amrev_intrigues

psl b4?

The pregnancy seems to have entered a new phase, after bail is posted, after Burr's claim of him on a hard and wooden bench in a filthy cell. Alexander can't stop thinking about it. His mind catches on the glide of Burr's cock-head, spreading his slit; he replays, again and again, the sensation of Burr's cock digging at the entrance to his womb, just this side of painful, and how his body welled with welcoming, wet slick at every slow thrust. Burr's body against his. Needy, broken pieces of himself, spasming around the cherished intrusion. How he was pressed back down into the bench and used, fucked on Burr's knot while claiming-marking urine leaked out of him --

He became a different creature, just then. Burr claimed him, and Alexander doesn't know what it means. He is frightened of how close Burr is to him, and frightened even more of losing that closeness. He shares Burr's bed, every night. He has vivid nightmares that he doesn't remember on waking. And if they awaken him in the middle of the night, he burrows under the covers and licks at Burr's soft cock, suckles it into his mouth, until Burr is awake and willing to pleasure him back to sleep. He is guilty for it, for interrupting Burr's sleep, but he always forgets his guilt when Burr's fingers are inside him or Burr's mouth is on him or even just Burr's sleepy voice telling him he's beautiful while he pulls himself off.

But there is a change. He is ravenous, and he longs for strange things, one day repulsed and the next day drawn to a particular food. The nausea isn't just in the mornings, now, but can strike at any time during the day. His back hurts, and he isn't even carrying much extra weight, though he's starting to think that maybe the swell at his stomach is large, unusually so. And his nipples ache, in a way that seems periodically echoed through the flesh beneath.

He asks Burr, hesitating, to bring a midwife to the home. Burr suggests a doctor, as well, and Alexander blanches, knowing the judgment that a gentleman might bring to their situation.

"Should we," and he swallows, dreading and wanting. "Should we marry first?"

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Burr is tired. Has been tired, for much of the past few weeks. But if Burr is tired, Hamilton must be more so. He's fussy, and needy. He has trouble sleeping, and no reservations with waking Burr when he wants his body. It is only fair--Burr did get them into this mess.

He likes Hamilton's new weight. Likes the swell of his stomach, that does seem overlarge, though Burr had thought perhaps his perverted mind was making hi m seem larger than he was. Likes especially to rest his hands there, feeling the shape, covering, holding. In sleep or waking. Coming up behind Hamilton to hold him.

He shouldn't want to make Hamilton a kept man. But he can't help the rising anxiety, the further along Hamilton gets. He can't help but recall the Theodosias pregnancies--the miscarriages, health that seemed never to recover. He wants to keep Hamilton safe, but it is at odds with his nature. Aloof and cool, reserved.

He is quiet, mostly. There is enough to keep him occupied. He wants to give Hamilton things. Thrills each time he returns home to find Hamilton still there, thinks each time he leaves for work that Hamilton will slip away forever. So he doesn't mind going out to get foods Hamilton asked for, only for those same things to be rebuffed when he returns. He cares only that Hamilton eats, fussy as he is. Not above using underhanded persuasion--little bits handfed, and it's easier after Burr brings him off with his mouth, under the dinner table or early in the morning.

Of course, Hamilton is overdue for a visit with a doctor, or midwife. But he'd not thought it prudent to force the subject.

"Hamilton, any doctor of mine has seen worse, I assure you." If Hamilton wants to marry him it should be because he wants to, not rushed for a want of propriety. They are far past that. "As I said before--I will marry you whenever you wish it."

He hopes desperately that Hamilton does mean to be married, though. He's had the paperwork made up since then--the night in jail. But Hamilton hadn't brought it up again, and Burr though--well. He'll take Hamilton any way he can have him.

He expected that he wouldn't want to be touched, that Burr's hands on him would make him want to hiss and snap. It's how it's always been, with him. Doesn't want to be kept. But he has the strangest feeling, when Burr's palm rests on his belly's curve -- like he is a bird held in cupped hands, wings draped over, unobstructed. Burr obviously is possessive, or wants to be, judging by how he was when Hamilton was taking clients, before this. Is it just natural restraint, holding him back?

Doesn't feel that way. The first time he fell asleep on Burr, knotted, in heat and vulnerable, he remembers thinking: Burr's first reaction was to try and leave. His second was to touch with admiring hands.

