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John is asleep, but maybe he isn’t. It’s dark, wherever he is, thick and oppressive, and there are loud gunshots, and his heart feels like it is going to ricochet from his chest, fast and horrible, and he’s cold and too hot, everything around him swarming, swarming -
“John,” says a voice in his ear. “John, it isn’t real, I promise.”
The voice is warm and safe, like a fire crackling, even if it sounds distant, a far-off beacon.
“John,” the voice says again, and John realizes vaguely, as though the fact is drifting to him in the darkness, that it’s Alexander’s voice, that he’s somewhere near.
“Alexander,” he croaks out, or tries to, and he’s there in an instant, arms tightly around him, hand cradling the base of his skull.
“I’m here, John,” says Alexander fervently. “I’m here. Just breathe, it will pass.”
Everything is darkness, thinks John, he can see his friends dying around him, can smell the rotting horseflesh and the tinny scent of blood seeping into the dirt, can hear the boom of cannons that keep him awake at night.
“Just breathe,” says Alexander again, lips brushing his ear, and John digs his hands into what he thinks is Alexander’s back, trying to match his breath with the movement of Alexander’s chest.
After a long while, John can see again, can sense the light pouring in from windows, can feel the texture of Alexander’s vest beneath his hands, the reek of shit and sounds of screaming fading from the room. He’s crying, he realizes, soaking Alexander’s front. He pulls back, face blotchy and ashamed.
“Are you - are you back?” asks Alexander uncertainly, and the wobble in his voice is almost more than John can bear.
“I think so,” says John, clearing his throat as an experiment. It’s midday, and they are in Alexander’s office. On the floor, somehow. “What happened, exactly?” he asks, trying not to let humiliation creep into his voice.
“We were working on our abolition essay,” says Alexander, “and you sort of - fell, and blacked out, I think, and started speaking to someone who wasn’t here.” John sees him shudder slightly, a chill running up his back. “It was - ” he hesitates, pulling his hand away from John’s hair, detangling their bodies. “It doesn’t matter. I’m glad you’re - better.”
John cannot bear to look at him.
“I’m not better,” he says, wrenching the words out. They feel like wounds. “These - attacks - they’re happening more and more. This was the worst one yet, wasn’t it?”
Alexander shifts uncomfortably, but doesn’t lie to him. Alexander never lies to him. “Yes.”
“I’m going mad,” says John, the truth of it painful and sharp. “I’m in so deep, Alexander. Everything feels wrong, now.” He closes his eyes, placing his palms on his thighs to ground himself. “I can hear them,” he tells Alexander. “I can hear our friends dying. They’re screaming. They beg me to stay with them.”
“Visions,” says Alexander firmly. “Nothing more.”
John frowns. “Are they?”
Alexander looks troubled at that, creases appearing in his forehead.
John sighs, impatient with himself as usual. “You must think me weak. I knew the cost of revolution was blood. And I do not regret paying it.”
Alexander’s hands twitch at his sides. They’re always looking for something to do, something to write. “The things we experienced,” he says carefully, “they were bloody and hard. I do not think you weak for remembering the full weight of the sacrifices we made.” He sits up straighter. “General Washington never forgets.” And then, a moment later, voice hushed: “I never forget.”
John’s heart leaps strangely in his chest. He ignores it. “I need to be better,” he says, somewhat to himself. “I need to be able to - to stay calm. Our fight was important, but it wasn’t the end. I need to be able to do what must be done. No one else will.”
“I will,” says Alexander vehemently. “I am, John, can’t you see? I’m helping you. I don’t care if you’re mad, you’re - ” He falters suddenly, exhaling through his nose.
“I’m what?” asks John, his insides expanding, and Alexander turns his head.
“ - my friend,” he finishes, somewhat lamely, but John can feel the presence of unsaid words.
John wraps his arms around himself; he’s cold, suddenly, aware of all his limbs shaking. Alexander looks at him warily.
“I’m fine,” says John, too quickly, and Alexander looks around.
“I have a blanket here, somewhere…” he says, beginning to get up, but John grabs his forearm.
“No, don’t,” he says, impulsively, and Alexander sits again, looking bewildered.
