It was a slow day. Not in the sense that there was little work to do–there was plenty of correspondence to go around for all of them, but still, the hours did not seem to pass.
The silence had to be at fault. Well, not as much the silence as John's silence, if Alex was being honest.
Everyone else was chattering on as usual; Tilghman and Meade with their stupid jokes, Reed complaining about those jokes, even though Alex suspected they didn't even bother him that much and he just wanted something to complain about, and Harrison somewhere in the background telling him not to be such a killjoy.
John hadn't said anything besides the quiet 'me neither' to Tilghman's 'I didn't know your father would be coming', and well, that had been enough for everyone to know to steer clear of the topic.
Alex ached to be alone with John, just so he could hold him through whatever was going on inside that head of his. He could tell he was distracted. Whatever that asshole had said to him had to be running circles in there, and Alex couldn't fucking do anything about it.
He sighed to himself, and with a last glance at John's hunched shoulders and the still quill between his unmoving fingers, directed his attention back to his own work.
This needed to be done, sooner rather than later.
Alex must have lost himself in the steady flow of writing after all; he startled when someone tapped his shoulder, then startled all over again when he looked up and noticed the office was empty.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you," Harrison said from behind his left shoulder, and Alex beat down the overwhelming urge to turn around, to have the man in his line of sight–and, more importantly, to not have him at his back.
A ridiculous impulse, really. He knew it was Harrison, he knew Harrison wouldn't hurt him, it was fine. All was well, he was just being stupid.
"No, it's fine, I was just… focused," he said, and Harrison chuckled, warm and a bit fond, and propped his hip against the desk, right next to where Alex sat; now he was able to see him, anyway. All good.
"Oh, I know," he said and put a bowl down, quite a feat, the little available space on his cluttered desk considered, and the smell hit Alex full force–stew. With the smell came the unbidden grumbling of his stomach, and he ducked his head to hide a blush when Harrison shot him a knowing smile. "You weren't at supper," he went on.
"Thank you," he mumbled, a bit embarrassed. Harrison didn't have to do this, to make sure he ate, and- now that Alex thought about it, his father had stopped by and told him to finish up and eat something, and he had grumbled something back and promptly forgotten about it. Good Lord, where would he be if he hadn't had people to look out for him?
"Hey, it's no problem, Ham. I just thought, well…" Harrison shifted, crossed his arms over his chest, and cast his gaze down to the ground. "Laurens usually makes sure you take a break, but he… seems kind of out of it today. Is he all right?"
Ah. So it was that bad. He really had to go find John.
"Senator Fuckface's surprise-visit got him a bit down, is all," he said with a shrug; that startled a laugh out of Harrison, and he shook his head at Alex.
"Pardon me if I'm stealing the general's line, but watch your mouth, young man." Some of his mirth fell away then, and his smile gained a concerned note. "There's bad blood, then?"
Alex nodded, and he sighed.
"It's a shame, really. When parents and children don't get along… ah well, that's none of my business. Just do me a favour, Hammie, make sure he's all right?"
His lips curled into a small smile of their own accord–he found it sweet, how Harrison cared, and Alex really should make a point of thanking him more often.
"Of course," he said and flattened his palm against the table-top to keep himself from twisting John's ring around his finger; a new habit, but one that would do entirely too much to clue the other man in to the true nature of their relationship if he were to catch him do it now.
Harrison pushed off the table with a nod of his head and gave him a firm squeeze to the shoulder before he turned to leave.
"I will quit bothering you, then. I just wanted to make sure you were fed and that Laurens would be taken care of. Don't keep at it for too long!"
"I won't!" he called out after him as he disappeared through the doorway. "Thank you!"
Alex smiled to himself as he turned back to his work and dragged the bowl closer. The missive he was copying was almost done. He would finish up and eat at the same time–something he had perfected over the years–and then he would go look for his husband.
"I will cut his dick off!"
John had been in a horrible mood all day. After the confrontation with his father, he had just felt… disgusting. Like having been in the same room as him had somehow soiled him, and like he wasn't good enough, like he didn't deserve his position as aide or the happiness he had found with Alex; and then he had continued to feel bad because he had completely ignored Alex the whole day, and had convinced himself that Alex had to be mad at him now and would banish him to the second bed in their room for the night.