Sometimes Hamilton wants to shake him. Who are you? How is he so different from the man Hamilton knew as a scheming bastard, ambitious, unconstrained by politics and philosophy? Is this what Jefferson's relentless pursuit made of him? Did he change because of the duel? Was Hamilton always wrong?

He swallows, again. His throat is dry. "I saw the license," he says. His nerves are fluttering, in his belly, and he subconsciously moves a hand to rest there.

Has he been snooping in Burr's papers? Yes, but -- mostly it was to see if there was any work that could be done. Hamilton is not one easily made a prisoner in the home. He wants to be a lawyer again. And he has begun to refresh his knowledge, to reach out and find ways he can contribute.

"I didn't know..." A hint of a smile. "Men say a lot of things when they're between a whore's legs. Mostly, they don't do the paperwork, aft--" And he stops, abruptly, because he can feel those fluttering nerves under his palm, and they aren't nerves at all. His eyes go wide. He isn't even half-way! "Aaron." He reaches out and seizes Aaron's hand, presses it where his own just rested.

So he can feel the child moving.

He is concerned, when Hamilton stops. But then Alexander grabs his hand, presses it to his stomach, and the breath slams out of him in a little oh.

He drops to his knees, because it is easier than standing, with legs that shake. He pulls up the edge of Hamilton's shirt, so he can press his face, his ear against the belly, hands on either side. Feels the shift, against his head, and he doesn't know what to do, has no outlet for the emotion he feels.

He kisses the stomach, a flutter of desperate and awe-filled kisses. And he thinks of Theodosia, and his eyes are wet, and he hides the wetness against Hamilton. Doesn't want to think about her.

Doesn't want to think about her, so he pushes himself to his feet suddenly, and then he is on Hamilton, pushing him back against the wall and ravishing him, kissing deep and fast and hard. And if Hamilton will let him he'll drop to his knees, here on the hardwood. Will yank Hamilton's pants down and bury his tongue between hot folds. Will lap and suck and bring him off against the wall.

Hamilton wonders how much they both see someone else, when he feels the wet of tears against his skin. Theodosia, and her daughter, and her son, for Burr -- and a sudden, bayonet-stab of longing for Laurens, for Hamilton. He remembers little about the duel, but he does know he thought he would see Laurens again, after his death.

He almost has the willpower to push Burr away. What they were talking about was important -- but it doesn't matter. He desires Burr so frantically and desperately, all the time, now, that hardly a touch has him surging into a cockstand, laying out a slick invitation for Burr to have him in more devastating and submissive ways.

Burr doesn't try, which Hamilton finds a relief, if only because he thinks then he'd be the one hiding tears, weakness, pain turned sin turned something that's a tortured kind of lovely.

He bites back the words that would turn this on Burr -- you're filthy, you should be the whore the way you use your tongue, you -- you --

It wasn't like this with Eliza. He was always so delighted that it made her laugh, when they knew she was pregnant, or when they felt a quickening like this. The backs of his eyes burn, instead, and the image of his own cock curving up towards his swollen belly is what shatters him, a sick satisfaction in it all.

He is trembling-weak after, and doesn't bother to clean himself up, just steps out of shoes and stockings and breeches and collapses down on the sofa nearby, flush-stained cheeks and undone shirt-tails doing a poor job at covering him. Alexander, the man of so many words, doesn't know what to say. Rests his hand on his belly, but the movement has stopped. Perhaps soothed by the paroxysms of muscle, gentle, in his pelvis.

"It's real, isn't it?" he asks. "It's real." He doesn't know what he's referring to.

Burr follows him, something pulled along on a chain. He settles next to the sofa on his knees, submissive, because that is what Hamilton needs, sometimes. He brings his hands up, rubs over Hamilton's thighs, massages.

"Tell me what you need," he says, because Hamilton so rarely will say anything directly, for how often he complains. A midwife, a doctor, and--does he want to be married? When, and how? They could do it tonight, easily enough. Sign a few papers, and Burr has--well. Burr has a ring.

Burr's hand is in his, now, somehow. His hands are warm, shaky, soft skin gone wrinkled. He runs his thumb along the knuckles.

His eyes flick upward from their hands, to Burr's eyes. Hazel-dark, always with that glimmer, the spark -- like he received more than his share of vivacity and vitality when God gave him a soul.

