AN: Hello :) So, all my works on here are originally part of a series on ao3, and this chapter would be part ten! That means it takes place after the events of 'Behind Enemy Lines', and 'Blood and Water' (the prequel) will probably be needed for context. This chapter in particular references all the other works in the series quite heavily :)
Break
It wasn't like he had never met Martha Washington before–but the last time she had visited camp, when John had been a relatively recent addition to the general's staff, she had been nothing more to him than his commander's wife. He hadn't been nervous then; he grew up in polite society, he knew how to speak pleasantly without saying anything of importance.
A lot had changed since then.
Alexander had told him time and time again that he had nothing to worry about, that she was the sweetest woman alive–most days, a footnote not as calming as Alex seemed to think it to be - but John, well, he had his doubts. He didn't doubt that she was a lovely woman!
But he also was closely acquainted with the man she married and the one she raised, so yes.
It could be said John was nervous.
Nervous enough to give the general a headache, it seemed.
"Sit down, John, for the love of God. You're being ridiculous," he said and took a sip of his whiskey, put the glass down next to him on the table he sat on, and pointed to one of the chairs in front of the fireplace with such authority it made John cease his pacing. "Sit."
John stood for a moment, heaved a defeated sigh, and dropped into the appointed chair.
"Good," Washington said with a curt nod of his head and plucked another glass up from the cluttered tabletop–Alex's desk, an organised chaos–and handed it over to John.
"Have a drink and calm down."
John accepted the offered glass and turned it between his fingers, watching the orange light of the fire reflect off the amber of the whiskey, and looked back at the general.
"You are giving me alcohol?" he said. The last time he had had alcohol, he'd had a little too much, and the happenings of that night really weren't fresh in his mind anymore; that he didn't have a clear recollection didn't mean he didn't know what happened, though. It wasn't like Washington and Alex would let him forget it. The honorary title of future son-in-law had become a fast favourite of Alex's.
Washington narrowed his eyes like he did when he was annoyed or affronted, but there was a humorous glint in them, warm like the fire that got caught in them.
"I'm giving you one drink. I could be convinced to let you have a second if you promise you won't cry on me again," he said, grinning like he rarely ever did when there was anyone else around.
John could feel the path of the flush as it climbed up his neck and into his cheeks, his face without a doubt red with hot embarrassment. He did not need that second drink; he wouldn't survive that sort of self-inflicted humiliation twice.
"You are too kind, Sir, but I think I'm fine with just the one," he mumbled out, his eyes fixed to the liquid in his glass, and Washington chuckled. It was warm and fond, and John still startled every time he heard the general make that sound.
He liked it. It was smooth and calm and happy, but John just wasn't quite used to getting to hear it yet.
"Good answer," he said and picked up his own glass again, swept a thumb over the smooth surface, his expression turning from amused to thoughtful as he did.
Washington had to be nervous too. Or perhaps not nervous, but at the very least… not unaffected.
"How do you think she will take it, Sir?" he asked, peering up at him. Washington returned his gaze, and John struggled to keep his face neutral, even though he knew the general could most likely see straight through him.
He hesitated, and that did nothing to still John's stuttering heart. "Martha loves Alex like her own," he said; John sensed the unspoken but, so he stayed silent and waited for him to continue. "but she's… she's a devoted Christian. Far more religious than I have ever been. After-" He closed his eyes and gathered himself, took a sip of his whiskey, and John had a feeling another wall between them was about to come tumbling down.
"After the passing of our daughter, she sought solace in the scripture. I hope she can keep an open mind for Alex, at least."
Oh, dear God. John's stomach plummeted, and his grip on his glass tightened, afraid he would drop it otherwise.
Alex had mentioned his siblings, all of them, Custis and Hamilton, but he had neglected to disclose to him his sister had died.
He swallowed thickly and blinked a few times. Washington wouldn't have acknowledged that fact in this manner if he thought John didn't know about it. He must have assumed Alex had told him already–John would go along with that, intent on making the conversation not any more uncomfortable than it had to be.
"Why haven't you told her?" he said, tackling his way into another topic with as little tact as he could.
The general fixed him with a look. "That's a dangerous thing to write down, son," he said, and John recognised it as the warning it was. "Well, and Alex asked me not to tell her. If he hadn't, I would have put some hints, perhaps, to clue her in–I don't make a habit of lying to my wife." He said it so pointedly, there was only one thing he could be alluding to.
John sighed. "First of all, Alex isn't my wife, secondly, that was once-"
"He said you always did that, and that is a direct quote."
"I was also slightly drunk, Sir, can we not move on from this?"
Washington watched him from narrowed eyes with a minimal quirk to his lips, and John felt the smile overtake his features without him meaning it to.
"Slightly drunk?" he repeated, and John snorted a laugh.
"All right, maybe I was a little beyond slightly at that point-" He broke off at the sound of footfalls drawing nearer and shifted in his chair until he could see the door. The footsteps halted, the door creaked open, and Alex shuffled inside, face blank and eyes red.
Well, shit.
That could have gone better, he supposed.
When the door closed behind them and they were finally alone, it felt like heavy chains uncoiled from his limbs and fell away, leaving him light and free, the rise and fall of his chest unrestricted and his shoulders without tension.
His mother had arrived with them that morning, but it wasn't like they could act like they were all too close where other people could see, so the whole day had been filled with careful smalltalk and polite smiles, a Colonel Hamilton here and a Lady Washington there. It had been exhausting, and Alex knew his mother felt the strain of that whole charade as well.
Pa and John had given them some space–Alex had long stopped worrying about leaving the two of them alone together, now that he was certain his father wouldn't go straight for John's throat at the slightest opportunity–because, well. Alex needed to fill her in about a few things.
John, of course.
And that time he got taken prisoner by a deranged madman, unfortunately.
If he only knew how to broach either of those topics.
They had settled in front of the crackling fireplace–after Ma had released him from the too tight embrace she had pulled him into the second the lock had clicked into place–and had fallen into their family's special brand of smalltalk, not formal, but also not really addressing what needed to be addressed.
Until his mother breathed a soft sigh and reached over to take his hand into her's, looked back at him with open affection and understanding that threw him back to his childhood.
She would stitch, or he would help her with the laundry, or they just would be out on a walk, and Alex would rant about one thing or the other, something he had read recently, most times, and Ma would watch him with a fond smile, like his ramblings were the most interesting thing she had ever heard.
"Is there something you'd like to tell me, Alexander?" she said, stroking her thumb along his knuckles, and Alex stopped breathing. He had two things he needed to tell her, but she only could have picked up on one of those things herself.
They couldn't have been that obvious, could they? John and he had barely even touched that day, they had stayed on opposite sides of the room for most of the work-hours, for Christ's sake!
