John's POV

"Where are you going?" Frances asks as she walks in. I was attempting to figure out the weird button up shirt I had put on, trying to decide how the collar should be.

I smile over at her. "I'm going to a party. You're going to stay here with Lafayette." I tell her, sitting down on the bed. She sits next to me.

"Why can't I come?" She asks.

I think about it a moment. "Well, because Dad's going on a date at the party."

"With Alex?" She asks, a hopeful look in her eyes.

I chuckled and nod. "Yes, with Alex." I reply. She smiles even brighter.

"Oh, okay then. Can I still stay up until midnight?" She asks, using her pouty face. "I wanna watch the New Year's celebration on TV!"

I hesitate but nod. "Yeah, you can stay up to watch the times square ball drop, but you have to go to bed right after that, okay?"

She nods excitedly and then the doorbell rings. She runs to get it, but stops before opening the door, since she wasn't allowed to open it. I open it for her and see Lafayette and Maria/Peggy, though today she looked like she was definitely Peggy, which was a good thing.

"Hey, I hope you don't mind me bringing Peggy.. We were hanging out and I just kind of invited her spur of the moment." He blushed gently and I shrugged.

"It's fine, I'm sure Frances doesn't mind, right kiddo?" I ask her.

She smiles brightly. "More people for Candy Land!" She exclaims. Peggy giggles softly and I let them in. Peggy sits with Frances and immediately starts to play with her, and I look over at Lafayette. "So..You two were hanging out, hm?"

He blushes a bit. "Shut up, John."

"Hey, I'm just asking." I then point a finger at him. "But if you two are going to have a New Year's kiss or anything else, you'd better make sure Frances is asleep first! I do not want her scarred over something you two did."

He blushes even more. "We won't be doing anything like that, I promise."

I chuckle and then hear a knock on the still open door. I turn and see Alex standing there, smiling at me. He was dressed in a soft green button up shirt and jeans. It was very casual, but very cute on him.

He hugs me. "Hey, you ready to go?" He asks after pulling away.

I nod. "Yep!" I turn around. "Frances, be good for Laf and Peggy, okay?"

She nods and then runs up to me, wrapping her arms around my legs. "Bye Daddy!' She says.

I hug her back and then wave as Alex and I walk to his car. We get in and he starts to drive towards New York City. He was taking me to see the ball drop in Times Square, and I really hope we can pick up where we left off from there.

Once we get there, we had to walk a bit since the road was blocked off, but it was worth it when we got there. It was like one big party. Well, I guess because that's technically what it was. There were singers and celebrities and other people, but I didn't really pay much attention to them the whole night. Instead, I was making conversation with Alex as we talked about everything.

"Alright guys, one more minute to midnight! You know what that means, get close with your partners!"

I giggle quietly and blush, looking over at Alex. "I always thought New Year's kisses were dumb." I admit and Alex shrugs.

"Never had one. Have you?" He asks.

I nod. "Yeah, back when Francis and I were together, we spent New Years in his dorm." I blush a bit more and look away.

"Ah, I see." I see him shove his hands in his pockets and mumble something.

I raise an eyebrow and look over at him. "What was that? Didn't quite hear you."

"Oh, it was nothing..I just said something about.." The rest was inaudible because everyone started to count.

"Ten!"

"What?"

"Nine!"

He speaks again, but I don't hear him.

"Eight!"

I sigh and get closer to him. "One more time."

"Seven!"

He looks up at and bites his lip, clearly nervous.

"Six!"

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"Five!"

The cheering got louder and I can see the crowd shrinking as everyone gets close to their partners.

"Four!"

"Um...Can I..?"

"Three!"

I tilt my head. "Can you what?"

"Two!"

He grabs my collar, much like at Christmas and before I can process what's happening,

"One,"

He pulls me down into a kiss, much more passionate than the one under the mistletoe.

"Happy New Year!" The crowd cheers as I slowly melt into the kiss. There were some fireworks going off in the distance, but they didn't even compare to the metaphorical ones happening. After a few moments, we finally pull away and he smiles sheepishly at me.

"Happy New Year, John." He says quietly.

I smile back, probably looking like an idiot. "Happy New Year, Alex."

Timeskip brought to you by traffic on the Westside (get off of 79th and take the left side of Riverside Dr)

Alex's POV

"Hey, Dads, what is this?" Frances asks. I look up from my work and John looks up from his phone and we look over at her.

