amrev_intrigues | private storyline 6

Entry tags:

private storyline 6

"Aye, it'll be no trouble," says Mrs. Linden, when Hamilton asks her to watch the baby. She winks at him, noting his flush.

"He is too fragile," Hamilton hastens to explain, "we simply wish--"

"You're nestin' like lovebirds," she laughs. "Go on, one more little one is easy enough."

Thus empty-handed, Hamilton approaches Laurens, just off duty in charge of the sentries. He is unaccountably nervous; it has not been so long since the two of them were so absorbed in one another, but it had seemed to Hamilton that this closeness had dissipated in light of Burr. It may be a mistake to revive it.

A sweet mistake, though.

"Laurens," calls Hamilton, and then, lower, "John," softly, signaling that he means to speak about something private. A look of anxiety passes across Laurens' face, but he falls into step beside Hamilton.

"Is Burr all right?" asks Laurens, brow furrowed, as they move out of earshot of anyone else.

"He's..." Hamilton chews on the inside of his cheek. "He had a request I would like to fulfill, if I can."

He explains, as quickly as he can.

Laurens' cheeks go a bright, flaming red, as he looks away, into the forest. When he looks back to Hamilton, his eyes have a hunger in them that steals Hamilton's breath. "Is it truly his request?" Laurens asks, carefully. "Alex, I know you--"

"Truly," Hamilton assures him. "He had no knowledge of our connection beforehand, even. And before I said a word, I extracted a promise of secrecy -- not that it was necessary, knowing him." He pauses, examining Laurens. "So?"

"When?" is all Laurens asks.

It is not long after, in the cabin, that Hamilton tells Burr: "He has agreed. He will be here in a few moments -- and I took care to wash, earlier. In case."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Before Laurens goes, he touches Hamilton's cheek, and leans down to kiss him -- a soft, sweet kiss, lingering, like he hadn't just spent more than a quarter-hour buried as deep in Hamilton's body as he can go. It seems, to Hamilton, that it is a kiss good-bye, a gentle farewell.

Another brush of his lips to Hamilton's temple, and Laurens goes. Hamilton misses him immediately. Sometimes it seems to him that Laurens was the one who awakened an ache, an emptiness, within him, and that Laurens then was the only one who could fill it.

Besides, the contentment of being held, by Burr, is too vast and lovely to be too disturbed, and he drifts off again.

--

"Of course," and he yawns, shifts up -- and winces, as abused muscles indicate their complaints. He also feels a trickling wet, where Laurens' seed leaks out of him.

He bites back any complaint, as his soreness is petty and small next to Burr's injuries, and slips out of bed. He wasn't too careless when he disrobed, and it's the work of but a moment to reassemble his uniform. More difficult is finding the ribbon used to tie his hair, but that is finally located in a fold of blanket, and he runs his fingers through it, taming it and binding it back.

It seems as though outside there has been a palpable increase in warmth since they three took to that cabin, though perhaps it's just Hamilton's own sentiments that have thawed.

He scoops up Theodosia from Mrs. Linden, with his thanks, and returns with her, awake from her little nap, though not fussing. Her eyes are big and newborn-grey, fixed on Hamilton until Hamilton sets her back into Burr's arms, at which time she homes in on Burr, with a comical look of stunned wonder, like Burr is the most beautiful thing she's ever seen.

Hamilton knows the feeling.

"I was right," Hamilton says, after a moment, perched on the bed and watching them with pride. "That she was a girl."

Edited 2022-05-03 12:45 (UTC)

"you were right," Burr snorts, "you had a fifty fifty chance no matter what you picked." He rocks Theo, who gurgles as he makes small cooing sounds, hands fisted in the air towards his face.

"Did you enjoy yourself with Laurens? I hope we didn't take things too far, or make you more uncomfortable than you wanted to be. You're very cute with a knot in your ass," Burr grins wickedly, "trying to control yourself."

He lifts his free hand, curls it around the nape of Hamilton's neck, fingers resting over the bite. "Though you're very attractive no matter what you do."

"Mm, sounds like I could easily have been wrong," says Hamilton. "Which I wasn't. Because I was right."

