Private storyline 5!

[slowtoanger]

They stay at the inn for two days after the wedding, celebrating their union and waiting for the snow to pass. For once, Burr and Hamilton both eat their fill--of fat fish and fresh bread. Gifts trickle in, from the nearby town, overwhelmed with patriotic sentiment even if they are not overwhelmed with joy at being paid in continental currency when the time comes to refresh their rations. They receive gifts for the baby--clothing and blankets and other odds and ends, a few bottles of cheap liquor. For Hamilton and Burr's part, they spend much of their time in bed.

It is October, when they leave. Burr is nine months pregnant, likely should not be moving, but there is nothing for it. They continue to be pursued by Cornwallis, and soon they are urging wagons through thick snow, over shallow, fast-moving rivers. Burr once more is relegated to the wagon, laying down amid crates and bags of supplies, rocked with each bump and dip of the road. Hamilton is somewhere ahead, riding through the snow, though he could even have been sent to meet with nearby scouts, towns, and Burr would not know. Days of travel, with no information or update, until they stop moving and he can make his way to the head of the column.

It is snowing once more--no longer light and fluffy but thick and wet. The wind is blowing--a wretched howl, that cuts through clothing to freeze men's bones. Like the wind on a mountain pass, working its way towards Quebec. Burr is bundled beneath every spare blanket they own--Hamilton's and Lauren's and even Washington's, but still he shivers as they rock along, damp creeping through layers that will not be dry before the next day. A miserable, wretched journey.

They do not stop for anything--at noon, men eat their rations as they march, and jovial banter has given way to eerie silence, a kind Burr knows too well, a feral focus on putting one foot in front of the other. One wagon loses a wheel, but the army does not stop, taking only enough time to shuffle what supplies can be salvaged to other wagons before abandoning the damaged wagon to the snow. Cannot burn it, to keep it from falling into British hands, for the wind.

Burr manages to doze, for some time of this, but wakes again rocked with pain, a sharp stabbing in his abdomen. Each time the wagon rocks it grows worse, till he is rising to heave his paltry lunch over the side. Burning cramps, so much worse then, as he collapses back into the wagon. He can feel something--liquid, thick and warm. Not melt, he thinks, though he is numb enough to not be sure. Too cold to remove his cover, he reaches a hand into his breeches blind. He cannot be going into labor--not here, not now. The baby will freeze, and if they stop they could be captured by the British.

He feels sticky on numb fingers, pulls his hand out. Blood. They cannot stop the wagon. He can handle pain, until they reach some safe haven. Telling someone will change nothing, will only make their march that much worse. Another jolt, and he gasps, clutching at the swell, falling back against the blankets.

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[non_stop]

Hamilton rarely confesses his more degenerate experiences. He sometimes wonders what is wrong with him, that he can seek satisfaction in an alpha the same way he could in an omega or a woman. If he were all good, he would not have such a surfeit of sexual desire, he supposes, no matter how right it feels while he indulges. He is at a loss, too, to explain that he truly does enjoy penetrating his partner -- never as much as he's enjoyed penetrating Burr, but Burr is special. It seems, by what people say, that he should either prefer to take or to be taken.

He so rarely even allows himself to think about these things. Open acknowledgment would result in censure and condemnation; he cannot always be so lucky as to find people like Laurens.

He -- to put it mildly -- does not expect the surge of passion from his lover. For once, his endless flow of words fails him, and blood rushes to his length prodigiously quickly, leaving him dizzied. He is hard against Burr's leg in an instant, and an oh escapes him, his lips parting. He bares his throat to Burr's attentions, head tipping back, his fingers curling into the loose fabric of the soft gown. Oh, if it were not so soon after birth... Needy, yes, he would be needy, and out of his mind.

The soft, embarrassing whimper is silenced by Burr's mouth, a fierce tongue that unlocks him and sweeps across his palate, taking and taking until he turns his head only to gasp for breath.

"Oh, you--" he accuses, "you vixen." Breathless. There's so little snow left, but he wishes he could take a plunge in a snowbank, in the interest of calming the fire Burr has stoked.

[slowtoanger]

"I would take you in hand," Burr says, squeezing over the thickness that is pressing against the front of Hamilton's breeches, "stoke you, lick you to completion, but I am afraid we really must be adults about this," begins to work his hand up and down, drinking in those gasps, that quickened breathing, "and learn to control our base desires," he pulls away with a final squeeze, against where he can make out the tip, through those layers of fabric, sitting back on the bed, "for little Theo is not yet done feeding, and she really must take precedence before you in my heart."

Hamilton's face is red, his legs parted, laying there sprawled against the bed looking pitiful and confused and wanting. Burr laughs, sitting back and readjusting Theo, helping her to maintain her latch on his nipple, though she is not very gentle for a newborn. What was it Mrs. Smith said about easing that soreness? Some recipe for a cream, which of course they did not have the ingredients to, as far as Burr knew.

