#wemultitudinous | alexander

[kingofdirtandnothing]

@wemultitudinous I slipped, fell and this came tumbling out of my pockets

This isn’t exactly his best idea. Or his most well thought out one. But John can’t stand another second of watching Alexander walking around like a china doll, fragile and hollow and utterly removed from himself. 

He’s been quieter than John has ever known him, ever since the plane left the ground in New York, and it had been a shock to the system to step out into this riotous green and beautiful place and watch all the color drain from Alexander’s face. 

She was holding me bounces around like a loose pinball in John’s mind. 

They’ve been to two different big meals, table laid out with a mouth watering array of food, and kind hearted people patting Alex on the shoulder as they told stories about his brother. A guy that John hadn’t even heard of until Alex got the news. And he hadn’t said a word about him after. Everything John was learning was secondhand, from the people here. 

He doesn’t push. Hell, John finds himself following Alex through these “celebrations of life” like a polite, friendly shadow. Just making sure that no one pushes too hard, that no one says anything that sets Alex off. John could feel how close to falling apart Alexander was, and he knows his friend won’t want to do that in front of people. 

So he dips into conversations when things get tense, or the silences go on too long. He introduces himself with handshakes and all that business acumen and southern charm he learned from his father. He asks questions about the people he’s talking to, 75/25 rule all the way, to keep the conversation from Alex’s newly frail shoulders. 

Their hotel room is beautiful, because John asked his sister Mary to book something for them, had just murmured ‘my buddy’s brother died’ and Mary did the rest. Their father didn’t care that Mary had settled for being a travel agent, because her husband was on track to make partner at his law firm. 

The big windows at the far end of the living area open up on the ocean, and it’s the kind of place John thinks he could lose a couple weeks exploring, if it wasn’t the place where it felt like Alexander had shriveled up into something small and hard, a plant trying to survive the harsh winter. 

John checks his watch, and looks to the bedroom door. It’s just after three in the afternoon and Alex had told him in a low voice that he was going to go lay down. There’s quiet on the other side of the door, and all John can hope is that he finds some respite in sleep, that maybe he won’t dream. 

Thankfully, the delivery guy follows instructions and he doesn’t knock, he texts John who opens the door to their room quietly to get his mountain of bags. He tips good, usually. John’s a 25% or more guy. But he gives the delivery guy 50% because something about his eyes remind him of Alex. 

The kitchenette in the hotel room isn’t really made for this. So John had to improvise. He pulls his hair up, looping it around to a bun low on the back of his neck so that it’s out of the way, and goes about opening up packages. 

Two instant pots, put on two separate counters. John is pretty sure they wouldn’t blow the breaker on the same plug, but better safe than sorry. He’s got instructions open on his phone and on his ipad, oscillating between them. 

Pouring the beans into the first pot turns out to be the hardest part, because John doesn’t want to make noise. So he ends up adding the dry beans handful by gentle handful, and using a cup from the sink to cover them in water and get them under pressure. 

The produce is crazy fresh, and John gets the peppers, onions and coconut milk in the other instant pot before he pours in the rice, up on his toes so that it doesn’t have to fall far into the metal pot and make noise. 

With both pots going, it’s time to get to the hard stuff. 

Lard is weird, but the recipe is fucking insistent about it, so John spends a few weird minutes mashing lard into flour and salt and baking powder, until his dough looks kind of like the one on the website with the lady’s life story before the recipe. 

He’s never more grateful to have just ordered everything off all the recipe lists until he has to start rolling out the tortillas, because this shit would be a nightmare without wax paper. 

The tortillas are lumpy, and they’re ugly, but they cook up on the hot plate pretty good and have those nice brown spots like they do from the good Mexican place they order from sometimes. John gets three of them done and under a washcloth pretending to be a tea towel before he wipes his floured forearm against his sweaty forehead, leaving a white streak. 

Now was the moment of truth. 

For all the dinners they’d been to, all the plates that had been pushed into Alex’s hands, John had only seen him eat enough to be polite. 

John raps his knuckles gently against the closed bedroom door. 

“Hey Alex.” He keeps his voice low, in case Alex is still asleep. “You hungry?”

[kingofdirtandnothing]

@wemultitudinous asked: [text] A lesson I leaned in the hospital… when you masturbate while attached to a heart monitor, it scares the nurses a lot. // for john from alex!

TFLN: (Accepting)

John has been out in the field so damn long today that his eyelids feel like sandpaper. But they’re deep in fire season and he needs to keep an eye on things, make sure that fallen limbs don’t cause any trouble in case of a lightning strike, or anything like that. 

So his phone has been on the ATV, because he’s already lost one phone this year to chainsaw related incident, and he’s pretty sure that his insurance won’t cover another one. 

And it’s not like he’s got cell service out this far in the park anyway. 

Which means John doesn’t even think about his phone until he’s locking up the ATV back at the ranger station, the light on the front of his phone blinking on and off periodically.  (He’d sent Alex a photo message earlier with Fire Safety Bear. It was easier than typing out everything he had to do today, and Alex was quick on picking things up.)

There’s a whole string of texts from Alex, and that’s not really that unusual. John is hip checking the door open to the ranger station when the one at the bottom of the wall of texts catches his attention. 

A lesson I leaned in the hospital… when you masturbate while attached to a heart monitor, it scares the nurses a lot.

The floor feels like it falls out from underneath him. John’s knees give a hearty wobble and he slaps a hand down on his desk to balance himself, turning around so that he’s half sitting, half standing against it when he raises the phone to his ear. 

“Come on, come on...” 

Fuck it. John yanks his keys out of the little ceramic bowl a kid made for him last summer, and shoulders his way out of the station, locking the door behind him as he listens to the phone ring. 

If traffic was good, he’d be in the city by midnight. 

“Alex, answer the damn phone!”

[kingofdirtandnothing]

wemultitudinous asked: [chef!au] Given that noon hasn't quite rolled around, Alex is pretty confident that he'll have his kitchen to himself. A mistake, as it turns out; John turns up right as Alex is about to sink his teeth into a sausage and egg muffin. McDonalds. The antithesis of every one of his impassioned rants about food made with love. He freezes like a rabbit trapped in headlights, fixing John with wide, guilty eyes.