It's so clear that Theo wants to look at nothing else, cares for nothing else but her mother. The tenderness in it... Hamilton is absolutely certain he wants more children. As many as they can manage, and next time, all of the doctors and midwives and well-appointed birthing chambers that can be obtained in all of New York.

A little sigh, his eyes closing, as Burr strokes over the bite. "If I'd been trying to control myself," protests Hamilton, a little affronted, "I'd have done better than that." No, he'd plunged himself into it willingly, and even eagerly. Though that, in itself, is a bit difficult to admit. "But it was..." He looks troubled, for a moment. "Perhaps it's my precious ego talking, but do you think he...?" He doesn't really want to say Laurens is in love with me.

It's not difficult, to figure out what Hamilton is asking.

"Would it matter if he was?" Burr asks, his own flash of anxiety, as though he has opened the door on something that can never be closed, some space for Hamilton to drip out of his life, and into Laurens. Burr would look no better than a prostitute then, two failed marriages/engagements to revolutionary heros. But Hamilton has never been anything but accommodating, loyal.

"Whatever feelings Laurens has, he has clearly settled them in his mind, made his decision not to act on them, for whatever reason, to deeper your aquaintance, long before I returned from Quebec."

A pause, shifting Theo, taking some strain off the sore parts of him. "He certainly is attracted to you, feels tenderly towards you, for who could not?" And he passes Theo over then, because for all she loves her mother she also has some fixation with Hamilton, the one who would not shut up when she was in the womb, reading her dry legal texts and histories, and now she has a fixation with his hair.

"But I do not think he is holding out hope or want that you could be his."

She is not yet coordinated enough to grab at his hair, but when he tickles it in her face she wiggles a bit, making burbling sounds. It takes some time before she'll learn to laugh, Hamilton thinks, doesn't it? He can't wait to find out.

He nudges onto the bed next to Burr, cradling Theo against his chest.

"It leaves what we had in a different light, only," says Hamilton. "He cannot be what I need, though -- and you are, already." He leans his head against Burr's. "You make me want a future. You make me want to live to see it." A laugh enters his voice: "And I'd like to surround us with children -- what do you say, a dozen of ours, at least? Theo counted among them, of course." He's joking; a dozen times the fear of a few days ago would be quite a bit. But there is a wistful tone in there -- he imagines a large family, and it seems impossible, impossibly wonderful. "And all the doctors and midwives I can round up, next time, though they must of course submit themselves to Mrs. Smith's knowing authority."

"well, if you had your way it sounds like I would spend the whole of the war pampered and pregnant," he smiles, turns so he is pillowed next to Theo on Hamilton's chest, throws an arm and leg over him.

"Perhaps after the war," he says. "I would like some chance to distinguish myself yet, finish above a meer Captain. Then you may seal us away in some mansion somewhere, with lots of green." Another thought, one which has been niggling at him; "Monty left me a good deal of wealth, if the angry letters from his distant cousin are to be believed. We could be very rich after a short legal battle."

"Of course, the more we both distinguish ourselves the greater the opportunity for advancement once we--"

And Burr's next words stop him short.

"What?" he asks, stunned. He'd had literally no idea, and not even any thought of it.

"Oh," Burr says, drawing his head up and smiling at the look on Hamilton's face. Not often, he is rendered speechless. "Did I not tell you? He had a good deal of investments, and some property in New York. He planned to build a mansion there, after the war. I suppose before the invasion he sent some letters, or had his will altered, in case something happened. I am not sure how legally sound any of it is, but he doesn't have much family besides his cousin, and I am sure there would be a riot, should the widow of the general and mother of his child be left destitute."

And then Burr drops his head back down and laughs. "Oh, I am sure Timothy will be scandalized, if he will still talk to me. That I should be rewarded for my sins, or something similar. I think we should invite him as soon as possible. It would be very entertaining to me. And I could show you off. Mr. Hamilton, on the arm of the wealthy Mr. Burr."

Hamilton's mind is struggling to catch up.

