He knows it. He is absolutely unable to stop. The concerns of liberating America from the British have been shoved violently out of the foremost place in his mind, replaced by the constantly-whirling thoughts that he can't properly organize or hold down. He spends hours writing them down, always careful to cast the finished product into the fire afterwards, furtive, but it doesn't help.
To Hamilton, death is not just a specter, a distant but inexorable reality. He has met death so many times, and he dreams often of his own, whether it's in some way that didn't happen (breathing his last with his mother's arms wrapped around him, drowning in the fierce hurricane wind-and-flood, sinking on the ship to America) or in ways that could happen tomorrow (taking a shot, a bayonet, in a frantic and suicidal charge, running out of luck under the relentless shelling of a British ship). These are comfortable fantasies, for him. They are ordinary. What isn't ordinary are the fantasies that Burr's child inspires. Because, for once, these fantasies are of a living future.
Burr's child is not Hamilton's. Obviously. It just makes him think -- about children. About the endless potential of fragile, new life. About how futures don't just have to include loss after loss after loss, but can be about gaining: new heart's connections that don't replace the old but that fill the space left behind.
There has been a quiet and cold place at the center of Hamilton's heart since he was ten, and it has only grown. Once a little box just large enough to encompass bastard and the gaping absence of a father, now it holds greater emptiness: a brother gone, a past left behind, a mother dead. This is emptiness that he strives to fill by joining it.
Burr makes him not want to join it.
Burr makes him think about what it would be like not to die.
Hamilton is constantly pushing these thoughts to the side when he is with Burr, but it wakes him up, the nights when he holds close to Burr's not-warm-enough body. It wakes him up, and he finds himself placing a tentative hand on the subtle swell at Burr's abdomen, his heart beating quick and throbbing with a sort of pain he's never felt before.
And then there's the desire.
Hamilton ruthlessly suppresses it during the day, but it wakes him up, too: dreams of Burr yielding beneath him, soft and wet under Hamilton's fingers and tongue, the arch of his body, how he would feel inside. Burr's close presence is maddening and satisfying at the same time, the only thing that can keep the desire at bay and also the one thing that stokes that desire to unbearable levels.
So Hamilton's sleep has been more and more broken by the disturbances in his thoughts.
He then uses that restless time to handle Washington's correspondence before he slips out early to drill with the gunnery squad, then back again to Washington, dispatching orders, writing writing writing, and slipping out in the evening to find extra food and take it into the city. There are many widows, some omega and female both, left without anyone to care for them. Some are Loyalist. Hamilton brings them food when he can, because it provides a perfect cover for what he takes for Burr. The quartermaster and cook are both aware that he's doing this, though Washington seems to turn a careful blind eye. Perhaps Washington thinks that Hamilton has impregnated someone in the city, caring for an illegitimate child. That assumption is fine.
The longest they spend apart is when Hamilton's squadron is part of an attack on the British battery on the southern tip of Manhattan. This is several days of brutal shelling, culminating in Hamilton, along with Mulligan and several others, dragging out twenty-four British cannon and making it safely back to American lines. Hamilton is reckless and brave, and the stories of his heroics spread back to Washington's camp before Hamilton himself actually makes it back.
The night after Hamilton returns, he flatters himself in thinking that Burr holds onto him tighter than usual, noses into his scent gland with possessive greed. He wants it to be true; he wants Burr to have missed him. What is certainly true is that Hamilton starts to make that soft, rumbling purring noise that alphas sometimes make with a mate. It's as he drops off to sleep, and he doesn't even realize he's doing it.
He has tried to bring up the topic of future plans with Burr. Has pestered him to go and see a midwife or a doctor in the city, though Burr has denied this every time. Has even tentatively brought up the subject of marriage to an obliging alpha, someone who wants the legitimacy of Burr's family name. Wartime is a wonderful time to find obliging alphas -- they're practically coming out of the walls. Can't throw a rock without hitting at least one or two obliging alphas. But Burr doesn't want to hear it.
He slips inside Burr's room one morning, after the pre-dawn drills, and sees the bindings, and his eyes widen.
