It's spring again.
The flowers are blossoming again, the breeze is warm and John misses winter. He misses the snow, the cold nights hiding underneath blankets, he misses the winter nights when the air was icy and the sky was clearer and filled with stars. Or maybe, John is just romanticizing winter because he met Alex on a winter night, either way he misses the season.
It's spring again but John misses the winter nights, so obviously the first thing he does when he wakes up is go out to buy supplies.
It's past noon when he is finally read to begin. He looks around his bedroom, carefully checking if all furniture is covered and if the ladder will hold his weight. He comes to the conclusion that the fall would probably not kill him.
He looks at the ceiling, takes a deep breath, and starts to work.
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.
.
Alexander likes spring most of all.
It's warm and colorful and it's always bursting with life and energy. It's the season for picnics in the park and walks after dark and putting flowers everywhere.
Alexander likes the springs most of all and he doesn't miss winter at all.
Winter means being cold all the time and snow piling on sidewalks and being impossible to go outside. Winters equals idleness, and Alexander can't stand it.
But not spring, spring is waking up after a long sleep, it's stretching in the morning when your body is pleasently sore, it's the breaking to the surface and taking a deep breath. Spring is life beggining again.
What Alex had never associated to spring before is his boyfriend on the top of a old, rusty ladder painting stars on the ceiling.
And yet, here he is, standing on the doorway to John's bedroom watching as John climbs down the ladder.
Alex takes the moment to look around, noticing the dark blue spots on the floor and the streaks of yellow on the paper covering the furnitures. It's a bit of a mess but when he looks at the smile on John's face, well, there is nothing he wouldn't do to keep it there.
So Alex kisses John and picks up a brush. He says let me help and he means it, he wants to help with the painting even though he's shitty at drawing or color coordinating, he wants to help because it's spring and he wants to have something permanent in John's apartment. He wants John to wake up in the mornings and see a star and think of Alexander, he wants someone years later look at that same ceiling and say John Laurens and Alexander Hamilton painted that on a spring afternoon.
So he picks up a brush and does his best to not fuck anything up, because John actually knows what he is doing and it's turning out gorgeous, and it would not be fair of Alex to ruin that.
And maybe it's that little thought that makes him look at John.
John standing there, in the middle of the room with a yellow smudge on his forehead and blue on both cheeks. John with eyes shining with pride and delight and happiness and something else Alex can't quite identify, something warm and dizzy and alive, something that yells spring and life.
Alex looks at John on that spring afternoon, with the sun behind him and the smell of paint strong in the air, with paint all over and laughter on his lips, and Alex is painfully aware of the ghost lurking on his own past and the number of people he already managed to piss off now and how many people he hurt.
Alex looks at John and knows he doesn't deserve him, knows John is an angel on his life, an oasis on the desert, knows he is a doomed man grasping at straws.
Alex knows all of this, so he looks at John and promises to himself and all the gods that he will not ruin this, not John. If all else should fall, John would be spared, he'd make sure of that. He prays to all the gods he doesn't believe in to never let him taint this, because of all the chaos that is his life, John is the one good thing, the one pure and uncorrupted thing and he will not ruin it.
So Alex looks at John on that spring afternoon and saying I love you seems a faint echo of the hurricane inside his chest.
"Hey, a penny for your thoughts?"
John says with soft voice and soft eyes and soft smile, because that is the thing about John, he can go around picking fights and come back with bruised hands and broken ribs, but underneath those layers John is soft edges and quiet nights on the couch, ink stains and shy smiles. It's like watching the sun hiding from its own light. And Alex can't resist the gravitational pull. John is the sun and he changed all of Alex's universe irrevocably. There is no going back for him.
"It's nothing." Alex pauses, "I mean, it's something." He struggles, because how can you describe the divine with earthly words? "It's- I love you, you know that, right?"
John lets out a startled laugh and he scratches the back of his neck, a blush rising to his cheeks and Alex wants to scream because he feels like he might burst.
"Well, you do like to say it often."
"No, I mean, yes, but you know that I mean it, right? I love you John, I love you and it terrifies me sometimes, because you could ask me to kill someone and I would, without hesitation, I would kill and I would die for you, John." Alexander grabs him by the shoulders and looks at him with eyes filled with urgency because he needs Johnto believe him," you know that, right?"
"I- Alexander, are you alright?" John hooks his fingers on the loops of his jeans to pull him closer and Alex wants to count every freckle on his face, draw constellations and kiss each one. "Not that I don't appreciate it, but is there a reason for this declaration?"
Alex smiles and kisses him, the whirlwind of thoughts in his mind calming down to a breeze, to a steady humming, and he feels like maybe it's okay, he can take a break, he can relax for a minute, forget everything for a day, get lost in this bubble of warmth and love and John.
"We'll get paint on the bed." Alex tries to say, at least he thinks he says it, in between kisses and roaming hands but he can't be sure because John only says we'll need a new one anyway and it doesn't make sense, but then John is kissing his neck and biting at his collarbone and Alex can't think at all.
It's spring again and there are stars on the ceiling and paint on the bed and Alex thinks there is method to any chaos.
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.
And as for John Laurens, well, as he stares at the winter night sky painted above him, he thinks of the first night they met and where he is now, with Alexander sleeping on his chest, the steady beating of his heart lulling him to sleep, and John feels that Alex was right, life is not easy for them, never was, but it still is the most wonderful of hardships.
John also thinks that it's spring and they met on winter, so it's quite fitting for them to move in now. He thinks he should be more nervous about asking Alex this, but his words are still floating on his mind, leaving a heady feeling on their wake and John looks at that one particularly sloppy star and he thinks he already knows the answer.
So, it's winter when they meet and it's spring when they move in, and, with stars on the ceiling and Alexander sleeping pressed to his chest, John can't help but wonder what summer will bring.