"Did something happen?" she went on, and Alex's heartbeat slowed as air rushed back into his frozen lungs. She wasn't talking about John. "Your father has been doing that thing he does when he tries to lie to me over the past few months. You know, when he writes like there's something he thinks he should tell you but writes around it instead? And… you don't seem entirely at ease, love. So, did something happen?"
Ah. It was the other thing he would have to address first, the thing not John, the bad thing he didn't want to talk about at all because he had talked about it, a lot, and it had hurt like a bitch; and now he would have to dig the unsettled patch of earth the grass had finally grown over back up again.
Alex swallowed around the tightness of his throat and squeezed his mother's hand. "Something… did happen, Ma," he said, and he sounded strained already; he hadn't even started yet.
Well, this would be fun.
"And would you like to tell me what that was?" she asked, gentle but with a hint of humour, and fuck, he had missed her so much.
"No," he said and tried to blink away the sting behind his eyes, without too much success. "But I will do it anyway."
The smile dropped from her face and she leaned forward in her chair, brought her other hand up to clasp his in both of her's–the feeling was almost foreign to him now, soft, warm hands, smaller than his, holding onto him with gentle pressure. Pa's and even John's hands were bigger than his own, calloused and battle-worn, not as delicate.
"What's wrong, love?" The genuine concern shining from her eyes was enough to make his own water, and Alex hated himself a little for it. He didn't want to shed more tears about this, about him, he wanted to move on and heal and be whole again.
"I-" he said and broke off, squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to hide his weakness, but it only made a tear fall. His mother brushed it away without comment and went back to holding his hand.
Alex forced himself to look at her before he began anew; he could be a man and look her in the eyes, it wasn't that hard. "I was a prisoner. To the redcoats. Just for three days, but-"
He slapped his free hand over his mouth and focused all his effort on biting back the sob he felt building in his chest.
Ma pried it away, her touch soft and her eyes steel when he turned to look. "And where was your father during all of this?" she said, sharp in a way that made Alex glad it wasn't directed at him.
"Don't be mad at him, Ma," he said, smiling faintly, feeling sick to his stomach. "I- I did it for him. I mean- we were cornered. They had us ambushed, there were traitors in our own rows, they would have killed us all, but I managed to convince-" he swallowed, tasted bile. "their leader to just take me and let the other's go."
Realisation dawned on her face, and her eyes widened with it, shocked and devastated and angry like he had never seen her. She was a gentle creature, stubborn but with a calm disposition, so this- this was new to Alex.
"My son is taken prisoner and your father thinks it acceptable to leave me in the dark? About you? The one thing I need him to be completely honest about?" She took a deep breath and turned to stare into the flames, the changing light casting shadows over her clenched jaw. "What did they do to you, Alexander? Did they hurt you?"
"Don't be angry with him, Mama," he said, quieter than before, his voice preferring to shrivel up and die in his throat rather than recounting what that man had done to him. "I asked him not to tell you."
He drew a slow breath and looked from their hands up into her face, and he hooked the fingers of his free hand under the hem of his sleeve and pulled it up, baring his scarred-over forearm, white lines on tan skin. Alex didn't look, lest he change his mind and cover it back up, but his mother had tracked the movement, one of her careful hands joining her heavy gaze in tracing over the raised skin. Alex shivered. He knew they were ugly–it was all right. They could be ugly. They didn't define him.
"Oh, my darling…" she whispered, controlled in a way he knew meant she was trying to keep her voice steady. Trying to be strong for him. "Is there… more?"
Alex smiled, but it felt more like a grimace, so he stopped. "The other arm, for one," he said, a poor attempt to lighten the mood that only served to make her frown, and something inside Alex panged. That expression of worry had seldom ever left her face during the last year of his sister's life. He hated that he gave her a reason to bring it back.
"For one?"
He hesitated. There was no easy way to say it, and he sure as hell wouldn't show her. His arms were one thing, but his back–while it had healed and didn't pain him any longer, the scars looked fresh. Raw and pink and shiny, and where his arms were ugly, his back was disgusting.
"They whipped me, Ma," he forced out, staring right at her; through her. If he looked too close at the emotions that flickered across her face, he would burst into tears, and he'd really rather not.
"Whipped-" she choked, grasping his hand so hard it hurt. "God, my boy-" She made a sound like a sob, but Alex wouldn't focus his misty eyes enough to find out if she had started crying.
"Where was your father? What was he doing?" she said, swallowing thickly and wiping a hand over her eyes.
Alex made a wet noise of amusement, and it deepened her frown and tightened her grip. "His best, Ma. He was doing his best. I don't blame him for any of this."
His mother shook her head and laid her forehead down into the palm of the hand not clawing into his.
"How- how did you get out, then?" she asked, upset but still aware enough to notice his general unwillingness to reveal... anything about that matter.
"That's… a lengthier story. It involves John going rogue to get to me, an extremely stupid deal that was Pa's idea, and me stabbing a man in his sleep, so- yeah."
She raised her head and fixed him with a questioning look. "John Laurens?"
One had to admire how she could just brush past him admitting to murder. Alex decided not to delve into that.
"That very one," he said with a small smile. "John came for me, the idiot."
She furrowed her brows and the bruising grip on his fingers relaxed a bit; they were through the worst of it now. It had been the torture he really hadn't wanted to talk about, and that was done–and now… now, John. Alex was always down to talk about John, of course, but he wasn't looking forward to explaining their relationship to his mother, of all people.
He knew that was what he had to do, though, what he wanted to do.
Alex had spent long enough wishing he had told his father about John before he found out himself–they hadn't really talked about it afterwards, but Pa had admitted to both him and John that he had suspected them for quite a while.
And he had never said a word. He had waited for Alex to come to him, had given him a chance to tell him, and he hadn't. Pa had trusted him to be honest, and Alex had lied.
Now, he wanted to do right by his mother. To tell her himself and not have his father there to hide behind in case things went south.
He could do this, he was a grown man and he could look his god-fearing mother in the eyes and tell her he committed sodomy on a regular basis.
...she wouldn't hate him, would she? No, she wouldn't. She was too sweet, and Alex was fairly sure she didn't have it in her to hate anyone–but what if she didn't accept them like Pa had? Didn't accept him? Did he even want her love if she couldn't love all of him?
Yes, he thought with no small amount of shame. Yes, he wanted it, he craved it. Alex had already lost a mother, he couldn't lose her, too.
"He went rogue?" she said in disbelief, her eyes still red-rimmed, but Alex breathed easier with how readily she took to the new topic. "He disobeyed your father? And he still has a job?"
Alex couldn't help the sudden burst of laughter that forced itself past his hammering heart and out of his throat, heightening his nerves even as it loosened the knot in his chest.
"I know. But it did kind of work out in the end, and, well…" he paused and considered his next step. Would it be better to ease her into it or just put it out there right off the bat?