“Perhaps - you could…” says John, but then he stops, clamping his mouth shut. He will not give voice to the questions in his mind, the thudding in his heart.
“Could what?” asks Alexander eagerly, looking pleased there’s something he can do, but only John knows that he can’t give him what he needs. I could never ask for all of you, he thinks desolately.
“It’s nothing,” he says to Alexander stubbornly, fingers quivering, and Alexander sighs, impatient.
“Tell me what to do,” he says, and John turns scarlet.
“Before, when it was really bad - you had your arms around me,” says John miserably, and something passes over Alexander’s face for just a moment before it’s gone. He’s there in an instant - they’re still on his study floor - pulling John into his arms easily, his chin resting on top of his head.
“You don’t have to be afraid to ask for what you want, John,” Alexander whispers into his hair. “Not with me.”
John swallows, inhaling the scent of smoke and ink and parchment and wool that he always associates with Alexander. Perhaps he can be brave while Alexander’s alert, attentive gaze isn’t on him. Perhaps he can be brave in Alexander’s arms.
“Not everything can be asked for,” says John against Alexander’s chest. “Not everything can be said aloud.”
“If you told me what words to say, I’d say them for you,” says Alexander at once. “If you told me what to do, I would do it. Isn’t that what I’m doing now? Isn’t that what I’ve always done?”
John shakes his head. “You would think me selfish and - perverse, maybe - ”
Alexander laughs lightly. John feels the rumble against his chest. “John,” he says kindly, “I wish I had it in my power to convince you fully that I love you.” He pulls back slightly to look into John’s eyes, their faces close. A shrewd look passes over his face. “If not in words,” he says, voice low, “then perhaps in deeds.”
He’s going to kiss me, thinks John dizzily, and for once he isn’t imagining things. Alexander’s mouth is soft but firm - God, that magnificent mouth - his arms tight around John, his hands tangled in his hair. It takes John a good three seconds to remember to kiss back, to sink into it. You deserve this, he tells himself, and it’s his favorite lie.
Alexander pulls back again, looking at John’s face, tracing his cheekbone with one of his thumbs. “Is that what you wanted?” he asks, and John’s heart turns with the delicate tenderness in Alexander’s voice - Alexander, who is so many things, who is rough and passionate and quick and mercenary but soft with John, always so patient.
“Yes,” says John. “That’s what I wanted.” He clears his throat, the sound scraping the room. “What I want.”
There’s a flash in Alexander’s eyes, clever and certain, sharp and fleet, and John remembers who he’s just kissed, that somehow he’s ended up here with the Tomcat, with the smartest man John knows.
“Don’t do this just for me,” says John quickly, feeling overwhelmed. “Don’t do this unless it’s what you want, too.”
“Oh, John,” says Alexander. He plants a kiss under John’s left ear, his tongue brushing John’s earlobe. “Please believe me, I want this too.”
Words come alive in Alexander’s mouth; that’s the way it’s always been. That’s the way it will always be.
“I have always been hasty in words and affection,” says Alexander, interrupting his thought with a kiss on the corner of John’s mouth, “until now. This has been the longest time coming, I promise you.”
John’s body floods with something like relief, and love, and excitement, Alexander’s arms wrapped around him.
“I would’ve waited forever,” says Alexander, and the sincerity in his voice shoots straight to John’s heart. “I’m glad I didn’t have to.”
John blinks. “You love me,” he says in disbelief, and Alexander laughs.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to say,” he says, like it’s obvious. As if love is such an easy thing. As if love between two men is such a nonissue. Alexander loves and fights before he thinks, but he always loves and fights for John first. Warmth spreads through John’s body.
“You’ve always fought for what is meant to be,” says Alexander. He nudges the side of John’s face with his nose. “And this is meant to be. So fight for this.”
John kisses him then, urgently and gratefully, trying to say everything without the words that refuse to come to him: I love you, I love you, you’ve saved me, I love you.
“I could kiss you forever,” says John, the rush of Alexander’s mouth disintegrating his defenses.
Alexander laughs again, and the sound is like music. “We don’t have forever,” he says, “but we have now.” He kisses John, eyelashes brushing his cheek. “And now.” Another kiss. “And now.”
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