His body is indeed ravaged, following the pregnancy--his stomach still swollen a good deal, organs misplaced and uterus expanded. How long till he regains that slender form, bony and lean? Not that it seems to make a difference to Hamilton, whose interest in Burr's body has not waned at all from the early months to the later ones. Perhaps he has a bit of a fetish, for a swollen body, plump with life. A theory to consider exploring more in the future.

"A pity," Burr sighs, watching Hamilton out of the corner of his eye. "I would have let you fuck my throat."

[non_stop]

Alexander Hamilton is not known for his gifts at self-restraint, his ability to calm himself, or any inclination to deny himself what he wants.

So this is fucking torture.

A sweet torture; a torturer he would submit to with wholehearted joy. But: torture.

"If she were not here," growls Hamilton, "and you were not wounded still..." The look he shoots Burr is heated and full of promise.

But: He. Will. Control. Himself.

He closes his eyes, taking a slow breath, not moving yet, and attempting to will down the rigid length trapped in his breeches. It throbs with his heartbeat, a palpable longing to bury itself in Burr's hot and welcoming mouth, squeezed by that long, lovely throat.

"What you excite in me," he sighs, and he starts to sit up. "I would plunge myself wholly into a snowbank to ease this heat, but you conjure these images in my mind, where they cannot be contained or purged -- what keen torture."

How he aches for Burr.

"So, because I think it is torture that you will enjoy," and Hamilton murmurs this in Burr's ear, shifting up next to him, "I will deny myself any touch until you are well enough to grant me yours." He thinks Burr will like it, the idea that he is in control of when Hamilton's pleasure resumes. The idea of Hamilton's body in his thrall.

[slowtoanger]

Burr finds it quite hard to believe, that Hamilton will be able to contain himself until Burr is healed, though the thought is an interesting one.

"Perhaps there will have to be some kind of punishment, if you fail to refrain from touching yourself," and though Burr has decided to stop teasing his husband he does tangle their legs together, recline his head on Hamilton chest.

How long until they are moving again, without the privacy that this cabin affords them? Not long, surely, and then Hamilton will have to wait till Burr is healed, which will not happen quickly.

"I should have liked to watch, even if I could not participate, while you fucked yourself on some implement, or someone fucked you," small fantasies, nonetheless entertaining to imagine. "I imagined too, that night at the inn when you knotted me, that your fingers were another cock, and I was being knotted by two alphas at once. I couldn't knot you," Burr says, "but I would quite like to see you take a knot."

[non_stop]

Burr's mere presence is a tease -- and those words are a worse one. He realizes he's holding his breath, while Burr speaks, the better to savor every filthy word.

"Oh." -- on a soft exhale. He finds each of those images undeniably appealing. "Do you think you could take both? Would you like it?" His voice is a little breathless. "It can be... uncomfortable, to take a knot anally, without careful preparation, but perhaps your body is more accommodating than mi--" He stops himself, a reflexive caution. Burr just said that he would like to see Hamilton knotted, and surely he would not disapprove if he knew Hamilton had done so in the past. "Than mine has been," he finishes, his heart going quicker for a slightly different, more nervous reason.

"Indeed, perhaps we could indulge you," he says, carefully, "as, before you returned to New York -- oh," and he cannot, not without some further reassurance. "You will not say anything, will you? If this were known, my career, and this man's, would be the least of what is on at risk."

[slowtoanger]

"I would love to be filled," Burr whispers, "until I could not but remember my own name--I can be very accommodating," looking at Hamilton through his eyelashes, a coy kind of smile.

Hamilton is red-faced, shy, and it is so adorable that Burr leans up to kiss him again, as slow and filthy as the first. "I would not ask anything of you that was painful or uncomfortable," he purrs, "but perhaps your last partner was not as accommodating or worshiping as I would like to be," and his hand drifts down to squeeze Hamilton's rear, to massage and palm over the flesh, "if I could knot you."

But Hamilton is also nervous, eyes which dart away, squirming, for a different reason than the hardness in his trousers. Very adorable, for all Burr does not wish to infantilize him, but oh, that is something he should say to Hamilton out loud, isn't it?

"You are very cute," Burr says, and then; "I trust you would never feel uncomfortable sharing these things with me, as I would never judge you for even the most perverse of inclinations, as you have not revealed mine, and indeed have been nothing but accommodating, even when confronted with the delicate nature of my condition in the past spring. Indeed," Burr says, as he angles his body to bring his own pelvis, the evidence of his arousal, against Hamilton's hip, lagging as it may be--perhaps a sad symptom of blood loss--"I find your perversions quite exciting."

