Work Text:
Too much love will kill you
Just as sure as none at all
It'll drain the power that's in you
Make you plead and scream and crawl
And the pain will make you crazy
You're the victim of your crime
Too much love will kill you every time
~
It had started when Alexander met the Schuyler sisters. Suddenly all he could talk about was Angelica’s sharp wit and Eliza’s sweet smile.
Looking back, John should have known then what was inevitably going to happen. But he remained oblivious, believing in his lover’s fidelity, believing that Alexander’s love for him would not falter.
Of course, Alexander’s devotion to him did not hold. John watched in pain as his Alexander married Eliza Schuyler, but could not bring himself to feel resentful. Who could deny a person such happiness as was evident on their faces? His eyes met Angelica Schuyler’s across the altar and a look of understanding was exchanged. He could see the same ghost of pain in her eyes that was ever-present in his own nowadays.
After they had given their respective speeches they stood together in a corner, the best man and the maid of honour, looking at the happily dancing newlyweds from a distance. “He will never be satisfied,” Angelica had said, looking at Alexander with a resigned look on her face. John had only sighed in acknowledgement, willing away the bitterness inside him that wanted to agree with her.
~
He replayed that moment in his head as he sat on his bed that evening, letting the bitterness out, looking at the pretty yellow flower petals that he had coughed up minutes before. The daffodils were sprinkled with fiery red blood, a solid proof that his love for Alexander was killing him.
Perhaps this was God’s way of punishing him for his infidelity to his wife, his love for another man. Oh God, his wife, his daughter, sheltered afar, on the other side of the ocean. He hadn’t written to them in months. What would they think of him if they knew he was dying because of his love for another married man? Lovesickness wasn’t uncommon, but the subject wasn’t discussed, and there was no way to remedy it. He was doomed to die a slow and painful death at the hands of the flowers steadily growing to constrict his airways and tear his lungs apart. It had begun now. There was no saving him.
He wasn’t going to stop loving Alexander any time soon, by the time he managed to get his feelings back under control he would be long dead. The longest someone had ever survived this disease was two years, but he could very well be killed by the infection within months.
Having Alexander fall back in love with him was a nice prospect, but he couldn’t do that to him, to Eliza, to the family they would undoubtedly soon have. There was no way he could tear that future into pieces just to save himself.
John Laurens was 26 years old, and knew with rising certainty he wouldn’t live to see their glory.
~
From that moment on, John threw himself into every battle with zero regards for his own safety, taking stupid risks and looking for trouble everywhere. “I may not live to see our glory, but I will gladly join the fight,” he had once said, all youthful spirit and dedication. At least he now knew that that part of him hadn’t completely withered away yet.
He didn’t care anymore whether he lived or died, which was part of the reason he challenged Charles Lee to a duel. The bastard had to be put in his place, and Alexander was bound by orders, unable to do anything. Alexander , his second, the main reason he was in this duel at all.
By God, I love him John thought as Alexander argued with Burr, a blaze of righteous fury directed at Lee’s second. Outrage suited Alexander. Some of his best writing was powered by anger, and many a time had his anger been the only thing that kept them both up at night, writing letter after letter demanding supplies, aid, or men. Alexander was the king of verbal conflict, he could cut deep with accurately thrown words, ripping his opponents to shreds. John laughed softly as he remembered Samuel Seabury, the poor man still hadn’t recovered from his and Hamilton’s debate, years earlier.
John had only known Hamilton for a day, then, and had been blown away by the small man’s skill and tenacity. His self-assurance was genuine, and came from Alexander’s integral believe in his ability to use words as a way out of every situation.
John preferred confrontations of the physical kind. His temper was well-known and feared, and had gotten him into many situations that he would rather not remember. It was one of his many flaws, this lack of control that lead him to do stupid, dangerous, reckless things. Like challenging Charles Lee to a duel.
That thought brought him back to the present. Alexander and Burr were done talking, there was no compromise to be reached here. He turned away, took ten paces, and fired.