Despite all of that, he couldn't help but burst out laughing as his beautiful husband stalked the length of their room and muttered agitated threats under his breath.
Alex stopped and whirled around to face him, his expression so adorably enraged John had to clamp a hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter for fear they would get complaints with how loud he was being.
"No, I'm serious, John! If that narrow-minded waste of space can't appreciate the children he has, he should lose the means to make more!"
"Jesus Christ, Alex," John gasped, struggling to take in any air at all.
But damn, did it feel good to laugh after he had spent the day in a shitty, numb half-existence with nothing but self-loathing to keep him company.
"John," he repeated, more subdued now, with an edge of sincerity, and John worked to calm himself down. He shot him a lopsided smile when he had managed to stop laughing and pat the mattress next to where he sat in invitation.
Alex joined him with a sigh and took one of his hands in his. "He hit you," he said.
"It didn't hurt," John responded and paused for a moment, wondering if he'd said that because he didn't want Alex to worry too much, or because he wanted to defend his shitbag of a father, like he had done so many times before.
"It doesn't matter if it didn't hurt, he still hit you with the intention to hurt you," Alex said, intense gaze fixed on his face–in search of a mark, most likely. John swallowed and looked away, because yes; his father had meant to hurt him.
That was something John had struggled with for a long time. His father had always insisted he did what he did to punish him, to warn him, to get him to learn a lesson–but that wasn't the truth, was it? No.
He couldn't care less if he learned something from that kind of punishment.
He did it to hurt him.
Alex sighed, and John looked back up, watched as he raised John's hand still in his grasp to his face and pressed lingering kisses to his knuckles.
"What did you do? You didn't hit him back, did you?"
John shook his head, even though it hadn't really been a question. He couldn't afford to hit a senator, no matter how much of an asshole he was, and if he had, Alex would most certainly already have heard of it, as the rest of the camp would have by now.
"I threatened to tell the general if he hit me again. Or, you know, attempted to speak about my… preference."
Alex's eyes shone even brighter than his smile at that, and John had to take a breath and remind himself that he had managed to convince that stunning man to marry him.
"Yes! Absolutely, Pa would murder him if he knew!"
Would he? John thought, taken aback. Throw him out, yes, but he didn't think the general liked him quite enough to inflict bodily harm on his behalf.
He was distracted from those contemplations when Alex planted a sweet kiss on his lips and let go of his hand, scooted back onto the bed and beckoned him to do the same. Well, John wasn't about to say no to that.
Alex grabbed a hold of his shoulders and pulled him down to the mattress with him, positioning them just so that he could rest his chin on the crown of John's head, his warm arms around his back the only thing that kept him tethered to reality at this point.
He sighed and nuzzled his nose against Alex's collarbone, breathed him in as he wrapped his arms around him in turn, and let his eyes drop closed.
"I felt like shit today," he said quietly into Alex's nightshirt, and the grip around his back grew firmer. "And you just undid a whole day of shit in ten minutes. Thank you, darling."
"That's my job," he mumbled back and began rubbing tender circles along his spine. John's vision blurred all of a sudden, and it took him a moment to realise it was because his eyes were hot with tears. He swallowed thickly and attempted to control himself.
"You're the best husband a man could wish for."
Alex hummed, and with that soft vibration, a calm warmth seeped into John's bones. "After you," he said, and John chuckled.
His father would be disgusted if he could see them like this. For the first time in his life, that thought didn't offset a wave of self-hatred, a desire to just be normal, the sting of the realisation that his father would love him if he wasn't like this.
He thought about how often Washington had walked in on them like they were now, cuddled close, or how often he had seen them kiss, how he rolled his eyes and hid a smile every time Alex sat on John's lap, and never once had he expressed any kind of distaste–worry, yes, and anger towards John in the beginning, but he had just wanted to protect his son.
With him, it had never been about hate, it was always about love.
Why was something so easy for Washington so difficult for his father? Why couldn't he just see ? Why couldn't he just be happy John was happy, why did he always have to hurt him, why-
Why didn't he love him?
He pressed his face to Alex's chest and gave up the fight–he let his tears fall and buried them against his husband's beating heart.