"I had not the slightest idea," he manages. But his mind is racing along in moments. "I had assumed he had died intestate, and that you would consider making a claim based on the parentage of the child at a later date, as intestate succession goes to a widow or, saving that, to an acknowledged child, or, saving that, to a proven child... or decide for yourself that you did not wish to -- of course, a letter could be a codicil or even a will in itself, if he had it witnessed and properly attested. Do you have the letters from his cousin? I would very much like to see. The wording is crucial -- whether it is yours, or held in trust for Theo, makes a very great difference indeed."

"Monty didn't know about the child, Alexander. It was only the next day, after we'd mated that he--" He stops, swallows. A surge of emotion, that he had thought he conquered. Less now, with the lessening hormones, yet somehow more acute and painful for it.

"He always said he intended to marry me," Burr whispers. "That once we returned from the campaign, if we both lived, he would have a ring made, and we would break ground on the house together. But then, he went through the walls, and I was caught up in the rubble--small legs, and awful boots, and he rounded that corner and the grapeshot killed him instantly, and we tried to drag his body back but it was heavy, and there was musket shot and cannon fire everywhere, until it was just me and him, half sunk in the snow, and I couldn't get him back through the wall, and I knew it was only me, and I thought then, I was sure, though there was no logic behind it but a kind of desperate hope and despair, that he had gotten me with child, that he could have, and that here he was dead and no one would believe me if I said he intended to marry me, that a promise was no better than a lie, and I saw the ring on his hand and I thought--I took it and I ran. I left him there and I ran, blind into the snow, half-out of my mind and deaf until Benedict Arnold found me."

"I laid in bed so many nights just holding that ring in my hand. I had to wash his blood off of it. And I thought perhaps he had never really intended to marry me, that they were all false promises, as real as they seemed at the time. But then the letter came from his cousin, the talk of the letter he sent. You can find it there in my bag, near the bottom--" and Burr would get it for him if he could rise, but Hamilton is amenable always to these small favors.

"The letter, he says, was witnessed by a Colonel who was killed in the action, and sent to New York the night before we invaded, which he believes to be suspicious circumstances but cannot be readily proved. Moreover, he contends I could have written the letter myself after everyone was killed, which is ridiculous given the speed at which it reached New York, at a time when I was in Arnold's company, trying desperately to escape the massacre."

It is vivid enough that Hamilton thinks he can see the reflections in Burr's eyes, of snow, and rubble, and blood; and he does not know if touching Burr would make this worse or better, but it is all he has, so he does, wrapping Burr in his embrace and stroking through his soft, dark hair. At least he can feel the weight of Burr on him, the solid presence, and know that he is not fading away, not being snatched away by some distant time and captured by the echoes of suffering not fully gone.

"I thought as much," murmurs Hamilton. Then: "Oh, not that you were lying, dearest -- of course, had someone like the General known of the child, he would have supported you. I have no doubt. But I thought perhaps it was best that I not ask so many questions about the ring."

After the direction to the bag, Hamilton briefly extracts himself, not setting Theo down, because her small and warm presence is a sweet, innocent talisman against such a story. He fishes out the letters one-handed -- beneath a pile of his own writing, tied with red ribbon, that he is not displeased to see so carefully preserved.

He returns, folds Burr onto him, again, and begins to read.

"And what does he expect," scoffs Hamilton, "that a man in wartime will miraculously find only the luckiest survivors to witness? That he should wait until after a risky battle is joined, when the battle, and the risk, is the very reason he must write? Absurd."

He skims, and Theodosia yawns, widely; in her tiny world, all is well, Hamilton supposes. Her mother and her adoptive father are both here, scents mingled, warm and safe.

"If nothing else, he is clearly worried," says Hamilton, "which must mean that your claim has merit. But, if I am to preoccupy myself with sentiment, for a moment -- Aaron, this means that he cared for you very deeply. A promise, especially one without a ring, can mean anything, but this means he thought very highly of you." He doesn't sound jealous, just very pleased, on Burr's behalf. He had entertained some uncharitable notions, given Montgomery's age, and Burr's, but this contradicts them entirely. "Even without knowing of the child! Though he may have suspected -- I have heard it said when an omega is very receptive, sometimes the alpha knows... Suspicion is not proof, however, and he did not write that he wanted any potential child provided for, just you."

