lathori asked: I have no impulse control so I'm requesting more smut. Hamilton/Laurens, post-Monmouth smut, go forth and make me suffer.
*cackling* Yeah, okay. In actual history Laurens’ wound was much more serious (not that he didn’t earn it), so we’re going to fudge things a little in favor of…well. Also! In case you’re curious! Being dressed in just shirtsleeves and breeches was considered UNBELIEVEABLY improper, which I find hilarious because it covers pretty much the whole body. Also-also, I pictured historical appearances but tried to make it musical-appearance-friendly, with the difference that Ham is SMOL at 5′7″ in comparison to TOL Laurens at like 6′fucking2″.
When John crashes through the door, Alexander is already surging up from where he’s been sitting in nothing but his dirtied, in-places-torn shirtsleeves on the edge of the bed. There’s a heartbeat where the conversation could go either way, but they are who they are, so the tension snaps into white-hot rage on all parts.
“You absolute fuck,” John seethes as he kicks the door shut behind him with a click of the bar-lock. “What were you thinking?”
Alexander throws his hands into the air, feeling aching muscles snap taut over bone, and snarls, feral. “I was following my goddamn orders, John, don’t act like I was simply out on the field looking for a glorious death!” His voice is half a shout and he has a moment of gratitude that their room is at the far end of the second story hall housing the majority of the aides-de-camp. The others are used to Alexander and John getting into shouting matches—not often with each other, but they fight with whomever else they please, save the General himself. Even if their comrades had all elected to go to bed at once after departing the field, any hue and cry of argument from the last room would be dismissed.
John doesn’t miss a beat, even grabs Alexander by the front of his sweat-damp shirt and gives him a shake. “You almost got yourself killed! I saw your horse shot out from underneath you, Alexander! Why did you not retreat when Lee sounded it?”
“Lee is a coward and a traitor!” Alexander roars. He has to look up at John, who has a full head of height on him, but he jabs him in the chest sharply, the force pushing him back a step. “And you know it! You saw Lafayette and His Excellency rallying the troops, Lee left them in chaos!”
John has never been afraid of Alexander, even in his highest temper when all he can feel is the shaking fire in his hands and heart. He pushes back, looming over Alexander at a mere handspan’s distance, and his face is flushed with anger, high streaks of red on his cheeks and dark eyes alight. “He left you alone on the front lines!”
“You hardly have the right to speak on the matter,” Alexander snaps. “I thought you had been killed for certain! What possible miracle saved you from being crushed when your horse was shot? And you failed to leave the field bloodless,” he adds, pointing to where a sleeve of John’s shirt was cut away and a messy graze from a bayonet was wrapped in linen bandages. “While I’m sure His Excellency appreciates your determination to save his life today, that bayonet could just as easily have taken you in the chest!”
“I am fine, and the General’s survival was a paramount concern,” John says in that cold voice Alexander will never master.
Alexander delivers a sharp shove to John’s chest, driving him back another step, and another sharp jab with a finger. “For God’s sake, John, you’ve been wounded in every major battle you’ve fought in so far! Are you so determined to die?” John doesn’t answer him and Alexander lets out a breath, surprised when it trembles over his lips.
He’s sorry that John believed him wounded when his poor loyal Vanessa was shot out from under him, but—as poor a statement as it is—Alexander has been presumed dead twice now, once for so long as to have a wake. John, at the very least, has practice with the experience. For all John’s reckless bravery, Alexander never truly thought him killed until today, when his rearing horse had collapsed under a musket ball with John still on her back. The wash of cold horror and disbelief almost allowed a Regular to send a bayonet directly through Alexander’s chest, a blow only parried on instinct. The sick feeling lifted when he saw John in the fray, alive and moving, and then…and then John threw himself at Washington, knocked him out of the path of another bayonet, and had not resurfaced in Alexander’s vision. It was only when Alexander, weary and bloodied and beginning to feel the desire for a thousand days of sleep, made his way back to the General’s party that he found John, breathing and only minimally worse for wear.
