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By the time the general rides into the soldiers’ encampment the sun has long since set. A powdery drift of snow covers the ground. He dismounts in haste, boots crunching into the frozen earth as he lands on his feet. Nelson’s breath streams hot and white against the cold of the night; he has been ridden hard over rough terrain. The general reaches up to give him a reassuring pat on the neck, then nods wordlessly to the manservant who hastens to take the reins. Nelson is led away to be curried and fed. The general would be happy to follow suit. A hot cloth, a bowlful of oats and ale, and a bed of straw would suit his purposes. Then again, his horse fares better than most of his regulars. At the very least, he is properly shod.
But the general cannot dine alone, dear though the prospect might seem. Another servant lifts the flap of his tent and his eyes adjust to the flicker of candles. He will sleep here until he takes possession of the Wallace place. Lee will set the house aright for him, and Washington may rest easy in the meantime, knowing his valet will see to every detail.
A fire crackles in the grate, the wood well-burnt to embers. A pair of hard-backed chairs sit at right angles before it. A simple rug has been laid across the packed earth floor. It suits him well enough for the time being, though a proper fireplace would be welcome.
Martha’s last letter had discoursed at some length about the New Room’s chimney. How deeply should it be recessed? Marble from the Piedmont or would Sienese be better? Would he prefer plain or carved with ornament? Four sheets, front and back, which weighed the relative advantages and drawbacks of each option in her own hand, tiny and cramped. Undoubtedly she anticipates a response that will match her ardor for interiors. Plaster and stone take on a life of their own in these exchanges; in their correspondence, the chimney has been built anew every week, only to be torn down with the arrival of the next messenger. He will have to start over in his dictations tonight, after the War Council.
“How long since their arrival?” he asks the servant, who hovers near the entryway.
“Three-quarters of an hour, sir, though Knox has been waiting since sundown.” Candlelight plays across the man’s face as he answers. It is rather becoming. He will have to tell Lee to furnish the upstairs bedroom at Somerville with such a quantity of candles.
“I will be there presently,” Washington announces, “though I must wash first.”
“I’ll have water heated for your bath--” the man starts.
“No,” he interrupts, “cold will do.” Hot water takes time. Every minute counts.
Heels snapped together, Prussian-perfect, the servant affirms, “Sir,” before exiting with a proper salute. Good to see von Steuben’s efforts have trickled down to even the civilians in their midst.
Eyes cast over the fire, the general allows himself a moment to contemplate a return to civilian life. His own corner of the earth to tend. A solid floor beneath his feet. The chimney, at last complete, drawing perfectly. And baths every Saturday, the pounded copper basin filled from the largest pot in the kitchen, a place to sit and ease the aches of riding once more for pleasure. Hunting. White-tail fat from summers of berries; foxes to catch in the thicket so as to keep the hens safe. Meals served in courses, on the good china. Conversations without mention of supply lines or reinforcements. Heated irons wrapped in quilts to warm the bed. Martha’s toes cold against his leg regardless. A goose-feather pillow, even two, on which to drift off to sleep...
A wash will rouse him from this reverie. Water has been fetched. Hastily he scrubs himself with a flannel and a corner of harsh lye soap, sluicing the rag into a bucket. He winces, the water cold as icy needles against the tender flesh of his backside. Splashed on his face it is a tonic to his weariness. Fresh underclothes have been laid out on a rack before the fire. Quickly, before the chill can catch him, he slips into them. As for his uniform, it smells of horse. Sweat, too, and now woodsmoke, but it will serve.
He makes his way across the encampment. Logs are stacked with which to build cabins, though the men will have to hurry if they are to be finished before the deep snows set in.
Inside, his council awaits. Those who are seated stand when he enters. He wants for nothing as papers are presented, reports given. Maps are unfurled, features of land and sea noted and argued over. Tacitus is quoted in the vernacular: the quality of the translation is subsequently called into question. Their squabble provides Washington with the excuse he needs to take his leave. Given the chance, they will argue ‘til sunup. He has a diary to fill. The candles are still burning in his tent.