John technically hasn’t slept. 

He’d wandered off when Alex finally begged off for sleep around three, and since the bars were closing and his stomach was full, he headed to the gym. After an hour of weightlifting, he still wasn’t tired, so John went for a jog. 

And by the time he was done jogging, the coffee places were opening up. And then the bookstore next to the coffee shop was open, and he had to go see if they had anything good there, new or otherwise. 

Which lead to an hour curled up in the back of the bookstore in a chair, reading about the science of dessert. Which made him hungry. Which meant breakfast at a little place Lafayette told him about. 

And after that, he had to call Lafayette and check in. Which led to calling his mom, and then his sister. 

By the time he was done with all of that, it was pushing noon and John was pretty sure Alex would be back at the restaurant, so he swings by. He wants to know what the sauce was that was smeared across the plate last night, because it was good as hell, and when he burped for a couple of hours after it, he could still taste it. 

“Hey man, what was that-”

John’s got his hat on backwards, thumbs looped through the slim straps of the tank top he put on to go on his run, and he freezes when Alex freezes, more on instinct than anything. 

Until he sees that wrapper. That bright yellow wrapper. 

“You!” He drops his hold on his shirt to point at Alex, mouth almost comically wide open where he stares like a fish on dry land.

“You!” 

Alexander Hamilton, explain. 

[kingofdirtandnothing]

Day Four: Frogs Make You Gay

“Here.” 

He sits down at the library table next to the boy with three books open, and dark hair falling into his eyes. John slides a chocolate frog package over to him, tearing his own open with his teeth. He just manages to catch the frog before it leaps out of his hands, and he gets shushed by the paintings for his burst of laughter when he catches it with both hands and splats it between his palms.

John’s mom still sent him a gift package, even if his father told him that he wasn’t going home for Christmas this year. (Dad was still mad that the sorting hat put him in Hufflepuff. The first Laurens to end up outside of Gryffindor.)

The halls were practically empty, everyone else gone home for the holiday, except for those with nowhere to go. 

John doesn’t know the Ravenclaw boy, but he was a first year too, John remembers seeing him sitting down underneath the Sorting Hat that first night. And he’s seen how often he’s sat at the end of the table by himself, nose in a book while everyone else talked at meals. 

Mom always told him that they lived a life of privilege. That he should do what he could to try and make other people’s lives better. That’s why they always went to the soup kitchen or put packages together when he was home. 

And yeah, maybe he spent a day or two wallowing that he wouldn’t get to have Christmas dinner at home with everybody. But then John realized he could still do most of the things he did for Christmas. 

Like help somebody. Even if it was just to give them one friend in the world. 

“My name’s John. What’s yours?”

[kingofdirtandnothing]

@wemultitudinous you knew this was coming

He keeps thinking about the milk. 

His own mug clean and clear, Alex’s tinged pink with John’s mistakes. Shielding him from it. Every time he thinks of the milk, John thinks of Francis, who lied to Henry Laurens with a defiant face and let himself be kicked back to Geneva for it. 

He thinks of  nannies who covered for him, of Sheila, who has protected him from himself at every turn by getting rid of magazines or closing computer tabs when he forgot. 

There was always somebody watching his back. Protecting him from himself. It wasn’t fair to them, to the Alex’s of the world who ended up with a mouthful of John’s blood while John got off, scot free. 

Enough was enough. 

He makes the phone call in his kitchen at nine in the morning, because if he waits another second his courage is going to run out. This is his blood to swallow. 

A part of him, beneath layers of opaque glass and shock, wants to laugh at the fact that his father actually says no son of mine. John doesn’t even have to tell him about the magic that’s been woven into his life, the good people he’s met. The whole faggot part was enough to get him disowned. 

The afternoon is a blur. John loads down his jag with his plants and his clothes and his electronics. His desktop Mac, his airpods, his record player and his camera all go to the second hand store, and John has whatever the reverse of sticker shock is, at what they give him in return. 

John sits behind the wheel and he whispers come on, come on as he runs his fingers down the want ads. And he thanks his lucky stars that there’s an efficiency apartment for rent in Harlem, above a laundromat. 

Cash in hand, he’s still a hundred bucks short of his first month’s rent. The owner is a spry little old woman named Julia, who must see something of the desperation in his eyes, because she tells him she’ll tack it on to next month. 

The entire apartment is literally the size of his kitchen back home. (Not home. Not anymore.) John gets all his plants out before the heat of the day can get to them. Furnished seems to have meant a flimsy table and two chairs, a bookcase against the wall and a couch that looks right out of a 1970s porno. 

It’s fine. John gets his plants on the bookcase, on the table, as much in the line of sunlight as he can get them. His clothes, he leaves on a heap on the couch. The floor might have been cleaner, but hindsight was for people not starting their entire life over at 11am. 

John gets one last trip to the old place, and he’s fucking grateful for it, because he manages to bungie his mattress to the top of the car, looking like something out of a cartoon. He trips twice dragging it upstairs, but at least his face hits mattress. 

When John tries to get lucky enough for a third trip, he finds the door padlocked and an eviction notice on it. His dad worked fast. 

John knows what he has to do next, even if he doesn’t like it. He trades the jag in to a fairly upscale place that doesn’t ask too many questions. They pay him in a check, and John finds out at 2pm on a Friday that he’s been locked out of his checking account. 

The pawn shop cashes it for him and keeps ten percent. John wants to cry, and he has to bite his tongue until copper floods his mouth to keep from doing it. But it’s fine. Everything is fine. 

He has a roof over his head. He has a little cash to keep him going until he can find a job. He was free. (Free felt like drowning. Like being buried. Freedom sucked.)

At six pm, John is sitting cross legged on the floor of his tiny apartment, staring at what was left of his life. Two pairs of sneakers. Four pairs of jeans. Two pairs of shorts. Six shirts. A Run DMC record. His plants. 