He settled on a bit of ambiguity to soften the blow.
"John is very important to me, Ma. And Pa, he's… he's come around to him. I think he genuinely likes him now."
She smiled, unconvinced and not entirely real, and squeezed his hand. "Well, I'm glad you at least got a good friend out of this godawful war, if nothing else," she said; always trying to see the positive in things.
Like Patsy used to. He cleared his throat and swallowed, but his voice still came out raspy when he next spoke.
"John is more than just a friend to me, Ma. I- I love him."
Her smile grew a tad more genuine, and Alex knew she hadn't understood before she even opened her mouth to answer him.
"Like Jacky," she supplemented. Like a brother. Alex chuckled, but it held no joy–it sounded frantic, nervous and cornered, and he shook his head and watched her smile fall, another frown taking its place.
"No, Ma. Not like that. I love him. Like- like you and Pa love each other," he said and squeezed his eyes shut, but not in time to avoid witnessing the shock that came with the comprehension as the impact of his words hit her.
Alex dug his teeth into his lip and hoped he wouldn't open his eyes to a disgusted sneer.
She hadn't let go of his hand yet, hadn't flinched away the instant she understood, and careful hope budded in his chest.
"You mean sodomy," she said, flat and deceivingly calm.
Alex nodded without a word, and his breathing that had almost entirely ceased at that point picked up all at once, shallow and fast.
"Look at me, Alexander," she said, and he did.
She wasn't disgusted. She was disappointed. Worried. Conflicted. The hint of distrust in her eyes hit him like a blow to the solar plexus, punched the little air from his lungs he had managed to get in there with his gasping, and squashed whatever sense of optimism he had scraped together just a moment ago.
She looked at him like he was a stranger, and Alex wanted to cry.
"You know what the scripture says about this-"
"I don't care," he said, and she inhaled sharply. Shit, stupid–think, Hamilton.
Alex noticed with a start that his scars still were on full display, and he hastened to pull his sleeve back down, fumbling with the fabric in a way that probably told his mother everything she needed to know about his state of mind.
"I mean, I- I know what it says, but I just don't, I don't think it's right. Because I love him, Ma, I love him so much, and he loves me, and it doesn't feel wrong."
"Alexander," she said, sighing, and rubbed at her forehead like she was fighting off a headache. "Just because something doesn't feel wrong doesn't mean it's right."
His breath hitched, and he jerked his hand from her's–he had taken punches to the face that had hurt less, and with that flare of pain came the wish he hadn't declined his father's offer to tell her together. Pa would have had a levelheaded response, and he wouldn't have sounded like he was on the verge of tears when he delivered it.
Alex shook his head and pressed his lips together, turned to face the fire as he crossed his arms over his chest.
His mother sighed and clasped her hands in her lap. "Does George know about this?"
Alex nodded, not trusting his voice.
"And yet, the boy lives," she said with a humourless chuckle.
"We've had a few close calls," Alex said, voice rough, and flashed a joyless smile to match her's.
They sat in uncomfortable silence for a short while that seemed to last longer than it had any right to; despite their physical proximity, he had never felt this far removed from her.
"Alex," she said, and he flinched. "would you be a dear and go find your father for me? I would like to have a talk with him about the unfortunate habit of keeping things from me he seems to have developed." Her voice was light, but it wasn't enough to fool him into thinking she was fine.
She wasn't. Ma thought he was disgusting, a freak of nature and a criminal, and she wanted him gone, out of the room and away from her.
Alex disguised another hitch of his breath with a short cough.
"Of course," he said and jumped up from his seat, turned his back to her so she wouldn't see the hot tears gathered on his lashes.
"Alexander, wait," she said, soft and hesitant, followed by the creak of her chair–she had gotten up as well, and Alex had stopped without meaning to.
She stepped up behind him and nudged his upper arm; he knew what that meant, and he turned to face her, his eyes on the ground.
"I can't approve of this," she said, barely louder than the cracking of the burning wood. Alex bit the inside of his lip until he tasted blood.
Two hands settled on his cheeks, and he jumped.
"But you are my son, Alexander. I love you." She pressed a kiss to his cheek, but to his surprise it did absolutely nothing to lighten the load on his shoulders or dispel the darkness that had taken hold of his mind.
That was her olive-branch, the only one she could offer. He would have to take it.
"Love you too, Ma," he rasped and lowered her hands from his face, turned on his heel and strode out of the room.
The only thing he wanted to do now was bury his tears in John's chest, safe and sound in the circle of his arms, where nothing could hurt him and everything was fine.
"Ma wants to talk to you," Alex said before either the general or he could say anything else. "Sounded like you are in trouble."
Washington's lips quirked into a half-smile, small and somewhat uncomfortable, and he set his glass down on the desk and stood.
"I can imagine." He glanced at John, a silent take care of him or else, and came to stand in front of Alex, who stared at the ground with such intensity John feared he would leave a hole.
Alex didn't need to say anything. It wasn't hard to tell from his hunched shoulders and irregular, quiet breath how she had reacted, and John wished, not for the first time, that one of them had been born a woman. Things would have been so much less complicated that way.
"Hey," the general said, soft like only Alex could make him, and tilted his son's head up to meet his eyes.
"It's fine," Alex said, in a way that didn't sound fine at all.
Washington was obviously not fooled by that. He pulled him close and held him for a beat, stroking a big hand over Alex's tied-back hair, mumbling something to him John couldn't make out.
When he stepped away and turned to leave, it was with a pained grimace–John looked back to Alex, and he understood.
He had begun to cry. Not a single noise parted from his firmly closed lips, but the tears shone warm in the light of the fire, and John was on his feet and across the room in an instant.
John stopped short of him and opened his arms, not quite knowing what he wanted right then, but he needn't have worried; just a moment later, he had his arms full of trembling Alexander.
"Oh, darling," he mumbled into his hair. The general threw him a last look over his shoulder and was gone.
"I'm sorry, this is so stupid," Alex said, voice small and quivering. "She wasn't even mean about it, and here I am-"
"It's not stupid if it makes you upset, darling. Don't always talk about yourself that way, you know it's not true."
He didn't respond for a few heartbeats, just clung to him as John stroked light hands down his back–he had to be careful with that, not too much pressure or Alex would shut down and shy away from any touch at all for up to a few hours.
His breathing hit John's neck in warm little puffs. He felt it slow and even out, and he recognised the pattern of it; Alex was counting along to calm himself.
"I don't know what to do now," he admitted and gently detached himself from John, laid his flat palms to his chest and looked up at him from sad, dark eyes. John settled one of his hands on Alex's waist, the other he brought up to wipe away the tears that clung to his reddened cheeks, and left it there, stroking his thumb back and forth in a soothing motion.
"Do I try to convince her? Do I just never acknowledge it again? I- I don't want to lose her, John. Do I just shut my mouth and bear it with a grin?"