A glance at his pocket watch tells him midnight has long since passed, but an aide must be ready to take instruction at any hour. Thus when he returns to his quarters, the request tossed off over a shoulder - “Send for Hamilton,” warrants no suspicion. Very often they will pore over his correspondence until daybreak.
The general has only just turned his back when, mere moments later, the man himself rushes in through the flap of the tent. At a yard’s distance from his commander he stops short, draws himself up to his full height, such as it is. His jacket bears the imprint of a poor pressing; there is a spot of ink on his right cuff; his hair has been tied back in haste. Bits of it fall into his eyes. Those, they glitter even in the dim light.
Far too much space remains between them. Propriety, bitch that she is, demands that the general speak first. Hamilton bites his lip as he waits to be addressed. Virtues he has, although patience is not one of them. Washington allows Hamilton to squirm a bit longer, stretching out the silence. Hamilton’s visible discomfort strikes him as peculiarly satisfying, but he does not dwell on why that might be so.
“Hamilton,” he says, as he lifts his hands over the fire, “have a drink.” As recently as the previous spring, the stiffness in his joints would dissipate over the warmth of the flame. Yet as of late he is so often gripping the reins that they seem to have frozen into place. A knuckle cracks as he flexes his fingers. With a sidelong glance, the general sees Hamilton wince as if struck across the face.
“Sir,” Hamilton says, when his features have righted themselves. “Thank you for your offer, but…sir, if it’s all the same to you,” he opens his arms to his sides, then drops them in a halfhearted gesture of surrender. Impatient, as ever, to charge ahead with the night’s labours. For his part, the general has had enough of forward movement. Twenty miles ridden at a stretch since morning, with a break only for cold game pie at noon and a piss in the brambles four hours on. It would serve him well to sit and have a drink with a friend.
“You look as though you’ve run here,” he says, as he cocks his head to the side to take in Alexander’s downcast face, the too-tired hollows beneath his eyes. He looks wretched. Hungry, angry, furious, alive. It’s good to see you, his mind prompts him. You look well. You look unwell. You work too much, drive yourself too hard. Thank you for your service.
These sentiments die in his throat; rather, his order comes out phrased as a request. “Surely you have need of refreshment?”
“Sir?” A lesser man would take note of the insubordination which undergirds his every word. Luckily, the general lacks not for stature and chooses to disregard it.
“Pour me a drink, Hamilton,” he says, backing into the chair with a creak of bones and wood. Washington gazes into the fire. Hands held aloft before the flame, he continues, “Have one yourself, if you wish.”
With a nervous laugh and a mumbled assent, Hamilton fetches the port from the sideboard.
“Will you sit?” the general asks, “or must I drink alone tonight?” He accepts the glass handed to him with a curt nod. Hamilton swallows, waits for him to sip. Washington smells for rotten cork first. It does feel good to make him wait for it.
“Whatever you need, sir,” says Hamilton. He has a way of rebuffing the general even as he accedes to him. The general finds it infuriating. Hamilton flicks out his coattails and sits. Immediately he places the port glass on the ground by his feet and reaches for his desk and ink pot.
“I can see you’re eager to begin,” says Washington. He shifts, crosses his other leg on top, winces. “Very well.” Thus he recounts the days since he saw Hamilton last: the conference in Philadelphia, the aftermath of Cherry Hill, his continual conflict with Laurens over the Canadian expedition. Hamilton’s quill flows across the pages, almost as if in anticipation of what the general will say. Late though the hour is, Hamilton does not flag or tire. If every soldier were in possession of such drive, surely the war would be finished by Twelfth Night. Then again, he reasons, if all his recruits were like Hamilton, they would never have learned to salute so well.
Hamilton applies himself assiduously to the task, pauses in his enterprise only long enough to fetch Washington another port. And then another. His own glass remains untouched. If he didn’t know that Hamilton would balk at the suggestion, then he would insist he drink it. Minutes pass in endless enterprise. The general’s eyes grow heavy. His voice stutters during dictation, and still Hamilton writes on.
