Hamilton / Lams Oneshots

Time Travel (Philip - Angst) Pt. 2 [Time Travel AU]

Requested by PhilipHamiltonPoet
Finally, you get part 2. I didn't make it as angsty as I wanted to, for... your sake. Yeah, totally not cause I'm weak and can't handle too much angst. It's longer than the others, I got carried away.

Jonathan's POV:
Several things had happened in the year after, that I find to be worth mentioning. After our first, intriguing travel, which had turned out to be a whole success, Dr. Peters had published his invention, patented it, and it made a fortune. I had joined him in moving to the capital, where we worked closely together with the Institute of Modern Invention and Progress, and we lived together in a house a bit away from the city, with the lab being in a shed on the private property.

We had made many other travels, but at last I had found myself drawn towards the sight of our first again and again. Dr. Peters, who was a father figure to me at that point, surely took notice of that, and so he had allowed me individual travels in my freetime. And as the time between my visits had shortened, I had formed a stronger and stronger friendship with Philip.

After the third or fourth time I had gotten my hands on a set of old-fashioned clothing, and so we had been able to go outside. I had witnessed his ability to shoot witty one liners, his sometimes amusingly overconfident character, his bold statements and quick to action moments, the way he acts on emotion instead of logic, his loyalty to his father, whom I had met as well, and had had a few interesting chats with.

It was a particularly stormy night, and the crashing thunder and hard rain had kept me awake. I wanted to put on white noise on my phone, but realized I had left it in the lab. So, I stood up and went downstairs and ran across the small patch of grass to the shed. Inside, I found myself not tired anymore, and so I sat down in my pyjamas and scrolled through social media. It was boring, and I felt myself wanting to go visit Philip. Easier done than said, a few minutes later I had put on the clothing I always kept in a drawer, and stepped into the time machine. Since it worked with years, I knew it would be the same day and time there as it was here. The year was still in the small monitor, we hadn't used it after my last visit.

A push of a button later, I found myself in the familiar office. Mr. Hamilton was sitting at the desk and looked up very confused when I appeared out of thin air. "I'm sorry Mr. Hamilton, I shouldn't be here this late", I quickly apologized, but he smiled and shook his head. "Don't worry about it. Philip should be awake, he's in his room." I nodded and left him to his business, quietly walking down the hallway, not wanting to wake Mrs. Hamilton.

I came to Philip's door and softly knocked, opening it afer receiving a quiet answer from inside. Pip was sitting on his bed and reading a stack of paper, or atleast beginning to do so, grinning as I walked in. "Couldn't sleep?", he asked, and I gave him a playful eyeroll. "You couldn't either, as I can see." I closed the door and sat down next to him. "What are you reading?" Philip shrugged. "Some old letters I dug up from a box. My father wrote a lot, still does. This is probably unimportant." He set the letters to the side.

"Why did your father keep all of them?" "Oh, most of it is war stuff, he keeps it sort of for the memories. I guess it's a big deal if you help found a country. He doesn't have a lot of personal correspondence, but the stuff that he has he keeps in a seperate box." I nodded along. "Jonathan?" "Yes?" "You've never actually told me much about your own life. What's it like in the future?" I sighed and leaned back, shifting my weight to my arms. "Where do I start... it's a mess. There's so much progress in technology, but society hasn't evolved that much. In 200 years, electicity has done things that you couldn't even imagine, and society has brought it to a point that people in your time already ask for."

I told Philip a bit about modern society and it's progress and problems, all throughout he looked very thoughtful. Then he stood up to open the window. "Wanna go outside? It's a beautiful night." I was relieved that he brushed off the topic I had talked about so easily, it was for the best to keep it at what I said and not philosophize about it.

We climbed out the window and ran through the empty streets of the city, to the edge of it and down to the river. The water was ice cold, and I shied away from it a little. He grabbed my hand. "The water here is shallow, should we walk over to the other side?" The moonlight shone down on us rather brightly, and so I trusted he saw my criticizing expression. "It's ice cold, Philip." He shrugged. "So what? Jonathan, when's a better time to do dumb stuff like this than now? We'll be real adults soon, we'll be expected to be normal and serious people. We don't have much time left to act like this.

I nodded. "Fuck yeah, let's go." He grinned and pulled off his shoes before stepping into the water. I let out a chuckle, uneasy as I was it looked fun. I pulled my shoes off too, and sat by the edge, letting my feet hang into the water. It was just as cold as I expected. Philip was standing knee deep in the black body of swirling and moving water, given silver ribbons all throughout by the moon. He turned to me and grinned, his curly hair bouncing with the light breeze, then he took a step back, I heard a surprised laugh escape his mouth, then it was stifled by water.

I quickly leaned forward to see where he was, rolling my eyes at his sillyness. Seconds passed, and I grew a bit uneasy at the silence. "Philip?", I asked into it, quietly at first, then repeating it louder. "Philip?!" I couldn't see anything in the water, the more I stared into it, the more my head spun, the more the swirling water looked like it was laughing in my face. "Philip!?", I called again. Did I see his curly head of hair somewhere underneath the water? Or was it just the silver swirls formed by the moonlight?

I stepped into the water, towards where he last stood safely, and reached forward into the darkness. I felt nothing but ice cold black liquid, grabbing at me like it wanted to pull me in too. The more I grabbed into nothing, the more I panicked, my breath hitched, my vision went blurry. Where was he?! He couldn't be gone, he couldn't be gone! He couldn't have drowned, he was there just a minute ago!! The blood in my ears was the only thing I could hear, my hands felt numb of the cold.

Then, suddenly, I felt something, a piece of fabric. With a hysterical laugh of relief I pulled him out of the water and onto the grass. He started coughing up water, and I sat next to him, gently grabbing his shoulder. He sat up and looked at me disoriented, his hair wet and in his face. Then he gave me a weak grin. "Yeah, maybe let's not go there..." I slapped him across the face. "Never scare me like that again you fucking moron." "Yup, I deserved that", he muttered, along with a quick sorry. "Don't worry", I said, softer now. "But we have to get you home before you get hypothermia and die after all."

We stumbled back through the city on the same way we came on, and climbed through the window to his room. He changed into dry clothes and I tightly packed him in blankets, which I got pulled into promptly. Neither his father nor mother had noticed our little adventure, and like hell he'd tell them. I kept quiet too, for my head's sake, and we promised eachother to never let the other throw himself into a body of water at night again.