That was the thing, though–John didn't know. His own mother was long dead. The only parent he had left hated him for unrelated reasons, not that this would endear him any more to his father. He tried to imagine himself in a similar situation, tried to put together how he would tell his mother about Alex if she were alive, but there were just too many blanks. She had died when he was a boy, love and marriage the farthest thing from his mind.
Sometimes it surprised him how much empty spaces could hurt.
While he wasn't sure about many things concerning such a scenario, he knew one thing with an immovable certainty: his mother would have wanted him to be happy.
Surely Martha Washington couldn't be that much of an outlier in that.
"Let the general talk to her. If he managed to convince me there was nothing wrong about this, then changing his wife's mind should be a walk in the park," he said and smiled at Alex, caught another tear on his thumb before it could fall farther.
The smile he received back was weak, and it crumbled apart after only a moment. "She's really stubborn, though," he said.
"So is the general."
"She's worse."
"Worse than him?" he blurted out, his blood cold with the sheer terror that had struck his heart at the idea alone. Alex laughed at him, and John would have acted a little huffy if he wasn't so happy to hear him make that sound.
"I am the way I am today because I had to sit through them fighting over the right way to pronounce 'cacophony' for three weeks, which was as entertaining as it was ironic."
John blinked, trying and failing to imagine their composed and stoic commander bickering with his wife over how to pronounce something. "That does explain a lot," he said and leaned down to kiss Alex before he could voice his offense.
He didn't seem to mind, as he kissed him back without hesitation and put another quick peck to John's lips before he could pull away.
"I hope you are right," he said, all sense of playfulness gone from his demeanor. "I hope Pa just… finds the right words to make her see."
John sighed and slipped the hand on Alex's waist around to the small of his back, used the leverage to pull him back into his arms, and kissed his temple. "Me too, darling," he said, and prayed the general could just make this right, like he did with most things.
He couldn't take the thought of costing Alex the relationship with the woman who raised him, of being the wedge that forced a family apart.
But, he thought, the guilt twisting and coiling in his gut like a live snake, those weren't good enough reasons to end their relationship over. It was a selfish thought, and he hated that he was capable of such greed, but something deep within him whispered better her than you.
John held on a little tighter.
George closed the door to their temporary quarters behind himself and walked up to where his wife stood in front of the fireplace without a word. Martha had her arms wrapped around her torso, like she was trying to warm herself–he knew that posture. It was more about keeping herself together, all the pieces in the right place.
He stopped behind her and laid his hands on her tense shoulders, gently smoothed them down her shoulder-blades and back up over her arms.
"You are mad at me," he said, because he knew she was. He would be mad if he was in her position.
"Yes," she said, but she didn't move away from his touch.
They stayed like that for a few moments, in silence, before she heaved a tired sigh and dropped her arms to her side, turned around to look at him. George reached down and took her hands in his–they were cold, despite the fire, and Martha watched him attempt to rub some warmth into them.
"The imprisonment, it was worse than Alex made it out to be, wasn't it?" she said, gaze locked on their hands.
"Yes," he answered, his heart breaking a little more as he thought back on it. George didn't know what their boy had told her, but he would have bet his soul that it wasn't the full truth. It had taken John and him weeks to get the full story out of him, and he doubted Alex would just give it up like that.
Martha closed her eyes, her jaw tense, a crease between her brows. "I know it wasn't your fault-"
"It was my fault," he interrupted, calm and measured. He had thought those words to himself so often, they had almost started to lose their meaning; almost.
She opened her eyes and glowered up at him, a silent dare to interrupt her again. "I know it wasn't your fault, and I know you are blaming yourself enough for the both of us. That's… that's not what I'm mad about. This is the reality of war. Both you and Alex knew what you signed up for, it doesn't matter if I like it or not." She paused, took a deep breath. "I'm angry because you kept this from me. He's my son, too."
George exhaled slowly, thought back to the rejection piercing his son's teary eyes like broken glass, and bit back a retort he would regret later.
"He wanted to tell you himself," he said, and he would leave it at that. Alex had struggled with control, had struggled to take it back after he was stripped of his agency like he had been, and when his boy had told him he wanted to decide how and when to share what he had endured, George had accepted it without further question. "That wasn't the only thing he wanted to tell you himself."
Her gaze hardened, and her finger's tensed in his, but she didn't withdraw from him yet. "It's not right, George," she said, and he sighed.
"They are in love," he said, and now she did extract herself from his grip, crossed her arms in front of herself. Alex tended to do that as well, an unconscious reaction to protect himself, or to shut something out, and George wondered how the boys were doing. He hoped John had succeeded in calming Alex.
"It's in the word of God, two men- sodomy, it's a sin," Martha snapped, and George rubbed at his brow, tired, ironically praying to her very God that she hadn't reacted like that to Alex's face. "You should have put a stop to this as soon as you found out, this is about your son's soul, George!"
He huffed out a cynical laugh. "What would you have had me do?"
She tensed further, straightened up until she looked about to spring apart. "You could have sent that boy away-"
"Alex would never have forgiven me," he said. That night when Alex broke down after they'd received news about John having been seriously injured was fresh in his mind, the way he had cried and screamed, how he had blamed him–how George had been paralysed by the fear he would lose his son as well.
"So, you'd rather damn him to hell-" she pressed out, gritting her teeth, a fire in her eyes not unlike the one that roared behind her.
"That won't be the thing he'll go to hell for, Martha, and you know it. We are soldiers. We have killed." Of course he didn't truly believe Alex would end up in hell, just as he didn't believe John would–they were good people, the both of them, but with Martha, he had to put things into terms she understood.
She reared back as if struck, and George flinched a step backwards himself. He would never raise a hand to her, but that reaction alone made him worry she thought he would.
"You fight for freedom," she said, quieter than before, but her whole body was taut like a bowstring still.
"We kill for freedom," he corrected, because that was what they were doing. The blood on his hands would never come off, he could feel it every day, with every decision he made in this war, but that was his burden to bear, and he would bear it.
"It's for a good cause."
George paused. He gathered himself, took a moment to breathe deeply, remembered how John had asked him for his blessing and how he had cried when he had given it. "Is falling in love with the wrong person a worse crime than taking another man's life for a good cause?"
All of a sudden, the tension became too much for her to handle, and it snapped. Martha stood with slumped shoulders, her fingers tangled in her sleeves at her elbows, grip whiteknuckled, and the inferno in her eyes was extinguished by a film of tears.
"I- I don't understand, how does something like that even happen? Why would it?"
"You don't have to understand," he said, gentler now, and reached out to pull her close, even though the heat of the argument still thrummed beneath his skin. She went along and leaned her head to his shoulder, wrapped her arms around his back.
