Chapter Text
Washington stood in front of Room 208, the last door on the left on the community center's second floor. The hallway smelled vaguely of Lysol and Cheetos. Even that revolting combination was enough to remind his stomach that he hasn't actually eaten dinner yet, and since this class would be about two and a half hours long he might not eat until (he consulted his watch) 9:30. Better bring a sandwich next time, he told himself.
Can't bring a sandwich to work, his brain retorted, and there isn't enough time to go home between there and here.
Okay, so a banana, he decided. A sad, bruised banana. That would be about 79 cents each, which, if it was enough to tide him over before a late night snack of peanut butter straight from the jar, might save him some cash in the long run.
This internal struggle was, of course, just delaying the inevitable. He didn't want to open this classroom door. He didn't want to sit at a too-cramped desk and attempt to scratch out notes on his sheaf of purloined printer paper. He didn't want any of this. If it were up to Washington, he'd be in bed, sleeping off the effects of an eight hour shift at the bakery.
That damn bakery job. It wasn't a 'coffee shop, slapping muffins in the oven' kind of gig. It was hard labor in an industrial, gluten-free kitchen, no windows, about a dozen fire code violations, and ten bucks an hour for the privilege. Washington came off every shift with an aching back, sore feet, and throbbing hands where the skin had cracked and reddened from the heat of the ovens and the hot water of the dish station. After eight hours of that, how was he supposed to even keep his eyes open, let alone learn anything?
I could turn around right now, he thought. Go home. No one would ever know.
That's because, he reminded himself, there's no one left who would care.
"So, uh, it only works if you go inside," a voice behind him said. Washington turned around to find a short, rumpled guy, long hair in a messy ponytail, jeans, wrinkled white button-up with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, battered brown leather messenger bag, black eyes. Young, maybe five or ten years younger than Washington—he was terrible at guessing ages. But young enough to be the kind of person Washington would expect to find in a GED night class. A wash-out. Just like him.
"Don't let me stop you from trying," he said, and neatly stepped aside so he was no longer blocking the classroom door.
The kid gave him an appraising smirk and reached for the doorknob. "Still thinking it over?"
"Something like that." Washington looked away toward the half-empty vending machine with its sad selections of Sun Chips and Wrigley's gum. "Just don't feel like wasting my time, I suppose."
"Hey."
Washington looked back to the kid, at his bright, black eyes.
"Don't hang out here in the hall all night. Take your time but, you know." He made a comical gesture, like he was about to frog march into the room. "Like a band aid."
"Sure. Like a band aid," Washington repeated, and the kid ducked into the classroom with a sheepish smile.
I could go home, Washington thought. Or I could go in that room and maybe see that smile again.
He paced over to the vending machine, thought better of it, and turned to enter the class.
The uneven rows of close desks held only four other souls in various states of exhaustion. Washington scanned the seats for the kid but he was nowhere to be found. A throat cleared up at the front of the room, and he looked up to find the guy standing there in front of the whiteboard with a green marker in his hand.
"Anywhere you like," he said, and Washington sat down heavily in the nearest chair at the back of the room.
Great. It just keeps getting better, he thought.
"My name is Alexander Hamilton," said the kid, writing the name on the board in big, looping letters. "You can call me Mr. Hamilton if you want, but we're all grown-ups here. Alex is fine. This is HES-TASC test prep, otherwise known as high school equivalency boot camp."
Washington let his knees fall open as he tried to find a comfortable position in the hard plastic chair. The little faux-wood desk arm prevented that, though, so he ended up in a sort of slump with his hands stuck in his sweatpants pockets. He fought the urge to lift his hoodie up to cover his bare head. It was cold in the room, but he was the only one dressed down and he didn't want to draw more attention to that fact. He hadn't even considered wearing his nicer clothes to class; he'd only had time to change into the extra set of clean, dry clothes he kept in his work locker. Everyone else in the room was in jeans or slacks. One woman near the front was wearing a Church's Chicken uniform and writing in a spiral notebook.