Touches Burr's cheek. A strange, lurching feeling in him, like some new heart peeling away from the old.

He takes a breath.

"Before we marry, you should know."

Last, a touch to Burr's lips, thumb pressing down as though to keep him silent.

"I forgive you," he says. A burden, released. Forgiveness for the blooming stain at his rib cage, for the nightmares, the new and struggling life in the Caribbean. He doesn't really believe it until he says it, but when he says it, it is true. Neither of them knew the consequences when they met that morning, and the fault was not Burr's alone. Nonetheless, Burr has carried that fault. With his taste on Burr's tongue and Burr's child quickened in his belly, it's past time.

Burr laughs. He can't help it. He laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

"You forgive me? My, yes. How blessed am I!"

Sits back, jerking, dislodging Hamilton from him. "How blessed am I, to be forgiven for so aptly playing into your hands. For allowing you to finally martyr yourself, as you had so long wanted. Fool that I was, for giving you that. How could anyone think ill of the poor deceased, slaughtered by a once-friend. Your religious duty to oppose me, did you not say? Yes, your final chance to ruin me. How grateful for your forgiveness! How low you have stooped in offering it!"

And as he speaks he grows louder, and wanders farther from Hamilton. Can't look at him as the words tumble out. Can't but show the slightest shiver of any emotion but anger. He has felt it so long. And it was true--Hamilton had calculated, what way he could finally ruin Burr. A lost election, and Burr had done nothing. Then, the election for mayor. Slander even beyond that. Burr had shown such restraint, where Hamilton hounded him relentlessly. Ruined his life. Hamilton had ruined his life. His darling Theodosia--who would not have died, if not for going to meet Burr in New York, after so long away in exile.

Mad. Hamilton had been mad, at the end. Practically foaming at the mouth with paranoia and pride. Unrecognizable. And then, when Burr had seen him in the baudy house--that had been the Hamilton he knew, all those years ago. But not. Broken, as he had been, later in life. But without the madness. The passion and drive, that could only have driven him mad.

"You ruined me--" Burr says. "You ruined yourself." He leaves.

When he returns, whenever he returns, Alexander is gone. The traces of him, too: clothes, the few precious books, the diary.

He's left, on Burr's pillow, a folded letter -- and on top of it, the ring Burr gave him on that first night, pressed onto his finger. It is a prideful thing, to leave it. He could use the money from selling it. Instead, he spurns it.

The letter has no salutation.

Oft I dream of the wound you gave me. As I dream, it seems the wound was not to my spine, but between my legs; that instead of a bullet, it was your hands that kneaded and molded my flesh, rendered me until I was yielding. Then, you used and pleasured the passage you made, the one that fit you best. Was it your touch that made me love you? I think it was; not the pleasure, though the pleasure haunts me. It is how you hold me after. It is how you soothed me while I cradled your knot in the new, soft places in me.

You already sowed strange seeds when you killed me, Aaron. They grew in me like poison, like nightmares. It is no surprise that another seed took root so easily. It is a surprise that this seed is so adored. It is so precious. -- Don't you want a child? you asked me. I want this one. I want terribly to nurse and protect this little piece of you, and me.

I spoke true when I gave you my forgiveness. But you have spoken true, as well, haven't you? You have not forgiven me.

I love you. I love you. But you hate me still, and I cannot marry you.

Good-bye.

A.

He goes whoring. A glorious three day Bender of drinking and fucking. He goes to the whores he know: the ones that will hit him if he asks, tie him up. And new ones too. Easy, quick fucks. Whores who don't care to pretend they're enjoying it. He sleeps here and there--passed out wherever he happens to be overcome by drink or laudanum. He feels fine. This is how he has lived, the lifestyle that started sometime after Princeton, took hold after Theodosia sr. death, and developed from habit to lifestyle after Theo jr.s death.

He wanders home, eventually. To a silent, stale house. Finds the letter, reads it. Reads it again. Folds it up and flings it at the wall. Punches the wall too, splits knuckles and drips blood.

He does hate. Hates the Hamilton who was. Hates him. A hate that folded into the fabrics of themselves, all those years ago.

What right did Hamilton have, to come into Burr's home? To be built up by him only to leave when his pride was recovered enough to dangle before Burr the mistakes of years ago. Not mistakes. Not.

He goes back out. He doesn't want to think.