It’s been a long and horrible day, sundown lessening the heat somewhat although the air still feels thick. Everything in Alexander’s body seems to be at war with itself, his skin crawling with the need to move as his bones beg him to lie down. And John—God. John is not dead, and Alexander is furious with him and would like to remain so. That will become difficult if John’s anger fades, and it seems to be.
“Alexander,” John sighs. “I am sorry that I frightened you.” He offers a hand. “You see, I am quite well.”
“Yes, well,” Alexander mutters, taking John’s hand and allowing himself to be towed in until he can rest his forehead against the hard line of a collarbone underneath John’s waistcoat. “See that you don’t do it again, Laurens. I don’t much care to suffer a heart attack on the field.”
“Likewise, Ham.” Alexander awards him a punch in the ribs for the nickname and John huffs out a breath. “I have a bruise there, you shit.”
“Hm,” Alexander mumbles into the fabric of John’s waistcoat. The burning sensation is still there in his chest, a tight knot of confused emotion tucked neatly away behind a safe wall of rage, but John won’t fight him anymore. He’s learned to read John well, over their handful of months at war together, and once John apologizes, the fight is over, no matter what Alexander says or does to the contrary. The burn swells at his throat, claws against his ribs, crushes tighter with each heartbeat, and it has to go somewhere, but, God help him, he can’t hurt John after almost losing him twice today. It always hurts John when he tries to force an argument.
So Alexander does the next best thing he can think of and shifts slightly to mouth at the prominent point of John’s collarbone through the fabric of his shirt. The linen is thin enough that he can taste salt and the flat tang of the battlefield on John’s skin, and John goes tense when lips become teeth and Alexander’s fingers begin to expertly loose buttons.
“Alexander, I–”
“Want this,” Alexander interrupts, because he’s heard it all before, and John’s said it all before, and they both know how this will end. “The other lads are still out among the men, yes? Then we’ll just have to be quiet.”
John sighs and wavers and bends, and Alexander catches him around the back of the neck to bite a kiss into his mouth. It’s hard, lips caught between teeth, and Alexander yanks sharply at the ribbon in John’s queue until he can tangle his hands into the long hair falling loose. He pulls back for a moment, breathing hard, and John’s eyes are dark, eclipsed with hunger. His lips are reddened, parted so that he can pant shallowly, and he leans after Alexander like a magnet after true north.
“You are angry, my dear boy,” John whispers, the words hanging on half a breath in the candlelight.
“I am always angry about something,” Alexander says, and pulls loose the tie in his own hair before reaching back for John with both hands. “And I have reason to be angry today, don’t I?” The words spill into John’s mouth over the finger-width of space between their lips, and this time it’s John who closes the gap, crowding Alexander back against the far wall. Alexander strains up against the hard line of John’s body, feeling every muscle complain and disregarding it wholeheartedly.
“I can’t imagine what it would be,” John says, twining his fingers through Alexander’s hair and offering a hesitant smile when they part to breathe again.
Normally that half-smile makes something vital in Alexander’s chest melt into the pit of his belly, but not so today. The fire in his chest flares hotter, sharper, and he gives John’s hair an angry tug.
“You almost died,” he snaps, lunging forward, but John is not so easily moved this time, as if unwilling to tear his skin from Alexander’s. “You almost–” Left me. The rest of the sentence chokes in Alexander’s throat, and for a terrible moment the burning is dangerously close to breaking into tears.
John’s hands rise to smooth down the line of Alexander’s ribs and he kisses him again, firm but chaste, lips closed. “I am not dead,” John swears in an undertone. “I am whole, and unhurt, and here.”
“Then prove it,” Alexander snarls. His hands drop from their near-bruising grip on John’s neck and shoulder to the fastening of John’s breeches. The buttons are quick work, familiar work, and John’s head tips forward against the far wall, his breath rapid and warm against Alexander’s throat and cheek.