“Alex.” It’s a whisper, his hands clenched into fists. John doesn’t know how magic really works. He doesn’t know if you can just fucking...will it into existence. 

But he’s going to try. 

“Find me.” He swallows. “Please.”

[kingofdirtandnothing]

@wemultitudinous can you call something a starter when it’s a thousand words long? Welp. Here we go. 

John has a grand total of two relationships in the span of eight months, and they peter out before they can be much of anything. Christine is sweet, and she’s nice and John likes hanging out with her. But every second they sit on the couch together, all he can think is how much his father would like her. Because she never argued about anything. 

No matter how many times he picked up his phone during a movie to read seventeen (seriously Ham, jesus) texts about the gentrification of Tribeca. She doesn’t even say anything when he ducks out of a dinner date while he’s literally in the cab on his way over, because Alex’s texts were some Frankenstein’s monster of Dutch and French and he hasn’t slept in two entire days. 

John is the one who makes the call. Or the text, because he’s a coward. He tells her I’m sorry, there’s just no spark and leaves it at that, his heart squeezing painfully at the dejected little ‘ok’ he gets in return. 

Marty is the exact opposite. She’s a fucking firecracker he meets outside of a bar, ranting at two am about the patriarchy. There’s a look between Herc and Lafayette that he can read, but plays illiterate as soon as he lays eyes on it. 

She takes no shit. The first time she takes the phone out of his hand and starts to text Alex to tell him he’s busy, he has to gawk for a couple of seconds before he snatches the phone back. The last thing he needs is the two of them arguing. (And some wild ass part of him has a sinking feeling Marty would drop him in a second for Alex, if she got to be on the receiving end of one of his rants.)

The sex is great, and for a couple of weeks John manages to not get into any fights. At least not fist fights. When they’re not fucking, they’re arguing. And it’s not Hamilton’s weird boner for legal arguments kind of arguments. It’s picking at scabs and poking at bruises. 

They’re at a little Italian place uptown when she tells him that if he picks up his phone one more fucking time, she’s walking out. So John puts his phone in his pocket. He ignores the attention starved little pin pricks of vibration. 

And then his phone rings. So What by Miles Davis. Alex’s ringtone. 

It’s a moment. A long, slow, drawn out moment where Marty dares him to answer his phone with her eyes. John answers. He listens to Alexander tell him about Jefferson’s bullshit while he waits for the bill. And for somebody to bring him a napkin after Marty threw her drink in his face. 

John isn’t stupid. He knows that he’s in a relationship without all the fucking. That he will always be drawn into the black hole of Alexander’s ego and demands for his attention. That he’s a bit player in his own fucking movie, because any life that crossed path with Alexander Hamilton’s would always be second place. 

And that’s alright. He’s made his peace with that. With living this pauper’s life where he subsides on the crumbs of Alex’s attention, starving in the space between one night on his couch and four tinder dates that follow before Alex remembers to text him. 

On his real low nights, he tells himself that this is temporary. That he’ll get a job back in South Carolina, and a pretty girl like Christine to marry and he’ll stop checking every single text, even if he doesn’t answer them. 

Not that it stops him from swiping his keys off the table and heading across town to get takeout, because Alex has been elbow deep in his work for a couple of days, and John knows he’s subsiding on cold coffee and whatever isn’t fuzzy in his fridge. 

And when it’s good? When Alex is laughing and leaning in to him? Or when they’re tangled up on the couch, warm body against warm body? It gets to him. Just like every damn email makes his heart stutter stop. Because Alex was careless with his affection, and his kindness was an afterthought. It made it more real. It made John love him even more. 

Most days, it’s not a balancing act between lovebombing and miserable longing. Most days, John is just content with his life. Change was looming on the horizon, but for now he could just chill and enjoy it. 

Until he’s sitting on Alex’s lumpy ass couch and the email that comes through isn’t from the man at his side demolishing pizza like it’s going to be withheld from him for life. 

“Merde.” John scrubs the heel of his hands over his eyes, but even the starburst of light from the pressure isn’t enough to make the words go away. It must be something about his tone, because the steady clack-clacking of the keys next to him go silent, and Alex is leaning back to try and get sight of his phone. 

For probably the first time ever, John pulls his phone away. Holds it to his chest. “Francis.” That’s not an explanation. Alex’s eyebrows are trying to make it into one, but it’s not. “We went to school together.” It’s easier to say it like that, light and casual because it sounds less upper class douchebag than we were roommates at our boarding school in Geneva. 

“He’s flying in this weekend. He wants to know if I want to get a drink with him.” And he does, mother fuck does he. John doesn’t even have to close his eyes to picture that pale skin and those sharp, smart eyes. It makes his chest hurt. He bites down on the edge of his thumbnail, staring at the space between the TV and the coffee table. There was half a receipt on the floor there. 

Alex is being uncharacteristically quiet. It’s room for John to talk, and damn if he should, but he does. 

“C'était mon premier amour.” His first love. Francis hit him like a freight train. John laughs, but there’s no humor to the sound. “I used to write him love notes. Put them under his pillow while he was at class.”

Translation: He was a needy little bitch. And John learned his lesson from that. Don’t put yourself out there. Because if you didn’t reach out, then you didn’t have to notice when they didn’t reach back. (God, he had something in common with Aaron Burr. How gross was that shit?)

“I asked my dad to let me study over there for another year. He told me no.” He’s still holding his phone to his chest. “Good thing, too. Because he broke up with me before the end of the semester. It would have been real awkward to stick around.”

[kingofdirtandnothing]

Disney Drabbles: Because if I can't take my trip this year, at least my characters can

@wemultitudinous Alex and John: Tomorrowland

It’s the kind of trip that John feels a little bit guilty about taking. Because Alex has been scrimping and saving and hustling, and John just swiped his card on a Thursday and got them an early flight out for the long weekend. Fancy ass hotel, massages, and park tickets included. 

