#they're those cool gay uncles who always have a bed and a meal for you when you need it

[binch-i-might-be]

okay look I've been thinking about a Concept™ I really like lately, based on both @thatwouldbee-enough and @charliewritesstuff's wonderful continuations of my 50s AU!

sidenote: I started writing a summary but it turned into a ficlet halfway through :’) the fic starts under the cut!

consider, if you will, the following for a moment:

Patty's daughter grows up as set up in Actions And Their Consequences - as part of the Laurens family, told all her life that her shitbag of a father got her poor mother pregnant before leaving her for the woman he had been cheating with, never to be heard from again.

her aunts and uncle love her, and she gets along great with her cousins, but her grandfather... tends to act off around her. despite being the first grandchild, she seems to be the least favourite, and she doesn't really get why. Patty tells her it's because she was born out of wedlock. Frances kind of believes it.

she's been wondering about her father for years, but everything she manages to get out of her mother about him is tainted with bitterness and obviously only one side of the story. her aunts and uncle speak fondly of him (when neither grandpa or mom are around), despite "the mistakes he made".

so, as soon as she turns 18, she decides to go look for him like in Green Carnations, Pink Carnations, Black Dahlias and Lavender. maybe with some friends, maybe under the guise of visiting an old schoolfriend who moved away, but she doesn't tell her mother what she's really up to.

The Search™ commences, her looking for clues of where he might have fucked off to (and maybe Gwash plays a role in helping her along like in Charlie's fic).

anyway, she makes her way up to New York and finds the place, maybe a quaint little house, maybe another flat, I'm undecided lmao. it's not what she expected... Frances thought she would find a big-ish house, the woman he eloped with (because that relationship better held after he hurt her mother like that just to persue it), maybe a couple of kids.

what she didn't expect was for a man who was decidedly not her father to open the door. sure, she didn't have the best idea of what he looked like now, but she had seen old pictures!

he's friendly. looks her up and down, sees the bag over her shoulder, smiles at her, asks her what he can do for her.

“I’m looking for John Laurens,” she says, and he makes a little ah sound and gestures for her to come in.

“Are you one of his students?” he says and leads her into a nice, cozy kitchen.

students? she thinks. is he a teacher? “No, Sir.”

“’Alexander’ is fine.”

oh. she knows of an Alexander; not a lot, but enough. a close friend of her father’s who disappeared around the same time he did. her mother said he had probably had a hand in making her father finally leave.

what was he doing here? was he visiting? but that didn’t make any sense-

“John, there’s a young lady here for you,” he calls down the hallway, and not ten seconds later, Frances is face to face with her father for the first time ever.

he looks different from the picture she’s seen. older, obviously, grown out of his teenage years and into a man, but also... healthier. happier. that hurts, for some reason.

he doesn’t recognise her.

“Hi there,” he says with a careful smile and a confused glance at Alexander. “How can I help you?”

Frances stands in the unfamiliar kitchen and blinks back at the two men, suddenly feeling very stupid.

still she forces out, “I’m your daughter. Frances. Frances Laurens.”

the following silence is deafening.

“Pardon?” he says after a few long moments. he doesn’t look guilty, like she had expected - he looks confused.

Alexander frowns at him, and he frowns back, shrugs his shoulders.

for some reason, that makes Frances very angry.

“You left my mother. You led her on while you were cheating behind her back, and you left her the night of your engagement party, and she was pregnant. You left her. You left me.”

he shakes his head slowly, cautiously, eyes wide. her mother always said she has her father’s eyes; Frances doesn’t see it.

“Frances, who told you that?” Alexander says, gentle, compassionate, and she wants to hate him but finds she can’t.

“My mother. She oughta know!” she says, now a bit defensive.

“And... your legal name is Laurens?” her father says, still frowning, and cards a hand through his dark hair. “My- my family, they think-”

“Our family,” she cuts in, firm. he wouldn’t get to separate her out like that, like she's some kind of interloper.

the two of them turn to face each other, share a long, meaningful look in silent communication.

