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"Pennsylvania says nay."
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"Well, let us thank the Lord that on this fine day John Adams' delusions have been prohibited from continuing to poison us all any further."
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"Hopefully, from now on this Congress shall not bear witness to any more, ah, unwanted disturbances."
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John stares stubbornly ahead, his vision a narrow field with nothing to focus in on. He does not listen as Dickinson gloats for a moment longer before leaving the room, Wilson at his side. He does not listen as Hancock apologises, and does not concentrate long enough to hear what for. Gradually, his fellow delegates start taking their leave—some patting him on the shoulders as they go, with a muttered Sorry, John or a barely disguised dirty glance at the Pennsylvania table—and still, he pays none of them any mind; until eventually the room is empty, save for but three men, including himself.
He fidgets with his hands for a moment longer, then stands up and strides out, closing the door behind him.
In the cold comfort of the marble halls, he ascends the stairs up to the single open window and leans heavily on the sill. He breathes in and out, yet the disappointment curdling in his chest does not abate. If anything, it grows stronger in intensity, and he curls in on a shuddering inhale, closing his eyes as his fingers tense.
Years. Years of work—all gone.
John sighs deeply and shakes his head.
"John Adams," he mutters, repeating his words from the day before. "The great John Adams."
Looking up, he lets out a wry laugh, and it stumbles its way down the hall.
"What a fool I am."
There is nothing else to say, really. For he is so piteous that the very state of him begets revulsion—estate falling apart, stuck breathing the filthy fumes of Philadelphia, exhausted in his very soul, reduced to discontentment and arrant folly. A man who spent years of his life devoting himself to a dream, espoused bucketfuls of disdain and endured as much—now to witness that dream come undone, and himself along with it.
He cannot think of more wretched a creature.
The building remains quiet, and so he stays, with much in his thoughts and a heavy, hollow dread in his heart.
He cannot begin to imagine what awaits them now. Now that the question of independence has been closed, perhaps permanently—how does a nation win a war with no nation to win for? How can they have any hope of winning the fight for independence out in the field when they cannot even prevail in the stuffy, heated throes of Philadelphia?
How do you fight with one hand when the other has dedicated itself to persisting in waving that goddamn olive branch until it burns up and consumes the body in the process?
Before he can lose himself in his contemplation much further, he is alerted by the sound of echoing footsteps. John swivels around just in time to come face to face with Franklin and Jefferson—immediately, that bottomless void is expanded tenfold.
Maybe his two closest colleagues, men who gave nearly as much of themselves to the cause as he, only to now share in the ruination of everything they worked for—
He stands in front of them, and he waits. Air weighed with uncomfortable awareness, words are hard to come by, perhaps for the first time in the months surrounding this whole ordeal.
Finally, Franklin steps forward.
"You tried your best, John," he begins, his tone remarkably gentle. "You know that."
John does not reply. He feels, knows that he is being seen right through—that, somehow, Franklin's eyes are capable of unravelling his neck and glimpsing the worthlessness coagulating within.
The two men in front of him exchange glances, and it's not hard to see that they regard him as something fragile—or, perhaps, a loose cannon, for surely silence is as piercing as one when coming from an infamously vociferous man.
He does speak then.
"Yeah. I know." Nodding jerkily, he hastens to add, "We all did."
His voice is thin, choppy, and he cringes internally at the sound. Never before was dissatisfaction more poorly hidden—it's sickening.
Still, Franklin makes a noise of agreement. Out of the corner of his eye, John sees Jefferson nod. He cannot muster the courage to face them entirely, but he is sure that his dejection must be reflected in both their aspects.
But to put it to words would be to release a whirl of questions and possibilities that not one of them has the strength to make sense of right now, and so they stay there together, the three of them, and no one dares disturb the awkward quietude that settles around them.
"Say we have the Declaration printed, anyway," John then starts abruptly with renewed vigour. "What say you, Jefferson? Surely if the people had access to an actual document, a written statement to support..."
He trails off, for it is disgustingly obvious what he's trying to do—scratch and tear his way from the bottom, mend every bridge that disposed itself to ash by his own hand. As ever, unwilling to face reality, refusing to admit that the thing he has so heartily striven for is completely, irrevocably finished.
He is grasping at straws and he knows it.
Silence falls again, for a while, and he returns to tracing the patterns in the floor with his gaze—anything to not have to face his counterparts.
Rather sardonically, he remembers calling Dickinson a coward right before putting his best efforts towards acquainting said coward's face with his walking stick. Loath as he is to admit it, he thinks that Rutledge, for all his blathering on about hypocrisy, may have had a point.
"Perhaps the document in question might be put to the test as well," Jefferson muses sombrely, opening his mouth for the first time since the disaster of but half an hour prior. "If its contents had done a better job of conveying—"
"No," John shoots him down quickly before his lack of confidence can get the better of him once again. "I said that your Declaration was a masterful expression of the American mind. I meant that."
Wrists swinging back and forth, he looks away momentarily, then huffs.
"If you need somewhere to place the blame, look no further. I'm obnoxious and disliked, as you well know. We have God to thank for having come as far as we did."
He attempts a smile, but only succeeds in twisting his face into something ugly, something as abhorrent as the awful feeling climbing up his throat. Once more yet, he fails to meet Franklin's eyes, swallowing and trying to dispel the nauseating burning creeping up behind his nose. Like a crumbling castle, he chases after the vestiges of forced mirth that slip rapidly from his features, does his best to affect an air of indifference, the bittersweet resignation of having sustained an honourable loss—and succumbs to his rising shame instead.
For a lack of anything better to do, he returns to swinging his arms, casting about for anything that might grant even a modicum of decency to the entire appalling affair.
"Oh, come now, John," sighs Franklin. His demeanour is not quite so dispirited, but, doubtless, reflects a similar disheartened state of mind. "You knew it was a long shot. Judge Wilson was—"
"I was so adamant that we keep the slavery clause," John interjects suddenly, going still, his voice barely a whisper. "And you told me to secure independence first. And now we have neither."
He blinks, hard.
A somewhat hysterical laugh jolts his shoulders then.
"What have I achieved?" he asks, and it's a rhetorical question. "I have made my very presence hang over this Congress like a persistent shadow, I have driven a man into his imminent grave, I have bitten and clawed and prostrated myself in front of anyone who would listen—and for what?" he exclaims, and his voice reverberates off the walls of the spacious building that surrounds them.
John pauses, panting, and gives his own response.
"A cause that, by my involvement in it, has come to nothing."
He does meet Franklin's stare this time, holds it for as long as he can manage, before eventually breaking off, spinning on his heel and affixing his glare to the dreary sight beyond the window once more.
The silence stretches. He knows that Jefferson and Franklin have not left, and he waits for one of them to say something, or do the sensible thing and give up what's already lost, and abandon him to sit solitary amidst the scattered, broken remains.
"Misguided is the man who faults another man for believing in his country," says Jefferson softly after a moment's pause.
John squeezes his eyes shut. His face contorts into something resembling a grimace.
"Please—leave me alone."
He wishes, more than anything, that he hadn't heard the undignified anguish colouring his own voice, nor the soft footsteps retreating behind his back. And he wishes, when he raises his head, that the glass wasn't so clean, nor the night so dark, so he would at least be spared from having to look at his reflection.
Alas, the heavens are not so kind, and so John stares at the direct outcome of everything that led up to this point, his obstinacy and shortsightedness and sheer idiocy, every word they ever called him, and tries to pay no heed as the burning reaches a crescendo.
He thinks about Independence, fated to meet its ignominious death within the steamy walls of Congress.
And he thinks about himself—a disgraced failure of a man.