But any guilt he’s got left over it is lost to the guarded sort of wonder that sinks into Alex’s expression when they step into Magic Kingdom. John’s first time was so long ago he doesn’t even remember it, but there’s always somebody stopping in awe when they first get line of sight on the castle. 

They grab a burger at Cosmic Ray’s, because John’s got his own nostalgia shit he can’t shake, and an alien lounge singer is kinda high on that list. 

It’s worth it though, because they step out into the heat of the Florida sun with freshly filled water bottles, right into Tomorrowland, and Alex is smiling. John’s pretty sure he doesn’t even know he’s smiling. 

Bright, pretty eyes are skating across every detail, every swoop and splash of silver, every retrofuturistic line. 

“Okay.” Alex nods, taking a slow circle around to soak it all in.

“Okay, this is cool.”

[kingofdirtandnothing]

@wemultitudinous Death Week Day Five

The envelope is delivered to Alex two days after the funeral, by a solemn young man in an expensive suit from the office of John’s lawyer. There are only two things behind brown paper and the bright red sticker that says DO NOT BEND, THANK YOU. 

The first is the deed to the building, signed over by power of attorney to one Alexander Hamilton. 

The second is a burned DVD. And when Alex sits down in front of his laptop and puts it in the tray, the screen will be filled with John, sitting on the same couch that Alex was sitting on right now. Smiling. Still strong, before the chemo started eating away at him. Before curls gave way to a shaved head. 

This was John as he wanted to be remembered. 

“Hey baby.” The video jumps there after a second, obviously edited. John’s smile is still as soft as it was at the start. “I started to do the whole, if you’ve gotten this video thing and…” He shakes his head, looking down at his hands. John was never good at this shit, he was never good at words. Not like Alex. But he needed to be. Just one time. “You know why you got this video. I don’t have to tell you.”

John forces hazel eyes back up to the screen, so that he could look at Alex. Or, so Alex could look at him. This really wouldn’t be worth it if he kept his eyes down the whole time. Alex deserved better than that. 

“We got the diagnosis last week. I’m pretty sure you’re downstairs between prep stuff trying to google new treatments on your phone.” John’s eyes crinkle with his smile, but there’s no hiding the moisture there. “You’re a fighter, Alex. You always have been. But there are some fights we can’t win, man.”

John pulls a notebook into his lap, laughing under his breath. Yeah, he took notes for this. “I went and saw my attorney this morning. We started working on my will. I think he’s not going to give this to you until after it’s been enacted, so you probably know what I’m going to say. The building is yours. I can’t stay, but I can at least make sure no one can take Post, or the apartment from you.”

God, he fucking wishes he could stay. John looks away from the screen for a moment, blinking rapidly as he tries to collect himself. “I know you wouldn’t want any of my money, so I didn’t even try. I split my net worth between the New York state conservation fund, and a charity in Washington Heights that helps foster kids transition into their new homes. I made that one in your name, so don’t be surprised if you go down into the Heights and see your name plastered on the side of a building.”

John drums his fingers against the notebook. He’s trying to take care of business before he says what he wants to say. “Most of my clothes are at your place anyway. Keep what you want, donate the rest. I won’t make you deal with the shit in my apartment. But if you want anything out of there, you can call my lawyer and he’ll grab it for you.” He doesn’t want Alex to have to risk crossing paths with his parents.

“I uh...called and got the arrangements set up today.” John’s stomach twists sickly at the word. Arrangements. His funeral arrangements. “I googled it, there’s a place outside of Ithaca. A green cemetery. No boxes, no fake grass. I can help things grow.” He doesn’t want Alex to come see some stone slab in an overly manicured cemetery. John wants plants and flowers and trees and life to remind Alex of him.

John rubs his fingers over his mouth, and makes eye contact again. “I love you, Alex. More than I ever thought I could love anybody. You make me so happy, man. This time with you...it’s been the best of my life. Easy. And not just because of the food.” The joke falls a little flat, but John doesn’t let it derail him. 

“If the choice was another sixty years without you or the time we had together, I’d choose you. Every single time. You gave my life meaning. You taught me how to be more than I was. And I can never repay that. But I’m gonna try. So listen up.”

His shoulders shift up and back, blatantly ready for an argument they can’t have. “I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life alone, you hear me? Take your time. Grieve. Do what you have to do to heal your heart. And then you get back out there, Alex. You get back out there and you fall in love again. Because you deserve to be happy. And if it can’t be with me, then goddamnit you find who it is going to be with.”

John has an odd, low feeling in his gut about Eliza. He isn’t going to think too hard about it. What matters is Alex being happy. 

“So this is it.” John bites down on the side of his tongue until the tears recede. He’s not going to make Alex watch him cry. “My dying wish. I want you, Alexander Hamilton, to live a full life. Be happy. Grow old.” His throat tightens dangerously on him. 

“I love you. Stay alive. Not just in the basic way, either. Keep on living. Promise me.”

He presses two fingers to his lips, and then presses them over the camera. 

The screen goes dark.

[kingofdirtandnothing]

@wemultitudinous

Not Really A Meme But: (A song that makes me think of our ship)

Chef verse - Mind Over Matter - Anthony Ramos

I see you over there cookin' while you over there lookin' like a five-course (just five?) I walk over to the kitchen and I feel a little smitten with the way the oil pour (like this?) Wrap my hand around her waist (yeah) Put my cheek up on your face (okay) Turn you around so you could see what you cookin' up in me

Main Verse - Because The Night - Patti Smith

Take me now, baby, here as I am Pull me close, try and understand Desire is hunger is the fire I breathe Love is a banquet on which we feed

Highschool - Can’t Help Falling In Love - 21 pilots

Shall I stay, would it be a sin? If I can't help falling in love with youLike a river flows Surely to the sea Darling so it goes Some things were meant to be

Suits - Think a Little Less - Michael Ray

When your friends start asking you Look 'em in the eyes Tell a white lie How I dropped you off at home And I walked you to the door Nothing more Tomorrow you can say we're just friends But baby ‘til then Kiss a little more

Old Guard - Hopeless - Sage Francis

I played connect the dots with your beauty marks And I ended up with picture perfect sheet music I read your musical notes with a composer's eyes And heard out song for the first time My spine is still tingling, mental images of your fine tune Is what I've been nodding my head to lately Every now and then you can catch me humming Your nudity under my heavy breath

[kingofdirtandnothing]

wemultitudinous asked: Stealing a hoodie feels a little too on the nose. He can imagine the teasing it'd earn him from his friends, and possibly also from John himself. But sometimes it's a bright day and you need a cap and your boyfriend owns a bunch and you own precisely zero, which throws the convenience of plausible deniability into the picture too. The casualness he's aiming for is sorta ruined when he has to rummage for his favorite: dark blue, 'NYC' in yellow-gold stitching. He jams it on, and heads out.