"He was a very good man," Burr says, and his hand has snaked down to grab Hamilton's, tight. "A very good man. I want you to know that. It is important that you know it," though he cannot say why it is so important. Why he should care one way or another, what Hamilton thinks of a general long dead. Nearly a year. Nearly a year since Burr last saw him.

"All of it is--I don't care much for any of it. The money--we could use it, but we do not need it. But the insult, against both of us--" who the both of them are, which pair he is referring to--Burr and Montgomery or Burr and Hamilton, he does not know. He never cared much for reputation, except when it mattered. And it matters now.

"I was studying law, before the war," Burr says. "At Princeton--I'm sure you know. I know family law. It would not be too much to defend myself, if I had to, but--" but it would be a public spectacle. A show. Dragging out any illegitimacies, a matter of defamation, of making Burr and his child and Hamilton seem as despicable as possible. And not there was the mess of colonial law, British law, and post-colony law, if it came to it.

"Of course, this cousin is being ridiculous. His claims have no merit, to anyone who knows even some distant version of the facts, yet so often facts seem not to matter, especially in cases of public opinion. Though we have won one court case, perhaps we can win another."

Hamilton's other words--Yes, it was a deep compliment, to leave Burr what Montgomery had. A large enough compliment that Burr did not want to think of it, overlong. That perhaps the old general had bought into the old wives tale, had believed Burr to be with child, when he went through that wall, and before, even. When he left their bed to pen his letter, to confide in his colonel. He had always wanted children. Had a nephew, he had been fond of telling Burr of, nights when they could risk a fire. Stolen moments, kissing beneath snowy pines, mouths which steamed for warmth, whispered promises.

Edited 2022-05-04 05:17 (UTC)

"Think of Theo's future," urges Hamilton. "The money is important -- an estate can excuse many an ill that would ruin a poor man's reputation. Of course we can make our way without it, I have the utmost faith in us. But should disaster strike, or unexpected ruin... I have no family to turn to, and in poverty and disrepute, there is no relief, nor rest."

He does not want to imagine such things -- and yet he imagines them constantly. Spectres of pain, hollow cheeks and hollow ribs where there should be healthy flesh.

"Besides, all we need to do is have Mr. Paine take up his pen..."

No, that is diverting the subject away from this painful place, when it is one he should open to his husband. It is so difficult -- !

He sighs, and closes his eyes, breathing in the smell of Burr. "I should like to tell you of my mother. I fear all you have from me are hints, and all you have from anyone else is rumor and gossip."

Burr snorts at the mention of Thomas Paine. Of course, another over-the-top pamphlet about the two of them would be just what the country at war needed. More family drama, spun as pure Americana.

But he stops when Hamilton brings up his mother. Something Hamilton only ever dropped hints about--that Burr would never ask about directly, no matter how curious about the depths of Hamilton's anxieties, regarding money, position, Burr's health, Theo's health. Normal enough, on their own, if not the feral look that seemed to underwrite those moments. If not for Hamilton's drive, as if at every moment decisions were leveraged against death and damnation.

"I would like to hear," Burr says softly, probing himself up beside Theo to gaze up into Hamilton's face. Never a time when he might feel more secure than now, with the entirety of his family propped on his chest. Theo wasn't even crying, drifting half asleep, drooling.

"She was not as they say," is what bursts from him, first. "She was not a whore -- she married unhappily, and fled her husband. She could not obtain a divorce, even on grounds of mistreatment, as he was powerful on the island, with the judiciary populated by his friends. She removed herself to another island entirely, and when she met my father, she truly wished she could be Mrs. Hamilton, and, for a time, he and she tried to make that fiction real. That was the earliest I remember: my older brother, my parents both. And then something changed."

He pauses, a long moment, trying to gather his words. "Later, I learned it was that her former husband had sued for divorce, and accused her of adultery. They could no longer pretend, as her secrets were published." Publication was a court requirement, to give notice of the court hearings to a woman who could not be personally served with papers -- but, in this case, it was a deliberate cruelty, as well.