"Oh, John…" Alex whispered and pulled him closer, held him tighter.
"Sorry," he managed to get out between quiet sobs.
"No, my love, don't apologise. It's all right. You can cry, you're safe with me."
John did just that, and he let himself mourn something he never had, stricken with the stone-cold realisation that he never would have it, either.
The days passed much slower than Alex cared for.
He wanted it to end, for fuck's sake, he wanted Henry Laurens to leave already, but the man stayed, and with each day that passed, he seemed to grow more comfortable, seemed to insert himself further into their lives.
He stopped by their office a few times a day, to 'see how they worked' or something equally moronic, and every single time, John would put his head down and not lift his eyes from whatever he was working on once; and it fucking broke Alex's heart.
Pa always attempted to get rid of Laurens after a few minutes of that at most, tried to send him out into the camp with one of the others, but he would seldom take the bait, and it wasn't like Pa couldn't just tell him to fuck off, so the man stayed.
He never went near John, though.
He had tried, once, early on, not bothered by the murderous glare Alex had pinned him with, but before he could have gotten up to intervene himself, Harrison, God bless his heart, had stepped into Laurens' way and chattered on until he had managed to distract him, then lead him away.
John had met his gaze after that, his eyes wide, and Alex had shot him a careful smile.
From then on, Alex paid closer attention to their comrades and how they handled the senator, and he quickly realised keeping Henry Laurens away from John had become a team-effort without him having taken notice.
As soon as Laurens stepped foot into the office, someone would be up and at his side, going on about something, most times a topic that had nothing at all to do with what they did–the day before, Alex had walked past just in time to hear Meade recount the story of how Tilghman slipped in some mud once, which had been hilarious, he had to admit, and could watch Henry Laurens stupid face grow more and more incredulous the longer Meade managed to stretch that story.
It was great.
Alex was not the only person who caught on to that strategy, unfortunately, and when Laurens had finally had enough of their antics, he went straight to his father and requested John be the one to show him around the camp that day.
Alex narrowed his eyes as he watched that exchange, but kept his distance. His father could handle this on his own.
And he did, even though Alex was convinced he made his solution up on the spot; with a glance at John, who sat frozen at his desk, just within earshot, Pa declared John was to ride out to General Knox's nearby encampment with him that day.
Laurens wasn't happy with that answer, that much was obvious, but he must have had some semblance of respect for Alex's father, because he didn't attempt to argue.
He went out with Tilghman instead, who promptly launched into his side of the story about that one time he slipped in mud.
Alex watched with glee as some light drained from Laurens' eyes.
His father and John had left a while ago. Lafayette wasn't available, so Pa had, very reluctantly and with a severe look of warning, left Alex in charge–not that that meant anything. He just had to make sure everyone did what they were supposed to do, which he would have done anyway.
Reed still complained about that small formality, not thrilled at the prospect of answering to someone so much younger than him, so Alex saw himself forced to give him some of Tilghman's drafts to copy in retaliation.
That shut him up, at least.
Everything went smoothly for the better part of two hours, but then a harried looking Tilghman burst back into the office, immediately made a bee-line to Alex, and dragged him off to the adjacent room–a study, if Alex had to guess, with a desk and chair and bookshelves lining the walls.
"I fucked up," Tilghman said the instant the door had slammed closed behind them.
"What? What happened?" Alex said, somewhat unsettled by his agitation, and watched as Tilghman began to pace up and down the room.
This couldn't be good. This had to be quite bad, in fact, and- shit, Alex was in charge. Pa was gone, whatever this was, he would have to handle it.
"Laurens asked a lot of questions, and they were just general things in the beginning, and then he started asking about John, which, you know, I didn't think too much of, because they might not get along, but he's still his son, so I-"
"Tilghman," Alex interrupted and crossed the room to where he stood, grabbed him by the shoulders and halted any and all movement. "Out with it."
"He asked about you," he blurted out, wide-eyed. "I- I didn't know what to say. He said he had reason to suspect the two of you were much closer than you were supposed to be, and- and I didn't know what to say!"
Alex blinked and let his hands slip off the other man's shoulders.
This… wasn't good.