He finds out from a fucking twitter notification of all things. 

Despite the fact that leaving Alex’s twitter set to notify of each new tweet sometimes ends up with his phone blown up when he puts it down, he had it turned on long before they ever started dating. 

And it’s entirely for this reason. Because sometimes, Alex would frame himself to the side of some local joint, or a historical site and he’d look good enough to eat, and maybe John has a few of those saved on his phone without mentioning it. 

This one is outside of the Brooklyn Historical Society, and John only vaguely takes in the text beneath the picture, a tongue in cheek remark about history and being doomed to repeat it. 

Doesn’t matter. What matters is that Alex is lit just right by the sunlight, his skin warmed to golden by the mid-day. There’s a faint crinkle to the corner of his eyes, the look that John knows as I’m going to say something clever, just you wait and it just tucks into the corner of his mouth. Not enough to be a smile but an impression of where one might be. 

The collar of Alex’s shirt is a little worn out, stretched loose enough to give John plenty of smooth skin to soak up, to marvel at knowing what it tastes like under his tongue. 

But it’s only after he gets sidetracked by a beat by the hair curling behind Alex’s hair that John realizes what’s different about this picture. Alex is wearing a ball cap. 

Alex is wearing his ball cap. 

And that’s a whole new bunch of feelings going off like pop rocks and soda in his chest. Because that’s Alex, that’s his Alex wearing his hat in front of God and everybody. 

It’s not like Alex’s bajillion twitter followers are going to look at the picture and see anything out of the ordinary about it. But John sees it, and whether it’s a calculated move on Alex’s part or an accidental one, it rings loud and clear in John’s ears. 

That’s mine. He’s mine. 

John’s response is two prong. He retweets the tweet with a simple  👀. 

And then he texts Alex, nice and private. (John still doesn’t know where they stand on this stuff. Being together in front of their friends was a hell of a lot different than being out together in front of the world. One of these days, John would ask.)

[sms; A. Ham.] baby, I’m going to lay you out tonight in nothing but that fucking hat 

[kingofdirtandnothing]

@wemultitudinous Death Week Day Three

John thought the worst day of his life was the day that Thomas almost caught him with Alex outside of the debate room. They weren’t even doing anything wrong. Fuck, they weren’t doing anything, period. John’s fingers had been brushing against Alex’s arm, and Alex’s finger had been nudging at his hip. Basic. Easy, platonic stuff. 

There had been something in Jefferson’s eyes that made everything inside of John curl up small in shame. He fucking hated people like Jefferson, who wielded indifference like a weapon the same way that Alex wielded his passion. 

It was more than that, though. John hated himself more than he could ever hate Thomas Jefferson. Because Jefferson could talk shit all day long and not so much as put a dent in Alex’s day or his demeanor. John was the one who didn’t kiss back. John was the one who made him flinch. 

But even that worry and pain got caught up in being sixteen and in love. And after their weekend spent on a dual debate/baseball trip? Every single thought of something bad had been banished from John’s mind. Because now he knew what Alex looked like laid out underneath him. And what he looked like when he opened his eyes first thing in the morning, and smiled. Because of John. Because he was happy. 

And yeah, maybe they get a little sloppy after that. Maybe they steal more kisses in the hallway before debate, because John can’t stand having to spend that much time next to Alex without touching him. And maybe they spend too long in the parking lot after school. But they’re still being careful. Mostly. 

John is the idiot who says come over, my folks went to Cabo for the week. He’s the one who cannonballs into his own pool and shakes water out of his hair like a dog. He’s the one who traps Alex in the confines of his arms beneath the diving board and kisses him, long and slow and deep. 

John is the one who forgets about the security system, and the cameras outside. 

He actually thinks he’s lucky when Alex can’t come over on Sunday, because his parents come home a day early. It gives him time to finish his homework. It gives him time to be sprawled out on the couch when his father comes through the door and tells him that John is going to move back to South Carolina to live with his grandparents. 

It doesn’t matter what he says. It doesn’t matter how much he begs. His mother won’t even make eye contact with him, and his father tells him that he’s going to be in touch with the school about Alex’s scholarship. 

That’s when the world comes crashing down around his ears. 

That’s when John’s begging changes course. He hits his knees and his voice breaks and he promises, he swears that he’ll be good. That he’ll go. Just don’t take Alex’s scholarship away. His father won’t listen. And he takes John’s phone and laptop away for good measure. John can’t even warn Alex what’s coming. 

Everything feels like it’s underwater. Like he’s walking through a dream. A dream that leaves him standing in the middle of his bedroom with a permanent marker in his hand, and no memory of writing those massive block letters on the wall. 

An underwater fantasy where he feels his toes digging into the carpet, but not his fingers reaching into his mother’s medicine cabinet in her bedroom. John doesn’t taste the pills on his tongue. He takes them in slow, methodical handfuls so he doesn’t choke on them, each one followed by a drink from his water bottle. 

When John lays down to sleep away this dream turned nightmare, he grabs the NYU brochure he’d kept hidden under his pillow ever since they got back from their trip. Where they’d whispered beneath the sheets about a real life. An apartment together. College together. Being together. 

Being free. 

The heavy weight of the water inside of him is enough to drag him down to sleep. John knows that in this dream, nobody can take Alex away from him. That he can have their stolen moments forever. 

