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Bullet holes in John’s jacket are nothing new. Alexander isn’t alarmed by them. The other aides shake their heads. Lafayette tuts, quietly calls him an idiot in French. Washington considers them a part of his uniform.
“You’re going to die someday,” Alexander says, eyes imploring underneath an objective front. John shrugs and replies, “So are you.” Clearly, unsatisfied, Alexander opens his mouth with a clever retort about being shot and John kisses him to shut him up. They pull apart, stare at each other. Resignation to death by the gallows has filled John before Alexander kisses him. It feels too right to be a ticket to hell.
John walks in on Lafayette fixing Alexander’s cravat. He shouldn’t care. He does. He is cold to Alex that night until he sees the bite mark on his skin. John sweeps him up and makes sure the mark is a deeper purple the next day.
Alex’s letters are going to get them hung someday, by John’s reckoning anyways. Neither of them cares. South Carolina shouldn’t feel so cold. John pulls his bullet hole riddled coat around his shoulders and pens another letter to Alexander. Maybe he’ll go to the tavern tonight and have a few rounds. Maybe then his bed won’t feel so lonely.
Alexander kisses John’s shoulder when he’s done cleaning the man’s wounds. “Lafayette says you’re trying to get shot.” John ponders that for a moment before responding. “Maybe I am.”
This isn’t Romeo and Juliet, but sometimes Alexander wonders aloud if they aren’t equally as star-crossed. Then John reminds him that neither of them believes in fate and leans in for a biting kiss. Alexander is more than amenable.
Alexander’s hands are gentler than the hands of any brilliant, ruthless soldier have any right to be. He traces his thumbs over John’s face, wiping tears. Works his way down, still very gentle, though not nearly as innocent. They are tangled in each other afterward. John thinks he still smells river water in Alexander’s hair. “I thought you were dead,” he mumbles. “No,” Alexander corrects, “I’m right here.”
Alexander is ranting again, up on a literal soapbox, shouting over some preacher. Some comparison to a dog and John adds sound effects, grinning. Fuck the nearby redcoats. If they decide today is his day then he’ll take as many as possible with him. Alexander smiles in his direction, eyes sparking, and the wildness inside him smiles back.
There is yelling inside Washington’s tent. Alexander. The flap tears open and there he is, red-faced and angry, ready to rip something apart. “I’m leaving,” he spits at a stunned John. He’s packed and gone before morning. John has to find out from Lafayette that Washington sent him home. It only stings a little less. He figures he’ll try to talk some sense into at least one of them if Lafayette doesn’t get to it first.
Alexander stares at John’s back as the crowd jeers, walking behind him with a straight back and a level chin. John strides, unafraid and unashamed despite the curses around them and the ropes that bind their hands. The executioner waits as they walk to the wagon solemnly. John steps up, then Alexander. The executioner fits them both with a noose and climbs into the driver’s seat of the wagon. Alexander closes his eyes. . .and jolts up in his bedroll, John’s warm hand on his shoulder. “You were thrashing and whimpering in your sleep,” the man says. Alex shrugs and flops back down, pretending to settle. John follows suit on his own bedroll, facing away from Alex. Alexander stares at John’s back as the sounds of the night crowd their tent.
The war is won and they are bloody and no one is looking, thankfully, when Alexander pulls John down into a sloppy, painful kiss of mostly teeth, spit, and blood that may not be entirely their own. They are alive. Alex pulls back. “Washington is sending me to South Carolina.” John blurts. Alexander pauses, pulls him back for another kiss and whispers against his lips, “Fuck you, John Laurens.” John pulls back, smirks. “Other way around baby girl.” Lafayette says nothing when he witnesses Alexander’s struggle to walk the next day.
John is drowning in blood. The banks of the Combahee are much darker and colder than he remembers. He feels a hand on his shoulder and turns. His mother. She caresses his face, making the dark a little warmer. He frowns, suddenly remembering. “Alexander?” he gets out, before his mother shushes him. He tries to pull away as he finally realizes he’s dying. The dark sucks him back in as quickly as the guilt does. Frances. Martha. Alexander. “ John ,” he hears, distantly, “ you’re gonna get shot .” It seems, my dear boy, that you were right about that.
John is watching from the Other Side when Alexander meets his eyes. A brief moment of understanding passes between them. “Raise a glass to freedom . . .” Alex says, gaze still above Burr’s head, locked on John. “Wait!” Burr yells, desperate to take back what he has done, and John smiles wistfully as his dear boy falls.