They finish the diary, a slew of dispatches to Jones and Greene and Lafayette, reports to Congress - which the general generously allows Hamilton to phrase as indelicately as he likes - an impassioned exchange with Adams, a far pleasanter one with Madison, and at long last, they come to the letters from his steward, and his Martha.
“Read them to me,” he tells Hamilton. These are the reward for his labours, at long last. Warmed through from the fire, full to the brim with drink, he closes his eyes. Merely to rest them a moment, he reassures himself. The general allows himself to picture it. Home. At last tally, it has been three years, eleven months, and a handful of hours since he has seen Mount Vernon. Home for him is a constant pang of hunger, like the supper he goes without each Sunday in remembrance of sacrifice greater than that of any soldier.
Mount Vernon shimmers to life with Martha’s words. Hamilton speaks softly but his voice carries. The concerns of the estate are those of peacetime: the rains, the harvest.
She has already told him about September, when they were all consumed with haying season. The smell of sweet meadows scythed down at dawn, baking all day in the heat of an Indian summer, before they were forked into rolls to feed the cattle, the sheep, the horses, for the months that lay ahead. The big barn is brimming with it.
October came and went, and with it the tobacco harvest. The fine quality of the crop was marred by rains which damaged a fifth of it and rendered it unfit for market. She thinks they should speak to Jefferson about cultivars of hemp as well. They have pressed the cider and left it to ferment. The dogs have been restless to hunt and have taken to harassing the squirrels in lieu of fox. Just ahead of the first hard frost, the last day of the October harvest moon, they raked in the beechnuts.
Winter comes to Virginia later than to New Jersey but when the ground freezes solid they will send for men from the neighbouring estates and kill the dozen hogs that have been fattening all summer. And when the butchering has finished -- and with it the curing, the smoking, the sausage making, and the rendering of lard -- the estate will seal up tight until the spring thaw.
Drowsy from warmth and drink, Washington drifts off. An ember pops out from the fireplace, unheeded. In his sleep, the general sighs.
“Sir?” says Hamilton, so quiet as to be nearly inaudible. Only when he sleeps does the general appear truly at ease. Awake, Washington adheres to the rules of decorum in all things. When the people speak of him, they note his elegance. His stature draws attention, as does his manner of command. If he so desired it, he could be America’s king. Few men are granted the privilege to see the depths of his passion, fewer still the well of his despair. When the general took him into his confidence, Hamilton began to make a study of his temperament. He notices everything and yet were he to observe Washington for a lifetime, much would manage to escape him.
Tonight, as stillness closes in around them, the general’s head lolls to one side as he slumps into his chair. When his posture relaxes in this manner, Hamilton breathes a little easier. God, he wishes he could do something more. Even writing reeks of inaction. It will not be the last time that he curses his impotence, his inability to do more for the war, for the colonies. For his general, he will always wish to do more.
Hamilton cautiously lifts himself from his own seat, careful not to disturb the other man’s rest. He stacks the completed letters neatly on the sideboard next to the emptied bottle of port. Martha’s correspondence he lays reverently atop the pillow, brushing his fingers over it in a gesture of farewell. They will write her a lovely letter tomorrow evening - six sheets at least. Washington will have much to say about the plasterers she has sent for.
The general dreams of Mount Vernon, although his memories are shopworn. In this dream he strides through waist-high grass until he comes upon a little used barn three-quarters of a mile distance from the main house. He throws the latch back and enters a sun-dappled room filled with the scent of hay and horses. A man is grooming Nelson in the center of the floor, with a jockey’s build rather than a huntsman’s. His pants are well-fitted to a quite fetching backside. The general’s pulse quickens. He sleeps on.
Back in the tent, Hamilton creeps back to where Washington sits in repose. He shrugs off his jacket and folds it into a bundle which he lays at the general’s feet. He has so very little to offer. Skill with a quill and verbal dexterity, most certainly, but those merely add to his commander’s burdens. They ease none -- if anything, they exacerbate them.