"Aaron!" It bursts out of him; he doesn't call Burr Aaron, except in the privacy of his own mind. "What are you -- are you binding --" And he rushes forward to take Burr's hands in his, to still him, if only for the moment.
cw: passive suicidal ideation
He knows it. He is absolutely unable to stop. The concerns of liberating America from the British have been shoved violently out of the foremost place in his mind, replaced by the constantly-whirling thoughts that he can't properly organize or hold down. He spends hours writing them down, always careful to cast the finished product into the fire afterwards, furtive, but it doesn't help.
To Hamilton, death is not just a specter, a distant but inexorable reality. He has met death so many times, and he dreams often of his own, whether it's in some way that didn't happen (breathing his last with his mother's arms wrapped around him, drowning in the fierce hurricane wind-and-flood, sinking on the ship to America) or in ways that could happen tomorrow (taking a shot, a bayonet, in a frantic and suicidal charge, running out of luck under the relentless shelling of a British ship). These are comfortable fantasies, for him. They are ordinary. What isn't ordinary are the fantasies that Burr's child inspires. Because, for once, these fantasies are of a living future.
Burr's child is not Hamilton's. Obviously. It just makes him think -- about children. About the endless potential of fragile, new life. About how futures don't just have to include loss after loss after loss, but can be about gaining: new heart's connections that don't replace the old but that fill the space left behind.
There has been a quiet and cold place at the center of Hamilton's heart since he was ten, and it has only grown. Once a little box just large enough to encompass bastard and the gaping absence of a father, now it holds greater emptiness: a brother gone, a past left behind, a mother dead. This is emptiness that he strives to fill by joining it.
Burr makes him not want to join it.
Burr makes him think about what it would be like not to die.
Hamilton is constantly pushing these thoughts to the side when he is with Burr, but it wakes him up, the nights when he holds close to Burr's not-warm-enough body. It wakes him up, and he finds himself placing a tentative hand on the subtle swell at Burr's abdomen, his heart beating quick and throbbing with a sort of pain he's never felt before.
And then there's the desire.
Hamilton ruthlessly suppresses it during the day, but it wakes him up, too: dreams of Burr yielding beneath him, soft and wet under Hamilton's fingers and tongue, the arch of his body, how he would feel inside. Burr's close presence is maddening and satisfying at the same time, the only thing that can keep the desire at bay and also the one thing that stokes that desire to unbearable levels.
So Hamilton's sleep has been more and more broken by the disturbances in his thoughts.
He then uses that restless time to handle Washington's correspondence before he slips out early to drill with the gunnery squad, then back again to Washington, dispatching orders, writing writing writing, and slipping out in the evening to find extra food and take it into the city. There are many widows, some omega and female both, left without anyone to care for them. Some are Loyalist. Hamilton brings them food when he can, because it provides a perfect cover for what he takes for Burr. The quartermaster and cook are both aware that he's doing this, though Washington seems to turn a careful blind eye. Perhaps Washington thinks that Hamilton has impregnated someone in the city, caring for an illegitimate child. That assumption is fine.
The longest they spend apart is when Hamilton's squadron is part of an attack on the British battery on the southern tip of Manhattan. This is several days of brutal shelling, culminating in Hamilton, along with Mulligan and several others, dragging out twenty-four British cannon and making it safely back to American lines. Hamilton is reckless and brave, and the stories of his heroics spread back to Washington's camp before Hamilton himself actually makes it back.
The night after Hamilton returns, he flatters himself in thinking that Burr holds onto him tighter than usual, noses into his scent gland with possessive greed. He wants it to be true; he wants Burr to have missed him. What is certainly true is that Hamilton starts to make that soft, rumbling purring noise that alphas sometimes make with a mate. It's as he drops off to sleep, and he doesn't even realize he's doing it.
He has tried to bring up the topic of future plans with Burr. Has pestered him to go and see a midwife or a doctor in the city, though Burr has denied this every time. Has even tentatively brought up the subject of marriage to an obliging alpha, someone who wants the legitimacy of Burr's family name. Wartime is a wonderful time to find obliging alphas -- they're practically coming out of the walls. Can't throw a rock without hitting at least one or two obliging alphas. But Burr doesn't want to hear it.
He slips inside Burr's room one morning, after the pre-dawn drills, and sees the bindings, and his eyes widen.
"Aaron!" It bursts out of him; he doesn't call Burr Aaron, except in the privacy of his own mind. "What are you -- are you binding --" And he rushes forward to take Burr's hands in his, to still him, if only for the moment.