Hosack finds Aaron Burr passed out face first in his sitting room, mostly having made it onto the couch. There is a spill of sick by the door, and another few drops on the carpet.

He sighs, leaning on his cane, and says, to himself, “We are too old for this.”

But he finds a basin of more or less fresh water in Burr’s room, along with a crumpled letter he has few compunctions about reading — ah, and it confirms his suspicions, that they have tangled themselves together far more than young Alexander admitted.

The indifferent housekeeper arrives while the doctor settles Burr more comfortably, unwinds the knotted cravat, wipes the sick from his mouth and confirms that he is breathing, his heart beating. She puts on a pot to cook some hearty stew, at his urging, and coffee, and Hosack settles in to wait for Burr to awaken. He has nursed his friend before. It is familiar enough.

Burr comes to awareness slowly, and reluctantly. He feels ill, like dying, and is disconcerted. He doesn't know where he is, or what day it is.

Until he opens his eyes and sees Hosack. He wishes instantly to be back asleep.

"God no," Burr says, trying to swallow around a swollen tongue. "If you let yourself in, perhaps you can also be so good as to let yourself out."

He doesn't want to see anyone, and he doesn't need an intervention. He only has a few years left, no family, and he has made it clear on a number of occasions that he fully intends to gain what little satisfaction there is left for him on this earth before expiration.

“Have some coffee,” says Hosack, affably, apparently unconcerned by Burr’s words. “I’ve already taken all the laudanum, and I’ve found Alexander’s letter, so I do hope we can skip some of the preliminaries.” He sets the mug down on the table in front of Burr, and returns to his seat.

"Yes, clearly you understand everything," Burr says dryly. "I should have you arrested for burglary," but he doesn't do anything except sit up to sip at the coffee. Black and strong and horrible--exactly as he likes it. Another of his addictions, yet apparently this one is fine, if the damn doctor gives it to him.

He'll have to go and procure more laudanum, once the doctor leaves. As if he has endless money. But he doesn't feel like walking quite yet. Stomach still turning unpleasantly. Ah, but his ass feels bruised, and that at least is quite nice.

"Say your peace and be on your way."

“I’d like to see you try,” he returns, wryly.

Leans back, as Burr sips. “Imagine my surprise,” he drawls, “when Alexander Hamilton turned up on my doorstep, five days ago — more beautiful and young than ever. Imagine the heart attack I got on the sight of his face — shouldn’t take much, since you likely had the same. Now imagine the shock of finding he is with child, unmarried, and, ah, yes, the father? He is confident of that. It is none other than Aaron Burr. Oh, and he had to do some work to convince me on that. I didn’t believe him until he started to weep like his heart was broken. Then I knew.”

He shakes his head. “Alexander? Of all the whores in all the world, Aaron? You’re as much an Icarus as he, and you can’t resist the sun.”

"You've seen him," Burr says by way of explanation, as if the fatal attraction between them hadn't been just that, in Alexander's previous life. As if it was due to Hamilton's new biology.

"I didn't eject him, he left of his own volition, as unpredictable and volatile as ever. Still playing the victim as he did before, I see."

How is it that Hamilton has drawn him once again into one of these games. Hamilton was always so quick to take up that role as somehow wronged. As if Burr had turned him out after taking advantage of him. To turn up at their friends weeping pitiably, and pregnant, and alone. But it was Hamilton who brought it up. Dangled forgiveness in front of Burr's face like he had asked for it or needed it. Needed Hamilton's forgiveness after it had been Hamilton who ruined his life. Nothing that happened that day at dawn had been beyond Hamilton's purview. From the glasses, right down to those damn hair-trigger pistols. Those long minutes Hamilton spent sighting Burr down, as if he ever intended to fire.

Burr's sure it's there somewhere, in Hamilton's own papers. Some self righteous rambling about goading Burr into killing him. About how, by deloping (not even in the correct manner!) Hamilton would ensure Burr was branded a murderer and a monster.

He was happy to put it behind them. That was the Hamilton. The old ones, whose mind was corrupted by madness and grief. But now? He's not so sure.

"He believes you rejected him, at any rate, if not ejected," Hosack returns, without rancor. He's well aware of the tendencies of both of them to exaggeration and to dramatics.