Silently, Hamilton lowers himself to the ground. There will be ash on his coat but the darkness of camp will cover it well enough. Alone with Washington, he tries so very hard to keep his wants hidden. If and when the general falls asleep, especially if he has been well-plied with drink, then Hamilton permits the hunger to show on his face.
Washington’s forehead has furrowed, his dark brows knit together in concentration. He breathes shallowly through slightly parted lips. One hand rests on each knee. His legs are splayed so as to draw his breeches tight around him. When Hamilton looks between them, a lump rises in his throat. The general would never sit in such a way among polite society. Hamilton, however, is rude through and through. His commander has ridden hard to be here in time for the evening’s council. From the grass stains on his knees and the dirt on his seat, Hamilton deduces that he has foregone a change of uniform. The very thought of Washington riding through the night as snow falls softly onto the brim of his hat, powerful thighs gripping the flanks of his horse as he sits tall, so very tall above all men, overwhelms Hamilton to the point that he must close his eyes or risk a dizzy spell.
Patience is a virtue unbeknownst to him. He can only look for so long before his hands itch to reach forward and touch. A moment more and his mouth begins to water.
It has happened more than once, that Washington has awoken to find Alexander on his knees before him, as he sits in the rough chairs of camp, or the threadbare ones of the inns of Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, Delaware. Homes of fellow officers, respectable townspeople, and at least one priest.
Lit by the flicker of candles, Hamilton takes hold of Washington’s left knee. Even that slight contact ratchets up his pulse, and he forces himself to take in air through his nose to keep calm. This close, though, the scent threatens to overwhelm him. It takes every bit of willpower he has to pitch forward and rest his head on the general’s knee. Perhaps in a moment he can bring himself to move closer, to touch the places he longs for. For now, he remains content to look and to rub his thumb back and forth over Washington’s muscular calf.
They stay like that for some time, until Hamilton screws up his courage and stretches out a hand. Sleep-addled as the general is, the small whine the other man emits does not go unnoticed. Washington wakes with a start, Mount Vernon’s small barn and a man on all fours, naked in the straw, receding from his mind as quickly as they had appeared.
“Hamilton,” the general protests, even as his hand finds the side of the other man’s face. What a damnable sight to wake up to. What a strain to feel upon him.
Washington looks away. Rarely does he permit himself to look directly Hamilton’s mouth, for it is a crack in his iron will. Instead he looks past him at the fire in the grate and thence to the floor where Hamilton kneels. His desire surges again to realize that Hamilton has made preparations to be in his position for some time. He has removed his jacket and made a cushion of it. With the side of his foot, Washington can just discern its edge, carefully folded and tucked beneath Alexander’s knees.
Alexander’s eyes flutter open. Despite the darkness, Washington swears they are aglitter with mischief. With a hand against each knee, he presses the general’s splayed legs further apart and tucks himself into the scant space between them. He lowers his head to touch his mouth to the cloth in every spot save the most obvious one. The general rumbles a protest, halfheartedly.
“Shh, Sir,” Hamilton murmurs, nose skimming along the inseam of his breeches up to his waistband. “Let me give this to you. Let me do this for you.” His nose points down as he inhales deeply, before pressing a soft kiss to the mound of fabric. Only, mind, the fabric. Already the general grows impatient. His cock throbs beneath the confines of his pants.
Hamilton nuzzles against the cloth. Back and forth across his groin, until the general wants to scream: if not for his release, then at least to be freed from the confines of his fabric prison. All of the blood in his body has converged on one single spot and the air on his cheeks seems colder even as his cock grows hot. When he reaches for his buttons, though, his hand is swatted away.
“All in good time,” Hamilton chides, “hold onto the chair if you must.” A smile plays light upon his lips as he bends his head back to the task. The candlelight reflects against the white of Hamilton’s shirt, though it casts his face in shadow. Assured now of the certainty that Washington will not refuse, he dips back down, tracing a pattern with his nose. His mouth, whose contours Washington would know in a dream, bumps slack and slight once more against the fabric. The shape of a sigh, soundless, rattles hot upon his leg.
