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.

“Married!” Hamilton had balked, later that night, chest rising steady even with the weight of Laurens half-lying upon him. “He only jests so because we are the only eligible bachelors among our sorry lot.”

Laurens hummed. The man was pressed against Alexander’s sternum, only half-listening, soothed by the faint thump thump thump of a heart—his heart—beating in his ear. 

Married, John thought then, amused, marriage has nothing to do with this.

2.

This time Alexander, hair dark with sweat, his knees curled to his chest, listening to the doctor leave disheartening news at his bedside. His eyes were closed, feigning rest, not finding it in the musky heat that invaded all his freshly built repairs.

He held the blanket tight against his chest, now smaller, and imagined the heat of another sickly body, the sound of steady whispered nothings. 

When he woke, smoldering in the aftermath, he found only Laurens, the uncleaned grime on his face carved cleanly with long-dried tears.

3.

Another time, both piss-drunk, they stumbled into a clearing. He had Laurens pinned against the nearest tree, sweating, flushed from drink and lust, and he unbuttoned the flap of his breaches with practiced ease.

He licked and kissed, too sweetly, at the veiny underside, relishing in the throaty pleas for more, God, please coming from above. Ever the tease, Hamilton gave him his ‘more,’ holding the length of him down his throat, the corners of his lips turned up around it. 

Hamilton breathed through his nose, swallowed comfortably, and did not move until Laurens’ voice grew painfully hoarse.

4.

Laurens this time, and his collection. Stored neatly in one box, inconspicuous, and locked with one key. Letters he’d received; letters he’d never send. Art that only he would ever see. Well kept scraps from a well loved man. Poetry. A piece of his auburn hair. His laugh. His heart. Safety.

5.

The words. The conversation. The sense that it was final. Alexander, this time, watched him go and felt his stomach churn. When John turned back, insides stirring as well, Alexander only smiled. The man on the horse did not smile back. He only turned and watched the sky.

Alexander, after an hour, emptied himself onto the straw ground of the stable, forearms carrying his weight as he gasped in between continuous heaves.