slowtoanger: (Smile Friend)
slowtoanger ([personal profile] slowtoanger) wrote in [community profile] amrev_intrigues2022-04-22 04:14 am

Private Storyline 2

Things seem to stall for a month, or rather slip into a routine, a delicate balance that teters on the edge of a tension difficult to dissect.

Hamilton won't stop feeding Burr, stealing him bits of food, watching at mealtimes to ensure Burr eats some incomprehensible measure from the table.

Burr had tried to take advantage of the public nature of that tradition, to eat bare scraps while Hamilton glared, beneath Washington's gaze, but when they had been once again alone Hamilton had refused to leave until Burr embibed enough food to make his stomach ache.

His sickness eases, but does not vanish. Mornings bent low over a basin and heaving while Hamilton attempts to cover for him to an increasingly agitated Washington. Underperforming--that is what Washington says. Disgraceful. He thinks these morning spells of illness the results of intemperance with ale, no doubt.

But the nights--those are the worst. Because he cannot stop aching for them. For the moments when he can curl against Hamilton's skin, close his eyes and pretend it is another body, if only the scent were not so different.

Even if he is not Monty, Burr aches for those scraps of affection, clinging to him the way one might cling to a rock in a storming ocean. Grows terrified that Hamilton might leave as much as he tries to convince himself he does not need him. But the emotions, once allowed to be felt, cannot be easily stopped up again. It is too easy to find himself drifting towards Hamilton during the day. Wanting to touch him, be touched. Held. Perhaps even groomed, though the thought makes him blush with shame and embarrassment.

His bedroom becomes too comfortable, allows them to slip too close to intimacy. Burr had nearly cried, when Hamilton presented him that blanket. Not enough for a real nest, but enough to fuss with on the bed for long minutes, make something resembling a nest. Burr had lost everything, in the retreat from quebec--but at least now he had a blanket.

He can't look at Hamilton's face, each night he fusses with the bedding, every stereotype he every rallied against. Any inadequacy of that nest quickly erased by the warmth of Hamilton's body.

Too close to hide the swelling, the changes. Close as a lover. Burr doesn't think of what they are--can't. Takes these liberties as they are--stolen and shameful.

With all the food, the extra smuggled bits, Burr is starting to show. And his hunger isn't leaving, never sated, but he is growing ravenous, and each day the question of what to do is more and more urgent. Soon Hamilton won't let Burr put it off anymore, and what then?

For all of it, his worrying about propriety, he balks in the face of some lie. Burr's reputation matters, is vitally important, but at the same time, he cares not for manufactured conventions. Would have no problem being seen as a loose omega, if only he were established enough for such things to not ruin him.

Even so, he is nearly unable to fasten his breeches, and the skin around his stomach, stretched, begins to grow sores, from the too tight waistband, the chaffing. Built for soldiers losing weight, not gaining, and Burr has always been slight. He takes to binding his stomach, tight beneath bandages, but then he is wracked with cramps, which grow worse each day.

It doesn't occur to him that this might hurt the child, this last bit of Monty, which has grown so dear to him. Finds himself clutching his stomach unconsciously in stolen moments, on the verge of tears. Watches the rise and fall for long moments, in the morning and at night, as if at any moment the slight bump might disappear entirely.

Now he is dressing again, binding his stomach once more, to force himself into his breeches, another day of Washington's disappointment. Burr snorts--at least in this there is some bitter mercy--Washington probably thinks Burr is growing fat from drink, if he's noticed at all.
non_stop: (alex14)

cw: passive suicidal ideation

[personal profile] non_stop 2022-04-22 12:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Hamilton is obsessed.

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.
non_stop: (alex28)

[personal profile] non_stop 2022-04-22 08:37 pm (UTC)(link)
"Bad for you?" And he is unwinding it, or at least loosening it. "Burr, I know you have complete disregard for your own animal needs; I have chosen my battle in that arena and prosecuted it with great persistence, to the exclusion of all others."

He means, he makes Burr eat but otherwise doesn't fuss around.

"In this, I do not change my established policy on the matter. You'll be fine. But what about her?"

The damn pronoun slips out before he can think to change it to a more innocuous it or even an appropriate noun, like the child. Instead, he betrays that he has thought on it, that he imagined a girl, and that he resolved to keep imagining a girl because if it ever came up, he thinks Burr's resolve would crumble before a female child the way it might not before male. Burr is adamant about the rationality and respectability of women in a way he is adamant about so few things, and that adamance attracts Hamilton intensely.

