Smell it? Of course he can smell it. He could smell it on Burr when he hardly knew Burr at all, when the only thing there was to smell was a pregnancy that wasn't even showing. Hamilton's nose is sensitive and keen, especially when it comes to his mate. His husband. Beloved. Perhaps his nose is so acute because what it conveys is beyond words: for all his frantic scratchings, all that he can write, he cannot capture scent. He cannot pin the looming-rainstorm smell of his mate's darker moods to a bit of parchment. He cannot sketch out what it is to catch a hint of invitation, a soft, clever sway to Burr's hips and a scent like a question -- and he could never describe what it is to smell the presence-aftermath of terror and anguish and desire, all at once.

He knows Jefferson's smells, too. His recognition is immediate and visceral and full of disgust.

"You are mine."

He tears away in a fit of rage, half-feral. "My pistols!" he shouts at a servant, and flings the door open. The wind is wild tonight, and it lashes at him, tongues and whips. He is in his shirt-sleeves. He does not notice.