~
John paced outside the tent, listening to the discussion inside. Washington’s voice was soft yet fuming, maybe even despairing. Hamilton’s indignant responses formed a jarring contrast. The words were spoken in low tones, the majority of the conversation indecipherable to John.
Then, Washington’s tone shifted, turning frigid.
“Go home, Alexander. That’s an order from your commander.”
“Sir-”
“Go home”
John’s blood turned cold. He heard Alexander’s footsteps approaching. They were subdued, uneven, so very different from his usual confident stride. He resisted the urge to throw up. This was his fault. John turned on his heel and ran, away from Alexander, away from Washington, away from his own failure. He made it quite far into the woods before he collapsed, coughs racking through his body, staining the ground red and gold.
~
That was the last time he saw Alexander. By the time Washington called his right-hand man back John had already been sent to South Carolina to fight with his black battalion. He supposed he at least had that, had accomplished his goals. He would die knowing that his lifelong dream had come to fruition. It was relieving, in a way. It made him feel more honourable, less like he had thrown his life away.
He couldn’t breathe without hurting anymore, the ever-present reminder of his loss, his failure, stuck at the back of his throat. A letter had come about a month ago in Alexander’s familiar looping script. Eliza was expecting, his Hamilton was to become a father.
Alexander no longer needed John’s presence in his life. If anything, he was an obstruction to the family Alexander so desperately longed for. Something from a dark and shameful past, something to be tucked away into a corner and never be looked at again. A stain on his reputation, a secret to keep locked away.
Alexander was happy somewhere far away from him.
John was choking on petals of gold.
~
He didn’t know what had possessed him to do it, it was uncharacteristically rash even for him, and he’d certainly never been known to be cruel. Yet there he was anyway, sat at his desk, the fully intact flower he had coughed up earlier laid down in front of him next to the letter he had composed to go with it, the ink not yet dried. He’d written it in a sort of haze, all the demons he had kept bottled up inside him for months now finally emerging, bleeding onto the paper. All of the anger, the bitterness, the cruel irony. His words like a deadly poison, burning on the page. He picked up the quill to sign it, but an excruciating coughing fit interrupted him. Wheezing searing breaths of air into his torn-up lungs, he put the quill to the paper. He wouldn’t be forgotten, he’d claw himself back into Alexander’s heart and life and make him hurt the way John had been for so long now.
~
John’s head pounded and his field of vision tilted as he charged forward. Determined now, after days of slowly wasting away. The sickness was taking him. It was now or never. His one last chance at an honourable death, a death that would allow his family to remember him with pride.
It should have been easy, but John was weak. His vision was blurry, his throat constricting, the plants leaving little to no room for air in his lungs. With the taste of blood in his mouth, John Laurens had ordered the charge, knowing they were outnumbered, knowing he would have to be quick. He had to do this before the reinforcements came.
He could barely see the enemy as he galloped forward, letting out a garbled cry.
It was over almost too soon.
As he lay on the ground coughing and bleeding, he finally allowed himself to weep.
John Laurens died at the age of 27, a narcissus speckled with red clutched in his hand.
~
Alexander was sat in his study, writing, with his newborn son sleeping soundly in his lap when the letter arrived. He glanced at it, froze, and got up abruptly. His heart was pounding in his ears while he laid Philip down in his crib. He approached the letter warily, checked the sender again. There it was, clear as day:
His hands were shaking as he tried to open the letter, his eyes had trouble focussing. At last, he managed to open the letter and something yellow and red fell out. It was a dried flower, a daffodil, and it was spotted with the dark red of dried blood. His eyes widened, his breath halted.
“No.”
Suddenly terrified of what might be contained within it, yet also hoping for some other explanation than the one that was apparent, he unfolded the letter and started to read.
~
It was Eliza who found him, later, curled up on the hardwood floor, sobbing over a flower, a letter lying discarded a little ways away. She rushed to him, afraid, desperate to comfort him, to protect him from this unknown threat that had upset him so greatly. He cringed away from her, sobbing no longer, but with silent tears still trickling down his cheeks. He looked up and their eyes met, hers distressed and probing, his filled with grief, with guilt, with self-loathing.
“I murdered him, Eliza.”