A shake of his head. "Yes, I've seen him." He laughs. "If I weren't a happily married man... And, of course, if he didn't put off the smell of a mated omega at fifteen paces."

Another sigh.

"Aaron," he says, "the man's nineteen years old -- if that! -- pregnant, and unmarried, and an omega. And the damned idiot won't even admit he's at a disadvantage, much less that you could hurt him. I had to press him for days before he even admitted you made promises."

Nineteen. Nineteen. Burr's impregnated a nineteen year old, held him accountable for the actions of a forty year old, years before. In what way did the reincarnated bear the maturity and age of the one who came before? Certainly Hamilton did not remember as a child what had happened. Was not a fifty year old at five. And he's not the same now as he was then, before. He's hardly an adult.

Burr feels ill, as he has since reading the letter. But he's so angry. If Hamilton is so different now, what right did he have to offer forgiveness for the other? How seperated are they? It's too much to work out, the tangle of guilt and responsibility and personhood. He would have been more than happy to ignore it.

"I intended to keep them," the promises, "but he wouldnt have me. It's been a damn mess, trying to convince him to give up his old profession and do something more befitting his intellect. You can imagine his feelings regarding marriage."

Ah, but something more pressing. Hosack is a doctor.

"Did you examine him?" Burr asks, suddenly finding his coffee very interesting.

"Certainly I did!" huffs Hosack. "A repeat with such detailed memories, and such a close physical resemblance, is a medical marvel, and I hope he allows me to publish the case study -- details altered, of course --"

And he stops, and laughs at himself. "Of course, that isn't what you meant," he says. "Forgive me. He is healthy, astonishingly so, given his profession, though his nerves are unacceptably stressed, and he is too thin."

He looks levelly at Burr. "Have you heard of the stethoscope?" Holds up a hand, to indicate that this is going somewhere, Burr should bear with him. "It's a new invention, a marvelous idea. A way to hear the heartbeat, the functioning of the lungs and the organs. It has very promising application in the treatment of those with child, because the heartbeat of the child can distinguished..." He pauses. "Fetal heartbeats are soft, and so I cannot say for certain until it is confirmed by another physician."

A beat.

"I believe I found two fetal heartbeats," he says, softer. "Twins, Aaron."

Burr stands, suddenly. Nearly dumps his coffee onto the floor, paces behind the couch, one fist pressed over his mouth. His face betrays nothing, but inside his heart is pounding.

"What does that mean for him?" Burr asks. "For his health? He is so--he is so small. And young. It must be harder, mustn't it? To carry two?"

He tries to keep his voice level, but he thinks there is a little waiver, which makes him blush. But there is something else, too. A little pleased feeling, in his guts. That he was so effective as to impregnate Hamilton twice over. To make him swollen and fat with Burr's seed, Burr's children, in a way no one else was able. A little stirring in his cock, as well, that he forces down.

"It is more difficult," he allows, gentle. "Most obviously, he'll need to carry a greater weight, and eat for three -- but the stain on his body will be significant." He smiles, a little. "Ah, Alexander, though -- he's strong."

He studies Burr, for a long moment.

"He looks up every time the door opens," the doctor tells him. "Every time a carriage passes. He goes quiet, whenever I speak of you -- otherwise, he interrupts every other word. Aaron, I can't fathom how you've done it, but you've gotten him tied in knots over you."

Tied in knots. Looking towards the door. Burr should go to him. He should go to him right now and apologize. And yet--its hard. Why is it so hard.

"I can't," Burr says, the words tripping out of him. "I'm not--I'm so angry. For something that wasn't even--was it him?" Burr asks, and he's not sure what he's asking. If madness or reiteration made them too different to account.

"I thought we could ignore it, but--he needs so much. And I'm--afraid." Chokes a little, when he says. Doesn't want to admit.

"Questions I can't answer," Hosack admits. "To be frank, I hope studying him can lead us closer to the answers -- but, my friend, don't you think he struggles with the same questions? Do you think him any less afraid than you?"

He heaves himself to his feet.

"They do need, sometimes, don't they?" he asks. "I consider it little enough a price, for my part. My late wife and my current wife both forged forth with the strength of soldiers, risking live and health to bring our children into the world. But Alexander is something else, of course. He would never be content in the home. He'll be a handful." It is strange, to decide how to talk about him: like he would talk about a young, headstrong omega, or how he would talk about his departed friend.