When they find him, the letters on the wall are massive and carefully blocked in. A demand. One single act of defiance from a boy too afraid to lose, with nothing left. 

TELL ALEX I’M SORRY

[kingofdirtandnothing]

@wemultitudinous Death Week Day Two 

“To the groom.” 

John raises his glass, and hears the toast echo around the room. The next line only comes smoothly because John has spent the last week making himself repeat it over and over again, until his voice doesn’t catch. “To the bride.” 

Alexander and Eliza’s wedding is a big affair. The room is overflowing with smiling faces and white roses, Angelica and Peggy sitting to their sister’s left, faces radiant with joy. But the pair of them had nothing on Eliza Schuyler. 

Eliza Hamilton. And her groom, who kept lifting their laced hands to press kisses to her knuckles. Alexander’s voice had trembled as he recited his vows. John had never heard it so full of emotion. 

Everyone in the room was watching him. John had been silent for too long. He swallows, turning a watery smile on his best friend. (That was the only word he was allowed to have for him now.) “When I met Alex, I could have never pictured him getting married.” There’s little ripples of laughter through the room. “The world was his oyster, you know?” Jesus, he didn’t even realize that innuendo when he wrote this down. 

“And I never could have pictured him marrying someone like Eliza.” A loaded truth. Because John had built up a few drunken kisses and lack of personal boundaries into a cotton candy fairy tale. That he would be the one standing across from Alex. Not the one giving him away. Reality saw fit to rain on his cotton candy until all he had left was a sticky mess that only he could see and feel.

“But these two, they defied the odds.” Eliza’s soft, kind smile burrows into his chest, another razor sharp piece in the broken chandelier mess of his heart. She was a good woman. She was sweet, and it was obvious how much she loved Alexander. 

It didn’t stop John from having to physically bite down on his tongue when the priest asked if there were any objections.

“Their love is something special. And Eliza, she’s extra special. Because she proved to be the one person in this world who would be enough for our Alexander.” John never would be. And our feels bitter and untrue on his tongue. 

John raises his glass, and avoids the worried set of Alex’s brow where he’s trying to watch him without being obvious about it. 

“To being enough.”

---

He calls his father a week after the wedding, and asks him if there’s still an opening at the firm for him. Henry Laurens is surprised, to say the least, but pleased. Even more so when John asks him if Martha Manning is still single. 

John doesn’t say anything to his friends until his final Friday in New York, over drinks. He spins a story about an ailing aunt and needing to head back home for a couple months. And how it’s not worth the expense to keep his apartment here. He could just get another one when he moved back. 

Alex watches him from across the table as Lafayette mourns the lost opportunity of a going away party. It’s obvious he knows, John can see that urge to call bullshit building behind Alex’s dark eyes, but he’s got Eliza’s hand in his and her head on his shoulder and he doesn’t say anything. 

John doesn’t know if it’s better or worse that he doesn’t say anything. 

He moves back to Charleston on a Saturday. At church on Sunday morning, Martha sits next to him. They’re engaged in the spring, a brand new start. John gets so drunk at his bachelor party that Hercules has to lift him bodily into bed while Lafayette takes off his shoes. 

John wakes the morning of his wedding day clutching Alex’s RSVP form, marked ‘no’. There’s a single line beneath in Alex’s scrawled handwriting. Can’t get out of work, sorry. Congrats. 

By the time Philip is born, all that broken glass in John’s chest has been swept up into a manageable pile. He doesn’t accidentally walk through it as much anymore. They send a dozen roses to Eliza and one of those little baskets full of baby soaps and blankets, and it’s signed with all our love, John and Martha. 

John becomes Congressman Laurens, because it’s the next step his father lays out for him, to prepare him to take his senate seat in a few years. He spends more time in Washington than he does at home, though Martha sends him ultrasound pictures and they talk every night before bed. 

Sometimes, Francis isn’t even gone from the bed before Martha calls. Sometimes John’s aide, with ambition in his eyes, will start kissing a path down John’s chest until he has to beg off from the call early. 

He has no illusions about what this is. Francis doesn’t need money, he’s from just as old money as John is. But not as well renowned. So John puts in a good word for him where he can. Shakes hands. Fucks him bent over hotel beds and pretends like the silence doesn’t eat at him. 

Francis gets a cushy job with a Republican think tank. John’s daughter is born, and her name is Frances. Message received. Along with a dozen roses from the Hamiltons. The card is signed in Eliza’s hand. 

John gets smarter after that. He only hires escorts, and only pays in cash. He becomes the youngest senator in South Carolina history at forty years old. Alexander Hamilton becomes the youngest Secretary of the Treasury in US history. They walk the same halls sometimes. That pile of broken glass in his chest gets swept into a corner. 

When Maria Reynolds happens, John gets blindsided by the press. When they ask him for comment, the words that leave his mouth are Alexander should know better and it’s fucking awful that’s what he thinks. Not of his poor wife which has been echoed so many times in the halls it might as well be carved into the walls. Only that Alex should know better. That he should be more careful. 

When Philip Hamilton dies, John packs a bag. He’s not invited. He goes anyway. He stands in the back of the church by himself. When Eliza screams as they lower the casket into the ground, all those broken glass shards in his chest are scattered everywhere again. 

John spends a weekend trying to figure out what to do. What line to cross. In the end, he slips a letter beneath Alexander’s door, hand written. Telling him that he would always be there for him. That all Alexander had to do was call. That he loved him. 

Eliza burns the letter while Alex is out on one of his walks. 

John goes home. He spends the rest of his career fighting for equal rights and educational prospects for low income families, somehow managing to buoy up his votes on the bluer side of South Carolina when he alienates his father’s constituents. 

The headaches start not long after he gets glasses. John doesn’t think too much about it. He’s sixty five years old. Wearing magnifying glasses on your face is bound to give you headaches. He tells Martha and Frances not to worry too much. Then he wakes up in the emergency room with Martha holding his hand, her face blotchy with tears. 

A little fainting spell. No big deal. They just want to run an MRI to be sure. 