"My father did not remain for long after that," he recalls. "Perhaps it was for the best, as his debts burdened us, as well. After, though, it was very hard -- all of us worked. I went hungry, often. She was omega, and she wanted, more than anything, to have an alpha who would have taken care of her and her sons. It was before I understood the cage -- that she must have wanted that only because being without it was terribly worse."

Perhaps this explains some of his ignorance, some of his tendencies.

"It was not two years of this when she and I both took very, very ill, with the yellow fever." A soft breath. His eyes have grown hot, with angry and grief-stricken tears, and one falls, as he shuts them tight. "She died holding me, while I was too insensible with fever to know -- we were found a day after, perhaps two."

Burr doesn't know what to say. Never had much skill, in matters of comfort and reassurance, when that person was dear to him. A terrible story. Two days, lying insensate next to a dead mother. Before that--years of hard labor, or starvation and suffering, not enough meat on the bone, not enough of anything.

Burr can't do anything, but hug Hamilton while he cries--uses his body like a balm, slides upward so that his head is next to Hamilton, and he can press their cheeks together, can bring his hands up to stroke over his face.

"I'm sorry," he says, because what else is there to say. "I didn't know, I don't know, what that is like, other than that it sounds miserable, and heart-breaking." Little kisses, pressed gently into skin, twining fingers.

"That could never happen to us, Alexander. We have friends here, and means. I would never leave you, and I know you would not abandon me, and even if the worst happened and we were separated, you could seek sanctuary with Washington or Laurens as well as I could seek support from Mr. Edwards, who would take me in as his Christian duty even if I were a whore and Theo an illegitimate orphan." But that is not good enough. Hamilton is shaped by it--the towering specter of poverty, the need to get away. And he will not rest until they attain something unattainable, beyond all reproff. But Montgomery's money would help. A small balm, if not perfect security.

"I would fight on this matter of the money regardless, but I would do it for you and Theo as well. So you do not have to feel those pains again."

He leans hard into Burr, and even just this physical presence comforts him indescribably. He is anchored to this place and this man, this child, and the past cannot take him. Not entirely.

"Men are cruel," he whispers. "All the family connections in the world cannot protect against that cruelty, though they are bulwarks and fortifications in defense."

Each little kiss is a blessing. Each touch soothes the broken places in his heart.

"He took everything, Aaron," Hamilton says, like a confession. "He was her husband, and entitled to her full estate. And if he had not thought that selling it was the greater cruelty, I would have lost our library, too. Thirty-four little books, and they were everything to me, with Jack. James, my brother." He shivers, at the memory. "We were taken in by a cousin, but he committed suicide, and expressly left his possessions to his mistress and children. So I lost James, then -- he apprenticed to a carpenter, and he did not look back. I was taken in as a servant by my mother's landlord -- something between a servant and a foster. It owes to my determination, alone, that I became a clerk, as I was desperately set on having an income of my own." A breath. "I was fourteen."

He pulls back, enough to clasp Burr's face, hold it in both of his hands. "Love, do you see now? Do you see what you showed me? Do you know what you gave me? The courage to build, and grow, and not just burn until I am extinguished."

What can Burr say to such sweet things? What can he do in the face of such desperate pain and hope, but lay a gentle kiss on his husband's lips?

An awful burden, that he is this thing for Hamilton, that in his death or disappearance all of him might crumble away to nothing, yet it is a burden Burr will bear gladly.

"We will grow something," Burr says. "You said you wanted children. We will have more, as many as you want, within reason. A large house, with land, and money put aside in trust for the children. A large library, if you wish it, and a garden, and frequent walks together. Something to turn your head towards happier times, and space your own, for the times when you need it."

Awful memories, of awful times, things that cannot be erased, but can be lived with. Burr cannot reach out and pull those things from his head, but he can comfort and soothe what he can.

"And what is within reason?" A smile, soft, struggling through the grief. "Have you come around the idea of a dozen?" He is teasing, again, gently: Burr's words are an intoxicant like to rival the finest wines, taken in with pleasing sips, settling inside him with comforting warmth.

Just then, Theodosia lets out a petite snore, her mouth slack and most certainly drooling by now. He cannot help the smile that blooms in response, and in fact must work to contain his laughter.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

private storyline 6

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject