Chapter Text
“The results are in: in a historic vote, war hero George Washington—the colonies’ most prominent separatist—has been elected Ambassador to the English,” the newscaster reads.
The apartment erupts in cheers: Laurens hollers a victory cry; Hercules pops the cork on an explosive champagne bottle; the Schuyler sisters descend into a group hug. Even Aaron Burr manages a genuine smile for once.
That’s what finally drives the victory home. Hamilton slings an arm around Laurens’ shoulder, pulling him into a fierce kiss that only breaks up when Hercules punches his side.
“Get a room, you two,” he chides them, grinning.
“Uh, in case you forgot, this is our room,” Hamilton shoots back. “You’re in our apartment.”
Sometimes he can’t believe it—can’t believe it’s really his. The apartment, the boyfriend, the friends, the college, the city—it’s all his. This victory is his. This is the victory he’s been fighting for ever since he came to New York, the victory he’s chased almost his whole life. It’s freedom.
And when Laurens kisses him again, everything is perfect.
They invite everyone back to watch Washington’s inauguration the next week. It’s a faster turnaround from election to induction than usual—but talk of military intervention on behalf of the English must speed things along. That aside, things have to happen quickly if they’re going to fan the flame of rebellion into a full-fledged fire. Washington is a man who knows the importance of capitalizing hard and fast on an opportunity. With the Redcoats shipping in by the boatload, it’s time to move fast.
The day of his inauguration, Hamilton paces ceaselessly around the apartment, barely able to contain his energy. Everyone arrives; he hardly even greets them, waits impatient for the speech to start. Laurens finally tires of his pacing, wrestles him into sitting down on the couch. The room fills with pleasant chatter, but Hamilton’s attention is focused only on the screen. It takes an eternity for Washington to at last appear.
“Good evening to all the citizens of the America colonies,” Washington begins, and the stage lights make the independence flag pin on his lapel glint.
The camera pans to an overhead shot of the capital: tens of thousands of people surround the stage. Hamilton half-regrets that he isn’t in the crowd—it’s only an hour-long train ride to Philadelphia—but Laurens talked him out of it. They’d have a better view on the TV, he said.
(What he means is that Henry Laurens will be there, and neither Hamilton nor John are on speaking terms with the man—and so Hamilton agrees to watch from New York.)
It is a good view. The stage is well-lit, the camerawork superb. The entire shot is right before them. Washington’s behind the podium, his hastily appointed Cabinet behind him: John Adams, Henry Laurens, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Arnold Benedict, Philip Schuyler, Charles Lee, John Hancock. There are even ambassadors from countries on less than good terms with the British—the Marquis de Lafayette, Baron von Steuben, a dozen others Hamilton doesn’t have time to identify before he refocuses on Washington.
“I’m here with a message for the American people, as well as for the British Parliament,” Washington continues. His face is smooth, free of hints, but his stance is energetic. “Over the past week, my Cabinet and I have comprehensively discussed how to step forward into a new era.”
“If it doesn’t involve kicking the shit out of Redcoats, I’m not interested,” Laurens jumps in, flashing Hamilton a playful grin.
“Thomas Jefferson, the Secretary of State, has spearheaded the creation of a document that we’ll now share with the world.” Washington steps away from the podium. “Secretary Jefferson, if you will.”
Hamilton scowls as the camera cuts away. Jefferson—the fucking prick—flashes a smile that shows too many teeth, then swaggers—swaggers—towards the podium.
“What the actual fuck is he wearing?” Hamilton asks, an open-ended question.
“Three-piece suit—looks bespoke, but I’d have to get closer to tell for sure,” Hercules answers, scrutinizing the screen. “Jesus—look at the tailoring. I fitted Lafayette for a three-piece once, but, shit, I’d kill to fit him too.”
"All that money, you'd think he could afford not to look like he drowned in a vat of fucking grape juice."
"Oh, trust me," Angelica dryly remarks. "I've seen him wear things much worse than that."
“Well, I think it’s hot,” Peggy chimes in as she shoots Hamilton a grin; surprising no one, including himself, he takes the bait.
“It’s fucking stupid is what it is. He’s a shit politician." Hamilton's eyes narrow at the memory of their one actual interaction, brief as it was. He looks over to his boyfriend for support. "And a fucking asshole—right, Laurens?”
“Sure, he can be kind of an asshole,” Laurens concedes, but he's only half paying attention, mostly riveted to the screen.
Gratified enough, Hamilton crosses his arms.
“Well, I think he likes you,” Burr mildly comments. “At least judging by the videos, he certainly seemed to find it funny when you punched—”
“Shut up.”
Burr smirks. Hamilton spares a moment to wonder why he bothered inviting him, but then his attention is drawn back to the screen. Jefferson inhales sharply (overdramatically, in Hamilton's opinion). Jefferson smooths out the lapels of his obnoxiously purple suit, then begins to read.
“In Congress, July 4, 2011. The unanimous Declaration of the fifty United States of America…”
The room falls silent as they listen, swept up in the moment as history happens before their eyes.
Hamilton hates to allow Jefferson anything, but it’s brilliant. It’s beautifully written, cuts to the heart of the issues and then some. It's exactly what the country needs if it’s ever going to be a country at all. Jefferson is a fucking asshole, but, unfortunately, he's also a fantastic fucking writer, a perfect fucking orator, and there are elements of genius behind his ass-backwards politics. Hamilton will allow him that much.
Jefferson speaks; the world listens.
And then there’s trouble with the sound system—distant popping, some kind of obnoxious feedback. The shot pans up over the crowd. The image hangs on the screen for only a moment, but movement towards the back of the crowd catches Hamilton's eye. Before he can make anything of it, the camera pans back to Jefferson.
“In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury…”
Jefferson’s mouth twitches in displeasure when more pops clutter his speech a few lines later, but he continues on seamlessly. The overhead shot reappears: this time, it’s clear something is happening. At the distant end of the crowd, movement parts the sea of bodies. People are scattering—running, he realizes a second later. It’s too high up to tell from what, but something’s wrong. This time, Hamilton isn’t the only one who notices.
“What’s going on back there?” Eliza asks, worry gnawing at her voice.
“Redcoats?” Laurens suggests. His mouth bends into a frown. Unsettled, his hand finds Hamilton's. “They wouldn’t assassinate someone in the middle of a speech. Right? Talk about inciting a fucking revolution.”
They all lean forward, but the camera is back on Jefferson before they can take a closer look.
It takes Jefferson half a dozen seconds to catch on, but suddenly, his stare is distinctly uneasy—he’s not looking at the camera any longer. He’s looking over it, his eyes focused on where the back of the crowd must be. Still, he goes on, even though his voice grows distant and glazed over as he speaks from memory alone. The pops grow louder, more frequent. In the background, Washington starts to shift, dark brows drawing together. The Cabinet exchanges unsettled glances.
“That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved… And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor,” Jefferson finishes, sounding barely aware of his own words.
Silence hangs in the air five seconds. Then ten. The shot cuts up—half the crowd now has realized that something is wrong, is running, splitting away. The shot cuts back down, and the panic reaches the front. Light on his feet as ever, Washington leaps into action, veering sideways to consult someone from the security team. Their conversation is intense, clearly confused—it’s clear that not even the bodyguards know what’s going on.
The camera stays focused on Jefferson’s face, unmoving. And then someone starts screaming.
No, everyone starts screaming. The pops are close; they’re gunshots, Hamilton realizes, horror dawning fully. Jefferson’s hands come to grip the side of the podium until his knuckles whiten. Madison starts to move towards him, and Hamilton can see terror splashed plain across the face of man he's never seen anything less than perfectly put-together.
And, finally, Jefferson sees what everyone is running from.
“My God,” he swears, his voice little more than a horrified whisper.
It’s the last thing that happens before the scene descends into chaos.
People tear through the curtains at the back of the stage, screaming. Shrieking bloody murder. It’s a fucking ambush. A bloodbath. Hamilton watches as the attackers rip out John Adams’ throat, watches on in petrified horror as they descend on him, watches sickened as arcs of blood sail through the air as they rip him apart. Philip Schuyler rushes to help him—one of the attackers grabs him from behind, and—the Schuyler sisters screams drown out everything else. In seconds, half the Cabinet is dead, and some of his closest friends have watched their dad die.
(It's not the last person they love that they'll watch die—not for the Schuylers. Not for him. Not for anyone).
Hamilton is frozen, rooted to the couch. Around him, everyone is yelling. In the adjacent apartments, people are yelling. All of New York City suddenly begins to yell. It deafens him—and then he hears none of it at all. It’s all on the other side of an impenetrable curtain. He can only sit still and watch.
Onscreen, the Cabinet’s security detail recovers. Guns are drawn; attackers are shot. Bodies fall. The survivors of the first wave race to a huddle in the center of the stage, back-to-back—all except Jefferson, still grey, still sick, still petrified as he watches something off-screen. Madison makes a desperate move towards him, shouts something, but the words are lost.
The shot cuts up.
For the first time, it zooms in on the crowd.
There’s so much blood.
Someone slaps him. The curtain parts. He jerks back to reality with a gasp.
“Alex,” Laurens tells him, gripping his shoulders tightly. “We need to—I don’t know what’s—we need to go, Alex. We need to get out of the city. What’s happening there—it’s close. Philadelphia's close. We’ve gotta go, baby. Okay?”
Hamilton can’t find it in himself to respond. He can barely even nod.
“I’m gonna pack,” Laurens tells him, and then he’s gone. The world goes silent once more.
The Schuyler sisters are still screaming, crying. Burr is stock-still in the corner, frozen. Hercules is shaking him, trying to snap him out of it—but like Burr, Hamilton can’t hear what he's saying. The curtain closes. It's silent again.
Hamilton returns to the screen.
Washington is shouting orders now, directing security officers. The bodies are piling up onstage. Hamilton can’t tell who’s an assailant, who’s a victim. The bodyguards are boxing the survivors in—but they’re losing. The circle gets tighter, tighter, tighter. Each time they take one of the attackers out, two more crawl onstage. They’re not just coming from behind the stage now. They’re coming from the sides too. The shot pans up. A wave of bodies rushes forwards, sprints towards the front of the stage. They're ten seconds away. Five.
Madison breaks formation, forces his way past the security detail. He grabs Jefferson, yanks him away from the podium, shouts, cups desperate hands around his face—Jefferson blinks, coming back to life. He says something, but Hamilton doesn't hear what. And then the two turn to Washington.
Half a dozen freaks stand in the way. Some turn to them. Hamilton can’t hear, but he still can read Washington’s lips.
“Run!" Washington shouts.
And the two of them have no choice. Even if they want to stay, they have no choice.
They run, and then they're gone.
A bloodied man gets close enough to the circle to grab a suited woman. He throws her down, falls atop her—Hamilton vomits. By the time he lifts his head again, what's left of the woman is unrecognizable as even human. Henry Laurens tries to help too late, kicks the man in the face—the man responds by sinking his teeth into Laurens’ leg.
Washington grabs a gun off a dead guard, shoots the man attacking Laurens. Every other Cabinet member with enough wherewithal to move follows suit—but it’s not enough. In less than another dozen seconds, the security detail has almost been wiped out. Then down goes John Hancock—torn apart. Then Benjamin Franklin—saved only at the last second by Baron von Steuben. Franklin gets up, bleeding, wounded, pale. Almost everyone left standing is hurt, bleeding, exhausted. Washington’s face is grim. He searches the stage with the calculating eyes of an old soldier, pauses, then yells to everyone that’s left, points—an opening.
Washington leads the charge. He turns left, shoots one person—a woman tackles him on the right. They fall hard; Washington shouts, tries to force the woman off him, her teeth get closer and closer to his neck—and then the Marquis de Lafayette slams frantically into her, knocks her off, brings the barrel of his gun down on her face again and again and again until Washington—alive—pulls him away with a desperate shout.
And they run.
The camera stays centered on the stage long after everyone is gone.
There are so many bodies. There’s so much blood. There are so many things onstage that shouldn’t be outside someone’s body. There’s—Hamilton vomits again, heaving until his ribs hurt so much his eyes water. He wants to pass out. He wants to close his eyes and wake up. He wants to—
The attackers left behind stagger aimlessly, their mouths open in screams. One staggers towards the camera, examining the abandoned lens with jaundiced eyes before it jerks away. They’re all soaked in blood. Some of it is theirs, Hamilton realizes. No—they’re all bleeding somewhere. They stagger listlessly, smack into one another, sometimes run off-screen. They’re dressed differently—some in street clothes, some in suits, some in pajamas. They’re men, women, old, young. There’s one that can’t be older than—
They’re not Redcoats.
They’re not coordinated. They’re not a cohesive attack—they’re something else.
There’s—they’re sick. They’re people. There’s something wrong with them.
“Alex, baby,” Laurens’ voice says in his ear, soothing, calming. He's gentler this time, his hand rubbing circles into Hamilton's palm, his forehead tipped against Hamilton's. “Philadelphia is too close to us. Whatever’s happening there will be here soon. We need to go, okay? Come on, Ham. Get up for me. Please.”
At the plea, Hamilton stumbles onto his feet, looking around the room. Angelica’s chest is heaving, but she’s recovered—she’s raiding their cabinets, stuffing purses, backpacks, rucksacks full of food. Peggy is filling bottles with water with shaking hands. Eliza comes out of the bathroom with a first-aid kit, tears still streaking her face. Hercules bursts out of the hall with a stuffed overnight bag and tosses it to a no longer catatonic Burr, who’s at the door, calling out orders, listing things they need.
“Right,” Hamilton distantly agrees, only distantly aware of Laurens’ hand in his. “Where are we going?”
“Upstate—to the Schuylers'. Anywhere out of the city.”
They pack. They race downstairs. They split up—the Schuyler sisters go in Burr’s car, and Hercules goes in his and Laurens’.
It's the last time they're all in New York. The last time they're all together. The last time they're all still alive.
They don't all stay alive, and Hamilton doesn't even get the chance to say the goodbyes he needs to say.
Laurens rides Burr's bumper as they screech through the city. It's a fucking nightmare. The streets are a disaster. People flood sidewalks, screaming, shouting, running.
Halfway out of the city, Burr speeds through a yellow light ahead of them—but a car swerves in front of theirs and cuts them off. The light turns red. The car in front of them stops. They’re grid-locked, trapped, and Burr and the Schuylers are long gone by the time they get moving again.
And just like that, Hamilton is separated from half his friends.
An asshole driver—that’s all it takes. Sitting in traffic, Hamilton is suddenly acutely aware that he may never see any of them again.
Traffic crawls. People scream. Cars crash. Sirens wail. Everyone is trying to get out of New York, and in their efforts, they trap everyone else.
It’s hours later—night—before they even make it to the Brooklyn Bridge. They’re still trapped in traffic, and now they're limited to exactly two points of escape—and one of the leads back into the place they're trying to escape. Laurens is pale, sweating, shaky at the wheel. Hercules hums nervously. Hamilton thinks.
Philadelphia is closer than they think.
The monsters come.
Hamilton and Laurens escape New York by the skin of their teeth. They have to ditch the car on the bridge, and they get separated, lose sight of Hercules somewhere in the fray. The ambush was too much to keep track of him. He was behind them, and then he wasn't. If Hamilton hadn’t been holding onto Laurens’ hand the entire time, they would’ve been separated too. And he'd be alone.
But now they're alone.
Hamilton doesn’t expect he’ll ever see Hercules again. Laurens probably doesn’t either, but they never say it aloud. If they don’t acknowledge it, then they don’t have to consider the possibility that he’s dead. Because the possibility becomes all too real when they make it to the Schuylers’ estate a week later.
The others have been there already—and they’ve already left.
Every window and door in the house is broken. Vases are smashed, furniture is destroyed. A dozen dead bodies litter the foyer. Another dozen are in the den. Five scatter the stairs.
There’s only one body upstairs, but it belongs to someone they know.
She looks almost peaceful.
Her body is laid out on her bed, and her hair is combed, and despite that she must have died in terrible, terrible pain, her expression is peaceful.
A bouquet of bright yellow daffodils lies atop her chest, but she’s dead.
Peggy Schuyler is dead.
Her right leg is missing, and she’s dead, and neither he nor Laurens have a single fucking idea where their friends are now. There's a note penned hastily in Burr's handwriting, a promise that he and Angelica and Eliza are all headed west, but that's so vague it may as well be nothing.
It’s them—it’s just them. It might only be them.
They head south—on-foot, no less. New York suddenly no longer seems like home, and now Hamilton has nothing but his boyfriend at his side.
Laurens makes it all bearable. They keep each other going—and what's more than that, they give each other a reason to keep going. The world gets worse and worse, but he and Laurens just hold each other that much tighter, work that much harder to make the other smile. It's hard when they end most days more blood-soaked and more flat-eyed than they began them, but nothing else is easy anymore.
And Hamilton knows what it is to survive. He knows what it is to be hungry, to fight, to survive.
The world gets worse, but Hamilton holds on. Holds onto John.
(Tightly, frantically, desperately afraid of ending up alone).
And sometimes there are moments between the two of them that almost make Hamilton forget everything else.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Hamilton asks Laurens in the middle of a West Virginian mall.
Laurens looks up from the cash register he’s trying to wrench open, sheepish. It’s August, and they’ve been headed south for six weeks.
There’s been news about the infection, the toll it’s taken, the Redcoats' retreat, the collapse of half the damn world—it’s all bad. But the lack of news on other things is worse: there's no news on the remaining Cabinet members, no news on their friends, no news on a cure or a vaccine for the thing—the infection. But the two of them are still alive, and they're still at each other's side, and that's how they find themselves looting an abandoned mall in West Virginia.
“Are you seriously robbing the fucking food court in the middle of the apocalypse?” Hamilton can’t help it: he laughs. “I mean, shit, The Dairy Queen? Seriously, Laurens? Is nothing sacred?”
Laurens manages an unapologetic grin.
“I saw a photo booth. I mean—we didn’t think to take any pictures when we left the city. We just had to go. So I thought we could take some here? Just in case we can’t go get the ones from New York.”
“I can’t believe Henry Laurens’ son has to result to petty thievery for a handful of change. It really is end times,” Hamilton jokes as he joins Laurens’ side. “Here. The trick’s to jimmy it like this…”
The photos are stupid and dumb and goofy, but they take a dozen strips until the machine dies with a mechanical cry. Hamilton picks his favorite photo strip of Laurens, stuffs it into his coat’s inner pocket. Laurens kisses him long and slow, then sticks the rest in his wallet. Hamilton doesn't ever ask to see them again—and he doesn't ever get to.
All he ends up with is the single strip—three photos, and he's not even in one. Three photos.
Like he and Laurens were never in love at all.
It’s September by the time the two of them make it to South Carolina. It’s nice this late in the year, and Laurens’ family estate is untouched. There’s no sign of anyone else from the Laurens' family—but there’s no blood either.
Laurens finds his dad’s armory. He teaches Hamilton how to shoot. He shows Hamilton how to start a fire, how to make a camp, how to forage and hunt. He shows him every Boy Scout trick he knows; then, when he’s out, they raid his family’s library to learn more. Slowly, cautiously, their wounds—physical and otherwise—start to close.
For a while, things seem alright.
“Did you see what happened to my dad?” Laurens asks him one night in bed, his voice thin.
It’s the question Hamilton has been waiting months to hear—and yet, even after all this time, he still doesn’t know how to answer. As it turns out, his silence is answer enough.
“Was it quick?” Laurens asks, his eyes sliding shut.
“He was… it was, uh... it was noble. He was trying to save someone,” Hamilton struggles to say, at a rare loss for words. “And he got bit.”
Laurens’ sigh never seems to end.
Out of the early days, they know now what the bite means.
A gruesome fever, a painful drawn-out descent into becoming one of the infected.
Sickness. Amnesia. Aggression. Insanity. Fury.
Inevitable. Inevitable, unstoppable, incurable.
What they didn’t know in the early days hurt them. What happened to Henry Laurens might’ve hurt anyone he was with when he turned: implications settle in, multiply, fold in on themselves.
“I wish—I wish we’d fixed things,” Laurens says a long while later. “I never would’ve…”
Laurens doesn't seem to know what to say.
Hamilton doesn't either.
The estate gets dangerous, too hard to protect: the infected are circling. Before much longer, so are the survivors.
They head to Charleston. It’s supposed to be a safe haven—a holdout. It’s supposed to have concrete walls fifteen feet high, a huge, heavily armed militia. It’s supposed to have medicine. It’s supposed to have food, fresh water, electricity.
It has all those things.
But it falls anyway.
And Hamilton loses Laurens.
Hamilton reverts to his Nevis state of mind: survive. It’s all he has.
His New York friends are missing at best, dead dead if they’re lucky. Laurens is gone. New York is gone: it was one of the first cities they bombed back when they thought the virus could be contained. Naturally, he learned that after Laurens died. The revolution he dreamed of for so long is gone too—the English pulled most of the Redcoats of the colonies the first week to defend the motherland, and the ones that are left are centered in the cities. It’s viciously ironic: The States mostly got their freedom in the end.
All that’s left of the country are rats wrestling for scraps. Hamilton hears now and then about the scant handful of safe cities along the eastern seaboard, but he doesn't believe the rumors. There are no safe cities. Only places filled with false senses of security and people one mistake away from being trapped with ten-thousand infected.
He misses Laurens so, so much. He wakes up cold and hollow in the mornings. His days are empty. He sees himself reflected in mirrors and doesn't recognize his face.
Hamilton doesn’t have any reason to survive, but he keeps on breathing out of habit.
Winter ends; springs starts.
Hamilton’s still breathing.
He hears rumors about more bombed cities, about roaming gangs of bandits, about millions and millions dead. He hears news about the virus—but it’s always different news, almost always contradicting something else he’s heard. He doesn’t care anyways—all that matters is that the infected die if you shoot them enough. Or stab them. Or bludgeon them. It’s a little like killing a person, he reasons.
The only news he pays attention to is news about Washington. Somehow, Washington has become the last remnant of his old life. Rumors swirl: Washington died in Philadelphia, Washington escaped Philadelphia, Washington is forming an army, Washington is going to save us all.
Hamilton isn’t even sure which of the rumors he believes, but hearing about him gives him the weakest of illusions that everything is fine. He can almost imagine he’s back at Columbia in his domestic policy class, can almost imagine that he’s about to get into a fistfight with Seabury in the quad over whether the colonies should split, can almost imagine that Laurens will be at his side if he looks sideways. He thinks of Hercules and Burr, Angelica and Eliza and Peggy, and of how he tried so hard all those years just to end up alone.
Summer ends. The weather’s going to get colder soon, but Hamilton doesn't care. He doesn't want to die, but if he went to bed one night and just fucking froze to death, what difference would it make? None. Not a fucking difference at all.
He's tired of the south. He’s tired of South Carolina. He never wants to think about Charleston again.
Hamilton heads north.
A door screeches open; Hamilton jerks awake. It’s September. He’s alone, hungry, cold, and apparently now potentially in danger of being murdered by a bandit.
“Could you be a little louder?” a throaty voice chastises someone else.
Hamilton swears silently—he’s outnumbered too. Fantastic. He bolts out of the bed, snags his backpack, then dashes to the window. It takes him all of three seconds to realize some moron’s painted over the entire thing at some point, sealing the frame shut. Hamilton curses out loud this time.
He weighs his options. He can break the window, risk being heard and caught before he makes his escape. He can hide, risk being caught and killed where he stands. He can even run, but even if he can get out of the room without making a sound, chances are he won’t make it down the stairs without giving himself away. He regrets deciding to hunker down for the night in the only house for miles. He should’ve just toughed out the cold.
Footsteps approach, then stop outside the bedroom door. Someone tries the knob—it’s locked, of course, and Hamilton has jammed the door shut with a dresser. Neither will hold.
Hamilton decides to take his chances with the window. His elbow flies into the glass pane, shattering half the frame. Another couple swings clear enough of the glass for Hamilton to crawl through, slicing himself open in half a dozen places as he goes.
“Shit—there’s someone here!” a voice shouts outside the door.
Hamilton makes it onto the roof, glancing down at the ground fifteen feet below. He swallows hard, edges to the end, dangles off the side—then drops. He hits the ground hard, but makes sure not to lock his ankles, falls onto his ass instead. His joints don’t fucking appreciate it, but they don’t break, which is good enough. Hamilton scrambles onto his feet, then dashes into the abandoned field behind the house. A moment later, two men burst out the back door, guns brandished.
“Did you see him?” the taller of the two asks the other, eyeing the fields.
His eyes land on where Hamilton is hiding and pause for a blindingly long second. But they move on.
“No,” the shorter man replies, shaking his head with a sigh. He lowers his gun. “Whoever it was, you scared them off.”
Hamilton edges further into the fields.
He makes it half a mile before he realizes he left the photos on the nightstand.
Hamilton sucks in a ragged breath, desperately trying not to panic. No one would give a shit about a crappy mall photo strip. No one would take it—not even bandits. There would be no reason to. He can go back later, get it after they’re gone—but even as he’s telling it to himself, he’s already turning around, running back.
It’s all he has left of Laurens. Hamilton’s already forgetting his voice. He can’t forget his hair, his freckles, his smile. He can’t. It’s all he has to hold onto. All that's keeping him from truly being alone.
It’ll be fine—it’s just a fucking photo strip. They won’t give a damn.
Hamilton slows as he creeps up to back of the house below the kitchen.
“Who the hell would have a photo strip of John Laurens?” one of the men asks, shaking his head.
God-fucking-damnit.
He barely resists shouting it aloud, has to force himself not to kick the wall in front of him. Only when he’s calmer does he finally peek through the kitchen window—and there, in the middle of the fucking table, are his photos. Right between the two men and the loaded guns lying on the table.
It’s a pure act of God that Hamilton doesn’t scream.
“Plenty of women have pictures of you in their room,” the other man evenly replies, amused.
“Yeah, because I’m gorgeous. And I’m Adonis himself next to every other damn politician in Philadelphia.” A pause, a click of a tongue. “Except you, of course,” the man tacks on, his drawl obnoxiously Southern and even more obnoxiously cocky.
Without even having seen the man's face, Hamilton wants to strangle him.
“Besides,” Southern jackass goes on, “Laurens is in college. He’s not on TV every damn weekend. He didn’t write the goddamned Declaration of Independence, for fuck’s sake.”
“Plenty of people have inopportune crushes on college men,” the level-headed voice counters.
The two go on with their bantering, but Hamilton is already forming a plan. If he can get them out of the kitchen, he can dash in through the back door, grab the pictures, then be gone before they’re any the wiser he was ever there. Hamilton creeps around the side of the house, weighing what kind of distraction he needs.
The answer is waiting for him in the driveway.
Hamilton has to resist gaping at the car parked there. He knows next-to-nothing about cars, but he recognizes the Cadillac stamp on the front, and he can tell something’s expensive when he sees it. Glossy black paint gleams in the light and dark-tinted windows obscure what most be a ridiculously luxurious interior. If the men are in fact bandits, they’re obviously pretty fucking good at it.
Hamilton crouches down beside the front porch. He picks up a rock, weighs it in his hand, then sends it soaring. It thunks with a screech against the side of the car. The car’s alarm flashes, shrieks something violent right away—Jesus. Hamilton hopes there aren’t any infected nearby because he may as well as have started up a missile silo. He barely makes it around the side of the house before the men burst out the front door. Instantly, Hamilton breaks into a sprint, throws open the kitchen door.
He grabs the photo strip, turns, almost makes it out the back door—and then a bullet whizzes right past his face. The doorframe cracks; splinters of wood nearly impale him. Hamilton almost makes a break for it anyway, but then someone else is in front of him, blocking the exit. There are two guns pointed at him now—one in his face and the other at his back. Hamilton’s fingers tighten around the photo strip, holding on—holding onto Laurens.
Guess I couldn't take my time, he thinks, wry, apologetic.
“Well,” Hamilton at last says aloud, defiant. He lifts his chin, faces what he's thought about so much that it feels more like a memory than a moment. “Fucking do it.”
He doesn’t even look at the man until the gun’s been leveled quietly at his face a second too long.
“We know him,” the one in front of him tells the other after a pause.
“We do?” obnoxious Southerner asks—and Jesus, why is his voice so familiarly punchable?
Hamilton turns around, and the realization hits him like a slap to the face.
It’s Thomas fucking Jefferson—and that makes the other man James Madison.
Jefferson narrows his eyes at Hamilton, slower on the uptake. Then, slowly, his eyes widen. And then he bursts out laughing—fucking guffawing, and that’s the first time Hamilton has ever appreciated that goddamn word. But that’s what it is—a goddamned guffaw. Hamilton’s hands twitch.
“Holy shit,” Jefferson drawls, his eyes wide with delight. “It’s the kid who got shitfaced and punched Henry Laurens in the face—and at his own damn gala!”
“I wasn’t drunk,” Hamilton snarls, earning himself a look of incredulity from Jefferson.
“My god. That just makes it better,” he replies, fucking guffawing again. Apparently, the apocalypse hasn’t made him any less of an asshole. “Yeah, I remember you. Jesus. Punching Henry—shit, you’re John Laurens’ boyfriend too, aren’t you? Jesus, punching a famous politician—and your boyfriend’s dad, no less—at a highly publicized charity event. Christ, I couldn’t. I laughed myself sick—best goddamned thing I’ve ever seen.”
Hamilton staggers a little at the mention of John’s name, the air sucked out of his lungs.
“I…” he says, closing his eyes. If he keeps them shut, he won’t cry—and he won’t cry.
There’s a moment of silence, and when he opens his eyes, Jefferson’s face has fallen.
“Uh, John. He’s not with you.”
Hamilton swallows.
Madison slips past Hamilton into the kitchen, his gun lowered. Jefferson quickly follows suit. The two exchange a long, complicated, unintelligible series of raised brows and tipped heads, then Madison turns to Hamilton. Obviously, he’s been elected the delegate here.
“We’re sorry for frightening you,” he apologizes, voice all-too-even. “We were hoping to rest somewhere where we could stretch out a bit. Sleeping in the Escalade gets uncomfortable after a few days.”
“Yeah, and thanks for throwing a rock at my car, by the way,” Jefferson cuts in, scowling. “You scratched the paint.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Hamilton sarcastically shoots back, glaring. He can do this. He can do this if it means he doesn't have to think about Laurens, so he stabs a finger towards the bullet hole in doorway. “Is that why you tried to fucking shoot me?”
“I shot at you. If I’d wanted to shoot you, I would’ve used my shotgun.”
“Funny way of saying you missed.”
Hamilton can tell Jefferson is about to say something else that’s going to piss him off—Madison shoots him a pointed look. Jefferson rolls his eyes but shuts the hell up.
“Are you hungry?” Madison placidly asks Hamilton, a thinly veiled attempt to smooth things over.
Hamilton wants to say no, but truth is, he hasn’t eaten in… well, at least a day. It’s been weeks since he had a full stomach. Longer than that since he’s had three full meals a day. But the two of them look well-fed enough. A little thinner than their TV days, maybe, but not bone-thin like him. They look good overall, actually. Well-rested, well-groomed, well-dressed.
Hamilton, on the other hand—well, he’s not as well-kept as he once was.
“What were you going to eat?” he dubiously asks, reluctant to feel like he owes anyone anything.
“I was thinking mac-and-cheese,” Jefferson answers at the same time Madison miserably answers anything but mac-and-cheese. Hamilton glances between the two, but curiosity gets the better of him.
“How do you make mac-and-cheese without milk?”
“With bourbon, obviously.”
When he realizes Jefferson is serious, Hamilton barely manages to suppress a gag.
“Yes, and eating it voids him of the responsibility for driving for several hours, which is what he’s really trying to do,” Madison wryly interrupts, glaring at Jefferson. “But if that’s what you want, there’s powdered milk to spare you from his abomination.”
Hamilton has mac-and-cheese—the powdered milk kind. It’s thin and watery and desperately missing butter, but it’s the best goddamned thing he’s ever tasted. He inhales his bowl, ignoring the pity in the room, saying nothing, letting uncomfortable silence settle over them all. Jefferson—probably the least charitable man alive—even offers him seconds. That’s how Hamilton knows just how fucking sad he looks.
Apparently, he’s so sad that not even giving him dinner is enough charity.
“Would you like a change of clothes?” Madison politely offers when Hamilton’s done eating. His eyes are on Hamilton’s front. “I’m sure I have something in the car that’s your size.”
Hamilton glances down at what he’s wearing for the first time in weeks. All at once, he notices the holes and tears in his Columbia sweatshirt, the half-dozen stains, the dried black-brown blood splashed across the front. He was wearing this sweatshirt in Charleston when—oh. Oh. It’s John's blood.
He’s covered in Laurens’ blood. He's wearing his own boyfriend's blood, and he didn’t even know.
Suddenly, Hamilton regrets eating so much.
“I—uh… that’d be nice. Yeah,” Hamilton queasily agrees.
Madison leaves to get the clothes, but Hamilton can’t stand it any longer. He shucks off the sweatshirt, his sweater, leaves himself in nothing but a raggedy old sleep shirt. It’s cold in the kitchen, of course, and Hamilton has to clasp thin arms around his narrow chest not to break down shivering. Jefferson eyes him from across the table, saying nothing but looking like he wants to. The air in the room is thick.
Finally, Jefferson clears his throat, nodding towards the photo strip by Hamilton’s bowl.
“I’m sorry about—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Hamilton interrupts him. “I don’t want to ever even think about it again.”
Jefferson—even despite his shitty politics and shitty personality—has the human decency to nod. He looks down at his hands. They sit in silence until Madison return with a stack of clothes. Hamilton retreats up the stairs to change.
As he changes, he’s acutely aware that the shirt alone is probably worth more than his old monthly paycheck. It’s all designer, all high-end, all fancy fabric: silk and cashmere and heavy, warm wool. Hamilton feels like a stranger in his own skin when he glances into the mirror and sees someone who can blow a thousand dollars on an outfit looking back. Not that money really matters these days. Theoretically, Hamilton could break into a Neiman Marcus store or wherever rich people used to shop and take a thousand-dollar outfit for free.
Still.
He'd be short a hundred dollar haircut anyways.
Hamilton pads silently down the stairs, stops when he hears Jefferson and Madison talking in the kitchen.
“—sad. What are…?”
“Not our… John… loose cannon…”
“Favor… kid… shot him… dead…”
Hamilton edges closer.
“—and what about us?”
Footsteps near, and Hamilton loudly walks down the last few steps as if he weren’t eavesdropping. Jefferson emerges from the kitchen, his jaw gritted tight. Madison follows close behind, but whatever conversation they were having is cut short when they notice him.
“Thanks,” Hamilton tells them. He shifts. Silence, the word of the fucking night, hangs in air. “Well, I’ve got to get going.”
“Oh? To where, exactly?” Jefferson asks, arching his brows.
“Wherever I want,” he brusquely answers, wanting this interaction to be over and in the past.
He wants to go.
There’s no point in heading anywhere. It’s better not to go anywhere, to just walk in whatever direction looks best on any given day. Hamilton never heads to places anymore—he just goes somewhere else. He settles down for the night wherever there’s shelter. He scavenges whenever there’s a place to search. He kills infected when they’re infected in the way. He keeps moving. He’s always moving. If he stays still too long, he has nothing to do but think.
“There’s supposed to be a safe city in Richmond,” Madison offers.
“Have you ever been in a safe city?” Hamilton spits, anger welling in his chest. “Because if you haven’t, fucking don’t. You’re better off with a horde of bandits.” He slings his backpack over his shoulder, pauses. Then, calmer, he tells them: “I’m going north. I’m tired of the fucking humidity down here.”
Jefferson and Madison exchange another long, complicated eye-contact-only conversation. Finally, Madison turns back to him, pity plain on his face.
“Well, there’s room in the Escalade if you’d like a ride.”
Hamilton shakes his head.
“I don’t have food. Or ammo.” His throat grows dry, but he forces out the rest. “Laurens is dead—so’s his dad, if that matters. Helping me isn’t going to get you any political favors.”
“Yeah, somehow I doubt the political favors I’ve got stacked up are gonna do me any good for a while anyways,” Jefferson drawls, shaking his head. “Fuck’s sake, kid—”
“Don't call me kid.”
“For fuck’s sake, Hamilton. Just let us do you a courtesy—consider it payback for all the laughing I got out of seeing you sucker-punch Henry Laurens in the face.”
“You’ve already done me two courtesies,” Hamilton shoots back, shaking his head. “And I’m not your goddamned charity case. I don't want your help. I’m doing just fine on my own, thanks.”
Jefferson rolls his eyes, looks down at Hamilton.
“Like hell you are. You’re alone, you’ve lost thirty pounds since I last saw you, you just admitted you don’t have food or ammo, you smell like a corpse, and you apparently didn’t notice you’ve been covered in blood for fuck knows how long. You’re so goddamned pathetic right now that I’d be a monster if I didn’t personally read you a bed-time story and tuck you in.”
“I thought Thomas Jefferson was a believer in people pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps?” he asks, anger swelling in his chest.
“Yeah, well, clearly yours are broken.”
Hamilton stalks forward, stabbing a finger into Jefferson’s chest.
“Leave me the fuck alone,” he snarls.
“Or else what? Are you gonna punch me too?” Jefferson challenges him, tipping his chin back defiantly.
Hamilton considers it for a long second, but Madison is watching from just behind Jefferson, his eyes dark and threatening. He shakes his head once in warning, and, gradually, Hamilton unclenches his fists.
“Fuck you,” he spits instead of taking a swing. “You’re a shitty politician, and you’re a shitty fucking person, and you can go fuck all your shitty self-righteousness right out of yourself.”
Jefferson barely blinks.
“I’ve read worse from twelve-year-olds on Twitter.”
Hamilton was definitely been pegged as one of the twelve-year-olds Jefferson is talking about—but he’s better than this. He's better than wasting his breath here when it doesn't even matter anyways. He's better than this.
Probably. He tries to convince himself he’s better than this.
He just—he can’t fucking believe that John is dead, that Peggy is dead, that Washington himself is probably dead, but that these two bastards made it out unscathed. And why? Because Jefferson froze, probably pissed himself at the podium? Because they ran away at the right time?
Hamilton wants to scream. He doesn't want their pity; he's not their goddamned obligation. They don't even know each other. The only time they've ever even been in the same room was at Henry Laurens' gala, and Hamilton himself got kicked out within an hour. He doesn't want their help. They don't him owe him anything, and he doesn't want a damn thing.
Hamilton pushes past Jefferson, but the man grabs his arm.
“What, did John tell you to get yourself killed out of pride before he went?”
Hamilton stops dead.
The room goes red. Time slows.
This time, Hamilton punches him. Full force, square in the face. So hard that his knuckles pop and crack and maybe even fucking break.
There’s a single second of shock, then Jefferson groans and drops like a goddamned sack of rocks—and before Madison can react, Hamilton is out the door, blind with rage.
He walks a long, long time before the rumble of a car breaks him from his thoughts. He refuses to look back, refuses to look even as the car pulls up beside him. It follows him at a crawl ten, twenty, thirty feet. Hamilton finally breaks down, whirling to the look through the passenger window.
“What?” he snarls, his face contorted in anger when Jefferson’s face greets him.
Jefferson sighs, running a hand over his jaw.
“Get in the damn car,” he tells him.
There’s only the barest hint of an apology in his voice, but the skin below his right eye is darkening to a delightful purple-blue, and he looks vaguely—vaguely—sad. Sorry, even. It’s probably the best Hamilton can ever expect to get out of an asshole of Jefferson’s proportion.
Hamilton hesitates.
“I don’t want your fucking help,” he tells them, tells himself, but it sounds tired even to his own ears.
In the driver’s seat, Madison speaks up.
“It’s going to get dark soon. At least let us drive you back to the house.”
Hamilton thinks about that, then thinks about his odds of making it a night in the dark when he has no ammo, no food—nothing much more than a knife and couple of books in his backpack. His odds aren’t abysmal—he’s made it through worse, gone days without eating, been outnumbered a dozen to one and come out on top.
But it’s a numbers game. It’s always a numbers game.
Even the house loses to the players sometimes.
“Is Washington alive?” Hamilton finally asks, the words spilling unexpectedly out of his mouth.
Jefferson and Madison blink in surprise, exchange a look. The silence answers the question long before Madison ever does.
“No. None of the others made it out of Philadelphia.”
Hamilton closes his eyes. The last façade of normality vanishes.
“Oh,” he says. Without knowing why, he explains, “I worked for his campaign. First Ambassador I ever voted for. I, uh... guess he was the last too.”
And all at once, it hits Hamilton just how tired he is. He doesn't think he can walk another damn step without falling over. He can barely fucking stand.
"He was a good man," Madison says, voice softening just a little from its steel. "A good friend."
"You know, he knew your name," Jefferson adds. Hamilton looks up, eyes widening. Jefferson's face is mostly expressionless, but he notes Hamilton's interest, goes on. "Guess you caught his attention at the gala. Said you were, uh, what was it, Jemmy?"
"Someone with a promising future," Madison finishes. His stare pierces Hamilton through. "If you could do a little to curb your overenthusiasm."
The information hits Hamilton harder than he expects. A heady mix of grief and exhilaration swells in his chest. Washington knew his name. Knew him. The greatest man to ever live knew his name—but he's as dead as the future he predicted Hamilton could have.
It's all too much. It's too much to have to think so much about John, to be confronted with too many reminders of the past, too much news to process at once. He's tired. He's so, so fucking tired, and he can't walk another step.
So Hamilton caves, opens the car door, sinks into the back seat.
He’s just surviving, he reasons. That’s all that matters. He doesn’t have to care; he doesn’t even think he could. He doesn’t have to accept their help going forward. He just wants to rest a minute, and his odds of making it through the night are a little better if he rests somewhere other than the side of the road.
“Which way?” Madison mildly asks.
Hamilton closes his eyes. He can improve his odds a while, cut loose once they drag him down. It’s a temporary arrangement. He can endure it for as long as he has to.
“I don’t care,” he wearily answers. “Just take me the fuck away from South Carolina.”
Hamilton isn’t used to being around other people.
He doesn’t talk to them much. It’s easier not to. It’s better to save his energy, better not to care when he knows he’s going to leave the first moment it hurts him to stay.
Hamilton goes where they go—and he does the rest himself. He doesn’t allow himself to get soft. If they stop somewhere, he goes out scavenging before they’ve even decided how long they’re going to stay. He starts their fires, checks the perimeters, clears the buildings. He doesn’t let them do any heavy lifting for him. He sleeps as little as always.
This is a temporary arrangement: he’ll still have to take care of himself when it’s over.
It’s for the best it’s temporary.
“I can’t believe you listen to opera,” Hamilton scoffs from the back seat after a few days. "I didn't think real people did."
Like always, Madison glances in the rear-view mirror with almost-startled eyes, like he’s surprised to see Hamilton’s still there.
“We always listen to operas,” Madison mildly remarks. Glancing aside, he smiles faintly at Jefferson, who smiles back—another silent conversation Hamilton’s left out of. “There's lots to be learned from the genre. I enjoy them."
“Yeah, and the first few times you put them on, I thought it was a joke,” he shoots back.
“And what do you listen to?” Jefferson’s voice is honey-slow and unimpressed. “Let me guess: experimental rock groups that exclusively play five-hundred person venues?”
Hamilton doesn’t answer this time, too infuriated by the fact that Jefferson is right.
He picks through every place they stop at for weeks. He strikes gold in an old record store when he finds a bargain bin full of cassette tapes. Striking gold might actually be a bit of an exaggeration, but—
“Avant-garde jazz?” Jefferson dubiously asks when Hamilton presents the tape—but he slips into the stereo player anyways.
It’s nice to be able to listen to music in a language he actually knows. It’s nice to listen to music at all—not that he’d admit it to either of them. And maybe it’s for the best Hamilton can’t find any of his favorite bands. It’d probably just dredge up memories he doesn’t have the strength to think about.
As time passes, Hamilton starts to wonder if the problem isn’t that he’s not used to being around other people, but that it’s not really fair to classify Thomas Jefferson and James Madison as other people, whatever those words even mean.
Other people don’t willingly listen to opera in the car. Other people don’t wear button-ups and Louboutins and a Rolex in the middle of the apocalypse (Jefferson). Other people don’t constantly wear scarves for—fashion? Fuck if Hamilton knows. But there’s no reason to always be wearing a scarf (Madison). It’s not even cold this time of year, for Christ's sake.
The biggest difference is that with enough time, Hamilton might actually grow to like other people; Jefferson and Madison are not other people. And there's no one else he can complain to, no other, normal people in sigh. To vent his frustrations, Hamilton starts to list the reasons why Madison and Jefferson belong to their own fucking class.
- Apparently when the world was ending, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison decided that it was a good use of their extremely limited trunk space to bring along a fucking hand-carved marble chess board. What’s even fucking worse is that they’re actually such jackasses that they actively use it instead of just keeping it around to look smarter than they actually are.
- Jefferson keeps a yoga mat in the backseat so he can practice yoga whenever he wants. It’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. Also, apparently, he can also only practice yoga while shirtless. I get it, jackass—even in the apocalypse, you’ve got a fucking six-pack. Apparently vanity endures in the apocalpyse.
- Madison meditates. It’s not quite as stupid-looking as Jefferson’s yoga—barely. He doesn’t like to get interrupted. This morning, he picked up a softball bat, went outside, and bludgeoned an infected to death because—and I quote—it was disturbing his concentration. It was fucking terrifying. Badass too—not that I'd ever tell him. Who fucking knew someone that fucking unassuming could be so goddamn brutal? I’m never going to fucking step in the same room as him while he meditates again.
- Apparently, the two of them think they’re world-class sommeliers. Anyone with half a fucking brain knows there’s only two kinds of wine: red and not-red. Today, they stopped at a wine store and talked about which bottles to take for three goddamned hours. I tallied up the prices of everything they took—three thousand and seven hundred dollars for half a dozen bottles. Anyone who spends more than twenty dollars on a bottle of wine is a fucking tool. Jefferson fucking laughed at me when I told him that. Elitist prick.
- I have to write this with one of Jefferson’s three-hundred-dollar fountain pens, and I fucking hate that it’s so much better than a Bic pen. He told me it would be when I asked him what kind of asshole owns a three-hundred-dollar pen, and I hate that he’s right because he's always wrong the rest of the time.
- Madison apparently thinks it’s worth possibly attracting infected and risking death just so he can play Bach or Beethoven or whoever the fuck elitist opera-loving pricks like every time we’re in somewhere with a piano. I hate how fucking unfairly good he is, and I hate that he does it because it makes me think that Jefferson might actually be smarter than him.
- They go the libraries—again, in the middle of the fucking apocalypse. And, yeah, this one isn’t actually bad because I run out of books to read all the damn time, but still. It's harder to complain about going to libraries than wine stores. Side note: I got a book on how to play chess today.
- Also today, that fucking prick Jefferson found this list this morning. I only found out because he was fucking dolphin-laughing again, and I thought he was dying. That's what I get for trying to come fucking help him. I swear to God, I almost punched his fucking teeth in an hour ago when he did his stupid shit-eating grin at me while he was doing yoga. I’m going to learn how to fucking destroy him at chess. Maybe it’ll shut him the hell up.
- I found out why Madison always fucking wears scarves.
Hamilton can’t believe how long it takes him to realize Jefferson and Madison are fucking. He can’t believe he only realizes it because Madison’s scarf comes loose during a tussle with infected, revealing a collage of purpled bruises and bite marks—and there's only two other people around that could've put them there, and it sure as fuck wasn't him.
Hamilton turns away well before Madison looks over self-consciously to see if he’s noticed.
He wonders how the hell it took him five weeks to figure it out.
Back before the world ended, rumors of Jefferson’s womanizing always floated though the tabloids, and Madison was supposedly up close and friendly with some pretty party-throwing socialite (Dorothy? Dolley?)—but Hamilton must’ve been deaf, dumb, and blind not to have seen through the smoke and mirrors. The continual co-authoring of bills, the hip-to-hip attachment, the constant eye-contact-only communication in the middle of the Congress floor: the two of them have been definitely fucking for a long, long time.
And in person?
Once the realization hits, it feels like he’s constantly being hit across the face with a frying pan that has Jefferson and Madison fuck branded onto the bottom. He mulls the revelation over, mulls over all their interactions in a new light, and it all falls into place. He sees the way they look at each other, the way they wring emotions out of each other Hamilton could never come close to evoking. They stand too close together, sit too close together, always seem on edge every time Hamilton unexpectedly slips into a room.
And then Hamilton creeps quietly past their room one morning to piss, hears them talking. When there's a house to sleep in, they sleep in the same room, for fuck's sake.
He reflects and thinks and finally decides that if Jefferson spent half the time reflecting on his politics as he spends staring at Madison’s ass, maybe he’d be someone Hamilton could get along with.
But as it is, Hamilton hates Jefferson, and Jefferson hates him. It’s a good arrangement, the closest thing Hamilton has had to normality in almost a year. At Columbia, he could channel his spare hatred at his half-friend, half-rival Aaron Burr. These days Hamilton doesn’t like to think of him much though, lest he be reminded that his old frenemy is probably dead too.
(He didn’t really hate Burr. He never did, and he never told him.)
Hamilton focuses his anger and hate onto Jefferson instead, refining it to a needle point as time goes on. Jefferson is easy to piss off and gives as good as he gets, baits Hamilton just as much as Hamilton baits him. In a twisted way, he must like having Hamilton around. Hamilton’s an easy emotional punching bag, someone to snap or snarl at that isn’t Madison.
Madison, Hamilton has realized, is probably the only damn human being other that Jefferson cares about other than himself.
And Madison, on the other hand, Hamilton only hates sometimes. He’s Jefferson’s antithesis in so many ways: reserved, unassuming, petite where Jefferson is too fucking loud, too fucking ostentatious, too fucking broad and too fucking willing to lord his height over Hamilton. But Madison's intelligence is soft-spoken instead of flamboyant, and his insults are disguised so cleverly that sometimes Hamilton can hardly tell when to take offense. Madison’s an asshole, sure, an outright elitist, but he's not as blatant about it as Jefferson. Sometimes Hamilton can even hold a conversation with him. Madison usually spends their talks looking at him with undisguised pity, sure, but Hamilton can ignore it for the sake of simply talking to someone with an ounce of intelligence—if he bites his tongue hard enough.
Jefferson and Madison are an odd pair, and yet... they make perfect sense. Both whip-smart elitist assholes, both old-money Virginians, both former vaguely slimy former Colony Representatives—probably both would-be Cabinet members of a new country, had the outbreak happened later.
And both gay or bisexual or some other variation of not straight, apparently.
(Seriously—how the hell did Hamilton not see it sooner?)
Hamilton chooses to find the humor in the fact that they continue to try to hide it from him, whether out of habit or secrecy or fuck knows what else.
He lets it drag on, amuses himself by counting the number of times one of them starts to make some vaguely sexual allusion only to cut off mid-sentence when they realize Hamilton is awake in the backseat. Madison, even with his apparently suppressed spectrum of human emotions, smiles when Jefferson cracks a joke no matter how unfunny it actually is—and given that it's Thomas Jefferson, they're usually not fucking funny. Hamilton gets the most pleasure out of seeing Jefferson getting caught ass-staring. The look Madison gives him could wither leaves off a tree.
(Jefferson is fucking whipped, Hamilton notes with no small amount of glee).
The novelty wears off after a couple weeks, though, and it becomes blatantly apparent over dinner one night that maybe he’s let his pretense of ignorance go on too long. It’s late October; the days are getting shorter and colder, and they’re sitting around a bay of hale in a shabby, freezing farmhouse where half the planks in the wall are mottled with holes. It's the best they could find for the night. It smells vaguely like shit, and it's not a metaphor.
“I’m just saying,” Jefferson says, a distinctly critical note in his voice, “that we should’ve stopped earlier. And then maybe we wouldn’t have had to stop at a condemned fucking farmhouse in the middle of goddamned nowhere.”
“You wanted to stop fifteen miles outside of Norfolk,” Madison shoots back. A rare suggestion of aggravation seeps into his expression—directed at Jefferson for once, not Hamilton. “Norfolk—the second biggest city in goddamned Virginia. I'd prefer to give privilege to cautiousness.”
Jefferson stabs his fork into his bowl, somehow making the act of eating mac-and-cheese violent. He chews violently, swallows violently. Both of them completely ignore Hamilton. He tells himself he doesn't care, that he doesn't want to be dragged into their relationship issues, but it pisses him off anyways.
“The average American couldn’t walk fifteen miles if they tried—let alone the average Virginian, let alone when there’s fucking viral fungus growing out of their face,” Jefferson argues. “But you know who likes abandoned farmhouses in middle of ass-fuck nowhere Virginia? Crazy fucking rednecks with shotguns!”
“You’re pro-gun,” Hamilton mildly points out. “Sounds like a self-made problem.”
Jefferson jerks to him, surprise at Hamilton’s continued existence fading almost instantly to irritation.
“First of all—this is Virginia. Only dumbasses that want to waste half a million dollars campaigning run here as pro-gun control. Second, if I didn’t have goddamned armory in my trunk, you’d be dead a dozen times over. Don’t pretend like you have the fucking high ground here unless you wanna return all the shit I've loaned you.” Immediately, Jefferson turns back to Madison, his irritation overflowing. “Third—we’re going to get murdered in the middle of ass-fuck nowhere!"
"I made a judgment call. If you don't like it, then volunteer to drive when it's my turn."
"Jesus, if it's that or sleeping in Mary's manger, I'll gladly fuckin' drive."
Madison is dangerously close to shattering the glass in his grip, his expression outright murderous. He opens his mouth, gets out a growled Thomas, then cuts himself off with a look at Hamilton. Breathing unevenly, Madison leans back in his chair, tossing the crook of his elbow over his face.
Jefferson hesitates as he looks Madison over. Slowly, the anger melts off his face.
His hand twitches towards Madison—then stops. Jefferson doesn’t look at Hamilton, but Hamilton knows Jefferson’s acutely aware of his presence, measuring his actions carefully. Reluctantly, Jefferson’s hand falls back onto to the table. He returns to his bowl of mac-and-cheese—and for the first time since Hamilton’s been around him, Jefferson has the decency to look guilty.
It’s around then that Hamilton wonders if he’s maybe fucked up a little. He wonders a moment—wonders about the stress of constantly staying closeted for the sake of a political career in the South, wonders about the stress of thinking you’re finally free come the apocalypse—only to have to pick up the act again. There’s no real reason to bother, of course—it’s pretty obvious that Congress isn’t going to be in session anytime soon. It’s not like he’s got any tabloids to sell their secret to—and he wouldn't have anyways. They know he was in a relationship with another man, for fuck's sake.
Still.
Hamilton has to think he understands the stress better than most. Before the Henry Laurens fiasco, he and John wore the same shoes.
“Alright,” he loudly announces, standing up. “I’m going to go for a walk.” He glances down at the watch Jefferson reluctantly lent him—another fucking Rolex—then looks back up. “I’ll be back in two hours—maybe longer.” Jefferson and Madison exchange a look and another silent conversation. For the first time all evening, their expressions soften to a point where it looks like homicide's off the table. “Probably longer,” Hamilton mutters as he leaves.
It’s almost dusk outside. Despite how late in the year it is, it’s pleasantly warm out. Hamilton shucks off his expensive borrowed wool coat, wanders away from the farmhouse. About a hundred yards out, a cluster of trees shelters a small brook. Hamilton pulls off his shoes, wades into the water, walks downstream until he’s at the base of a small waterfall. Beyond it, the bottom drops out and the brook widens, creating a pleasant looking pool. He considers the water a second, then doubles back to the Escalade, pops open the hatch, digs through Jefferson’s shit until he finds what he’s looking for, then heads back to the pool.
The air is cool on his skin as he strips out of his clothes, folding them neatly by the bank. Carefully, he checks his gun, leaves it right on top of the stack, then sifts through Jefferson’s shit. It’s ridiculous how many bath products the man carries around—in the middle of the goddamned apocalypse, no less—but it gives Hamilton half a dozen choices for how he wants to smell. He settles on Bourbon Sandalwood—whatever the fuck that is—then wades into the creek.
The water is pleasantly chilly, and Hamilton reluctantly concedes that Bourbon Sandalwood is a much more pleasant smell than dried blood. It’s the deepest clean he’s had in a long time: he washes his hair three times, conditions it for the first time in months, then scrubs every inch of his skin until it’ll bleed if he scrubs any longer. It takes considerable doing to get the grime out from under his nails, but he even manages that. By the time he leaves the water, he actually feels human.
Like he might recognize his reflection if he saw it.
The sun has set, but the last dredges of daylight light the creek, and the moon hangs low in a clear sky overhead, so Hamilton spends another half hour washing his clothes. He ignores the sheer amount of dirt and blood that the water washes away, because it's too fucking much to think about. He misses his washing machine. His dryer.
As his clothes air dry, he sits on the bank. Another night, he might feel uneasy being outside alone past dark. Tonight, after so long spent in close quarters with two men that he doesn't even like, it feels peaceful.
Finally, when his watch ticks past nine, Hamilton gets dressed again, walks slowly back to the farmhouse. It’s quiet, but he approaches noisily to announce his presence.
“It’s me!” he calls as he knocks on the door.
Something falls over inside the farmhouse. There’s cursing.
The door swings open a few seconds later.
“Damn, announce it to the whole fucking countryside, why don’t you?” Jefferson scowls. "I was trying to get ready for bed, for fuck's sake."
He looks like he got caught outside in a fucking tornado. His hair is as wild as Hamilton’s ever seen it, half the buttons on his shirt are mismatched, and he’s wearing sweatpants instead of his slacks from earlier. Hamilton debates taking the high road for exactly half a second, which is just how long it takes for Jefferson to open his mouth again.
“Jesus—you actually smell like you’re not decomposing.”
“What an ironic coincidence,” Hamilton dryly tells him. “You do.”
Jefferson’s scowl deepens—then deepens even more when he sees his shower bag in Hamilton’s hands.
“Give me that,” he orders as swipes it out of Hamilton’s hands.
Hamilton bites down the all-too-familiar urge to punch him. Instead, he walks past Jefferson, then pauses, looking back and pointedly looking him up and down.
“You know, I think I saw a couple shotgun rednecks out there while I was washing up.” He flashes his teeth. “I hope you can out-limp them when they come knocking.”
It’s the closest Jefferson has ever been to strangling him, which is saying something. Hamilton brushes by him, glances around until he sees Madison, who's somehow as put together as ever. Impassively, Madison looks up from a cup of tea. His eyes slide past Hamilton to where Jefferson is presumably still fuming. He looks back to Hamilton, vague displeasure settling on his face: what have you done now?
"Stop wearing those," Hamilton tells him, jamming a finger towards Madison's permanent scarf. "I get it: Jefferson's a fucking neck-sucking parasite. Guess what? I don't fucking care. Just don't screw around anywhere where I'd overhear."
How Madison manages to cram so much irritation into little more than a sigh, Hamilton has no idea.
And then Jefferson and Madison make no secret of their relationship. They’re decent enough not to get up to anything while Hamilton is around, and Hamilton values eating dinner in peace enough to give them time to themselves whenever it’s safe to wander around outside alone. Admittedly, none of them ever acknowledge that they're less than platonic in their affections. Hamilton alludes to it sometimes when he and Jefferson are insulting each other, but that’s the extent of it. Things change a little, but not much.
Madison stops wearing scarves.
He and Jefferson don’t pretend they sleep in separate rooms when they hunker down in a house for the night. Hamilton still goes to bed alone. Madison and Jefferson talk quietly on one side of their campfires, making no secret of the way their legs are pressed together. Hamilton still sits and eats alone on the other side of the fire. Madison and Jefferson still only really talk to one another in the car while Hamilton pretends to sleep. Hamilton still lies in the back with his eyes closed, tries to ignore their discussions.
Jefferson and Madison talk.
Past. Future. Where they’re going. What they’re doing.
Eating dinner one night, it occurs to Hamilton that yeah, they’re fucking, sure, but that's not it—not really. That's the least of what they are.
They’re in love.
Jefferson’s hand rests so naturally atop Madison’s that it looks like second nature. Madison is only half-paying attention to what Jefferson’s saying—Hamilton can tell; he’s wearing the signature pleasant yet vaguely vacant smile of a politician pretending to pay attention—but his eyes shine. Nothing other than Jefferson ever wrings that expression out of Madison.
It’s an obvious conclusion, yet it’s never occurred to Hamilton before.
Jefferson’s words fade out. Static fills his ears. His chest is an empty hole.
Hamilton doesn’t even like either of them.
But he’d give anything to be sitting where one of them is. To have someone lay his hand over his. To have someone look at him with undisguised adoration. To have someone hold him tightly after a run-in with the infected or to make him tea when a cough settles in his throat.
He thinks of Laurens. Thinks of what he had. What he doesn’t have now.
Fucking was fine. In love is something else. Everything falls into an entirely different context.
It’s silent—and suddenly, Hamilton realizes that while he’s been staring at their intertwined hands, they’ve been watching him. Jefferson has obviously said something, asked him something that he hasn’t heard, and Hamilton’s been sitting there, dumb. Hamilton looks between the two of them, notes the unease on their faces.
“I… uh…”
There’s a startling moment where he realizes he’s crying.
A deeply uncomfortable second passes before Hamilton abruptly stands, the clatter of his silverware deafening in the silence. He spins on his heels, retreats outside.
Hamilton entertains the idea of walking without looking back, cutting loose then and there, but reality settles in; his things are all still in the house. He didn’t even take his gun with him. All he has are the clothes on his back and the knife in his belt. He’s stupid, but he’s not wander into the wilderness with nothing but a knife dumb. He’s not actively trying to sabotage his own chances at survival. That's the whole reason he's around them in the first place.
Things are going well—he’s still alive. He’s eating more. Sleeping a little more. Not enough, but just enough more to make a little difference. He has more energy. He has people to talk to, even if they don't give a damn what he says. His chances of dying at the side of the road are much lower in Jefferson’s expensive, expensive Cadillac Escalade.
So instead of cutting loose, Hamilton sits down and cries with Laurens’ pictures clutched in his hand. When he’s done, he goes back and finishes his dinner.
Madison and Jefferson have already gone to bed.
They don’t talk about it.
“Goddamn,” Jefferson wonders aloud, toeing the ground. “It’s fucking turf.”
Hamilton can’t fucking believe it. He is literally incapable of understanding that Thomas Jefferson is such a prick that he pulled them over solely to check out a golf course.
Jefferson examines the grass a moment longer, then turns to consider the clubhouse.
“You think they’ve got any clubs in there?” he asks Madison.
And that’s how Jefferson tops himself as the world’s greatest asshole. Not only does the man wear Louboutins after the world’s ended, not only does he pull over just to look at a freakishly well-manicured post-apocalyptic golf course, not only does he make them break into a clubhouse and kill half a dozen infected just to find a couple of sets of clubs, and not only does he search the bodies until he finds the keys to a working golf cart—but he also makes them play eighteen fucking holes of golf.
In the middle of the apocalypse.
Makes them play golf might actually be too strong of a phrase because Madison doesn’t exactly seem unenthusiastic about idea—but Jefferson definitely makes Hamilton get out of the Escalade to cart them around.
“Maybe I’ll teach you how to drive her if you prove you can handle this,” Jefferson blatantly bribes him—and Hamilton’s clearly much more of a dumbass than he likes to think, because he falls for it.
He's also their security escort, apparently—while they take practice swings and line up shots, Hamilton scans the woods, keeps his pistol cocked and ready in his lap. Madison and Jefferson stick close to the cart, of course, keep their own guns at arm's reach tucked in their waistbands—but still. It’s the end of the world, and here they are golfing somewhere in the middle of suburban Maryland.
Hamilton bitches between every hole, but for once, Jefferson doesn’t even bother to defend himself.
“You’re damn fucking right it’s gross excess of the elite,” he cheerily agrees, whistling some jaunty fucking Southern tune.
It’s probably the nicest Jefferson has ever been to him—hell, probably the nicest Jefferson’s ever been to a human being other than Madison. It’s a little freaky. Jefferson’s all smiles, all laughter, all pleasant conversation. Hamilton could even mistake him for a human being instead of the fucking snake in the grass he actually is.
“I don’t know anything about golf, but I’m pretty sure you fucking suck at it,” Hamilton comments on the eighth hole after Jefferson sends two balls in a row sailing ten yards wide into the waist-high grass beside the fairway; apparently, the rough isn’t turf.
“Neither of us have played in more than a year,” Jefferson replies, unbothered by his baiting. “We’re both rusty.”
A moment later, Madison swings and drives his ball three hundred yards straight down the fairway.
“Bastard,” Jefferson swears—and Hamilton bursts into laughter and decides that maybe golfing isn’t the worst waste of time in the history of mankind after all.
And apparently if he chips away long enough, stays patient, he can still get under Jefferson's skin. It takes another few holes of poking and prodding, but at last Jefferson turns around after shanking another shot with the familiar scowl Hamilton sees so often.
“Come on—why don’t you give it a swing?”
“Oh, no. I don’t play golf,” Hamilton replies, shaking his head. He's never played sports at all, for the matter, but he leaves that unsaid. After all, Jefferson's probably played every rich person sport under the sun: field hockey, lacrosse, rugby, actual polo, whatever the fuck squash is. "I’m not a jackass.”
“And you expect to have a career in politics?” Jefferson still sometimes seems to hold onto the idea that things will one day go back to business as usual. It's the one illusion Hamilton lets him keep. “Besides, you could at least do better than I just did.” Jefferson pauses, arches his brows, poses a challenge. “Couldn’t you?”
Jefferson knows exactly how to capitalize on Hamilton’s weaknesses.
“I have to watch the cart,” Hamilton tries to resist.
Madison waves off the concern, pulling out his revolver.
“I’ll cover you.”
And so Hamilton has no choice but to defend his pride, even though it means he has to break his never golfed streak. He figures it doesn’t count, though, what with it being end times.
Jefferson smirks as he hands him his driver. With a scoff, Hamilton yanks it out of his hand. Then, awkwardly, he lines himself up to take a shot. He has no idea what he’s doing, no idea how far apart his feet should be or how he should hold the club. He just tries to imitate what he’s seen the two of them doing all day. Quickly, he yanks the club back, swings—and hacks into the ground a good foot before the tee, never even touching the ball.
“I… uh…” Hamilton’s face burns red. “That was a practice swing.”
His second attempt, the club swings six inches over the top of the ball.
Jefferson smirks.
“Another practice swing?” he mocks.
Hamilton chooses to be angry instead of embarrassed, stubbornly lines up for a third shot—and Jefferson sighs tolerantly, then slides behind up him, his front pressed flush against Hamilton’s back. His hands rest atop Hamilton’s waist, guiding him.
“Here,” he says, his breath hot in Hamilton’s ear. “Spread your legs a little wider—there. And relax your shoulders. You’re too stiff. Good. Now… just like that.”
He’s too close, too warm. Except infected trying to fucking kill him, no has touched him in months. Hamilton doesn’t know how to react. He doesn't want to be touched. He doesn't want to remember what basic human contact is like when it's one of so many things he can't have.
He wants to pull away. He’s distracted, dry-mouthed and red-faced, sure he’ll miss the shot when Jefferson finally steps away. He swings hastily, desperate to retreat back to the safety of the cart.
The ball sails straight forwards and drops in the middle of the fairway just shy of two hundred yards downfield.
Jefferson hums appreciatively. Faint approval flickers across his face—probably the warmest emotion Hamilton's ever going to wring out of him.
“Not terrible,” he allows Hamilton, letting him make his retreat to the cart.
It's fucking ridiculous, but they spend the rest of the week there. He could complain, he figures.
But Jefferson and Madison are enjoying themselves, and, fuck, it doesn't matter that Hamilton doesn't like them. They don't like him, but they let him stick around anyways. Golfing is absurd and ridiculous and lots of other unkind adjectives, but it makes them happy, and Hamilton lets them have it. He sucks it up. He shuts up.
He golfs a little more, picks up enough skills to hack out a not-humiliating one-thirteen score during an eighteen-hole round towards the end of the week. But eventually, the clubhouse’s pantry empties out, more infected start wandering around the course, and it’s time to move on. Jefferson marks the location down on their map, and then it vanishes in the rear-view mirror.
Jazz plays on the stereo. Jefferson hums along good-naturedly in the front seat. Madison’s shoulders are loose, his almost ever-present tension drained away. Occasionally, they smile at one another. Jefferson's hand rests on Madison's knee, and they speak in silent conversations in a language he doesn't know and will never know.
In the backseat, Hamilton sits alone.
When he does sleep longer than a few hours—and that's a rare occasion—he sees Laurens.
Laurens holds his hand as they walk on a beach. He speaks, but Hamilton can never hear. He tries, tries to listen, tries to understand, tries to speak. He never can.
And he wakes up alone every time, the absence beside him louder than ever.
He has to keep moving. Keep surviving. Has to stay alive.
It's all he has left.
He does what he has to do to survive. He'll always do what he has to.
“Look what I found,” Hamilton tells them one afternoon, grinning madly.
Jefferson glances over from the sofa he's splayed on, takes one look at Hamilton's smile, then groans.
“For my own sake, I hope it’s whiskey.”
“It’s not—it’s better,” Hamilton answers. He lifts up his find: a compound bow. “I found this in the garage—plus a few dozen arrows and a quiver. A little practice and I should be able to take down infected at-range. I figure it’ll save bullets. Plus it should be quiet. Avoid drawing any extra attention.”
“If you don’t shoot your damn eye out first.”
Madison is only slightly more encouraging, and even then, it’s with ulterior motives.
“It would be nice not to use as many bullets.” He glances at Jefferson, then Hamilton. “If you’d like to practice…”
Hamilton takes the hint. He practices outside—fails miserably. Day after day, he works at it, aiming at targets farther and farther away each time. Moving targets are much harder, alas—but it's not like there's much else to do.
His stubbornness serves him well. It takes a few weeks, but it’s worth it when he comes back one day with a rabbit in hand.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Look at our little Apollo in-training,” Jefferson says, arching his brows.
"Don't call me that."
"Mhm, sure. So you know how to clean that up? Cook it?”
“No,” Hamilton irritably answers. It was always Laurens that did that, and he's angry he never thought to learn, angry he never thought he'd have to learn. He scowls and spits, “Normal people didn’t kill animals for fun before the world ended.”
“Oh, I’m sorry," Jefferson drawls, unimpressed. "It sounds like you want dinner with a side of parasites.”
Hamilton shoves the rabbit into Jefferson’s hands, scowling.
"Just fucking clean it, then."
He's about to storm away, but Jefferson sighs, stops him, raises his hands, dials down the jackass for just a moment.
“Not any good to know how to hunt if you can't even prep the meat. Here,” Jefferson says, almost kindly. Hamilton blinks in surprise. “I’ll show you.”
Shockingly, it doesn’t even rank in the top ten grossest things Hamilton’s done in the past year. Probably not even in the top ten grossest things he’s done in the past month.
Jefferson shows him the maneuvers to clean the insides, teaches him which organs to save and which to discard. He quizzes him mercilessly, but Hamilton is too good of a student not to exceed his expectations, answer right every time. Skinning the rabbit is a little tougher. He makes a wrong move. His hand slips. The knife slices hot into his palm.
“Fuck,” Hamilton hisses, pressing his shirt sleeve into cut as blood wells out of the wound. “Fuck—I’m gonna get rabies.”
“Pretty sure you’re not,” Jefferson retorts, sliding behind Hamilton once the bleeding's staunched.
His hands move atop Hamilton’s, ready to guide him through the right technique. Memories flash up uninvited in Hamilton's mind from times when there was someone to hold his hand. For a second, Hamilton freezes.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” he snarls a second later, violently jerking away.
Confusion floods Jefferson’s face, but he raises his hands and backs away, vaguely pissed.
“Fine, fine—cut off your damn finger. Bleed all over the damn thing. Whatever. I don't give a shit," he says as he strolls away.
Hamilton cuts himself three more times, but at least Jefferson doesn’t see.
Something wakes him up right as he falls asleep late one night, and he thinks it's infected, starts to panic.
And then he listens harder and realizes just how fucking thin the house's walls are.
Jesus fucking Christ, he thinks, embarrassment flooding his chest. Embarrassment, and something else that he refuses to indulge, refuses to think about.
Christ. He's not in the Colombia dorms anymore, and he certainly isn't still in college, much as he wishes he was. He shouldn't have to deal with this shit.
"Quiet the fuck down!" he at last shouts into the dark, his face red.
Madison refuses to make eye contact with him the next morning.
He'll do what it takes to stay alive.
It's all he can do.
Somewhere in Tennessee, they get cornered in the middle of a one-street town. They dash up a fire escape. Jefferson boosts them both up onto the roof of an old pharmacy—Madison first—then scrambles up after. They run. Hit the edge of a roof—but Madison never slows, launches across the gap to the next roof, and Hamilton follows in hot pursuit.
The shrieks of the infected are close, so close, so fucking close. Hamilton sprints, refuses to look back, feels his heart about to burst in his chest.
Stay alive. Stay alive. Stay alive.
But then there’s a pop and an ear-splitting shriek behind him—a human shriek—and he looks back. He's just in time to see Jefferson fall hard, terrified, clutching at his ankle.
“Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck,” Jefferson cries. "Jemmy!"
Not good. Bad timing, bad luck, bad situation.
“Hamilton!” Madison yells, doubling back at light speed. “Cover us!”
Hamilton looks back at the pack of infected racing towards them, closing the gap—ten, fifteen, twenty?
He has one full clip, plus five spare bullets. Madison is hauling an injured Jefferson over his shoulder. He’s impressively strong, impressively fast—not fast enough. They’re outnumbered. Out-manned.
Hamilton can outmaneuver the infected, save his bullets, but he can’t do it with Madison and Jefferson dragging ass behind him. But Madison will never leave Jefferson; Jefferson’s dead weight. Jefferson’s going to drag them all down. Jefferson's going to get them all killed.
There’s a choice to make. It’s a numbers game—Hamilton tells it to himself again and again, repeats it like a mantra as he raises his gun.
He’s run with the two of them long enough. It’s time to cut loose.
He has to stay alive. It's all there's left for him to do.
It all happens in the span of a second.
Hamilton’s gun levels at Madison: one last act of kindness, of mercy.
At least don’t let them get torn apart.
Madison’s eyes meet his for a fraction of a second.
And Hamilton’s hand jerks at the last possible second. He aims over their heads, starts shooting at the infected leaping across the rooftop.
Headshot. Headshot. Hit to the neck.
Crunching and shrieks fill the air—the infected that make the jump aren’t having much more luck landing than Jefferson. Hamilton ignores the hobbled, broken-legged ones, aims at the ones still tearing forwards. Some are so close to Madison, barely an arm's reach away—
Headshot. Headshot. Headshot. Reload.
Madison tears past him to the edge of the roof, throws Jefferson against the wall, joins Hamilton's side with his revolver raised. The infected come and come and come.
Headshot. Headshot. Miss. Shoulder. Headshot.
Hamilton’s gun clicks empty. The infected are rushing him, and he's closer than Madison.
“I’m out!” he shouts, drawing his knife—you should’ve run.
Madison swings, shoots one of them five feet away from Hamilton. Hamilton knifes another, shoves it away, knifes a third. Madison cuts down the rest.
“Hamilton!” Jefferson shouts.
He turns just in time to catch Jefferson’s shotgun as it arcs through the air. Whirling, he starts shooting just as Madison has to reload.
Headshot.
It kicks back so hard it nearly falls out of his hands and knocks him on his ass. It’s a miracle he doesn’t drop it.
Headshot. Headshot. Madison starts shooting. A third gun fires from behind them. Headshot.
In another ten seconds, it’s over. Piles of infected litter the ground in front of them. A few never managed to get back up after the jump—he and Madison draw their knives and deal with them swiftly. No sooner is the last one dead than does Madison rush back across the roof to tend to Jefferson.
"Thomas," he gets out, voice terrified, cracked in a dozen different way. "Thomas, Christ, Thomas—"
"I'm here, baby, it's alright, shh, I'm here, I'm here—"
It hurts too much to listen. Hamilton turns to search the bodies. Only then does he finally notice how bad his hands are shaking. He can't keep them still, even as he tries to keep them busy. The corpses are mostly worthless. Wallets, cash, phones: all useless to him now. He keeps all the keys for now, at least—if they find them cars and houses are much more likely to have things of interest. One body has a nice pair of sunglasses that he tucks away. A few have lighters and cigarettes. He stashes those too. He finds a multitool in the pocket of something that used to be man and tries to open the blade; his shaking hands mean he ends up slicing a finger instead.
“Fuck,” he gasps, drawing Madison’s attention away from his tending.
Madison watches him from across the rooftop a moment, then murmurs something to Jefferson that Hamilton can’t quite catch. Madison kisses him, runs reverent hands over his face. Jefferson puts his hand over one of Madison's, brings Madison's knuckles to his lips. Holds them there a long time before he at last lets go. And only then Madison stands, walks over to join Hamilton.
“You’re bleeding,” he notes.
The indifference in Madison's voice sounds a little shaky, but Hamilton's still visibly shaking. He can't stop. It's unfair Madison can put himself back together so well. It's unfair that he has someone else to help him do it.
“Thanks for noticing,” Hamilton snaps.
Madison pulls a handkerchief from his pocket—a fucking handkerchief, monogrammed and all—then dabs mildly at Hamilton’s cut. The tenderness, limited as it is, shocks him into stillness. He watches on silently as Madison applies pressure to staunch the bleeding. Neither of them make eye contact as he does, and it's a long minute before he at last pulls away.
“Thank you,” Hamilton finally gets out, careful, quiet, acutely aware of the terse air between them.
Silence hangs between them for a moment. Madison leans over the infected's body as if inspecting it: Hamilton can tell it’s only a pretense put on for Jefferson’s sake. To be sure, Madison’s eyes lift after a second, suddenly growing dark and cold as they meet his.
He saw, Hamilton realizes before Madison even gets out the accusation.
“You thought about shooting us."
“That’s not...” Hamilton begins to protest, but Madison silences him with a look.
Everything is still. The silence is profound. Finally, Madison relents, takes the conversation in a different direction so suddenly that Hamilton's sure it was done just to throw him off balance.
“Thomas’s ankle is badly sprained—perhaps broken.”
“How long’s it going to take to heal?” he asks, uncertain.
“Optimistically speaking, a week. Likely longer.”
Shit luck again—but now it’s time for Hamilton to cut loose. Not letting two people that’ve been helpful and vaguely kind die violently in front of him is one thing. Hanging around with someone badly hurt and half-immobilized is another. They may as well start ringing the dinner bells for every infected in a thirty-mile radius. Sure, the three of them pulled through this horde, but how long before they get cornered again? What’ll happen if Jefferson’s ankle is broken, not sprained? What if he’s too hurt to walk for weeks—or months—instead of days?
Hamilton’s own humanity surprised him here, but even he has to have his limits. He has to survive. He isn’t going to put his neck on the line long-term for somebody that doesn’t give half a shit about him.
“Well, then it’s a good thing the town’s mostly clear now, huh?” he tries to joke.
“If it isn’t, Thomas will be a liability,” Madison tells him, serious. A lingering pause. “There may be times when I’m a liability. My immune system isn’t exactly the most well constituted.” Dark eyes lock onto him. “Of course, there may be times when you’re a liability. You're only human, Hamilton.”
Hamilton isn’t sure where this speech is going, but he feels vaguely uneasy.
“As much as I would like to pretend otherwise, there may be times when Thomas and I aren’t enough to look after one another,” Madison admits, even though it seems physically prick his pride to say so. “Having a third person around then would be valuable—but only if you’re fully committed.” Madison talks like a politician: poised, collected, mild. He makes deals like the fucking Devil. “Perhaps we can come to a compromise: if you choose to stay, if you agree to look after us when we’re injured or unwell or in danger, then we’ll do the same for you. Consider it a partnership. An exchange of mutual trust.”
“I don’t need either of you,” Hamilton objects, defensiveness swelling in his chest. “I can take care of myself.”
“And so can we—until one of us can’t walk.” Madison silences him with a raised hand. “If you choose to walk away now, I won’t hold it against you. I’ll give you a cut of our food, supplies, another gun. Regardless of what you were thinking of doing, you... saved us. I..." His gaze flickers to Jefferson, worry mixing with fear and too much love for any one man to have. And like that, his eyes go flat when they shift back to him. "I’m obligated to return the favor.”
Madison’s eyes bore into him. With nowhere to escape to, Hamilton looks away.
“But if you choose to stay, you’d damned well better be in it for the long haul. If anything happens because you hesitated or, God forbid, you run.” His voice blazes. “Then I’ll have nothing better to do with myself other than to track you down. And God help us both, trust me when I say you’d rather that the infected get to you first.”
Hamilton thinks of Madison bludgeoning infected to death with a bat for the meager crime of interrupting his morning meditation. He thinks of Madison shooting a dozen infected with perfect aim, all without batting an eye. He thinks of Madison: understated, unassuming, all grace until he’s angry.
Madison’s not bluffing.
“Think it over.” He stands. “Finish checking these bodies. I’m going to take Thomas down into the pharmacy to see if I can find anything to heal his ankle.”
“Madison,” Hamilton blurts out before he can go.
He waits until the man turns to him. The words Hamilton wants don’t come—a rare occasion—but Madison knows what he’s trying to say. The man’s face smooths over into clean aloofness, blank formality descending over him like a cloak.
“I understand,” Madison says, his voice cold instead of cool. “I’ll put your things together tonight.”
They scrounge up a few single-use ice packs in the pharmacy. No painkillers, but Madison and Jefferson break into the good stuff stashed in the Escalade. Jefferson pops three Oxys, bitching and moaning the entire time. Usually, Hamilton would bitch right back, call him out for being overdramatic, but one look at Jefferson’s violently purple, violently swollen ankle shuts him up. For once, he doesn’t think Jefferson’s exaggerating.
Madison’s right—it might be a break, not a sprain. All the more reason for him to split.
They find a tiny one-story house half a mile outside town. He and Madison check it out, clear the living room of two infected, then carry a half-unconscious Jefferson inside and onto a bed. The painkillers have made him drowsy, less of an asshole than usual. He even mutters a warm goodnight to Hamilton when they leave the room.
Clearly Madison hasn't told him yet about how Hamilton originally planned to handle the roof.
Madison closes the bedroom door, retreats to the car, then comes back inside with a stuffed backpack. With a pointed look, he hands it to Hamilton.
“Goodnight, Hamilton,” he says. Hamilton pauses, weighing what to say. A dozen unspoken statements hang in the air. Neither of them knows which to say, which to left unsaid forever. Finally, Madison nods, settles on a cool, civil, “Good luck. For whatever it might be worth to you...”
But he trails off and seems to think better of whatever he was on the brink of saying.
"Good luck, Hamilton," Madison repeats, shaking his head. "I hope you find whatever you're looking for."
And with that, Madison joins Jefferson.
A chapter of Hamilton’s life closes with the bedroom door.
He wanders into the living room. Heavily, he falls onto the couch, and his eyes gradually drift to the brown-black bloodstains left from killing the two infected.
Hamilton thinks.
He and Jefferson are just as likely to shoot each other than to band together to fend off an infected attack. He hates Jefferson; Jefferson hates him. They’ll never get along—let alone be friends. But, reluctantly, Hamilton has to admit that Jefferson is a fucking force to be reckoned with when he has his sawed-off shotgun: loud, vicious, deadly.
Madison, on the other hand, Hamilton could maybe learn to peacefully coexist with. They at least have a little in common, whereas about the only thing he and Jefferson agree on is that the colonies should’ve broken away three centuries ago. When it comes to taking out infected, he and Madison make a good team—stealthy, fast, efficient.
But Madison and Jefferson make an even better team. The two fight together like fucking psychics. Entire conversations happen with mere nods and minute expressions. Not even he and Laurens could’ve held a candle to two of them together—though, of course, that’s partly because Hamilton never so much as held a gun until last winter.
(Sometimes he can still feel Laurens’ hands over his, guiding his aim. Hear the instructions murmured into his ear. The praise when he finds his target.)
Point is: at the end of the day, Hamilton is the third wheel in every possible way.
Things are going to get desperate with Jefferson’s ankle. Things are going to get even more desperate as winter sets in, as the world continues to descend into depravity and chaos and fascism in the few places with a government left to speak of. The holdout cities on the east coast, the few still under British control, the few free safe cities like Charleston—they'll all fall somehow one way or another. There are going to be less supplies, more brigades of Redcoats and bandits to defend against, more infected hordes as more people get exposed to the fungus. It’s going to get worse than it is now, and Hamilton's past believing it'll ever get better.
And when the time comes, the single most desperate moment of their lives, Jefferson and Madison will choose to save each other. Not him.
Someday, there’s going to be two soldiers or two infected or two bandits, but only one bullet in a chamber. Hamilton wouldn’t blame them—not really. If things were different, he’d choose Laurens first too. But he’s gotten as much from them as he can get. It’s time to move on.
Hamilton opens the pack Madison gave him to take stock. It’s generous—canned food, a first-aid kit, some survival gear, a few boxes of ammo, a snub-nosed revolver—even a box of the instant coffee packs that he’s constantly complaining taste like shit, even though he’d never survive at all without some kind of caffeine.
It’s more than enough to get him somewhere.
Hamilton doesn’t know where he’s going. There’s just as little worth going to as there was when he first joined up with the two of them. He won’t go to one of the holdout cities after Charleston. He won’t go back to New York or to South Carolina. He’ll just go somewhere—wherever the road takes him.
Hamilton zips up the pack. He stands, slinging it over his shoulders to join his other pack. He heads towards the door, out into the night. Down the driveway, past the Escalade, onto the dirt road stretching out West. West sounds good—it’s a good a place to go as any.
He walks. Rocks pierce through his worn shoe soles and stab into his feet, but he ignores them. Hamilton leaves Madison and Jefferson behind him, and he lets himself be alone again.
Five miles down the road, Hamilton nearly breaks his neck.
He sprawls forward, lands hard in the dirt, cuts his hands open on gravel and dirt. Angrily, he groans, pushes up into a sit, weighing if it’s worth the bullet it’d take to shoot the rock he's tripped over out of frustration when the rock moves.
Hamilton almost loses his goddamned mind, afraid that he’s tripped over some goddamned decapitated infected skull. His gun is half-raised when the rock blinks at him, slow and deliberate. Its neck twists to turn at him. It watches him, and as inhuman as it is, it still manages to look annoyed.
It’s a fucking turtle.
And like that, Hamilton's dragged back to the past, to his first fucking date at the New York Aquarium, to Laurens laughing and pointing out Loggerheads and Leatherbacks and Hawksbills. "I had turtle phase when I was younger," Laurens' voice echoes in his mind, and even though it's been so long, it sounds so fucking real that Hamilton can barely breathe. "Didn't end up being a marine biologist, but I figured it'd come in handy someday." And Hamilton thinks of the Spring Break he brought Laurens to Florida to watch Loggerheads hatch, of the way Laurens looked at him with his face lit up by moonlight. "I love you," he hears Laurens tell him, but it's only a memory.
Between the tears that threaten to well up in his eyes at the memories, Hamilton almost laughs at the absurdity of it all. It's so fucking stupid. It's all so fucking stupid, and nothing makes sense, and why does he even bother? Why the fuck does he even bother?
Near hysterical, Hamilton sits back on the gravel and watches the stupid fucking turtle.
It watches back, as if asking him what the hell he’s doing walking alone down a dirt road in the middle of the goddamned night. Does he want to die like a dumbass? Déjà vu hits him.
It takes a moment to realize that this was almost exactly how he ended up going with Jefferson and Madison in the first place.
Hamilton spends a long few minutes sitting there. He thinks of Laurens, of how he's supposed to survive, of how it's a numbers game, always a numbers game.
Finally, he stands, then keeps walking—this time, back towards the house.
The sun is half-risen by the time he makes it back. The Escalade is still in the driveway, but the house looks silent. Hamilton approaches quietly, swinging the door open as silently as he can. Murmurs come from the kitchen, letting Hamilton know that they’re already up. Still, he doesn’t turn back. Fighting with himself, he enters the kitchen.
Madison and Jefferson’s guns are on him in a second, but when they see who it is, blatant surprise splashes across their faces: déjà vu—again. Madison is the first to recover, lowering his gun. He doesn't quite seem to believe it, but he smooths over his disbelief, sits back down, tells him,
“We made coffee.”
Enough for three, Hamilton notes. Three mugs on the table.
His throat dries.
“Where the hell have you been?” Jefferson drawls, slurring slightly from the painkillers.
“I was looking for water,” Hamilton replies, not meeting their eyes. He shrugs off his packs, beelines towards the disgusting, gritty, instant coffee mixture. “Some of us need to sustain ourselves on something other than bullshit.”
“I pity those people,” Jefferson casually drawls after he and Madison exchange a long look.
And despite himself, Jefferson actually smiles at Hamilton, all shiny white teeth. It’s the painkillers, Hamilton decides as he pours himself a mug of coffee.
It doesn't taste like shit this morning.
Once Jefferson's ankle heals, he finally teaches Hamilton how to drive.
Hamilton takes over driving at night, lets the two of them sleep huddled together in the backseat. When the car is quiet and the open road is all that’s in front of him, sometimes the world doesn’t seem awful.
They wake up one night to half a dozen infected pounding on the doors of the Escalade.
It’s a terrifying first for Hamilton, but Jefferson and Madison only greet the threat with irritated, tired sighs. Sleepily, they untangle their limbs from one another, then reach for their guns. Hamilton’s hands shake so badly from being woken to the sight of an infected screaming a foot away from his face that he can hardly lift his pistol. The noise is strangely muted inside the car, but he can see into the infected’s mouth, see the decay, the fungus growing out of its face.
“Calm down,” Jefferson drawls when he takes note of Hamilton’s hands. “The glass’s bulletproof, and the body’s reinforced. Car’s built to stand up to a grenade—one of the perks of being a politician.”
“Well, it’s not a fucking grenade—it’s an ambush. How the hell are we supposed to get out? We're trapped.”
“We can either pop up through the sunroof and shoot them if we don’t mind using the bullets, or I can run over any in the way. ‘s awful for the alignment, though,” Madison answers, his voice a low rumble from sleep. He runs a hand over his face, irritable. Madison hates being woken up unceremoniously almost as much as he hates being disturbed while he’s meditating, Hamilton has learned. “Or we could go the hell back to bed.”
Hamilton doesn’t want to waste bullets, but he also very much doesn’t want the Escalade to break down in the middle of an apocalypse because they ran over too many infected.
“Hold on,” Hamilton mutters, sitting up and leaning over the backseat to rummage through the trunk.
He comes up victorious a few moments later with his compound bow and quiver.
“Really?” Jefferson asks. “Shooting one damn rabbit is a whole different ballpark, Hamilton.”
He doesn’t dignify Jefferson with a reply, just stands and waits for Madison to peel back the sunroof. He pops through into the cold night air—and Jefferson joins him, his shotgun in hand. It’s a little terrifying to see the infected swarming the sides of the car, their arms swiping a mere foot away from his legs—but reassuringly, none of them seem to have the coordination or intelligence to actually climb onto the roof. Hamilton thanks whatever god there is for that mercy.
“Don’t miss,” Jefferson warns him, aiming at the nearest infected.
Hamilton scowls, loads the bow—delivers an arrow straight into the skull of the nearest infected. At this range, aiming is easy. Reloading between each shot is admittedly slower than a gun, a few seconds he can’t spare in a close-range fight—but each arrow flies straight and almost silent into the infecteds’ skulls. Jefferson’s brows gradually lift in appreciation.
Within a couple minutes, the last of the infected is dead. All’s silent again.
“Cover me,” Hamilton tells Jefferson as he lifts himself out of the car and drops to the ground.
Hamilton recovers his arrows, searches the bodies—nothing of any real interest, save for a couple lighters. He cleans the viscera off the arrowheads, then returns to the car.
“Well-done,” Madison comments, eyeing Hamilton’s bow. “I might have to look for one of those myself.”
From Madison, it’s pretty high fucking praise.
One evening, Jefferson drops a pair of shoes into Hamilton’s lap.
“Madison got these for you while he was out.” He motions to Hamilton’s feet. “He said yours are falling apart so damn bad it’s a miracle you haven’t gotten tetanus.”
Hamilton almost argues—then remembers that the sole of his right show is only holding on through sheer willpower and duct-tape. His toes have been sticking out of his left shoe since August.
Hamilton tries them on. They’re his size, fit well. It’s been so long since he’s had nice ones that it’s a surprise not to feel like his toes are only a few minutes away from frostbite. Jefferson watches, then nods in satisfaction before going to wash clothes.
“Thanks for the shoes,” Hamilton tells Madison later that evening while the two of them clean their guns.
Madison glances over to him, bemusement lifting his brows.
“What shoes?”
"The ones Jefferson gave to me."
"Ah," Madison replies. "I'm glad he was able to find a suitable pair. He's been worrying over your old ones for weeks."
In mid-December, the first frost glazes the ground.
As he eyes the whitened grass, Hamilton wonders if it’s time for him to split. It’s instinct—habit more than anything else. He and Laurens barely made it through the first end-of-the-world winter. Food is harder to come by in winter. People get more desperate in winter. And even though they don’t come across people very often these days, every encounter is a chance for things to go south.
But Hamilton is—he’s staying. For now.
He knows it’s probably a mistake, knows it’s only going to hurt him in the end. But he stays.
“Should we head farther south?” Jefferson asks—and perhaps for the first time, it seems like the question is directed at Hamilton just as much as Madison. “The Escalade’s got four-wheel drive, but I don’t know how much I want to risk our luck with outrunning infected in the snow.”
“What did you do last winter?”
“Mm. We found a cabin in deep Georgia. Stayed there January through March—but we were better stocked then. Supplies were a lot easier to come by even just a year ago,” Madison answers. “And you?”
“We were—” Hamilton wavers. There was still a we back then. “We were in Charleston.”
The air suddenly feels very still. Hamilton has never told them about what happened there, but they clearly already know.
“Oh,” Jefferson finally says, soft, sympathetic, pitying.
Hamilton’s stomach lurches.
“It was a fucking slaughterhouse,” he says, quiet. “I started going north after that. Kept moving. You found me while I was in Virginia—and here we are, I guess.”
“Then what do we do? Find somewhere to stay for the winter, or stay on the road?”
The question weighs on them all the way down into Kentucky.
In Kentucky, their luck runs out.
They get split up—Jefferson goes right, Madison and Hamilton go left.
They end up in a department store. Hamilton’s gun misfires, and Madison’s revolver runs empty. They get cornered in the men’s department, outnumbered ten, twelve, fifteen to two. It’s desperate. Violent swinging, frantic stabbing. Screaming. Black blood spatters their faces, soaks their hands.
Hamilton yanks his knife out of a skull, turns to see Madison swarmed.
It’s a split-second.
Him or you.
But Hamilton thinks of Madison’s threat, knows Jefferson will make good on it too, thinks of Laurens and of everyone waiting for him on the other side. But then he thinks of surviving, of the old, deep-rooted habit he has to live on even when there’s nothing left to live for.
Pure habit readies him to run.
He looks at Madison one last time—and that’s his mistake.
For the first time since Hamilton has known him, Madison looks afraid. Not afraid—terrified. His eyes are wide, panicked, his mouth twisted into a horrified grimace. He’s frightened. Cornered.
Hamilton isn’t.
With a shout, Hamilton charges. He shoulder-checks the infected closest to him, grabs another as he goes down. With a squelch, his knife runs through the first infected’s eye. A second goes down right after, but his blade catches when tries to pull it away. He barely yanks it out in time to stop a third, stabs: his knife makes a home in its neck.
The next infected's teeth make their home in his.
Hamilton's mouth opens in silent surprise.
The infected yanks away hard, ripping flesh. Muscle. Bone’s exposed. Hamilton’s whole world goes white-hot. His neck's soaked in blood in a second. Dazed, his eyes flicker up. Madison looks on, wide-eyed, open-mouthed, horrified.
“Madison,” Hamilton tries to say, but the sound doesn't make it past his lips.
And then Madison kicks the infected off of him, stomps its head until pulpy brain leaks out. Hamilton feels dizzy. His whole front is bloody now. Madison tears through the last few infected, furious, screaming swears and bloody murder. In a fucked-up way, it’s beautiful. Waltz-like. Piano chords play somewhere in the back of his mind.
Hamilton’s hand reaches up, touches his neck. Slowly, he stands—then collapses.
“You motherfucker,” Madison snarls, suddenly at his side. His cool façade is shattered, anger plain in his eyes, swears falling freely from his mouth. “You stupid, stupid motherfucker.”
He pulls out a handkerchief—seriously, Hamilton thinks, what is it with politicians and their fucking handkerchiefs? It hurts like a bitch when he seals it to Hamilton’s neck, desperately trying to staunch the bleeding. It’s useless, a band-aid over a fucking bullet wound. Hamilton says nothing.
Distantly, more shrieks sound through the store.
“We need to go,” Madison tells him. Hamilton thinks of the first outbreak, thinks of how Laurens once told him the same thing. Laurens seems closer than ever. “We’ve gotta get out of here.”
With surprising strength, Madison scoops Hamilton into his arms. He stops just long enough to collect their dropped guns, then breaks into a sprint. Hamilton falls unconscious. When he comes to, it’s all white. So white, for a moment, he thinks he’s already dead.
Then the pain of his mauled neck sets in again, dissipating the fantasy. He cries out, trying to lift a hand to his neck to do—something. His hands catch, though, and he looks up to find his wrists bound to bedposts by thick rope. His wrists sting brutally, already rubbed raw, but it’s background noise compared to the agony in his neck. Madison suddenly bursts into the room, looking alarmed. He relaxes only slightly when he sees Hamilton, then is at his side in a second, clamping a hand over his mouth.
“Shh—there’s a hundred of them outside looking for us. Don’t make a sound,” he urgently explains, voice hushed. Slowly, he lifts his hand. He repeats, “Don’t make a sound.”
“Madison.” Hamilton swallows. “What are you doing?”
Madison’s eyes flash with anger.
“What am I doing?”
“Why am I not dead? You know what happens when you get bit—why am I not dead?”
“Because I’m waiting for you to die! Christ, Hamilton, you would get bit the one damn time when I have no ammo, no knife, and a hundred damn infected swarming outside.” His hands are balled into fists at his side. “We’re trapped. I don’t know where Jefferson is. I can’t even kill you. I don’t have—"
“You have hands, don’t you?” Hamilton almost yells, his volume tempered only by the infected outside. “Bash my fucking head in. Use the fucking lamp if you have to. I’m not—fuck. I’m alive now—but for how long? A few days if I’m lucky? Probably less since I’m fucking hemorrhaging out of my goddamn neck. Just—God, Madison—please. Don’t leave me like this. Don’t do that to me—you promised, Madison. You promised to take care of me. Please.”
Hamilton’s voice cracks on the last sentence, his chest heaving. Madison turns away and sighs, his face in his hands. The sound is distinctly shuddery.
“Hamilton,” he says a moment later, his voice unexpectedly steady. “I’m not going to leave you. I’ll kill you—have my word. But let me wait until you’ve turned. Please. Allow me that.”
Hamilton wants to protest, order that Madison bite the bullet—but seeing him hunched over, his anger melted away, Madison looks small. Defeated. As close to breaking down as Hamilton has ever seen him. Hamilton’s throat dries up. He doesn’t like Madison—but he doesn’t really hate him anymore either. He doesn’t want Madison to—if he could, Hamilton would reach out, offer a hand: an olive branch. So close to death, it wouldn’t mean anything to him—but to Madison?
“Okay,” Hamilton agrees, his voice thick. “Just—please. Don’t let me be one of them.”
Madison’s hands fall away from his face. He turns, his face set in rickety lines.
“Thank you.” He closes his eyes. “Hamilton... for what it's worth, I’m sorry.”
Hamilton can feel the infection setting in. Already, he feels sticky-hot. His feet and fingers feel fuzzy, staticky like the TV turned to a dead channel. His chest feels stuffed. His lungs overfull like he’s taken a breath underwater. If Madison won’t kill him, at least the fever will kill him fast.
There’s a long, long silence. Minutes pass—maybe hours. Hamilton loses track quick.
Outside, the infected shriek.
“Jefferson’s fine,” Hamilton reassures him, growing distant.
Madison’s laugh is brittle.
“How would you know?”
“You were still alive the last time he saw you,” he replies, his eyes drifting shut. “And he’s a fucking jackass, but he’s not a complete dumbass. He’ll be fine.”
Fever takes him.
Bright colors. Hallucinations. Cold hands clamp over his mouth, silencing his screams. Choking him. He sees his mother, sees her smile, sees her eyes. Sees her face turn grey as fever desiccates her to ash and bone. He sees Laurens, watches him walk away into the dark, into waiting infected arms. Laurens smiles at him as they eat him alive, pull him apart piece by piece. Hamilton walks through an abandoned Columbia, sees Hercules and Burr and the Schuylers approach him with ragged teeth and glazed eyes. He watches them claw out his innards, hears Laurens’ laugh. Hamilton screams. The hand choking him presses down harder, blocks out the air.
The fever eases.
He gasps awake, realizes the cold hand belongs to Madison. Dizzily, he blinks up. It’s dark outside. Now his wrists sting viciously—the ropes binding them are stained red. Everything inside him feels wrong, like someone’s replaced all his insides while he slept. Sweat sticks to him, and a sickly-sweet smell fills the room. His neck hurts. He doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know why he’s there. He doesn’t know why he feels so wrong—so fucked. Everything is—wrong.
“Madison?” he weakly asks, the name muffled by the man’s hand. “Water…?”
Hamilton’s tongue is so thick in his mouth it makes it hard to swallow without choking, but the water hits his throat like rain in the desert. Madison only pulls the bottle away when it’s empty, his face twisted with regret.
“That’s all there is.”
It costs Hamilton just to nod in acknowledgment. He’s exhausted, every muscle in his body aching like he’s finished a marathon. The water clears his head a little, just enough for him to remember what’s wrong. But before he can do anything else, he’s gone.
This time, he’s the monster.
Laurens screams.
Hamilton comes up gasping, eyes wild, chest heaving.
“Shh,” Madison hushes him, his eyes panicked. He’s looking at the window. “You’re alright—it’s alright.”
“I should’ve—I should be dead already,” Hamilton wheezes. “I should’ve—it should’ve been me.”
He goes back under.
He goes to the hurricane. To the yellow skies. To the eye. Only this time, he drowns. The water takes him under. When he tries to swim up, hands break through the earth, pull him back down. He breathes—his lungs are full. He vomits water, vomits blood. The water turns red.
Hamilton breaks through the surface with a gasp, finds himself back in the too-white room. Outside, the sky is growing pink, hinting at a sunrise he’ll never get to enjoy.
“Hamilton?” Madison asks, cautious—relieved.
He acknowledges Madison with his eyes only. Moving anything else is too hard.
It’s close now. He can’t feel his legs, his arms, his raw wrists. Not even his neck hurts anymore. Everything feels hazy and distant. It’s comfortable, in a way. He’s floating above it all, his soul coming untethered from his body. From the pain of being bound to the earth, he’s going into the emptiness.
“Why would you do that?” Madison asks him. Hamilton hears him this time, vaguely wonders how many times Madison has asked already. It sounds like he’s asked it already. “I was—you could’ve… why?”
It costs him to open his mouth. The lightness wraps around him, promising him relief.
“Laurens,” Hamilton gets out, and it drains him the last of his energy.
Madison’s hand finds his. It’s cold. Freezing.
“I’m sorry,” Madison says again. His voice breaks. “I’ll—we’ll be alright. I'll find him. I... thank you.”
Yellow swallows Hamilton whole as The Other Side takes him.
Hamilton blinks awake. His mind is as clear as his shoulders are light. He feels well-rested, sated—at peace. Vaguely, he knows the feeling is alien to him now, but he doesn’t dwell on why.
He stands slowly, savoring the easy stretch of his muscles.
He’s on a beach. A breeze flutters his clothes, cools his face. In the distance, the sun is setting, painting the sky gold. He isn’t sure where he’s going, but something is calling him. He lets the current take him, allows himself to be pulled along. Cornflowers sprout beneath his bare feet as he walks, purple-blue trailing behind him. Gulls caw in the air around him. Fireflies come to life in the dying day, flickering soothingly in the light. Locusts and crickets croak in the grass beyond the sand dunes. He walks along the beach, savoring the salty air, the splash of cool tides against his ankles.
Gradually, a shape appears in the distance. As he nears, he realizes it’s a woman. Her back is to him, her hair floating blowing lazily in the breeze. A sense of safety, of home cradles Hamilton like a blanket as he approaches until he’s finally close enough to realize who it is.
“Mom?” he gets out, his voice breaking on the syllable.
After a long moment, she turns. She’s young, smiling, her face untouched by life’s grief. She’s as beautiful as he remembers, her eyes as kind as they are in his memories.
“Alex,” she says. “My baby.”
There’s a moment where Hamilton can’t move at all. And then he rushes forwards, arms thrown out. She meets him halfway, swallowing him in a hug.
“I’m sorry,” he apologizes, again and again until she pulls away, meeting his eyes.
“For what?”
“I should’ve come sooner—I shouldn’t have left you. I—”
She silences him in an instant, shaking her head.
“Don’t say that. You did exactly what you were supposed to. Don’t ever say that.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeats, his voice breaking.
“No.” Her eyes soften with sadness. “I’m sorry.”
Hamilton’s stomach twists. There’s someone else that should be here, but he can’t remember who. His mother watches him as he tries to piece it together, her face full of sorrow. Her mouth opens—then closes. Hamilton swallows. He searches for the name. Strains.
It comes to him with a rush of pain and the vague feeling that something’s wrong.
“Where’s Laurens?” he asks, sick.
“He wouldn’t come,” she tells him, wrapping her arms around him when his chest heaves. “No, it’s not what you think. He loves you, and he knows you love him—that’s why he wouldn’t come. He knew you wouldn’t leave if he was here.”
“Why would I leave?” Hamilton asks, anxious. “I’m supposed to be here. I—I died. I came because I wanted to. Something brought me here—to you. I felt it.”
“You’ve been fading in and out for days, baby. But you’re not here to stay. You’re just passing through,” she tells him, her voice glass-thin. “It’s not your time yet.”
Nausea overtakes him, but she catches him as he stumbles. He turns away, looks out into the never-ending sea, to the melting sun beyond. The sunset is still golden, but it’s not a pleasant golden anymore—it’s maliciously yellow, foreboding. Like the eye of a hurricane.
“No,” he insists. “I don’t have to go anywhere. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Yes, you do—you can go back to them.”
“To them?” Alex asks, incredulous. “Who, Madison and Jefferson?”
“They need you right now more than either of us do,” she tells him.
The words fill him with rage; yellow creeps across the sky.
“I’ve already fucking saved them!” Hamilton snarls. “I’ve already done enough—and they still fucking hate me! I deserve this. I deserve this one goddamned thing. I deserve to be selfish.”
“I know, honey.” She reaches out, strokes soothing fingers through his hair. “I know you do.”
Hamilton closes his eyes.
“But it’s not just them. There are other people that need you,” she says. “Your friends are still out there. Aaron—”
“—Burr is not my friend.”
“Hercules. The Schuyler sisters.”
“Minus Peggy,” another voice chimes in, irked.
Hamilton twists around, gasping quietly when he sees her.
Her arms are crossed, her brows arched as she looks on—but as he looks on, she offers him a smile. She looks exactly like he remembers—no, his mind cuts in, she doesn’t.
“Peggy,” he says, sorrow filling his voice as he remembers New York, the Schuylers’ estate. This Peggy is alive, all in one piece. “I’m—"
She cuts him off with a raised hand.
“Save it,” she tells him. “I’ve already heard it from everyone else here.”
He steps toward her, grabbing ahold of her hands.
“It was blood loss,” she explains, smiling weakly. “I got bit on the ankle. We tried to take off the leg, but… Well, you’ll find my sisters eventually. When you do, Angelica’s eventually gonna try to tell you it was her fault—and when she does, I want you to slap her. Hard. Tell her it came from me.”
“Peggy, I—”
“You know that Seabury is still alive too, right? We picked him up when we drove by Columbia—I said we should leave him behind, of course, but Burr stopped anyways. If you stay here, he’s probably going to get appointed to a Cabinet position once the government gets rebuilt—”
Blatant bait, but Hamilton falls for it anyways.
“That little fucker could make anarchy look appealing,” Hamilton snarls. He freezes, glancing to his mother. “I don’t usually swear,” he sheepishly tells her, even though it’s a blatant lie.
She just smiles, sad. Proud.
“Hamilton,” Peggy says after a moment, regaining his attention. “Do you remember what sent you here?”
“Yeah—I died.”
“But how? I remember how I died. You do too. You need to remember. Come on—think.”
He doesn’t want to know—he knows it isn’t pretty—but he complies. He sifts through childhood memories, though classes at Columbia, through first dates and I-love-yous, through the day everything fell apart. It gets fuzzy then, but Hamilton strains, pushes past it—pushes to the memory of his neck splitting open like a pomegranate, to the sick squelch of teeth tearing away flesh—he falls, crying out.
His hand clamps over his neck, and the pain is back in a white-hot rush. The world around him flickers. A yellow haze sets in, making it hard to see. Hamilton coughs, and sticky black blood comes up.
“No,” he gasps, clawing to latch onto the sand beneath him. His mother and Peggy drop to their knees beside him. “I should be dead, I can’t be—"
But even as he says it, he knows he’s still alive. It wouldn’t hurt like this if he weren’t. It couldn’t.
“It’s still going to kill me,” Hamilton insists, his hand clutching the wound. “It kills everyone.”
“Not you—not if you leave,” his mother soothes him, stroking his hair again. “You have to live, Alex. They need you. Whatever it is that’s different about you—”
“—Hamilton, if what happened to me happens to my sisters—"
“I don’t want to save anybody,” Hamilton begs. “I just want to—please. I just want to see Laurens.”
“He won’t come. He knows you won’t leave if you see him here.”
“I won’t leave anyways,” Hamilton protests. “I don’t want this. I’m ready to go. God—it hurts.” A sob tears out of his throat. “Make it stop. I don’t—”
Above them, the sky swirls jaundice yellow. Somewhere close, lightning crackles. The salt stings his skin.
“Alex,” his mom says. “It’s alright. We’re alright. We’ll still be here when it’s time. We’ll wait.”
“No. No, don’t make me say goodbye again,” Hamilton pleads.
“It’s not goodbye,” she tells him, her smile wavering. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Please—I…”
Hamilton closes his eyes. The wind whips around him, thick and heavy. The sand beneath his fingers feels so much less real—feels like gritty fabric instead. He’s stuck in the middle, walking the line.
Hamilton tries to tell himself they’re not real—it’s just his mind. Hallucinations. Vicious ones—cleverer than the others. But maybe they’re not fever dreams at all: maybe it’s just his dying consciousness trying to urge him to hang on a little longer. He doesn’t have to listen to them. It’s not real. No one is immune. Everything that gets bit goes. He's still going to die. He can't fight it.
But he’s still here, isn’t he? Hallucination or not, he's still conscious on some level. Some part of him is still fighting to stay alive, even as Hamilton tries to tell himself otherwise. Even through the agony, he's fighting.
“Hamilton?” someone asks, far-away.
Hamilton closes his eyes. It’s not real.
“Hamilton!” the voice repeats, closer.
Something cold touches his face. Not real.
“Jesus, Hamilton. Don’t make me do this. Please.”
This isn’t real—but he knows the voice is. It’s Madison—Madison is real.
Madison is—Madison doesn’t—Hamilton tries to reach out to him, tries to tell him he’s there.
Peggy holds his hand. His mom presses a kiss to his face.
“It’s alright, Alex,” she tells him. “But you have to go back—for me. For them.”
Hamilton breathes out. Gradually, his fingers loosen their grip on the sand.
“I love you,” she says, “I always will. But they need you. Wake up, Alex.”
He lets go.
“I love you too,” Hamilton tells her, beaten as he rests his head on her shoulder.
Peggy’s hand feels fainter and fainter around his, but when he looks at her, she’s smiling at him. Hamilton forces himself to smile back.
“Tell Laurens I love him,” he says—because even if it isn’t real, he has to say it one last time.
And when Hamilton looks up, there he is just down the shore. He looks—good. Peaceful.
“I know you do,” Laurens tells him, smiling sadly.
Hamilton studies his face, tries to commit to memory the pattern of freckles splashed across his face. But before Hamilton can reach out, he’s gasping awake. His eyes snap open to see Madison hovering over him, his face ashen. There’s something in Madison’s hands, raised over him, about to be brought down.
“No,” Hamilton gasps out, desperate. Surviving. He's still fighting. “Not yet.”
He fades into the black.
Hamilton wakes up in a too-white room. His head hurts something vicious. For a minute, he thinks he’s savagely hungover after a night of drinking with his friends—but just like it always does, the realization that Laurens’ is dead strikes him like a backhand across the face.
Laurens—distantly, among a sea of dozens and dozens of terrible hallucinations, Hamilton remembers dreaming of the ocean and of yellow skies. The memories slip like sand between his fingers. Laurens.
Hamilton isn’t dead yet—but he will be soon.
For now, he settles on trying to get something to drink. He might die, but it won’t be because of fucking dehydration. He tries to get up, but everything hurts, and his hands are tied taut by rope.
Where the fuck is Madison?
Hamilton tries to shout for him, then remembers that there’s supposed to be a hundred infected skulking around. It’s quiet outside now, but that’s no guarantee of anything. Hamilton decides to take matters into his own hands. He tests his bindings. It takes a few minutes, but when he pulls a particular way, the bedpost moves just enough for him to slip out the ropes. He’s still tied, but it’s progress.
Hamilton stands—only to discover he can barely walk. He collapses forward, dizzy, his muscles weak beneath him. His second try is only a little more successful. Through a combination of shuffling and heavy wall-leaning, he makes it out into the hall. He pauses, listening.
Someone’s talking downstairs. He strains his ears—realizes it’s Madison.
Encouraged at the revelation, he moves towards the stairs. It’s an overestimation of his current ability because he only just manages to grab onto the railing before tripping. Ungracefully, he slides down the entire fucking flight of steps on his ass. At the bottom, Hamilton groans miserably. In light speed, he’s facing down the barrel of a revolver.
“Madison,” Hamilton rasps, his voice dry and crackly. Behind him, Jefferson bursts from the kitchen, a knife in hand—and there’s a face he never thought he’d be happy to see. “See? I told you he’d be fine.”
The knife falls from Jefferson’s hand and clatters to the floor.
Madison takes a step back, looking ashen.
Hamilton struggles to his feet with the help of the banister, looking between the two of them.
“Well, looks like you found a gun,” he remarks, forcing a grin. Well—that’ll move things along. He doesn’t know how he feels about that, but… “Don’t suppose you’d let me borrow it?”
Madison recovers first, leaning forward and pressing a cool hand to Hamilton’s forehead. He steps away a second later, looking to Jefferson with a twisted expression. The two have one of their extended silent eye-contact conversations. It pisses Hamilton more than usual this time.
“Can I please get some fucking water, at least?” Hamilton snaps, regaining their attention.
Jefferson clears his throat.
“Uh… Hamilton, how long do you think it’s been?”
“Since what?”
“Oh, you know, since your bachelor party—Jesus, what the fuck do you think?”
Hamilton scowls, shaking his head. He strains his memory, thinks about the sunlight outside.
“It’s day. I don’t know—a day?”
He lifts a tied hand to his neck, hesitating when his fingers meet knotted scar tissue. Madison watches him gravely. The moment sinks in. Confusion sets in. Denial.
“It’s been two weeks, Hamilton.”
Hamilton isn’t dead. He isn’t in a coma. He isn’t even unconscious.
He’s improbably, miraculously, exceptionally alive. He’s walking around. He’s thinking. He’s not craving bloody murder. Hamilton collapses onto the last stair. His head spins.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Jefferson wonders aloud, wide-eyed. “He’s fucking immune.”
Notes:
i wish i could say all my chapters weren't this long, but no, i'm this stupid
-the infected in this fic are inspired by The Last of Us' zombies--you don't need any background with TLOU. any necessary info is included in the fic
-particular chapter-specific warnings will come in chapter notes, but no other archive warnings will apply
-the slowburn tag refers to hamilton/jefferson and hamilton/madison: madison/jefferson have got their shit together. also, like seriously. this is a SLOW burn slowburn. whatever you're thinking, it's slower haha
-kudos and comments are much appreciated!
Chapter Text
Hamilton spends hours looking in the mirror.
Jagged punctures, vivid pink. The right crook of his neck is mottled and dented, and the skin is stretched tight, barely healed over, still hot to the touch. Hamilton stares until he’s hyperventilating, until he can’t breathe— and then he sinks down to the floor, still staring, unable to tear his eyes away.
Madison finds him the next morning.
“Are you awake?” he asks outside the door, his voice thick. Hesitant. “Hamilton?”
“I haven’t turned yet, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he thinly answers.
“May I come in?”
“I don’t care.”
The door opens. Hamilton doesn’t turn, but he can see Madison in the mirror, see his eyes locking onto the angry scar on Hamilton’s neck. Madison watches him for a long time, finally looks away.
“There’s coffee downstairs,” he tries. “Come down and have some.”
“I’m not thirsty.”
“Then come have something to eat.”
“I’m not hungry either.”
Madison stands in the doorway a moment longer, looking like he wants to say something else. The pity that’d only just started to melt off his face has come back swinging full force, buries everything else.
Madison edges towards Hamilton for just an instant—but then his reflections turns and leaves.
It eats Hamilton alive.
Whywhywhy?
He doesn’t understand why it’s him. Why does it have to be him? Why have so many other people died instead? Why? It should’ve been someone else—shouldn’t have been him. He should’ve—Christ, what if others were immune, but they didn’t know? What if they killed the others before they had the chance to prove they wouldn’t turn? Are more people immune? What if he’s the only one? What does that mean for the world?
The thoughts weigh on Hamilton, bear down on him like an anvil. Every second of the day, they haunt him. Every morning, they jump-start his mind into awareness. His nightmares start back up—they never really left, of course, but now they’re as bad as they ever were. He can’t sleep. He’s not hungry; he barely eats. If it weren’t for the tea and coffee Madison forcibly shoves into his hands half a dozen times a day, he probably wouldn’t drink either. Hamilton floats through the next few days in a fugue state, drinking without tasting, hearing without listening, watching without seeing.
The only thing that grounds him are the infected. They’re all that can bring him out of the prison he's building in his mind.
“Pull over,” Hamilton orders, snapping back to reality as the car slows.
There’s an infected in the middle of the road. There’s no real need to stop—Jefferson could just drive around—but he complies anyways.
Hamilton is distantly aware that the two of them are worried about him; they fall into concerned conversations in French, oblivious that Hamilton’s just as well-versed in the language as them. They talk about him in murmurs and hushed voices—but always quiet when they see him, stopping him from ever overhearing much.
They’re worried over him. Or worried for themselves, more likely—Hamilton isn’t exactly pulling his weight. He’s burned enough food in the past couple days that they’re keeping him from cooking, and he’s too distracted to clean guns, to scavenge, to keep track of supplies. If it’s a task that doesn’t involve killing the infected, Hamilton is only half-present.
The infected, on the other hand?
Hamilton throws the car door open, stepping out. The infected sees him—screams.
It starts to charge. Hamilton lifts his gun, fires.
His gun clicks empty.
He forgot to fucking load it. It’s the straws that breaks the dam.
Hamilton throws his pistol down, pulls his knife, and charges with a yell. He meets the infected first, dodges a swiping arm, tackles—the infected goes down with Hamilton on top of him. Hamilton’s vision swims with red. Anger swallows him. He yells furiously, brings his knife down into the infected’s eye. It spears straight through, stills after a deflated screech, but Hamilton wrenches his knife free. He’s gonna fucking—
“Bastard!” he screams, driving his knife down again. And again. And again. Rotten, spoiled blood splashes his hands, his arms, his face. He doesn’t notice. He can’t fucking think—all he can do is kill it again and again and again. He’s going to kill them all—he’s going to kill every last fucking one. “MOTHERFUCKER!”
Shrieks surround him as half a dozen infected snarl out of the woods, drawn out by his yelling. They reach for him with greyed hands, with fungus swallowing their mouths, their eyes, their faces.
Hamilton’s eyes shoot up, feral. He’s ready to take them down. He doesn’t fucking care that all he’s got is a knife, that he’s surrounded on both sides, he’s going to—Jefferson’s shotgun explodes with a resounding crack. The infected closest to him goes down in a spray of hot blood that washes Hamilton’s face. Between Madison’s revolver and Jefferson’s shorty, the rest go down just as fast—Hamilton can’t even get a hit in on another infected before they’re all dead.
Still, he’s breathing heavily, his teeth gritted, his nails cutting into his palms where his fists are knotted up at his sides. He can taste blood, but Hamilton doesn’t realize it’s his until he’s another pound of pressure away from biting halfway through his tongue. He doesn’t have time to consider any of it before Jefferson is in front of him, fury in his eyes as he gets into Hamilton’s face.
“Hamilton,” Jefferson growls, grabbing ahold of his collar and coming an inch away from yanking him straight off the ground. “Enlighten me. Tell me what the ever-loving fuck you were thinking just now, and maybe I won’t lay your ass flat.” Hamilton has half the mind to headbutt him, break his fucking nose. He doesn’t—but only because Madison’s still holding onto his revolver half a dozen feet away. “Are you kidding me? Now’s the one damn time when you don’t have anything to say to me?”
Jefferson lets go of Hamilton’s collar, shoves him off-balance.
“I can’t believe you. You didn’t load your gun? Are you out of your goddamned mind or just that fucking stupid? You were going to take on seven infected with a knife? If we hadn’t been here— ”
“Well, then I guess I’m lucky I have the two of you around,” Hamilton snaps.
“Yeah, damn fucking right you are. Jesus, Hamilton! You might be the only one on this shitty fucking planet that’s survived being bit, and you can’t even remember to load your gun before you throw a tantrum. Would it kill you to think of someone other than yourself? Just once, think of what’ll happen to the rest of us if you die from your own damn stupidity. Newsflash: we need you alive, jackass!”
Hamilton's so—he’s so goddamn angry he can’t even think. Anger at the infected, the world, Jefferson—everything. The anger burns like acid in his chest, rises up his throat, burns the entire way as it spews from his mouth.
“Newsflash? Newsflash?” Hamilton yells, getting right back into Jefferson’s space. “Here’s a fucking newsflash: I wish I was dead! I wish it’d been someone else! I wish Laurens—”
A single vicious, angry sob hacks out of his throat. There's a second of peace—but then the rest come. Hamilton crumples to the ground on his knees and buries his face in his hands, the wracking force of his sobs shaking his entire body. There are no tears—after the past year and a half, he doesn’t think he’ll ever cry another tear again—but his chest heaves violently, wrenching the air right out of his lungs.
Jefferson steps back, eyes wide, hands lifting.
“I… uh…” A pause. An awkward clearing of his throat. “Are you crying?”
“No,” Hamilton snarls between sobs, topping himself for the most boldfaced lie he’s ever told.
Five seconds pass, then ten before Jefferson’s Louboutins appear in his vision.
“Jesus. Look, Hamilton, come on,” Jefferson tells him, trying and failing to sound sympathetic. It only comes across as awkward, and Hamilton wishes he’d just be angry instead. “For fuck’s sake, we can talk about this later. Let’s just get out of the open.”
Hamilton drags in a sharp breath, tries to swallow down the next lurch of his stomach. Slowly, he stands, keeping his eyes firmly locked at some point over Jefferson’s shoulder. Out of the side of his vision, he can see the discomfort twisting Jefferson’s face.
“You’ve, uh, got blood on your face,” Jefferson tells him, handing him a handkerchief.
“I don’t fucking care,” he replies, but he swipes the square of fabric out of Jefferson’s hand anyway.
The car is quiet for miles. Occasionally, Hamilton’s chest still shakes in aftershocks. He keeps his eyes closed.
“Thomas and I have been talking,” Madison eventually begins, “and we think you should go to England.”
Hamilton doesn’t reply.
“We’ve discussed it at length. Neither of us know what’s different about you. There’s been millions and millions of infected but never a confirmed case of immunity.”
Hamilton knows that much. He doesn’t pay attention to news any longer, but he remembers the reports from the early days. He and Laurens used to huddle around staticky TVs back before the electricity cut off—and then radios once it did. And when the radios went silent, they got their news by mouth.
And then Laurens died. Hamilton stopped caring.
But he knows the basics.
He knows the name: Cordyceps Brain Infection. He knows what it is from post-pandemic pamphlets; CBI is a parasitic fungal infection that only affects living hosts… propagates through wounds from the infected and spores released by the infected’s corpses… 100% infection rate upon exposure. He knows what it does from personal experience; infection results in loss of higher brain function within one to three days, hyper-aggression, incapability of reason.
The infection rate is what matters; the infection rate is why humanity’s whimpering and limping along to a pathetic end. The infection rate is why Hamilton shouldn’t still be alive—or why his mind shouldn’t be alive, that is. The mind perishes; the body shambles on, violent, merciless, shelled-out like a cantaloupe missing its innards. But it’s easier to think of infection as death—easier to kill infected when Hamilton can believe that the person inside has moved on.
“The strain the infection comes from used to only affect ants,” Madison finishes explaining; Hamilton missed the rest. “It caused the same symptoms, but they’d adapted to it over the course of thousands of years. We never had the chance. We have no defenses, no evolutionary reflex—nothing except you. You could be the key to this, Hamilton.”
The window is cool against his cheek. Time ticks on; the car is painfully silent. They were listening to opera, but Madison’s turned it off. For once, Hamilton wants to listen.
“I don’t understand why I’m different from anyone else,” he finally replies, shaking his head. “I’ve been thinking about it ever since I woke up. I’m not—I mean, I’ve had physicals before. I got hit by a car on my bike once and had to go to the hospital. I got X-rays and stuff. Someone would’ve noticed if I had two fucking hearts or something, right?”
“Well, it’s gotta be something,” Jefferson cuts in. “For fuck’s sake—the entire world was looking for someone like you for months after the outbreak. There’s gotta be something in your—fuck, I don’t know, your DNA? RNA? Genes? Whatever’s special about people—look, I’m in humanities, not a fucking STEM major.”
“Maybe it was just the bite,” Hamilton proposes. “I don’t know—it missed my bloodstream?”
“Yeah, you were an inch away from getting your larynx ripped out, so I’m gonna shoot that one down.”
“Then maybe it was just that infected!” Hamilton suggests, his anger from the road resurging full-force. “Maybe I bled too damn much for the infection to take hold! Maybe the infected had just brushed its fucking teeth! Maybe it was just a freak fucking incident! I don’t fucking know—I just don’t understand why it’s got to me be!”
There's a second of silence, then Jefferson barks out a laugh—a maniacal, unhinged sound.
“Why’s it gotta be me ?” Jefferson mocks him, his voice gratuitously shrill and slathered thick with Southern righteousness. “Jesus, Hamilton, you don’t think I ask myself that every day? You’re not fucking special.”
“There’s teeth marks in my neck that say otherwise,” Hamilton snaps back.
Jefferson’s head whips around, and now Hamilton can see the anger written in his face. Their argument in the road is unresolved; they’re still angry, still ready to go at it.
“Yeah, so maybe you are some kind of biological miracle, but do you really think you invented survivor’s guilt? I was in Philadelphia, Hamilton. The entire goddamned city was infected, or ripped apart, or burned alive . Madison and I only made it out because we went through the fucking sewers ! If we hadn’t, we’d have died with everyone else when the Redcoats scorched the earth. Do you think that doesn’t wear on me? Do you think I don’t think about how almost everyone on that goddamned stage is dead? ”
Madison reaches over, absentmindedly pulling Jefferson’s seatbelt into place.
“Yeah, and I was on the Brooklyn Bridge! The infected cornered us in our cars! Do you know how many people I watched throw themselves off the bridge? Do you know how many people I had to watch weigh whether they wanted to die from infected or the fall? We only made it off because so many people took their chances with the fucking infected! Every goddamned time someone died, we ran past. People were a goddamn sacrifice for the rest of us to get away. That’s the kind of shit that wears on you!”
“Yeah, and the Redcoats Molotov’d my whole house after I read the Declaration—”
“Thomas, if you don’t—"
“—and all of New York City got bombed to hell and back—"
“Hamilton—"
“Do you even know how many people I heard screaming above me—”
“Will you both—"
“I found my own friend dead in her room with her leg cut off!”
“So God help me if—"
“Well, every damn one of my friends is dead—"
“—that’s not fucking fair, and you know it! You’re not alone. You’ve still got your fucking boyfriend—”
“My whole family is—”
The car screeches to a halt as Madison brake-checks them all. Jefferson almost plows face-first into the windshield, saved only by a vicious yank of his seatbelt. Hamilton fairs similarly, but he’s leaned too far forward in his yelling, and his face smashes unceremoniously into the back of Madison’s seat.
“What the fuck?” Jefferson and Hamilton ask, but Madison speaks over them both, his eyes burning dark with anger—a step above anger, Hamilton realizes. Oh, they’re in deep shit now—Madison’s got his you-just-fucked-with-me-while-I-was-meditating expression on, and it’s directed full-force at them both.
“Christ, are the two of you turning tragedy into a competition?” Madison asks them both, his voice dropping into a clipped, hoarse growl that Hamilton’s never heard before. “Is that what I’m hearing? Are you both so goddamned self-absorbed that you’re trying to one-up each other on how much you’ve suffered? Tell me—am I getting this right?” Madison turns to look at them, and all the anger he’s ever felt in his life seems to be boiling over, spilling out onto his face. “I asked a question—answer me.”
“No,” Hamilton starts to argue, his voice still clipped. “I’m just saying that—”
“I don’t imagine that I’m going to like where you take that sentence, so I’ll generously allow you exactly one second to think twice,” Madison cuts him off, meeting his eyes in the mirror.
A second passes. Hamilton hesitates—then closes his mouth.
“Here’s a thought,” Madison continues, his voice somehow even more gravelly than before. “Every goddamned person that’s still alive is asking themselves why they’re still here. No one hasn’t lost someone—and not a damn day goes by when I don’t ask why I’m not dead too. I could die a hundred different ways every damn day—but I haven’t. I don’t know why I've been lucky. I never will. It just is.”
Madison inhales sharply. His head tips back. His eyes close. A ten-count passes.
“None of us are ever going to get back the people we’ve lost,” Madison says, his voice marginally more even. His eyes open. “And I don’t expect any of us will ever fully recover from losing them either.”
He turns around, meeting Hamilton’s eyes, pity spilling out of his eyes and into his voice.
“I am sorry about John Laurens—I truly am. But your death won’t bring him back. Whatever happened, he’s gone. Rushing into a pack of infected without a loaded gun won’t change that—it’ll only get you killed, and I’ve spent damn near enough time watching you die already.”
Guilt spikes through Hamilton.
He doesn’t—he wouldn’t—shit. He wouldn’t want to watch either of them turn. He wouldn’t want to watch anyone turn. He’s come across dying, infected people more than once, listened to them beg not to be left—and fuck. How much has he forgotten? How much did he say to Madison that he doesn’t remember? How long did Madison watch him teeter on the edge, writhe and scream?
Silence sinks in the car. Again, it’s Madison who at last speaks.
“Hamilton, there’s an opportunity here. It won’t bring back the people you’ve lost. I wish more than anything that I could tell you differently— but I can’t. All I can tell you is that perhaps you can spare someone else the suffering we’ve all gone through.” He taps his fingers against the steering wheel in skittery, distinct patterns. “You should go to England. When the Redcoats pulled most of their troops out, they took the nation’s top surgeons and epidemiologists with them. If someone in the world is working on a cure, they’re in England. And the last Thomas and I heard, they were still waiting on their breakthrough. If there’s a breakthrough to be had, it’s you. And you’ll be safe there. Taken care of.”
Hamilton closes his eyes. Madison’s right. He knows he is.
There’s nothing here for him anymore, not really. He’s just surviving, just staying alive.
It’s just—the burden is back on his shoulders, squeezing the air out of his lungs. He doesn’t know how he’s even supposed to breathe anymore. He has to do this, he has to do that. His freedom is dissipating before his eyes, smoking into the air in intangible wisps.
“You keep saying I should go to England. Always I. Never we. ”
“I wrote the Declaration of Independence, Hamilton,” Jefferson speaks up, his voice jaded. “Madison was working on a Constitution for the country. I don’t know how much more treasonous against the Crown you can get. You know what happens to people who do shit like that? And that’s before the world went to hell. Good fuckin’ luck getting any kind of actual trial now.”
Hamilton sinks into his seat, reaching to grab his backpack. It doesn’t matter, he tells himself. He’ll figure it out. He always does. He’s been on his own before; he hasn’t forgotten how to be on his own.
“Fine. I don’t need your help anyways.”
“Jesus, we’re not leaving you on the side of the fucking road,” Jefferson exclaims, grabbing Hamilton’s wrist. Hamilton jerks away, glaring viciously. “We’ll help you get passage there, for fuck’s sake. And then we’ll get the hell out of dodge—happy endings for everyone.”
Hamilton looks between the two of them.
It’s fine, Hamilton tells himself. It doesn’t matter. It’s just—he’s already lost everyone.
Now he has to lose his country too. What’s left of it. But he’s loved the country since the moment his feet first hit its soil. He loves the colonies—no, the United States.
Hamilton fought so hard to hear that name spoken aloud at Washington’s inauguration and was ready to pay for its name in his own blood if he had to. He was so ready to join the fight if the Redcoats pushed back with force, tried to deny them independence. He doesn’t have any pretenses that he’s poor, an immigrant, a bastard with no name worth its salt. The Revolution was his chance to rise up out of oblivion, to write his name into the history books.
He doesn’t get that anymore. No one does—but now he can’t even stay in the country he loves.
Hamilton has lost everyone. Now he has to lose his home too. What’s worse—he has to lose it to go to England. England— the only other places he hates more are Nevis and Charleston.
And what’s more—it was fucking stupid of him to think this was going to last. It doesn’t matter, but he’s just gotten used to being around Jefferson and Madison, just gotten used to all their ridiculous bullshit. He doesn’t even care about either of them—he doesn’t— but fuck.
He shouldn’t have bothered.
All those months ago, he shouldn’t have taken Jefferson’s offer. He should’ve just kept walking.
“Alright,” Hamilton finally agrees, the words sour in his mouth. “I guess I’m going to England.”
“Great,” Jefferson says, heaving a sigh. He turns to Madison. “Where do you think’s best, Jemmy?”
Madison looks over, his eyes still as angry as they were when he slammed the brakes.
“Don’t talk to me right now,” Madison orders. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about your little pissing match.” He shakes his head, angry. “Christ, Thomas—I expected better from you.”
(But apparently not from Hamilton).
Jefferson opens his mouth, looks vaguely guilty, then sinks back into his seat, chastened. Hamilton is too tired to even take pleasure in the rebuke.
The car falls into unpleasant silence.
It’s a long drive before they stop for the night.
Hamilton has never seen Madison mad at Jefferson before. Playfully annoyed, sure—even genuinely irritated, once or twice. But not angry—never angry. It’s clear this is anger.
The car is silent. Jefferson reaches once to turn on the music; Madison smacks his hand away.
Once they find a place to hunker down for the night, Madison doesn’t speak to Jefferson in sentences longer than three syllables all evening, despite Jefferson’s best efforts to lure him into conversation—any kind of conversation. Jefferson’s attempts to engage him gradually die out until there’s nothing but oppressive silence as they sit around the table, wine in hand. Madison’s fingers tap rhythmically against the side of his glass. He has to refill it faster than usual.
Hamilton wants to get up, but it feels like the silence in the room is too thick to disturb. It’s settled over all of them like a heavy blanket, and any attempt to shrug it off feels akin to firing a gun in a church. Hamilton shifts every other second in his seat, fidgeting like a toddler.
Every so often, he sneaks a glance at the map Madison’s working on. It’s sprawling, massive, and takes up almost half the table. The map depicts the continental United States, annotated with looping cursive and symbols. Madison only brings it out every now and then when they’re working out where to head next; now, he scans it silently, busies himself reading.
New York: bombed; Atlanta; occupied fallen: San Francisco: safe city bombed; Boston: occupied; Chicago: bombed; Chesapeake Bay: occupied; Annapolis: safe city; Albany: occupied; Knoxville: safe city fallen; Providence: occupied; Houston: safe city; Denver: safe city fallen; Savannah: occupied; New Orleans: occupied; Dallas: safe city; Charleston: safe city fallen.
He stops reading.
Madison works silently. Jefferson examines his wine glass. Hamilton fidgets.
“Where did you go to college?” Hamilton finally blurts out as he looks at Madison.
Even as he says it, he’s embarrassingly aware that, one, he hasn’t attempted small-talk with anyone for about eighteen months—not even with Madison or Jefferson—and, two, that, even for small-talk, it’s a question blander than white bread. Hamilton doesn’t even care about the answer, for fuck’s sake. Madison looks just as unimpressed as Hamilton expected, looks like he’s debating ignoring the question entirely—but, finally, he answers, his politeness winning out over his anger.
“Princeton.”
“Oh, really? That’s cool. My friend—well, he wasn’t actually my friend, more like my rival except not really because I was better than him at everything—anyways, my friend Aaron Burr went there for a year before he transferred to Columbia,” Hamilton babbles, cringing internally at his sudden ineloquence.
Madison’s eyes flicker up.
“Aaron Burr?” he asks, weighing the name in his mouth before his eyes light in recognition. “Is he particularly cagey?"
And, well, fuck, he'll be damned.
“That’s the one."
“Mm. While I was getting my law degree, I was a TA for his Intro to Public Policy class.”
“No fucking way," Hamilton replies, leaning forward, and for a moment, he's so caught up in the moment that he forgets he hasn't seen Burr in more than a year and probably never will again. "Was he a terrible student? Did he get shot down by every girl he asked out? Because it was always the funniest fucking thing when he was—and he was. A lot.”
“Well, he once turned in a four-thousand-word paper on the Savannahian Redcoat occupation that somehow had no thesis statement and argued nothing. It would have been impressive if it were not the most frustrating thing I ever graded. I suppose that's why I remember him at all.”
Madison is marginally less closed-off now, the vaguest hint of amusement grazing his mouth.
“We were partners once for an in-class debate on the merits of mercantilism,” Hamilton commiserates, “and we both failed because he wouldn’t take a stance I could argue against, even though, you know, that’s the whole fucking point of debating.”
Jefferson is still enraptured by his wine glass, seemingly determined not to acknowledge either of them—fine. Hamilton can have a perfectly good conversation with Madison sans him.
“It certainly would’ve made it easier to recognize his intelligence if he’d been more assertive,” Madison remarks.
“Yeah, I mean—well, I guess he’s smart,” Hamilton reluctantly agrees. “Sometimes.”
That’s how he knows it’s the end of the world: he’s openly complimenting Aaron Burr to James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, some of his least favorite Representatives. That they support--supported independence is their only damn saving grace from being at the top of his shit list.
“How was he at Columbia?”
“Good—I mean, not as good as me—but he wasn’t failing. Except when it came to the math requirement. He got a C minus in stats.”
Hamilton leaves out that he also got a C minus, and that he only did that well at all because he and Burr clocked dozens of hours poring over textbooks and notes together in the library. Besides, Hamilton came out a quarter-point ahead of Burr anyways, so he really won in the end.
“Thomas,” Madison coolly begins, watching as the man in question flinches at the use of his last name, “failed calculus at UVA. He dropped the class and retook it over the summer.”
“And I went on to get my J.D. summa cum laude,” Jefferson jumps to defend himself, offense dripping from each word. “I was never going to be a fucking engineer. Pure fucking British tyranny I had to take any math courses at all.”
It’s too little too late, because Hamilton is too busy laughing his ass off to pay any attention.
“Oh my god. I can’t believe the author of the Declaration of Independence can’t take a fucking derivative,” Hamilton snickers, grinning viciously. “Jesus—hold on, Madison, did you take calculus?”
“I did.”
“And what did you get?”
“I was a point shy of an A-plus.”
Hamilton bursts out into a second peal of laughter. Madison and Jefferson still aren’t looking at each other, and Madison is clearly still displeased, but the tension is the room is a little lighter.
“Hamilton, you were in your last year of your undergraduate degree, weren’t you?” Madison asks, seemingly deciding to put aside his lingering animosity. “Remind me of your major.”
“Political science with a concentration in econometrics and quantitative economics.”
"Lotta fucking words to say econ and poli-sci," Jefferson rolls his eyes.
"What did you plan on doing afterwards?” Madison asks, ignoring him.
Hamilton looks down to the swirling wine in his glass, swallows the sour taste in his throat as reality crashes back down. The friend he's never going to see again. The future he's never going to have.
“I was planning on going to law school.”
“Well, shit,” Jefferson drawls. “Three fuckin’ lawyers sit around a table in the middle of the end of the world. Sounds like the start of a bad joke. At least it’s good to know we’ll be just fine if we’re tossed in front of a post-apocalyptic tribunal.”
“Yeah, fuck lot of good economics are gonna do in the middle of the apocalypse,” Hamilton mutters, growing bitter. “What good are most things? Half my friends were gonna be lawyers. One would’ve... she would've been a teacher. Another was a journalist." Angelica, he thinks--and, then, involuntarily, he hears her voice: with a comma after dearest.
Their own little joke. Another thing lost.
"You probably knew her, actually," he says without knowing why. "Angelica Schuyler?"
The mood changes on the turn of a dime. Madison's face goes blank. Jefferson's twists like he's pained. And then, abruptly, Madison stands.
“I’m going to bed.” He pointedly doesn’t look at Jefferson. “Goodnight, Alexander.”
“It’s six-thirty,” Hamilton remarks with raised brows, trying to figure out what the fuck he’s missing as he looks between the two.
“I’m tired,” he replies—the of your bullshit is only ever implied with Madison, but Hamilton hears it anyway.
And then Madison’s gone. Hamilton turns to Jefferson, whose expression has suddenly turned downright murderous in the three seconds since Hamilton looked at him last.
“Fuck. You.” Jefferson snarls each word, and then he’s up and gone too—to the other end of the house, away from Madison.
“What the fuck just happened?” Hamilton asks the empty room.
No answer comes.
“We’re going to Boston,” Madison tells them the next morning.
There’s no coffee this morning, and Hamilton feels like the ice is too thin for him to ask where the mix is. He sits miserably at the table, trying to wake himself up.
“Why?” he asks without really caring, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“Because what few Redcoats they left behind are concentrated in the port cities. Boston was still fully English-occupied the last we heard, and it’s supposedly their headquarters and best stronghold, so the risk of taking you somewhere that’ll have fallen by the time we make it there is comparatively low.” Madison's face descends into a frown. "I don't know how much longer the cities left standing will last—hence Boston."
Hamilton accepts the reasoning with a halfhearted nod. It doesn’t really matter one way or another—no matter where they take him, the road ends in the same place.
He doesn’t like where the road’s going—but what choice does he have?
He has to do this.
It can’t all be for nothing.
Two years ago, a trip to Boston from Kentucky would’ve taken two days of driving.
Now, it takes weeks. There’s the gas problem—that’s the main issue. The Escalade gets pretty shit mileage for such an expensive car. Half the problem’s probably that they’re constantly lugging around a trunk full of supplies, which can’t help—but still.
On top of that, Madison refuses to let them drive with anything less than a quarter of a tank, so they constantly spend more time looking for gas than they do actually driving. Hamilton’s gotten good at siphoning gas out of old cars—sometimes they find cans in old garages. If they find a hand-cranked pump somewhere in the country, occasionally the pumps aren’t even dry. Still, looking for gas slows them down considerably. And then there’s the food situation, the water situation, the dozens and dozens of other situations that slow them down, that force them to stop, that always seem to be cropping up.
But what slows them down most are the roads. Highways are a fucking disaster. They can’t ever make it more than ten miles before finding some semi-flat on its side, blocking every damn lane. That aside, the infected seem to flock to highways.
(The abandoned cars tell the same story Hamilton lived through on the Brooklyn Bridge, but he doesn’t like to think about that if he doesn’t have to).
So they tend to drive on back roads, kick up dust and dirt driving through overgrown rows of corn or soybeans or other plants Hamilton knows nothing about and can't identify.
But then there’s the cities too—they make wide loops around cities, avoiding anywhere densely populated. It’s easy enough when they go through ass-fuck-nowhere Ohio, but as they creep further north, things get trickier. Madison is constantly plotting, constantly poring over a map, drawing lines and giving directions. Jefferson and Hamilton take turns driving, try to follow Madison’s convoluted directions.
Madison is—well, Hamilton isn’t sure if he’s mad at him or just at Jefferson or at both of them—but he’s clearly making no efforts to engage either of them in conversation. After a day, Jefferson cracks, playacts at kindness towards Hamilton in some misguided effort to win Madison back over.
He’s vaguely considerate, not a raging jackass, stops responding to Hamilton’s bait—and goading Jefferson is one of Hamilton’s few remaining pleasures. It’s what finally makes Hamilton play along, what makes him look vaguely agreeable with Jefferson.
After all, Jefferson can be nice to someone other than Madison when he chooses.
(Hamilton thinks of his hole-free shoes, the ones he never asked about).
Madison’s anger sizzles out after a few days, evaporates with a heaved sigh over dinner one night. He reaches out, takes Jefferson’s hand, brushes the pad of his thumb over his knuckles.
(As much as Madison puts on an unaffected air, Hamilton's realized that the truth's that Madison needs Jefferson as much Jefferson needs him).
Jefferson’s eyes flicker shut. He sinks back in his chair a moment, then straightens a second later with plain relief splashed on his face, looks at Madison with so much love it makes Hamilton’s chest ache.
“Je t’aime,” Jefferson murmurs to Madison, kissing the back of his hand.
“Je connais,” he answers, tired as he smiles. “Je t’aime aussi.”
As always when they fall to French, Hamilton looks oblivious down towards his hands.
New Years comes; 2012 rolls over into 2013.
Hamilton can’t think of much of a reason to celebrate, so he goes to bed early. Laughter echoes from another room. Hamilton doesn’t wonder if they share resolutions. If they count down to ten. If they start the year off with a kiss.
He pulls the pillow over his head and tries not to think of where he was a year ago.
Charleston felt like home last New Years. Laurens was with him last New Years.
He’s alone this year.
The days blend together; Hamilton doesn’t pay much attention. Madison, on the other hand, keeps a planner. He’s religious about it, checks it every morning, marks down where they’re headed, how much ground they need to cover, whether they need to restock on anything in particular. Hamilton doesn’t usually pay it much mind—all that matters is that he has a vague idea of what season it is—but he must be keeping track in some corner of his mind.
“What day is it?” he asks one morning, leaning forward in the backseat.
Hamilton looks at the planner in Madison's hands, tracks the marks made over all of the preceding days—and sure as shit, it’s the eleventh just like some part of him expected.
“Huh,” Hamilton remarks, distantly shocked at his continued existence. “Today’s my birthday.”
That gets Madison to look up, a rare flicker of surprise painting his features.
“Is it?”
“Yes, Madison. It might come as a surprise, but it’s the same day as it is every year.”
“Wait, so how old are you?” Jefferson jumps in, eyeing Hamilton in the rear-view mirror. “Like, what, twenty?"
“Twenty-four .”
“Jesus, you say that like there’s a fucking difference." Jefferson scoffs, apparently finding himself funny. "Talk to me when you’re thirty.”
Hamilton scowls.
“Six years of seniority—”
“Seven, this April.”
“—doesn’t give you the fucking authority to tell me shit.”
Madison’s eyes lift irritably to the ceiling of the car. Jefferson catches the shift, stops himself from saying whatever insult was on his lips, shakes his head as if to clear it. He turns around, smiles lazily.
“Well, happy fuckin’ birthday.”
“One, get your eyes back on the road before you wrap us around a tree. Two, can we break out the actual fucking booze?”
“What’d’ya want?”
“I’m tired of wine,” Hamilton complains. “And whiskey and bourbon or scotch or whatever the hard liquor it is you both drink: they all tastes like moss. Please just tell me you have some normal beer. Jesus, I don’t even care what brand it is as long as I could find it in a gas station. Save the craft shit for someone who cares.”
“Jesus, I forgot what being in college was like,” Jefferson remarks, amusement mixing with wonder. He smiles as if remembering something—then shakes his head, back to his usual self. “No, we don’t have god-awful beer. Because, you know, we have taste.”
“Then forget it." Hamilton shrugs it off, rolls the number around his mind. "There’s nothing to celebrate anyways.”
Jefferson looks at him a second longer in the mirror, then makes a hmph sound and returns to driving.
They pull over an hour later in the suburbs of some Pennsylvania town that’s probably not even worth the ink it takes to print on the map. It’s quiet, at least—all the people must’ve evacuated after Philadelphia. Hamilton hates to even be in the same state as the capital, hates to even think of the place and of the memories it stirs up. He wonders if Jefferson and Madison feel the same—but if they do, neither of them say it aloud.
After settling into a house for the night, Jefferson waves as he goes out the door.
“I’m going on a walk. I’ll be back for dinner.”
It’s quiet outside, no sign of infected, so they let him go.
Dinner is nicer than usual, Hamilton notes. Madison’s broken out the ramen—Hamilton’s favorite of their meals—and he cooks more carefully than usual. The house’s spice cabinet is still impressively intact, so Hamilton helps. After three years of college, ramen is his culinary specialty. He just laments they don't have any eggs.
“What’s the deal with Angelica?” Hamilton asks Madison as they wait for the water to boil. The questions been on his mind for days. In the past week, he’s thought more about her than he has in the last year, let the name burrow into his brain. “I mean, I figured you worked with her dad, so you must’ve known her, but I didn’t realize—”
“She and Jefferson dated several years,” Madison explains, his voice cool. He sighs, shakes his head, cryptically says, “It was my own fault.”
“Oh,” Hamilton replies, even though that raises about half a dozen more questions than it answers.
Namely what the fuck Angelica was doing hitting that far below her league, and why she never told him that—
Probably because you would've reacted exactly like this.
Madison stirs the pot, considers it a long moment. He finally looks up, his face painted with the familiar pity that Hamilton’s come to hate so much.
(It’s almost easier to be around Jefferson these days).
“Did she make it out of New York?”
“I think so,” Hamilton says after a moment. “But I… don’t know. I mean, some of my friends must’ve. I found… some of them made it upstate, at least. After that, I don’t know.”
Madison is silent for a long moment. Gradually, Hamilton sees sadness slipping through his veneer, a vacant look glazing over his eyes.
“I wasn’t standing where I was supposed to be.”
“What?”
“The inauguration—I was supposed to be where Philip Schuyler was. I asked him if I could stand next to Thomas instead.” He shakes his head. “If I’d been where he was, the infected would’ve gotten to me before I knew what was happening.”
Hamilton doesn’t know what to say.
The why me. He can’t answer it for himself, let alone for someone else.
“She wouldn’t blame you,” Hamilton finally tells him. “It wasn’t anything but chance.”
He doesn’t believe the last part. But it’s what he’s supposed to say, one of the platitudes that’s supposed to make them all feel better—one that stopped working a long time ago.
Madison just sighs.
Their silence is only broken when the door swings back open, obnoxious whistling announcing Jefferson’s return. Hamilton readies himself to deal with Jefferson’s bitching—fucking ramen, again, seriously?—but Jefferson sweeps into the room in one of his good moods. Surprisingly, he heads to Hamilton first, all but ignores Madison. Flashing white teeth, Jefferson unceremoniously drops a six-pack onto the table with a loud, glassy clunk. Hamilton looks up, surprised. Jefferson’s shirt is stained with dark blood—not his own, thankfully—and his hands are fucking filthy, like he’s spent hours digging through cobwebs and dusty cupboards.
“Happy fuckin’ birthday,” Jefferson tells him, vaguely distasteful as he looks at the beer.
It’s Sam Adams’ brand, but it’s the shitty tier that broke students buy to imitate classiness at mixers. Hamilton looks up at Jefferson, and—even though it’s clearly performative niceness, clearly done solely for the sake of Hamilton’s birthday—for the first time, Jefferson doesn’t seem half-fucking-bad. Maybe he did make a New Years resolution; Hamilton imagines try not to be such a raging prick scribbled in Jefferson's spidery cursive.
His lips twist into a smile.
The beer is half-fucking bad— Hamilton , seriously? You actually like this shit? I wouldn’t use this to thin the fucking paint on my car— but Hamilton has missed the taste of gas station alcohol, missed the simple comfort of pairing terrible beer with ten-cent ramen, missed sitting around a table and talking about law and politics and the opera and everything else under the sun.
After dinner, Hamilton watches as Madison and Jefferson give their goodbyes, leave for bed.
Through the thin walls, Hamilton can hear them murmuring. He picks up the occasional word, an odd phrase.
“ … sorry…. know that you…”
“… forgive you. But… don’t… he’s… you didn’t see.”
“I know…. I wish… sooner… bad.”
“My fault… immune… don’t know…”
And then, before the talking quiets down, as always:
“I love you.”
“Love you too.”
Maybe Hamilton doesn't hear it—at this point, maybe he just imagines it.
Hamilton’s the last one awake.
He sits alone in the kitchen drinking a while longer. He thinks.
As far as birthdays go, it could be worse.
Hamilton would never say it aloud, but he’s sometimes a little relieved that Jefferson and Madison are so undyingly in love. He’s around them all the damn time and doesn’t want to hear them constantly bitch, sure, but that’s not the extent of it—truth it, their relationship is one of the only things left in the world that still makes sense.
(Even if watching them sometimes stabs something sharp through his lungs, makes his fingers tighten around the photo strip ever-present in his pocket).
It’s sad that someone else’s relationship is the steadiest thing in Hamilton’s life, and it’s sad that the relationship belongs to the two most fucking ridiculous people in the damn world, but damn if it’s not some kind of stability in the shitshow that the world’s become.
Of course, Jefferson’s consistent jackassery is also a point of stability.
At least it’s finally too cold for him to do yoga shirtless.
But Jefferson is nothing if not persistent; he finds alternatives.
One afternoon, metallic clanks draw Hamilton down into a basement. He’s half-sure he’s going to find an infected rattling around in chains or something equally fucked up, but it’s Jefferson that greets Hamilton in an unfurnished room, surrounded by gym equipment. Jefferson barely pays him any attention as he enters until he’s finished a set of deadlifts, drops the bar with a resounding clank.
“Yeah?” Jefferson asks, irritable.
He’s shirtless—because of course he is, he's an asshole—and Hamilton is almost too busy being pissed off by that to notice the bar and—holy shit, that’s a lot of weight.
“Are you fucking allergic to wearing clothes?” Hamilton asks the second he recovers, plastering a scowl over his surprise.
He’s too late: Jefferson’s lips twist into the smirk Hamilton’s always so tempted to knock off his face. He crosses his arms over his chest, regards Hamilton with amusement.
“Is Madison around?”
“Why?”
“I need a spotter.” Jefferson swaggers over to a bench press, arches his brows. “Well?”
“He’s meditating. What, you want me to get him for you?”
“Hell no,” Jefferson says, incredulous. “Even I’m not that goddamned stupid. Just come over here and do it for me. You’ve been in a gym before right? You know what spotting is?”
“Yes. I’ve been in a gym. But why the hell would I help you?”
“I’ll play chess with you,” Jefferson offers. “And don’t pretend like you don’t want to. I know you’re bored out of your damn mind. You’re out of things to read, and whoever lived here clearly maxed out their capacity for intellectual stimulation with Twilight. ”
Hamilton wants to turn him down out of principle, but Jefferson’s—unfortunately—right. So he sourly walks over, rounds to the head of the bench. Jefferson strips the weights off his deadlift bar, loads them onto the bar over the bench; Hamilton pretends like he hasn’t tallied up the final weight. He’s not going to give Jefferson the satisfaction.
“Alright,” Jefferson says, sliding onto the bench beneath him. He shifts his hands, pushes the bar over his chest. “I’m doing three sets, six reps. Should be fine.”
Jefferson heaves up—one, two, three… six. He replaces the bar with a gust of air tearing out of his mouth, sits up.
“Fuck, I miss the gym,” he laments, swiping an arm over his sweating brow. “I had Monticello remodeled right before all this, got a home gym installed." His face falls; Hamilton remembers Jefferson yelling something about arson, something about Redcoats, feels a wash of sympathy despite himself. "Damn— I was looking forward to having that.”
“You realize how you sound to me, right? Oh, I'm so sad that I didn't get to use the gym I paid a million-something dollars to have built in my McMansion."
Jefferson huffs a laugh, swipes the water bottle by the bench.
“Where’d you grow up?” Jefferson asks, unusually conversational; Hamilton chalks it up to exercise-induced exhaustion.
“In the British West Indies,” he answers despite himself, “on an island called Nevis.”
“Sounds tropical.”
Tropical enough for hurricanes. Tropical enough to be ravaged by yellow fever. Tropical enough for his mother to take him and his brother to the beach every weekend, to teach them how to swim, to—
Hamilton looks away.
“It was.”
Jefferson slides back under the bar: one, two, three, four… He pauses a second before five, then a second longer before six, but makes it and reracks the bar. He’s breathing heavily, sweating.
It’s a waste of energy in Hamilton’s opinion. He believes that there’s an element of practicality behind it, sure, concedes that Jefferson’s probably the strongest of the three of them—but Hamilton’s also not an idiot. There’s no way in hell he believes that Jefferson’s motivations aren’t tainted by vanity either. The man wears a Rolex in the apocalypse, for fuck’s sake.
“What was it like?” Jefferson asks after a long drink, and Hamilton has to backtrack to remember what they were talking about.
“It was alright,” Hamilton answers, even though it’s mostly a lie. “New York was better.”
“I always hated New York,” Jefferson scowls. “Only place worse than fuckin’ New York is Boston. Oh, and Philadelphia. God, what I wouldn’t have given to move the capital further South.”
“You've got some pretty strong opinions on Boston.”
“Yeah, 'cause it's a complete shithole. The only thing worth a damn that ever came out of there was Sam Adams.”
Hamilton’s mind goes back to the outbreak; he doesn’t remember seeing the Massachusetts Representative there, but the implication in Jefferson’s voice is clear. Hamilton thinks for a second: weeks ago, Jefferson told him all his friends were dead. Is that better or worse than being where Hamilton is? Is it better to know everyone you loved is gone? Or is it better to delude yourself into thinking everyone’s still out there somewhere, still breathing, still waiting to see you again?
In the end, Hamilton decides it doesn’t matter—he's going to London. Even if his friends are alive, he’ll never see them again.
“Last set,” Jefferson says.
One. Two. Three. Jefferson’s arms shake on four. Five, he only gets halfway up, stops to gasp; Hamilton’s fingers curl around the bar—
“I’ve got it,” Jefferson grits out through bared teeth.
Five. He rests a long moment before trying six, fails, then tries again out of what must be sheer ego when Hamilton reaches down to stop the bar from crushing him alive. This time, he makes it. The bar clunks into place.
Jefferson makes no effort to move, splayed out exhausted on the bench. Hamilton doesn't notice the broad chest, the strong arms, the way sweat trickles down the curve of his throat.
“Alright,” Jefferson finally gets out. “Now squats?”
Half an hour later, a washed-up Jefferson meets Hamilton in a study. Madison’s on his third hour of meditation in the foyer, and, if nothing else, they’re both clearly united by a desire not to fuck with that. Jefferson sets up the chess board, takes a seat opposite Hamilton.
“Have you ever played chess before?” Jefferson drawls, brows raised as Hamilton looks over the board, calling back the passages from the book he got months prior.
“It’s been a while,” he lies.
He recalls a strategy, moves his knight; Jefferson stares, calculates, then smiles lazily. He moves a pawn.
Pawn. Rook. Bishop. Pawn. Queen. Knight. Pawn. Pawn. Queen.
“Checkmate,” Jefferson declares eleven moves in, smugly leaning back in his chair.
Hamilton does a double-take, examines the board, shock seeping in. Jefferson's anticipated every move he was going to make, somehow countered each time.
“What?” the other man drawls, leaning in with a grin that brings a crocodile to mind. “You think I didn’t see your little Chess for Beginners book?”
Karma acts quickly for once, gets Jefferson back the next morning as they eat.
Jefferson makes some grand gesture as he talks about something Hamilton doesn’t care about, knocking his shotgun to the floor in the process. It clatters against the ground; Jefferson’s face twists. Hamilton barely even pays attention until Madison speaks up in French.
“Something wrong?” Madison asks in a voice that reveals he already knows the exact answer.
“Jemmy, sweetheart, sunshine, light of my life, will you pretty please pick that up for me?” Jefferson evades the question, smiling too sweet.
“Why can’t you?”
Jefferson heaves a resigned sigh.
“Because I’m going to cry if I have to bend over,” he admits, vaguely shamed.
“Yes, and you would deserve it,” Madison tells him, rolling his eyes as he leans over to scoop it off the ground. “Maybe you wouldn’t be so sore if you didn’t try to show off so much.”
“I wasn’t showing off!”
“Thomas, I’ve seen you add fifty pounds to a barbell just because you noticed someone watching you.”
Jefferson scoffs, but looks away instead of denying the allegation. Hamilton hides his mouth in his coffee mug, barely suppressing a snicker. What a fucking asshat.
Someday, he’ll reveal he knows French; that day isn’t today.
Unpacking the trunk is always a fucking experience. Madison is pretty good at keeping things organized, but he usually lets (read: makes) Jefferson and Hamilton haul things in and out when they’re stopping somewhere for the night—which means they fuck up Madison’s order trying to cram things back inside. Anyway—point is, Hamilton finds and rediscovers random shit all the time.
It’s the end of February, it’s cold and dark outside, and Hamilton is rummaging through the trunk trying to find their canned food: tonight’s cuisine is saltines and tuna. He knocks another box out of the way, frustration overtaking them. Jefferson is similarly irritated behind him if the increasingly short intervals between his heaving sighs are anything to go by.
Hamilton knocks another case aside, reveals half a dozen containers of fucking—he narrows his eyes, grabs one to figure out just what he’s about to complain about. He scowls as he reads the label.
Madison joins them.
“Why the fuck is there so much coconut oil back here? I mean, seriously—there’s like a fucking gallon of it,” Hamilton complains. “In five fucking months, I’ve never seen either of you use it to cook once.”
Madison leaves.
Jefferson’s eyeing him with vague amusement when Hamilton turns. He reaches forward, plucks the container out of Hamilton’s hand, and returns it to the trunk.
“Yeah, it’s not for cooking,” Jefferson flatly drawls. "It's for another verb that ends in i-n-g."
Hamilton stands there for a second until the realization dawns—then walks the fuck away.
January gives way to February.
It’s cold outside. It’s been cold outside, but as they creep north, it gets colder. Colder than New York, colder than winter should ever have any right to be. The temperature drops below freezing, then into single digits—drips briefly back into double digits, but on the wrong side of zero.
Hamilton is too cold to sleep well most nights even if they’re able to find a bed. It’s worse in the Escalade. There’re three rows of seats inside: two in the front, two in the middle, three in the back. The back row is usually stuffed with supplies, but Madison and Jefferson rearrange things until there’s room to lie down, then hunker down there during nights when there’s nowhere to stop. Hamilton migrates into one of the front seats, tries not to freeze alive. Even with half a dozen blankets, it’s impossible. The chill settles into his fingers, his hands and feet, gradually ices him over every night. In the mornings, he's cold, blue, frosted over.
He layers and layers and layers. They stop in busted-out clothing stores, find more jackets, coats, parkas. Hamilton wears undershirts, shirts, sweatshirts, parkas.
It’s never enough.
He’s always cold, always freezing, always on the brink of frostbite.
Madison and Jefferson glue themselves to one another to ward off the cold; Hamilton freezes alone.
But they push on and manage—until it snows.
A colorless sky hangs low above them. Flakes begin to fall in the morning—and by the time afternoon rolls around, even with four-wheel drive, they’re forced to pull over. A few miles off the highway, they pull into the driveway of a fenced-off ranch.
“How long do you think it’s gonna snow for?” Jefferson asks as they get out of the car, toeing the inches of powder piled up on the ground already.
“Well shit, let me just consult my crystal ball,” Hamilton heckles him. “It says: fuck if I know anything about meteorology.”
“I miss the fuckin’ weather app."
The house has three infected. Jefferson draws them all out with a whistle, bottlenecking them in the foyer. They’re no match for the three of them, and they go down fast: knife, knife, arrow. Hamilton's getting good at shooting now, honing his skills.
He offers to drag them outside, lets Madison and Jefferson unload the trunk.
The first infected is barely five feet; Hamilton refuses to think of what that means. The second was a man once; even dead for real, he stares up at Hamilton with unblinking yellow eyes. The last is—well, Hamilton doesn’t know. The fungus has grown over its face so badly Hamilton can’t determine anything: gender, age—nothing. It’s horrifying. The infection has split its face in two, opened a deep crevasse that stretches from between its eyes down to its chin; through the gap, out bursts shoots of yellow-orange-grey cordyceps fungus.
It’s been infected a long, long time—maybe since the beginning.
Hamilton spares a moment to wonder just what happens as the infection ages There’s no frame of reference. They’re not even two years in; what happens to the infected after five years? Ten? Do the infected eventually become so corrupted by the infection they perish, too degraded to stay alive?
Probably not , Hamilton cynically thinks. That would be too easy.
He dumps all the bodies a few dozen yards away from the house, rubs his hands and arms clean with snow. It doesn’t matter—he’s already too cold to even really feel it.
He returns to the house. Madison is working on getting a fire started in the fireplace, but there’s only a few logs cut up on the porch: the fire won’t burn for more than a couple hours.
By the time Hamilton tries to fall asleep beside it, it's out, little more than glowing embers.
Hamilton gives up on sleep after hours have cooled the cinders to nothing. He disentangles himself from the mass of blankets he’s built on the floor and pads into the kitchen, finds their camping stove . A fresh blast of icy air hits him when he goes outside. He’s so damn cold by the time he’s scraped snow into the pot that it slips out of his shaking hands when he comes back inside. It hits the tile with a deafening clatter so loud enough it scares even him—and he dropped the damn thing in the first place.
Hamilton glances to the hallway, waiting for one or both of them to burst in with their guns raised, aroused by the sound.
Madison doesn’t disappoint: he materializes in the door-frame at near light-speed with his shotgun in hand, looking a little alarmed and more than a little weary.
“Hamilton?” he asks, exhaustion plain in his voice. He’s irritated, but gentler than he usually is when he’s woken up, words inflected with that ever-present pity. “What in God’s name are you doing awake?”
“I’m trying,” Hamilton replies, his teeth chattering so badly on the t that he has to try again before he gets it right . “I’m trying to make myself coffee.”
“At three . In. The. Morning?”
Hamilton bends over, struggles to pick up the pot with stiff fingers.
“Jesus, Madison, can’t you just leave me the hell alone? I can’t sleep, alright? Just go back to bed.”
Madison reaches down and picks up the pot for him, sets it onto the counter. He stares Hamilton down a moment, then shakes his head and heaves a pitying sigh.
“Hamilton, look—the bed is big enough for the three of us. You’re welcome to come and sleep on the other side if it’ll keep you from getting frostbite. You'll shoot better with all your fingers intact.”
“There’s no way in hell I’m going to—"
Jefferson staggers still half-asleep into the kitchen, cutting crankily into their conversation.
“Christ, Hamilton, it’s the middle of the night. I know your pride’s shoved so far up your ass you’re choking on it, but just come to fuckin’ bed and bitch later, I swear to God.” He rubs a hand over his face, swaying sleepily. A little more alertness works its way into his face. “You know what? Fuck you—I don’t care. I’m too tired for this. Freeze your ass off if you want. ”
Jefferson doesn’t stay and wait to hear Hamilton’s response, doesn't even consult with Madison. He just turns and leaves.
Hamilton weighs his choices, the chances of getting frostbite if he goes back to bed alone. The more he thinks about it, the more the idea appeals to him—which speaks to the state he’s in. He’s so tired and so cold he’s lost all his damn common sense—and he’s conscious of that in some distant part of his mind, but as he watches Jefferson retreat, looks back to a not-shivering Madison, all he can think about is how warm the bed must be with the two of them.
Surviving— his mind chimes. Staying alive.
That’s what does him in.
He trails after Jefferson, Madison sweeping in behind him. Jefferson doesn’t turn around, but Hamilton is half-convinced he doesn’t just imagine the way Jefferson’s shoulders relax a little at the sound of his footsteps. The room is dark and quiet when Jefferson cracks the door back open, practically flings himself back into bed until he’s buried back beneath a furnace of pillow and blankets. Madison is a little more practical about it, sliding past Hamilton and setting his revolver onto the nightstand first.
“Jemmy, c’mere,” Jefferson murmurs, his voice muffled and sleep-rough. “Fuck Hamilton— I’m cold.”
“I know, baby,” Madison replies, more loving than Hamilton’s ever heard. His eyes are unguarded this late at night, filled with unrestrained warmth. He slides into bed, presses a drowsy kiss to the back of Jefferson’s neck. In slow, sleepy French, he murmurs: “He was trying to make coffee.”
“Freezing his ass off just to spite us, huh?”
“So it would seem.”
“The fire’s out?”
“Mm.”
“I’ll find some way to cut more wood tomorrow.”
Hamilton shifts in the doorway, feeling like an intruder. He shouldn’t be here—shouldn’t be listening to this conversation. He doesn’t belong here, doesn’t belong in this little niche they’ve carved out for themselves in the world. He should go back to the floor by the fireplace, rough it out.
He almost does.
“Close the fucking door,” Jefferson complains to Hamilton, adopting a familiar annoyed cadence as he switches back to English. Madison makes a noise of agreement. “You’re letting the warm air out.”
And, after a moment’s hesitation, Hamilton does.
The bed is warm. So fucking warm. Even as far right, as far away as he can get without straight-up falling off the bed, Hamilton feels like he’s not freezing for the first time in weeks.
Gradually, he stops shaking. Gradually, he even begins to drift off, distantly aware of the soft breathing mere feet away.
Sleep finally takes him.
Light reflects blindingly off the snow piled up outside, bathes the room in sterile white.
Hamilton blinks drowsily. He wakes up and drifts back off more than once, but finally, a sound nearby stings him into consciousness. He jerks up, eyes searching for a threat, weighing his surroundings. It takes him a second to realize the sound came not from an infected, but from one of the men beside him. He blinks at the two as it hits him where he is.
Madison has turned over in his sleep, faces him. Jefferson’s face is pressed into the crook of his neck, an arm slung possessively over his chest to hold him fast. They’re sleeping together softly, the rise and fall of their chests the only movement in the room at all. It’s more intimate than the kisses they steal over breakfast, than the way they can make the other crack a smile with the vaguest turn of phrase, than the reassuring brush of fingers over knuckles after a particularly harrowing run-in with the infected. Even in unconsciousness, they’re holding onto each other like the other’s the last damn thing tethering him to earth.
The sight fills Hamilton with a familiar, cutting loss. Scoops out his heart, hollows his chest.
He shouldn’t be here.
Quietly, Hamilton disentangles himself from the sheets, slides out of the bed—and the recurring cold returns, hits him all that much harder now that he’s had something warm to compare it to.
He makes breakfast: oatmeal. They’re running low, only have another couple scoops left—he cuts his portion, figuring he can make the box stretch another couple days. Jefferson and Madison emerge from the bedroom just as he’s spooning the oatmeal into the bowls.
“How long have you been up?” Jefferson asks, running a hand over his face.
“A couple hours,” Hamilton lies.
“Did you sleep any?”
“Not for long. You were snoring too fucking loudly.”
Madison peers into the bowls, notes how they’re filled—his mouth twitches downwards. He takes the bowl Hamilton was going to give himself.
Hamilton almost protests, but he stops short. What exactly is he going to say?
“I don’t fucking snore,” Jefferson denies before Hamilton can think up an excuse.
“So it was Madison?”
“Leave me out of this,” the man in question says, though there’s more amusement than actual annoyance in his voice. “Indulge me: I just want to eat breakfast in silence. It's too early for your bickering.”
Jefferson huffs a laugh, drops into the seat beside him. He stabs his oatmeal viciously, but he’s apparently in a good mood this morning because he makes conversation with the two of them.
“I’m so fucking tired of oatmeal and cereal and rice and canned food all the time.”
“Oh, shit,” Hamilton dryly apologizes, sliding easily back into more familiar territory. This, he knows how to deal with. “I’m so sorry—let me go get your fucking filet mignon.”
“Like you don’t bitch about missing your foam art lattes and avocado and toast, you fucking Millennial.”
“Thomas, we’re Millennials.”
“Yeah, by like a year,” Jefferson scoffs, shaking his head. “Jesus, though—I would kill for some fucking variety. I want to go—I don’t know—fishing or something. If it wasn’t so damn cold, I’d go out with Hamilton and scrounge up some fucking protein. I miss meat so damn much. Jemmy, remember that one place we used to go to? The one in Richmond?”
That statement throws Hamilton back off-kilter, throws him off his balance. He’s more aware than ever of where he stands.
Hamilton is a cure.
He’s not their friend. He’s their moral obligation.
And even before he was bitten, that’s all he was. He was alone and pathetic and on the brink—and they dragged him along out of pity. Hell, they’ve probably just been waiting for a chance to get rid of him, to offload him onto someone else. His immunity is probably a damn blessing. He’s an aberration in their routine; they don’t need him.
"Of course," Madison tells him. "You complained about the sommeliers every time we went."
The two of them fall back into reminiscent conversation.
Hamilton stays silent and eats his fucking oatmeal.
He must give something away because at one point, Jefferson watches him a moment, then shakes it off and continues his conversation with Madison.
(Hamilton thinks of the shoes Jefferson got him, of how Madison took the noticeably emptier bowl, of how the bed was the first time he’d been warm in weeks.)
It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care.
The road ends in Boston.
Hamilton shivers himself to sleep—alone—until the snow melts.
Welcome to Massachusetts, the sign at the side of the road reads.
Boston appears on the green signs hanging over the highways; the number next to the name gradually dwindles. The future creeps closer. Time ticks away.
Boston: Ten Miles Ahead.
The world’s worst road-trip is coming to an end.
“How are we going to play this?” Hamilton asks them both, reminding himself he's ready to leave.
Madison and Jefferson exchange a look, a brief conversation in French.
“We’ll escort you just shy of a checkpoint,” Madison says in English after a few moments, oblivious that Hamilton's already heard the plan. "We can’t go any further than that. Someone’ll recognize us.”
They pull off at the next exit, stash the car. Hamilton takes his pack, unloads his things from the trunk one last time. He has his pistol, his clothes, his photo strip in his pocket. The trunk closes.
Hamilton lays a hand on the cold black exterior of the Escalade one last time. It’s been his home as much as anywhere in the past few months, and he has to leave it behind too. It’s stupid to get sentimental over a car, but—Hamilton closes his eyes and pulls his hand away.
He looks back to Madison and Jefferson, finds Madison expectantly holding out his compound bow; Hamilton didn’t want to bother taking it with him.
“Keep it,” he tells Madison, looking away. “I won’t need it, right? You all might.”
In England, he’ll be safe. As a lab rat, he won’t hurt for food or shelter or safety. Gone are his days on the gone. Gone is the sweet, terrible freedom of having the world at his fingertips, endless possibilities stretching in every direction. Hamilton’s life isn’t his own any longer; he cedes it to the British. For love of his country. For love of a cure.
It doesn’t bother him.
New York is gone. Laurens is dead. His legacy is dead before it ever began. He has nothing.
But everything that’s happened can’t be for nothing.
Hamilton turns to Boston and begins to walk, Jefferson and Madison on either side of him. The Redcoats seem to have at least done a little housekeeping; even though they’re close to what was once major city, the infected are thin here. A few freshly turned shamble in their path every now and then with mouths opened wide in piercing shrieks, but the three of them deal with them summarily.
Hamilton wonders about England as they walk. He tries to call up the rumors he’s heard of King George since the outbreak, but his mind comes up short. He thinks he remembers something about Queen Charlotte, about her demise. He’s never been a fan of royalty, but the queen always seemed alright, the somewhat more balanced counterpart to the king.
“Did you ever meet the King?” Hamilton asks absentmindedly as they walk.
“A few times,” Jefferson answers. “He was alright. Kind of fidgety. A little paranoid, but understandably so since, you know, I went on to write the Declaration of Independence.”
“I still think he’s gay,” Madison speaks up in a voice that suggests he and Jefferson have had this conversation a dozen times before.
“He has, like, a dozen kids.”
“Which is perfectly in-line with the repressed people we used to work with," Madison says at the same time Hamilton chimes in with a halfhearted jab: "Yeah, he almost gets laid as much as you do."
"Hamilton, if you think I won't—"
Hamilton lets their bickering fade into the background, searches his memory. It’s astonishing how fast all the faces from his pre-outbreak life have faded out of his mind, but he pulls up an image of a well-dressed red-headed man speaking to a crowd of reporters, a little neurotic, a lot British. In his memories, the man feeds lies into the microphone: oh, the colonies benefit from our relationship, oh, we made an arrangement when the first settlers went away, oh, the colonies need no army—the Redcoats will protect you in the case that military force is needed.
Yeah, fat fucking lie.
(Hamilton feels a little pity for the man, though; watching his most important colonies declare independence, then watching the colony’s leaders ripped apart in the first wave, then losing his wife and so much of his family all within an hour—what a fucking nightmare of a day it must've been).
“You’ll be fine, Hamilton,” Madison reassures him. Hamilton looks over like he hasn’t missed the last five minutes of conversation and nods. “The King’s a reasonable enough man. I doubt things would’ve come to blows with England; the harm would’ve outweighed the benefits.”
"Bullshit," Hamilton replies. "If we went, so would half the rest of the world."
He realizes they’ve stopped.
Hamilton realizes that they’re at the end of the line. This is it—they’re only a mile or two out of the city. The highway’s twenty yards away, just on the other side of a line of trees. Madison and Jefferson have taken him as far as they’re willing to go.
He’s on his own now.
“Well,” Hamilton says after a moment. It's only a word, but it's bitter and heavy in his mouth.
Hamilton wonders if it’s the last time he’ll ever see them. He can’t know for sure. There’s too much uncertainty, too many unknown variables. Maybe he makes it to England; maybe he doesn’t. Maybe Madison and Jefferson will be fine on their own; maybe their luck runs out. Hamilton doesn’t know. Chances are he never will.
Even if there is a cure, what then? Do the rest of the Redcoats come back? If they do, the country’s decimated, the population cut to almost nothing. America won’t be able to mount an army against a trained, highly funded force like the Redcoats, even if the army's numbers are down to a quarter of what they were pre-outbreak—maybe even a tenth. The revolutionaries will have to go underground, consign themselves back to the bowels of occupied cities instead of the open air, the podiums of the people.
And that will mean Madison and Jefferson are still officially traitors of the highest order. They’ll probably never be able to show their faces in public again if they don’t want to risk a swift arrest, a swift trial, a swift execution.
And Hamilton—where is he ten years from now? Still in England? Dead? Will extracting a cure kill him? The infection's in the brain, cracks through skulls and grows over faces. If the cure's in his brain, then what happens to him?
Hamilton doesn’t know what to say. He’s nauseous, sick to his stomach.
“You know,” he finally tells Jefferson, “it might be the only thing worth a shit you’ve ever done, but I actually thought the Declaration was pretty fucking good.”
Jefferson snorts, but the suggestion of a smile takes root at the edge of his mouth. Hamilton does his best to return the gesture.
“Yeah, well, I thought you laying out Henry Laurens was pretty fuckin’ good too,” Jefferson says.
Hamilton turns to Madison, to his pitying eyes, his pitying, forced smile.
He shakes Madison’s hand—formal, only the slightest hint of warmth slipping through when Madison’s hand lingers a moment too long.
“Hamilton,” Madison tentatively says. He hesitates. There’s something he wants to say that he isn’t; Madison finally shakes his head, shoving it away. “Look after yourself.”
Hamilton looks between the two of them one last time.
An inkling of an absurd thought pulls at the fringes of Hamilton's consciousness; he pushes it away.
“Thanks,” at last he says, “for getting me to Boston.”
The two exchange one of their still-indecipherable eye contact conversations, then look one last time back at Hamilton, each offering a final smile that doesn’t quite reach their eyes.
And then they go their separate ways: Hamilton off to England, and the two of them head back off into the country none of them ever had the chance to build.
Only they don’t.
The Redcoats come from nowhere.
There’s a flash in the tree-line. Their heads all whip around, hands reaching for guns—and then there’s movement to their left, to their right, behind them. Red blurs around them, men and women burst out from trees, rifles aimed. They rush forwards, pushing them back, pushing them into a circle with their backs against each other, their hands frozen halfway to their weapons.
“Don’t move!” one of the Redcoats yells.
Hamilton thinks about moving.
His pistol is just in his waistband, a half-second draw—his hand twitches, but he forces himself to still. Hamilton counts. One, two, three— ten. Ten Redcoats surrounding them. Hamilton can take down ten people if he has the drop on them, more if he can do it quietly. He can’t take down ten when ten guns are already trained on him, just looking for an excuse. He could take one or two to hell with him, but the rest would blow holes in his chest first.
“Hands up,” a Redcoat orders.
Jefferson and Madison consult in rapid-fire French whispers.
“I counted ten.”
“As did I.”
“What do we do?”
“At the moment, hope for the best—what else can we do?”
“Jesus, I’m not going out on my fucking knees!”
“I didn’t say we weren't going to fight. Just not now.”
One of the Redcoats orders them to stop with a jab of their bayonet; they fall quiet.
“So,” Jefferson says after a few moments. He smiles lazy and white, insolence dripping off of every word in a way that makes Hamilton’s lips twitch. “Y’all come here often?”
“I can’t fucking believe it,” a voice proclaims. “When one of my men called in to tell me they saw James Madison and Thomas Jefferson wandering through the woods, I thought they’d broken into the rum.”
Madison tenses up; Jefferson freezes. The voice is vaguely familiar, niggles at the back of Hamilton’s mind. He dissects the voice: male, brazen, violently English—too affected, too posh, too pronounced to be genuine. It’s a mask, a façade of Britishness that would almost be convincing if it weren’t so absurdly overstated. The speaker is behind him, facing Jefferson and Madison—but not him.
“You can’t fucking believe it?” Jefferson asks—and Jesus, he’s pissed: his voice is polished smooth, a pretense of calm half a second away from shattering. A moment passes. It shatters. “You can’t fucking believe it?”
Hamilton turns around in time to see Jefferson lunging forward, Redcoats be damned—Hamilton and Madison slam forward at the same time, Hamilton grabbing Jefferson’s arms, Madison slamming the three of them to the ground. A gunshot rings out; Hamilton tenses, prepares for the explosion of white pain, yellow skies—but none comes. No one around them falls either; the shooter’s missed.
Hamilton looks up, finds Benedict Arnold aiming at where Jefferson was an instant ago.
“Stop fucking moving,” Hamilton hisses in Jefferson’s ear, fighting to keep him against the ground.
“He killed my—my fucking... my... let me go! I’m going to rip his fucking throat out—”
Madison clamps a hand over Jefferson’s mouth, looks up at Arnold with undisguised hatred in his eyes.
It’s the first time Hamilton realizes that Madison has never hated him.
Madison has never liked him, per se—but what’s burning in Madison’s eyes right now is new, fills Hamilton’s heart with ice. Hamilton has never seen Madison kill a human. Infected, sure, but never someone with light still in their eyes.
Hamilton has. Several times: self-defense. But not since he’s been with either of them—and he’s never asked, never known if they have what it takes.
But in that moment, Hamilton knows Madison does. He would.
(Maybe he already has).
“Mister Arnold,” Madison says, his voice cold and empty. “It’s been a while.”
“Since Philadelphia,” Arnold agrees—again with the accent. He never spoke like that when the country elected him the Connecticut Representative. He never spoke like that on the Representative floor or when he gathered at separatist rallies, Jefferson and Madison and Washington at his side. He didn’t even speak like that the day of the outbreak in Philadelphia; that day, he was an appointed member of Washington’s Cabinet, still loyal to the country—their country. “It’s a pleasure.”
Hamilton never paid much attention to the news after the outbreak, but Benedict Arnold was one piece of news he was acutely familiar with. Arnold—not an American, who never was, was always a lying, traitorous snake, who didn't deserve to be on that stage in Philadelphia, who doesn't deserve to be alive when everyone else who was there is dead.
Suddenly, he’s in danger of being the one Madison’s pinning to the ground. Madison reads his mind in an instant, reaches out, takes hold of his shoulder.
“He killed Washington and Lafayette and—all of them!” Jefferson snarls, yanking his face free of Madison’s hand. “He knew. He fucking knew that the Redcoats would shoot Washington’s motorcade, would shoot everyone that tried to leave the city. He fucking knew! He was with them right up until the last second—and then guess fucking what? Washington’s motorcade is fucking shot up, and he’s still alive, and he’s in charge of the Redcoats left behind, and everyone else is dead!"
“Please, gentlemen,” Arnold says, “Let’s be civil about this.”
“Oh, how about we're civil with my foot up your ass!” Jefferson yells.
Madison’s hand snaps back over his mouth.
“I agree,” Madison says to Arnold, perfectly passive--but it just gives Hamilton the very distinct intuition that if they’re not getting out of this alive, then Madison’s at least going to bring Arnold to hell with them. “Please, let’s go somewhere to discuss this further.”
In response, Arnold signals his men. Half of them rush forward, pull the three of them apart and up onto their feet, slap heavy cuffs around their wrists. The Redcoats search them, pull off Hamilton’s pack, divest them of their weapons. Jefferson’s shotgun is swept away; Madison’s revolver is taken. The Redcoats *pat down the three of them, take Hamilton’s switchblade and ammo, Jefferson’s backup handgun, have to stop at Madison: Madison has a knife in his coat, a knife in his waistband, a knife in his pocket, a knife tucked into his sock.
“You missed one,” Madison wryly tells the Redcoats.
It takes them five minutes to realize Madison’s fucking with them. A Redcoat starts to verge in on him, ticked off, but Arnold stops him with a raised hand.
“Come on, then. We’re all sophisticated, aren’t we?”
Hamilton’s eyes flicker instinctually to Jefferson. It’s then when he decides that Jefferson could kill a man too. Maybe not any man—but certainly this one.
“Well, you’re a fucking traitor, so…” Hamilton speaks up, looking back. "Honesty's a virtue, isn't it?"
Arnold’s eyes shift to him as if noticing him for the first time. His eyes narrow.
“ I’m the traitor? I’m loyal to the Crown, same as I’ve always been. These two committed treason when they joined Washington’s little crusade and turned their backs on the king!”
“How much did they pay you?” Jefferson asks, dark and quiet, his accent smothering half the syllables the way it only does when he’s a second away from starting to swing. “Would hafta’ve been a lotta zeroes if it was gonna dig you out of that debt I know you were in. Your wife tell you to do it? Tell you she'd leave you if you didn't?”
Arnold’s head snaps back to him, fury flashing on his face.
“We were friends once, Thomas. I could’ve made your life much harder, you know—but I didn’t. You should be thanking me.”
“Me? Thanking some no fuckin’ name from that shit-fuck-nothing colony Connecticut—”
“I know about you and Madison,” Arnold cuts him off.
Jefferson stops mid-sentence, his mouth still hanging open.
“What?” Arnold asks, vicious glee working into his smile. “Surprised? It was a silly thing that you gave you away, you know. But one day Madison was speaking on the floor, coughed, pulled out his handkerchief—and lo and behold, T.J. monogrammed on the bottom. I mused on that for a while, but it all fell into place from there.”
To everyone else, Madison is the spitting image of calm.
Hamilton can tell otherwise. Maybe he's gotten to know Madison better than he gives himself credit for.
Madison’s eyes scan their surroundings methodically—almost disinterestedly—counting enemies, judging weapons, playing out hundreds of scenarios in a second. But every time, he must come to the same conclusion as Hamilton—they’re outnumbered, outgunned, outmanned.
Madison’s jaw ticks.
“I think that’s enough,” he says to separate Jefferson and Arnold, his voice cool. “Will we be conducting any negotiations or not?”
Arnold turns to him, studies him, then turns back to the soldiers.
“Take these two back to Boston.” He turns to Hamilton, vague disdain on his face. “I don’t care about this one, but he’s not coming into the city. Do what you will.”
Hamilton’s not an idiot. He knows exactly what that’s a euphemism for. Redcoats grab Jefferson and Madison and start to haul them away. He stands there a second, panic gripping him fast.
“I’m immune!” he blurts out, the sound of his voice cutting through the air like a gunshot.
It’s so unexpected, so sudden that everyone’s eyes shift to him, Jefferson’s and Madison’s included. They share an uncertain, frightened look; Boston isn’t what any of them were hoping.
But they’re here now. It might be the last place they ever go. He’s in too deep to give up now, to get shot and die alone somewhere a mile outside of the city’s lines.
Hamilton’s fingers scramble at his collar. He tugs it down, exposes the hideous scar on his neck.
“I was bit—six weeks ago. Look—it’s healed over. I didn’t—I got sick, but I didn’t turn. I'm still human. I'm..." He swallows hard, wets his lips. "I’m immune.”
Silence weighs heavily over them all. Arnold slowly steps forward, one feet placed hesitantly in front of the other like he’s afraid Hamilton will suddenly go feral. When Hamilton doesn’t, desperation plain in his eyes, Arnold finally leans in, examines the bite. He pokes at the wound with the barrel of his gun in some kind of test. Hamilton flinches.
He knows what’ll happen if they don’t believe him.
Hamilton closes his eyes.
He waits.
“Jesus H. Christ,” Arnold finally says. “He’s immune. He’s really fucking immune.”
Arnold peels away, his eyes wide with wonder. Fascination. Hamilton recognizes quickly that it isn’t the good kind of interest—no, they’re all watching him with the cool, detached interest of someone looking at an artifact in a museum. Hamilton may as not be a person at all anymore: he’s a tool.
Hamilton swallows, reminds himself that this was always what awaited him.
The bitter taste doesn’t leave his mouth.
“Look, I’m just trying to get to England. The vaccine research’s there, isn’t it? I’m all you want—the two of them don’t have anything to do with this. Just take me.”
“Do you know each other?” Arnold asks them all, turning to Jefferson and Madison.
Hamilton opens his mouth.
“Fuck no,” Jefferson spits first, scowling at Hamilton with undisguised hatred. “We wouldn’t have even still fuckin’ been here if that bastard had never gotten in our way.” Hamilton’s teeth turn sour in his mouth. He doesn’t know what’s a lie. “What the fuck kind of trick is this? Immunity? You little piss-drinking motherfucker, just wait until I get my hands on you—"
Arnold ignores him, turning back to Hamilton. He walks around him once, twice, pauses in front just as a tall, broad soldier slips into the clearing. His coat is clean, violently red, perfectly tailored. Light glints off the golden insignia pinned to his chest.
“The perimeter’s clear, sir,” his deep voice announces.
Hamilton stands frozen, wide-eyed, horrified.
The soldier sees him.
They stare at each other. The moment feels like an eternity—but it can’t be, because Arnold is giving new orders, not even noticing the exchange.
“Right, then. The rest of you get Jefferson and Madison to the harbor. Keep a gun aimed at each of their heads and neither should give you much trouble. I’ll join you on the ride back.” He smiles at the pair, all vicious white teeth. “Let’s give them a swift send-off to our gracious King, shall we?”
The soldiers drag Jefferson to his feet, drag Madison away.
Their eyes meet only once before they're both gone.
Hamilton’s heart withers when it hits him that it’s as good of a goodbye as they’ll get.
“And as for you,” Arnold crows, rounding back on Hamilton. His eyes have regained some semblance of warmth, of reassurance. “Don’t you worry. We’ll have you on the soonest ship to the mainland. The three of you can walk into England together.” He leans forward, speaks into Hamilton’s ear. “You don’t really think I believe Jefferson, do you? But I’ll overlook that little lie for the sake of that bite, hm?”
He pulls away, smiling pleasantly at Hamilton’s blanching face. Then to the soldier, he orders,
“Get him to The Majesty. I want him out of the city as soon as possible—god forbid the anarchists stop us from taking the fucking cure out of this shithole.”
“Yes, sir,” the soldier tells him, not betraying any hint of emotion in his stance, his face, his voice.
“Oh,” Arnold says, “one more thing. Make sure the King knows I’ve got his favorite revolutionaries in my back pocket. I think we can expect a grand old promotion for this one, hm, lieutenant colonel?”
“I should hope so, sir.”
Arnold smiles and claps the man on the shoulder. Hamilton's vision floods with red: the red of a neck slashed open, the red of infected tearing into Laurens, the vivid, telling, traitorous red of the coat of the man in front of him.
“I hope,” Hamilton says slowly, “that you’ll get exactly what’s coming to you, Mister Mulligan.”
Notes:
thank you all so much for the brilliant reception on the first chapter! it means the world :) <3
Chapter Text
The year is 2007. Hamilton is eighteen, overworked, stressed, sleep-deprived, about to get kicked out of his apartment, and to top it all off, he has exactly six fifty-one in his bank account.
He has three-part time minimum wage jobs. He rents illegally, pays eight hundred bucks a month to sleep on the ratty cough of a guy he doesn’t know, doesn’t like, who he’s pretty sure steals his stuff, who’s kicking him out tomorrow morning because he’s moving a girl in, and Hamilton is fucked. He has no money, no friends, barely has time to even think about the classes he’s just started at Columbia, and that’s what he came to New York to do in the first place.
Hamilton gets off his shift waiting tables, pulls a carton of cigarettes, starts smoking as he paces anxiously up and down the street. The pack gradually grows lighter in his hands as he smokes cigarette after cigarette, as he tries to come up with a plan. What’s he supposed to do? He has nowhere to go after tomorrow morning, no connections he can crash with, no money to hunker down in a hotel a couple days while he figures things out. Maybe he can secretly live out of the twenty-four-hour library, shower at the gym? The absurdity of the idea almost makes him laugh.
His lungs start to feel scratchy, filled with cotton. His fingers reach for another cigarette but scrape against cardboard. He’s out—damnit— and what’s worse, he doesn’t even have money to buy another if he wants to eat tonight.
Whatever. So he's not going to have dinner. It's all fine.
Hamilton resists the urge to kick the wall closest to him, ignores the nausea brought on by smoking the better part of a pack at once on an empty stomach.
He’ll figure this out, he tells himself. He’ll be fine.
Hamilton falls back against the side of a wall, lets his head drop back against the brick, closes his eyes. He’s going to be fine—he has to be.
“Hey, man,” a voice says. It takes Hamilton a second to realize the voice’s directed at him, a second longer to realize it's not chiding him. “Can I, like, get you a bagel or something?”
Hamilton’s eyes flicker open, take open the man standing a few feet away. The man is tall, broad, well-dressed, has a kind face and worried eyes.
“What?” Hamilton asks, confusion snaking through him.
“I work over there,” the man explains, pointing to a shop with Mulligan’s Clothing Emporium splashed over the door. Hamilton's a waiter only a few shops down, so he's familiar enough with the store. Once, he looked in its displays just long enough to realize that, as someone who can’t afford to shuffle through anything but the bargain bins at Goodwill, he had no business even breathing near the goods. “I’ve just seen you walk past through the window like seven hundred times in the past three hours. You look a little, uh... frazzled.”
Hamilton blinks, opens his mouth to defend himself—then thinks better of it. He hasn't eaten since the croissant he swiped from his shift at the cafe this morning. He's about to empty his bank account to try to smoke away his stress, so he's not too good to pass up free food. It's probably just a hook for a pyramid scheme. Hamilton can sit through a pyramid scheme pitch for a bagel.
“Yeah,” he says, running a hand over his face. “A bagel would be great.”
The man smiles warmly, leads him a street over. On the way he introduces himself: Hercules Mulligan—the shop is probably his, Hamilton realizes—and he’s a tailor by trade, a New Yorker at heart. He speaks enthusiastically about Washington, about his enthusiasm that the man has just been nominated Speaker of the Representatives, inadvertently exposing himself as a separatist. Hamilton opens a little more after that, gives his name, his college, his major.
“This’s the best bagel store in New York,” Hercules explains as they approach the storefront.
“Doesn’t everyone say that about the store they go to?”
“Yeah, but this one’s the best.”
Hercules buys him a bagel and a coffee too—no, I insist, please— and they sit. Hamilton is too tired, too stressed, lets Hercules handle most of the talking. Hamilton waits for the trick to reveal itself, but it doesn't. Hercules just makes conversation, smiles, asks Hamilton about his home—gracefully changing the subject when Hamilton's shoulders tighten—then talks about New York, about his job, about politics. Hamilton straightens a little, engages, finds it in himself to smile when he and Hercules rail against the Crown, rally for the colonies. Hercules talks about his clients, somehow manages to humbly name-drop politicians like it's no big deal at all that he tailors for some of the country's most prominent nationalists. Hamilton likes him.
It’s nice for someone to look at him and actually see him, not to have their eyes glaze right on over him in the way New Yorkers are so good at. It’s unreasonable how alone Hamilton sometimes manages to feel in a city of eight million people, how when he expects it least, the loneliness comes and sweeps him up. On street corners, in subway stations, on the couch at night, sometimes he can barely breathe. It wrenches the air straight from his lungs.
“So,” Hercules finally says after an hour's passed, “what’s had you pacing up and down the street for hours?”
Hamilton stares into his coffee.
“I’m getting kicked out of the place I’m living tomorrow,” he confides in him. “And I don’t have anywhere to go, and I don’t have any money, and I don’t know anyone in this entire city.”
Hercules eyes him a moment, thoughtful.
Hamilton can pinpoint the exact moment when he makes up his mind.
“Well, you know, I live above the store, and I’ve got an extra room. I use it as storage now, but I could move some stuff around, rent it out to you if you’d like.”
Hamilton’s mouth opens—then closes.
He does the math, works it out, then realizes that there’s no way he could afford to live in this part of town, certainly no way he could hand over a deposit with the amount he’s got in the bank.
“I couldn’t afford that,” he replies, shaking his head.
“Come on—I’m not even renting it out right now. The room’s shoebox-small. It can't fit much more than a bed, but the rest of the place is pretty good-sized. I’ll rent it to you for five hundred bucks a month if you help out a few hours a week in the shop—sweeping, cleaning, that kind of thing. No deposit needed. You could move in tonight, if you want.”
Hamilton eyes Hercules, waiting for the punchline of some joke. There’s no way the offer can be legit; when things look good to be true, it’s usually a trick. But Hercules is looking at him with sincerity that doesn’t break, and Hamilton feels a flicker of hope rise in his chest despite the cynicism he's built up for so long.
“C’mon. You’re not serious.”
“Sure I am.”
“What’s the catch?”
“Well," Hercules says. Here it is, Hamilton thinks, his heart dropping. "You have to quit smoking. I can’t let tobacco near my fabrics. Clientele wouldn’t be happy if I gave them their apparel with a side of cigarette smoke.”
Hamilton blinks, taken aback.
It still feels too good to be true, like he’s somehow getting scammed.
But Hamilton doesn’t exactly have anywhere else to turn, has no better options lined up. It can’t be much worse than his current situation, either.
“Alright,” he finally agrees. “Then I guess it’s a good thing I just smoked the last of my pack, huh?”
Hamilton doesn’t say a goddamned word when Hercules yanks him roughly towards the road. He can’t even bring himself to bear to look at the man, lest he lose his goddamn mind and get himself shot. He can’t fucking believe—Jesus— Hercules?
“Don’t say a word,” Hercules hisses into his ear as he throws him into the backseat of an armored Humvee. His hand stays on Hamilton’s arm a moment—squeezes. “C’mon, man. Trust me.”
Hamilton closes his eyes, tries to disconnect himself from the situation. He tries to ignore the Redcoats that slide into the beside him, then cold press of a gun into his neck—
“Jesus, he’s already cuffed up. Put the fucking gun down.”
The gun goes away. But the fact remains that Madison and Jefferson are captured, probably headed to their deaths, and it’s all his fault. If he’d just—he shouldn’t have— fuck. It was supposed to be him. It was supposed to be his life that he threw away—not theirs. It wasn't supposed to go like this. This was where they were supposed to part ways.
“I can’t believe they made it this long,” one of the Redcoats beside him says after a while. “I thought we shot everyone in Washington’s motorcade when they tried to leave the city.”
“They must not have been with them,” the other Redcoat says. “Jefferson and Madison escaped on their own, remember? Jefferson was at the front of the stage at the podium?”
“Yeah, but still—how the fuck did they get out? Wasn’t an hour before the King had the whole fuckin’ city razed. No way they could’ve gotten out on the roads. They were all blocked off..”
Hamilton tries to ignore them, block out the conversation.
“Yeah, but didn’t Carmichael say he saw some Cabinet guy back in Yorktown?”
“Yeah, well, Carmichael says a lot of shit. He said John fuckin’ Adams made it out—like Adams wasn't the first that one to get disemboweled. Must suck for Jefferson—weren’t they roommates in college or something? And all his other revolutionary friends died too, like that French ponce. Talk about a bad fucking day.”
“Who gives a fuck? Look, I’m just saying—if those two made it out, maybe some of the others did too.”
“So we’ll get them to England and hang them too. End of story.”
Hamilton drags in a shuddering breath. He feels eye pricking into him, watching.
“Hey, doesn’t he look kind of familiar?”
“You know, now that you mention it… Hey, Mulligan, you know this guy?”
A beat of silence.
“Nah, don’t think so.”
“Hey,” one of the soldiers says, jamming an elbow into Hamilton’s side. “Do we know you from somewhere?”
Hamilton stares straight ahead.
“Wait, wasn’t this the guy that punched—”
“Finish that sentence, and I’ll throw you out of this fucking car,” Hamilton interrupts, his head snapping to the side.
It’s an empty threat. It doesn’t make him feel better—just drives home the hopelessness of the situation.
What does he do? What can he do?
Hamilton doesn’t know where he is, and he’s about to be shipped off to England to be dissected. He doesn’t know where Jefferson or Madison are, but they’re fucked. He doesn’t know where the fuck the rest of his friends are, but apparently maybe the only goddamn one he knows is left moonlights as a fucking traitor. Everything is—Hamilton closes his eyes.
There’s a soldier on either side of him. Hamilton’s cuffed. He could try to disarm one of the men—but then what? He’d have the other to deal with, have Hercules in the front seat. Even if he gets out, then what? He doesn't have his pack. He doesn't even have his pistol. It's February. He's so far north he'd probably freeze to death if the Redcoats didn't recapture him first.
Hamilton watches as Boston approaches, stares as the skyscrapers near closer and closer.
The walls loom high as they approach the edge of the city.
He should never have agreed to come.
It’s the walls: he’s reminded of the walls that seemed so safe, so impenetrable the first time he and Laurens entered Charleston—that were. The walls protected them, kept them safe—and then became the walls that held them all in when the infected came, trapped them like fish in a barrel to be picked off, ripped apart.
The slabs of concrete stretch menacingly high as the car stops, as Hercules speaks to a guard outside the window, as they finally enter. There’s another fence on the inside, but this one is less threatening: ten feet high, easily scaled if not for the razor wire wrapped around the top.
Hamilton wonders if the walls keep people in as much as they keep infected out.
“How many people live here?” he asks no one in particular.
“Thirty thousand Tories?” one of the soldiers answers. “A thousand or so more if you count the Sons.”
“Whose sons?” Hamilton asks, irritation bleeding into his voice. "I've heard that word half a dozen times, and it means just as little to me as it did the first time."
The soldiers blink, raise their brows.
“You don’t know who the Sons of Anarchy are?”
“What, you think I'm asking for shits and giggles?" Hamilton flatly replies. "Are they like the Sons of Liberty or something?"
He receives blank stares in return. In the front seat, Hercules heaves a sigh.
“Yes, like the Sons of Liberty. They are the Sons of Liberty. Or were, at any rate. But since the outbreak they’re become—” An almost imperceptible pause. “—lawless anarchists. Want to drive the Redcoats out of the country entirely, run the land however they want. So we thought it was appropriate to call them a more fitting name.”
Hamilton processes that information, glances back to the soldiers at his sides.
“And the Sons are here in Boston?”
“They came in a couple weeks ago and took one of the western checkpoints. They’re trying to move across the city—but don’t worry. You and the prisoners will be out of here before dawn. They’ll never even know you’re here.”
Hercules shifts in the front seat. His eyes stay on the road ahead, never straying to the rear-view mirror. Hamilton wonders if he's guilty, if he's remorseful—or if he feels just as vindicated as Arnold.
Hamilton doesn't want to think about it. Doesn't want to think about how their friendship was built on lies.
He watches the city as they drive through.
He can feel its emptiness. Trash litters the streets—sometimes bodies do too. Smashed windows run abundant. Bullet holes litter the fronts of buildings. The half-melted snow shoved to the sides of the road is often stained with something too red not to have come from something living. He sees only a handful of people the entire way; most are Redcoat patrols walking along, bayoneted rifles in hand.
The city is dead, empty as Hamilton's chest.
A quarter-hour later, the car comes to a stop.
Hamilton gets out. A Redcoat hand falls heavily onto his shoulder, holding him fast. He looks around, feels the sting of freezing wind on his face, smells the salt rolling in the air. Cobblestones line the street beneath his feet, leading out to the harbor—to the ocean. The sky is low and grey, and waves lap up at the stony shore. Thousands of miles away is England.
Thousands of miles away is whatever's left of his future.
But there are other things to worry about first: for one, Jefferson and Madison. A dozen yards ahead, they're being viciously yanked out of a car. Madison's lighter, can't stand up to the man-handling like Jefferson, gets thrown to the ground—but immediately, he stands, brushing invisible debris off the front of his shirt.
Arnold emerges from the passenger seat with a cluster of Redcoats, rounds the car to stand before the two of them.
“What've you got to look so unpleasant about?” Arnold asks Madison, baiting him.
“I’m going to get sick,” Madison answers, his cold voice polished. “I always get sick after being around people—unfortunate for a politician, as you might imagine. Barring modern medicine, the apocalypse was likely the best thing that ever happened to my immune system." He looks around, his eyes landing on a dead body splayed out on the side of the road a handful of steps away. Vague disdain creeps onto his feature; he looks away. "At any rate, that car was a petri dish of fluids. I expect I'll come down with a fever within a few days.”
“Well, we’ll get you home quick. That way you won’t live long enough to get sick,” a nearby Redcoat retorts.
Madison smiles calmly, his eyes prickling.
“You’d be surprised.”
Hamilton starts to move towards them, stopped by Hercules’ hand falling onto his shoulder.
“Jefferson said you don’t know them,” Hercules reminds him, his voice suddenly in his ear. “Remember your cover.”
Hamilton hesitates, weighs pulling away from Hercules, rushing to the two of them anyways—but he doesn’t. He stays put. Hercules almost smiles, pulls a key, uncuffs him—like he's some kind of dog, like rewards will make him forgive the trespass, Hamilton bitterly thinks. He rubs his wrists, lets Hercules’ hand guide him towards the ship waiting by the docks, his mind racing. They pass Jefferson and Madison, leave them behind.
The metal ship looms high in the water—one of the Royal Navy’s frigates. Hamilton has never been one for navies, but he knows a well-made weapon when he sees one, knows that the colonies have never been allowed to build something as powerful. Just like they had no army, they had no Navy; the Redcoats were supposed to protect them. But here they are needing protection, and England barely spares them enough Redcoats to hold Boston—not even that, if the Sons continue to advance.
What a load of shit.
“Get your fucking hands off me,” Jefferson snarls from somewhere behind him.
Hamilton casts a look over his shoulder, sees Madison and Jefferson being dragged along a handful of yards back. He wets his lips, meets Madison’s eyes. The two of them can’t get on that ship. Hamilton can, but they can't.
Madison’s eyes bore into his, communicating something silent that Hamilton doesn’t have the intimacy to understand. Madison grasps that, glances to their captors until there’s an opening when no one's looking—
“Don’t stop moving,” he mouths.
Hamilton turns away before anyone can catch on. He walks faster, almost leaving Hercules behind him until the man speeds up.
“Hamilton?” Hercules warily asks, catching on that there's a plan being formed. Hamilton doesn't even look at him.
The ship nears. The gangplank comes closer. Thirty feet. Twenty. Ten.
Hamilton’s feet meet the wood of the bridge.
A voice cries out in pain behind him—no, not pain. Hamilton knows it a trick before he's even turned around.
He looks back just in time to see Madison feign a misstep, stumble forward—just enough of a distraction for Jefferson to wing forward, throw his chains around Arnold’s neck, draw his arms in close. Before Arnold can even begin to scramble at the chains constricting his neck, Madison’s there beside them both, nicking Arnold’s handgun, jamming it against the side of his neck. It’s an awkward angle handcuffed, has to be viciously painful, but Madison’s face gives away nothing.
Half the Redcoats stand idle, eyes wide; half reach for their guns once they’ve realized what’s happened. Hercules swears beside Hamilton, moves forward—Hamilton grabs the back of his coat.
“Don’t fucking try it,” Madison snarls at the soldiers, crushing the barrel of the gun into Arnold’s jaw just as Jefferson squeezes the chains so tight he looks liable to snap the man’s neck. Hamilton’s heart races.
A fucking hostage situation: fantastic.
Another goddamned square in his apocalypse bingo.
“Be sensible,” Arnold’s voice gasps. “You can’t get out of this.”
“Why the fuck would that make me want to be sensible?” Jefferson growls, yanking the chains around Arnold’s throat tighter. He looks around, makes eye contact with all the Redcoats around. His voice is slow, honeyed, drips like molasses when he speaks again. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. Arnold, you’re gonna call every damn one of these fuckers off. Tell them to put down their guns. Then the three of us are gonna walk away very, very slowly. And if no one tries anything stupid, maybe I won’t wring your goddamned neck.”
Arnold ignores him, looks for help elsewhere with pleading eyes.
“What happened to being civilized, Mister Madison?”
"The same thing that happened to the Cabinet."
“Oh, and take that stupid fucking accent and shove it up your ass,” Jefferson adds.
Arnold tries to get out a go to hell, but Jefferson cuts him off with a vicious tug.
“That didn’t sound like an Alright, Jefferson, yessir, Jefferson to me.”
Madison presses the gun closer to his neck, his eyes merciless.
“You may be right that we go to Hell today,” he says, “but if we do, at least you’ll come with us.”
Hamilton’s mind races. Hercules’ rifle is held in his hands, twitching ever so slightly, like he doesn’t know whether to shoot or not. Neither of them know what to do, it seems.
“Alright,” a wild-eyed Arnold concedes between panicked attempts to suck in air. He looks to his soldiers. “Fuck—stand down. Stand down. We’ll do as they say."
Madison and Jefferson are too focused on the Redcoats in front of them, too focused on watching for any sign of movement. Their backs are turned to what’s behind them. They don’t notice the duo of Redcoats rounding the block a hundred feet back, that freeze and stop short as they take in the sight in front of them. Madison and Jefferson are oblivious, blind to the Redcoats as they creep forward, begin to lift their guns, take aim at their backs.
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck—
Hamilton lunges, yanks the rifle out of Hercules’ hands, aims and prays.
The gunshots scream through the air.
Jefferson's face floods with fear. Madison’s eyes widen at the sound.
(Don’t do it, Hamilton prays).
Madison shoots.
There’s a split-second of silence where no one seems quite sure what happened, where everyone tries to process. The Redcoats behind Jefferson and Madison crumples to the ground, a hand going up to staunch the bleeding in the side of his throat.
Benedict Arnold crumples in Jefferson’s grasp.
Half his face is still frozen in surprise; the other half is blown away, bone and brain coating the cobblestones.
A fraction of a second of stillness—then Madison and Jefferson swear, turn on their heels and haul ass. Jefferson's faster, has longer legs, pulls ahead—Hamilton lifts his rifle, shoots at the Redcoats that leap after them, that lift their rifles—a few Redcoats go down screaming. Ahead, Madison stumbles, a hand flying up to his shoulder, almost goes down face-first into the cobblestones—but Jefferson turns, opens fire, covers Madison as he rights himself—and then they’re all gone around the bend, outrunning the wind. Hamilton can’t even tell where they’re going, but the distinct New York feeling is back, crushing him in its embrace.
He flashes back to Laurens beside him in the front seat, to Burr’s car speeding away with half his friends inside, to losing Hercules on the bridge, to finding the Schuyler estate abandoned, to losing Laurens—
You’re never going to see them again.
Most of the remaining Redcoats recover, more rush after them both—Hamilton readies to shoot again, but he’s slammed to the ground before he can. The rifle is ripped out of his hands. A bayonet digs into his back. Another slices into the back of his neck, digs into the base of his skull.
“—sons of Anarchy!”
“Where the fuck is—?"
“—how many?”
“Get those fucking—“
Hot blood soaks his collar. Hamilton shuts his eyes, waits for the white-hot flash of pain.
“Get the fuck off him!” Hercules’ voice booms.
Hamilton opens his eyes just in time to see Hercules drag Redcoats off of him by their lapels, his face screwed up in anger.
“What the fuck are you doing, Mulligan?” one protests, shoving him back. “He just fucking opened fire on our own damn men!”
Hercules steps back forward, jams a finger into the man’s chest.
“Arnold’s dead, which means I’m the highest ranked officer here right now.” He withdraws his finger, shoves the man back. “So unless you’re willing to get tried for insubordination, I pray that you've got the goddamn sense to shut the hell up—and maybe I’ll be kind enough to forget the lip you just gave me. Are we fucking clear?” He moves forward when there's a pause, his broad shoulders held back, eyes burning. “I said are we clear?”
Tension crackles in the air, but the Redcoats brusquely let their rifles fall to their sides.
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, Lieutenant Colonel.”
Hercules steps away, looking back to Hamilton. There’s something he’s trying to communicate to Hamilton that he’s not picking up on, some breakdown in their communication. Right now, Hamilton doesn’t know who Hercules is, and he’s increasingly unsure that he ever did at all.
It’s been a long year and a half.
“I want him in the brig,” Hercules tells the Redcoats. “Look at his neck. He’s immune—understand what that means? So if there’s so much as a scratch on him, I’m coming for all your asses.”
“Yes, Lieutenant Colonel.”
“I’m going after Jefferson and Madison.” He shifts back to Hamilton, face unreadable. “I’ll deal with you shortly.”
Hamilton doesn’t know whether it’s a promise or a threat.
It’s been years since Hamilton was on a ship.
He took a ship to New York from Nevis, and when he landed, he vowed never to set foot on one again. It brings back bad memories, makes him think of violent seas and yellow skies and the way his mother’s hand gradually grew weaker in his, loosened, loosened.
(Let go).
Hamilton feels similarly nauseous as the Redcoats shove him up the gangplank, the tips of their bayonets pressed threateningly into his back. His neck is still bleeding, rivulets of hot blood skating down his back, a sticky parody of sweat. It’s so fucking cold outside that it’s the only thing he can feel.
It’s tolerable being above deck.
Below deck, the dim, dank air seems to choke him, thicken in his throat. His heart picks up. Sweat breaks out on his brow as claustrophobia closes it. It all only worsens when they shove him into a cell. He falls forward, wincing as his knees hit hard steel.
The cell door closes with a bang. The click of the latch feels resoundingly final.
Hamilton forces himself to stand despite the distantly sickening sway of the floor. The cell is small—hardly five steps from one end to the other. There’s nowhere to sit but the floor—not even a bed to rest on. A sob almost claws out of his throat, but he swallows it down, refuses to break down in front of the soldiers stationed outside his cell.
“It’ll take the better part of a week to get there,” a soldier mocks him. “Better get used to this.”
Hamilton takes a step towards the bars—then spits.
The satisfaction of the disgust and horror on the Redcoat’s face makes it more than worth it when he’s yanked violently against the bars, when his face connects with a crack. The impact makes him too dizzy to hear what the Redcoat tells him, but that’s no great loss. He’s released a moment later, stumbles dazedly back until his back hits the wall. Hamilton slumps down against it until he’s on the floor. Blood trickles lazily from a split on his forehead. He doesn’t bother to wipe it away. There’s no point.
There’s nothing for him in the cell.
There’s nothing for him in England either—only test tubes and cells and microscopes.
But Madison and Jefferson got away—at least for a few minutes longer. That has to count for something. That has to make it worth something, even if there’s nothing in England.
The road was always going to end in Boston.
Hamilton lets his mind drift.
Hamilton finds himself in Charleston. He always seems to. No matter how far he runs, no matter how hard he tries to ignore it, his mind always takes him back.
He watches from above, an outsider to his own past.
He and Laurens smile at one another from over coffee mugs at a kitchen table. The apartment is theirs—designed and arranged to suggest New York. If they try harder enough, they can pretend.
They’re safe. They’re happy. They’re not alone.
There are neighbors—children, families, the elderly. They talk about the outdoor barbecues they’ll have once the weather warms up, trade recipes and whatever desserts they can bake without milk and butter and cream. Sometimes, they go over to other peoples’ apartments for dinner. Sometimes other people come to theirs. There's a frail sense of hope that rests over all their heads, lightens their shoulders.
But only because they all ignore the world outside the walls.
Charleston is a haven. What’s outside the walls may as well exist in another world.
And then one day it doesn’t.
The screams swell outside. Hamilton and Laurens stand in their apartment, facing one another, locked in impenetrable silence.
Laurens’ arm bleeds through his sleeve, betraying the teeth marks underneath.
“Hamilton?”
Hercules’ voice breaks him from the memories. Hamilton’s on his feet in an instant, stalking towards the bars. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do, what he’s going to say—but before he can figure it out, Hercules is looking away, looking between the guards.
“We’re going to talk—alone. Consider that a dismissal."
Hamilton watches the guards go, just as in the dark as he ever was.
“Jesus, Ham, what the fuck are you doing here?” Hercules whispers harshly, not sparing a second. “I thought you and Laurens didn’t make it out of New York. I mean—shit, man. I tried so damn hard to find you two, and I…” Hercules trails off, his eyes sliding past Hamilton to the empty cell. “I lost track of you on the bridge. I thought you both were gone. No one was there when I made it to the Schuyler’s, except…”
“Peggy,” Hamilton fills in, the name spawning heavy memories in his mind, grief briefly pulling him away from his anger.
“Yeah,” Hercules says, his eyes screwed shut. He draws in heavy breath. “Yeah, except Peggy.”
Grief fills the space between them, only deepening with Hercules’ next words.
“John’s not with you.”
Hamilton’s eyes slide shut.
“Charleston,” he says by way of an explanation.
Hercules’ face is heavy and lined when Hamilton finally manages to open his eyes.
It occurs suddenly to Hamilton that he’s never mourned—at least, not with anyone else. There was no funeral. No wake. No words spoken or hollow platitudes exchanged between the bereaved. There was only screaming—then silence.
(Hamilton never even stopped running, had to run, had to go, had to let Laurens' last sight be of him making it out alive).
“Laurens was a damned good guy. I mean— fuck. I remember when the outbreak happened, he was the one ready to kick our asses into gear. Jesus—I just… what the fuck kind of world are we in?”
“One when you’re a fucking Redcoat, apparently,” Hamilton answers, his voice growing vicious. “You sure as hell acted like a nationalist, but here you are flying the Crown’s fucking colors. You talked a big game, convinced me you were for the cause, but shit, things got rough, and you turned your fucking back, huh? You're a traitor. I can't believe—”
Hercules reaches through the bars, grabs ahold of Hamilton’s shoulder. He flinches when Hamilton shoves his hand away, angrily steps back.
“Come on, man—just listen to me,” Hercules pleads, his eyes nervously searching the hallway. “Fuck—you remember back in, what was it—2008? I told you all I had a client here in Boston and came up here for a week—remember?”
“The fuck’s that got to do with anything?”
“C’mon, Ham—do you remember or not?” Hamilton wants to fight back, doesn't want to listen, but he doesn't have much choice, has nowhere to go. He concedes with an angry shake of his head. “Yeah, did you ever think about how weird of a coincidence it was that a secessionist like me just happened to have an appointment in the same city the very same weekend as the Boston Tea Party?”
Hamilton pauses. He thinks a moment—remembers that Hercules came back with bruised knuckles. He remembers hearing the name Sons of Liberty dropped in news reports, Hercules’ weird, half-stifled laugh when Hamilton brought it up—you could’ve met one of them, and you might not’ve even known.
His face twists.
“What are you saying?” he asks, uncertain, his eyes narrowed.
“I’m saying that I’m thirty-four, and I’ve had a hell of a lot more time to fuck England’s shit up than you have,” Hercules whisper-hisses, leaning in. “After I thought all of you were dead, I went north. The head of the Sons is based here. He wasn't at the inauguration, so I figured he and some of the others might still be alive—but I couldn't find him. So I figured I could at least wreak some hell on my own, sewed myself an officer’s uniform, snuck into an occupied city, lied like hell—but turns out the commander is too fucking stubborn to get killed. Linked up with the Sons again after a couple months, and here we are.”
Hamilton digests a moment, reads Hercules' face, searching for some hint this is a trick, some sign that he's being scammed. He flashes back to a bagel shop in New York all those years ago, remembers how he was sure Hercules was tricking him—and then remembers that he wasn't. That he didn't. That Hercules was the first friend he made in New York. That for the nearly three years they lived together, Hercules never stopped thinking of him, never stopped helping him out. Hercules was—Hamilton shifts on his feet, swallows hard. He wants to believe Hercules. If doesn't, how can he trust anyone? He needs to believe Hercules.
Some part of him has to.
“You fucking bullshitted your way into a command?” Hamilton finally asks.
Hercules' face breaks out in a kind of relief no man could ever fake.
“No one’s got any damn idea what’s going on, man. A quarter of the Redcoats got wiped out before they even got called back—enough people were missing to me to spin a good story. And, shit, we barely get orders from England because shit’s so fucked up over there. It’s every man for himself, Ham." Hercules shakes his head, urgency soaking his words. "Boston’s a fucking nightmare. The Redcoats can’t feed half the city, we’re always out of ammo, and god forbid you break curfew or sneak an extra ration or badmouth a Redcoat to their face. The lucky ones get thrown out."
"And the ones that aren't lucky?"
Hercules doesn't answer his question; he doesn't need to. They both already know the answer.
"It’s gonna be a clusterfuck now with Arnold dead—he was one of the better Redcoats, and he was goddamn traitor, for fuck’s sake.” Hercules anxiously checks over his shoulder. “We’ve gotta get you out of here.”
Hamilton blinks, then backs away with a frantic shake of his head
“What? No!” He pulls down his collar, exposes his mottled-patchwork scar. Hercules gapes, stares, wonder welling in his eyes as he sees the proof for the first time. “Two months. I got this two months ago. I was sick for weeks, unconscious for most of it—but I woke up. I’m immune. It’s not a trick. I’ve got to…” Hamilton trails off, but he can’t break now. “I have to get to England. It’s where the cure research is, right?”
“It’s where they’ll hang you for helping James Madison and Thomas goddamn Jefferson,” Hercules tells him, horror breaking through his awe. “Jesus, Ham, I had a whole plan to get the three of you out of here—and now you’re in the goddamned brig, and the two of them are fuck knows where embedded as deep in Redcoat territory as they can get with every damn soldier in fifty miles radius looking for them.”
Hamilton wets his lips. He doesn't know if he wants to hear the answer, but he has to ask.
“They’re still alive?”
“We didn’t find them dead,” he gravely answers, the implication clear. “One of them clipped Madison, but the blood trail went cold. Look, I tipped off the Sons. They’ll escort the two of ‘em out of the city if they find ‘em, but my guess is that neither of them will be asking anyone for help. I can’t help them anymore from where I'm standing—I’ve gotta get you out. C’mon.”
Silence settles between them when Hercules realizes Hamilton isn’t moving.
“I can’t go,” he finally says. “If the vaccine research is in England, that’s where I’ve got to be.”
"You can't have heard anything about the king," Hercules realizes. "You don't know how bad it is."
"What are you talking about? Heard what?"
"Heard that he's fucking apeshit, man. For one, he's been holed up in Windsor Castle for, like, a year. And second—the man fuckin' parades around in eighteenth century coronation clothes. Like, wig and all. Oh, and if that's not enough, he's gone full tinfoil hat. He's convinced that the Americans manufactured the virus to make him look bad. He's totally lost it." Hercules' mouth screws up. "The second he knows you’re American—let alone a goddamn revolutionary— he’ll forget all about a damn cure. If he even believes you in the first place.”
“I can fake an accent,” Hamilton desperately tries. “Or pretend to be a Tory.”
“You came with Thomas fuckin’ Jefferson!”
“He said he didn’t know me!”
“Yeah, and then you took on a platoon of Redcoats to keep the two of them from getting killed!” Hercules briskly shakes his head. “And someone will recognize you from the Henry Laurens incident. The most-watched video of fuckin’ 2011, in case you forgot? And in it, you’re standing in the same room as every one of the country’s biggest separatists—Jefferson and Madison included. So it sure as hell looks like you know them.”
Hamilton stands, unconvinced. Sensing his reluctance, Hercules reaches through the bars, grabbing onto Hamilton’s shoulder. This time, Hamilton lets him.
“I promise, we can figure this out—there’s gotta be someone somewhere else looking for a cure. We’re gonna find them, alright? And when we do, we’ll fix this. But you going to England won’t fix anything—all it’ll do is get you killed.” Hercules’ voice almost breaks. “C’mon, man. Don’t make me ship maybe the last damn friend I’ve got across the ocean just to let him die.”
A bitter taste fills Hamilton’s mouth. He can’t hold Hercules’ gaze for more than a few seconds.
“Alright,” he finally says, closing his eyes. “I won’t go.”
Not here—not now, at least.
Hercules’ hand is warm on his shoulder, a grounding presence when he squeezes.
“Thank you, Ham,” Hercules says, quiet relief flooding his words. He straightens, withdraws. “Here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m getting my guys to come down here and replace the old guards. They’re gonna let you loose—but it’ll have to look like you fought. Swap clothes with one of them, then take one right at the end of this hall, third door on the left. All your stuff’s in there. Get it, then—and I can’t stress this enough—bullshit your way out of here.”
“Wait,” Hamilton flatly objects. “That’s your plan?”
“Hamilton, I’ve seen you write four-thousand words papers in an hour. You can bullshit your way out of anything if you put your mind to it.” Hercules almost smiles, but it's a strained sight. “I had a different plan if Madison and Jefferson were here too, but trust me—this one’s better. Only half a dozen Redcoats know your face. You can make a clean break.”
Hamilton is on the brink of protesting, but he can tell time’s running short. Hercules’ eyes are scanning the hallways more frequently, more anxiously.
“I’m leaving an officer’s radio in the storeroom too. Make sure you take it. Channel 102.3 is what all the Redcoats use: listen in, and it’ll help you figure out if any are around.” Hercules procures a palm-sized pocket dictionary from his pocket and passes it through the bars. “Head to the easternmost gate—the Sons have that one under control. Once you’re out of the city, call me Channel—listen—Channel 32.5, alright? It’s an open channel: the dictionary’s the key to the code I’ll use to talk to you. Don’t lose it. There’s only one other copy, and it’s mine.”
“You’re not coming with me?” Hamilton weakly asks, even though some part of him has known the answer ever since he heard the Redcoats address Hercules as Lieutenant Colonel.
Hercules’ face twists.
“I can’t,” he gets out. “I’ve been undercover almost since outbreak day. The Sons have maybe a handful of people this high up—and with Arnold dead, they need me behind enemy lines more than ever. Ham, if we play our cards right, we might actually be able to take the city, drive ‘em out of Boston. If we can get Boston...”
Hamilton’s fingers curl tightly around the bars, tries to keep the misery he feels from reaching his eyes. Hercules already looks beaten down enough. There’s an unspoken understanding between them: they’ve lost all their friends, only just now found each other—and now they have to lose each other all over again. It’s a damn miracle they ever even met again at all. If Hamilton leaves now, it'll be more than a miracle if they ever see each other again.
The knowledge sits heavily between them, but they both refuse to confess to it yet.
“I’m sorry, Hamilton,” Hercules finally says in lieu of a goodbye; goodbye feels too final these days.
It could mean anything.
I’m sorry we got separated in New York. I’m sorry about Peggy, about the rest of our friends—about Laurens. I’m sorry you’ve been alone. I’m sorry you’ve been stuck with Jefferson and Madison, who you complained about at least once a day for the entire five years I knew you pre-apocalypse. I’m sorry everyone’s dead. I’m sorry that you’ve got to go, and I’ve got to stay here.
It probably means all those things and more.
“I know,” Hamilton tells him, swallowing his dry throat away. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry too.”
And what more is there to say than that?
Hercules’ guards arrive.
There’s three of them—two men and a woman. None of them talk to each other. They wait five minutes, ten, fifteen. And when it’s finally clear that no one else is coming that way, the woman turns around, unlocks the cell door while the other two keep watch.
“Alright,” she tells him. “Williams here’s about your size—take his uniform. He’s a corporeal, so none of the low-level grunts should give you much trouble. You know much about the military?”
“No."
“Then keep your mouth shut if anyone else talks to you.”
Shutting the hell up has never been Hamilton’s strong suit, but the apocalypse is as good a time as any to hone new skills. The cell door swings open—he steps out, ignoring the guilt gnawing at him, telling him to go back, to take his chances.
It must still be plain on his face because the man—Williams’—face softens.
“Trust me, kid—it’s for the best you get the fuck out of here. I saw what you did for Madison and Jefferson. No way in hell Georgie wouldn’t put you in front of the firing squad for that little stunt.”
“Yeah,” the woman agrees. “That was brave—and pretty fuckin’ stupid. It’s probably a good thing you’re not bad to look at, because I’m not sure there’s much going on behind that pretty face of yours.”
“Jones—”
“What? He’s gotta knock the shit out of us, doesn’t he? I may as well fire him up a little first.” She turns back to Hamilton with a sigh, rolling her shoulders. “Alright, then—you know what to do. Just… miss the mouth, won’t you? Williams here would miss my smile if I had to walk around minus a few teeth.”
Hamilton grimaces.
He makes it look real.
Down the hall, he finds their things: Jefferson and Madison’s guns, his pack, the Escalades’ keys. He grabs the rest of their things, the radio.
He thinks of Hercules and wishes things were different. His chest tightens, but he doesn’t have a choice; he leaves.
The Sons’ directions echo in his mind—right, right, left, stairwell, left, right, left, ladder.
Hamilton sets his jaw tight, stares straight ahead every time he passes a Redcoat. The first few pass without incident, and then—one looks at him, looks away, looks back a second later, doing a double-take, their hand reaching for the baton in their belt. Hamilton drops his chin, tries to move past—
“Aren’t you—?”
Hamilton doesn’t let the soldier finish the sentence. He swings around, takes Madison’s revolver to the side of their face once, then twice when they don’t go down. The hallway is blessedly empty, but Hamilton doesn’t have the time to spare to drag their body out of sight, not when someone could round the corner any second, trap him there. Hamilton almost sprints down the hall, walks as fast as he can without drawing any more attention.
A minute later, alarms wail through the ship. Red flashes spray the halls in harsh light.
(Somewhere on the ship, Hercules surely has his face buried in his hands).
Hamilton runs.
Redcoats swarm into the hall. Chaos takes over. Hamilton grits his jaw— bullshit through. He shoves haphazardly past Redcoats, painting fury onto his face. One tries to stop him to ask a question—Hamilton sends him such a withering look that he shrinks away. Another grabs him—Hamilton’s eye twitches as he looks at the hand on his arm. The Redcoat lets go and retreats, frightened.
He blusters past, bursts onto the deck. The ship’s speaker system crackles to life.
“One of the prisoners has escaped. He—” Hamilton rips the insignia off his stolen coat, shoves it in his pocket. “—may be wearing a corporal’s insignia. The prisoner is said to be six feet tall with reddish-brown hair…”
The blatantly incorrect description is a nice touch.
Hamilton slides through the crowd, barks orders at privates as he passes, slips down the gangplank using a group of boarding Redcoats as cover. His feet touch solid land.
He glances over his shoulder at the ship as he slides between Redcoats.
On the deck, a Redcoat leans over the railing, watching his retreat.
Hamilton can’t make out the man’s face at the distance—but Hamilton knows who it is anyways.
“Make these fucks pay,” Hamilton tells him, and even though the words are lost long before they ever reach him, Hamilton hopes against hope Hercules hears them anyways.
Boston is ominous during the day. During the night, it’s something else entirely.
The sun was already setting by the time Hamilton slipped off the ship. By the time he’s far enough away from the harbor to feel like he can breathe again, it’s pitch-black. Occasionally, a flashlight will appear on the other end of a street, followed by English accents—but Hamilton dives out of sight every time, evading the patrols. He hears them as they go, flattens himself against walls as they pass.
“Jefferson and Madison can’t have gone far.”
“We’ve been looking for those arseholes for hours.”
“I can’t believe the immune one escaped too. What a cock-up. We should’ve known he was with them—the whole immunity story was a set-up, yeah? Just him trying to get into the King’s quarters?”
“Jesus, did you see the number he did on those guards? Poor bastards.”
“To hell with the Crown—if we see ‘em, we can just say they shot at us.”
“Did you hear that Madison and Jefferson have been fucking this whole time?”
“Sodomizers holding office—how typically American.”
“Isn’t the immune one a sodomizer too? He was the one who punched Henry Laurens, wasn’t he?”
Hamilton closes his eyes and does the ten-count Madison is so fond of. He doesn’t feel any less angry, but at least the Redcoats have usually passed by the time he’s done.
In the dark, Hamilton doesn’t even know which direction he’s heading. He remembers where the sun set, but he’s walked so long he’s not sure if west is still behind him, or if it’s to his left or—fuck, he’s lost. He’s lost in the middle of a huge, terrifying city. He’s lost, hunted, alone, hopelessness clawing past his ribs—Hamilton sharpens his will into a spear-point, shoves down waves of despair that could crumple a lesser man, repeating survive like a mantra in his head until his other thoughts are drowned out.
He turns a corner, comes face-to-face with a Redcoat patrol—Jefferson’s shotgun mows them down before they can even lift their bayonets. He takes their rifles, slings them over his shoulder, presses on. A Redcoat takes him by surprise, slashes their bayonet into Hamilton’s thigh—Madison's favorite knife arcs through the air, slows when it cuts across. Blood sprays his face.
His leg burns, but he barely feels it.
Survive. Survive. Survive.
Hamilton comes across dead Redcoats, wonders if Jefferson or Madison put them there—an armored truck swings violently around the bend in the block, sprays him in its harsh mounted spotlight. Automatic gunfire unleashes; Hamilton barely has time to dive through a half-broken storefront window before bullets rip through where he was just standing. Glass shards poke out of his hands, but Hamilton pushes back onto his feet anyways, runs past rows of children’s toys and shelves of stuffed animals. Bullets tear through the store behind him. At the other end of the storefront, soldiers enter shouting, fanning out to find him.
Hamilton bursts through a door in the back, comes out into a storeroom. Boxes provide him cover. He barely leaps behind a stack before two Redcoats enter the room. One goes left; the other goes right. Hamilton quells his breathing, tries his damndest to quell his heartbeat, lest it too give him away. He’s sure that they’ll hear it, that they’ll corner him—the Redcoat that went left appears in his vision.
Hamilton dives forward, clamps a hand over the Redcoat’s mouth, wraps an arm around their throat, and lifts the point of Madison’s buck knife to their neck.
“Shh,” he hisses, digging the point of the knife into the hollow of the soldier’s throat. “Make a sound louder than a fucking whimper, and I kill you. Clear? Good. Alright—how many are there?”
“Nine others,” the Redcoat whispers, terrified. “All armed.”
“You’re the first to shoot at me on sight—why’s that?”
“You started to run. No one runs unless they’ve got something to hide.”
Hamilton considers that a moment—wonders how many civilians they’ve turned that exact same logic on if they’ll shoot someone wearing their own damn colors.
“Alright,” Hamilton says, appeased, conscious of the soldier’s drifting hand, of how it's reaching for another gun like Hamilton is too much of a moron to notice. “Thanks for the help.”
His knife drips red when he pulls it out.
He learns why the Redcoats wear red.
(The blood doesn't even show, just blends right in).
Hamilton takes out the other man when the gurgling prompts investigation, sneaks slowly back into the toy store. He takes a Rubik’s cube, chucks it a few rows over—and when the Redcoats investigate, he dashes forward, dives behind the register.
He’s close to the window, close to escaping, but the military Humvee is still outside, its spotlight shining through the windows, its turrets pointed threateningly at them all. Even with his leg torn up, even a little battered and more than a little hungry, Hamilton can still outrun a Redcoat if his life depends on it. But he can’t outrun a fucking truck, and he sure as hell can’t outrun a hail of bullets.
What are his options? The truck’s certainly called for backup by now—Hamilton can’t out-wait them. Even if he picks off the rest of the soldiers, what then? He’s still trapped unless he can find some kind of back exit. And his chances of picking off eight armed, trained soldiers? Well, the best part about the infected is that they can’t think worth a damn. He could take down more some other time, but not when it's dark, not when he's hurt, not when he's trapped.
This is bad—his odds are bad, bad, bad . He’s in such deep fucking shit he’s about to drown in it.
Goddamnit it.
Well, if he’s going down, he may as well do it in style.
(He imagines Jefferson’s laugh, approving, Madison's brows lifting).
Hamilton checks Madison’s revolver—two bullets. Jefferson’s shotgun—four shells. He’s still got the rifles from the Redcoats he took out earlier and his knife. He can make a stand. Even if reinforcements come, he can probably take out a couple dozen of them first. He closes his eyes a moment, thinks.
If he can't, then he at least hopes that Madison and Jefferson make it out alive.
Hamilton readies himself, shifts to the balls of his feet, moves to—
The world shatters in a haze of white.
Glass explodes, and Hamilton barely ducks in time to avoid being speared through. His ears ring, he’s disoriented—and he looks outside to find the Humvee on fire, the doors opening as Redcoats scramble frantically out, fall out onto the road.
“Get ‘em, boys!” a voice booms—deep, low, and distinctly American, distinctly Boston.
And before the Redcoats can even aim back, Hamilton catches sight of something flying through the air. He just barely sees it hit the ground, sees its shape, realizes— fucking shit, they’ve got grenades— and then drops the hell flat to the ground before the Humvee’s gas tank blows, takes out half the street and half the storefront too.
Redcoats stream forward to what’s left of the doors, shouting angrily. One races to vault over the counter, lands beside Hamilton; Hamilton silences him with his knife through their neck, presses his back tight to the counter, lifts his gun in case any others come close. Gunfire erupts just feet away, deafening volleys traded back and forth. In the chaos, Hamilton glances over the top of the counter, takes stock of the Redcoats in his sight, oblivious that in their movements, they've let Hamilton flank them.
Hamilton wonders what’ll happen if he stays out of it—then decides he likes the newcomers better than he likes the British. He’ll take his chances.
Hamilton pops up, aims. Madison’s Colt Python is still in his hands as he fires, once, twice. He shifts to Jefferson’s shotgun—at this distance, it’s more of an extremely painful distraction than anything lethal, but it takes down another few Redcoats. His shooting is lost in the confusion—no one even seems to notice him, realize they’re being shot at from the side.
The newcomers sense that the tide’s in their favor now. They storm the store, shouting, fearless, swinging wildly.
In seconds, it’s all over.
A man steps through the wreckage in the window, looming tall in the grenade smoke.
“Thomas?” he calls out. Hamilton ducks back below the counter. “Madison? Y’all in here?”
Broken glasses crunches delicately beneath booted feet.
Hamilton holds his breaths, weighing his options. The boots near him.
“Heard the gunfire, thought y’all might need some help. Friend of mine said we should be on the lookout for some escapees. That y’all?” An expectant pause; a sigh. “No? Well, if you’re shooting Redcoats, chances are we can still be friends.”
The footsteps stop just on the other side of the counter.
“If you’re a civvy, you’re safe too. Just come on out with your hands up, and we’ll all get along fine.”
Hamilton hears the soft click of guns reloading.
He has no choice but to take his chances.
“I’m not a Redcoat,” he warns them out, swallowing. “I’m just dressed like one.”
“Then you better come out real slow, huh?”
Hamilton hesitates—then climbs slowly onto his feet. The pain from his glass-sliced hands and slashed leg are finally starting to reach him, and he hauls himself onto his feet with a wince. He keeps his hands by his side—if he goes, he’s not doing it with his hands in the air.
Hamilton looks at the dark-skinned man on the other side. He studies him, takes in his obscene height, the peacock blue-green overcoat, the close-cropped hair, the beard somewhere just past a few days of not shaving. At the same time, the man examines him. Disbelief seems to hit them both at the same time.
“You’re the immune one, aren’t you? Show me.”
Hamilton isn’t sure what to say, what to do, so he just complies, pulls down his collar. The motion, the disbelief from the witnesses—it’s starting to feel familiar now. But the man’s eyes go back from his neck to his face, searching. His eyes narrow from wonder to uncertainty—then realization.
“Wait,” he says. “I know you. You were—" He hesitates, eyes sliding pointedly to the rest of the soldiers. "You're the one who socked Henry Laurens, aren't you?"
“And you’re Samuel Adams,” Hamilton replies, shock lacing his voice.
“You know, I always wondered what happened to you,” Adams remarks, his accent ending every other word with ah . “I never really liked Henry Laurens much. Thought he deserved it, honestly.”
Hamilton slides back over the counter, still trying to figure out how to respond.
“Shit,” he finally says, “I’m a fan of your work.”
“The beer?” Adams asks, raising his brows. “Or the beliefs?”
“Both,” Hamilton replies, still vaguely in awe. "What are you doing here? Are you with the Sons?"
Adams laughs, genuinely amused.
"I am the Sons," he responds, "Commander Samuel Adams, at your service."
(Hamilton remembers Adams from New York, remembers coming home late to find Hercules and Adams sitting over a table, poring over papers Hamilton never got the chance to take a look at. Among a sea of high-profile clients, Adams was one of Hercules' most frequent regulars, Hamilton remembers. He's sure that Adams remembers him too, but Adams is conscious of the others in the room, must be conscious that if he has Hercules behind front lines, chances are the Redcoats have someone behind his).
"I didn't know you were still alive," Hamilton says after a moment.
"Bostonians are notoriously hard to kill. New Yorkers too, as it would seem."
Hamilton goes to extend a hand, then remembers that he’s still skewered with a window and thinks better of it. Adams sizes him up a second time, taking note of all the various injuries he’s accumulated.
“We should get you into friendlier territory, don’t you think?” Adams rhetorically asks. He shifts his attention back to his men. “Get the uniforms and guns. I’ll escort Mister Hamilton here to our ride.”
Adams places a hand onto the small of Hamilton’s back, guides him outside. Flames still smolder out of the wreckage of the Redcoat Humvee. Hamilton looks away from what must be bodies, distantly surprised at how numb he’s grown to the sight, to the thought of blood on his hands. His blood or theirs, he figures. Better theirs.
“You all haven’t found Madison and Jefferson,” Hamilton comments.
“No,” Adams concedes, “but we’re looking. We’re still deep in Redcoat territory here—if they’ve made it much further than this, we’ll be able to pick them up for sure. And they had a head start on you, yeah?”
“They should’ve. Madison got clipped in the shoulder by a bullet, but he was still hauling ass.”
Adams leads him to a Humvee identical to the one they just blew up—save for the drippy red spray-painted Sons of Anarchy on the side, the A of anarchy painted in a tongue-in-cheek anarchists' circle. Hamilton almost smiles.
Adams opens the door, helps Hamilton inside when his leg refuses to cooperate. Hamilton sinks into the backseat, exhaustion starting to overcome him. The initial rush of adrenaline has faded. His mind’s trying to convince him that he’s safe now, that he can rest—but he knows better than to trust that, knows he has to keep his guard up. Adams climbs into the seat beside him, the image of calm as he reaches beneath the front seat and comes up with a first-aid kit.
“Let’s get this glass out of you,” Adams tells him, coming up with a pair of tweezers.
“I’m fine,” Hamilton protests.
“Oh, so you can quit bleeding in the backseat of my car on command?”
Hamilton relents, grits his teeth while Adams pulls bits and pieces out of hands, arms. Rubbing alcohol sizzles and burns in the cuts—Hamilton refuses to flinch—and then his hands are wrapped in white bandages, tied off. The other Sons return just as Adams finishes.
“Head to base,” Adams tells the woman that slides into the driver’s seat.
“What?” Hamilton asks before he’s even finished. “No—Jefferson and Madison are still out here.”
“I’ve got two dozen other patrols looking for them.”
“Yeah, and you think they’re going to go with them nicely?” Hamilton asks, shaking his head. “I don’t even know if they know the Sons of Anarchy exist, let alone that I got out. They won't trust anyone you send.”
“A concerning prospect, sure, but you’re still bleeding all over the damn place,” Adams argues, motioning at Hamilton’s leg.
“I barely feel it,” Hamilton lies, sounding admirably believable. “And I’ve gone much further on worse.”
Adams considers him a moment.
“How well do you actually know the two of them?”
“Enough to know I wish I didn’t know either of them,” he answers instinctively, voice dry.
“Running around a hostile city at night with a fucked-up leg’s a funny thing to do for two people you don’t like,” Adams scoffs, though it’s mostly amusement in his voice. “But having known Thomas for two-something decades, I can see where you’re coming from. He does have a certain kind of charm, doesn’t he?”
“If by charm you mean the ability to make me want to kneecap him,” Hamilton says before he can decide it’s a bad idea to badmouth someone who’s clearly close friends with the man.
Adams bears it with good humor, snorts.
“He must like you,” he muses. “He sure thought you were a fucking riot after you socked Henry Laurens. All he talked about for weeks—God knows the shit he put up with trying to make nice with that man.”
“Yeah, Henry Laurens called me a low-rent gold-digging bastard to my face,” Hamilton remembers, his voice glazing over with ice. “I think I can imagine what he says about people behind their back."
“Well, you’re not always going to like your donors when you play politics—lucky for Thomas, I’m a fucking gem,” Adams says, his lips twisting in a wry half-smile.
Hamilton rolls that knowledge over in his mind, tries to scrape together what he can remember about Samuel Adams—he knows the man brews a damned good beer, knows that he’s one of the Massachusetts Representatives, a major player in New England politics, that his pockets go just as deep as any Virginian’s. He’s a hardcore separatist, and—some questionable politics aside—not enough of an asshole to leave a potential stranger to the Redcoats’ mercy. In other words, fine by Hamilton.
Because where does he go from here?
The world’s ended, his options are limited, and his path to England is severed.
There’s still the question of Jefferson and Madison, of course.
The city feels less dangerous from inside an armored vehicle, but the streets still pass them ominously. Occasionally, they run into another Redcoat patrol: the soldiers scatter at the sight of the spray-painted Humvee, evoking cries and insults out of the Sons in the truck. The radio crackles every now and then, tuned into the British channel.
“Sons of Anarchy patrol spotted by the Common…”
“The Sons are out—they just took out half of the 42nd regiment.”
“Need backup at the corner of Elm and Marville…”
Hamilton’s eyes scan the streets.
“So,” one of the Sons in the front seats says, conversational. “Radio chatter says you’re supposed to be immune?”
In lieu of an answer, Hamilton distractedly pulls down the collar of his coat. Adams looked equally amazed the second time around, shakes his head.
“You have any idea why?”
“That’s what I was hoping the British could tell me,” Hamilton answers, bitter.
“Fuck the British,” a woman in the front seat snarls. “Five percent of people left worldwide, and they’re representing more than their fair fucking share in their little fucking island across the ocean since they left everyone else to rot.”
Five percent—the number knocks the air out of his chest. He knew it was bad, knew it had to be low, but he had no idea it was that low.
“What was the outbreak like there?”
He doesn’t care all that much about the answer—hasn’t since Laurens died—but he’s been pulled back into some small part of the world now, might need to know.
“Bad,” Adams replies, “but not terrible. They lost London for a while but retook it a couple months ago ago. Funny: they never thought to bomb any of their own cities—just ours. Guess you can do that when you call back all but a few thousand of your troops. But it's still a worse place to be than here. The King’s on a bender. No Parliament, no checks, no courts—he does whatever the hell he wants, and what he wants is to string up anyone that breathes funny around him. Trust me: it’s for the best you didn’t stay on that ship.”
“What about other places?”
“Well, Canada’s fucked like us—and they didn't have the resistance we did. No one’s even heard from Australia in months—”
“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure Australia has spiders more threatening than the infected,” the driver cuts in, snorting a laugh. “I think they just killed them all, then fucked the hell off.”
“Insightful as always, Thomson,” Adams wryly remarks. Hamilton manages a half-smile, listens as Adams goes on. “All the Spanish and Portuguese colonies aren’t much better off. France only pulled some of their troops out of their colonies, but they’re so fucked-up at home that it may as well not matter." He arches his brows. "They abolished the monarchy, though.”
“Oh. Good for them.”
“Yeah, well, they’ve decapitated every leader of leaders that’ve come since, so it’s a mixed bag.”
Vicious irony twangs through Hamilton’s chest. France abolished the monarchy— of course the news would come with an asterisk. The other shoe always drops.
“It’s a shame about Lafayette,” Adams sighs a moment later, sorrow overtaking his face. “That was all he wanted, and he didn't even live to see it."
Hamilton's eyes close for a moment. He remembers Lafayette, brief as their meeting at Henry Laurens' gala was. He liked him, his effusiveness and ambition. "Did you know him well?"
"Pretty well. Jesus—poor Thomas."
Hamilton blinks a moment, then suddenly remembers the two of them side-by-side. He thinks back to the inauguration to all the time he spent glaring at Jefferson across the floor, who'd been hanging off of everyone like a slimy Southern rat, including...
"Fuck. He and Lafayette were actually pretty close, huh?" Hamilton asks, and—he knows what that's like. To lose a friend.
Adams sighs in confirmation. "All that time Thomas spent prancing around in France and all. You'da thought they were brothers. Personally, I think they definitely fucked at some point, but Thomas doesn't kiss and tell."
"Remind me how the hell did France appointed an American as the French-American ambassador?"
“Thomas rode Lafayette's French dick as much as Lafayette rode his American one, that's how. He basically got him the job through good old fashioned nepotism and connections. Lafayette would've appointed him in a cushy French position in a palace at some point too, I'd have bet."
Madison’s no one else made it out of Philadelphia echoes in Hamilton's mind, coalescing with Jefferson's outburst, they're all dead—
“They really all died?” Hamilton asks, his voice quiet.
Adams knows what he’s talking about without having to ask.
“Yeah,” Adams agrees—then he shakes his head, backpedaling. “Fuck, I don’t know. A few hours ago, I still thought Thomas was dead—and then I heard his name called out on every fucking broadcast in the city. But I know Washington’s motorcade never made it out of the city—and I know Lafayette was in it.”
The knowledge hits him just as hard as it always does.
They fall into silence.
They wait.
Hamilton watches blood seep through the bandages on his hands.
It feels like a metaphor that’s a little too apt, a little too on-the-nose.
“—got two men matching Madison and Jefferson's descriptions pinned down in the Boston Public Library. Requesting backup—"
“Fucking gun it,” Adams orders. The tires screech. Hamilton abandons Madison’s emptied revolver and Jefferson’s unloaded shotgun, snags the clip the driver throws at him, reloads one of his stolen Redcoat rifles. “This is Sons of Anarchy Commander Samuel Adams. I want every fucking Son in the eastern side of the city at the Library for an extraction—"
“—this is Major-General Gage. I want every Redcoat in the city to storm the Boston Public Library and to bring me Jefferson and Madison’s—”
The truck skids to a stop. Hamilton’s out the door before it’s even stopped, rushing up the steps. Samuel Adams yells after him—but then he’s suddenly at Hamilton’s side, charging with him. They burst through the front doors, instantly flanking the soldiers ahead of them. Hamilton shoots left, Adams right—the other Sons bring up the rear, pick off the rest before the first few Redcoats even know what’s happening.
“Thomas?” Adams yells through gunfire deeper in the library.
A bullet whizzes past Hamilton’s face. He dives behind a flipped-over table, joined by Adams. One of the Sons with them isn’t quite as fast, goes down with a cry. Hamilton doesn’t notice, waits for a break in the gunfire, the sound of a clip reloading—Adams drags him back down before he can move.
“You follow my orders when you’re with me—clear?” Adams snarls, his head popping over the table for just long enough to scan the library. He reaches into his pockets, pulls a Molotov. “Cover fire!” he orders them all—and Hamilton complies, popping just above the edge of the table and blasting away.
The other Sons follow suit—they only have an idea of where they’re shooting at, but the return gunfire stops long enough for Adams to aim. The bottle arcs, crashes against a bookshelf—and flames roar, licking up and swallowing a hundred books in a second. A handful of Redcoats rush out of cover, go down with a volley of bullets.
Their group advances, rushes towards the gunfire further on.
“Thomas?” Adams yells again as they slide behind a bookshelf, readying for another skirmish. “Come on, give me a fuckin’ bone here!”
Bullets tear through the shelves. Hamilton hits the ground. A body hits the ground beside him—but this one is less lucky than him. Adams crouches nearby, sizes up the advancing troops. Hamilton squirms forward, swipes a hand in the shelf, clears a gap between the books—and he aims.
Four consecutive shots tear through Redcoat ankles and calves, send them careening to the floor. Another volley of shots dispatches the soldiers. They advance.
“Jefferson?” Hamilton shouts this time. “Madison?”
They’re close now, burst out of the rows and into a grand hall. A long path stretches forward, enclosed by two rows of tables. At the furthest end of the room, shoved-over bookcases splatter the floor, providing cover. A dozen dead Redcoats lie between them and the far end of the room, but two dozen more are advancing, firing, providing cover for the others. The room is a chaotic mass of screaming, yelling, gunfire. The Redcoats don’t know they’re there yet, but fuck—it’s only four of them now, four backyard revolutionaries plus— God, please let it be them— against twenty royal soldiers.
“Burn ‘em,” Adams orders, his voice dark.
Everyone reaches into their coats, withdraws bottles and matches. Someone hands Hamilton a Molotov, lights his rag. They aim, throw—the room bursts orange-white with flame. Fire roars up bookcases, swallows tables, spreads in puddles of alcohol-induced chaos.
Still a dozen Redcoats.
A cloud of dark curls pops up at the far end of the room, aims at the fleeing Redcoats, shoots—
Time stops.
Hamilton is close enough to see Jefferson’s face change as he realizes he’s been shot.
Jefferson sinks back below the table.
Blood hangs in the air, assaults Hamilton’s senses, red fills his vision, bayonets sweep through the air, catch and tear, bullets soar—Adams is beside him, wreaking havoc, Madison is shooting, his eyes black with rage, Jefferson’s absent, not there, don’t be dead don’t be dead don’t be—
Redcoats flood the room behind them, reinforcements arriving, aim and fire—
Hamilton vaults over the last table. Adams is one second slower, leaps over and falls with a shout as a bullet clips him, tears a hole in the arm of his peacock colored coat.
It’s only the four of them now—the four of them.
Jefferson is gasping, chest heaving, wide-eyed. Blood soaks the side of his face, stains his hair red and matts it to his skull. At the sight of Hamilton, Jefferson looks on the brink of having a heart attack.
“Hamilton?” His eyes widen more as they slide to the second figure. “Sam ? What the fuck—”
Adams sweeps the bloody hair from the left side of his face, reveals the source of the bleeding. It’s—well, fuck. It’s what’s left of Jefferson’s ear: the top third’s shot off. But that’s it—there’s no exposed skull, no open-air brain. Madison’s shoulders sag in relief. Hamilton looks once between the two of them, notes Jefferson's bruised, bloody knuckles, Madison's bloodstained shoulder, his bleeding nose, the dozen other injuries they've accumulated.
“We’re in deep fucking shit, Thomas, we’re gonna have to save this for later,” Adams interrupts him, frantically scanning the room. Still, he manages to flash the man a smile—strained as it might be. “You’re fine, by the way—just as much of a fucking drama queen as always.”
Fire is spreading quickly around them, consuming the room at record-speed. Smoke is starting to spread through the room, starting to burn Hamilton’s eyes. What’s worse is that they’re effectively pinned by the fresh wave of Redcoats. They can charge forward, go down in a hail of bullets—or they can stay, let the fire close them in. Their backs are to the wall, the windows are—
“We can go through the window,” Hamilton tells them, his eyes widening.
Madison pops up, shoots at the advancing troops.
“Are you missing the part where they’re all twenty feet off the ground?” Jefferson snaps.
Hamilton and Adams return the Redcoats’ fire.
“That one’s got a bookcase under it still—we can climb up, smash through.”
“Oh my God,” Jefferson intones, his patent dry, smarmy quality coloring his voice. (Hamilton’s shoulders slacken—ear or not, Jefferson’s fine). Jefferson pops up, fires at the soldiers. “I can’t believe I’m going to die in a library.”
“I thought that was your ideal way to go?” Adams retorts between shots.
“Yeah, but I didn’t think I would do it when I’m thirty fucking years old!”
Hamilton inhales a breath full of smoke, breaks out into a coughing fit. Madison shoves a handkerchief into his hand, then immediately goes back to shooting.
“When are the rest of those Sons—”
—supposed to show up, Hamilton almost says.
They show up mid-sentence, cut him off. From behind the Redcoats, a new wave of Sons arrives, starting to exchange gunfire. Confusion takes over again. The smoke is thickening, wafting in heavy pillars towards the high ceilings, obscuring the room.
“Can you run?” Adams asks Jefferson.
“I sure fuckin’ hope so.”
“Good,” Adams says—and then he shoves Jefferson out of cover. “Go!”
The three of them burst upwards, shoot viciously at the few Redcoats not distracted enough to see Jefferson making a break for the shelf. Hamilton’s hands are rock-steady. His aim holds.
Jefferson is at the top of the shelf in a flash, sending an elbow into the glass, pulling himself through—and then he’s gone.
“Hamilton, you next,” Adams orders, pushing him into the open before he can protest.
Hamilton dashes, shoots as he runs, scrambles shelf onto shelf—his hurt leg twinges, he slips—then pulls himself back up, throws himself onto the top of the shelf, through the glass. He lands hard, almost crashes forward—but Jefferson grabs hold of his shoulders, stands firm and steady when Hamilton slams hard into his chest.
“Where’s Madison?” Jefferson demands—but no sooner than the words leave his mouth than is Madison coming through, landing less than gracefully beside them, wheezing viciously from the smoke.
Adams follows a second later, and they run, burst onto a street. A Humvee swerves around the bend, and Hamilton readies himself to sprint back, out of its line of fire—but he catches sight of red paint on its side. Adams frantically waves them down. Tires screech to a stop in front of them. A door flies open. They dive in, Hamilton bringing up the rear.
As the car screeches away, gunfire cracks behind them.
The Boston Public Library is an orange glow in the rear-view mirror as it fades.
Save for heavy breathing and pained gasps, the car is silent.
Adams reaches forward for a moment, activates the radio.
“Pull back from the Boston Public Library—extraction’s successful.” He clasps the driver’s shoulder. “Good timing as always, Edes.” Sinks back into his seat with a groan.
Silence reigns.
Jefferson giggles. The sound is splintered.
Silence resumes.
Jefferson laughs outright. This time the sound is fully hysterical, breathless and bubbling, a full-body heaving that calls hyperventilation to mind. Hamilton’s on the other end of the backseat, so he’s blessedly spared the moral obligation to figure out just the fuck he’s supposed to do. He can barely even think—his lungs hurt, his chest hurts, his head hurts, his hands hurt, his legs hurt. His stomach is twisting and balling up and wrenching in his gut, and he suddenly has no direction, no idea what to do.
“Thomas,” Adams says because he’s closest, “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” Jefferson manages between peals of laughter. “What’s wrong? Everything is fucked is what’s wrong! Everyone knows we’re alive, this whole shitty city wants us dead, I’m missing a goddamn ear—”
“Part of an ear,” Hamilton corrects him out of habit.
Madison almost fucking strangles him.
“Come on, Thomas,” Adams gently coaxes him, ignoring them both. “Take a breath.”
Jefferson closes his eyes, gasps in like a dying man once, twice—then his eyes reopen, a little less clouded by insanity. He blinks, inhales sharply, lifts a hand to the side of his face.
“Jemmy, have you got a handkerchief?” he asks, his voice taking on the cadence of easily fractured calm.
Madison fumbles for his pocket, forgetting he’s already given it to Hamilton. Hamilton only even remembers it’s still clutched in his hand until Madison comes up empty. He clears his throat, passes it over. Jefferson takes it daintily, presses it against his ear. It’s blood-soaked in seconds.
“We’re gonna need to clean that once we’re back in our own territory.”
“Yeah, I’m guessing you’re not gonna be able to sew it back together, huh?” Jefferson asks.
“Not unless you know where the rest of it is.”
Jefferson barks out a laugh—but this one isn’t so viciously unhinged, is instead colored by a tinge of bitterness. Hamilton sinks a little further into his seat.
“Right, then.” Jefferson’s eyes shut again. “Well, I’m in a lot of fuckin’ pain at the moment, so I think I’m gonna pass out now if that’s alright with y’all.”
He doesn’t wait for an answer, just slumps over onto Adams’ shoulder. Another time, Hamilton would be impressed with the self-awareness, but there are other things to think about. He can’t manage to do it, though. His head is clouded, foggy, anxiety weighing on him like an anvil. He shifts.
“Hamilton,” Madison heaves out, “dare I ask why you’re not on your way out of this godforsaken city?”
“Jesus, let the kid rest,” Adams criticizes him, his voice suddenly sharp. “He’s been through hell.”
“And you think we haven’t?” Madison shoots back, an unusual edge of anger flaring in his voice. “The only damn reason we even came to Boston was to get him on a damn ship out of here!”
“What, so the Crown can get their human experimentation jollies? If you want sign yourself up, then go fuck on over to the docks—but he’s too valuable to piss away when the King will have him killed before he’s made it a step into the castle.”
Hostility swells between them and inside Hamilton—fucking typical, just trying to get rid of you— but as they start to bicker, voices growing louder, he just wants them to shut the fuck up. They’re pissing him off, he’s going to start screaming, he just wants some peace and quiet.
Hamilton sucks in a breath, makes a pitiful cry, feigns a sudden wave of pain. It isn’t actually feigned at all; he just lets it wash over him openly. But it does the trick—Madison’s eyes avert to him, flooded with a concern that he typically only reserves for Jefferson. A gentle hand comes to rest on his shoulder, warm and more reassuring than it has any right to be.
“Hamilton?”
“I’m—” Hamilton’s eyes screw shut. Dizzily, he slumps against Madison, trying to figure out the best way to open his eyes without letting on that he's in rough shape. His leg sears. “… fine.”
He doesn’t want to admit he’s not, so he decides to drift away before Madison forces him to admit otherwise.
Between bouts of consciousness, Hamilton decides that passing out is a valid way of avoiding conflict that he should apply to future situations. He’s distantly aware of Madison and Adams still arguing, snarling at one another—but he’s pleasantly warm, drifting for most of it. Fuck you both, he thinks when their voices break through his haze—and then falls back into unconsciousness.
“Wake up,” a voice tells him after some time. “C’mon—you’re too stubborn to be really out of it.”
A hand pats his cheek, only a little force shy of a slap. Hamilton grumbles a swear but opens his eyes to find Adams looking down at him. Adams’ eyes brighten.
“We’re in the Sons’ main encampment,” the man explains, looping an arm around Hamilton’s waist. “Come on, we’re getting you to the med kit. Can get that leg of yours sewed up.”
“Please tell me you have painkillers.”
“What, you haven’t ever gone in raw with a needle and thread?”
“I’ve done it plenty, and that’s how I know I want painkillers,” Hamilton groans, forcing himself out of the truck and onto the ground. He stays upright, but Adams steadies him anyways. “Where's…?”
“They were both pretty badly out of it. Had someone take them to the medical tent already.”
Hamilton ignores the indistinct wisp of fear that coils his stomach, gets up to hobble alongside Adams
The encampment looks like one of the old just-post-apocalypse medical triage camps—it is, Hamilton realizes as they pass rows of stained white tents. They’re in some kind of parking lot common area, enclosed in by modern-art-esque buildings. It’s still mostly dark out, but a sliver of pink is just visible to the east, beginning to light up the area in something other than harsh spotlights; elsewhere in the city, dark smoke rises. Dozens of people mill around, sit playing cards or cleaning guns over tables. Eyes flicker to him; conversations stop. Murmurs fill the air: immune and John Laurens and holy shit.
Hamilton glances up the glass-windowed façade of a building to avoid their eyes, reads the black block letters spelling School of the Arts splashed atop the building’s highest level.
“Wait,” he says, his eyes narrowed. “Are we at Harvard?”
“My one and only alma mater,” Adams sighs, fondness reaching his voice. “Congratulations—you can officially say you went to Harvard.”
“I almost went to Harvard for real.”
“Ah, so you’re an asshole too?” Adams laughs—and despite himself, Hamilton does too. After so long, it feels unfamiliar, leaving his chest feeling strangely tight. "Don't worry. You're in good company."
Adams leads him into a high-roofed white tent. The room’s filled with cots, but only a dozen or so are occupied. A handful of men and women in scrubs tend to the wounded, dressing injuries and stitching up gashes and administering shots and IVs. A generator rumbles somewhere nearby; it’s surprisingly high-tech given the state of the world, and Hamilton’s impressed enough to let Adams set him down onto the closest cot. A nurse materializes beside Adams in an instant.