“My dear boy,” John murmurs, turning his head to mouth at the soft skin under the point of Alexander’s jaw, a line of warmth quite unlike the burn in his chest. Alexander gives a faint huff of laughter as he tugs open the fall front of John’s breeches and reaches inside.
“Prove it,” Alexander whispers again, quieter, and closes a hand around John’s cock, hot and rapidly filling to hardness in his palm. John muffles a groan in Alexander’s neck, the low sound shivering deliciously down Alexander’s spine. Alexander trails his fingers from the base to the head, a feather’s touch that makes John gasp in a raw breath and go still for a moment. Then he drags Alexander into another kiss, hungry, and peels him away from the wall to press him down onto the bed.
“Better,” Alexander mutters, and gets a firmer grip on John’s cock. He’s hard himself, aching for touch, but this is better, feeling John shudder against him. He wants John to leave bruises, to leave evidence that he’s alive and here, pressed against Alexander. “Do you have–?”
John nods, vague, but doesn’t make any indication that he’s planning to get off of Alexander and look for one of the tallow dip candles they keep in the room—cheaper than exhausting the finer wax ones with all-night writing and tactics. Instead, John shifts all his weight onto one elbow and reaches down to unfasten Alexander’s own breeches, but Alexander dredges up an unforeseen well of self-control to push him away. John goes where Alexander steers him, turns to search out one of the candles, unlit and lacking a wick.
Alexander is, at his core, something of a morally grey individual, and he knows this about himself. So, while John’s back is turned to find a candle, Alexander efficiently strips out of his breeches. He leaves his shirt because he can’t be bothered—and besides, John is still largely clothed, save for his missing coat and unbuttoned waistcoat. John’s face, when he turns around with the shallow dish of oil-smooth tallow in one hand, goes scarlet, flushed all the way down his neck to where his cravat hides the hollow of his throat.
Something strangles on John’s tongue, his eyes lingering noticeably on the strong line of Alexander’s thigh and the jut of his cock, and Alexander smiles, baring all his teeth. He takes the tallow out of John’s hand and sets it on the nightstand, out of the way but still in reach, and John manages to drag his gaze up to meet Alexander’s.
John doesn’t even put up a token resistance when Alexander pushes him down flat on the bed and bends over him to kiss him fiercely. The moment Alexander lets up, though, he finds himself twisted around and their positions reversed again, sprawled on his back with John mouthing along his jaw again.
“So beautiful,” John mumbles into his throat, and Alexander arches his back to bring their hips together sharply. The contact, the promise of friction more than the actual thing, shudders up Alexander’s spine. John hisses out a breath, going still, and Alexander tangles his hands into John’s hair again.
“Quiet,” Alexander breathes against John’s cheekbone.
“You be quiet,” John says, teasingly petulant, but he keeps his voice down—John always keeps his voice down, really, Alexander’s reprimand more on the order of an unneeded reminder—and reaches out to slick his fingers.
When they have the chance, they do this slowly, a luxury of sensation drawn out to the point of pain, until Alexander is shaking or until John is blinking away tears as if he’s been staring at the sun. Slow lovemaking isn’t something either of them is particularly given to, but they do it when they have the time and the privacy. Today is not such an opportunity, and Alexander would not want it. He wants racing hearts and aching muscles and more and now, and John, God bless him, knows it.
John isn’t rough, but he’s not gentle, either. He presses one finger inside Alexander and swallows the wordless gasp that spills from Alexander’s lips as he arches up, seeking friction against John’s unfastened breeches. His finger finds the sensitive place inside Alexander that sends heat sparking through blood and bone, and Alexander has barely recovered his breath when John presses in again with two. Alexander manages to catch John’s lip between his teeth and kisses him again, slick and filthy, relishing the stretch and the feel of John’s cock against his own.