He was momentarily distracted by how good it felt to hold her again, properly, after a too long time apart, but he did find his line of thought again.
"I don't really understand it," he went on and pressed a kiss to her hair. "Just give them a chance. Try to accept them. I have dealt with these idiot boys for long enough to say with certainty that they won't part from each other just because you want them to."
Martha drew a shuddering breath, and her hands tensed against his back. "You are saying I would lose him."
"Yes," he said. No reason to sugarcoat it.
She moved away, just enough to be able to look up at him, and shot him a smile, pained and reluctant and made soft by the tears that still stood in her eyes. "I don't have a choice, then."
He smiled, careful, and bent down to kiss her. "Thank you, dear."
"But tell me, is- is… John," she began, unsure if she should refer to him by his rank, his family name, or his given name, unsure where she stood with him. "Is he good to him?"
The smile that formed on his face was genuine and sharp, and he had absolutely no control over it whatsoever. "He knows better than not to be," he said, a slight edge to his words he just couldn't help, and Martha laughed–not the unburdened, happy sound it was usually, but he relished hearing it even so.
She sobered quickly and raised a hand to his face; he relaxed into the touch and let go of the simmering anger. They couldn't afford to be angry at each other, considering how little time they had together, and besides, she had agreed to try to accept them.
And she would try. They had already lost Patsy. They couldn't lose Alex, too.
"You look tired, love. You haven't been sleeping again, have you?"
"It has been… bad," he admitted, and that vague confession alone served to make him twitch on the inside. He didn't make a habit of complaining about his personal problems, he couldn't, not with a whole army looking to him for guidance, not with his son right there, his boy who had been through another horrible thing after George had sworn he would never have to know pain of that magnitude again.
She smiled, and he believed she meant it–it was the first real smile from her for the evening, and George smiled back, despite everything.
"It's a good thing I'm here to take care of you now," she said, and he chuckled, kissed her again.
"I'm a lucky man," he agreed and didn't think about tomorrow, about the day after, filled with correspondence, lists of things they needed, lists of things congress wouldn't give them, reports, missives–having to introduce John Laurens to his wife not as one of his aides, but as their future son-in-law, as Alex liked to put it.
But he didn't think about that, because even men like George Washington needed a break sometimes.
Mend
Alex sat cross-legged on the bed, and John flopped down next to him, flat on his back, after he had finished changing into his night-clothes. Their gazes met, and Alex smiled at him, reached out to stroke his hand down his chest and smooth out the wrinkles in his shirt.
John had to put real effort into not melting under the touch–there was something he wanted to address with Alex, something that had nagged at him since it had been brought to his attention, but he didn't know if he was in the right state of mind after the events of the evening thus far. He didn't want to upset him, but he also couldn't help but feel a bit deceived, and John would really rather talk about it before it had a chance to grow sour and evolve into a proper issue.
"What?" Alex said, hand stilling, and John crossed his arms behind his head. Of course Alex would notice something bothered him. He was perceptive, and John like an open book to him when he wasn't actively trying to hide his feelings.
"Just… the general mentioned your sister today," he said and watched Alex's face for a reaction; he turned his head away, and his hair fell forward to obscure his eyes.
Alex swallowed. "That's great. Means he trusts you."
John hummed and untangled his hands from behind his head, sat up and made Alex's hand fall away. "And do you?"
Alex snapped his head up and glared, but the stare lost its intensity to the tears obvious in his eyes. "Of course I do!"
"You could have told me about her," he said, without reprimand. It wasn't that he was mad, it was more… that he was hurt. The general had assumed Alex had told him, so why hadn't he?
"Yeah, well, you could have told me about James," he snapped, and John drew a sharp breath and beat down the anger that flickered to life inside his chest. Alex had had a hard day, he reminded himself, he was just emotional and lashing out. "And anyways, would you have even told me about the letter if my father hadn't found you drunk off your ass that night? Or would you have kept that from me as well?"
John sat there and stared back at him, at a loss for words. Where on earth had that come from? "What do you mean, 'as well'? I don't keep things from you, Alex."
He scoffed and shifted, drew his knees up to his chest and rested his arms on them, didn't meet his eye. "No, you're always perfectly honest - just not about the important stuff."
"I don't-"
"You never talk about the bad things!" he threw in and paused to wipe at his eyes angrily. John was caught between the impulse to let himself get mad at him and the need to comfort him. "You make me talk about everything, but you never do so yourself. I know you're struggling with some things, but you don't tell me, and- do you not trust me?"
"I trust you with my life," he said, without hesitation or pause, because that was a truth he felt in every fiber of his being. Alex just peered back at him from red-rimmed eyes and waited for him to go on, so John saw himself forced to really think about what Alex had said, to consider if it was true.
He did make Alexander talk about a lot of things, because that was the healthy way to handle that, wasn't it? But did he really never open up in return?
Shame rushed him as John remembered his thought-process the day he had received his father's letter. He hadn't thought I need to discuss this with Alex, he had thought Alex can never see this, Alex can't see me break down over something this stupid.
Christ, Laurens. That's the man you love.
"Maybe... maybe I don't tend to talk to you about that kind of stuff because I want to be strong for you," he said.
Alex sighed and shook his head, huffed a laugh so out of place it almost startled him. "I don't want you to be strong all the time, John. Has it ever occured to you that it just makes me feel weak when you do that?"
"You are the strongest person I know," he said, a bit offended on Alex's behalf. He had been through so much, things John himself wasn't sure he could have endured, and he had the audacity to call himself weak.
"If that's really what you think, you should be able to confide in me like you did last week. But… less drunk. A relationship goes both ways, you know. I want both of us to be vulnerable when we need to be," he said and shifted again, tucked his legs underneath himself instead and laid a hand over John's where it rested on the mattress.
John looked down at their hands, at where he could see the edges of silver scars peeking out from Alex's inner arm, and blinked, surprised to feel the prick of tears at the corners of his eyes.
Maybe he had needed to hear that without realising he did.
"You're right, darling," he said and looked up, shot Alex a soft smile, and swallowed back his tears. He really was amazing, his Alexander.
The tension seeped out of Alex, and he shuffled closer, put his free hand to John's chest and pushed with gentle pressure until he let himself be guided back down, and settled against his side, his head pillowed on John's chest.
"I always am," he said, but it lacked his usual air of cockiness, and John chuckled. He wrapped his arms around him and willed his stiff muscles to loosen, focused on Alex's warmth against him like his own personal sun.
"I'm sorry if I made you feel weak," he said and closed his eyes.
"I'm sorry if I somehow communicated to you that I needed you to be strong all the time," he answered, and even though John would have liked to reassure him that aspect of his personality was most likely a side-effect of his… questionable, at times, upbringing, the silence felt more like a pause than an end, so he waited.