“He’s tough. Needs his leg sewn up and his bandages changed—maybe a few other things. Don’t know if he’s still holding out on me or not.” Adams glances down to Hamilton. “You want morphine?”
Yes— but he doesn’t need it.
“Have you got any beer?” he asks instead, managing a weak grin.
“I’ll be back in a second,” Adams promises with a laugh.
The nurse is just finished changing his bandages when Adams returns with a pack of beer: naturally, Sam Adams is splashed across the label. Hamilton takes it with a snort, chugs through the first two, then motions for the nurse to start.
“Does he need a transfusion?” Adams asks. “I can go drag one of our O- guys out of hiding.”
“I’m fine,” Hamilton insists; earning himself a like hell you are look.
“I wouldn’t,” the nurse says after a moment. “I’m nervous about giving him anything. If he’s really immune, who knows what the hell his biology’s like? He could have an entirely unique blood profile. We might kill him.”
Hamilton lifts a bottle of beer in an ironic toast, then drinks deeply. Adams frowns, but pulls a chair, settles into the seat by Hamilton's cot.
“So,” Hamilton gets out, tilting towards Adams as a distraction. “The fuck’s your deal with Madison?”
The needle nips into his skin. He screws his eyes shut with a groan.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you weren’t treating him like you wanna invite him to your fuckin’ wedding.”
Adams raises his brows, understanding settling in.
“What, Thomas never told you?”
“Your mistake is assuming that Jefferson—Christ, that hurts—that Jefferson and I are friends. Or that we—shit—that we talk, for that matter.”
“Yeah, well, James fuckin’ Madison dumped him over a twenty-second phone call in college, then went off the grid on him for four years." Hamilton tries to do the math—can't, really, not while he's getting sewed up—but it has to have been something like ten years since it happened. Adams sound so damn angry it could've happened yesterday. "Thomas was broken up over it for months. Let me tell you, he’s not a pretty crier. Had to throw out a few shirts because of how much fuckin’ snot there was on ‘em."
Another time, that last bit of knowledge would probably make Hamilton a little giddy. As it is, he just feels vaguely troubled—even bad—but he attributes that to the huge fucking needle and thread stabbed into his leg every few seconds. But the thought of Madison dumping Jefferson so unceremoniously doesn’t sound right. He may have another piece of the puzzle, but he’s still about four hundred pieces shy of a picture.
Another stitch throws the thought out of his mind.
“Well, they’re together now,” Hamilton remarks between gritted teeth.
“Yeah,” Adams says, sounding none too pleased at the knowledge. “That happened sometime after they won their first election. I have no idea what kind of fuckin’ apology Madison made to him, but it must’ve been damned good.” He scoffs. “If you ask me, Thomas should’ve stayed with Angelica Schuyler. She never would’ve pulled that kind of shit.”
“He dumped Angelica Schuyler? ”
“I sure fuckin’ hope not.”
Inadvertently, Hamilton’s thoughts drift to Angelica. Where is she? Where are all of them?
He knows where Peggy is, knows where Laurens was, knows where Hercules was a few hours ago—but what about the rest of them? Angelica? Eliza? Burr? The dozens of other people he knew, worked with, had classes with? There’s no answer, no way to find out. The uncertainty of it weighs down on him. His thoughts start to pull him under, drown him—Adams’ hand on his shoulder drags him up.
“You got a look in your eyes there,” Adams explains in a tired voice that reveals he knows all too well what Hamilton was thinking about. His eyes skirt down to where the nurse is finishing up the last stitch on Hamilton’s leg, cutting and knotting the thread. “Anything I can do?”
“Yeah,” Hamilton says after a moment. He hands Adams a bottle. Swallows hard. “Open this for me?”
And Adams does.
Hamilton dozes off after the nurse finishes with the rest of him. It’s a miracle given how little he sleeps normally: the beer does most of the heavy lifting, admittedly. And it’s not warm inside the tent, but it’s not ice-cold either. Someone’s pulled a little space heater up beside Hamilton’s cot, buried him in enough blankets to smother a small child.
His sleep is listless.
He dreams—thin, wispy, imperceptible things.
He’s in New York, Central Park, a picnic—Henry Laurens' gala, Jefferson’s breathless laugh, Madison's handkerchief—Nevis, yellow skies, a hand that lets go of his—a computer screen, words flying from his fingers.
Hamilton blinks awake, brought back by pain. He’s alone. Light streams through the canvas roof, signaling that he’s slept at least a few hours. Gradually, Hamilton works his way onto his feet. There’s a fresh change of clothes waiting at the foot of the bed—a Harvard T-shirt, a Harvard sweatshirt, and Harvard sweatpants. So his outfit’s been sourced from the campus bookstore. Fucking fantastic.
But it’s better than his bloodstained apparel, so he changes, tucks the Redcoat uniform away to keep.
It’s early morning outside, and the camp is bustling. The Sons are a diverse bunch: men, women, old—and fuck, Hamilton hasn’t even seen a kid that young in months. He feels distinctly out of place, distinctly aware of his own otherness.
Slowly, he wanders forward, gradually letting himself be drawn towards what appears to be a random crowd. He edges around the crowd’s fringes, tries to figure out what they’re looking for.
Someone grabs his arm.
“Wait—aren’t you the immune one?”
Hamilton can’t even respond, can’t pull away before he’s surrounded, jostled, pushed to the middle of the crowd. He comes out into the eye of the storm, gets shoved almost directly into Jefferson’s chest. Barely, he manages to regain his footing, a vicious swell of irritation rising in his throat.
“Hamilton!” Jefferson’s delightedly exclaims, drunkenly elongating the o.
Jefferson flashes a too-white smile, the one Hamilton recognizes from speeches and rallies and newscasts. Despite being boxed in by the crowd—a thing that makes Hamilton’s heart race, activates his fight-or-flight impulse—Jefferson looks comfortable, for lack of a better word. In his element. One hand makes it way to the small of Hamilton’s back, an unfamiliarly warm feeling.
“It’s good to see you,” he tells him, still smiling brightly, still slipping a little on his syllables.
Hamilton looks him over once, notes the bandages peeking out from beneath his hair, notes the pleasant, glazed look in his eyes, and determines that Jefferson’s high out of his fucking mind.
“How are you feeling?” Hamilton asks, sliding closer to him to get away from the crushing crowd.
“Fantastic!" Jefferson replies. “Like a million fuckin’ bucks.”
“Yes,” Madison dryly agrees, “that would be the morphine.”
Hamilton didn’t even notice him—and Madison was right there, just behind Jefferson the entire time. The other man’s eyes slide vaguely disdainful to the walls of people surrounding them every few seconds, then back to Jefferson. He smiles politely, nods in acknowledgement as people talk to him and shake his hands, but it’s clear he’s not basking in the warmth with Jefferson’s snakelike ease.
“You let them stick you with morphine? I let them stitch up my leg without shit,” Hamilton prods Jefferson—he barely reacts: the pleasant smile never leaves his face.
“You still have both your ears.”
“You have most of yours,” Madison tries to reassure him. "It's not noticeable."
But before they can talk any further, the crowd descends on them. Even drugged half out of his mind, Jefferson spins, twirls, charms with an unnatural grace. He smiles, laughs, touches with the ease of a well-seasoned politician, earns himself starry-eyed grins and blushing smiles. Madison is considerably cooler in his charms, lets Jefferson receive the brunt of the attention—but he makes polite conversation, graciously takes thanks, directs people to Jefferson when he’s tired of talking. Hamilton can’t even look to either of them for help—he’s too busy being bombarded all on his own.
“You’re immune? Let me see where you were bit.”
“You were in New York? How’d you get out?”
“How long have you known Madison and Jefferson?”
Hamilton doesn’t want to talk to any of them, feels like a rat in a cage, just wants to get out of the damn crowd. He hates crowds, feels trapped, wants to get in the open. He replies in clipped sentences, occasionally tries to make a break for it—only to be pulled back in.
A man stops him on one of his attempts, asks,
“You’re John Laurens’ boyfriend, right? What happened to him?”
Hamilton flinches backwards, but eyes are on him, expectant.
“He’s dead,” Hamilton gets out, then tries to make another break for it.
Someone else stops him, asks,
“How’d he die? Were you there? Did—?”
Hamilton’s vision burns red. He’s distantly aware of the fists forming at his side, of the blinding anger swallowing him whole. He’s going to fucking lose it. He’s going to beat his way out of this goddamned crowd, knock the shit out of anyone—
"What kind of fucking question is that?" Hamilton cuts in, his voice rising. "Who the fuck do you—"
“I’m so sorry,” Madison apologizes, materializing out of nowhere to cut Jefferson off. He places a hand on Hamilton’s shoulder and squeezes—not to comfort him, Hamilton realizes, but to hold him back. It tracks perfectly: Madison’s always been designated damage control. “But I’m afraid the three of us have to get going. We have to speak to Samuel Adams,” he explains, perfectly civil. He turns, grabs ahold of Jefferson’s shoulder and physically pulls him away mid-sentence. “Thank you all for your kindness. Perhaps we’ll have the opportunity to speak more later.”
And then he’s shoving the three of them through the crowd. Jefferson squawks in indignation, but Madison silences him with a look. As they walk through the camp, Jefferson makes conversation, oblivious to the exchange he's missed.
“Jesus, I’ve missed that,” he sighs. “Fuck, I forgot how much I love networking.”
“Pretty fancy euphemism for schmoozing,” Hamilton objects, his voice sharper than he means it to be. Jefferson doesn't notice, but Hamilton still tacks on a gentler, “Or being fawned over, in your case.”
Jefferson sends him another white-toothed, vaguely loopy grin.
“I admit it: I like being the center of attention.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
"Well, what'd you think about getting swarmed?"
"Didn't fucking like it."
Hamilton’s blood is still boiling, his fists still knotted at his side—but Madison’s grip on his shoulder is firm, clearly meant to keep him from rounding back and giving any of the crowd a piece of his mind.
(Hamilton hates how well Madison can read people, hates how fucking efficient he is, hates how Madison was completely ready to dump him at England’s doorstep the first moment possible—)
“Let me go,” Hamilton snaps, but Madison's hand holds fast.
“Are you going to conduct yourself better than you did at Henry Laurens’ gala?”
“Fuck. You.”
“Jesus, Jemmy, that was two fuckin’ years ago,” Jefferson scoffs. “We both hated Henry. Did’ya forgot how many dinner parties he spent bitching about oh, fuckin’ sodomizers, always bitching, blah blah blah? It was dinner ‘n dessert to watch Hamilton lay his ass out! I don’t know why the hell you’re still so fuckin’ sore over it.”
“Why I’m so fucking sore?” Madison hisses. “Because it created a PR nightmare two months before the election—and at a goddamned donor party! I spent weeks with Washington doing damage control. It was wildly irresponsible, is what it was. And if you lose your damn self-control these days, someone’s just as liable to punch back—or God forbid, escalate.”
Hamilton scowls and jerks away. This time, Madison’s hand comes loose. He hangs a sharp left, starts walking.
“I heard you were up,” Adams’ voice booms from a few yards away, stopping him short.
He’s not talking to Hamilton this time, but to Jefferson.
“Sam!” Jefferson exclaims, letting Adams drag him into a tight hug. Jefferson is suddenly the fucking paragon of warmth, returning the embrace with a genuinely delighted laugh.
“Jesus—none of us thought yah made it out of Philadelphia!” Adams finally lets him go, seems to notice Madison is there. His expression cools to something a half-step away from hostile, and he holds out a stiff hand. “Madison. Good to see you up and around too.”
Jefferson looks between the two, senses the bad blood, then gracefully slides between the two of them and turns to Hamilton, smiling widely.
“This is Samuel fuckin’ Adams,” Jefferson explains, like Hamilton’s somehow missed that even though it was the two of them that dragged them out of the library. “We went to the same summer camp every year until we were—”
“Too fucking old for summer camp,” Adams finishes, snorting a laugh. He claps a warm hand against Jefferson’s back, smiling again. “Jesus, Thomas, you have no idea how good it is to see you still kicking.”
“You too—good fuckin’ thing Boston’s a political shithole, huh?”
“Hey, my so-called political shithole kept me too busy to go down and get my ass wasted in Philadelphia. Besides, I don’t see many other cities putting up much of a fight against the Redcoats.”
“Yeah, because y’all must have so much pent-up aggression from not being able to kill each other on the roads every damn day—”
Hamilton turns away as the two of them start to catch up. He desperately wants to be alone, to figure out his next step. Thirty steps away, he realizes that Madison’s fallen into line beside him. He’s sneaky like that, light-footed and slippery. Hamilton’s always admired that a little—right now, though, he doesn’t feel like admiring it much at all.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” Hamilton tells him, anger swelling in his chest.
“Fine—then I’ll talk to you.” It’s semantics, but Madison doesn’t give him time to protest. “I think you should stay in Boston.”
Hamilton skids to a stop, his jaw tightening. He goes back on what he just said in an instant.
“Fuck you, Madison,” he says, coming to a stop. The other man doesn’t even blink, just looks at him with that ever-present pity, and it makes Hamilton angrier that he can't even wring a real reaction out of him. Hamilton jams a finger into his chest. “You promised me—oh, if you look after us, we’ll look after you— what a load of shit. I should’ve expected as much from a fucking politician, but I—fuck, I guess I actually believed you, didn’t I? What a goddamn joke.”
“I didn’t lie to—”
“Jesus, Madison, grow the fuck up. Just tell me you want me gone.”
Madison grabs his arm when Hamilton moves to run away, forces him to turn around. There’s something new in his eyes when Hamilton looks into them, some emotion he doesn’t know how to identify.
“It was my fault!” Madison shouts, blurts out, the words seeming to rip out of his throat. It's so uncharacteristic, so sudden that Hamilton steps back in surprise. “Thomas could've saved you if he'd been there. He's better in a close fight. If I'd just been faster, stronger—” Madison cuts off, his voice thick when he begins again. “I’ve handed you a terrible burden. If I’d done better, none of us would even know you’re immune. Or even if I’d been able to kill you before you turned. And I’m glad you’re alive, Hamilton—truly, I am—but I can’t stop thinking about what I’ve done to you.” He shakes his head, his voice worn out when he finally manages to speak again. "It was my fault. It is my fault."
Hamilton stares back at him, floored.
The last few weeks flash before his eyes, play out in slow motion.
He thinks, thinks back to all the times Madison’s looked at him with pitying eyes over the past weeks, how Madison stares at the red-pink-white mottled scars staining Hamilton's neck, how Madison’s been so careful, so methodical in every movement—and in an instant, everything is cast a new light. The air’s ripped out of Hamilton’s lungs.
(Madison looks at him, his eyes not pitying—but guilty. Madison is guilty, blaming himself, thinking of Philip Schuyler and where he stood, thinking of Lafayette and Washington, thinking of Hamilton. The picture cuts into Hamilton's mind: Madison laying awake, heart twisting, thinking of him: Hamilton, who begged to die when the fever swept him over, who begged to cross over to The Other Side, who begged to see Laurens again, who screamed on a highway that he should be dead—Hamilton, who should be dead, but isn’t, who has to live with that for the rest of his life, however long it may be).
(Madison, who is trying to make up for what he’s done, trying to make sure Hamilton has some semblance of safety, of a decent life. Madison, who is trying to save the world, yes, but is also trying to save him—to save Hamilton, because in a department store somewhere in Kentucky, he couldn’t).
“You could’ve run,” Madison tells him. “I saw you. You had an opening. You could’ve left me. You should’ve run.” Madison steps forward, his dark eyes searching—for what, Hamilton doesn’t know. “Why didn’t you run?” Madison steps forward again, deep into Hamilton’s space. “I’m not a fool. I know you don’t like either of us.” Closer. Despair cuts into Madison's eyes. "And I'm sorry. I tried to make things right, Hamilton. I truly did. But I failed."
Hamilton’s mouth opens—then closes.
“I'm trying to do what’s best,” Madison tells him, his voice painfully measured, filled with something Hamilton can't place for a second. It’s desperation, he realizes—a wretched, miserable kind of desperation. He doesn’t know why the hell Madison of all people is so desperate to convince him of something, but he’s too caught off-guard to do anything but listen. “Hamilton, I wake up every goddamned day terrified that I’ll fuck up, that something’ll happen to Thomas. If I could send him to England and know he’d be safe—even if I’d never see him again—I’d do it in an instant. But I can’t. I can't do it for him, and I can't do it for you either.”
Madison swallows harder, lets composure cloak him, smooth his expression.
"I want you to be safe, Hamilton. We may not be friends, but I thought I could at least give you that.” Madison's shoulders sink. “I thought your blood was on my hands once. I don’t want that again.”
"It wasn't your fault," Hamilton says, but he can't make the words mean anything.
“Why didn't you run?" Madison asks him again, looking for an answer Hamilton can't give him.
He's close, inches away, too close. If Hamilton—no.
“I don’t…” Hamilton looks away. “I don't know.”
Madison watches him a moment longer, searching to find something in his face. Finally, he sighs, a frustrated, miserable, guilty sound that seems to come from the very depths of his soul.
“Please." Madison shakes his head. "Stay in Boston, Alexander. You'll be safer."
Five minutes ago, Hamilton would've thought it was pity on Madison's face when he walks away.
He knows better now.
Hamilton is as lost as he's ever been. He’s coming untethered, losing himself to his thoughts, in danger of drifting into his mind and not coming out. He’s in danger of thinking too long, too hard about New York, about Hercules stranded in the middle of a Redcoat camp, about Laurens and Charleston.
He goes back to the first-aid tent and digs around the things by the side of his bed. Madison and Jefferson’s things are missing—they’ve apparently retrieved them already—but the radio is still there. Hamilton takes it, tunes it into the channel Hercules gave him. He searches his coat for the dictionary, flips it open. A brief study reveals code is a kind of bastardized Morse code: words in the dictionary are assigned a random number (scrawled in glitter purple pen, Hamilton notes with an almost-smile). Each number one through ten is assigned a series of sounds, as does each letter of the alphabet if there’s a word that needs to be spelled out. It’s simplistic, but the randomness makes it perfectly secure for their purposes.
“H-e-r-c-u-l-e-s?” Hamilton spells out using the glitter-scrawled code.
Static crackles. Just when Hamilton’s starting to fear that Hercules isn’t around, a series of clicks comes through. Hamilton hastily scribbles them down, consults the dictionary—
“You good, man?”
“Not dead. H-a-r-v-a-r-d with A-d-a-m-s.”
“Good. Heard an announcement about the library. Was worried.”
“J-e-f-f-s ear shot. Fine. Little b-i-t-c-h about it: no surprise. M-a-d-i-s-o-n..." He hesitates. "... OK. Both here.”
“Should’ve made key for swearing.”
“Make one now.”
They have an interlude of assigning swear words their own numbers and series of beeps—then think to add their names and a few others. It's a brief interlude, an illusion of normality, evokes a distant memory of sitting with a walkie-talkie hiding beneath his bed, his mother's laughter echoing through the speakers. He brushes the memory away.
“Ham, gonna ask again. I mean it—you good?”
Hamilton’s fingers drift to his neck. His mind drifts towards the future: it’s imprecise, cloudy, looks like yellow skies and yellow fevers. It’s been that way for almost two years, but the thought of England had provided him so kind of stability, some certainty of what was ahead—and it’s gone.
“Yes,” he lies.
It’s easier over the radio.
“If you’re not, that’s fine. I know L-a-u-r-e-n-s—"
“Don’t want to talk about him,” Hamilton signals over him. There’s no response for a few moments, so Hamilton messages again. “What am I supposed to do, Herc?”
Silence one beat, two, then three. The radio crackles.
“Don't know. We'll find something else. Until then—” Hamilton closes his eyes. "—stay alive."
Harvard feels safe.
Hamilton knows better than to believe it.
He waits for the shoe to drop.
They’re in Sam Adams’ room—a repurposed dorm (that brings Columbia to mind). There's a nice oak table in the center of the room dragged in from some lounge room, and there’s a nice spread of food: actual meat, vegetables, dried fruit, honey, non-perishable cheese. It’s a poor man’s version of charcuterie board, but Jefferson is delighted—enough to not bitch about the beer Adams serves with it. The blunt edge of the morphine’s clearly worn off: his eyes are sharper, his words more cutting, and he talks fast as he and Adams catch up, almost too fast to follow—like the words will burn his tongue if he doesn’t get them out.
Hamilton isn’t really sure why he’s been invited: Jefferson and Adams dominate the conversation, flitting sunnily from subject to subject. Adams occasionally brings Madison into the conversation, but it’s clearly only in an attempt to appease Jefferson. Hamilton has no experience in summer homes or wine tasting or bespoke suits, so he mostly stays quiet and enjoys eating something that didn’t come out of a can between bouts of wondering why the fuck he’s there.
“—Hamilton?” Adams says after half an hour or so.
Hamilton looks up blankly. He missed whatever conversation preceded it, a fact that’s splashed clearly on his face.
“I asked what your plans are,” Adams says, amused. “Where do you plan on going from here?”
Hamilton forces himself not to look to Madison.
“I don’t know,” he says finally. “I’ll figure it out.”
“Well,” Adams goes on. “I was impressed at how you handled yourself last night. If you’d like to stay here, there’s a place for you with the Sons.” He smiles—but it's a different smile than the ones he’s given Jefferson all night, warmer in a way that suggests an interest beyond the platonic. “I’m always on the lookout for promising talent.”
It could be innocent—if Hamilton were a fucking idiot.
Jefferson isn’t either—he looks between the two of them, his eyes narrowing in on the distinct warmth in Adams’ eyes. Jefferson’s face twists in mixed parts distaste and disbelief: really?
Madison ignores them all.
A second passes: in it, Hamilton’s mind jumps to his old devotion the revolution, to rising to fight the Redcoats—then to Charleston, to Laurens, to his desire never to be trapped in another city again—and to his neck, to Hercules, to Jefferson and Madison, and to a dozen other things aside.
“I’ll think about it,” he gets out.
Hamilton could leave.
He wants to for a moment, almost even starts to get up—but then he doesn’t.
He thinks Boston over for the rest of dinner.
Hamilton’s supposed to sleep in an old dorm room.
He can’t. He knows he can’t, won’t be able to—so he doesn’t even bother to try. He climbs onto the roof access and goes to the edge, then leans up at the stars. It always surprises him how many he can see. In New York, it was never really dark. The sun just went away, and neon billboards and street lights and lights spilling out of windows took over. In the end of the world, all that’s gone away.
It’s dark, it’s cold, and Hamilton can’t sleep, so he tries to find familiarity in the stars—but he doesn't know them anymore either.
Sometime later—he doesn’t know how much, but his hands are good and numb—voices creep through the air, nearing until their conversation drifts clearly up into the night.
“… that fine?” a man asks, coming into earshot.
“Sure,” another answers.
Hamilton recognizes that voice more easily, leans over the side just to double-check. Down below, he spots a flash of purple and peacock blue-green. The two are stopped by the door.
“Cigarette?” Adams asks Jefferson, reaching into his pocket.
“I don’t smoke,” Jefferson replies, superiority plain in his voice. “Makes your teeth yellow.”
“Oh, like you haven’t had veneers since you were twenty. Besides, you used to smoke like a fuckin’ Parisian. What ever happened to that?”
A puff of orange skates up the side of the building as Adams lights up.
“I quit.” Jefferson shrugs. “Got tired of it.”
“Oh, bullshit—you really think you can stand here and lie to the guy who’s known you since you were still pissing the bed?” Adams blows out a puff of smoke. Hamilton can’t see from his height, but he has to imagine the man’s studying Jefferson, reading him like someone reads a well-worn book. “Let me guess—Madison’s got asthma? Smoke sets it off?” Jefferson must make a face Hamilton can’t see. Adams laughs, but the sound isn’t entirely pleasant. “I’m good, aren’t I?”
“For the record, I never pissed the bed,” Jefferson impertinently defends himself. “That was you.”
“So little-five-year-old Tommy never went to bed crying because one of the older boys told him ghost stories? Bull-fucking-shit, man.”
“Again—you. Don't deflect your embarrassing ass life onto me.”
They trade a few amicable accusations, reference stories Hamilton doesn’t know. Hamilton doesn’t particularly want to go back inside, but he feels like as much of an outsider as ever eavesdropping in on a friendship he isn’t a part of. Besides, his fingers are only a few minutes away from turning black. He moves to go back inside. Maybe he can find somewhere else to sleep. Back to the medical tent, maybe? It wasn't terrible in there.
“… Hamilton’s asleep?” Adams says, and the mention of his name pricks his attention, draws him back.
“Probably not. Have you seen the kid’s dark circles? He works for them, let me tell you that.”
“Doesn’t surprise me.” Adams seems to consider his next words carefully. “What do you think of him?”
Jefferson pauses a moment.
“Fuck it, give me one of those,” he says a moment later. A second puff of light punctures the night. Jefferson drags in a pull, coughs— fucking humiliating— recovers after a hacking fit, tells Adams to shut up and stop laughing until his friend complies. “Look, I don’t know what you want me to tell you. He’s an adult. He can make decisions for himself—if he wants to stay in Boston, then he can fuckin’ stay in Boston. But you know we can’t. The further away we are from Redcoats, the better.”
“Did you forget I’m a politician too?” Adams flatly asks. “I know when you’re avoiding a question.”
Sweet tobacco smoke rises into the air, stings Hamilton’s nose.
“He’s smart. Fast. Not bad with a gun,” Jefferson concedes after a moment.
“Jesus, when’d you get so fucking cagey? You sound just like Madison.”
Jefferson scowls, takes a long draw from his cigarette. Hamilton imagines his brows have drifted together, imagines the way one corner of his mouth twists down just like it always does when he’s thinking about something. It’s hard to tell how much time passes, but it’s certainly a few seconds before Jefferson finally replies, his voice deliberate and measured.
“I think he’s lonely,” he says. “Not that he’d ever admit it. I wouldn’t, if I were him.” Jefferson sighs wearily, huffs in more smoke. “If something happened to Madison, that’s how I’d be.”
It’s bullshit.
Hamilton is fine on his own. He doesn’t need them. He was just doing what was best for himself in the moment, acting in his best interests to survive.
(But he didn’t on a rooftop in Virginia or a department store in Kentucky or outside a public library in Boston, did he?)
“It would’ve been Madison if it hadn’t been him, you know,” Jefferson says. An inhaled breath pierces the air, his fragile words growing sharper as he speaks. “I don’t know what I would’ve done. I was gonna marry him, Sam. I had it all planned out. I remodeled Monticello to be ready for him to move in. I had a ring. We had appointed jobs—no more fuckin’ worrying over votes. All the Representatives were a fuckin’ joke, but we came so damn close to being more than that. We had the leader, the Declaration—Christ, I was gonna ask him that day! I mean, it wouldn't have meant anything, not legally, but we were so close, Sam. I came so fucking close to everything.”
Silence. Jefferson drops the barely-there end of his cigarette, lets it burn out at his feet.
“I owe Hamilton,” Jefferson finishes a minute later. “He’s a little shit and he gets on my fuckin’ nerves and God knows I want to... fuck. Look, if he stays here, just take care of him, alright? He doesn’t need you to—and God knows he's too much of a prideful, spiteful shit to let you if he knows that’s what you’re doing—but he shouldn’t have to be alone.” A pause, a soft exhale, unusual softness. "I don't want him to be alone."
Adams thinks a long few seconds.
“You think he’ll stay?”
“Fuck if I know.” Jefferson plucks the cigarette out of Adams’ mouth, takes a drawl despite Adams’ swearing, returning to his usual tone. “He doesn’t even like us, for fuck’s sake.”
“There’s a big fuckin’ dissonance between what he says and what he does, in case you haven’t noticed,” Adams scoffs, lighting another cigarette. “If you ask me, he’s afraid of liking you. You give a shit about someone, you have something to lose. I mean, shit—how much can one person lose before they’re spent?”
Jefferson makes a sound somewhere between thoughtful and derisive. A while later, voice thick with desperation, he ventures,
"Any news about Abby? Or... or anyone? Anyone at all."
A long silence.
"Some of her stuff was missing when I went to her place. She wasn't there, but it was weeks before I could make it to their Braintree place. And..." The word catches a little. "Everyone's gone, Thomas. Every last one. I thought I was... alone. All my coworkers. My friends. Family. John. They're all gone. I had... no one left. Least 'til I heard your name."
A long silence passes between the two men—so long, Hamilton almost thinks they’ve gone inside. But Jefferson breaks the silence at last, his voice thick and sad when he speaks.
“And I wish I could stay, Sam. I really fuckin’ do.”
Adams’s sigh drifts up into the night, swallowed up by the dark, and the I know goes unspoken.
Boston.
Hamilton lies in bed and tries to think about Boston.
Fuck Boston, he hears Jefferson intone.
What future does he have here? But then again, what future does he have anywhere else? Does he just go back to scrapping out a living in the suburbs? Does he go with Jefferson and Madison?
Boston.
Boston’s home to what’s left of the Revolution, to what’s left of Hamilton’s friends, to the warmth in Sam Adams’ smile—but the warmth in Laurens’ always comes back, always twists his stomach, always makes him turn over in bed, always forces him to think of something else.
Fuck Boston.
Hamilton twists.
Revolution Cure Charleston Redcoats—
He can’t sleep: surprise.
Madison Jefferson Hercules Adams Laurens—
How long until the sun rises?
Alone alone alone alone alone—
He’s— you can’t— he can—there’s nothing here for you— there could be.
Hamilton shoves his face into the cold side of his pillow. By the time it starts to get just as unpleasantly hot as the side he escaped, his mind is made up.
He’s going to—shit, he’s going to stay.
The decision rings through his mind, the death knell to a thousand other potential futures. But even as he thinks it, the burden on his shoulder eases, gives his lungs room to expand with air. The future takes an indistinct shape in his mind: a British ship disappearing over the horizon, a pint of beer with Hercules, a haven for them to construct their own cure.
Peacock blue-green.
Hamilton closes his eyes.
The other shoe drops.
The door clicks as the lock comes softly undone.
Hamilton’s yanked out of unconsciousness immediately, but it takes him another second to gather his bearings, to hear the door swing near-silently open. Footsteps, deliberately soft, enter.
He struggles a moment to make out who’s in his room in the middle of the night, but it’s pitch-black, impossible to tell. He could ask, but that’d give away that he’s awake. Silently, Hamilton slides his hand beneath his pillow, curls his fingers around the hilt of his knife.
Footsteps creep closer, closer—to the side of his bed.
Hamilton can’t even make out the outline of the person standing over him. Sweat beads on his brow. He weighs the odds that it’s someone he knows, that it’s someone that’s accidentally made their way into his room. Surely Madison or Jefferson or Adams wouldn’t be stupid enough to pull this stunt, wouldn't think to sneak up on someone like him in his sleep.
“Hamilton!” a voice yells somewhere down the hall: an alarm.
Hamilton lunges, tackles the person at his bed, swings wildly until he’s got his knife above his assailant’s neck, posed to pierce the hollow of their throat.
“Don’t fucking move,” he threatens, voice low and hollow.
They move, grasp for a gun that’s skittered out of reach.
Hamilton doesn’t hesitate.
The door’s thrown open, cracks into the plaster wall. Harsh white light floods the room, reveals the person under Hamilton’s grasp—a woman, a face he doesn’t recognize—and Adams in the doorway, a rifle aimed at Hamilton’s chest. Adams takes just enough time to identify the women and to swear, then he stalks forward, pulls Hamilton up by his shoulder, aims at the woman— headshot.
“Get your things,” he orders, swinging his rifle back to the doorway. “You’ve got to go.”
Hamilton’s mind is racing, kicked into fight-or-flight. He doesn’t waste time on questions, doesn’t waste a moment on the woman dead on the floor, doesn’t do anything but grab his things, follow Adams. Adams moves swiftly, cautiously, checking around corners before he turns. They stop outside another door, Hamilton watching as Adams raps once, twice, insistent against the wood.
With no background noise from whistling pipes or heaters, it’s quiet enough to make out the muffled swearing inside the room, grumbled conversation, rustling.
“What the fuck do you want?” Jefferson’s pissed voice comes through the door.
“It’s Sam—open the goddamn door.”
There's only a second before the door swings open.
“Sam, what the hell do you want? Hamilton, what are—Jesus, why are you covered in blood?”
“It’s not mine.”
“Why the fuck are you saying that like it’s going to calm me down!”
Adams shoves Hamilton into the room.
“I’ll cover the door. Help them pack.”
Jefferson squawks indignantly, but Hamilton ignores him, starts throwing their things together. Their shit is all over the room, seriously, why the hell—Hamilton looks up to where Madison is lying on the bed staring fixedly at the ceiling, unmoving, murder in his eyes. The blankets are bunched up over him, but beneath them—the realization slices even through the adrenaline of the moment, Hamilton’s once again hit with the Madison and Jefferson fuck frying pan.
“Hamilton,” Madison’s voice cuts through the quiet, all faux calm. “Is whatever brought you to my room at three AM a more pressing threat than the violence I’m inclined to commit in this moment?”
“Someone tried to shoot me in my fucking sleep, so my vote’s yes,” Hamilton snaps.
“He’s right—I need you all out of here now. Get dressed. No time to explain,” Adams urgently orders them from the doorway.
Jefferson throws Madison a pair of sweatpants from where he’s hastily dressing by the door, then joins Hamilton in getting everything together. Madison is up a second later, half-dressed, grabbing for a shirt—and then they’re all out the door, their bags hoisted over their backs. Adams speeds through the halls, takes them out a side exit—stops abruptly.
Hamilton almost slams into his back.
He recovers just in time, starts to lift his gun. There’s three people in front of them, each of them in different states of aiming their own weapons. Eyes fall onto Sam Adams, and time seems to still.
Adams blinks at the trio a moment, his head dipping to the side in consideration. He steps forward. His shoulders broaden as he draws himself up, using every six and a half feet of his height.
"I know,” Adams begins, his voice cut crystal-smooth with anger, “that this isn’t what it looks like, is it?”
The three look among themselves, but none answer.
“Because it looks like you were coming to pay our guests a visit,” Adams goes on, “and I would look very unkindly upon anyone showing them that kind of hospitality.”
He steps forwards, looming over them all.
“But that’s not what’s going on here. Is it?”
None of the three reply—but none make any move to raise their weapons a little higher either.
“Good. Now get the fuck out of my way,” Adams snarls—and that’s finally effective in getting them to react.
Adams turns around once they’ve scattered, grabs back onto Hamilton’s shoulder, half-drags him through the camp. It’s near-abandoned at this point in the night, quiet—the camp’s clearly not under attack—but Hamilton still feels eyes on him, feels stares prickling the back of his neck. Madison and Jefferson feel them too—they’re pressed against each other, exchanging silent eye-contact conversation. They’re nervous, unsettled, move just as fast as they can without breaking into a sprint. At last they reach the far end of the camp. Adams yanks open the door of the nearest Humvee, turns.
“Get in,” he orders, “and then get down.”
Hamilton does.
Adams revs the Jeep to life, pulls out of the lot with a screech, drives to the gates.
“Open them,” he orders the Sons stationed there, barely rolling down the windows. Hamilton cocks his pistol. There’s a pause on the soldiers’ part that doesn’t go unnoticed. Adams rolls the window down the rest of the way, leans out and flashes his teeth. “They might be leaving this city, but I’m not. I’ve been here for a damn long time, and I’ll be here a damn long time after this. Understand?”
The gates open.
Adams speeds onto the open roads, narrowly swerving past abandoned cars and not even bothering to swerve around corpses. He checks the rear-view mirror constantly, paranoia plain.
“Will someone tell me what the fuck’s going on?” Jefferson asks after a minute. Adams is too busy trying not to send them careening into crashed cars to answer, so Jefferson’s eyes fall onto Hamilton, assessing him, looking for injuries. “Who tried to kill you?”
“I don’t know!” Hamilton snaps back, irritated. “Redcoat? Clearly not a secret goddamn admirer!”
“Sam?” Jefferson prompts the man, aggravation in his eyes.
“I need directions—where’d you last have your car when the Redcoats brought you in?”
“Exit 24, just past Mile Marker 121,” Madison answers, a smokescreen of calm. “We pulled off, then hid the Escalade behind a house a couple miles off the exit.”
Realizing he’s not going to get an answer, Jefferson falls into his seat, shaking his head. His hands twitch, fists clenching and unclenching until Madison reaches over, lays a hand on his thigh.
“We’re fine, Thomas,” Madison’s quiet voice reassures him.
Jefferson barely seems to hear him, fidgeting. He finally leans forward in a burst of energy.
“Why’s Hamilton with us? The Crown’s problems with us have nothing to do with him. We’re the ones with the goddamn targets painted on our backs. I mean, how the fuck’s he gotten caught up in all this?”
Adams finally looks back at them, his face a cocktail of emotions—none of them good.
“It’s bad, Thomas,” is all he says. “It’s real fucking bad.”
Hamilton closes his eyes and tries to escape in his thoughts.
The future slips between his fingers.
The Humvee’s engine roars when they hit the highway. Hamilton imagines the speedometer in his mind, ticking up past 100, 110, 120. He pictures Boston’s skyline fading in the background. He sees the open, empty road stretching ahead of them.
Madison’s voice is a distant murmur as he directs Adams, a noise that pierces Hamilton’s thoughts with all the effectiveness of a gunshot underwater. Jefferson and Adams hop in occasionally, but Hamilton may as well be on the other end of the universe.
The car stops. Hamilton doesn’t know how long it’s been.
He opens his ears, mechanically gets out, falling back on his oldest instinct—survive.
Adams rounds to the Humvee’s trunk, unloads a couple cases of food, a duffel bag of unknown contents, a metal box with the words Royal Army splashed across the side.
“Grenades,” he explains as he pushes them into Madison’s hands. Madison nearly buckles beneath the box’s weight, surprise flashing on his face—but he manages not to drop it. “Don’t fucking waste them.”
Hamilton helps Jefferson haul things into the backseat of the Escalade while Adams returns to the front of the car, lights a cigarette, turns on the radio and listens.
“Seriously, Sam,” Jefferson says, rounding on him. “Look—we’re out of the city. We’re not dead. We’re at our damn car. We’re alone. Will you please tell me what the hell’s so fuckin’ urgent that you had to drag us out of bed at four in the morning?”
Adams runs a hand over his face.
“It’s not four in the morning,” he weightily replies. “Not over there.”
Jefferson steps back. Undiluted horror splashes across Madison’s face.
“What have they done?” Madison asks tautly, his tongue wetting his lips.
Adams looks between the two of them—then to Hamilton standing behind them. He hesitates. The radio crackles to life just as his mouth opens.
“Sons of Anarchy vehicle spotted taking Exit 24 on Highway I-90. Calling any battalions in the area to investigate and detain any Sons present.”
Adams mouth closes. His face hardens.
“I’m going to lead them out—no fucking Redcoat can outmaneuver me on my own goddamn roads.” He pulls his gun, checks the chamber. “Give me a five-minute head start, then get the hell out of here. Get off the interstate as soon as you can and head southwest. Keep away from the coasts—that’s where the Redcoats are centered. Don’t fuck around with any cities. Hamilton, have you still got that radio?”
“Yes,” is all he gets out.
Adams cuts him off before any of them can say anything else.
“Good. Don’t lose it. I’ll reach you through Mulligan, keep you updated.”
“What are we afraid of?” Madison cuts in, too forceful to be brushed aside. “We’re standing in the goddamn dark here. What’ve they done? Why’s Hamilton coming with us?”
Adams’ face screws in regret.
“When you’re an hour out of Boston, turn on the radio.”
“To what channel?”
“Jesus—any channel. They're broadcasting it everywhere. It’s on a loop, won’t fucking stop—I tried.”
The radio crackles back to life, squads confirming they’re nearby, that they’ve gotten the order—Adams moves forwards, sweeps Jefferson into a crushing hug.
“Stay safe out there, man.”
Then, to Madison—a nod, stiff, formal, accompanied by a handshake, They exchange no words, but Hamilton imagines an unspoken truce of sorts between them: keep Jefferson alive.
And then to Hamilton. Adams stands in front of him a moment, a glimpse of uncertainty on his face for just a second. What is there to say? There’s a half-second delay—then Adams smiles a politician’s smile, bright and dazzling and not quite authentic.
“I’m glad I had the chance to meet you,” he says.
“Yeah,” Hamilton agrees, his throat dry. “Me too.”
The end of the world is filled with all the things that might’ve been.
Adams leans in.
“And Hamilton?” he says, too quiet to be overheard. “You’re not alone.”
And then he’s gone, climbing into the Humvee.
Jefferson hovers by the door with worry plastered on his face.
“Are you going to be alright?” he asks Adams through the open window.
He looks over.
“I’m Samuel fuckin’ Adams.” He claps Jefferson’s shoulder, grins his politician grin. “If the boy who pissed his bed until he was ten can make it this long, then my chances look pretty damn good.”
Jefferson huffs a sad, defeated laugh.
“Ten’s an exaggeration.”
Adams cranes his neck back, meets Hamilton’s eyes, smirks.
“No—it’s not.”
He shoots them all one last smile—then Humvee tears away.
There’s no place for peacock blue-green in Hamilton’s future.
Madison drives.
The car is silent.
The minutes tick away one-by-one. They could turn on the radio now, but once they do—well, Adams didn’t personally drag them out of Boston over an empty threat. Whatever illusion they’ve been living under is going to be shattered—is already shattered. They’re only oblivious to how it's broken, still floating in blissful ignorance. Or a blissful half-ignorance, at least.
An hour passes. No one makes a move towards the radio.
The sun creeps up over the horizon. It’s a beautiful sunset, but Hamilton isn’t watching.
It’s eight in the morning; it’s three in the afternoon in England.
Jefferson turns on the radio.
A blaring royal march comes through the car. Horns and trumpets and drums swell in obnoxious crescendos. It takes the chorus coming in for Hamilton to identify the song.
“make them fall… Confound their politics, frustrate their knavish tricks...”
“Is this the fucking British national anthem?” Jefferson scowls. He reaches forward, changes the channel. There’s only the briefest of pauses before the national anthem blares through again. The same thing happens on the next channel and the next: Adams wasn’t kidding; they can't escape the recording unless they turn the whole radio off.
“God save the King!” the chorus warbles.
“Oh my god, he changed the fucking lyrics,” Jefferson says. “I’m gonna—”
“—declare Independence?” Hamilton dryly tries to joke.
The song ends. Before Jefferson can get in a reply—
“Hellooo!” a nauseatingly British voice sings. The three of them stop short, eyes drawn to the speaker.
“Jesus Christ, that’s not—"
“This is your King speaking, wishing a wonderful morning to all my loyal American subjects!” King George’s voice proclaims, manically cheerful—and yet, in the span of a second, it darkens to something that fills Hamilton’s stomach with dread. “And to all my wayward colonists…” Hysterical laughter interrupts his sentence. “Well, I expect I’ll be seeing you very soon.”
Madison is staring determinedly straight ahead with terrified eyes, Jefferson’s face is going grey with horror, Hamilton’s stomach is twisting, throwing itself against his ribcage.
“But I’m here with an announcement for all of those currently in America, regardless of your current allegiance.” He can’t. (He can). “I’ve just gotten word that the separatists Thomas Jefferson and James Madison are alive and well in Boston, in no small part due to the actions of alleged former Columbia student Alexander Hamilton—you know, the feisty little guy that laid out Henry Laurens that one time? That one. Well…” George pauses dramatically. “…imagine my surprise when I found out my dear friend General Benedict Arnold was heartlessly assassinated in an unprovoked attack by Madison and Jefferson—and that their escape was aided and abetted by none other than little Hamilton, who feigned immunity in order to gain access to my residence.”
“No,” Jefferson groans despairingly, burying his face in his hands. “Don’t fucking do it.”
“And, well, I have delightful news for all my colonists: whoever brings me any of these men will be admitted into my current residence at Windsor Palace with any number of guests of their choosing, where they’ll be fed, clothed, and protected by my personal guard until your natural deaths,” the king croons, ending his sentence with another laugh. “Alive would be preferred—but I’m willing to make concessions if necessary. I understand goods sometimes get damaged during shipping, after all.”
That’s it.
That’s all.
That’s the death knell. They’re all hopelessly, irrevocably, miserably fucked.
Hamilton’s going to die. He’s going to die and he’s maybe humanity’s only hope for a cure and he’s going to die because either no one told the king he’s immune or the king just doesn’t care and holy shit they’re all going to die—Hamilton’s head thumps hard against the headrest. He can’t breathe.
“Now, in case you’ve forgotten what any of these men look like—because they’re quite forgettable, if I say so myself—Thomas Jefferson is supposedly six something feet tall, though I imagine reports of his height are exaggerated…” The car comes to a stop as Madison throws the crook of his elbow over his face. “Oh, and who could forget pint-sized James Madison? You’ll be able to identify him by his dead-eyed stare and the fact that he’s always one gust of wind away from being blown over…”
“And, of course, I couldn’t forget Alexander Hamilton. It really was a treat to see him get into it with Henry Laurens—and it’s so wonderful to hear he appears to look just as ratty as ever! Apparently, he’s sticking with that scraggly ponytail of his—a shocking choice, given I thought the homosexuals were supposed to have good style…”
Hamilton doesn’t hear the rest. The blood in his ears rushes his head, makes him dizzy. Fear overwhelms him, sinks cold fingers around his heart—going to die going to die going to die— he bites his tongue until blood wells in his mouth. The coppery taste grounds him, gives him something else to focus on. He swirls it in his mouth, swallows, gradually is able to loosen his jaw back up.
If he’s bleeding, he’s not dead yet. If he’s not dead yet, he’s going to fight. He drags himself down, walks himself away from the edge, centers himself until he can see, breathe, hear again.
“Oh,” the king giggles, “And for those of you interested in a bit of gossip about your beloved separatists Jefferson and Madison—”
“I’ll fucking kill him,” Jefferson threatens, horror mounting as he realizes what’s coming.
“—I’m getting word that the two are in bed together with more than just politics!”
Somehow, out of everything, that’s what pisses off Jefferson most. He lets a furious jumbled sound somewhere between a scream and a swear. Viciously, he swings the car door open, storms outside, slams the door so hard the car shakes. Hamilton watches him through the windshield as he storms down the road, swearing and shouting and kicking dead infected along the way. An infected hobbles out of the woods towards him—Jefferson kneecaps it with a shot, comes down on it with the heel of his shoe, shouting things neither of them can make out.
The recording says more, but neither he nor Madison are listening any longer. Madison’s eyes are looking through Jefferson, out at something well beyond them all.
“I’m sorry,” Hamilton finally says, awkward. “I know that’s—uh…”
“We were supposed to come out after Washington was sworn in,” Madison absentmindedly tells him, half-present. His mind is elsewhere. “Our positions were appointed, so we didn’t have to worry about votes.” His voice quiets; he's not talking to Hamilton anymore. “It was always about the votes, always about our careers, our reputations. And what did that get me in the end? Nothing. Not a damned thing.”
Madison’s fingers restlessly tap against the steering wheel. It’s the first time Hamilton has ever really watched him tap—and with a start, Hamilton realizes Madison’s playing piano. Not literally, of course—but his fingers dance and skitter in clear strains, playing silently against the wheel. A silent melody unravels below his fingers, crescendos, falls. After a minute, his fingers still as the song comes to an end.
Madison's eyes sharpen.
“I’ll go talk to him,” Madison says after another moment. “Stay here.”
He leaves, and Hamilton is alone.
Through the windshield, he sees Madison approach, lay a hand on Jefferson’s shoulder. The other man tenses up, looks ready to shake him off—then he sighs deeply, deflating. Despite the eight-something inch advantage he has over Madison, he somehow looks like the smaller of the two.
The two talk for a long, long time.
Finally, Jefferson uncrosses his arms.
Jefferson turns around, and, impossibly, he smiles. It’s not a politician’s smile or some other pretense. It’s wholly human, cracked at the edges and frayed and soured with more than a little hurt—but most human of all, it’s hopeful. Hope in the face of despair, defiance in the face of the inevitable, rebellion against the misery that accompanies existence: even in the end of the world, even beneath the threat of oblivion, Jefferson and Madison have something to hold onto.
They have each other.
What does Hamilton have?
An open road, an unmade legacy, a photo strip from a West Virginian mall.
He has a drive to stay alive, but does he have hope?
Madison and Jefferson share a long kiss. When they break away, Jefferson’s face nestles in the crook of Madison’s neck. They hold onto each other.
Hamilton’s throat dries.
He should look away.
He doesn’t.
Notes:
and that concludes the boston arc! thank you all for so much for your continued comments! do i read them whenever i hit a block? absolutely
a few random notes:
-sam adams' face claim here is kyle scatliffe
-yes king George is gay. yes he's homophobic. yes they exist.
-i'm going to make this a series. this fic will be told only from hamilton's POV, but there's some other things in this universe both pre and post apocalypse that i want to explore with different characters, so i'll add in a few other fics as i go along and link to them before/after each chapter depending on at what point i think they should be read
Chapter 4: This Side of a Sizable Divide
Notes:
A little shorter than usual, but a packed arc. The next few arcs might also be shorter--relatively speaking--but, well, less words, less writing time!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It’s the quietest car drive of Hamilton’s life.
The gas meter dips below a quarter tank, but Madison drives on.
Jefferson’s eyes are closed, but he’s awake.
Hamilton sits still, but he’s a second away from pulling a stop, drop, roll out of the car.
He still can’t wrap his mind around just how absolutely fucked they are, but he knows it’s pretty, pretty fucked. They run into survivors once or twice a month, but they’ve always hung back, left, never stayed long enough or gotten close enough to let themselves get identified. And it’s worked—but most of that has to be because, in the public’s mind, Jefferson and Madison have been dead since July 4th, 2011. People see what they want to see; they won’t see two Cabinet members if they think the Cabinet’s all six feet under.
But now? Now that everyone knows they’re alive? Knows to look for three men matching their descriptions? Now that half the country’s probably actively looking for them?
Even Sons of Anarchy were willing to go turncoat on them, tempted by the comforts of the king’s palace. What's that say about everyone else?
Fucked. Fucked Fucked Fuckedfuckingfucked—
“Jesus, I mean—how many people do you think still listen to the radio?” Hamilton asks, searching desperately for some kind of reassurance that things aren’t as bad as they look.
“Other than every goddamn Redcoat left on this side of the ocean?” Jefferson retorts. “Plenty of fuckin’ Sons of Anarchy, clearly. Word-of-mouth’s gonna take it from there. Oh! And I just remembered this great little fucking tidbit: the last goddamn thing half the fuckin’ country saw my goddamn face on national TV while the Cabinet got slaughtered! How fucking fantastic is that? Isn’t that great, Madison? We’re the fucking ringmasters of the shitshow!"
Hamilton should leave.
Fewer people will recognize him. Being around Madison and Jefferson is a liability to him. The two of them will never split up, but Hamilton can still cling on to some semblance of anonymity. The king’s description of him was precise, exact, but—Hamilton can cut his hair. He can change the way he dresses. He can hide beneath hats and sunglasses and change the way he walks and talks, become someone that even he can’t recognize as himself in the mirror.
Hamilton makes the mistake of looking to the front seat.
He sees Jefferson pretending to be asleep again, his eyes shut viciously tightly, his mouth torn into a grimace. Sees Madison, fingers skittering wildly against the steering wheel, uncertain, unclear.
You have to look out for yourself.
Hamilton looks out the window.
Massachusetts passes outside.
He needs to stay alive. Needs to be there when Sam Adams calls their radio, tells them where Hamilton’s got to go so they can develop a vaccine. His life is worth that much. He has to be the key to the cure.
(He doesn’t want to be—)
“We should stop,” Hamilton finally says hours later when the sun begins to start its descent.
Jefferson's eyes stay closed. Madison's are open, but he doesn’t react.
“Madison,” Hamilton tries again: still nothing. Hamilton begins to lean forward to shake Madison's shoulder, but Jefferson suddenly blinks awake, grabs his hand and holds it still a beat.
“Don’t,” Jefferson warns him. “He’s thinking.”
"Uh, isn't he always?"
“Not like he is right now." Jefferson closes his eyes, sinks back into his seat. "Think fucking with him while he’s meditating, 'cept he’s in a bad mood to begin with.”
Apparently deciding that’s enough explanation, Jefferson goes back to blocking out the world. It’s another two hours before Madison straightens in his seat, Jefferson following close behind.
“Well?” Jefferson asks, wary.
“I've looked at it from every angle and concluded that we’re fucked,” Madison bluntly answers, not hesitating a second.
“Oh, great! Jefferson, you’re the most optimistic person here. What’s your verdict?”
“I’m not an optimist," he scowls.
“Yeah, and if you ever fucking listened, you’d know that I said the most optimistic.”
“Fine! Since you suddenly wanna hear what the hell I have to say, I agree with Madison. We’re fucked.”
“Stop bickering,” Madison orders, sighing. Reluctantly—maybe even hopefully—he looks in the rear-view mirror. “Hamilton, would you like to weigh in?”
Hamilton shifts, his eyes flicking back out the window. He wants to answer differently, but the reality of the situation's long since settled over him.
