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Hamilton was a small man, and he knew it. He liked to believe that what his Creator had not given to him in height and breadth had been returned in eloquence and rhetorical skill. Nonetheless, being so slight in the context of the Revolution had its disadvantages, and this was one of them.
All he wanted to do was get completely, entirely, face-smashedly, pissingly drunk. Again. And the bartender could not see him. Aside from that , he was being run into and pushed around in ungodly ways by people twice his height and three or four times his width.
“Oi, je suis désolé, petit homme - I am sorry, small man,” said one of the larger men. “ Alexandre ?”
Hamilton glanced at the face; he knew the accent. “Lafayette,” he sighed in relief. “It is wonderful to see you again.”
“Monsieur Hamilton, mon ami - I am delighted. But, there is something on your face, something that is...not yes. Not yes? Wrong.”
Alexander sighed, pressing tears back against his eyes, shoulders drooping. “ Bien entendu - you know me so well, Lafayette. But let us not focus on myself. I do not know if I can; I have not yet had a drink - this hour. What brings you back to our humble country?”
“Revolution, my dear Alexander. There is always a revolution in the ciel , mon petit lion . Let me buy you a drink. I have not seen you in so long.”
“That would be nice. I will select a table for us?”
“ Oui .”
After a few minutes, Lafayette brought Alexander beers to his table, secluded in the corner of the tavern, by the restrooms. Practically none walked there, none bothered. The noise was far away, by the bar and by the door and in the booths along the far wall.
“ Alexandre, mon coeur, what is the matter? I cannot speak to you; you look absolutely en décline .”
“I cannot, Lafayette,” he whispered against his mug. “I cannot speak of it.”
“Oh, Alexander. Is something the matter with your work?”
Deep breaths, he must remind himself. Deep breaths. And a larger swig of beer. Please, he begged to himself, Bacchus, ruler of wines, please do me good. Quickly. “Yes,” he managed weakly. “Laurens. My...work partner.”
“Ah, your amour ?”
Hamilton’s heart quickened. How could he know? “Lafayette?”
“It is obvious, lion. For me, at least. I am close to the two of you. There is...how you say, alchemy? Chemistry?”
Alexander could hold it back no longer. Hot streams of salty water began down his cheeks as he re-lived their fight.
It had begun as something small. He had forgotten by now, and surely Laurens had, too. But when it escalated, oh. Alexander cursed his temper over and over again.
“Likely no longer.” He blinked hard and shook his head as if it would take the pain away.
“Oh, Alexandre. ” Lafayette placed a stocky hand on Hamilton’s shoulder. “Surely all will be pardonné, before the night is ended? John and you are so...you will figure it out.”
“How I wish it were true.” He sighed, feeling heavy. “Enough of my woes, Lafayette. Ce qui est nouveau? ”
“No, mon cher . Not tonight. I will enlighten you soon, yes. But tonight, we raise a glass to the both of us, and to yourself and your love.”
Alexander was unsure how much alcohol he could stomach, but he needed something to take away his heartache. Even as he took another sip, he did not toast. He could not make himself toast to John Laurens.
“Hamilton!” he had yelled. Hamilton noted the change in his tone: John usually called him Alexander. “Even if you desire, you are not welcome back in my house!”
Close your eyes. Breathe deeply.
“Lafayette,” he whispered, chest aching emptily. “I love him so much. He is the light of my life.”
“Yes. And you are the light of his. Surely you will find a way.” A pause. “ Une seconde, Hamilton. Please wait here, do not move. I must attend to something.”
Hamilton nodded and put his head in his hands.
“I do not desire it, nor should I! There is nothing in you I have desire for any longer, Laurens.”
How wrong he had been, ah Temper, how you make one lie!
He viewed the moment over and over again in his mind, visualizing John’s starry lips pulled into a snarl instead of a smile, his eyes tinged with hatred instead of passion.
Lafayette came back to liberate him from these visions eventually.
Sliding into the opposite chair, he lowered Hamilton’s hands from his cheeks, stroked his wrists soothingly.
