are the most dramatic person I have ever met." 

"A master of the arts, that's what I am." Ham put a hand over his heart proudly. 

"Oh yeah, I'm sure that's exactly why you're so dramatic," Jefferson laughed. 

The two sat in the car with rain patting on the roof for a while, eating slowly so it didn't look like they were just using the parking space to hang out, even though that's exactly what they were doing. The food wasn't actually all that great and Thomas was definitely holding a grudge against whatever force ruined all of his plans and forced him to resort to burgers that were literally dripping with grease, but overall the date was pretty alright. And Alex seemed to enjoy the grease with a side of burger, so as long as both of them were happy, mission date night was considered a success.