“I think you both covered it: fucked. Beyond belief.”
Jefferson scrubs his hands over his face, gets out a laugh that’s mostly sunny, just a little hysteria-tinged.
“Great! The three of us agree on something—that might be a first. We should fuckin’ scrapbook this, don’t you think?” Jefferson kicks his feet up on the dash, laughs again. “This takes the cake for worst fucking trip to Boston too. I got kidnapped, fucking shot, and people tried to kill me in the middle of the night!”
Jefferson’s face twists with barely suppressed anger, but he calms himself with a deep inhale, unbuckles his seatbelt—despite Madison’s disapproving look—so he can lean back uninhibited.
“For once, I find myself believing that your hatred of Boston is justified,” Madison says after a moment, but the bitterness in his face is light years away from matching Jefferson's.
“I wish the Redcoats had fucking nuked it when they had the chance.”
In an unheard-of first, Hamilton finds himself agreeing with them both for the second time in a row.
Hamilton sees Madison and Jefferson in the library.
Jefferson sees Hamilton.
And the bullet hits him.
Only this time when Adams brushes away Jefferson’s hair, the bullet's hit its mark, spilled his soul out the side of his skull onto the floor. Madison’s horrified sob rings out, Redcoats swarm, someone grabs Hamilton’s arm—Hamilton cries out, swings wildly, almost clips Jefferson in the jaw.
“Fuck! Watch it!” Jefferson swears, just barely dodging.
Hamilton’s chest heaves, eyes wild as he looks around—the car. They’re in the car. They’re safe—Jefferson’s fine. Jefferson’s fine. Boston’s a thousand miles away. He’s alright.
Just a nightmare.
Hamilton’s breathing slows; gradually, he’s aware of the weight of Jefferson’s hand still on his arm, of the irritation on his face—and hidden under that, the worry. Hamilton knows how to handle irritation; worry is another thing.
“Thanks,” he gets out, tongue thick. He looks out the window, shifts so his body’s angled away, folded defensively in on itself. “Sorry.”
If there’s a question lingering on Jefferson’s lips, he doesn’t ask.
A day passes, and then another.
They all crack differently.
Hamilton regresses to Nevis, to his survival state of mind. He’s back to walking on the balls of his feet, back to constantly checking his shoulder, back to doing everything for himself, lulled out of the vague sense of security Madison and Jefferson have brought him. Jefferson tries to help him shoulder open a door; Hamilton refuses his assistance, does it himself. Madison offers to fix him a cup of coffee as he makes tea; Hamilton declines and makes a cup on his own anyways.
The angles in Jefferson’s face get sharper, and his tongue whittles itself into a finely carved point. He stays angry, a low kind of anger that simmers and simmers until it boils over in outbursts against an infected that crosses their path, against blocked-off doors and empty pantries. Jefferson reinvents swearing, perfects it, conjures up storms of cursing that sweep even Hamilton away.
Madison keeps it together best, never lets anything deep enough under his skin to conjure up anything but a disapproving tick of his mouth—or so Hamilton’s tricked into believing.
A handful of days after the announcement, one night, sounds in their current house's kitchen draw him in. Hamilton finds Madison seated at the kitchen island, expression pleasantly glazed, at least half a dozen shots deep into a bottle of vodka. Madison blinks up at him as he enters, his eyes remarkably focused given the sway in his shoulders. Another time, it might be a surprise—Madison only ever has a glass or two of wine with dinner, drinks for the taste, not to get drunk. Hamilton's seen him on the sober side of tipsy before, but only a handful of times. Drunk is new—but understandable.
Hamilton keeps his voice soft and his feet quiet as he pads into the kitchen, drops into the seat adjacent to Madison’s.
“Where’d you find that?” he asks with a motion towards the bottle—good stuff, top-shelf.
“Study,” Madison answers, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes as if it’ll sober him up. Given just how thick the scent of vodka is in the air, Hamilton’s willing to wager it’s not going to help. “Couldn’t sleep. Haven’t been able to.”
Hamilton swallows a couple shots’ worth of liquor from the bottle, considers the label to avoid eye contact.
“Nightmares?” he asks when the burn in his throat fades.
“Yes,” Madison says, point-blank—and that’s how Hamilton knows he’s drunk. Madison’s never so succinct, always uses about five words more than he needs to. “But getting to sleep is harder than staying that way, ‘n I don’t want to keep Thomas awake.” He shakes his head. The motion looks liable to make him fall out of his seat. “I miss the good days of having a hand on—a bottle of Ambien on hand.”
Hamilton arches his brows, disbelieving.
“You took Ambien?”
“Mm. Sometimes. On the campaign trail.” Madison reaches forward, nearly knocks over the bottle before he wraps his fingers around the neck. He brings the mouth to his lips, drinks, screws his eyes shut. “I never thought I would miss it. Complete hell—so many sss … ah, what’s the word… soulless! Soulless hotels—awful art. Awful sleep schedule. And still—I miss it. Surprises me sometimes.”
“Yeah? What’s the stupidest thing you miss?”
“Color coordinating my tieker—that is, handkerchiefs with my ties,” he longingly answers, the sting nostalgia only made bearable from alcohol. “I loved that. So few people appreciate the sub— subtle difference between hues. Jefferson always did.”
“And you think fashion advice from the jackass that dresses like he came straight from the goddamn met gala is worth listening to?” Hamilton asks, mouth twisting wryly.
Madison makes a sound approaching a laugh, opens his eyes to look Hamilton over.
“And what about you? Something ridiculous you miss?”
Not many ridiculous things, no. Mostly things that he’s not yet drunk enough to think about.
“I had a really nice pair of socks,” Hamilton says after a pause. He takes another long drink. “They had fuck off printed on them. And when I was in class and someone pissed me off, I used to cuff my jeans so they could see them.”
Hamilton almost smiles as he thinks of Samuel Seabury’s scandalized look across the classroom—but the memory is soured fast, drives him to drink again.
“Yes, that sounds in-character,” Madison says, bringing him back with a quiet laugh.
Madison sways a little, almost falls out of the chair again, has to lean forward and brace his chin in his hands to keep from tipping over. He looks at Hamilton an inch too far left, thinking, the good humor sliding slowly off his face. The effort is almost comically intense, clearly a strain through the vodka clouding his mind.
“Hamilton,” Madison says in a voice that betrays the direction he’s going.
“No,” Hamilton interrupts him. “I ate today. I slept a couple hours. I’m getting drunk. Things are as fine as they get, and I don’t want to think about whatever you’re about to say.”
Madison considers that, then at last curls his fingers back around the bottle.
“I’ll drink to that.”
“I think you’ve had enough to drink,” Hamilton halfheartedly protests.
“And when I wake up tomorrow…” He has to try several times before he successfully gets out tomorrow. “…hungover halfway to Texas, I permit you to tell me I told you so.”
Hamilton imagines telling a hungover Madison I told you so would go over about as well as fucking up his meditation, but it doesn’t matter—drunk Madison swipes the bottle anyways, drinks. Hamilton takes it back eventually, polishes off the last couple shots sloshing around in the bottom.
“Cheers,” Madison drunkenly says. He looks at Hamilton with unfocused eyes, head tilting to the side. He smiles a second later—not like his usual reticent, close-lipped smiles, but something full that shows off his teeth, unreserved. “Ah, did I—did I ever tell you about the time Lafayette gave John Adams a pet crocodile for his birthday?”
Madison talks.
It’s nothing Hamilton’s interested in, nothing he really cares about—opera and musical theory and wine tasting and the subtle differences between slate grey and charcoal, half of which is completely incomprehensible through Madison’s slurring—but Hamilton’s pleasantly buzzed before long. Then probably drunk. And then a few sips away from hammered. So it’s a perfect diversion, and if he squints, he can almost pretend he’s in his apartment in New York, flanked by Hercules and Laurens as they pound back beers.
At some point they migrate to the couch in the living room, and Hamilton sits and listens and lets Madison talk and talk and talk until he trails off mid-sentence, stilling with a soft puff of air. His breathing evens out. Madison melts sideways, head dropping onto Hamilton’s shoulder, body slanting limply against his.
Hamilton blinks in the dark, his shoulders stiffening.
He has half the mind to untangle himself, get up—but if he moves, he’ll wake up Madison. And Madison’s already said he hasn’t been able to sleep. And Hamilton wants to sleep too. Wants to sleep so fucking badly. Knows what it's like to not be able to rest. He’s so fucking tired all the time, always wishing he could get more than a scant handful of hours before the nightmares wake him up, leave him gasping and shaken and too frightened to try again.
Madison is quiet, peaceful, still beside him. Hamilton wishes he could have that. Doesn’t want to take it from someone else. And not from Madison.
Hamilton sinks back into the couch and closes his eyes. He ignores the ache that blossoms in his neck after half an hour, finally drifts off the rhythm of Madison’s chest rising and falling beside him.
It’s not good sleep, but it never is. Hamilton only manages a few handfuls of minutes at a time. Madison wakes him up once—or he wakes Madison. He isn’t sure. Either way, they're awake. Madison blinks at him in the dark, swaying slightly, still drunk.
“Hamilton,” he murmurs, the name falling like honey past his lips.
“Yeah?"
Madison’s eyes fall shut again as he lists back into Hamilton’s side. The words slur drunkenly out of his mouth, almost incomprehensible, barely out of his mouth before he’s asleep again.
“It’s selfish of me, but I’m glad you’re here.”
Hamilton slips asleep another few minutes; blinks awake to find Jefferson nestled in a bundle of blankets on the floor, his shotgun laid six inches to the side of them.
Eventually, the room fades from black to grey to pink, warm hues signaling sunrise. Hamilton’s sobered up enough to fully appreciate just how badly his neck hurts, how his arm’s fallen asleep. He can see Jefferson’s face more clearly in the budding daylight, fully makes out the dark circles written in under his eyes.
They’ve all been losing sleep.
Madison stirs after another hour, shifts, presses his face into Hamilton’s shoulder with a quiet, pained groan to escape the light—then stiffens, freezing up.
Hamilton is still, forces himself to breathe quietly, steadily, to imitate sleep.
Madison carefully pulls away. There’s silence, stillness for a second where he’s doing something Hamilton can’t see—and then Madison quietly stands, his footsteps padding away. Hamilton keeps pretending sleep, stays still even as a blanket drapes over him a few moments later.
Hamilton catches sight of himself in a bathroom mirror that morning.
The scar on his neck is just beginning to lighten from crimson-red to muted shades of pink, indented slivers of silver. The shape is unmistakable, though.
Bitten.
Should’ve died.
Didn’t.
It has to be for something.
Hamilton needs his immunity to mean something. He needs to make sense of all the misery. He can’t have the legacy he wanted, but he can’t let his life mean nothing.
(Even if he hasn’t earned this. Hasn’t done anything at all to deserve still being alive.)
England isn’t an option—not right now. But there’s got to be somewhere else in the country, or, fuck, even in some other country. France? Spain? Portugal? If there’s somewhere he can go, he’ll do it.
Hamilton thinks of Madison, pleading with Hamilton to stay in Boston, of Jefferson’s words to Adams over a cigarette, of the conversation Hamilton wasn’t supposed to hear.
It’s been just shy of six months, but sometimes he feels like he’s spent his whole life with the two of them, like his life before knowing them may as well not exist at all. It’s a stupid thing, he thinks, because even if they play the leading roles in his life, he’s not much more than a footnote in theirs.
A footnote that’s going to be forgotten.
Hamilton was going to leave them; he didn’t. Hamilton was going to England—until he wasn’t. Hamilton would’ve stayed in Boston, and then he couldn’t. Now, he’s—what? What is he? Stuck in some state of flux, knowing that he’s going to go at some point, but never knowing when, never knowing where? He’s just supposed to wait on news from the Sons, know that he can’t have anything for long, know that every moment free he has is numbered? Knowing that the rest of the country will hand his head over on a platter to a king that doesn’t care about any of them? That damned them by pulling out most of their troops? That sits safe and untouched in his palace, insane?
(Madison and Jefferson, he wants to let himself—)
He’s angry and tired and—fuck.
The scar on his neck makes him just as alone as he ever was.
Hamilton turns away from the mirror and pulls up his hair into a sloppy bun without looking.
He ignores the loose strands of hair that fall into his face.
Jefferson pulls to a stop outside an old rest station. It’s getting dark out, and it’s an empty stretch of road, so it’s better than pulling over at the side of the road, at least.
Hamilton glances at the driver’s seat and realizes that he misses driving. He hasn’t driven for months now, not since—fuck, he hasn’t driven the Escalade since before he was bitten. After that, it just seemed like a wasted pastime; he hadn’t seen the point, figured he’d be in England before long.
He doesn’t know if driving's worth it now either.
“I need to change those bandages,” Madison tells Jefferson as they step out of the car.
Jefferson’s hand rises impulsively to his ear, cradling the dressings. His expression goes through half a dozen emotions in the span of a second, finally settles on bitterness.
“Yeah, I’ll pass, thanks.”
Jefferson’s weirdly sensitive about the injury, not like Hamilton, who accrues a new scar every other week with little more than a grimace and a halfhearted shrug. In another few years, Hamilton will probably have more scars than untouched skin. In places, he already looks like he’s been through a meat grinder. Still, the only scar that bothers him is the one on his neck—and that's not for aesthetic reasons.
Jefferson, though—well, Hamilton supposes it follows.
Jefferson has always cared about appearances, always primped and preened, held onto his designer clothes and Louboutins and Rolex like nothing’s changed. The fact that he’s missing part of an ear—however cosmetic the issue—must break the illusion of normality. It's probably all Jefferson can see when he looks in the mirror, probably reminds him of what the world is now, of what it isn't.
“If you want, I can do it,” Hamilton suggests, knowing what words to choose to get Jefferson to break down, to let Madison help. “Unless you’d like to lose the rest of the ear ‘cause of infection. Gangrene's not pretty, you know.”
Jefferson looks at him with a look that could melt steel, then turns back to Madison.
“Fine,” he tells Madison; after almost six months, Hamilton knows just how to get under his skin.
Madison fetches their first-aid kit. Hamilton halfheartedly stands guard as Jefferson leaps to a sit atop the hood. Hamilton halfheartedly stands guard, disinterestedly taking the clip out of his pistol, then sliding it back. That’s what passes for entertainment these days, he dryly supposes.
Madison and Jefferson switch to French a few sentences into their conversation; Hamilton, as always, feigns ignorance, pretends he doesn’t know what they’re saying.
“Well?” Jefferson asks in English as Madison examines the wound. His voice is light, airy, but there’s a strained undercurrent, so well-hidden that Hamilton is surprised he even catches at all. “What’s the verdict? Am I still gonna be pretty?”
Madison chuckles.
“It’s what on the inside that counts,” he says, earning himself a scandalized look. Madison erases it with a kiss to the side of Jefferson’s mouth, smiling in the way he saves only for Jefferson, indulgent and so warm it makes Hamilton’s heart ache. “Bien sûr, mon amour. ” He arches his brows, hums amusedly. “Some men even find scars attractive.”
“Yeah, some do, but you seem like one of the ones that would say scars result from stupidity,” Hamilton cuts in, vaguely irritated for reasons he can’t place—for being so out in the open, he decides.
“You must be in pretty bad shape under those clothes, huh?” Jefferson fires back.
“Why don’t you find out?” Hamilton scoffs back, unthinking that it might not be the most diplomatic of responses, even more so in front of Jefferson’s fucking boyfriend—but Madison just rolls his eyes.
“You’re both incorrigible,” he tells them before Jefferson can get in a reply, continue their bickering.
“Incorrigible? Oh, Jemmy, you know how much I love it when you use five syllable words,” Jefferson purrs, earning himself a second eye roll—this one, fonder.
Hamilton decides it’s a good time to give them space. He hauls his compound bow over his shoulder, takes one of the bayoneted rifles, ignores the look they share when he bids them adieu for a couple hours, then heads out. It’s almost dark out, but the moon is full and low in the sky overhead, and Hamilton’s picked up a nice shoulder-mounted flashlight, can see well enough to wander.
The vending machines in the rest stop are smashed-out, already emptied, unfortunately. Hamilton wanders into the building—bathrooms, a couple fast food counters, a gift shop that slaps Maryland across everything that you can slap Maryland onto—and a few things that you probably shouldn’t. Hamilton pokes around the gift shop anyways. Nothing edible is left, unfortunately, but he at least finds a few Maryland scented candles—fuck if he knows what that means. Tobacco and manure?
The real treasure comes when he lifts up a fallen display.
“Oh my god,” he murmurs, picking them up.
It’s the ugliest thing he’s ever seen—like something out of a six-year-old’s fairy-princess daydream: vivid magenta, purple-lensed, Elton-John, white star-spangled sunglasses.
An hour later, Hamilton returns to the car, raps on the tinted window until Jefferson appears, rolls it down.
“I got you a gift,” he wryly tells Jefferson, shit-eating as he hands over the sunglasses.
Jefferson blinks down at them. Hamilton almost anticipates the what the fuck are these on the brink of coming out of his mouth—only it never does. Jefferson finally laughs, genuinely delighted. The underlying anger that’s been so prominent in his face lately melts away, if only for a moment.
“These are the best fucking thing I’ve ever seen,” he exclaims, sliding them on.
Hamilton’s mouth drops open, eyes narrowing in incredulity.
“Madison!” Jefferson calls, turning around in the car. “Look what Hamilton found. Fuck, and I was just thinking about how I needed to find a pair.”
Hamilton glances through the window, spots Madison’s blank face as he looks Jefferson over.
“Ah.” Madison blinks, at a rare loss for words. “Those are certainly… something.”
The second Jefferson looks away, still raving, still thrilled, Madison meets Hamilton’s gaze, his eyes flat with displeasure. For once, Hamilton feels like it’s completely warranted.
Boston catches up.
Their fifth morning out of the city, Madison’s coughing every few minutes into a handkerchief. By the evening, he’s come down with such a fever that he can hardly walk without an arm slung around Jefferson’s shoulder. He deteriorates fast, falling viciously sick, just like he predicted. Hamilton has no idea what he's come down with; it’s somehow a head-cold and a respiratory illness and a stomach flu all at once, enough to unravel anyone.
Jefferson spends the next few days pacing anxiously without pause, never sleeping, trying to coax Madison into eating, rushing into the bedroom at the slightest cough or moan. The circles under his eyes grow darker by the day.
Jefferson takes care of Madison; it falls to Hamilton to take care of everything else. Hamilton doesn’t know how to cook anything that can’t be made in a microwave, but he can at least heat up a can of soup. When they run out of tea bags, he goes out to scavenge, doesn’t come back until he finds more. Making matters worse, the area they’re in isn’t really safe. If it was ever evacuated at all, it was a sloppy, hasty affair. Lots of infected linger behind.
The three of them are as dead quiet as they can be. Hamilton moves all the furniture in the house in front of the entrances, strategically blocks all exits except a couple second-floor windows, but he's increasingly worried that Madison's not even in stable enough condition to make an escape if it comes down to it.
Hamilton’s making tea when Jefferson finds him the fourth day they’re hunkered down.
“Madison’s not getting better,” he tells Hamilton, leaning over to rummage through the pack of food on the counter. “Stay with him. I’m gonna go out and see if I can’t scrap up some medicine. Actual medicine—not Aspirin.”
“What?” Hamilton asks, his face twisting. “Alone?”
“Uh, do you see the fuckin’ Spice Girls coming with me?”
“I’m serious, Jefferson. This place isn’t quiet.”
“Yeah, and I made it well over a year before you ever showed up,” Jefferson tells him, shaking his head. “You made it that almost as long without anyone. No one’s stayed alive this long unless they can wipe their ass themselves—and I fucking can." He looks up, eyes piercing. "Not that I need your vote of confidence.”
Jefferson shrugs off his button-up, replaces it with a much dirtier looking t-shirt. His slacks come off too—apparently, he’s either oblivious to the fact that Hamilton is right there, or he just doesn’t give a shit. Since it’s Jefferson, Hamilton has to believe the latter. On goes a pair of battered sweatpants. He sweeps his hair back, pulls it away with a hair tie that Hamilton is certain is his. The bizarreness throws Hamilton off, distracts him.
“What're you doing?”
“Being conscious that if anything out there is alive, it wants to send my ass packing to England.”
Hamilton shifts on his feet, sizing the man up. Jefferson's shoulders are stone-stiff, jaw ticking every few seconds, and there's an almost-manic quality in the way he moves.
Jefferson’s fraying at the edges—they all are—but Madison’s out of commission, and Hamilton isn’t him, doesn't know how to calm Jefferson down with nothing more than a look. He’s not sure what to do.
“I’ll, uh, go check on Madison,” he says; words that Jefferson doesn't even acknowledge.
Madison is awake when Hamilton walks in, overtaken by a coughing fit that doesn’t subside for half a minute. Hamilton isn’t sure—Madison conceals it too quickly—but he thinks he sees a flash of red staining the handkerchief when Madison pulls it away.
“Jefferson’s going out to go look for medicine,” Madison guesses, his voice cut rawer than broken glass by the coughing. “I assume he told you to stay with me?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you have my permission to ignore him,” Madison tells him. In another situation, Hamilton would probably savor those words more—hold them over Jefferson’s head for days. “I’m still conscious. I have a Colt Python and common sense—neither of which Jefferson has when I’m unwell. If i get into trouble, I'll handle it.”
“You think he’ll get into trouble?
“Maybe.” Madison’s cut off by another coughing fit—this time Hamilton pays more attention, indubitably catches the sight of blood in the tissue. Madison knows he’s seen it this time, refuses to make eye contact. “If he does, I’d be significantly compromised if I went to look for him. Your skills will be put to much better use with him than if you stay tending to me.”
Hamilton shifts. He’s not sure how he feels about leaving Madison alone like this, but the house’s as well-barricaded as it can be, and Madison’s conscious, well enough to hold a conversation—but his condition is still deteriorating. That makes Jefferson's objective feel that much more necessary, but makes it that much harder to justify leaving Madison on his own.
(Hamilton thinks of Madison taking care of him for those two weeks, the two weeks he doesn’t remember, the weeks that must’ve been a nightmare for them both).
“Hamilton,” Madison says, voice a note shy of pleading.
Hamilton wets his lips.
“Alright. I’ll go with him.” He almost reaches forward, lays a hand—Hamilton steps back, hands locked firmly at his sides. He clears his throat, then forces a smile, gets out, “Be here when we get back.”
“I wouldn’t get far,” Madison retorts, familiar irritability seeping into his words. Somehow, it's a comfort.
Hamilton emerges from the bedroom, finds Jefferson downstairs still packing.
“He told you to come with me,” Jefferson deduces, not even looking up.
Sometimes Hamilton wonders how it’s possible for two people to know each other so well.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve gone out on my own for a few days. It won’t be the last,” Jefferson protests—but there’s no real heat to his words.
“It’ll be the first time since the King put a bounty on your head. Madison told me to go with you. I’m a better shot than I am a nurse. I’m going.”
Jefferson heaves a sigh, considers Hamilton a long moment.
“Hamilton, I haven’t known you half my life. You can’t read my mind like Madison. If we’re out there alone together, you have to trust me. You don’t have to fucking like me—but if I tell you to do something, you have to do it. No questions, no backtalk, no objections—nothing. Just do it, and trust that I’ve got a plan. I’m in charge. If you can agree to that, then fine. You can come with me.”
Jefferson’s terms make Hamilton want to stay with Madison out of mere principle, but a seriousness reveals itself on Jefferson’s face the longer he looks. Jefferson’s not making some kind of power play, not trying to shut him up—he’s serious. Of course he is; if there’s anything Jefferson’s never messed with, it’s Madison’s well-being. And Jefferson’s terms aren't coming from nowhere.
Hamilton’s seen Jefferson and Madison coordinate an entire sneak attack with nothing more than their hands. He’s watched them hold an entire conversation with nothing but their eyes. Hamilton can’t hold a candle next to that. He can hold a gun, fight, but he can’t work with Jefferson that well. If that’s what Jefferson’s used to, then—well. Hamilton’s not even in the ballpark.
“Look,” Hamilton replies. “I’ll agree, alright? But not unconditionally. If I think something’s wrong, you have to listen to me. If I say we’ve got to go or run, it’s because I’m sure something’s wrong. If you don’t see something that I do, I’m not gonna die because you’re too fucking stubborn to listen to me.”
Jefferson looks equally resistant to Hamilton’s terms, but he too finally relents.
“Fine. Get your shit together. Pack for three days—shouldn't be that long, but better to be ready. I’m going to go talk to Madison.”
Hamilton packs. Fragments of French slip down the stairs.
“ Jemmy… back tonight? … soon.”
“… safe. Hamilton… after… be fine…”
“Don’t forget… tea in the cabinet…”
“… love you, Jemmy.”
“Despite myself… love you too.”
Hamilton tries to ignore them, ignores the way his stomach twists against his ribs.
He focuses on packing. A few cans of food, a bottle of water—check. Basic-first-aid supplies—check. Knife, spare ammo, compound bow, quiver, arrows—check. He straightens up finished just as Jefferson glides down the stairs, looking miserable.
“Alright,” Jefferson tells him. He looks over his shoulder up at Madison's room—then looks away, grim determination in his expression. “Let’s go.”
It occurs to Hamilton that it’s the first time in almost six months that he’s ever really been alone with Jefferson. Sure, he’s been alone in a room with him before, even in a building—but Madison’s always only ever been a yell away, ready to act as the buffer between them if their bickering starts to get too sharp, if anger starts to boil over. It’s never been just the two of them before.
If Jefferson is aware of it too, he doesn’t say as much. He’s either too single-mindedly focused or too exhausted to start a conversation. He doesn't even take a stab at Hamilton when Hamilton nearly goes face-first into the dirt after an unfortunate encounter with an uneven patch of pavement. Hamilton is made distinctly uneasy by the silence.
“Where are we going?” Hamilton asks finally. “And why didn’t we take the Escalade?”
“If Madison needs to make a break for it, I don’t want him on foot.” Jefferson hikes his backpack over his shoulder. “As for where we're going, we passed an old emergency fed camp set up ten miles up the road coming in. Might be overrun—might be abandoned. If we’re lucky, it won’t be picked completely clean.”
Hamilton does the math in his head, figures it’s maybe three hours to get there on foot, an hour to search the place if they’re quick—and lucky—and three hours to get back. There’s not much of a margin for rest if they’re going to make it back before dark. And Hamilton really, really doesn’t want to be stuck in the dark outside in the middle of winter this far north. He's already fucking freezing, and it's as warm as it's going to get all day.
They walk; the silence forces Hamilton to think.
“I’m sorry.”
Hamilton’s not even sure which of the dozens and dozens of things he’s apologizing for.
“Why?” Jefferson asks, voice flat.
“You wouldn’t have been in Boston if it weren’t for me.”
“And Madison would be dead if it weren’t for you.” A beat of silence follows; Jefferson looks away. “I never thanked you for that.”
“You don’t—”
“No, I do. It’s not the same, but—if something happened to him, I would be—fuck, I don’t know. I don’t know what I’d do.” Jefferson’s face breaks out into something raw. “I don’t know.”
Hamilton sees himself escaping Charleston, walking away, dazed, trancelike. Aimless.
“You’d keep living,” Hamilton answers, tongue thick. “Survive. That’s what he’d want you to do.”
Jefferson’s laugh isn’t quite a laugh, but Hamilton doesn’t know what else to call it.
“Not sure how much of a point there’d be.”
Hamilton’s throat tightens. Red spills into the corners of his vision.
Red like the sheets at the Schuyler’s house, like Laurens’ sleeve, like the scar on his throat—
“I don’t know. Maybe you’d find out you’re immune too, bring some meaning to your pointless fucking life,” Hamilton spits, storming a few steps ahead.
Jefferson makes a sound that's half-surprised, half-horror sucked in through his teeth as realization dawns—maybe even guilt. He speeds up to fall back into line after Hamilton a few steps, mouth opening and closing a few times before he seems to find the words he wants.
“Fuck, look, I’m not saying—”
“You did.”
“It’s—fuck. I’ve been in love with Madison for almost half my life. I’m—look, I couldn’t get over that in a day. And I’m not saying it’s the same, but look—I got over Madison once. It wouldn’t be easy, and I’d be fucking miserable for fuck knows how long—but I could do it again. I could find something else.”
“What do you mean you’ve gotten over him once?” Hamilton snaps, asking even though he knows the answer—he asks because he knows the question will hurt Jefferson, asks because he’s hurt, aching, lashing out like an injured animal backed into a corner.
Jefferson recoils, taken aback. Old hurt surfaces on his face, still raw, still so strong that it knocks Hamilton back too, makes him regret having said anything at all.
“He...” Jefferson doesn’t want to answer; that much is obvious. But he’s fucked up, knows he’s fucked up, so he goes on, voice strained. “He dumped me. A long time ago. In college.”
Hamilton doesn’t want to continue the thread of conversation, but Jefferson continues it anyways, the words spilling out of his mouth like he's a faucet with a broken handle.
“He dumped me after three years over a phone call and didn’t speak to me for four fucking years,” he goes on, anger rising in his voice as a respite from the hurt. “And he never fucking told me why.”
Unresolved anger, Hamilton realizes—but Jefferson smooths it over, compartmentalizing, tucking his anger neatly away wherever it is that he keeps it. He shrugs, sighs.
“Look—I’m not gonna tell you it’s the same thing. But I moved on. I did other stuff. I found other people. Started my career.”
“You went back to him,” Hamilton points out, the I can’t bitter on his tongue.
“He came back to me,” Jefferson replies, a fraction of the anger from earlier bubbling back through his words—then slipping back under. “And like I said—not the same thing. But—if I had to, I would find a way to move on. I don’t know how. But I would. My life wouldn’t have to be over.”
Hamilton glances aside, studies Jefferson’s uncharacteristic sincerity, still unwilling to budge. Jefferson is trying—in his floundering, insensitive way—to buoy Hamilton up, convince him that, oh, what I said about your life being meaningless because the love of your life’s dead isn’t true, you could still be happy someday— and Hamilton doesn’t want to hear it. He’s immune; that’s got to be enough.
There’s nothing else for him.
“I didn’t mean it,” Jefferson says. Hamilton’s mouth ticks. “I wasn’t thinking.”
Hamilton looks away.
”I was being a dramatic bitch,” Jefferson tries.
Hamilton slows mid-stride. He doesn’t know how much of that is actually Jefferson, how much of it is just a well-calculated move on his behalf to say what Hamilton wants to hear—but it doesn’t matter. It's good enough. Hamilton wants to leave this conversation behind, go back to thinking about anything else.
“What else is new?” he asks, voice still sour, but inflected with just enough forgiveness for Jefferson’s shoulders to loosen a little.
It’s a few miles before they start to talk again, but their conversation is almost amicable by the time the camp comes into sight. The camp’s really just a repurposed private airfield, white tents and emergency response trailers, surrounded by a barbed wire topped chain link fence. A few infected mill within sight on the side of the fence; they skirt around the sides until they find a clear spot.
The two of them approach cautiously, weapons half-raised and ready to fire.
“How many do you think are in there?” Hamilton asks as Jefferson sizes up the barbed wire.
“Well, it’s definitely abandoned,” Jefferson says. “Could’ve gotten overrun, but the infected I saw back there weren’t dressed like they were government. My guess’s that they came in after the place got abandoned. There's probably a section of fence knocked down somewhere. Tree fell or something.” He turns to Hamilton. “Couple of places that might be easier to climb over, but not without us getting seen. You think you can get over without shredding yourself?”
Hamilton glances at the fence looming over their heads, the three rows of barbed wire at the top. Either of them getting over without contracting tetanus is a big fucking maybe. Both of them getting over would be a miracle.
“Hold on,” he tells Jefferson, doubling back to an abandoned car. He tries its door, smashes the window with an elbow and unlocks it when they don’t open. He returns to Jefferson with a car door mat and a smug smile. “Here. Barbs can’t puncture through the material.”
Jefferson snorts, but there's distinctly impressed gleam in his eyes.
“That the Internet talking or experience?”
“Experience!” he scoffs. “I’ve been urban exploring.”
“Oh, is that the Millennial way of saying breaking and entering to go smoke pot?”
“That’s not—”
Jefferson tips his head to the side, arching a single brow.
Hamilton turns away and starts climbing the fence, tossing the mat over the barbs. He gets over seamlessly, drops to the ground. Jefferson follows, lands with a whoosh, and the two of them creep further into the airfield.
The sounds of infected draw nearer, sighs and shrieks and pained moans that sound so unnervingly human that Hamilton has to push old what if they’re still in there thoughts out of his mind.
Jefferson signals him to take cover behind an abandoned trailer. They rush forward low to the ground, press their backs to the side, pop their heads around its corners. The main body of the camp is just ahead; Hamilton counts nine infected in the airstrip in front of them, but for every infected he sees, there’s inevitably always one, two, maybe three lurking just out of sight.
Jefferson’s tongue clicks quietly against his teeth as he thinks. Finally, he motions to Hamilton’s bow, points to an infected with its back to them huddled against the side of a car fifteen yards away.
“Can you take that one out?” Jefferson murmurs, bending over to grab ahold of a hefty rock.
Hamilton’s jaw works as he judges the distance, judges his skill. He turns to Jefferson with a nod, creeps a little closer, slides halfway out from behind a tree. He swipes an arrow, nocks it, aims—shoots. His arrow goes a little short, a little too far left, but cuts through the side of the infected’s throat. It collapses to the ground with shrieks that decay into wet gurgles, and, finally, silence.
Jefferson eyes the rest of the infected, makes sure none are paying attention, then signals them forward. Crouched low, they dash forward, slide up behind the car. Jefferson heaves up the rock he grabbed a minute earlier, motions for Hamilton to be ready, then pops up, throws the stone forward. It crashes through the windshield of a truck fifty feet away with a deafening crunch-clink of shattering glass.
Infected screech, heads turning to the sound. Some shamble forward on injured legs; others run with nearly all the speed and grace of a healthy human. Jefferson peers over the hood of the car, waits until there’s a sizable crowd around the car—twenty - something —then reaches into his pocket. What comes out is familiar in size and shape, and—shit.
“Is that a grenade?” Hamilton hisses.
“No—it’s a fucking Bible,” Jefferson shoots back without so much as glancing his direction. “Yes, it’s a fucking grenade. We either shoot them or blow our way through, and no way we get through that many without risking getting swarmed. Can’t sneak around that many either.”
“Have you ever even used a grenade?”
“I saw the Sons of Anarchy use them. I have good aim. Good enough for me.”
“Or good enough to get us blown the fuck up!”
Jefferson ignores him and pulls the pin—then throws.
There’s a split-second where Hamilton’s terrified it’s going to blow up mid-air, kill them both, leave Madison to find what’s left of their bodies—but instead, the grenade arcs perfectly through the air, strikes the side of the car swarmed by infected. It hits the ground with a metallic clink. The nearest infected looks down at it with a howl, curious.
Hamilton drags Jefferson down. Half a second later, the explosion rocks the ground beneath them. It’s deafening, bright white. Hamilton’s almost sure he’s died—but then the world returns. A detached arm lands a dozen feet in front of them, bloody, its fingers still twitching.
“Oh,” Jefferson says, eyes wide as he stares. His voice rings in Hamilton's ears, almost inaudible. “That’s awful nice, huh?” He turns to Hamilton, mouth curling into a wry smile. “So, you think it got ‘em?”
“I would break your fucking nose if I got the chance,” Hamilton swears.
Jefferson snorts, shifts to a crouch to peer over the hood. There’s a smoking crater, twisted metal, and a fine mist of red mixed with chunks of things Hamilton doesn’t want to think about where the grenade went off—no infected. A couple more infected shamble screaming out from tents and behind vans, drawn by the noise, but Jefferson lifts his handgun, takes them out with a few well-placed shots.
“Alright,” he says, turning to Hamilton. “Let’s make this fast. Might have some infected coming through from the sound. The fences should keep them out—but watch your back.”
It’s an unnecessary reminder, but Hamilton chooses not to give him shit for it—this time. They edge around the car, still low to the ground, eyes peeled. Jefferson directs them into the first white tent. Bodies fill half the cots, rendered close to skeletal by rot. Fungus grows out of some of the corpses, burying bodies beneath clots of sickly colored plates. Hamilton averts his eyes, joins Jefferson in ransacking boxes, first-aid kits, abandoned bags—all empty.
“What am I even looking for?” Hamilton asks as they search.
“Amoxicillin. Biaxin. Zithromax. Anything labeled antibiotic,” Jefferson answers, shuffling through drawers. “Fuck—it’s picked pretty damn clear.” He slams a drawer shut, shakes his head, his mouth thinning into a tightly drawn line. “Shit. Maybe took it all with them if they evacuated."
“We’ve barely started looking,” Hamilton tries to reassure him. “C’mon."
But the next places they scavange are similarly picked clean; the place must’ve in fact been evacuated, not overrun. Jefferson’s frustration mounts as they search through the place, clear out straggling infected, and search.
Their search is coming to a close when they round a corner, come across an upside-down, half-crunched ambulance. A similarly crunched military truck sits abandoned a few hundred feet away, its hood crumpled up like a stomped can of Coke. Jefferson looks between the two, then heads towards the ambulance with a thoughtful huh.
“Looks like someone didn’t use a turn signal,” Hamilton dryly remarks as Jefferson drops to a crouch beside the ambulance, trying the doors—locked.
“You’ve never used a turn signal.”
“Yeah, because the roads are fucking abandoned. Who am I signaling to, exactly? God?”
Jefferson rounds the ambulance and eyes driver’s side window. The glass is busted out; the frame is warped, leaving an almost impossibly small space behind—but there’s no body in the driver’s side, which is a promising sign.
“You think you can squeeze through there?” Jefferson asks, eyeing the broken window suspiciously. “I don’t know if I can get through.”
Jefferson’s got a point. He probably couldn’t even get his fucking shoulders through. Hamilton’s got a better chance, but there’s no guarantee he’ll make it. He wants to argue—the last thing he wants to do is climb into an ambulance; he hates ambulances, hates hospitals—but Madison’s ashen face flashes in his mind. In Hamilton's memory, Madison's eyes are yellowed with fever.
“I can try,” Hamilton says, sliding off his backpack.
Hamilton drops to the ground, eyes the window and strategizes. Feet-first, he starts to shimmy through. There’s a body with an unnaturally twisted neck in the passenger’s seat—but it’s still as he eases in. Jefferson’s concerned face vanishes above him as he slides into the compartment. There’s a body still strapped into the passenger seat, but Hamilton ignores it, ignores the smell, kicks out the window dividing the front two seats from the passenger’s compartment.
Hamilton starts to drag himself through, forces himself to ignore the toppled-over gurney, the body on the floor—NOTABODYNOTABODYNOTABODY— Hamilton yells, throws himself backwards to get away as yellowed jaws roar to life, lock greasy fingers around his angle. He’s too close to shoot, doesn’t have the angle to pull his knife—he kicks viciously with his free leg, connects hard with the infected’s jaw until it yelps in pain, shrinks back. Hamilton doubles down, punts it hard in the face until it reels back, then scrambles onto his knees, knife out, knife through eye—and the infected slumps over, dead.
“Hamilton?” Jefferson shouts, and only now the blood in Hamilton's ears is quiet enough to hear his voice.
“I’m fine!” Hamilton calls back after a ragged inhale. “Just one of—one of those motherfuckers.”
“Jesus, you scared the living shit out of me. Please be careful. For my fucking sake, if not yours.”
Hamilton flips him off even though Jefferson can’t see, then pries his knife out of the infected’s eye, cleans the blade on its clothes before tucking it back away. The cab is blessedly free of any other bodies, living or dead, and Hamilton breathes a sigh of relief. It’s near pitch-black, so he fishes out a flashlight, starts to search.
There’s lots of monitors—all useless to them. Hamilton ignores the equipment too, peels open a first-aid kit—empty. He rises to a crouch, moves over to a duffel bag discarded on the floor, opens it.
It’s a fucking jackpot—but not what he’s looking for. He shuffles through the trauma kit, mentally logging its contents: hemostatic bandages, splints, tourniquets, equipment—dozens of other things, but no antibiotics. Hamilton scrubs a frustrated hand over his face, leaves the bag for the moment to search the rest of the ambulance. He moves to the cabinets lining the sides of the ambulances and tugs on the doors—locked.
“Fuck,” Hamilton mutters, looking around before returning to the passenger’s seat.
He eyes the body a moment, distrustful. More out of paranoia than any logic, he takes his knife to the body’s neck. The head slumps forward—still lifeless as it ever was, but it yanks a yelp out of him anyways.
“Hamilton?”
“Nothing,” he gets out, too fast and too defensive.
Hamilton ignores the low, warm laugh Jefferson directs his way, pats down the body, searches pockets until his fingers meet metal. He comes up with a ring of keys.
“Fuck yes,” he mutters, crawling back to the cabinet.
Halfway through the ring, Jefferson’s shotgun cracks out.
“Trouble?” Hamilton calls, already halfway to the exit.
“Nothing I can’t handle!” Another gunshot, a shriek, then silence. “All clear.”
Hamilton hesitates, then returns—gets the key, opens, shuffles through rows of bandages. He pushes some aside, then stops short.
“Hey,” he calls out. “Amoxicillin’s good?”
“Yes! Did you find some? God, please tell me you found some.”
“Yeah, that and a fucking jackpot of other shit,” Hamilton replies, giddy.
He rolls bottles around in his hands, reading labels. Half of it’s probably useless to them, and he doesn’t even recognize half the names, but, fuck, he likes the look of the bottle labelled morphine. Hamilton shoves everything into a nearby pack, grabs the duffel bag, double-checks one last time, then crawls his way back out.
“What’s this?” Jefferson asks as he pulls the duffel bag out so Hamilton can squeeze through.
“Trauma shit for the next time you get your ass shot.”
“That I get shot?” Jefferson scoffs, but he’s all smiles, shoulders drooped loose in relief, his delight contagious. “What makes you think it won’t be you next time?”
“You’re the biggest target,” Hamilton tells him with a provoking grin.
Jefferson slings the duffel bag over his shoulder, hands Hamilton his backpack, lets him keep the medicine bag. They glance around as the snarls of infected rise from somewhere in the distance.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Jefferson says, already on the move. “If we hoof it, we can make it back before dark.”
The setback to that resolution reveals itself as they round a tent, come back face-to-face with the fence they came in over—and to the fifty, hundred, one-fifty infected pressed up against it, jaws snapping, hands grasping through the bars. The fence creaks, leans forward at a precarious angle, only a little force away from being pushed over outright. At the sight of the two of them, the infected double their efforts, cries mounting as they slam headlong into the fence.
Hamilton yanks them both back around the corner.
“Well,” Jefferson says, voice bland. “We’re not going that way.”
The fence creaks ominously, prompting each of them to shift nervously.
“Any more bright ideas?” Hamilton asks. “Or grenades?”
Jefferson glances around.
“Gotta be another part of the perimeter that’s less crowded. We’ll take the long way around.”
It’s hardly half a mile wide in either direction, but before they have the chance to see—metal shrieks, then hits asphalt. Infected shriek.
“New plan!” Jefferson cries, even as they’re already running.
Jefferson has the height advantage, pulls a few yards ahead, then skids to a halt with a gasp. There’s another fence in front of them, equally filled with infected on the other side.
Hamilton skids, pivots left, yanks Jefferson with him. Infected howl close behind him, rattle the fence. Hamilton doesn’t look back, lest he trip, fall, lose hope—has to believe there’s a way out of here other than getting torn apart. They reach another side of the fence—fucking infected, dozens of them, infected everywhere.
Fucking infected everywhere—in front of them, behind them, beside them. They torque again, keep running, never stopping, never slowing, running, running running runningrunningrunning.
There’s not going to be anywhere else to run.
“Fuck,” Jefferson swears, head whirling around wildly. “Fuck, fuck, fuck—there!”
He sprints to the side of a military truck, dives to the ground, rolls, taking Hamilton with him. The two of them crowd together under the truck, pressed tightly together, faces inches away from the innards of the truck. Desperately, they try to stop the frantic heaving of their chests, slow their breaths to something manageable, inaudible. The infected shriek closer, closer—and then their feet are around the truck, shuffling, shambling, searching.
Hamilton’s hand curls vise-like around Jefferson’s arm.
They’re surrounded. Completely swarmed. Trapped.
If any of the infected saw them hide—Hamilton’s teeth cut into his tongue, flooding his mouth with blood. The taste nauseates him, but gives him something to focus on, a reminder he’s not dead.
Bloody sneakers shuffle beside the side of the truck and stop.
Hamilton withers in on himself, seals his eyes shut, his hand falling to his pistol. Jefferson’s hands curl around the grip of his shotgun. There’s a next to zero chance they’ll make it out if they have to fight. They don’t know how many others are surrounding them, probably couldn’t even get out under the truck before they’re torn apart.
They don’t breathe.
The sneakers hobble away.
Hamilton swallows, realizes how dry his throat is. He desperately wants a drink, but he doesn’t trust himself to be stone-silent if he fishes his bottle out of his pack, is afraid he’ll give them away. As he thinks about it, half a dozen other things occur to him. Rocks dig into his back. His hands are scraped from their lunge under the truck. He’s sliced his arm somewhere in the process, and blood’s gradually wetting his sleeve. Jefferson’s—fuck.
Jefferson is charcoal-hot pressed beside him, sweat beading on his brow. His eyes are dinner-plate wide, locked fixedly on the machinery inches above their face. Hamilton’s still holding onto his arm, grip probably painfully tight—Hamilton loosens his hold.
Jefferson’s eyes slide to his, conveying something that Hamilton doesn’t understand, that Madison surely would. Hamilton knows there’s something he’s supposed to do, but fuck if he knows what. Hamilton just does what he was going to do anyways:
“What now?” he mouths.
Jefferson looks away, tries to get a count of the infected wandering around his side of the truck, but gives up with a shake of his head: fuck if I know.
Hamilton weighs their options.
As long as he can walk, Madison will come looking for them in a day or two. But there’s a dozen variables leading up until then, a dozen things that could go wrong: they run out of water, they accidentally make a sound, they get discovered. And there’s always the possibility that Madison takes a turn for the worst, that they’re on their own. That Madison's—no.
The minutes tick away.
Give way to hours? Hamilton isn’t sure, can’t mark the time with anything other than the near-nonexistent rise of Jefferson’s chest. But time must pass—before long, the light begins to take on an orangeish hue, marking the start of twilight.
The longer they wait, the weaker they’ll get. The worse their chances.
And if something happens at night?
Hamilton wets his lips with a dry tongue, his mind made up.
Jefferson’s so tightly pushed-up against him that Hamilton barely has to turn his neck to look at him.
“I have a plan,” he says, voice so quiet he may as well not say it at all. “I’m going to lure them away. While I’m getting them, take the shit and get the hell out.”
“What, and leave you for the fuckin’ vultures?” Jefferson incredulously replies, equally hushed.
“I’ll be fine,” Hamilton reassures him, passing the medicine bag into Jefferson’s hands, sliding off his own backpack. He needs to be as light as possible, nothing dragging him down. He carefully withdraws his water, drinks deeply. “I’m light on my feet. I'll outmaneuver them. Even if I get bit, I’ll be fine. You won’t.”
“Wow.” Jefferson blinks at him, amazed. “I never think it’s possible, but somehow you always manage to out-stupid yourself." He shakes his head vigorously. "Fuck that—we’ll wait for them to thin out.”
”They might thin out—or they might kill us first! And we’ve got the medicine, and Madison’s sick as shit, and we might not make it if we stay. We’re not exactly saturated with time here.”
“Yeah, and his odds without it are a hell of a lot better than yours against a fucking horde.” Jefferson’s eyes bore into his, flashing. “I’m not fucking leaving you. Non-negotiable.”
Hamilton looks away, shifts as his fingers curl around his water bottle.
“Well,” Hamilton says. “It’s a good thing we negotiated that I can overrule you.”
Jefferson anticipates what he’s doing, grabs ahold of him—but Hamilton’s anticipated that too, splashes what’s left of his water in Jefferson’s face, surprising him just enough that Hamilton’s able to break free, roll out from beneath the truck, leap onto his feet.
He runs.
Madison answers the door, grey-faced.
Red-rimmed eyes stare blankly at Hamilton. Blink hard, as if he's trying to clear up an afterimage. He makes no move to step out of the doorway.
After a solid ten seconds, Hamilton loses his patience and slides past him anyways. He needs to take care of his injuries. Needs to eat something, drink something. But more than anything, he wants to rest. He heads for the closest couch.
“Jefferson?” Madison calls, voice strangely stilted. “I’m not feeling well at all.”
Jefferson materializes in the den before Hamilton can even crash—freezes. His face is flushed, splotchy, eyes red and swollen, widening when they catch sight of Hamilton.
The room is silent.
“Well,” Hamilton tells them, forcing a smile. “Good news: we get to find out if that first bite was a fluke.”
Jefferson blinks at him. Madison, looking tired, goes to sit down on the couch. Hamilton looks between the two of them, exhausted, trying to figure out what he’s missed in the past day and a half. He’s tired, so fucking tired, just wants to pass the hell out—not deal with whatever the hell’s going on here.
“Thomas, please, I’m having a crisis here,” Madison finally speaks up, plainly freaked out. “Is Hamilton dead or not?”
“Oh, no,” Jefferson replies, voice low, his eyes never leaving Hamilton. He’s rediscovered his voice, apparently rediscovered his ability to move, apparently just now discovered the single expression that strikes terror into Hamilton's heart. "Oh, he’s definitely fucking dead. I just told you prematurely.”
Hamilton has half the mind to run as Jefferson rounds on him, his hands raising like he’s on the brink of strangling him. Jefferson stops only half a foot short, instead decides just to stab a finger into Hamilton’s chest with what looks like a mountain of restraint.
“What the fuck was that?” Jefferson demands. “I thought you were dead! I—Jesus Christ, Hamilton, I heard you scream. You were—fuck.”
Hamilton pulls back the sleeve of his shirt in response, shows the worst of the wounds he’s picked up—two rows of teeth deep in the muscle of his forearm, accompanied by deeply clawed gashes.
“It was just a bite,” he explains, eyes averted. “I got away. Got chased in the wrong direction. Hid in a gas station until some wandered off. Five bites.” He glances away. “I got sick fast the first time. Feel fine now.” Laughs sharply, guiltily. “I guess I’ve got immunity built up now.”
“Jesus, Hamilton, I don’t care that you’re immune! You could’ve—”
“It was a better plan than the one you had, and you fucking know it,” Hamilton cuts him off. “You clearly made it back, and Madison still looks like he got hit by a fucking car—"
Madison isn’t even following the conversation, head tipped back, eyes shut tight in pain, taken out of the situation by what must be a blinding headache.
“Why would you do something so goddamned stupid—”
“Because you’re my friends!” Hamilton yells, the thing he’s been denying himself for weeks—longer—tumbling out of his mouth before he can stop it. “You’re the last two goddamned people I have left! Everyone else is dead or fuck knows where or somewhere I'm too wanted to go to! If anything happens to either of you, guess what? That’s fucking it for me! I’m gonna be alone until I die—because everyone in the damn country wants me dead! ”
There’s something in him that’s dangerously cracked, held together by nothing more than sheer will. If it breaks—that’s it. Hamilton won’t ever accept any side-of-the-road invites again, won’t ever accept help, won’t ever open his mouth to another person again unless it’s a threat coming out. He’ll be alone, because experience will have proved yet again that it’s best to be that way, that he can’t be hurt if he never lets anyone else in.
Hamilton shouldn’t even have ever let either of them in. He spent so long telling himself that he didn’t care, spent so long telling himself that he didn’t even like them—and he couldn’t fucking do it in the end. He broke down, cracked because Madison's been crying, because Jefferson's obviously been crying, because they care about him—fuck, they care about him. They give a shit.
They thought he was dead, and they were mourning.
They care about him.
Jefferson stares at him. His hands—still held out as though Hamilton’s one infraction from being strangled—slowly fall to his sides as anger melts away from his face.
“Have we stopped yelling?” Madison asks, pained, his head clutched in his hands.
Jefferson’s tongue wets his lips.
“Yeah,” he says to Madison after a moment, face softening. “Désolé, mon bonheur.”
Hamilton’s heart twinges.
Jefferson turns back to him.
Hamilton waits.
And Jefferson moves forward. Hamilton tenses, ready to get clocked across the jaw—but instead Jefferson slings his arms around him, draws him into an embrace so tight Hamilton fears for the fate of his ribs.
He freezes.
“You fucking idiot,” Jefferson tells him, his voice hoarse. “I was terrified. I thought you were dead. I thought—fuck. I was so fucking terrified, Hamilton.”
Hamilton hesitates—then raises clumsy hands, returns the embrace.
Jefferson’s chest heaves only once.
If it were anyone else, Hamilton might call it a sob.
Notes:
as always, thank y'all so much for your comments!!!! i love hearing what bits y'all enjoyed!! i see an inbox notification and i go :)
-HD thomas jefferson..., holy shit
-TLOU2 was a trip. hit me up in my tumblr DMs (@cyanspica) or on instagram (@cyan.spica) if you also played it and want to talk! also, follow me there for updates/DOAN memes and fanart, etc!