“ Bonjour again, forgive me for breaking to care of something, so: tell me, Alexander, what is it about this dispute was so regrettable? You have fought before, no?”
Knowing he looked a wreck, like he hadn’t slept in days after the fight (he hadn’t) and had recently been drinking too much (he had), Hamilton trusted Lafayette enough to look him in the eyes. “We have, Gilbert. But small things, and we always reconcile within the same hour. And this began as something small - in truth, I do not even know what. But it did not end that way. Oh, Lafayette. I am so sorry it is you who must deal with my baggage.”
“Worry not, petit. It will be okay. Once you speak it, it will be lifted.”
This was true. So Alexander sighed deeply, composed himself, and began to spill his woes to his favorite fighting Frenchman.
“I told him that I loved him no more, in the end. That is likely my gravest regret, but there are so many more. Lafayette, I said there was nothing about him I loved any longer. He told me to leave, he said I was not welcome, he said he would find work elsewhere, he threatened to return to South Carolina. He said I was one of the worst things that came upon him. I retaliated the same words to him, and oh, how I did not mean it! How my hot anger and quick daring temper fails me in the places of love, Gilbert, I do not know how I will live without him!”
“I tell you, mon ami , if you are as forthright with him as you are with me, you will not need to.”
Alexander ignored him. “I love him so much. Even after all of these years, I love him more with each passing hour, and I love him so intensely that there is no difference between our first day and our last.” He could feel the new alcohol getting to him finally, the familiar and dull buzz warming the back of his mind and loosening his lips. “Forgive me if I babble, mon cher. But I must ask, do you know that John Laurens is the single most beautiful man in the world? Have you seen his face, his hair? His glorious freckles, delicately sturdy wrists and purposefully slender shoulders? The way he is sprinkled with a million suns? He is so kind, so wonderful. He has more than a single grain of salt, too - his humor is the best I know. Laurens, non Lesbia, formosus est, qui cum pulcherrimum totum est, tum omnibus unus omnis surripuit Veneris.” *
“Oh, mon poor amorous lion . You are lovestruck enough still to recite Latin in apostrophe to Laurens, but not so much that you forgive him?”
“Lafayette, you must forgive me for my contradiction: I forgive him . I am difficult, I know. And I would go to him and embrace his glorious waist and revel in his scent and hope he still deal with my miserable self if I were not so afraid that I would be unwelcome. I do not wish to be hated any longer, dear soldier.”
“Alexander.”
The voice came from behind him, soft and unreasonably familiar. He knew this voice, but Hamilton refused to believe. “I am hallucinating now, no?”
“No. Alexander,” a slender set of five fingers punctuated his name gently on the shoulder. “Alexander, my love. Please. Grace me with your eyes, I beg you to forgive me.”
“John?” Was this a figment of the alcohol? Lafayette’s eyes sparked with cunning glee. He had done this?
“I will leave you two to, ah, reflect? I will be here on the morrow’s night, should you wish to speak with me. I will be delighted if you come, copains . Au revoir.”
His neck was tight in place, unable to turn to view the apparition. When Laurens moved into his view, Hamilton closed his eyes.
“Come home with me, my dear Alexander.”
“I am not welcome?”
“Hamilton, do you hear yourself? Forgive me, my darling. You are in a poor state, look at
you. Alexander. Return with me, if you refuse to my home, then to the office at least.”
“I have already said I forgive you. I only wish that you forgive me, as well. I am -” he swallowed, thickly, eyes still glued shut “ - rash. I am not the good man you are.”
A smooth hand cupped his cheek, thumb strokes promising a soothed future. “How can I forgive you, if there is nothing to forgive? We are all human, we say things we do not wish we had and we do things we wish we could bring back into ourselves and never have see the daylight again. It is alright, Alexander. You need rest.”
Hamilton moved to brush the hand with his lips, muttering against it, “Best of men, John Laurens. You are the best of men.”
“Will you come?”