Tilghman put a hand to his forehead, his face twisting as if he was in pain. "I'm sorry, Hamilton, I swear I didn't mean to-"
"Not your fault," Alex heard himself say, his mind going a mile a minute as he tried to figure out what to do about this.
Would Laurens spread that information? No, he couldn't do that without incriminating John as well, and he seemed to want to avoid that, as he had known about John and hadn't said anything to anyone. That would reflect back on him, after all, Alex thought, bitter.
"Hamilton-" Tilghman began anew, but he was interrupted by the soft squeal of the door-hinges as the door was pushed open and Henry Laurens stepped into the room.
Alex couldn't help but scowl as the man's calculating gaze landed on him. Cold fury and revulsion were obvious in his dirt-coloured eyes, and Alex sent a quick thanks to the heavens that John had not gotten his eyes from his father.
"I would like to have a word with just Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton, if it isn't too much trouble," he said, and Tilghman turned to him, quiet panic in his eyes. Alex nodded–a dismissal. He received a hesitant nod back, and Tilghman left the room, closing the door softly behind himself as he did.
They spent a slow heartbeat just staring at each other.
Laurens hadn't moved from his spot by the door, and Alex remained in the middle of the room; he harboured a careful hope that the distance wouldn't lessen.
After what seemed to Alex like a too long stretch of silence, Henry Laurens spoke up, his voice icy like the northwind.
"I couldn't help but notice you are wearing my wife's ring."
Alex stiffened, but he made an effort not to show any other reaction. Laurens wasn't the only one with a damn good poker-face.
"How very observant of you," he said, and Laurens' fists clenched. His mask of cool superiority crumbled already, and they hadn't even gotten started yet.
"It was my mother's," he said, the corners of his mouth downturned in the beginning of a sneer. "Then, it was my wife's, from the day of our wedding until the day of her death. And then I made the mistake of giving it to my useless deviant of a son. I should have known he would give it to the first little whore to catch his fancy."
Alex pressed his lips into a thin line and pushed the rage that set his chest ablaze down until he could form a clear thought again.
The sheer nerve of that man, to call him that, one of the disgusting names people used to call his mother, to her face or whispered behind her back; if he hadn't wanted to break his nose before, he sure wanted to now.
"You have no right to pass judgement on others, Mister Laurens," he said, leaving out his title on purpose just to see his eyebrow twitch. "You, a man who beats his children-"
Laurens strode over to Alex, eyes ablaze, and Alex moved two quick steps back, cursing himself for that deeply ingrained reaction the second he gave in to it. He wasn't afraid of Laurens, and he wanted him to know that, but now there was a spark of nasty satisfaction next to the fury in the man's eyes.
"You do not presume to tell me how to raise my children, you know nothing of fathers, you little bastard," he spat, and Alex stumbled another step back as though he had been struck.
He felt like he should laugh at that, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. His face was frozen into a disgusted grimace, and his heartbeat was quick with the thrill of the argument, but Alex knew he needed to end this, to separate himself from the man before he did something stupid, at least until his father got back.
"I know enough to recognise you aren't one," he bit out, and that had not been helpful at all, he shouldn't have responded to that obvious taunt-
Laurens' eyes narrowed dangerously, the ugly expression of pure anger on his face likening him more to a demon than a man.
"Am I not, boy? I raised him, I fed and clothed him, I gave him everything he ever needed, I paid for his education, and how did he thank me? He ran off to play soldier and lay with any man who would have him! I have tolerated this long enough, that ungrateful boy will do as I say if I have to beat him into submission," he pressed out, a growl to his voice that sounded closer to what an animal might produce than the words of a man.
For perhaps the first time in his life, Alex didn't know what to say.
He stood there, his fists clenched so tight it felt like his fingers would burrow straight into his palms any second now, his whole body shaking with the effort of staying still despite every muscle in his body trembling with the need to punch in Henry Laurens' face until he had rearranged his features to his satisfaction.
That man, that animal, didn't raise John. His sweet, kind, quick to smile John with a contagious laugh who looked at him like he was the only thing that mattered.
Alex shook his head and cracked a smile, one that was all sharp edges and no humour, one he had seen on his father before in the midst of a battle. All the rational thoughts telling him to be the bigger person and walk away while he still could disappeared in a puff of smoke, and the only thing left was the searing desire to hurt, to put Henry fucking Laurens in his place.