"Patsy died when we were seventeen," Alex said after a short while, voice quiet and sorrowful. "She had been sick all her life. She… she was my best friend, and I miss her. A lot. It still hurts too much to talk about."
"Thank you," he whispered, sadness mingling with affection inside him. "Thank you for telling me. I love you, and I promise I will speak up when I feel bad and make an effort to not be drunk when I do it."
Alex snorted a laugh, and to John that was somehow the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.
"Thank you," he said and pressed a kiss to John's clothed chest, just above his beating heart. "And I love you, too."
The next morning dawned bright, and Alex knew because he rose with the sun.
That was why he could only just stop himself from jumping when he stumbled into the office and was greeted by the sight of his father, already perched on the edge of his desk–what it was with that man and his aversion to chairs Alex would never know–and, by the looks of it, he had been there for quite a while.
Alex was so startled, in fact, that he drew himself up to stand at attention. "Good morning, Sir!" he said, and his father looked at him with raised brows, as though he didn't know what he was on about now. A look he received quite often.
"Good morning, son." They stared at each other for a moment. The house was quiet around them, the sun not yet separated from the horizon, and that was probably what prompted his father to say what he said next. "What are you doing, love? At ease. It's too early for these kinds of shenanigans."
Alex relaxed into a comfortable stance and kicked aside the piece of wood wedged underneath the door, supposed to keep it open at all times; but if his father was going to throw around pet-names like that, he would rather have it closed.
"I didn't expect you to be here already, Pa. It startled me," he said, walking over to the desk he shared with Harrison.
His father hummed in something like agreement. A beat of loaded silence passed between them, and Alex wanted to inquire about what his parents' talk had yielded just as much as he wanted to forget the whole thing had ever happened and go on like nothing was wrong.
He shuffled around some of the papers scattered on his area of the desk, not really seeing what was written on them, just to give his hands something to do, but a sigh from his father snapped him back to attention.
"Come here, dearheart," he said and motioned for him to come closer, and Alex wanted to bolt. He couldn't be about to break good news to him if he wanted him close, he did that when something bad happened so Alex would be near enough to embrace and console when his inevitable breakdown came-
Alex caught his racing thoughts and yanked them to a violent stop. They were in a public space. An empty public space, but a public one nonetheless, an office they shared with nine other people–his father wouldn't tell him something he was certain would make him cry here.
He let out a slow breath and joined his father at his desk.
"I had an… intense conversation with your mother, in which I made it very clear that if she wanted you, she would have to put up with John as well, unfortunately," he said and raised a hand to Alex's face, cupped it against his cheek, and Alex let out a nervous chuckle. "And she agreed to give it a try."
It was a good thing he stopped talking there, because Alex could only hear the rushing of his own blood for a solid five seconds after that.
She wanted to try.
Ma didn't hate him, she would try, for him, he wouldn't be forced to make the impossible choice between his family and John-
His sight blurred with happy tears, and he grinned up at his father before he just threw his arms around his neck and flung his full weight against him, something he used to do when he was eleven and could still do at twenty-one.
"Thank you, Papa, thank you, thank you-" he mumbled into his collar, and his father squeezed his shoulders with the arm he had wrapped around him when Alex had all but tackled him, and laughed. A real, full-blown laugh that started in his belly and made his chest rumble, a sound so rare since the war had begun, and Alex hugged him tighter and giggled along in delight.
After a moment of this, his father pressed a quick kiss to his hair and carefully peeled him off of him. "All right, you're welcome, now off with you before someone walks in on this," he said, his voice animated with glee, and Alex hopped a step back and mock-saluted, grinning all the while.
"Tonight then, Sir?" he said, and his father sighed at his antics with a good-natured shake of his head, his lips still quirked into an uncomplicated smile.
"Yes, Colonel, tonight," he responded, and Alex nodded once and sauntered back to his desk, all of a sudden feeling much more awake and a hundred times lighter than when he had first set foot into the office.
Alex had been gone when John woke, the sheets already cold with his absence, but he didn't mind; he was used to Alex fleeing his arms the moment the stars began to disappear from the sky in preparation for sunrise.
As far as he was concerned, it was shaping up to be an ordinary morning–that feeling lasted all throughout him getting dressed for the day, taming his hair, messed up by sleep and Alex, and tying it back, and it lasted him until he had made it halfway down the corridor as he headed for their office.
To be more precise, it lasted him until he was about to pass the door that belonged to the room the general and his wife inhabited at the moment.
The door swung open to reveal Martha Washington, her arms crossed in front of herself, a look in her eyes as though she was appraising a horse and getting less impressed by the second, and the pleasant smile she usually carried herself with was nowhere to be seen.
John startled, jumped half a step backwards, and stuttered out a scrambled "Good morning."
She continued to look him up and down like one would regard a newly broken cartwheel–like he was useless, an annoyance, and bound to ruin one's whole day.
"A word, Colonel Laurens," she said finally and turned around, walked back into the room without another glance to make sure he followed. Not that that would have been necessary–John did not feel inclined to disobey that command, for that was what it had been, at all.
He closed the door behind himself and fell into parade rest; he needn't have to, of course, as one, she wasn't his superior–hell, she wasn't even in the army–and two, she stood with his back to him and looked out the window.
Still, John couldn't bring himself to relax. It felt as though he would commit some kind of unforgivable taboo, a mortal offense, if he failed to match the tension that hung heavy in the air with the tension of his body.
She didn't say anything for what felt like three years, but was in fact probably closer to a minute. He followed her lead and stayed silent until spoken to, not keen on digging himself into a deeper hole.
"Do you love him?" she said. The silence tore with an almost audible rip, and he would have flinched if he hadn't been so focused on staying motionless and silent, on keeping every muscle in his body tensed, for- for what?
Fight or flight. Well. Flight, if he were to be honest.
"Yes, Ma'am," he said, and by some miracle, his voice was steady. "I love Alexander with all I have, all I can give. It- it would mean a lot to him if we could-"
"The thing about pretty words, Colonel," she interrupted as though he hadn't been speaking at all, effortless and with a cool authority that sent an anxious tingle down the back of his neck. "is that they can be false. You wouldn't lie to me, would you, Laurens?"
"No, Ma'am," he responded, suddenly a little hoarse. His fingers twitched with nervous energy where his hands were clasped at the small of his back, and his uniform felt hot and restrictive, so much so that little droplets of sweat beaded on his brow.
"Mh. No, you wouldn't, not if you have any good sense left in you. Something I doubt, by the way, stupid as you have been." John swallowed, his throat dry and his mouth sandy, and was surprised to note that the familiar sensation of something swelling in his chest, itching to burst out, was neither offense nor indignation–it wasn't hot like anger, it was cold and rose only far enough to cut off his breathing.
It was heavy, and suffocating, and freezing like the winter at Valley Forge had been.
He was afraid.