A small price, Hosack thinks, for what is given. And Hamilton won't be satisfied, will he? With such a small part of Burr? He wants all of it. Those parts carved and pitted from years before.

And he's scared too. Must be, the same way Burr is of him. The words don't seem so much like haughtiness and pride. Perhaps they were desperate little offerings. Something someone nineteen with memories they didn't want could hardly understand.

"I'll go to him," Burr says suddenly. "If he'll see me. Though I can't promise it won't end in yelling. I--allow me to bathe and dress."

"To borrow a phrase from your esteemed profession," says Hosack, dryly, "I believe I've already assumed the risk of that."

At least he can ensure there will be no pistols this time, no dawn-meeting with death. And he knows truly that Alexander's life is entirely safe in Burr's hands. He thinks that Alexander knows it too.

"I would recommend both," he says, "bathing, particularly, and a bit of the stew left on the stove."

--

At first, Alexander thinks: he only didn't cry at the news because he was out of tears. Because surely the fact that there are twins, two little fused creatures made of him and Burr growing within him, is enough reason to cry -- from the risk and pain, or from happiness, either way. Instead, he finds himself curling up in a small guest bedroom on a small guest bed, hugging his middle with a soft and secret joy. Not one that brings him to tears but one that suffuses and calms. His hopes are dashed and his plans are in ruins and he is grieving, grieving, and all he can do is whisper I love you, my darlings, my darlings.

The next morning, to his gratitude, Hosack's wife has procured for him a sort of half-corset, not for binding tight but for supporting the growing weight at his chest, while leaving room for his belly to grow. It immediately helps with the persistent and illogical pain at his lower back, though doesn't eliminate it entirely. He has uncomfortable visions of his organs being pressed and shifted to accommodate his new burden.

Hosack has already left on an errand, and Alexander sets to writing down some of his earliest memories. He doesn't want to relive them, but he can't deny that he owes them for their help, and the idea that his mind might be important to the world again is a heady one.

He looks up, as always, when the door opens: he imagines, as always, that it will be Burr with his dark and glittering eyes, that he will come and sweep Alexander into his arms like some absurd and romantic novel. He doesn't expect Burr to come after him. He wants it, though. Hosack and his wife have already implied, strongly, that Alexander's duty was to return -- to his children, to Burr. It's not an omega's place to do what he wants to do, and he sees Hosack struggling between Alexander-as-Alexander and Alexander-as-omega. -- Ah, but, are they wrong? Alexander has been selfish. He has taken and taken from Burr, and what has he given, in return? Just his body, and he has been demanding even in that.

So vivid is his fantasy that it takes him one blink, too, to see that Burr is truly there, at the guest room's door. Alexander is on his feet as he realizes. He is stunned silent, that Burr is here, and he is afraid, too, instantly, that Burr is here for some other, meaner reason.

Edited 2022-07-16 17:13 (UTC)

He lays eyes on him, for the first time in six days, and he's breathless. He looks--he looks bigger, but too thin, as Hosack said. Pale and wan, but still healthy. Still swollen, with those things growing in him.

"I'm--" Burr starts, stops. Alexander blinking at him. He wishes only that he could cross the room and take him into his arms and not worry any about words. But, well. He's Alexander. He'll need words. "I don't hate you," Burr says, cringes when he says it. "I can't forgive Alexander, the other one, for what he did. But that doesn't mean--I still--"

"He, you--he was mad at the end, you see. He wasn't himself." Burr is blushingly wildly. He feels like he's defending something, old and passed and tattered. He's talking like a lover. Defending the old Alexander like a lover. And he did want him then, in that way. Perhaps that's why it's been so bitter, stuck with him the longest.

"I don't hold you accountable for it," Burr says. "I don't hate you. I want you to come home. I'm--you know--I love you."

He fingers the ring in his pocket, pulls it out to settle heavy in his palm. "And I want to marry you."

Is this why everything is so different? He was mad at the end. Alexander is frowning, not at the sentiment, but because the idea makes his mind spin and spin. It doesn't feel as though he was mad, then. It feels as though the world around him was one thing and now it is another. It feels that what is real upended itself, with Burr at the center. He's pretended past it, imagined that things have just changed, or that he was wrong, but he'd been so certain then, even awash in his soul's agony, from his son's death. He even misses that certainty, sometimes.