Oh, but perhaps there is something else--"I would only ask to know that this other--" a swallow, his own embarrassment now, "would be no replacement for me in your heart or bed."

[non_stop]

And that, Hamilton can answer, with utter ease and utter honesty. "You have a place in my heart none have touched," Hamilton tells him, "and that, truly, I cannot imagine another ever touching. It is a place I did not even know existed before you nestled inside -- a tender place, though it seems Theodosia has found one that may be tenderer still."

He sighs. "Laurens and I found pleasure in one another," he confesses. "It began with taking one another in hand, and then more -- it seemed that we were like the ancient Spartans, accompanying a lover into battle, that we could be warriors, one another's shield and spear. It had naturally declined by the time you returned. I was never so swept away by him as I am by you, though I love him, as you well know."

It is difficult to explain these things. Hamilton would be lying if he said that family had nothing to do with it -- he wants so badly to form a family, and that would never be possible with Laurens. Perhaps that is why his feelings never deepened into the fascinated ardor that he feels for Burr.

"How could I be so lucky," sighs Hamilton, "to find someone like you -- beautiful, brave, and perverse all."

[slowtoanger]

"You flatter me," Burr says, "far too often."

Theodosia detaches then and begins to make little unhappy noises, perhaps preparing for a cry, and Burr leans down to pepper her face with kisses, which seems to render her momentarily into a state of shock.

"Here," Burr says, holding her out to Hamilton, "she will need to be burped, and perhaps the walking will help divert your blood to somewhere more useful."

Burr cannot yet walk to perform the action himself, and before the birth Mrs. Smith had counseled him on breastfeeding--Theodosia should be kept upright to keep her from bringing all the milk back up, and Burr is bed bound and sleepy.

"You might find some time, when you wish it, to--" a blush, a small stutter, "to bring Laurens here, if someone were to watch darling Theo."

[non_stop]

"Of course." The look that Hamilton gives Theo is a melted one. "How she adores you. -- She may not be of my seed, but I think she and I will have very much in common."

He scoops her up, and settles her against his shoulder, moving to his feet.

"Did you hear what I said about the Pennsylvania militia?" he asks, as he pats her on the back. "They have brought supply wagons. I've even been able to repay the Smiths and Lindens for a fraction of their kindness, in flour. If we wrap the both of you up, we can keep you safe long enough to get into winter quarters. We plan to conduct a raid on Trenton."

[slowtoanger]

If Burr did not want to hold her before, he now itches to have her back. Hamilton looks very becoming, with her cradled against his shoulder, but not half so becoming as she.

"Yes, I am afraid I was distracted, but it is good news, what you were able to accomplish." And he is proud, but once again Burr will be confined for his health and child, in the traditional role of omega, while Hamilton marches out for honor and glory. Burr itches to distinguish himself, worries that his chances are slowly diminishing, that every day he is more concretely affixed to his current role as mother and husband.

"I should like to walk again--oh, don't look at me like that! I know very well I cannot get out of bed, but I should like still to move around some, to take little Theodosia to meet everyone, more proper an introduction than I am sure you have given. It is not right that I did all the work yet no one has paid me the compliment of a visit--" of course, Burr would hate to be visited here very much, yet still he wishes to end his isolation. He is not so frail to not see anyone.

"You could carry me, could you not?"

[non_stop]

"How could they have visited you, when you were so unwell? I can bring them," Hamilton suggests, "now that you are well enough to receive them. But, as for compliments -- You should have heard the men -- cheering your name, General Montgomery's name, and, if they could find a spare moment, mine, General Washington's, the Marquis', and sometimes Samuel Adams or John Hancock, just for variety's sake."

He can see how that cage presses so on Burr, and reminds himself, here, that he must take care to ensure it does not weigh so heavy. It is his responsibility.

Theodosia spits a bit of milk on him, which he dabs up, as he knows well enough to expect it after the first five or six times.

"This is as though you have been struck with a bullet in the side, or a bout of dysentery. You need to recover, Aaron -- even the General himself had to be carried in a wagon for a month or two in the Seven Years' War, when he was struck ill." He hopes the other message in his comparison is clear: Washington recovered so that he could once again be the formidable soldier he was meant to be. Though Hamilton hasn't the slightest idea how they'll make it work, they have to, for Burr's sake.

[slowtoanger]

"yes," Burr sighs, "that is all well, and a point well made. I am tried now, and would like to see them, but perhaps you might bring them after I nap. Might little Theo stay with me?" Her eyes are closing--she is tired after feeding, warm milk.

Burr will be careful not to roll over--blankets tucked around his sides.

"The general is a six two beast of man, I am sure even recovering in a wagon he was intimidating, yet I myself am commonly mistaken for a woman in stature, even in breeches! Ah well, at least I will get to watch darling Theo while you are riding in the line--are you not jealous? Give us both a kiss before you go."