"If you dare put a hand on my husband, I will kill you and drag you down to hell myself," he said, and Laurens' face grew even redder, if possible.
"You disgusting little-" he broke himself off there, words lost to his anger, and before Alex could process what was happening, the man had struck out and delivered a lightning-fast blow to the side of his face.
Alex stumbled two steps to the side before he caught himself and raised a hand to his stinging cheek, felt the skin hot from the impact, and forced the answering tears from his eyes by sheer power of will.
He looked up at Laurens from behind strands of hair that had come loose from his queue and took in the smug expression in his beady little eyes; the only coherent thought in his head was that he itched to wipe that infuriating smirk off his face.
As much as he wanted to pummel him into the ground, maybe break a chair over his head, Alex couldn't. He was a senator, Alex was an aide, he couldn't lay a hand on him, and Laurens knew it.
And his father was over thirty minutes on horseback away. If he hadn't been, all Alex would have had to do was open the door and get his attention, and he would have immediately noticed the mark on his face, would have seen Henry Laurens in the room with him, and kicked his ass out to the streets faster than the man could have come up with an excuse.
But Pa was gone.
Alex paused, thought it over. There was someone else. Someone who brought him food when he thought Alex hadn't eaten in too long, someone who reminded him to take wholly unnecessary breaks, someone who teased him and joked with him, who called him Hammie and his little lion. Someone who was right past that door.
Alex acted before he could think better of it.
He grabbed the chair and toppled it over with a loud crash, loud enough to warrant checking on, and threw himself to the ground next to it. He forced his mind to replay memories he had shut away a long time ago, of a man so much bigger than him, reeking of alcohol, how Alex and his brother had tried to hide, how he had always found them, how he had hurt them, how he had hurt their mother when she had tried to stop him.
Alex used that pain, that old but still so vivid fear, and sculpted his expression to look as scared and vulnerable as he could.
Laurens watched with a confused frown and took a step backwards, but it was too late; Alex had already filled his lungs with air and readied himself to shout.
There was movement on the other side of the door, muffled voices no doubt contemplating if they should come in and check on them.
Alex screamed for Harrison, and the door slammed open.
"What-" Harrison began, but the exclamation died in his throat as he took in the carefully constructed scene before him.
Alex threw himself into all the thoughts he pushed away in the dead of night; he remembered how he had woken up one day, feeling slightly better, to find the cold body of his mother next to him, he remembered how Pa had told him Patsy had had the last of her horrible seizures, and he remembered cold blue eyes and the bloodied edge of a knife.
It worked–his sight blurred, and several empty spaces in his chest gave painful throbs.
He stared up at Harrison with wide, teary eyes, hunched his shoulders and made himself look small, and shoved aside the hot burn of shame when he spotted Tilghman and Reed behind him–it couldn't be helped, he had to convince them he was the victim.
For an agonising second, no one moved. The tension was thick enough to suffocate, the situation so obvious, and Alex could see it on his comrades' faces when the severity of what was before them sunk in–he was one of the youngest among them. He was the chief aide. They knew their general had an especially soft spot for him, and they didn't know what he had suffered at the hands of the british, but they could imagine it well enough.
And he was on the ground, near tears, with a bruise purpling on the side of his face.
"He hit me," he said, meek and quiet, and Harrison's face darkened, his mouth set into a grim line. "He- he accused me of horrible things, I was just trying to be reasonable, I just wanted to leave, but then he hit me-"
"Someone ride out to get the general," Harrison said, by no means loud, but it cut through the room without effort.
Fast steps moved off, and Henry Laurens sprang back to life.
"The little bitch is completely fine, he's acting-"
"I would advise you to shut your mouth now, Senator Laurens, and retreat to your room until the general returns to deal with you," Harrison interrupted, the harshest words Alex had ever heard come out of his mouth.
Laurens looked like he wanted to argue, but Harrison stepped out of the doorway and motioned for him to fuck off already.
With a last scathing glare at Alex, he straightened his back and left the room, slamming the door behind him; Alex flinched, and that wasn't just for show.
