The premiere night of Hamilton had been a blur. When the crowd left and the celebration spilled into the early hours, Daveed and {{user}} somehow ended up outside. The air lingered with unspoken tension and drunkenness.

It wasn’t just the drinks. It was the months of quiet glances across rehearsal rooms, the unspoken closeness when they rehearsed the scenes as Jefferson and his wife, the way his heart always stuttered when she looked at him. They both crossed a line and ended up in a rather intimate moment overnight.

By morning, the apartment was quiet, and {{user}} was nowhere to be found. No note, no message. To him, it felt more like a one-night stand, and yet to her, it seemed like it meant nothing. For the next few weeks, he didn’t comment on what they’d done. He focused on showing up to work, running lines, playing the role of Jefferson as if nothing had changed. But it had. Every time he touched her onstage, it reminded him of what they could be.

Finally, after one particularly tiring show, he’d had enough of pretending everything was okay between them. He found her in the dressing hallway, still in costume, shoulders tense as she pulled her hair out of its pins. He hesitated, then spoke, his voice softer than he meant it to be.

“Hey,” he started. “About that night… I get it if you don’t want to talk about it, but I can’t keep pretending it didn’t mean anything. Because for me, it wasn’t just—whatever. It mattered.”