The general lifts one finger from the arm of the chair, thinks better of it, and corrects himself. He itches to sink both his hands into Hamilton’s hair, perhaps scratch along the skin of his scalp in order to hear him moan. Heat pours off of him in waves. Washington can chalk some of it up to the light of his ambition, but the relentless heat of his mouth, the all-encompassing softness of its interior, those are borne of the flesh alone.
“Hamilton,” he repeats, less patient this time, as he taps each finger in turn against the wood.
Pitched forward, his head buried between the general’s legs, Hamilton is entirely focused on his task. He concentrates as fully on this as he does his writing. Cannon shot would not dissuade him. Every open-mouthed kiss leaves a damp stain behind. Add that to his own wetness, and at this rate his pants will be soaked through in no time.
Hamilton’s eyes catch the light as he looks up. “How long has it been, sir?” he asks, blinking, the very picture of innocence.
Silently, Washington curses to himself. “Since?”
Hamilton cups between his legs, measured, as if estimating the weight of him. His tongue catches the corner of his mouth. The general tracks the movement as if he is hunting prey. “Since your last release, sir.”
Now marks Washington’s turn to groan. Sweet Christ. Emboldened by Hamilton’s audacity, the general spreads his legs wider. Hamilton’s eyes fall closed now as if in prayer. He hums against the fabric, and the vibration carries through to the general’s very core. Unable to restrain himself, his hips buck up.
“Not yet, not yet,” murmurs Hamilton, who rewards the general’s good behavior with a playful squeeze. He is so hard that it hurts. Washington breathes heavy through his mouth. The chair pinches as he resettles himself upon the seat. Even such a small movement sends sparks of pain ricocheting through his abdomen, there joined by the fire growing in his belly.
How long?
-- A little over a fortnight, Washington remembers. A village south and west of here. Alexander at his side a quick moment after his return from Philadelphia, three sharp quills and a fresh sheaf of writing paper already in hand.
“I’ve taken the liberty, sir,” he had said, “of penning a draft of a letter--”
That time the general had been impatient, reckless. Barely had the mistress of the house closed the door than Washington had set it to the latch and set his mouth to Hamilton’s.
“You forget yourself,” Hamilton had panted, some minutes later.
“Do I?” Advance tactics were called for. To a one, they were sick to death of delay and retreat.
“We have work to do,” Hamilton pressed the general away, though with barely any force.
“It will keep,” he growled in response. “War will always keep. But this,” he stepped forward, permitted Hamilton to feel the urgency of his need, “will not.”
His aide protested with a word. “Work. Tomorrow--”
“Tomorrow,” said the general, as he stripped Hamilton of his breeches, “was never promised any man under heaven.” Hamilton’s head fell forward onto the general’s shoulder as he clutched at his arms. One set of pants off, he set to the task of opening his own. “We must make hay, as they say, while the sun shines.”
An authoritative tap to his right shoulder and Hamilton blinked his eyes open. Mouth rounded in a slight gasp, he sank to the floor. “Are you sure,” he asked, as he turned his backside to face him, presented himself, “that you’re not mixing metaphors? Sir?”
“Stop talking,” he had said, and oh, Hamilton had liked that, had liked it even more as he tugged his hair loose from its ribbon. The general wrapped it round his hand, thoughtfully.
It must have hurt when he breached Hamilton, open only enough for half to fit. Impatience upon him, he laid an arm across thin shoulder blades and pressed him down into the rug beneath them. Washington fucked his way in with short rolls of his hips, driving Alexander face-first into the carpet, poor as it was, in the hopes of suppressing his moans. Wanton noises dripped so easily from his mouth, like spit upon the floorboards. Perhaps he had inherited it, that propensity.