He notices he has placed rested his hand on Burr's belly, and he flinches away as he remembers himself.

"Do you want to hurt h-- it?" Hamilton persists. "Violence may have gotten you with child, Burr, but I cannot believe you want to transfer the same violence to a fetus that you have, reluctantly or not, nurtured within you."
non_stop: (alex18)

[personal profile] non_stop 2022-04-22 08:57 pm (UTC)(link)
"I didn't assume," Hamilton returns, hotly, though he most certainly did. "You arrived without a mate, you feared touch, and since then you have betrayed no word of what happened. What am I to conclude, from your silence, but that it was no will of yours?" He steps up, crowding Burr's personal space. "Why do you hide what is no cause for shame?"

He can smell the ever-present stress and worry from Burr -- boldly, because there are no clothes in the way, and also because he has become better and better at dissecting the finer points of Burr's scent.

And then it occurs to him that Burr is half-dressed and as beautiful as ever, and that he can't back down physically without backing down in the argument.

"If I am wrong, tell me," he dares.
non_stop: all icons by me & stealable (Default)

[personal profile] non_stop 2022-04-22 09:25 pm (UTC)(link)
At Burr's touch, a wave of desire slams into Hamilton. A wave, exactly the way one, in all of its painful force, could take a man off his feet if he wasn't careful swimming in some of the waters of Nevis. His hand slides to cover Burr's, hold him there. Ah, but Burr's eyes are so dark, fathomless.

"Powerful," and Hamilton's voice is choked and bitter. "Not even powerful enough to save myself."

He rallies, breathing shakily in. "And I would be shamed," he says. "To use another for my own pleasure and discard him without care -- that would be shameful. To indulge," and he shifts a bit closer, enough that he can feel the soft puff of Burr's breath on his own lips, "in passion, thoughtlessly, with no respect for an equal partner: that would be shameful." He lifts Burr's hand and presses his lips to the cool and chapped knuckles. "If you took pleasure where it was offered, on a battlefield, knowing death can take anyone without warning or mercy, you have no cause for shame."
non_stop: (alex10)

[personal profile] non_stop 2022-04-22 09:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Burr yields, subtly, the way every move he makes is subtle and crafted and elegant. And Hamilton steps forward, to flatten Burr between him and the wall, and he may be just a fraction taller than Burr but Burr has his head tipped back, and it's the perfect chance for Hamilton to nuzzle under his jaw and press his nose just where Burr's scent is the strongest.

Need and passion and desire and omega, all over the subtle spice that is Burr, the slow, rich roll that was new in Burr's smell since Quebec. Hamilton breathes it in, greedy for it, eyes closed, and brings his hand up to cup the other side of Burr's jaw. Then he kisses over the gland, kisses at Burr's pulse, and kisses the line of his jaw and then, finally, kisses Burr properly, on the lips, pouring out all the desperate want that's built in him astonishingly over these paltry few weeks.
non_stop: (alex12)

[personal profile] non_stop 2022-04-22 10:19 pm (UTC)(link)
Burr kisses hard, and Hamilton responds by biting sharp on Burr's lip, by storming his tongue into Burr's mouth. Burr wants it rougher? That's fine. Hamilton is still worried and angry, and those things transmute fluidly into breaking the endlessly-stretched tension that has always been between them.

His hands drop to Burr's hips, his ass, his thighs, and Hamilton hauls Burr upwards. For a small frame, Hamilton is deceptively strong; he single-handedly dragged cannon weighing close to half a ton back to American lines where even Hercules was having trouble getting it moving. He drills every damn morning for a reason, after all, and he's more than strong enough to pull Burr off the ground, making it necessary for Burr to wrap his legs around Hamilton's waist, thus leaving him in the perfect position for Hamilton to thrust against him. And Burr's smallclothes are doing absolutely nothing to hide the growing state of his arousal.

"Keep making sounds like that," Hamilton promises, roughly, "and we're gonna have a lot more not to be ashamed about." And he rolls his hips against Burr's, sinking his teeth in under Burr's jaw -- because Burr is now hoisted up a little higher than he is. He only just barely remembers to hold himself back from worrying the skin hard enough to bruise.

And he can't deny he likes it, Burr's chest bare, trousers low and undone, while Hamilton is still in his coat, still fully dressed from the morning's drills. Burr is a mess. Hamilton wants to make it worse.