“Frances, I’m gay,” her father says, and Frances jumps half a step backwards out of reflex. her mother had warned her about queers, about how they destroyed families and spat on God’s word.

he looks at her steadily, reaches out to his side, wraps an arm around Alexander’s shoulder, and suddenly everything makes sense.

“I don’t know what Martha did or what she told you happened between us, and I don’t know who your father is, but... it’s not me. I’m sorry.”

Alexander leans into him, eyes downturned, a pinch to his mouth as if he’s remembering something bitter.

Frances spent weeks on research and travelled for hundreds of miles to end up in the kitchen of two fags.

but that couldn’t be true, right? her mother wouldn’t lie to her, to her family-

right?

“Do you have a place to stay?” Alexander says quietly and glances up at her.

she hates that he’s so kind. hates that she wants to trust him.

“Right. The city is no place for a young girl all on her own, we have a guestroom...?” her fath- John offers, tentative and hesitant, like he hopes she'll decline. “Hey. I know what you’re thinking, but it would be no trouble. We have people over a lot, the company is always welcome.”

Alexander nods and flashes a smile, gently untangles himself from John, and takes a step closer.

“Besides, you may not be family by blood, but... you grew up a Laurens. I bet John wouldn’t mind hearing about how his siblings are doing,” he says and flickers his eyes over at him, gives her another smile, this one more private, as if they’re sharing a secret.

John perks up visibly at the mention of his siblings, a faint longing in those eyes that definitely don’t look like Frances’.

“Okay,” she hears herself say, shifting her bag on her shoulder, and Alexander immediately offers to take it. she lets him, and he mumbles something about getting the guestroom ready and slips out of the kitchen.

the two of them stand in uncomfortable silence, and Frances can’t help but fidget.

“Would you like something to drink?” he says and hurries over to the kitchencounter, pulling open cabinets and rummaging through them. “Tea, coffee, soda-”

“My mother told me I should never trust a queer,” she interrupts, but she isn’t sure why she says it.

John closes the cabinet-door slowly and braces himself against the counter, looking tired and weary all of a sudden.

“Your mother... is stuck in the past, I think. Things are changing, Frances. Probably not in that shithole of a town, but up here, they are. We are not your enemy. I am not demanding of you to trust us - you’ve known us for ten minutes. I’m just asking you to keep an open mind and think about... if you really should listen to the words of a woman who lied to you and my family for almost two decades.”

Frances’ breath sticks in her throat.

“I would like coffee, if it’s not too much trouble,” she chokes, blinking the sudden tears from her eyes.

John offers a smile. “Excellent choice.”

He walks over to the doorway and leans out, calls, “Baby, do you want coffee?”

“Fuck yeah!” comes back in an instant, and John snorts a laugh and shakes his head fondly, goes to start the coffeemachine.

Alexander comes back in, and Frances notices for the first time the golden ring glinting from his left hand.

he smiles at her. she remembers what her mother used to say about him; dirty, poor, exploitative, sly Alexander Hamilton.

his eyes are kind, and his smile is warm.

"So," he says and crosses the kitchen to John, steps readily into his outstretched arms, and leans up for a kiss. Frances tries not to flinch.

he turns in John's arms and gently brushes his fingers along John's knuckles where his hands rest at his waist.

"Anything interesting happen in the town since we left?"

Frances chuckles dryly, and John hides a smile in Alexander's shoulder, obviously thinking the same thing she does.

"I don't think anything more interesting than the two of you has ever happened in that town," she says, and Alexander smiles softly, happily. she notices the ring on John's finger. "I..." she trails off, not sure where the words she was about to say came from. "Would you tell me what really happened?"

"It's not a happy story," John mumbles. the coffeemachine gurgles next to him. it's all terribly domestic.

Frances shrugs and attempts a smile.

"But it has a happy ending, right?"

"Right," Alexander agrees.

Frances just can't hate them, no matter how much she would like to.