Why don't you love me? Why don't you love me enough? -- is what he wanted to ask when he wrote that letter. Is that what he really wanted to know? Or was there a more devastating question lurking just out of reach?

He twitches forward, towards Burr. Come home. He wants to come home.

"But I remember it," protests Alexander, desperately. "I remember choosing it. It was so clear -- I wanted to damn you, and I wanted it so much." He tangles his fingers in his own hair, his grip a tight fist. "I was him, I was -- if I'm not him, who am I?"

"You're you," Burr says, and he's crying a bit, and he doesn't know why. "You're my Alexander," gentle hands reaching out to guide those away from Hamilton's hair. And if Alexander will let him, he'll hold him--collapse against Alexander's chest and breathe.

He's trembling. Aren't they both, now? And scared? But what way is there but forward, clinging?

Burr unknots his fingers and, in a different way, pulls, delicately, at the strings that might, someday, unknot his mind. Alexander closes his eyes and noses against Burr, blindly. A rearing, furious thing in him wants to spurn Burr and claim his identity, bind himself to the fey version of himself who spiraled inexorably towards his own death. It's what Alexander Hamilton would have done, if he were transported here and now.

He can't blame the rest on biology. Not even if the smell (of his mate) hits his nose and breaks him out in pleasant shivers. He doesn't want to die, though. He doesn't feel the same hopeless, helpless rage at the absence his son left in his life. He wants to breathe, he wants to go on, he wants to look towards a future, and even though the future with Burr could be cut short, any time, any instant, he wants to live it.

His Alexander. Alexander's mate.

Burr loves him enough to come after him, and he doesn't look like he was dragged there by Hosack. Isn't that what Alexander wished for?

"I'm sorry," and once he says it, it falls from him, again, again: "I'm sorry for him, I'm so sorry," not for what he did to himself but for what he did to Eliza and Burr and the children and the country.

Burr hold him, and marks him. Rubs scent onto skin from his own. Something that might be done when mating, but might also be done to soothe. A display of devotion.

Hamilton apologizes, apologizes, so different from the Hamilton he one knew, and Burr silences him, takes each apology into his mouth, hold it there, slow and needy. Should Burr apologize too? He has, but the words, those simple small ones--

Burr had thrown one forgiveness back at him, yet now he yearns for it. He takes the ring and presses it into Alexander's hand. Writes his own apology in small displays of submission, now--bares his throat and goes to his knees, for all his arms still cling to Hamilton's pant leg.

His fingers curl around the back of Burr's head, and his wrist, another place where scent rises from the body, presses against Burr's throat -- before withdrawing, enough to place his hand in Burr's. Delicate, the way a bride would, to invite a ring placed.

"I don't promise obedience," and Alexander's voice is hushed. "Any vow of faithfulness could be rightfully doubted. But I promise, I vow, I will love and honor and keep you." His thumb brushes away the tears that have already worked themselves free from Burr's eyes. "We may register it for the --" A soft breath. "The twins." The twins. "But my promise is for you. You are the only witness who matters to me."

He is giddy with nerves, sick with the wrenching change from grief to incredulous joy. He is casting himself wildly into an unknown future. If Burr puts that ring on his finger, now, he will consider himself married, in all the ways that matter.

Burr does. God help him, he does. Slides the ring onto Hamilton's finger and then covers the hand with his own. It is too painful to look at, too beautiful, too wonderful, too much. He kisses Hamilton's hand--each finger, and then presses it to the side of his face. Holds.

"I can't promise either--" Burr says. "Faithfulness, or to be always kind. I think we shall snap at one another a good deal, and fight when we ought not to. But I promise to love you, and care for you, when it is needed. And to allow you also your freedom, to make awful personal and political decisions, so long as you come home to me after."

He waits for Hamilton--to tell Burr when to rise, to nudge him to his feet. Gives him these small things, that he needs so badly.

There is another thing--

"How old are you, really? Don't lie to me again. Hosack said you are not more than nineteen."

He is about to, when the question takes him by surprise. He half-laughs; his eyes are blurred with tears. "Oh," he says. "Oh. I didn't want you to pity me, was all. I thought I could bear anything but pity." A breath. The new presence on his ring finger astonishes him. It seems to make an electric connection all the way to his heart. "He is a doctor, and so I told him true. I was born in December, 1806." This would make him nineteen.