‘Son of a whore,’ Adams had called him, an epithet he has prayed will not catch on. Had the cavalry and delegates seen them in the dim firelight of a Jersey farmhouse, had they but a clue of how the way Hamilton moved beneath him as the candles guttered low. Fingers scrabbling against the floor he reared his arse back to take Washington, and, how, full to the hilt, the bastard had the brazenness to plead for more when there was no more to give. There would be sharp talk of how blood will out.
His aide met his end with the general’s handkerchief stuffed into his mouth, and his soreness meant that for three days hence he did all his writing atop the mantlepiece. --
“A fortnight,” he answers, shaking away the memory of what they certainly must abstain from, here, without a lock or bar to keep their secret safe from prying eyes. Deniability is the order of the day.
“Nothing since then?” Hamilton seems delighted to find that the general has not taken himself in hand since their last encounter. Heavens, when would he find the time?
“Hamilton,” the general manages, before his voice trails off into silence. Hamilton wets his lips. They shine in the candlelight. He grips the chair's arms more tightly and studiously looks away. The fire will need to be stoked soon. He has been riding so much of late that the seat of his pants has worn thin. A new pair will be needed. One of the camp women can take the old ones, turn them into bandages for the wounded. Dull pain remains in his bones, but the air of the tent is warm as Hamilton finally, finally opens his breeches.
With a smooth movement, Hamilton rises up from his knees so that his face is level with Washington’s stomach. They both gasp at the force with which his cock springs free once untucked. Washington digs his fingers into the solid arms of his chair at the first brush of Hamilton’s thumb against the tip. Soft hands - how soft, when the man writes all day and night - a practiced, familiar touch. Who might have taught this boy to do such things? He daren’t ask, of course, lest he prove Adams right.
“It’s all right,” Hamilton whispers, as he leans in, his breath punctuated by little flicks of his tongue, “close your eyes again, if you like.” He pauses, noses along the base. “Sir.”
Time blurs. The general drifts between the present, smell of burlap and frost, those ticklish hands sliding beneath his shirttails and across his stomach. Loosened strands of hair drag against him, another layer of sensation overlaid atop the caresses, maddening and light. The messy fringe of Hamilton’s hair obscures the view Washington has vowed to ignore.
Hamilton works him into a trance, all teasing touches and gentle kisses so that his mouth, when it is fully upon him, is very nearly a relief, in contrast to his fingers, which are delicate and relentless. Washington bucks up, cock chasing sensation. Hamilton stops him short with a hand on his belly. “Almost,” he tells him, “almost.” With one hand, he tucks a lock of hair behind his ear. The effort is for naught, as moments later it swings free again, a near-painful tickle as Hamilton sucks open mouthed kisses along his length. Seconds pass. Minutes. Hours, perhaps, and they have edged barely any closer to the general’s release, promised so earnestly as they began.
“Goddamn it, Hamilton,” he swears, this time out loud, into his collar. “Stop torturing your commander.” Of the two of them, Washington ranks higher; higher than any other man on the continent, in fact. Hamilton comes from nothing. He is no one. An upstart, devoid of land or pedigree. Yet while Hamilton is on his knees, both hands occupied and a mouth full of cock, he cuts a figure of anything but subservience.
No. Insolent is the word for what he is, a truth made even more evident when he lifts his head to speak. “You call it torture,” Hamilton counters, fingertips slick along his shaft. “I call it delayed gratification.” A sweet kiss here, a nudge there. The fervent drag of his lower lip. Hands again, firm for an all-too fleeting moment, which stroke firm from tip to root and down lower.
Restless, the general hitches himself forward, his cock seeking that which Hamilton so maddeningly denies him. With his left hand he gropes for Hamilton’s hair, the other finds its way beneath his seat so he can angle himself down, rather than up. In the still of the tent, there is a creak as he rises off the chair. One perfect thrust is all he manages, as he cradles the back of Hamilton’s head.
Heat ripples through him as Hamilton’s throat closes around him, but the other man fights him, rears back with a wet cough and blinks the tears from his eyes. The general swallows. His abdomen flexes. Command comes easily to him. Why should it be otherwise, even in this?