Damn, he needed a notebook. He reached into his hoodie's pocket and retrieved the few folded pieces of printer paper he'd taken from the bakery office. There was a pen in there too, right? Jesus, had it fallen out? Yeah, he'd lost it. Perfect.
And this goddamn twentysomething—Alex—was still chattering away at the front of the classroom.
"I see a couple new faces here tonight, which is great because it gives us a good excuse to do a little practice test. This will give you an idea of where you need to improve if you've been with me for awhile, and if you're new, it'll help us determine where you're at. So. Don't stress, it's just practice." He rooted around in his beat-up leather bag, which slouched precariously on the table that served as a teacher's desk.
Washington considered leaving while the teacher—while Alex was distracted. He could just plug in his earbuds and slip out the door, never to be seen in the Upper Manhattan Community Improvement Center again. But he needed this class. He needed to pass this test. He'd already tried and failed twice, and a third strike would mean he couldn't try again for another year.
Alex started passing out stapled booklets to the students at the front before making his way back to Washington. He slid a booklet on his desk and murmured, "I don't think I got your name, Mister…?"
"Washington." He placed a hand on the cover of the booklet, looked down at it. "Could I borrow a pen?"
"Sure. Just give it back before you leave tonight, okay?" Alex fished a pen, the kind with the sloshy ink inside, from his breast pocket and held it out. "It's a good one. I'm always losing them."
Washington reached for it, his roughened fingers catching at Alex's small, warm hand with its neat, square fingernails. He felt a surge of want in his chest and took the pen quickly. His thanks were mumbled out toward his desk while he internally berated himself. Was he that starved for a friendly touch? Pathetic.
Alex turned away and headed back to the front of the class. "All right, everyone, go ahead. Twenty minutes starts now."
Washington flipped open the book and read the first question: Which of the following sentences contains a misspelled word?
Fuck everything.
Washington's eyes danced over the four choices, looking for words that seemed out of place. He had always been a terrible speller. Souvenir, that could be it. Honestly, he couldn't say with any confidence he'd ever had to spell souvenir. And what the hell was a question like that doing on a test anyway? We've had spell-check for decades, he thought with rising anger. What was this supposed to prove?
He circled B, the souvenir sentence, and moved on. The test did not get any easier after that, though.
"Time's up," Alex called before Washington could even tackle the last two pages of his test. "Pass 'em to the front. We'll go through the right answers super quick."
Washington had to lean forward with all his weight balanced on his flimsy desk arm to hand his booklet to the nearest man in front of him, and the shuffle of paper and pens clicking resounded through the small, dreary room.
Alex flicked open a file folder and started reading aloud. "Okay, number one: you had to pick out the sentence with the misspelled word. That was D. The word acquired was missing a C. Number two…."
Washington slumped back in his creaking chair, eyes on the scratched desk in front of him. He was so tired. And this was such bullshit.
He stuck his hands back in the deep pocket of his hoodie and let the teacher's voice wash over him. In that way, he survived his first class, and when Alex said, "That's it for tonight. See you back here on Wednesday," he was the first to rise from his chair.
He'd nearly made it to the door when Alex called, "Excuse me, Mr. Washington? A word, please?"
Was there anything more humiliating than standing there frozen to await a scolding while everyone else filed out of the room? Washington steeled his jaw. He was a grown-ass man. He'd managed to live through worse than this.
He approached Alex's wobbly table-desk and stood patiently while his instructor pushed some papers into his bag. "George, right?" Alex waved a sheet with the students' sign-up information in Washington's direction. "Or are you not a first name basis kind of guy?"
"Washington's fine," he said. It was what Braddock called him, and Braddock was the closest thing he had to...a person, even if he was just Washington's sometimes-roommate, an old friend of his father's, letting him rent his spare bedroom for six hundred a month and don't worry about the utilities. The man was out of town more often than he was in it, so it wasn't a bad deal, but even so. He hated taking the charity. "Just Washington."
"Suit yourself. Listen, I'm looking at this practice test you turned in tonight and," Alex sighed, the booklet in question in his hands, "I've got to say, I think you're really behind the rest of the class."