Though it does give rise to a new mystery: where was he, between July, 1804, and his conception? Was his soul in another child, one that never was old enough for him to remember? Was he in Heaven? Hell? Some aetheric medium between them? Did he choose to return?

It will be Hosack's disappointment, Alexander thinks, that he doesn't know.

Alexander pulls him up. "Come here," he says, "come here and kiss me." Though it's really Alexander who kisses first, who kisses like claiming, because he is giddy and happy and because he thinks it would make Burr happy to be claimed too.

Burr thinks Hamilton might be lying. That he is younger than he says. It's been easy for Hamilton to convince himself of lies in the past. To defend then like truths.

But then Hamilton is pulling him up, kissing him, and Burr lets himself be claimed. Makes a little pleased sound, and lets his hands wander down, cupping Hamilton's stomach, jutting between them.

"Twins," Burr says, against skin. "you're going to get so big," a little tease, but he loves the idea.

He gives a little bite to Burr’s gland, just a moment of teeth’s grip without bruising, without hurting. It seems to give him some confidence. He flushes, at Burr’s words, fusses with some imagined wrinkle in Burr’s cravat.

“It wasn’t recorded,” he says, in a rush, “my birth — my mother told me after but I don’t know if she remembered right. It’s my best guess. It’s the closest I have to truth, to give you.” He meets Burr’s eyes, firmly. “I don’t want pity. I thought to myself, if I did not know for sure, then it wasn’t really a lie, but that itself is a lie. I have already demanded from you that which I wasn’t willing to give,” and he means the affection that Burr showed him, and his aloof, withdrawn response. His fear. “I’m willing, now. I will try to be willing.” This is determined. Alexander demands a great deal of himself when he is at his best, and he has languished without employing his willpower for, it feels, a long time. Or at least his willpower was only employed in his survival, without ambition for more.

His hand rests on his belly. “I never go in half-measures,” he says, ruefully. “I said I’d give you a son — I suppose I omitted I’d try for a daughter, too.” Jesting, because of course he had no choice in it, except inasmuch as he felt his body open itself to Burr, to the lovely attentions in that lovely heat.

A little gasp, and shudder, when Hamilton bites down on his gland.

"So confident are you, that you shall not bear two boys, or two girls?" Burr asks, but of course, more likely--that they shall have neither. That one or both shall die, during birth or after. Things best not to think about.

"I think you shall get very demanding, soon. More than you've been. What will you do when you can't reach your own cock?" Burr asks, though he knows--Hamilton will have to rely on Burr. Won't be able to get any relief of animal needs without him. He doesn't want to keep Hamilton pregnant and naked in his home forever...but just for a little while, the end of this pregnancy, sounds very appealing. Burr had though, before, years ago, that it would be a good way to keep Hamilton out of politics, or to shut him up--shove a cock in him. And he'd absolutely not entertained those fantasies a number of times.

Edited 2022-07-18 18:47 (UTC)

"No," he whispers, "no, I'm not confident. But I hope -- and the odds are -- that there will be a boy." And he wants a son, again.

The reality of it scares him: they will grow, and then they will need to come out of him, and the violence of it will be awful, he thinks. But women and omegas survive it all the time. It can't be much more hazardous than the war he already waged.

"My cock, I think I'll reach. My cunt, another matter entirely -- will you ply me with your tongue, then?" His skin is hot. This isn't their home, and he should not rile Burr the way he wants to. "What if I want to fuck you? I do, now. I should punish you for what you said. I should have you rough -- and bite you -- and show you belong to me, not to whomever else you visited." The absurdity of someone so young staking a claim on someone so much their elder... Ah, but Alexander wants it anyway.

Burr's skin burns too, at Hamilton's words. Yes, he wants to take it. He wants Hamilton to punish him, to do the things he pays whores to do. Never quite satisfying, from them. But from Hamilton, for Hamilton--

"Yes," Burr breathes, pupils dilated. "Yes, you should punish me. What's to stop me from doing it again? From bending over some whore's bed, if you can't control your mate? I've been very bad, Alexander, and they've had me in all sorts of ways." And he's clutching on now, pulling them back towards the little guest bed. Oh, he hopes they're loud enough to disturb Hosack.

"I let them inside me, and I let them hit me, and I even fucked a few of them, came inside them. What are you going to do?"

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