He lets his voice deepen as when he issues orders. “Again,” Washington says, and Hamilton’s eyes flash bright before he swallows, slow, effortless. His hand strokes with his mouth now, keeping that fervent heat upon him.
“Again,” he commands, and this time he meets no resistance as he flexes his hips, arms braced against the chair. As he draws back his aide gurgles in his throat. Never has a sonata been so sweet as the soft choked noise Hamilton emits.
With Herculean effort and a crackle of pain in his hip, he stands. As he draws himself up, Hamilton rises with him. On his feet, the general’s body remembers the power of his youth. His voice is fully level now. “Again.”
Hamilton does it again, mouth tight, fists tighter. Then he drops his hands, traces a path outward to stroke the tops of the general’s thighs. His breath comes hot and ticklish as the general holds him close to his stomach. “Stay with me, son,” he says, a hand splayed wide across Hamilton’s forehead. It pulls him closer; it traps him in place.
Wetness smears across the general’s belly as he pulls Hamilton away by his pigtail. “Is this what you wanted?” he asks, and a muffled moan wends its way to his ears as Hamilton dives in again, orders be damned.
When he pries him loose a second time, Hamilton’s lips are wet, slack. His face has pinkened with exertion. Washington is seized with the desire to take his mouth, to fuck it as completely and fully as he would a woman’s cunt. And as he wishes it, he does it, closes the distance between thought and deed and takes that which he desires. He widens his stance and thrusts, just as Hamilton’s hair comes completely loose beneath his hands. Washington uses it as he would a pair of reins, to direct him to where he will be used to the greatest advantage. His hair is soft, his throat tight, and his mouth much, much hotter than the heat of any woman.
Delay, it turns out, indeed makes pleasure all the sweeter. He shoots off so hard that Hamilton’s head recoils with the force of it. When he comes back to himself, and catches his breath, the first thing he notices is the deeply satisfying colour of Hamilton’s mouth. Red as the apple harvest. Slick with the remains of the general’s release and his own saliva. Secondly, he sees that the glass of port has been knocked over in their endeavours. The rivulet of wine has only narrowly missed the jacket wadded up on the floor. That, he kicks aside in the opposite direction as he hauls Hamilton to his feet.
Unsteady, his hands find the general’s lapels and he clings to Washington, every muscle tense with his own anticipation. God has been so generous as to grant Washington forbearance, but he spends what precious patience he has in the field. Equal retribution holds scant appeal now that he has found his own release, and with it, the inevitable exhaustion at the end of a long day. Thus it is without delay that he undoes Hamilton’s breeches, holding him up with one arm.
“Oh, god.” Beneath his pants he is wet to the touch, and his head falls forward onto Washington’s epaulet. The general repays each one of Hamilton’s teasing touches with a squeeze and a pull. All told, it takes only a dozen tugs before the boy goes rigid and, at a word from his commander, spends upon the floor.
Washington strokes his hair as Hamilton comes back to his senses. His breath evens but his mouth remains slack. He closes it only slightly when urged in closer for a kiss. As he draws back, the general smiles one of his rare smiles.
“You serve me well, Alexander,” he says, and it is sincere. “Though you have left quite a mess upon my floor.”
The tent is dark, the fire burnt to cinders, but he can feel the heat of Hamilton’s blush against his chest as he buries his head in embarrassment.
“Sir,” he says, with a tremor in his voice, “I--”
“Go to bed,” says the general. “I will see to it.”
Though Hamilton tries to protest, Washington rebuffs him easily. “Consider it payment,” he says, as he escorts him to the tent flap, “for the cramp in your writing hand.”
Hamilton laughs, shaky. “That is very true,” he says, turning back as if to continue their work, “Mrs. Washington’s letter--”
“--will keep,” chides Washington. “Go to bed, Alexander.”
“Sir,” says Hamilton, as he takes his leave. And his salute upon exit? Passable, Washington thinks, there is chance for him yet.