Was shame as hot as fire or ice cold as winter? Both seemed to flood Washington's veins simultaneously, leaving him with no choice but to take a deep breath and say, "I see."
Alex looked up at him, swiping his messy hair away from his face. "It's not all bad news. You kicked ass on the math and social studies questions. Science was pretty decent, what you managed to answer, anyway. I can tell you're smart; you just have to learn how to play to the test. And get used to the reading and writing portions. Those are tripping you up."
"Noted," Washington ground out. He looked forward to a few minutes from now, when he would no longer be standing here, listening to Alex talk to him this way. So familiarly.
He watched as Alex crossed his arms—with their damned rolled sleeves—over his chest and leaned his hip against the table. "It's not impossible to catch up, but it will take some hard work. If you want, I can give you some extra help outside of class."
"I can't afford to pay for tutoring," Washington said before he could think about the consequences of telling this man how impoverished he had become. Why couldn't he just lie like a normal person?
"I'm not— No charge, okay?" Alex said, blinking rapidly. "The city would pick up the tab, I swear."
"I'd...have to find the time," Washington said slowly. "I work two jobs." Bakery on weekdays, stocking the shelves at the corner drug store on Friday and Saturday nights. Just barely enough to make rent, cover health insurance, eat, and pay his cell phone bill. Not a whole lot of leeway.
"Same here. Substitute teacher by day, adult ed instructor by night." Alex's eyes flicked back down to the floor, and he turned to busy himself with his bag once again. "Just think about it. We could work around your schedule, whatever you're comfortable with." The tips of his ears flushed a slight pink, which Washington found very charming.
It occurred to Washington that perhaps this was a line. This Alex might actually be picking him up. He was so unpracticed at flirting—or whatever you might call it—and for a moment, he wondered if he should just leave so he wouldn't have to make the attempt. Instead he glanced at Alex's ears one last time and said, "Thank you. I'll let you know."
He turned to go, but Alex stopped him once more. "Hey, Washington?"
"Yes?" He looked over his shoulder.
Alex held out his hand. For a second, Washington wondered if he was supposed to take it in his.
"My pen?" Alex finally prompted.
"Oh." He dug around in the pocket of his hoodie before finding the thing. "Of course. Sorry."
"Can't let you run away with this one." Alex smiled as he took his pen back. "I lose too many. See you Wednesday, Washington."
"Wednesday," he agreed, and finally retreated from the classroom.
___________________
It only took one more class for Washington's pride to crack under the strain. He really was behind the other students; most of what Alex wrote on the whiteboard or talked about was completely alien to him. Or worse, he had only the vaguest recollection of learning about the topic in his short-lived high school career. He'd probably been thirteen the last time he'd had to calculate the volume of a sphere. Who remembered stuff like that?
Alex, apparently.
As the rest of the class shuffled out of the room at the conclusion of the evening's lesson, Washington lingered, watching Alex organize his messy stack of papers.
"I've thought about what you said the other night." He tucked his hands in his hoodie. "I can make time Saturday if the offer still stands."
Alex's eyes flashed up to his face, alight with happiness. "Sure it stands. I'm…uh, still standing. Here, what's your cell number?" He whipped out an iPhone and began tapping away.
Washington recited his number, only faintly embarrassed at his old Virginia area code. A few more taps of Alex's phone, and then his ratty old flip phone buzzed in the pocket of his sweats.
"All right, I texted you my address," Alex said with a wide grin. "How's noon? I'll order seamless. You eat meat?"
"I eat meat," Washington found himself saying in a daze.
"Great. See you then." Alex picked up his scuffed bag and headed out. It took Washington a long moment of standing there like a statue to realize he had to leave as well. He ducked into the hall and took the far staircase so there wouldn't be any awkward extra goodbyes.
He had a date. This was a date, right? He was going over to Alex's place and sharing a meal, which was the definition of a date. Maybe some studying would happen, sure. But the way Alexander looked at him…. He wasn't imagining that.
He tapped on the text he'd just received and saved the number as Alexander Hamilton.