Burr has tormented him for weeks now with white shirts worn thin enough to be almost translucent, and beneath, nipples growing bit by bit larger and darker with every day that passes. Now he devotes himself to finding out if their subtle swelling has created a similar increase in sensitivity, drawing one between his lips and pressing hard with the flat of his tongue.
Edited 2022-04-22 22:37 (UTC)
non_stop: (alex25)

[personal profile] non_stop 2022-04-23 12:25 am (UTC)(link)
He works Burr's nipple hard, pressing it between his tongue and lips, until it has pebbled up hard -- it draws the loveliest noises out of Burr's throat, leaves him deeply affected and stained-red flushed, high on his cheekbones, a pattern of warm skin that Hamilton has never seen on him before.

He shifts his mouth to the other side, scraping his teeth over this one, but pinches hard at the first little furled nub, just to find out what Burr will do, what sounds he might make.

Ruin me. Oh, god. This actually makes Hamilton growl, possessive and heated.

The use he wants to put Burr to is not quite what Burr means, Hamilton imagines. He wants to possess Burr, yes -- but not in an impersonal way, not fucking him from behind and leaving him gaping and sore like he could be anyone. No, he wants to use Burr, specifically, and so he will make this as much about Burr himself as he can.

He pulls away to claim Burr's mouth again, and, dropping his coat off the last arm, lifts Burr away from the wall and sprawls him out on the bed. Peels away stockings and trousers and smallclothes, batting away Burr's hands when he tries to do the same with Hamilton's waistcoat. "How much of a slut do you want to be, Burr?" and his voice is dark and low. "Warmed up enough for me already? I don't think so. I don't think anyone's touched you since you got to New York."

If Burr were in heat, probably he would be wet enough. But he isn't. When Hamilton goes to his knees by the bed, he yanks Burr a little forward so that his hips are off the bed and he won't be able to get his balance. Slides a thumb along where Burr is starting to be the sort of soft and wet that Hamilton has dreamed about, and closes a hand around Burr's length, not masturbating him, just manhandling him a bit. Burr is so warm here at the entrance to his body, and Hamilton guides Burr's thigh over his shoulder and cants his hips up and follows the path of his thumb with his tongue, nosing at the crease of Burr's thigh (the way he smells, drenched with need) and pressing sloppy kisses to the source of the slick.
non_stop: (alex9)

[personal profile] non_stop 2022-04-23 11:24 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, he watches: and how. When Hamilton watches, he devours, consuming the lewd vision ahead of him with the same dangerous focus he brings to every obsession. And Burr is his obsession, now. There has never been anything so filthy and lovely, Hamilton is sure. It's filthy because of how completely Burr's composure has shattered; it's lovely even in Burr hurling himself into abasement.

Burr begins to come on his tongue, so quickly that Hamilton is stunned, almost forgetting to take advantage of it. But he catches Burr's wrist with one hand and holds his hand there, ensures he's in the right place to feel what Hamilton's about to do, and with the other hand sinks in two of his own fingers angled upwards, dragging them mercilessly along the clenching and spasming internal walls. His touch is possessive and proprietary, dragging out the length of that orgasm, forcing every spasm out, and making sure Burr knows exactly what Hamilton is doing to him.

And, at Burr's words, he laughs. He presses a soft (wet, filthy) kiss against Burr's knuckles, right where his fingers sink too shallowly into his body, just the way kissed Burr's hand not five minutes ago, before Burr flung himself headlong into wantonness.

"Why would I?" Hamilton returns. "Aaron," breathed against Burr's thigh, "why would I gag you when you say things like that?"

He releases Burr's wrist, undoing buttons with that hand, nudging Burr further onto the bed. Echoing the motion he made between Burr's legs, he slides the same two slick-soaked fingers into Burr's mouth, pressing down on his palate, making Burr taste his own arousal.

"Why would I bind you," and Hamilton has to swallow, moisten his dry throat, because, god, he cannot remain unaffected, "when I can watch you fuck yourself right here?"

Waistcoat and shirt, impatiently yanked off, and trousers undone; he doesn't take the time to divest with boots and stockings. If he doesn't get inside Burr absolutely right now, he might actually die.