When they sit in the doctor’s office a week later, there’s no talk of options. Only of comfort. And time. Three months. When he tells his frail, eighty eight year old mother, she screams just like Eliza Hamilton did. 

Losing a child was universal. 

Getting his affairs in order is easy. He’s had a lawyer on retainer since he joined Congress. He’s only got his wife and daughter. The majority go to them, though he still kicks a decent amount to a smattering of nonprofits he’s always cared about. An arts program for inner city schools. A program that gave overnight bags to kids being thrust into the foster system. An orphanage in New York.

The lawyer asks if he wants him to hold any letters. Selfishly, there’s one name that comes to mind first. Though he still writes a three page letter to Frances, and a short, but loving page to Martha. One to his mother. And the last, to be delivered to Alexander Hamilton’s office. 

John’s handwriting hasn’t started to fail yet, thank god. He’s got a few more weeks before his motor skills go. But the letters shake on the page all the same. 

Alexander,

I’m guessing by now the news has gotten to you. If not, I’m sorry. I didn’t throw this on you, but it’s not like I have any more chances to put it off. You don’t have to go to the funeral. That’s a long flight just to sit in a room and listen to people you don’t know talk about someone you used to know. 

Somehow, I think you’d still know me. I’d like to think I’m the same person. That you are too. That maybe if we would have just sat down for drinks sometime, that things could have went back to what they were. 

Because they never changed for me. I love you as much today as I did at nineteen. 

I don’t want you to think that this is some kind of revenge, or a final fuck you. It’s nothing like that. I made my peace with not being enough a long time ago. I don’t blame you, I never hated you. You’ve always been it for me. 

I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye. Without telling you that I love you. 

Yours forever, John Laurens

[kingofdirtandnothing]

@wemultitudinous asked: 2 kiss 2 meme Kiss Meme: (Accepting)

6.  An aggressive kiss spurred by agitation/anger

“I did all of this for you, Alex! How the fuck are you not getting this?”

There’s blood under his fingernails. John didn’t wash his hands when he was done. It’s turned brown where it sits against his skin, rusty and flaking. It’s not his. 

“Everything. Fucking everything I did, I did for you.” 

Everything. The warehouse purchase. The supplies. Tape and rope and tarp and lye. Rain barrels weren’t good enough, you needed industrial ones. And time. So much damn time. 

“You said to me...you said you couldn’t take it anymore. You couldn’t let the world keep taking from you. And I stopped it.” John’s voice keeps pitching upwards, louder and louder. He forces himself to lower it down. To step in close to Alex. 

If there’s a flinch there, he fucking refuses to see it. Refuses. This was Alex. His closest friend. The guy he loved. All of this, everything that he’s done in the last year, it’s all been for Alex. 

It’s all been for love. 

“The tinder guy who got too handsy and left bruises on you? I beat his ass bloody. I beat his ass right into the hospital.” He put on a ski mask to do it, he wore gloves. John’s rage had never been premeditated before that night. “I took his wallet so they’d think he got mugged. But I kept thinking, man...it’s not enough. It was never going to be enough. Because what if the dude somehow traced it back to you? What if he hurt you for real, Alexander? I couldn’t let that happen.”

There’s blood in the creases of his knuckles where he lets his fingers tap against Alex’s chest, a playful gesture he’s made a hundred times before. “And there’s only one way I could be sure that nobody got a second chance at hurting you.”

The first one was the hardest. 

It was a girl who threw a glass of water in Alex’s face at a restaurant and stormed out, leaving him with the bill. Six days later, John had her in his trunk with no idea what to do with what was left of her. 

She got dropped off of a pier. But the worry that followed him after that made him more careful. It made him learn. 

“Come on.” It’s gently needling, low in his throat. But there’s something there, simmering. Waiting to blow up. “You can’t tell me you didn’t know, Ham. Jefferson went missing. Your boss had that car wreck.” John slit the brake lines in the parking lot. Thank fuck for overworked assholes who didn’t go home after dark. 

“Don’t play that coy shit with me. You’re the smartest guy I know.” John slips a hand into the dark hair at Alex’s nape and uses it for leverage, so he can finally dive in and taste that perfect fucking mouth, like he’s wanted to for so long. 

“You know I’d do anything for you.”

[kingofdirtandnothing]

wemultitudinous asked: John & Alex for a Spotify drabble! Teeny Weeny Au Meme: (Accepting)

Harder to Breathe - Maroon 5

John knows he should have something that blends in a little better. But any time he thinks about getting rid of the Dodge Charger, he remembers the guy that saved him, cut out from the moonlight and standing in front of that big, black car. 

If John Winchester could rock it, then John Laurens could too. 

He meets Alex in Spanish Harlem, with hex bags in his backpack and a stack of sun bleached white chicken bones tucked beside them. 

Alex should be a threat. A concern. Magic has only ever brought bad things into John’s life, but Alex is a force of nature in all the right ways. 

And when John is trying to see through the blood pouring into his eyes from the cut on his forehead from the Rugaru, it’s Alex who nails the thing in the back of the head with a shovel, and doesn’t back down. 

In the morning, sitting with their backs against the windshield and one of Alex’s “potions” soaking into the t-shirt pressed over John’s eye, he finds out about Alex’s mom. 

He doesn’t even think before he blurts out

“Come with me. We’ll find the son of a bitch and make it pay for what it did to your mom.”

[kingofdirtandnothing]

wemultitudinous asked: ADRONITIS // Alex & John Obscure Feelings Meme: (Accepting) Adronitis: Frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone.

“Bien, sabes que hacer mami.” The little girl in question holds the box tighter against her chest, skipping into Alex’s office. John has been trying to spend less time at the office on his weekends with Frankie, but there was always going to be exceptions. 

Alex would always be an exception. His whole life was an exception to the rule. Who was John to stand in the way of that?

“Tio Alex!” Frankie was six going on thirty, reaching up to pat her pigtails to make sure she looked presentable before she slapped the box down on the desk. Behind her, John winced in sympathy at the box’s impact. At least there wasn’t anything breakable in there. 