Hamilton finally opened his eyes. John Laurens, too, was crying: his eyes were red-rimmed, eyebrows drawn up, frowning. After nearly a week apart, the sight of Laurens’ face was possibly the most glorious sight Alexander had seen in his life.
“Of course, my most divine Laurens. I do not know how I kept myself away.”
On the way to Laurens’ residence, they did not speak. There was nothing to say; their auras shone their communication to the other.
Alexander stumbled on the stairs to the front porch, wearied by fatigue and alcohol. Laurens placed a hand on the small of his back to steady him. “You need to sleep. We can talk in the morning, if you wish.”
“I should not speak to you drunk.” He paused in front of the door. “And I do not deserve to be here, my love - I am nothing but over-glorified pond scum, and you welcome me into your home?”
“Over-glorified pond scum that has its beautiful eyes right in the middle of my heart, Alexander. No matter what you think of yourself, I love you so dearly I can never find myself truly irate with you. Go on.”
A quick, nearly accusatory glance. “It did not seem that way last we met.”
Laurens rubbed his eyes and slid his hands down his face. “Lord Above, Alexander. Very well. We will talk now, then.”
Hamilton marched into the house with victory, but he was unsure what he had won. He waited for Laurens to enter, the polite thing to do, follow him into his parlor or wait for signal to enter.
When the door had been shut and locked, Laurens turned to caress his cheeks. “Alexander. I will never tire of that name.” Hamilton felt himself embraced in strong arms and pressed against a warm, thundering heart.
He hummed, hoping he sounded inquisitive.
“I have said so much I regret, my love, and nothing I meant. That which one says under the rule of Mars cannot be taken as truth. I feel the fool, the fool who relies on luck - luck threw you into my life, and my stupid mouth nearly threw you out. I am so flawed, Alexander. And I am so sorry.”
A bright warmth spread through Hamilton’s chest, a liveliness that he had not known he missed so dearly. On his toes, he leaned into Laurens to capture his lips, and then everything felt so right once again that it was unbelievable they had ever fought. “I am in awe of you. You forgive so easily, you allow so much. So flexible, yet so sturdy.”
John held him back with a hand as Hamilton moved to kiss him once more, frowning. “Your breath reeks of alcohol. Alexander, you’ve only had half a beer…?”
“Who says this was my first drink of the day?” he slurred in reply. “Who cares? My mind is fine.”
Laurens shook his head. “I care. Come. We are getting you to bed, immediately.” It took his most careful guidance to force Alexander through the narrow stairway, and when prompted, Alexander felt himself collapse on Laurens’ bed.
“Don’t leave me,” he muttered into the pillow, certain Laurens would not hear.
“I would never,” replied Laurens as he laid down next to Hamilton.
“Warm. Tired.” Underneath the sleepiness and the alcohol, Hamilton felt himself becoming frustrated with the fact that he was unable to formulate complete sentences. But within seconds of closed eyelids and Laurens’ sweet warmth so incredibly close to him, Alexander could not resist sleep. With one final exhausted effort, he forced with numb tongue, “Love. You.”
The warmth constricted around his shoulders, a chin on his head and a hand in his hair, the other rubbing circles on his back. “I love you, my sweet Alexander. Let us not catch sight of parting ever again. I want...I want a future with you - hell! I would build an empire, travel to the ends of the earth, enflame the entirety of the globe, were it only with you.”
“Morning,” he dismissed foggily. Something within him registered these words, and swelled at the unbelievable thought. A life with John Laurens.
“Yes, Alexander. In the morning. Sleep soundly, petit lion . Quell your fierce roar for the hours it takes you to rejuvenate your fervid mind and impassioned heart.”
*
the Latin is modified from Catullus 86, original words:
Lesbia formosa est, quae cum pulcherrima tota est, tum omnibus una omnis surripuit Veneris.
The version here, which I modified for this situation, translates to: Laurens, not Lesbia, is beautiful: for he possesses all these beauties, and has stolen all the graces from all of Venus herself.”