Lady Washington turned around and fixed him with a stare so cold it chilled his blood and completely halted his breath for a second.
She had been nothing but kind to all of them up to that moment, a friendly and comforting presence in a time of war, and the shift was whiplash-inducing. He felt himself reminded of an apex-predator–a mother-bear, perhaps, and he was the idiot who had attempted to steal away her cub.
"I am of the opinion that if you really loved my son, you would have never put him in this kind of danger. You would have walked away and borne the heartbreak, solaced by the knowledge he was safe." She paused, narrowed her eyes, and John set his jaw and fought the urge to avert his gaze. Something told him he would fail whatever this was before it had even really begun if he dared look away.
"But you chose to stay. To put him into harm's way for your own selfish reasons and call it love." The corners of her mouth twisted down, and her nose scrunched as though she had smelled something revolting. "And now Alexander is tethered to you by his heartstrings. You did a fine job with that, Colonel."
Lady Washington looked at him like his very existence affronted her, and John bit the tip of his tongue, his heart in his throat, but he had listened to these horrible accusations long enough. He had let her speak and endured in silence, and now it was his turn.
"Perhaps it was selfish of me not to end our relationship before it really began for both our safety's sake, but Ma'am, with all due respect, it's easy for you to pass judgement. You can share your life with the man you love without fear, and that is a luxury I will never have." He took a moment to breathe, watched her fierce expression slip into something like outrage, as if she couldn't believe his nerve, which was a demeanor John was very familiar with.
"In the words of your husband, I am a human just as you are, and I deserve the right to find happiness with someone I love," he quoted off with confidence–he might have been rather drunk that night, but that part of their conversation had pierced the fog. He had run that sentence through his head until he could hear it in his dreams, had repeated it to himself when he had laid awake wracked with guilt and looked at Alexander's peaceful face, when he had held him close in the darkness and had wished he could give him the life he deserved.
"And I have found that happiness, Ma'am. I have found happiness with your son, and I think I ought to thank you for raising him to be the man he is today, the man I fell for head over heels and hope to spend the rest of my life with."
She pinned him with a glower that could have brought an army to its knees with its intensity, and John stood in silence, having said his piece, and let her hard eyes pierce him like bullets might have.
In an odd, out of place moment of realisation John understood how Martha Washington could have spent twenty happy years of marriage with a man like their general.
"You really do love him, then? This is not a fling, something to occupy you during wartime, you respect Alexander, you love him, and you want to make him happy?" she said in the same icy tone she had delivered her speech to guilt-trip him with.
He inhaled a distinct breath, his skin prickling at the suggestion Alex could be nothing more than a fling to him, someone to warm his bed and get him through a difficult time, that he would use him and cast him aside like that.
"I love him more than is probably smart, and I would like to ask you not to ever suggest something like that again, Ma'am. He's not a toy to me, something to play with until I tire of it, he's- he's everything," he said, the sparks in his chest dying before they could fan into a proper flame, and he faltered, cleared his throat. "I would give anything to make him happy, just… just getting to see him smile, every day for the rest of my life, that would be enough for me."
She closed her eyes, and John felt like someone had cut the strings that held him upright; he had to concentrate to not slump, to keep his stance.
The silence that followed was odd. His breathing seemed too loud, disruptive, but the quiet wasn't complete, wouldn't have been even without it–John watched her frown, her features changing as if she was having a conversation, a fight, as though she braced a storm in her head.
Lady Washington nodded and opened her eyes, whatever she had been battling laid to rest, and the ice had melted from them–with that spring came a smile to her lips, careful and small, but a million times better than whatever the hell her expression had been before that.
"You will need to be patient," she said. Even the steel in her voice was gone, replaced by a much softer tone, one he could imagine her using in day-to-day life with her family. "And don't push. He's just like his father in that respect, he broods and he sulks, and you can try as you might, if you ask too often or too harshly, they will clam up even tighter. He will come to you when he's ready."
John blinked and his mouth fell open a little, but he snapped his jaw shut as soon as he became aware of it. His arms threatened to go slack, and he forced his muscles back to work and into place.
She was giving him advice.
He knew those things, of course, he had figured that out himself over time, but she was giving him advice, she was reaching across the divide, she was making an effort.
John listened to her talk, tears in his eyes, and he had to bite at the inside of his cheek to keep them from falling.
"Thank you, Ma'am," he said when he was sure she had finished.
"Please, call me Martha," she said with a sweet smile, and John breathed a sigh of relief and a short, disbelieving chuckle. "One last thing before you go back out and join your colleagues, though."
He nodded his understanding and waited for her to go on.
Her pleasant smile gained a knife-like quality when she said, "If you hurt him, it won't be George you will have to worry about."
The predator was back, and John's blood froze in his veins once again.
"Yes, Ma'am," he choked. She didn't bother to correct him.
"Very good. Dismissed, Colonel," she said, and John saluted and fled the room, very aware of the fact that she technically had no authority to order him around, but nonetheless compelled to follow her every word, lest he found his way back onto Martha Washington's shitlist.
Nightfall snuck up on him–George only realised how late it was when he looked up from one of the boy's drafts he needed to approve and found the office empty except for Harrison, John, and, of course, Alexander.
Huh. Well, he better got going, then.
Martha would be back at their room, and he would like to give her a word of warning before they confronted her with the disgustingly sweet and over the top ridiculous mix that was Alex and John–on a good day.
George sure hoped today was a good day, and that he wouldn't have to open the door to them being indecent on a desk again.
"All right, boys," he said and put his papers into some semblance of order as he rose from his chair, his knees creaking in complaint. John and Alex shared a look, somewhere between unsettled and determined, and Harrison just huffed a laugh–the man was always amused when George threw him in with the 'boys', even though he was a little over ten years older than most of them–and corked up inkpots, aware that he was going to throw them out; well, pretend to throw them out. "I think we can call it a night."
"Very well, Sir," Harrison said and fiddled with a quill, watching Alexander continue to write as if he hadn't heard a word he had said. He got a mischievous glint in his eyes, and George arched a brow and observed as the man turned the quill between his fingers a final time, the feathery end pointed away from him, and moved it to tickle Alex's ear.
The effect was instantaneous.
"What the fuck-" Alex all but squeaked out and almost propelled himself off his chair. John snorted from the other side of the room, and Harrison was quick to retreat, dropping the quill to the desk and making his way to the door.
"Watch your mouth, young man," George said with a shake of his head, but he knew his amusement showed through the mock-sternness.
"Good night, Sir!" Harrison called, already halfway out the door, obviously not interested to hear whatever tongue-lashing was brewing behind his son's teeth. "Make sure Laurens and Hamilton actually leave tonight!"
The door closed, and they were alone.