"And why would I hit you," folding Burr's legs up and apart, pushing, pushing until he's straining under Hamilton, "when you're being such a perfect slut for me?" He takes himself in hand, rubs the almost-dripping head of his cock all along Burr's entrance, mingling them together. He lowers himself so his lips are at Burr's ear.

"You could have told me, Aaron," he admonishes. "Showed me how much you need it." He breaches Burr then, pausing as he feels Burr's entrance go tight just under the head of his cock. Just to enjoy the feeling. "I wouldn't have left you unsatisfied."

No more pauses, no going slow to let Burr grow accustomed to the stretch. Hamilton penetrates him fully, unyieldingly, sinking forward into the incredible silky heat of Burr's body. How Burr grips him, opens to him, clutches at him. He needs to knot this man. Can't help but be aware of the seed that has already taken root in Burr's fertile soil, and the thought does not diminish his enjoyment in the least.
Edited 2022-04-23 14:10 (UTC)
non_stop: (alex39)

[personal profile] non_stop 2022-04-23 06:20 pm (UTC)(link)
He never thought to see Burr so gone with need. Even when he supposed that Burr might be avoiding mention of his secondary gender, even when he concluded that this likely meant omega and meant that Burr would be reduced to this in heat --

God. If this is what Burr is like now, what would he be like, in heat? Maybe he truly doesn't know who the father is; maybe it took too many to satisfy him. Maybe he speaks like this because he is, in truth, bent to depraved desires. If he is, Hamilton wants to find them all. Lay them bare. Use them. And yet, what does it matter, if Burr is depraved? He has not sought out anyone since coming here, apparently even when he wanted so badly -- and he is under Hamilton's hands now, receiving his attentions with glorious enthusiasm.

His thrusts are rough; not as fast as they could be, but that means he can make them hard, fierce, making him feel as though he's fucking the air out of Burr's slim body.

"You are more already," he counters, deflecting Burr's searching hand and pinning it down, just to see if Burr thrashes for the extra stimulation, in need. "A hole can't beg for it. A hole can't cry from needing it so badly. A hole might have me as greedily as you -- like that, the way your cunt takes me, Aaron," and he says it like praise, while he fucks like violence, "but a hole couldn't debase itself the way you are." He crushes Burr's wrist to the bed. "Come on my cock or don't at all."

His knot is already starting to swell. He isn't gentle with it -- he persists in forcing it in and out of Burr long after he would ordinarily have seated himself secure within an omega's body. He has to manhandle Burr into place, keep him held down and force it brutally past his entrance the last time, and for a moment he doesn't think that Burr will accommodate it, but he does, he unwinds under Hamilton and Hamilton loses himself recklessly to the bliss of it, his seed joining the mess within Burr, the thick base of his cock swelling to lock them together, whether or not Burr can take it, now.
non_stop: (alex12)

[personal profile] non_stop 2022-04-23 07:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Under better circumstances, it wouldn't take Hamilton as long as it does to put the pieces together. The circumstances, though, are fairly poor: from the white-out pleasure of coming inside Burr's body to the perfection of Burr when he is completely devastated; the animalistic, instinctual high of his knot, swollen and pulsing as he comes, and comes, hard to breathe with how tight Burr is on him and how the sweet shivers of pleasure work their way through his body.

And, through all this, the wrong name filters into his conscious mind. His thoughts are sluggish, and narrowed to the intense need to care for the man that he's used so hard, but he understands.

"No," he murmurs, and he props himself up, unsteadily. He would have turned them over, let Burr go limp on top of him until this was over, but he can't, now that his protective instincts are flaring. The movement tugs on the knot, sends off another series of aftershocks within Burr, milking another surge in return out of Hamilton, bearing down like he could get, somehow, deeper.

"No." He cups Burr's face in his hand. "You're here, with me." Not with a dead general, as much as this explains Burr's behavior neatly and tidily. He doesn't mean to make the grief worse, but to draw Burr back into the present, extract him from a past that's reaching out with greedy fingers of pain to pull him under. "Say it, Aaron." He strokes Burr's flank, tips him up a little so he can reach far enough to kiss the tears off his cheeks, stroke fingers through his scalp. "I have you, you're safe. Say it."

He doesn't know what he's exhorting Burr to say. 'Yes, I'm here'? Hamilton's name? Agreement, confirmation?
non_stop: (alex41)

[personal profile] non_stop 2022-04-23 07:41 pm (UTC)(link)
"Alexander." But he doesn't insist on it. The hazy, lazy pleasure, like submerging in warm seas.