“And what do we say?” They had been practicing this in the elevator on the way up. Francis looked back at him, biting down on her lip as she rocked from heel to toe. Sometimes, there was no denying she was his kid. She had the attention span of a gnat. “Congrats…”

That was enough to get her going. Frankie turned back to Alex, where they’d caught him off guard and shouts. “Congrats on making it around the sun one more time!” She turned back to John to make sure she got it right, and is rewarded with a wink. Her giggle carries through the entire office. 

She drums her little hands on the table, gesturing at her Tio Alex. “Go on! Abrelo!” Frankie had a big hand in picking out this gift. She’d sat on John’s lap in front of the computer with him for half an hour, trying to find exactly what they were looking for. 

Thank God you could pay for gift wrapping. There’s no way John could have made it look that nice, wrapped in sleek silver paper with red accents, and a frankly massive red bow on the top. As soon as Alex carefully peeled the bow from the wrapping paper, Frankie was already reaching for it. She slapped it to the top of her head with a grin. It was a nice crown between the peaks of her pigtails.

Alex takes longer than a six year old could manage to wait to undo the wrapping, and by the time he’s got it upside down to unseal the tape, there’s little fingers getting in there too to help him get it loose. John chastises her gently, but Frankie won’t be deterred. And Alex doesn’t seem to really mind. 

When he sees it’s a shoe box, Alex gives him a bewildered, but fond smile. Even more so when he opens the box and sees tennis shoes inside. But this was the moment that Frankie had been waiting for. She looked back to John again, and he nodded, giving her the go ahead. “Watch!” Grabbing the shoes from the box, Frankie slapped the two soles together. Lights chased themselves around the sole of the shoes in bright, flashes of color.

“I picked them.” Franke tells him, little voice full to the brim with pride. “Papi wanted to get you the ones that just lighted up blue. But I told him. No papi! Tio Alex needs rainbow! So we got rainbow.”

John nods along as solemnly as he can. “Yep. The lady said rainbow, so we did rainbow. And now, princesa...you were promised a lollipop by Miss Peggy. Go.” John gestures down the hallway with a shift of his head and Frankie is off like a shot, her own little shoes lighting up pink as she takes off. 

He couldn’t buy Alex a pair of shoes and not buy Frankie a pair.

There’s some kind of emotion going on behind Alex’s eyes, and John knows that if it was him, he wouldn’t want an audience. Six years old and sweet as can be or not. He slides his hands into the pockets of his suit jacket to keep from drumming them against his leg. 

“You said something about them when we went out to celebrate you passing the bar.” They’d been wasted. Well and truly wasted, and John doesn’t know why the words stuck in his mind, but he’s grateful they did. That he could give a little something to a man who lost so much. 

Alex had watched a kid crossing the street with his mom and sighed damn, that’s the life. And after John’s brief moment of panic of the thought of Alex wanting to have kids with a woman, he realized that Alex was talking about the shoes.

“So...Happy Anniversary of committing a crime in the name of doing the right thing.”

[kingofdirtandnothing]

wemultitudinous asked: kiss meme strikes back Kiss Meme: (Accepting)

7.  A soft, gentle kiss filled with emotions that can’t be formed into words @wemultitudinous

John gets low sometimes. 

It’s happened ever since he was a kid. His mom used to call it “running out of steam”. He’ll be great for weeks, going through life on roller skates, surrounded by joy and life and color and then it’ll just be...gone. 

No joy. No color. Nada. 

This is the first time it’s happened since he met Alex, and John is fucking grateful he had time to make a real friend out of him before the floor dropped out. And he knows he shouldn’t be here, that he should wait it out at home and send along a text now and then pretending to be okay. 

But John can’t do it. He can’t bring himself to pretend. Not when lifting his head is an effort unto itself. He can’t bring himself to lie. It’s selfish, too. It’s not so much lying to Alex that bothers him. It’s the effort it takes to lie.

And honestly? That reckless, stupid part of him wants to be seen. Because John feels like Alex hung the moon and if that’s coming down around his shoulders then he wants it to be now, while he’s already low. 

Better that than a sucker punch when he least expected it. 

So he’s here. In an apartment that the voice in the back of his head is saying he’s not really welcome in. Sprawled across Alex’s couch, looking at the coffee machine from downstairs that he helped Alex lug up the stairs and into the apartment. That thing was fucking heavy. 

There’s the jingle of metal against metal, the key scraping against the lock and then Alex stepping inside, shrugging off his chef’s jacket and dropping everything on the table by the door. John wishes he could feel that same jolt he usually got when he saw Alex. Now it just feels like there’s layers of coffee machine heavy cotton on his chest. 

Alex hesitates a second, he says ‘hey John’ in a way that’s part question and part concern and keeps his distance. “Not sick.” Got it in one. Alex moves away from the door with ease after that, dropping into an easy flow of chatter about his day while he puts away his shoes and grabs two beers from the fridge. 

It feels like a monumental effort to sit up, and John’s not sure if he can do it. There must be something on his face, because something crosses Alex’s face like a rain cloud, and he murmurs just lift your head and John could fucking cry with relief. 

With his knees back against the couch and his head in Alex’s lap, John closes his eyes. With each of Alex’s exhalations, his stomach brushes up against John’s nose. He can smell the kitchen, and a little bit of Alex’s laundry soap. 

It smells like home, and that’s a scary fucking thought. 

After a few minutes of Alex making asides at whatever the hell he’s watching on TV, there’s a hesitant brush of fingers against his hair. John isn’t ashamed to say he fucking melts into it. If this was what friendship was really supposed to be, then John was kicking himself for waiting so long to get a real friend.

At some point, the hand not in his hair slips idly in the space between John’s face and Alex’s body. John spends a good several minutes looking, tracing the shape of his wrist bones with his eyes. Graceful and strong. Just like Alex. 

John presses his lips against the place just beneath the curve of Alex’s wrist bone, chapped lips against freshly washed skin. 

It feels like thanks and I need you all rolled up into one.