A third finger is quick, and Alexander is growing impatient, bucking his hips until John gasps out a laugh and slides his fingers out. Alexander bites at John’s collarbone through his shirt, muffling a sound of…he doesn’t know what. The shock of being left empty, perhaps. He worries at John’s skin, wondering if he can leave a mark through the cloth, as John slicks his cock. He tips his head up to claim another kiss as John presses in, and he feels his lips lose coordination as John sinks into him. The burn of the stretch around John’s cock—finally, finally—drives out the burn in his chest, the knot below his heart unraveling as he wraps his legs around John’s hips and pulls him in.
John stops when he’s fully seated, buried to the root, to let Alexander adapt, and Alexander runs wondering hands over John’s shoulders to feel the fine tremors of control there. The burn is sharp and sweet and exactly what Alexander wanted, and he doesn’t want to adapt, not right now, not after today.
“Yes,” Alexander says, and John blinks down at him as if he’s forgotten speech. Alexander is flattered, quite honestly, but also, God, he just needs and John has to move before Alexander goes mad. He wraps a hand around the back of John’s neck and bucks his hips up, hard, and they both gasp at the sensation. John, catching up, hooks an arm under the bend of Alexander’s knee and pulls back before pushing in again. He sets a quick pace, less through any will of his own and more because Alexander demands it with sharp tugs on his hair and arching hips and words panted out on half-breaths.
Alexander feels the tension down his spine build, every slide of John’s hips delicious friction against his neglected cock, until light is dancing at the corners of his vision and he can barely breathe with the weight of it. John slides a hand between them, almost clumsy with his own rising climax, and wraps his long fingers around Alexander’s length, managing to time an ungentle tug with a well-aimed thrust. Alexander feels a moment of surprise, a quiet “oh” slipping across his lips, and shatters. He feels John shudder against him as he comes a moment later, but vaguely, through the haze of pleasure still sparking through him like lightning going to ground.
When Alexander comes back to himself, John’s head is bowed down, lips pressed to the curve of Alexander’s neck in an absent-minded kiss. Alexander toys with the hair at the back of John’s neck, sweat-damp and clinging, and takes a precious moment to luxuriate in the feeling. He can feel John’s breath whisper against his throat, John’s heart—strong and bold and reckless—pound against his own chest. John is alive, John is here, and Alexander feels the reality of the statement for the first time since seeing John’s horse fall beneath him.
It occurs to him, rather inanely, that both their shirts are ruined, were in fact ruined before this even began, and it’s fortunate that many clothes worn to battle are discarded for being too ill-used for repair. Two more linen undershirts will be unnoticed. Alexander chuckles to himself at the thought, and John’s head rises curiously.
“My dear boy, what is it?” John asks, already half-smiling at the feeling of Alexander’s laughter.
“Nothing at all, my Laurens,” Alexander says, shaking his head and smiling. He feels marvelous, the adrenaline of the day fading for a warm glow of satisfaction. It’s too hot to stay like this for long, pressed together with John’s softening cock inside Alexander, but he doesn’t want to give it up just yet. “It’s been a miserable day,” he says, still cheerful, “with a miserable battle botched by a miserable man. But,” Alexander adds, reaching up to touch John’s face delicately, “you can brighten the worst of storms.”
John’s cheeks tint red again and he presses a kiss to Alexander’s lips before pulling out and rising to his feet to undress. Alexander considers following, but instead simply strips out of his shirt while still comfortably sprawled on the bed and gaily hands it off to John, who generously adds it to the stack of clothing to be discarded. John tugs on a nightshirt and tosses one to Alexander before returning to the bed and curling up, weary, with his chest to Alexander’s back.
“My dear boy,” John murmurs against the nape of Alexander’s neck. “Are you still angry?”
“Of course,” Alexander says, closing his eyes and enjoying John’s closeness before the heat drives them apart again. “But I will allow that you make up for a great many failings in the world, my John.”
