julcia

To his credit, Hamilton does no such thing. He only lets out a quiet snore every now and then, though they are more like sharp inhales. It gives the impression that he is always just on the verge of waking. 

The hot summer air also allows less modesty than Laurens would have hoped. Their bare chests are exposed; the slight sheen of sweat reflects the dying candlelight. He tries not to stare. Hamilton had been the first to strip himself bare, and Laurens followed soon after, unable to pretend he was above the heat when his would-be superior was not. They’d both kept their breeches on.

“I am accustomed to sleeping exposed.” Hamilton had said, tossing his sweaty garments across the room. Amusement seeped into his words. “You are in your right to complain about my state of dress if you so desire.”

Laurens had suppressed a grimace. “I have no complaints.”

Hamilton untied his hair, curls just grazing his bare shoulders. His blasted eyes caught the movement. Hamilton smirked, an ugly pretty thing. “I’m sure.”

He’d removed his own shirt out of spite then, but it took no genius to understand he’d already been exposed. 

Laurens thumbs the page of his sketchbook.

Any chance he had of sleep had been dashed the moment he’d entered this camp. The excitement in his chest had settled and hardened, leaving only the weight of his felled expectations. He knew this position was the farthest from the heart of the war, an honorable responsibility at best and a desk-job at worst. This position was so far removed from what he’d intended, but it was this or nothing at all. He could accept that. He would have, at least. 

Hamilton inhales sharply. 

Laurens waits, anticipating his awakening. It never comes, and Hamilton exhales into the open air. His lips are parted, ever so lightly, lashes fluttering.

Laurens dips his pen into the inkwell. Next to the woodpecker and right below the wild bergamont, he begins to sketch a face. The ink bleeds into the fiber of the page, a sharp contrast to the dark, charcoal lines of his previous work. He keeps his attention split between the subject and his own quickening lines.

If his second thought, the quiet amusement at Hamilton’s expense, had been all, he would be in bed at this moment. However, it was his first involuntary response that was the source of his late-night troubles. The thought that Hamilton would be fit to model. The thought of sketching his downturned eyes, his bumped nose and slight figure, and making a masterpiece of him. The thought of knowing what was behind that attractive face, seeing the best and worst of him, most of all.

Perhaps it showed on his face. Hamilton had turned to him and paused for so long, the stillest Laurens had ever seen. He’d looked at him from top to bottom, eyes narrowing on his face. A quirk of the lips—a frown? a smile?— was all he gave. It was uncomfortable. Invasive, even. Laurens felt a thrill crawl up his spine nonetheless.

It was the thrill of simply knowing. He knew next to nothing about Hamilton at that moment, but that one look exposed a trove of fundamental truths. Deficiencies as well. Flaws that marked them both. Flaws that had been his burden to carry since as long as he could remember. Hamilton knew. Laurens knew. It was exhilarating. It was terrifying. All it took was one movement of those pretty lips.

Laurens pauses his strokes. The handsome face on the page stares back at him, despite its eyes being permanently closed. It lacks a mouth, voiceless. He swallows.