He rallies his strength one more time, and, as he originally intended, he carefully lifts Burr up against his chest and then turns them over, so Burr doesn't have to hold his legs around Alexander's waist and Alexander doesn't have to prop himself up anymore. He also grabs at the blanket he acquired, most of a month ago, and sort of shoves it at Burr for Burr to decide what to do with it.

And then he's back to the relentless campaign of petting and praising, stopping only to breathe in Burr's smell at the crook of his neck.

"You took all of that, I can't believe you, everything I had for you and you just took it," in little murmurs with the occasional brushed kiss. "Beautiful, and you're so strong, so graceful, you bend but you don't break," and similar idiotic nonsense. He wants to ask did I hurt you and are you all right but he's afraid the answers are yes and no in the wrong ways, and so he doesn't ask.
Edited 2022-04-23 19:41 (UTC)
non_stop: (alex10)

[personal profile] non_stop 2022-04-23 09:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Burr nestles into him, and Hamilton's words lapse, replaced by a soft purr on his next exhale.

"I was back a little early." This is true, but they've definitely blown through that time by now. Heh; blown.

The movement makes him give a little gasp, a little twitch. Not of pain. God, he wants this to last. "It won't be long." Already, he can feel the fierce throb starting to fade as the knot just starts to soften.

"I have string," he murmurs. "Can run it around your trousers, do up your jacket all the way. Go in to town. Hercules is at the shop where he apprentices." He has been thinking about that problem, too, in the last few minutes.
non_stop: (alex37)

[personal profile] non_stop 2022-04-23 10:09 pm (UTC)(link)
"Most people are idiots who won't notice," Hamilton points out. "Or they'll pretend not to. It's not polite to point out a man's swellings." He yawns, luxuriously, and only with reluctance feels himself go down enough to slip free.

He does feel a bit bereft as Burr starts to pull away -- but then he's distracted just by watching Burr, the lean lines of his body as he starts to clean himself up. He can look now. If he was allowed to touch, he has to be allowed to look his fill.

It's a pleasant surprise when Burr ducks to kiss him, and Hamilton opens to him, meets his tongue.

"And if Hercules does find out?" Hamilton asks, returning to the previous topic. "You shouldn't be ashamed." He hesitates, and presses on: "General Montgomery was a hero, too. His reputation is honorable."
non_stop: (alex23)

[personal profile] non_stop 2022-04-23 10:48 pm (UTC)(link)
Hamilton finds himself smiling. Trying to hide it.

"Honestly, I'm loathe to break it to you, Burr," says Hamilton, "but you literally hate working for him."

And why should Burr? Washington is a great leader, but he has a temper, and his mistakes have been severe.

"And if you played the game," Hamilton tells him, "you would be fine. But, as it is, he can tell you don't want to be there, and he's worried he'll have another Joseph Reed on his hands."

It is possible, of course, that Burr doesn't know the whole story with Joseph Reed, writing letters to Charles Lee behind Washington's back.

The remark stings, its purpose fulfilled. But Hamilton is accustomed to pushing its like out of his mind. He sits up, watching Burr. "Please," he dismisses, "he only has eyes for his very precious Lafayette, whom he truly wishes was his son instead of that useless stepson that's been kicked out of two boarding schools now for idling, whoring, and gambling."

Again, entirely possible that Burr doesn't know about the second boarding school yet.

He reaches for his shirt, and has to puzzle out how he managed to get one half inside out and twice twisted around the other.

"And," he emphasizes, "I've already said there are obliging alphas everywhere." He doesn't meet Burr's eyes when he says: "The child doesn't have to suffer for the circumstances of its birth."
non_stop: (alex30)

[personal profile] non_stop 2022-04-23 11:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Once Hamilton has his coat back on, he kneels in front of Burr, gently straightening out the stockings, and then helping Burr get the trousers up. He sits back on his heels as he helps Burr with the stubborn boots: riding boots, of course, as is everyone's uniform, which means the damn things are trouble and a half to get on and off.

"I hope I didn't hurt you," says Hamilton, suddenly, as he tucks the trousers into the tops of the boots. Glances up to Burr. "Or, at least, that it did not displease you." He takes Burr's hand in both of his. "I meant what I said -- you have only to ask. I would not leave you unsatisfied." He holds Burr's gaze long enough to emphasize the words, and then, this time, kisses Burr's palm, and takes his leave.