The 13-year-old shows us her arm we see words scribbled across it. I smile, but I'm pretty sure John smiles brighter. "Aw, sweetie, that's your soulmate writing to you." He explains.

She raises an eyebrow. "My soulmate? You mean those cheesy things in movies? I didn't know those were real."

"Trust me, neither did I." I chuckle gently.

She tilts her head and stares at her arm. "Wait, so what exactly is happening?"

"Well, basically whatever your soulmate writes on their arm, will appear on your arm, and vice versa." John tells her.

I see her smile widen. "Wait, so I can write to them, too?" She asks. John and I nod in unison and she stands up, most likely to grab a pen. She runs back and sits down, stopping herself before writing back. "Wait, are you two soulmates?" She asks.

"Yes, yes we are." I say, walking over to sit on the couch with them. I sit next to John and lean my chin on his shoulder.

She nods and then shoves the pen in John's hand. "Show me!" She sits and stares at our arms and I chuckle as John rolls his sleeve up a little bit. He takes the pen to his wrist and I feel the familiar slight pinch as he draws a smiley face on it. I show her my arm as well and she smiles even wider.

"When and how did you guys find out? Did you tell each other right away?" She asks.

"Oh, um, it's sort of a complicated story." John says, blushing gently.

She leans her chin on her hands, signalling she wanted to hear it anyway. John sighs and looks at me and I nod. "Well, we didn't write much when we were younger." John starts.

"False- I wrote to him often, he never responded." I tease and he rolls his eyes.

"Shut up Alex, don't interrupt." He sticks his tongue out at me and I chuckle. "So yeah, Alex wrote to me and I never responded-"

"Why didn't you respond?" Frances interrupts.

"That's a conversation for another time. Then he stopped writing to me when we were twelve-"

"Why?" Frances interrupts again and I smile gently at her.

"Conversation for another time." I repeat John's words and the teen huffs.

"Do you want to hear the story or not?" John asks, chuckling gently. Frances nods excitedly and John continues.

"Well, then we ended up going to the same college and being roomed together, and let me tell you, first impressions are rough. We actually hated each other for the first semester." I nodded in agreement with John and Martha looks at us skeptically.

"You two hated each other? I don't believe that. First off, Dad doesn't hate anyone. And second off, I think you're one of the only people Alex doesn't hate." She says, crossing her arms.

When John and I got married, Frances had already been comfortable with me. She was ten at the time, and we asked her after I officially became her step-dad what she wanted to call me. She saw me as a dad, but didn't want it to be confusing, so she just called me Alex. 

I chuckle gently. "Well, this is true. But back when I first started college, John seemed like a rich, snobby kid and I wanted nothing to do with him." I explain. "Like you father said, though, first impressions can be tough." 

She nods, "Huh, interesting." She looks up at us. "What should I write back?"

John shrugs. "Whatever you want. Just, be careful, okay? You're still young, and you don't need to necessarily find out who they are right now."

She nods once again and smiles. "Okay, Dads. Thank you."

She leaves to her room and I snuggle in closer to John, kissing his cheek. "How did I get so lucky to have you as my soulmate?" I ask. 

He chuckles and leans his head on mine. "I ask myself the same question every single day."

I smile and blush gently. "I love you, John. I love you so much." I tell him.

He smiles and looks down at me, kissing the top of my head. "I love you, too Alex. More than words can describe."

The End

1610 Words

Well I hope you enjoyed this story! I know it ended sooner than most of you probably wanted it to, but I had no more ideas for it. If you want to continue reading my stories, I have another Lams book (Completed) called Honestly, I Love You on my profile, as well as a Philidosia book (Completed) called What They Don't Know.

If you've already read those or don't want to read them, I do have another book coming out soon! It'll be (yet another) Lams fanfiction titled Homework, and it's based off of the song Anabelle's Homework by Alec Benjamin. Below is the cover (done by [ thatmusicalnerd12 ]) and the description. Hope to see you there!

He doesn't notice me
He just smiles and says
"Thank you for the trigonometry
"'Cause that's all it meant to him..
~~
Alexander Hamilton is the smartest person at the local high school in New York City. Had a promising future, but no money for it.

John Laurens, on the other hand, was the richest person in the same school (besides maybe his friends, the Schuyler Sisters), but he had no interest in learning anything to go anywhere.

So it only makes sense for these two to work together to get where they want to be, right? Well, yeah, except there's a couple problems.

1) John Laurens and his group bully Alex every day, and
2) One of them has a secret crush.