Alex grumbled to himself under his breath, a dusting of pink on his cheeks, and organised his scattered parchments into neat stacks. George felt a sudden rush of affection wash over him, and he glanced at John who sat at his desk, his chin in his open palm and gaze glued to Alexander, and he might as well have had little hearts in his eyes with how taken he looked.
George sighed and shook himself. "All right, boys. I'll go fetch Martha, and the two of you better be on your best behaviour, do you understand me? If I open the door and you are all over each other, you are suspended for a week," he said and gave them stern looks.
John snapped out of his stupor and sputtered, and Alex blushed furiously. "When are we ever-" John began, but George really did not have the patience to entertain his indignance tonight.
"Every time I enter a goddamn room, son. Every. Single. Time."
Alex's flush deepened, and he hid his face in his hands, muffling an embarrassed groan.
"The two of you have gotten way too comfortable around me-"
"Pa," Alex said, muted by his hands. "Please just go."
He bit back a laugh and kept his expression unaffected, stepped around his desk and made his way across the room to the door.
"Behave," he said once again, just for good measure, before he slipped out into the corridor and headed for their room.
George entered to the sight of Martha standing at the window and looking out into the darkness, waiting for him, and she turned around when she heard the creak of the door.
She gave him a look, somewhat disapproving and with a hint of worry. "It's already dark out, George," she said.
He shrugged his shoulders and flashed her a small smile. "I don't like to leave before my boys do," he said, and Martha shook her head and returned his tired smile as she came to stand in front of him.
She took one of his hands into both of her's. "Don't think I didn't notice you sneaking out of bed before the first rays of sun. And now you return to me after nightfall–have you even seen an ounce of daylight today?"
"We do have windows in the office, dear," he said and raised their hands to his face, pressed a kiss to the back of her fingers as she gave him an unimpressed look. Time for a change of subject, he reckoned. "John seemed rather shaken when he finally joined us today. I suppose you chewed him out suitably?"
That put a real, proper smile on her face. "He's so easy to scare, the poor boy didn't stand a chance," she said with a mean glint in her eyes, and George felt utterly smitten.
"I know, and he's so eager to please," he said, and Martha chuckled.
"He is," she answered and shifted her grip on him to just one hand, side-stepping him and pulling him along as she opened the door. "But he seems earnest enough," she added, her voice a bit softer.
George made a sound of agreement and closed the door behind them, let his wife drag him down the corridor and back to the office.
"He's a good lad."
"You like him," she said, not a question but an observation.
George sighed, defeated, and nodded his head. "Regrettably. But for the love of God, don't tell him, Martha."
"Oh no, I won't," she said and stopped in front of the door. George eased it open.
"Are you decent, boys?" he called, and Alex groaned in response. Martha raised an eyebrow at him, but he shook his head–he didn't think he would ever share the compromising situations he had walked in on with her. That was not knowledge she would like to possess, and of that he was certain.
The door fell closed behind them, and they were greeted by the sight of their son hiding his face against the neck of a very stiff John Laurens; it was obvious the poor boy didn't quite know what to do with himself, his hands at his sides as Alex reluctantly separated from him to face them, frozen in place and with a laughable imitation of a neutral expression on his face.
Alex looked from him to Martha, hesitated. Opened his mouth and closed it without a sound spilling past his lips. He glanced at John, who looked just as helpless as he did, and cast his gaze to the ground.
Martha next to him sighed and walked over to Alex–the boy tensed, and George could feel his wife's heartbreak at that reaction like it was his own.
She stopped short of him, let a moment pass, and reached out to pull him into a firm embrace.
Alex blinked and snapped his gaze up to stare at George, wide-eyed, as he settled his arms around her back in turn, and he smiled at him, encouraging.
"I'm sorry, Alex," she said, and he looked so lost George had to suppress a chuckle. "I'm sorry. I reacted harshly yesterday when you just wanted to be honest with me, and- and everything that matters to me is that you're happy, my sweet."
"I- thank you," he said, unsteady, and wiped a hand over his eyes. "Thank you, Ma, I know this isn't what you wanted for me-"
"It doesn't matter what I wanted, it's about what you want," she said, with such conviction George would have fallen for it if he didn't know her better.
Martha wasn't fine with this. How could she be? It endangered their son and went against beliefs she had held for forty years, that couldn't just be unlearned and overcome over a single night. But she would try, just as George had been trying, and they could make it work.
She let go and stepped back, and Alex smiled at her, bright and warm and happy, like he had done that morning when George had told him Martha was willing to try.
Their boy turned back to John and took his hand, twined their fingers together, and beamed at him–John, always quick to smile, even when he was nervous and quite possibly very afraid, beamed right back.
The blinding smile Alex shot him was enough to loosen his nerves somewhat, but his heart still seemed to search for an escape-route from his ribcage with how frantic it was beating against it when he let his own grin drop, and his gaze found Martha Washington's.
He squeezed Alex's hand and gathered his courage.
"Ma'am," he said, too respectful–too scared–to take up her offer to call her by her given name just yet.
Alex threw him a questioning glance, and the general regarded him with raised brows, interested.
"I- I don't know if you are aware of this," he began, cursing himself for not being able to keep calm, to collect himself enough to at least stop the goddamn stutter. "but I- well, this is a bit presumptuous, but not too long ago I asked the general for his blessing."
Her eyebrows shot up her forehead, and her lips curled into an expression somewhere between amused and on edge.
"And you gave it?" she said, halfway turned around to look at her husband. Washington sighed, lenient.
"Yes, I did."
Alex placed his other hand on his arm and rubbed it softly, reminding him to breathe and calming his hurried heart. He knew where John was going with this, and he looked at him with nothing but love and support in his eyes.
"So, Ma'am, I wanted to ask your permission as well-"
"Christ's sake, Laurens," she said, hands on her hips. "Quit your pitiful stammering. Yes. You can have it."
"Oh," he breathed, and the boulder that pressed down on his shoulders shattered and came down in a cloud of dust, and it felt like he could stand up straight again. Before he could make even more of a fool of himself by stuttering out his half-formed expressions of gratitude, the hand on his arm disappeared and cupped his jaw instead, turned his head, and just like that, his mouth was occupied by something else.
He sighed against Alex's lips and pulled him flush to his body by his waist, and Alex grinned into the kiss.
"They do that a lot," the general said with fond exasperation. His wife made a vague sound of unimpressed, resigned acceptance, and John's heart soared.
He might never be entirely at ease with Martha Washington, not in the way he was with the general, at the very least, but they could tolerate each other, he thought as they separated again.
And, as John took in the way Alex looked at him, like he never wanted to be anywhere that wasn't his arms, as he gave him a soft smile that screamed I love you, you're a fool and you're mine and I love you, he decided that if the price for this was enduring mild threats from his general and having absolute and all-encompassing terror struck into his heart by his wife on occasion, well–he would be glad to pay it.