-lafayette actually (supposedly) gave the alligator to john quincy adams but he wasn't born yet here so john adams it was
as always, thanks for reading! :)
Chapter Text
Imprecise, intangible, yellow dreams wake Hamilton.
He’s too hot. Even though they’re hundreds of miles south of Boston, it’s still early March, and the temperatures slip below freezing at night more often than not. It's below freezing now; he shouldn't be hot. Hamilton throws off the sheets and grimaces at the vaguely sweat-tacky feeling sticking his clothes to his skin.
Hamilton listens, but the house is quiet. Silently, he gets up and creeps down the hall to the restroom.
He’s so damn out of it from the stress of the last days and sleep deprivation that he actually tries to turn on the sink faucet. There’s no water, of course—hasn’t been any water since July late last year. Still, the affront pricks his temper, and he has to struggle not to lash out, not to break his foot punting something porcelain.
Hamilton steps back, sits back on the edge of the tub and buries his face in his hands.
As the seconds tick away, he’s gradually aware that his shirt is particularly tacky against his back, warm as it clings to his skin. He mistakes it for sweat at first, but the slow, hot trickle of something between his shoulder blades tips him off that it’s blood instead. Fine—something to focus on.
Hamilton pulls off his shirt. The cool air feels good against his overheated skin.
Feverish, his mind supplies. You’re running a fever.
He turns to crane his neck and look in the mirror. One of the infected has clawed him good, raked red streaks in series of five down his back. The injury barely registered on him earlier when there were more pressing wounds to tend to, but, clearly, this one’s been aggrieved by the lack of attention. Hamilton retrieves his personal first-aid kit from his pack in the bedroom, returns to the bathroom, wets a rag with hydrogen peroxide. The angle is awkward, mostly ineffective, but before he can get frustrated, a dark shape materializes outside of the cracked-open door.
Whoever it is quiet, unobtrusive—which means it’s Madison.
“Let me,” he offers as he slips through the door.
Hamilton doesn’t argue—not that Madison allows him the chance. It’s for the best, probably; he’s immune to the cordyceps infection, not every infection known to man. He's already running a fever. The last thing he wants is to die of sepsis because he couldn’t clean out a couple of cuts himself.
Madison sits Hamilton down on the edge of the bathtub, splays one cool, steadying hand across the back of his neck to keep him from flinching. Hamilton stiffens instinctively, hisses when Madison sponges at the steaks of blood in various stages of drying down his back.
“Have you cleaned the rest of your injuries?” Madison asks, his voice quiet.
“Yeah. I’m not a fucking idiot.”
The bite wound on his arm’s already wrapped; so are the two on his left calf, the one on his shoulder, the one on the heel of his palm. Beyond the bites, his hands are shredded to ribbons by barbed wire, and he’s pretty sure his wrist is sprained, but all his organs are still in place inside of him, still where they’re supposed to be, and that’s what matters most.
Madison folds the rag over to a clean patch and rewets it with peroxide. Hamilton winces at the sting but keeps still and focuses on the shower wall tiles.
“Are you feeling better?” Hamilton asks him out of obligation.
“Yes.”
There’s a strained element to their conversation. Hamilton isn’t sure why, but he’s aware that each of their words sounds overstuffed, brimming with something they won’t quite verbalize.
Madison sets the rag aside and searches until he finds a tube of antiseptic ointment.
“You should save that for—”
“I’ll use it when I please, and that's now.”
Something cool and thick spreads across Hamilton’s shoulder blades, spread halfway down his spine. Hamilton sits stock-still, counts the tiles on the wall in front of him.
"You're running a fever," Madison says after a moment, his skin cool against Hamilton's. "How do you feel?"
“If you thought I was dead, you should’ve left,” Hamilton finally blurts out, the words spilling out of his mouth before he even realizes what he’s going to say, realizes that he's not going to answer Madison's question at all. “There’s a fucking horde wandering around. I mean, at least one horde. For all we know, there could be others. You could've gotten surrounded. Killed. Why didn’t you leave?”
You should’ve left.
Madison’s hand stills, splays flat against Hamilton’s shoulder. The touch is grounding, even though Hamilton knows it shouldn’t be—and certainly not as much as it is.
“He said he didn’t see your body,” Madison at last answers.
“So?” Hamilton challenges him.
“Because I didn’t want to believe you were dead. Satisfied?”
His answer is perfectly composed on the surface, but it belies something raw.
The two of them haven’t settled yesterday’s events yet—not really. Hamilton and Jefferson did, sure. Jefferson crushed him in his hold for what felt like an hour, even though it couldn’t have been more than a dozen seconds. Of course, as soon as he let go, Hamilton beat a hasty retreat upstairs under the pretense of needing to redress his wounds—so maybe the two of them aren’t really settled either.
Hamilton knows he should’ve gone back downstairs, talked, but instead he went to the room he’d commandeered and passed the hell out. Either Madison or Jefferson came to check on him—more than once, actually—but he feigned sleep, laid still until the door slid shut again.
So he and Madison haven’t settled things.
And his answer hits Hamilton harder than he expects.
“Guess I’m just hard to kill,” Hamilton lightly replies: he means it as a joke, but the can never seem to die rings in his mind.
“And I’m hard to upset, but you seem to make a habit of it,” Madison retorts, too sharp, too biting, the anger he suppresses surging into the words.
It’s a mistake, clearly unintentional, because Madison drags in a quick breath, immediately softens the blow with impassively spoken words that Hamilton can’t hear over the sudden rush of blood in his ears.
“I ran from Laurens,” Hamilton confesses.
Madison pauses. Hamilton is suddenly thankful he can’t see the man’s expression.
“What?”
“Back in Boston. You asked me why I didn’t run before I got bit the first time.” Hamilton’s eyes don’t stray from the tiles. It’s only now that he notices they’re yellowed with age, not white at all. “I ran from Laurens in Charleston.”
Madison waits for more—or he’s just at a loss for what to do.
The words are coming to Hamilton now, spilling out like he’s blasted a dam open. He doesn't know if he's known the answer all along, if he’s shoved them down so deeply that they're only boiling over just now or if he really hasn’t known the answer until this exact moment, this moment as he stares into yellowed shower tiles, Madison's hand splayed across the back of his neck. It doesn't matter, he decides.
The words keep coming, hard and fast, leave his mouth like glass, slicing him up as they fall out.
“He was already bit,” Hamilton explains, voice choked. “And we were surrounded. So he drew them away. He told me he loved me, and then—then he told me to run.” Hamilton closes his eyes, and images flash behind his lids. “And I did.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Madison drop to a sit on the side of the tub beside him.
He’s there—unspeaking, silent, silently willing to be whatever Hamilton needs him to be.
And that’s enough.
(It has to be enough, because there's nothing else Hamilton can have).
Hamilton is tired of being alone.
(Even though he doesn’t belong. Maybe he’s not alone now, but he doesn’t belong. He’ll never be anything but an afterthought, a piece of a puzzle forced to fit somewhere it doesn’t belong).
But he’s not alone—not in this moment, not here.
They sit through the night.
The star-spangled sky shines: the same constellations from a year and a half earlier still hang in the sky, even though everything under them has changed.
“I didn’t want to run again,” Hamilton at last breathes out, answering Madison's question weeks late. “In Boston. You asked me. Why I didn’t leave you before I got bit.” His eyes fix on the rising sun. “I didn’t want to run again. And… and I couldn’t have let you die too. It wouldn’t have been worth staying alive a little longer.”
Outside, dawn glows golden.
“Are you feeling better?” Jefferson asks Madison over breakfast.
“I feel fine, thank you.”
“Fine like that time in Annapolis when you told me that and then had to get taken to the hospital, or…?”
"Fine, Thomas.”
And he eats a little breakfast that morning, manages to keep it down. By dinner, the color’s back in his face, and by the end of the week, he’s as good as he’s ever been.
Jefferson too returns to normal, loses the constant hard lines in his shoulders, goes back to flashing white-toothed smiles, to his obnoxious laughs, to baiting and being baited by Hamilton.
They act the same way as always, Hamilton realizes. They treat him the same.
Both of them are back to normal; Hamilton’s the one that’s different. He's the one that lets himself be a part of the kind of conversations he’d previously avoided, the one that lets himself take part in their little rituals, the one that lets himself open up. Only sometimes, only ever in tiny, measured rations—but it's more than he gave before.
But Madison and Jefferson are the same as they were before.
Days on, Hamilton realizes that the two of them have cared about him long before he ever allowed himself to care back.
Time goes on. Eventually, winter gives way to spring.
Cold-hardened earth softens and warms until shoots of grass flowers push through the soil. The wildflowers in overgrown gardens and by the sides of the road grow bright and tall, uninhibited by mowers and weed killer. Their trio runs across deer with fawns, foxes with kits, rabbits shadowed by frail little white-tailed things. In some ways, the world seems more alive than ever.
Mid-March, Jefferson reteaches Hamilton how to drive; after so long, he’s rusty.
“If you crash my car, so help me god,” Jefferson will swear whenever Hamilton cuts a too-sharp turn—which he sometimes does on purpose, just to get a rise out of his friend.
And Hamilton will shoot back something like,
“If you don’t quit bitching, I’m going to sideswipe the next guardrail I see.”
And Madison will look nauseated in the backseat, clutch onto the oh shit handle above the door.
Jefferson and Madison’s birthdays come in spring: Hamilton slips out one night to raid an old music store and hilariously awfully gift-wraps his presents with old newspapers.
“I’ll be damned,” Jefferson, newly thirty-one, says when he opens his box. His lips twist into a delighted smile that’s only half-suppressed. “ABBA—good pick.”
And for Madison’s:
“Oh,” Madison, newly thirty, says. He’s sifted through all of Hamilton’s painstakingly collected half dozen opera CDS—because it’s 2013, and no one fucking listens to opera—but he stops on one in particular. “Look,” he murmurs to Jefferson, voice suddenly soft as a faint, reminiscent smile crosses his face. “He found a copy of La bohème.”
Life goes on, and it’s largely the same.
Most moments are occupied by the simple grind of staying alive, of scavenging and shooting and the simple drudgery of surviving. Find water; boil water. Hunt, fish, forage: prepare food. Find gas. Check supplies. Clean wounds, clean clothes, clean guns.
Repetitive, predictable patterns.
But between the mold of survival, there are moments where the three of them sit and talk over a meal that almost feel normal. There are early mornings where none of them are awake enough for the weight to have settled on their shoulders: they exchange tired smiles over cups of coffee and tea, and they sit and enjoy each other’s company in silence. There are nights when one or two or all of them can’t sleep, where they meet in the oddest of places while the dark hangs over the world.
If there’s a piano where they've stopped, that’s where Hamilton meets Madison. Madison favors Chopin to Beethoven and Bach these days, he’ll explain as he plays. And when his fingers dance and sing over the keys, the melodies are unpredictable and soft and breathless, almost gasping—and unmistakably, painfully human.
Hamilton usually finds Jefferson curled in an armchair reading Camus or Sartre or de Beauvoir—he favors the French existentialist philosophers, he says, because the French do everything better —and when sees Hamilton, he smiles, a thin, dry, knowing press of his lips, and reads aloud until he and Hamilton find some premise or principle to argue over until they’re too deep in their debate to remember what brought them there to begin with.
And sometimes Madison and Jefferson are both up, quiet murmurs floating from behind closed doors—sometimes in French, sometimes not. Even though he can’t see them, Hamilton can picture them clearly. Jefferson’s arms are inevitably wrapped around Madison’s shoulders, his waist, and Madison’s forehead is inevitably tucked into Jefferson’s neck.
The image makes him feel cold, even though the temperatures have warmed.
But most often, the three of them meet together. Jefferson and Madison seldom seem to be able to stay asleep if the other isn’t there with him, and Hamilton’s pacing or sighing or clanging drags them out like a moth to flame. All of them meet in kitchens or living rooms or—once the nights go from frostbite-cold to pleasantly cool—on the roof of the Escalade, the three of them splayed out across the metal, staring silently up at the sky, each of them lost in their own minds.
In early April, Hamilton finds a book on constellations, takes to learning them, pointing them out when the silence and his mind get to be too much to bear.
“There’s Orion,” he murmurs, pointing out the stars and tracing their linkages with a finger. “Canis Major. Vela…”
And they indulge him.
There are moments Hamilton isn’t a part of. Embraces. Intertwined fingers. Seemingly innocent phrases that provoke knowing smiles. Desperate, frantic kisses after close calls.
“Je t’aime,” one says.
“Je t’aime aussi,” the other answers.
And, of course, there are bad moments.
"The King sent reinforcements,” Hercules tells them through the radio. "Warned Adams."
“More troops. British numbers doubled: Sons in trouble. Adams calling back troops to hold Harvard.”
“Sons beat them off—lost too many to survive a second wave.”
“Redcoats making push to drive Sons out. Adams knows. Sons retreating tonight while it's dark.”
“Sons on the run. Hard to get ahold of Adams. Redcoats not chasing—for now.”
Jefferson scrubs weary, worried hands over his face, swears out everything under from the sun starting with the King and ending with every last atom in the universe—and then the King again, for good measure.
(Jefferson can never sleep after Hercules’ updates: Hamilton always finds him awake).
There are things that set Madison’s jaw straight, his eyes set dead forwards. Hamilton doesn’t know what does it half the time—but the worst offender comes to light soon enough.
The problem is that Washington is everywhere, Hamilton comes to realize.
Every storefront still has its magazines. Every newspaper rack is filled with old papers. Almost every house has something of that sort somewhere. And the one thing that they almost all of them have in common is Washington’s face, pleasant and smiling, splashed across the front with something like Meet the Newest Ambassador printed below the portrait. Almost as if Washington is watching from the other side, watching the slow, staggering decay of the nation.
And there are other things, too—other hints and mentions and allusions to Madison and Jefferson’s lost lives, reminders neither of them must be able to escape.
Hamilton opens a magazine once—is surprised when he comes to a half-page picture of Madison and Jefferson. At Thomas Jefferson’s garden in Monticello, the caption reads. Roses bloom around them as they walk a gravel path, Jefferson mid-laugh as Madison smiles faintly in a way Hamilton knows is suppressed. Madison's smile is reserved here for the cameras, held-back.
“Washington is one of my dearest friends—the oldest friend I have, save for Jefferson,” Madison’s quoted in one of the very first lines, “who is as dear to me as anything.”
Hamilton closes the magazine.
(Sometimes, if he’s in a kitchen or living room or a store and he sees something first, he tucks it somewhere out of the way before Madison sees. It's not enough. One day Hamilton finds a magazine with part of a page ripped out—and the caption printed under what’s missing: The Madison family).
And then there’s a run-in with a group of survivors at the end of April.
“Don’t fucking move,” someone threatens, and cold metal jams into the back of Hamilton’s neck.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Hamilton snarls when he looks over and finds Jefferson similarly compromised, eyes black with fury at the betrayal. “We hear fucking screaming, come running, and save your asses, and you’re gonna shoot us in the goddamn back?”
The gun in his neck almost seems falter—then it jams forward again, shoves Hamilton forward.
“We’ve gotta get out of here. Look—for what’s it worth, I’m sorry.”
“You will be,” Jefferson speaks up, voice low and vicious. He smiles, a white flash of bared teeth. “There’s three of us—now, I’m no mathematician, but last I counted, y’all only got two.”
Not long after, Madison’s bullets punch holes through two of their necks; in the chaos, Jefferson and Hamilton get the rest, concealed knives cutting like butter through flesh.
“Can’t fucking do shit for people these days,” Jefferson swears when it’s over, angry and defeated.
(Hamilton could’ve told him that months ago—more than a year ago. He could say that he was only there at all because Jefferson rushed off first—but he doesn’t. Instead, he lets the words die long before they make it anywhere close to his tongue).
Hamilton gets bit again in April. Teeth carve through the meat of his shoulder before he blows out the infected’s brain. Just like after the medicine incident, he comes down with a fever. Feels fine within a day. Hardly speaks for a week.
The photo strip of Laurens seems to burn every time his hand slips into his pocket.
(Should’ve been someone else).
So there are bad moments, moments that are something in-between bad and good, moments that simply are, moments where things feel normal.
But there are other moments.
Hamilton likes driving. Likes the single-minded calm it brings him. Likes when Madison’s in the front seat, murmurs translations of the sopranos and tenors coming through the speakers, teaching him Italian. Likes when Jefferson hums along to Hamilton’s scavenged CDs—like when Jefferson thinks they’re both asleep and sings along under his breath, his voice smooth like velvet, slow like molasses, sweet like honey. Likes the safety of the car, the comfort of it, the way it sometimes even feels like home—or as close to home as he can ever get again, at least.
There are moments, sometimes minutes, sometimes entire hours—where Hamilton forgets about the red-pink-white puncture marks on his neck, arm, calf.
And sometimes, early, early in the morning—before the weight has truly settled back onto Hamilton’s shoulders—there are moments where he catches himself almost-smiling for no reason at all.
They’re driving one afternoon at the end of May when something pops so loud Hamilton’s startled half out of his seat.
“The fuck was that?” Hamilton irritably asks Jefferson, bending over to retrieve his book. “I lost my fucking page! Great. Jesus, all the shit you give me about crashing your damn car, and you fucking hit something.”
“I didn’t hit anything!” Jefferson snaps.
“Are you sure? ‘cause it sounded like you hit something.”
Something metallic clangs, then bangs around like a screwdriver in a washing machine. Almost instantly, their bickering stops. Hamilton’s eyes skirt nervously to the source of the sound—right in front of them, beneath the hood of the car.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Please don’t,” Jefferson pleads.
The sound only grows, and within ten seconds, Hamilton’s convinced the engine’s somehow gotten stuffed with rocks. Jefferson swears a string of words so colorful and evocative that even Hamilton’s taken aback. Madison’s still only half-woken up from his exhausted-induced nap, groggy as he assesses the situation. A tired sigh heaves out of his chest as he scrubs a hand over his face.
“Pull over,” he tells Jefferson, even though Jefferson’s well on his way there already—and before he even can, the engine cuts out completely, forcing them to coast to a stop. Snarled swears from the three of them fill the car as Madison pops open the glovebox and starts to root around. “Where are we?”
“Northwest corner of Georgia.”
Madison selects a map, smooths it out over the dash. His finger trails over the map until he at last finds something that looks promising. His finger taps down, then he looks outside.
“It’s a quarter to eight,” Jefferson says, accurately anticipating his next question. “We’re a dozen miles from the closest highway. My vote’s just to squat here for the night, find a tow tomorrow. We go now, and we’re gonna risk being caught out in the dark.”
“Yeah, well, we’re pretty fucking exposed out here,” Hamilton points out.
There are thick woods a dozen yards to either side of the road, but the car is distinctly out-of-place, much too well-kept to have been abandoned. That’s the problem with the fucking Escalade and its shiny black paint and its meticulously well-kept exterior and its glossy Cadillac emblem. If anyone passes by, they’re not exactly sitting inconspicuous.
“Well, shit, Hamilton, I can’t solve the world’s problems,” Jefferson sighs, turning to the side. “Madison?”
“I’d like to get back to sleep. I’m still tired enough I might be able to,” is all he says, his eyes shutting again. Quieter, to Jefferson: “You know I’ve been sleeping terribly lately.”
Jefferson’s eyes flick into the rear mirror, meeting Hamilton’s.
A beat passes—on anyone else, Jefferson’s expression might look like a plea.
“Fine,” Hamilton gives in. “Here's fine. Whatever.”
Click.
The sound wakes Hamilton up instantly. He’s still a touch drowsy, too tired to tell what made the sound or if that was even what woke him up at all. After all, the Escalade is dark and silent; Madison and Jefferson are still deep asleep in the furthest row back. Jefferson is even drooling, a detail that Hamilton summarily notices and catalogues to mock him over later.
There are a few beats of silence. Hamilton’s guard falls.
He starts to close his eyes.
And like that, there’s a strange, tortured sound, another dozen nearby clicks in quick succession.
Hamilton jerks wide awake, sitting up straight up, his head turning to the window.
An infected, inches away, stares straight at him.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” he shrieks, and suddenly Jefferson screeches awake in a hail of flailing limbs, and then Madison comes to life with a storm of swearing, and the smaller of the two men is awake for exactly half a second before a stray arm thrashes him in the face, snaps his head back.
“I’m awake!” Jefferson loudly announces, frenzied and disoriented. “I’m awake!”
“Oh, you motherfucker —” Madison moans at the same time, clutching his jaw.
The two of them take another few seconds to gather themselves, during which time, the infected’s head swirls slowly to the car. It’s hard to tell just how well sound-proofed the car is, but the infected watches a second, then takes a shambling step right into the window. It pisses the fucking thing off, sends it clicking wildly with its arm swinging and beating against the glass.
“You got me punched in the goddamned jaw over a single infected?” Madison asks after everyone’s regained their common sense. He’s outright aggressive; another time, that would come as a surprise, but if there’s anything that can be counted on, it’s that an unceremoniously woken Madison is not a Madison Hamilton wants to be around.
And with that, Jefferson seems to remember that he knocked the living shit out of Madison five seconds ago, because he instantly descends into guilty helicoptering.
“Oh, fuck, Jemmy, baby, I’m so sorry. How bad is it? Are you bleeding? Do you want me to get ice?”
“Where, pray tell, are you going to get me ice in the middle of the apocalyptic summer?"
“Okay, right, yes, so I can’t actually do ice, but I can do Advil—"
Hamilton leaves Jefferson to his fretting, scrubs a hand over his face, and tries to calm his wildly thumping heart. He fucking hates the infected, fucking hates getting jump-scared, can’t believe there used to be a time when he genuinely enjoyed being scared, enjoyed sitting through slasher flicks and bad horror films with Hercules and Laurens. It used to be so fucking fun to be scared shitless.
Not so much anymore.
Hamilton grabs his bow, loads an arrow, pops up through the sunroof.
He aims at the infected, still clicking gutturally between moans, and lets his arrow fly.
It shrieks, infuriated, head snapping up to Hamilton. Hamilton’s brows draws together as he notices two things: first, the infected’s face is completely obscured, fully overgrown by orange fungal plates save for the cavernous cavity that should be a mouth. It has no forehead, no eyes, no nose—nothing but a half-sloughed off jaw and broken-off teeth.
Second, he didn’t miss.
“You didn’t hit it?” Jefferson shouts from inside the car, incredulous. “You’re ten feet away, for fuck’s sake!”
Hamilton pointedly ignores him and nocks another arrow.
Just like the first, it flies straight. This one lodges into the place an eye socket should be—an inch deep. Hamilton trades his bow for his pistol and shoots. The bullet shears away the fungal plates growing from its skull, and the thing stumbles back with a cry that’s all too human, clutching its head.
Hamilton shoots again.
This time, it goes down.
“I didn’t miss,” Hamilton finally replies, deeply unsettled.
He climbs through the sunroof, slides off the top of the Escalade to inspect the infected closer. After a moment, the car door swings open, and Madison and Jefferson slip out too. Jefferson toes its corpse, and when it doesn’t twitch, Madison drops to a crouch beside it, his exhausted, irritated expression somehow growing even more severe.
“I don’t suppose you’ve ever come across an infected that takes two arrows and as many bullets to kill?”
“Fuck that,” Jefferson cuts in. “What the hell was that sound it was making? Sounded like a damn—fuck, what're they called? The little clicking things you use to train dogs. Like that.”
“Some form of echolocation?” Madison ventures, tired. “Its eyes are… somewhere. Not being used, at least.”
Hamilton toes it again. It doesn’t twitch.
“Well, it ran straight into the car. It’s a little blind, at least.”
“Yeah, and apparently pre-installed with goddamn body armor.”
Madison groans miserably as he stands, rubbing a hand over his face.
“How’s your jaw?” Hamilton asks with a half-apologetic glance in Jefferson’s direction.
“Believe it or not, it’s been better,” Madison sharply responds, but a heaved-out sigh tempers his demeanor. "It’s fine. I’m fine. I’d just like to go back to sleep now if we’re done screaming ourselves awake. Please—don’t wake me up again.”
Madison words it like a request, but Hamilton knows better than to take it as anything but a warning. Madison is outwardly composed, calm, but there are some things that Hamilton knows better than to disturb: his tea, his meditation, his sleep.
They climb back into the Escalade, lock the doors, and Hamilton doesn’t make another sound.
Only Madison doesn’t sleep, Hamilton knows—because he doesn’t sleep again either.
Jefferson’s breathing, slow and soft, fills the car.
Madison and Hamilton are awake—but Madison doesn’t know that last half.
In his hands, Madison has something glossy and shiny and torn at the edges.
Like a picture out of a magazine, Hamilton’s mind supplies, and the caption below the torn-out picture that appears in his mind reads: The Madison Family.
Madison looks down.
In the dark, it’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking.
Jefferson wakes up; Hamilton pretends he slept, pretends to wake up. The three of them eat—granola bars, peanut butter, and coffee, with green tea for Madison. They make small talk.
“You feel okay?” Jefferson cautiously, guiltily asks Madison as they put plates away.
“Yes,” Madison blandly replies, sipping his tea to cut off the conversation.
He looks more tired than usual—which says something.
“What do you think ‘bout that infected from last night?” Jefferson asks Hamilton a few minutes later as they both reload guns, preparing for the expedition they’ll have to take.
“I think,” Hamilton replies, “that it’s gonna be bad for us if it’s not a one-off.”
“Story of our fuckin’ lives, huh?”
The two of them share a smile, dry and bitter.
Back in the front seat, Madison pours over the map, returns to the spot he picked out last night.
“Alright,” he says after a while. “Thomas, you and I will go find a truck to tow the Escalade here. Even if there’s no mechanic shop, we’ll at least be able track down a Yellow Pages.”
Hamilton blinks. He looks to Jefferson, who looks to Madison with arched brows, but says nothing—leaving it to him, apparently.
“Okay, so what the hell am I supposed to do?” Hamilton asks, mouth twisting into a scowl.
Madison avoids his gaze, keeps his eyes firmly planted on the map.
“Someone needs to guard the Escalade.”
“No, they don’t. You’ve said it before yourself—the glass’s bulletproof, and the body’s armored. Lock it, and no one’s getting in.”
“Alexander—”
“Oh, come on, don’t give me that shit—"
“Hamilton, I need to talk to Thomas,” Madison cuts in, pointed, a note of impatience in his voice.
Alone, the implication rings out.
It doesn’t hurt Hamilton’s feelings—because it shouldn’t. There’s no reason it should.
“Fine,” he says, voice stretched tight and thin. “Leave the fucking keys.”
Without looking, Madison drops his set of keys onto the dash.
Hamilton wants him to say something else. He doesn’t know what.
But Madison doesn’t say anything at all.
“Okay,” Jefferson drawls, uncertain, elongating the y two seconds too long. Hamilton and Madison ice him out, and frustration wins out on Jefferson’s face; he’s as shitty a peacemaker as he was a politician. After three seconds of silence, Jefferson gives up on mediating between the two of them and skips straight to pacifying—something as equally unfamiliar, it would seem. “Look, Hamilton. We’re in hick Georgia. It’s gonna be an hour before we find a truck with a hitch. Tops.”
Jefferson doesn’t know what the fuck Madison wants to talk about—a rare occasion.
Hamilton doesn’t fucking care.
He doesn’t.
“Fine,” he says to Jefferson. Then, after a pause—to them both: “Don’t get killed.”
“When have I ever gotten killed before?” Jefferson shoots back before they leave.
Hamilton watches them go.
He’s not hurt. He doesn’t want to know why Madison doesn’t want him there. He doesn’t want to go after them anyways, make sure nothing happens.
He doesn’t care.
A quarter hour later, he’s twitchy.
By the time half an hour’s passed, Hamilton climbs onto the roof, scouts them out.
At the hour mark, he’s loading his guns to after them when an engine rumbles nearby. He glances up in time to see a truck plucked straight from the Great Depression lumbering noisily down the road, Jefferson in the driver’s seat. Even before they’re close, Hamilton can make out the creases in Jefferson’s brow, the somber quality of his face. In the passenger’s seat, though, Madison looks forward, his expression the pinnacle of composure.
The truck comes to a stop behind the Escalade, and Hamilton climbs out, brows arched.
“How the hell’d you find get it to start without a jump?”
“Old trick. You get a manual in neutral, push it downhill, put it in second, release the clutch—engine starts itself if you’re lucky,” Jefferson answers, even though he’s not quite all there with them, vaguely troubled.
“You know how to drive a manual?” Hamilton asks him, brows raised.
“Sure. All the best classic cars were manuals. Used to drive a few around.”
Jefferson moves to hitch the vehicles together; Hamilton moves to hover, observing, noting the steps in case he ever has to replicate them himself.
“Run into any trouble?” Hamilton asks.
“Few infected came out while we were trying to get it moving. Nothing that bad—hopped up in the truck bed once we got moving and took ‘em out from there.”
It’s the not the question Hamilton wants to ask—but neither of them seem particularly inclined to share what he really wants to know.
The fuck did you talk about?
Hamilton’s jaw ticks.
Madison hasn’t said a word, leans against the side of the Escalade, his eyes fixed on nothing in particular. Idly, his fingers tap against his thigh, playing silent piano melodies.
“Hamilton,” he says after a moment. “Do you have a cigarette?”
“What—a cigarette? You’re gonna set off your asthma,” Jefferson interrupts before Hamilton can get in a word, worried eyes flicking up from the truck hitch.
“My asthma hasn’t been a problem since we stopped spending time in cities with awful air quality,” Madison blows him off.
“Jemmy—”
“Hamilton. A cigarette?”
Hamilton glances between the two of them—Jefferson’s expression is pinched, but Madison still has the same veneer of calm, tranquility settled around him.
What the fuck is going on?
Hamilton slips into the Escalade and finds a green-cardboard pack, then passes them over.
“Here,” he says. “I hate menthols.”
(Hercules would be disappointed in him, knowing he’s smoking again. Not frequently, of course—there’s not enough cigarettes left laying around for him to maintain an addiction—but still.)
Madison smokes halfway through the twenty-cigarette pack, lost in thought.
“He’s gonna puke,” Hamilton mutters to Jefferson, pretending to help him with the trailer.
Jefferson glances aside, frowning, worried.
“I don’t know…” Jefferson starts, but he trails off mid-sentence, mouth straightening into a line, deciding against whatever he’d been planning to say. Transparently, he changes the topic. “Here. Help me with this. Once we get moving, I’ll show you how to drive a manual. Might be useful someday.”
By the time Jefferson starts the truck up, twenty smoked-out cigarette butts litter the ground.
They get lucky—there’s an old, abandoned garage in the town Madison singled out. It was probably used more for tractor trailers and ATVs than Cadillacs, but it’s the best they’ve got.
They unhitch the Escalade, push it the last dozen feet into a far end in the garage, and then tug down the sheet metal doors, sealing themselves inside.
They poke around: a single big room, space for half a dozen vehicles, metal furniture chock full of tools Hamilton couldn’t identify with a gun to his head. Behind the main room, there’s a back room that’s half-office, half-break room. It's decorated sparsely with furniture, and a single locked door leads outside. There’s nothing of interest, save for the corpse of something that was probably recently a possum.
Jefferson descends into a fit of gagging at the sight, and the disgust that breaks through Madison’s composure effectively nominates Hamilton to deal with it—which he does, rolling his eyes. Decayed possum doesn’t even rank in the top five worst things he’s seen this week.
With the place cleared, they return to the Escalade. Jefferson pops the hood. They crowd around the front of the car, staring blankly down at the machinery.
“What do you think?” Hamilton asks after a few moments, reluctant.
“I think…” Jefferson trails off, frowning pensively. “…that it looks like a car?”
“Yeah. That’s what I was gonna say.”
“Is that… the engine?”
“Well, it’s the biggest part, so it must be. Right?”
Hamilton thinks they should just hold the car’s fucking funeral now and be done with.
“Jemmy, anything to add here?” Jefferson asks after a deep, heavy sigh.
“I was hopeful memories would come to me, but that appears not to be the case,” Madison replies, running a hand over his face. “My father and I restored a car together once.”
“Seriously? I never knew that,” Jefferson replies, brows drawn together.
“That would be because it was over twenty years ago.”
“Huh, well, that doesn’t sound like your ten-year-old-self’s idea of fun.”
“It wasn’t,” Madison responds, but a faint, sad smile flickers onto his face anyways. “But he could’ve picked worse father-son bonding activities, at least. At any rate—I’m afraid this is going to be a long stopover.”
“Great. Except for Madison—who's a maybe— none of us know shit about cars, we’re low on food, and there’s no fucking air conditioning,” Jefferson groans. “And it smells like dead fucking rodent in here.”
“Possums are mammals—marsupials, actually. Not rodents,” Hamilton dryly corrects him, earning himself a malicious glare.
“We have the Escalade owner's manual,” Madison interrupts before either of them has the chance to escalate their bickering. “And we’re all literate and capable of following instructions.”
“So that’s the plan?” Hamilton asks, shaking his head. “Troubleshoot until we get something?”
“I see no better alternative. Short of a military truck, no other vehicle’s going to offer the same protection. And I don’t exactly see of us being able to return to any Redcoat-occupied city soon.”
Hamilton spares a moment to think of the Sons: where are you?
“I’m going to go look for food,” he says after a moment, stepping away from the car.
“I’ll go with you,” Jefferson offers—asserts, really.
“No thanks,” he replies, spite swelling in his chest and slipping out into his words as he looks to the shorter man. “You and Madison might need more time to talk.”
He’s not hurt, he tells himself.
He doesn’t care that he still gets iced out, despite their tentative, green friendship.
Some things have changed—but some things are just the same as they always were.
Hamilton leaves alone.
There’s no denying they’re in the backwoods now.
There’s little in the way of food—the houses here are scattered, far-apart, mostly picked clean. Some have boarded windows, no trespassing signs painted in something red, half-decayed infected skulls speared on fence spikes. He swears he sees shapes moving in the windows of some—and so he vows to avoid them all, keeps to the cover the woods provide.
There are no safe cities close; Atlanta fells ages ago. And this deep into the country, it’s perfectly plausible that some survivors have made it on their own this whole time. He doesn't like the thought. These days, other people make him nervous.
So Hamilton gives up on scavenging in old houses and traipses through the woods, trying to recall the tracking lessons Laurens gave him so long ago. He finds a trail, a worn path of trampled vegetation, and follows it to a cattail encircled pond. The water is murky and stagnant, half-covered by algae—but good enough for what he’s looking for. Hamilton creeps through the brush, using the cattails as cover. He pulls his bow, nocks an arrow—lets it fly.
Hit.
He collects his catch, debates heading back. There’s still another hour, hour and a half of daylight, though, so he keeps walking, keeps hunting. By the time he’s back at the garage, it’s dusk, and he has a respectable meal strung over his shoulder.
“You know how to fix a duck?” he asks them as he steps inside, voice still thin.
Jefferson steps away from the car. He’s uncharacteristically dirty, streaks of oil and grease staining his hands and arms, hair pulled away from his face and pulled back. His shirt is sweat-soaked from the oppressive heat inside, rendered near see-through as it clings to his chest.
“Fuck, I’ll take gutting shit over cars any day,” Jefferson swears, wiping his hands off on a rag that’s so oil-stained already it does the opposite of cleaning; the fact makes him scowl.
Frustrated, he throws the rag down and stalks away. Madison, still leaning over the car—equally dirty, if not dirtier, Hamilton notes—makes a sound that could mean anything without so much as looking up. The snub pricks Hamilton’s ego.
"Good to see you too, Madison," he says, irritated at himself for the bitterness in his own voice.
Madison stills, but he doesn't look up—still deciding to cut Hamilton out of the conversation, it seems.
Jefferson's mouth twists as he looks between the two of them, and his eyes fall onto the duck, the rabbit, the two squirrels slung over Hamilton's shoulder, and he takes the out.
“Come on—let’s go outside. Maybe you’ll finally fuckin’ let me teach you how to skin them.”
They leave Madison working, step out into the fresh air. Jefferson sighs, shrugs off his sweat-soaked shirt, shoulders rolling as he recovers from spending the day hunched over the car.
Hamilton looks away.
“Hamilton,” Jefferson says once they’ve walked a safe distance away from the garage. “Don’t give him a hard time.”
“What are—”
“Look, neither of us had families.”
Hamilton freezes, anger licking hot up the back of his neck.
“And I don’t know anything about yours beyond that, and I sure fuckin’ hope your family wasn’t as shitty as mine. But that was one thing we never had to worry about.”
“What are you saying?” Hamilton asks, stiff.
“I'm saying that, earlier, he just needed to talk it out with someone who knew who he was talking about. He didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, alright?”
“He didn’t fucking hurt my—”
“Oh, he didn’t? Good. Then it won’t be a problem for you not to be a jackass.”
Hamilton fumes, and Jefferson, apparently aware he acted like a dick, backtracks with a sigh. He lays a hand on his shoulder until Hamilton looks over.
“Look,” Jefferson says. “I’m asking you as your friend. Don’t give him a hard time about it.”
Hamilton stiffens under Jefferson’s hand, and he wants to shake the touch off. But Jefferson’s expression is unusually earnest, searching, almost pleading.
Hamilton doesn’t know what to say. He looks down the things he's caught in his hands.
“Well, are you going to show me how to skin these or not?”
Dinner is good—as good as it gets. Fresh meat, seasoned as best as they can get, paired with roasted cattails from the pond. But they eat in silence, the air thick.
At last Hamilton asks Madison a question.
And, in an instant, the tension over them dissipates, gives way to conversation.
During a break in the conversation, Hamilton catches Jefferson looking at him, eyes grateful, lips pulled into a smile Hamilton hasn't quite seen before.
Next to Samuel Adams, Hercules hangs, feet dangling limp above the ground.
Hamilton looks down and sees cast iron cuffs around his wrists. To the side of the platform, faces he know stare up blankly, eyes unseeing, glazed over, grey.
Maniacal and unhinged, the King’s laughter rings through the air.
And Hamilton shudders awake.
He lays on the couch a few minutes, eyes closed, debating whether it’s worth it to try to fall asleep a second time. The sound of distant metallic clanging makes the decision for him, and he swings his feet off the couch, standing with a hand scrubbed over his face.
He finds Madison in the garage, elbow-deep in the car’s innards. He’s single-mindedly focused, and he greets Hamilton with nothing more than a half-second glance before returning to work.
Hamilton doesn’t want to help him—but he wants to go back to sleep less. Figures he could use the distraction. He slides up beside Madison, looking into the machinery.
“Need help?”
Madison looks back up for half a second.
“Do you know what a wrench is?”
“Odds I do are two-to-one.”
“Well, you’ll be at least as helpful as Thomas.”
A moment later, Madison steps away, scrubs a frustrated hand over his face. Oil smears in a greasy streak across his cheek, but his shoulders are so stiff with aggravation that Hamilton doesn’t feel inclined to tell him. Thankfully, Madison’s quick to wipe his face clean with a rag. He looks down at the dark smear on the rag with tired eyes. He sighs, his shoulders sinking, his veneer cracking.
Madison looks up at him, lost in thoughts that take uncomfortably long to break free from.
“You know, I can tell when you’re not asleep,” Madison at last tells him.
“I—what?” Hamilton asks, taken aback.
“It’s obvious when you’re awake. You breathe differently, for one.” Madison pauses a moment, seems to weigh his next words carefully. “I’m sorry you and I both slept poorly last night.”
Madison knows, then.
Knows that Hamilton saw him awake, saw him looking at the ripped-out photo.
Hamilton’s conversation with Jefferson earlier suddenly falls into context.
“I talked to Thomas about my family earlier,” Madison says, even though Hamilton’s pieced it together. “I’ve been thinking about them a long while now.”
“Oh,” Hamilton says, shifting. “Do you know what…?”
Madison is thinking again, only half-speaking to Hamilton.
“It was hard enough to simply survive those first few months. I had to keep myself going if we were going to make it,” Madison answers, avoiding eye contact. Silence stretches on a few moments. And, finally, with a quiet voice subdued by guilt, he admits, “And I was afraid.”
Jefferson would know what to say—but he probably said exactly that earlier, so the burden on Hamilton’s shoulders is lighter than it would be otherwise.
Which is good—Hamilton has no idea what to say.
Jefferson was right; he had no family left to lose. His father left long before the outbreak, and his mother was a loss he had nearly a decade to come to terms with. His brother, who he was split up with after his mother's death, more or less lost contact with: already lost. Other family was otherwise irrelevant or dead.
Madison focuses on his hands, watching carefully as he disassembles some car part.
“Some of them are dead,” Madison finally says, careful grief in his words. “I would be delusional to think otherwise. But the uncertainty is… difficult.” His gaze fixes at some point inside the car, but his mind is elsewhere. “Not every burden bearing down on me is within my control. But this one is.”
He thinks a moment longer, then looks to Hamilton, the same calmness from earlier plain on his face—only this time, Hamilton can label it for what it is: acceptance.
“I’ve made peace with never seeing them again. Even if some of them have survived this long, I wouldn’t have a hope of finding half of them. Several of my siblings were abroad at the beginning of the outbreak. Even if I had surviving family members in the country, my presence nearby would endanger them. I refuse to do as much.”
Madison turns away, and, at once, Hamilton is reminded of something he yelled months ago, something that sounded like the two of you are the last things I can still have.
The simple truth of the matter is that what he said is true of all of them.
It’s the end of the world, and this is what they have: a bounty on their heads, blood on their hands, and futures as dead as so many of the people they used to love.
(And for two of them: each other. Hamilton substitutes love for what his life means—what his life has to mean, what the impossibility of the immunity running through his veins means for the world).
“I only want to know who I can mourn for certain. Closure,” Madison finishes, and though the composure in his voice is impenetrable, there’s something distinctly human about the way he won’t quite make eye contact. “Thomas and I discussed it at length, and, once the car’s fixed, we’ll head to Montpelier.”
Hamilton takes the car part Madison hands him, moves it aside.
“Do you want to, uh, talk about them?” Hamilton reluctantly asks.
“Not at this moment,” he says after a long time. “I’d like to keep my hands busy. But given that I have nearly no idea what I’m doing, I could use your help,” he says with a tip of his head towards the thick Escalade manual splayed open on the windshield. “And,” he says after a moment, in a hesitant, quiet way that could be an afterthought—but isn't. “I enjoy your company.”
There are times that are good, bad, nothing at all, something in-between.
And there are times when Madison is in a good mood, fingers tapping melodies against whatever surface’s closest, times where he sometimes smiles off at some distant point and calls Hamilton by his first name.
There’s something about the way he says it that catches Hamilton off-guard every time.
Days wear into weeks.
They work their way through the owner’s manual, circling every issue that could be at fault and crossing out the things that they can eliminate. It’s tiresome, boring work; they take shifts.
One of them spends the day hunting, scavenging, cooking, cleaning, collecting and sanitizing water. The other two spend their day hunched over the engine trying not to lose fingers to the car’s innards, sweating and filthy by the day’s end. They cannibalize what parts they can from the old truck, but nothing makes the Escalade's engine turn over; Jefferson spends half a week tracking down somewhere they can find replacements for the growing list of parts they’re suspicious of.
It’s so, so damn hot. There’s a creek half a mile south, and an hour before sunset, the three of them trudge exhausted to the water, spend the rest of the evening scrubbing away grime—but it almost doesn’t matter. By the time they make it back to the garage, they’ve already broken a sweat. Even though they're all used to the heat—what with Jefferson and Madison being southerners and Hamilton growing up in the Carribean—it slowly starts to wear them down.
Madison and Jefferson can’t stand it after a while, and they move their bed rolls two feet apart—never mind that no matter how far away they start, they find the other in sleep, wake up with arms and legs tangled together. Hamilton, meanwhile, wilts on the couch on the other side of the back room, passes time staring at the ceiling between brief bouts of sleep.
Madison sleeps better these days, the promise of closure apparently enough.
Hamilton doesn’t.
“I haven’t heard any more news,” Hercules tells them through the radio. “Only rumors—the Sons are supposedly moving into West Pennsylvania. Hard to tell if the news’ real or not, though.”
Jefferson doesn’t sleep that night—neither does Madison or Hamilton. Instead, the three of them crowd over the chess board, playing until dawn.
“Fucking finished,” Jefferson announces to them one evening, throwing the owner’s manual on the table, where it clatters with a thunk so heavy Madison has to scramble to save his tea from tipping over. “The parts shop—mechanic shop? Whatever. The place with car parts I tracked down last week is a dozen miles away—close enough to keep it as a day trip if we haul ass.”
“So twelve hours in the sun, huh?” Hamilton dryly asks. “Sounds fun.”
“Yeah. I want to stab myself too." Jefferson's laugh is more like a sigh. "Welcome to the apocalypse.”
On foot, it’s a four-hour walk—a viciously awful walk.
The Georgian sun beats down, and the humidity is so oppressive each breath feels like Hamilton may as well be taking it underwater. They haven’t even made it fifty steps away from the garage before sweat runs in sticky rivulets down the back of his neck. Jefferson pulls up his hair after half a mile—the true heat index indicator. He’s wearing the ugly fucking sunglasses Hamilton found months ago in Maryland, but it’s too hot for him to complain about them, too hot to hold a conversation.
“Fuck, I miss air conditioning,” Hamilton swears after a few miles when they pause to rest under a cluster of trees. He draws in an overheated gasp, swipes a sweaty arm over his equally sweaty brow.
“Preaching to the choir, Hamilton,” Jefferson says, gratefully taking the handkerchief Madison passes him to dab at his brow. “How the fuck people lived down here before central cooling is beyond me.”
“Less global warming?” Hamilton wryly suggests.
Madison murmurs a swear as he finishes off his water bottle, shaking the last few drops loose. Wordlessly, Jefferson pulls out his own and passes it over.
“I miss tap water,” Madison mourns, joining the conversation after a sip that’s surely much smaller than the one he’d like to take. He passes the bottle back, heaves out an exasperated sigh. “And refrigeration,” he sighs again. “I’m sick of lukewarm wine.”
“Mm. What I wouldn’t give for a margarita right now.”
“It’s ten in the morning, Thomas,” Madison dryly points out.
“So it’s a brunch margarita.”
An infected shambles into their path. They all watch, almost impartial as its neck swivels and its eyes latch onto them. It cries out, charges them. Madison pushes upright, lets it close in—then lashes out with a kick to its knee, sends it sprawling to the ground. In an instant, Jefferson descends, buries a knife to the hilt in the back of its skull. As always, the attack is fluid, seems to come almost as easily as breathing.
“We should get moving,” Madison says, his eyes moderately more alert as he scans the surrounding trees. “Could be others nearby.”
Jefferson clicks his agreement and drops to search the body. He comes up with nothing but an old Blackberry. He turns the cellphone over in his hands, his face briefly twisting at some memory Hamilton’s not privy to. Jefferson tosses the device onto the infected’s chest after a moment; Madison lays a careful, comforting hand on his shoulder, apparently already well-aware of what Jefferson’s thinking of.
Wordlessly, they move on.
“You know who I’ve been thinking about lately,” Jefferson says after another mile—but the weight to his words has shifted, grown heavy. His eyes are distant now, voice only half-present.
Madison looks back, compassion written in his eyes.
“Who?” he asks, even though he has to know already.
Jefferson loses himself in though and, finally, he just shakes his head.
“No one. Forget it.”
After a moment, Madison concedes, letting the conversation go—but his strides slow down until Jefferson catches up, fall into step beside him. Their hands brush together. Madison’s fingers lace with his. His thumb brushes over Jefferson’s knuckles, quiet comfort: I'm here.
Hamilton trails behind.
He’s not sure why, but his teeth taste sour against his tongue.
Hours later, the red façade of the car parts shop finally comes into view.
Hamilton prays for a reprieve from the heat—but the inside of the store is just as hot as outside. It’s a little shadier out of the direct sun, at least. The three of them stand at the entrance a moment; Hamilton takes a few forward, loudly knocks over a display by the door. They wait to see what’ll be drawn out by the sound, guns in hand—silence. Nothing moves. Nothing shrieks. All good signs.
“Well, shit,” Jefferson drawls once they’re satisfied that they’re alone. He turns sideways, eyes a ceiling-high stacks of tires. “Since we’re already replacing half the Escalade’s shit, when was the last time we had a tire change?”
“Given that you purchased it in 2011, I’m guessing never,” Madison wryly replies. “Can you find the right tires?”
“Well, I can read,” Jefferson replies as he raises up the Escalade’s owner manual—now their unofficial Bible, apparently. Jefferson huffs a fond laugh Madison’s way. “I’ve got it, Jemmy.”
Madison’s mouth twitches, just as fond.
“I’m going to look around,” Hamilton says, turning away from the two of them.
He pokes through the store, digging through car things he doesn’t understand. There’s nothing of interest in the main room, so he wanders through the store until he finds a locked door that looks like it leads somewhere promising. He tries the knob; it turns, but the door doesn’t budge, is jammed shut by something on the other side.
“Jefferson!” Hamilton calls, scowling when the man meanders over as slowly as he pleases.
“Yeah?”
“Help me get this open.”
Jefferson heaves a dramatic sigh, but braces his shoulder against the door beside Hamilton, drawls out a three-count, and then the two of them heave forward. Something on the other side of the door screeches, giving way—and the door abruptly flies open.
The two of them stumble ungracefully forward, thrown off-balance. Hamilton barely keeps from going face-first into the ground, and—
“Fuck!” is all he gets out before he’s slammed from the side, smashed to the ground.
He barely gets his hands up in time to keep his face from getting ripped off, swear as an infected snaps its teeth inches from his face. He can’t get a hand free to grab his knife unless he lets go and risks the infected chomping his goddamn—
Jefferson’s boot crunches across the side of the infected’s head with a squelch, kicking it off from Hamilton. The muzzle of Jefferson’s shotgun explodes—like Hamilton’s fucking eardrums—and blood showers his face. Hamilton groans, eyes screwing shut, nauseated by the dark, sticky fluid dripping down into his hair.
“We’re good!” Jefferson shouts over his shoulder; Madison’s undoubtedly halfway across the shop already. “One just fuckin’ ambushed us. We’re good.”
He offers Hamilton a hand; Hamilton takes it, letting Jefferson pull him back to his feet.
“Good?” Jefferson checks in, concern grazing his face.
“Yeah.” Hamilton looks away. “You just fucking blasted out my ears, ‘s all.”
Apparently, Hamilton bitching at him is a marker of his good health, because Jefferson snorts. The concern melts off his face, and a smirk skims over his lips as tips back on his heels.
“Oh, so you’d rather I’d’ve let it take off your nose?”
“I’d rather you use a fucking handgun like a normal person,” Hamilton retorts, using his sleeve to wipe off the dark blood on his face. “And I’d’ve?” he complains after Jefferson when the man leaves with a scoff and a roll of his eyes. “What kind of shit Southern slang is that?”
“Please don’t lump Southerners all into one category,” Madison’s voice calls from elsewhere close in the store. “I, for one, respect linguistics.”
“Y’all’d’ve saved enough air to make up for all that griping if you talked like I do,” Jefferson replies, laughing at his own joke as if he can sense the rude gesture Hamilton makes.
Asshole, Hamilton thinks as he turns back to the room, even though his mouth threatens to twist up. He spares a look at the infected Jefferson took out; there’s nothing left of its face but something pulpy and syrupy that, sickeningly, reminds him of crushed raspberries before he tears his eyes away.
(Sometimes, Hamilton is a little jealous of Jefferson’s shotgun).
The rest of the room is half-storage, half-office space. Picked clean—nothing worth taking.
In the other room, quiet French twines through the air.
“Are you alright?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? Other than, you know. The fact that the whole world’s fucked. But I’m over that.”
Too airy, Hamilton thinks. The more upset Jefferson is, the brighter he speaks, as if the higher the pitch of his voice goes, the better he'll feel.
“Thomas,” Madison says back, quiet, beseeching.
Something like a sigh echoes through the room.
“You know what I’m upset over! I never got the chance to say goodbye,” Jefferson’s voice goes on, gradually tightening with anger, words spilling out faster. “And, fuck, I know hardly anyone else did either—but I don’t have a place to go to make peace with it. They’re just fucking gone, and I just have to live with that the rest of my goddamn—”
Anger swells in his voice, and something metallic shakes and pings loud like it’s been kicked.
“I’m sorry,” Jefferson says a moment later, anger sapped, leaving only exhaustion behind. “Don’t think I don’t want to go Montpelier if that’s what you want to do. I’ll do whatever you need. And I don't mean to sound fuckin' jealous or anything—fuck. I'm sorry. I just… I just don’t want to think about everyone else. I don't... I don't want to talk about it."
A silence wears on, seconds ticking away.
“Alright. But if you do, you know—”
“I know, Jemmy.” He sighs. “What did I do to deserve you?”
“I love you.”
“Know that too.” A pause—a sigh that’s just a little brittle, then, as always, a sound that’s a little less frail. “I love you too.”
Hamilton’s fingers curl around the photo strip in his pocket.
They get what they’ve listed: oil for a change, a new car battery, another spark plug, half a dozen other car bits and parts that they’ve listed as suspects. It adds up: their packs are heavy, stiff on their backs when they leave. It makes the trip back worse, but the hottest part of the afternoon is finally over. They make idle conversation as they go, debate mundane, safe things—art, weather, food.
“Personally,” Jefferson says as the garage comes into sight, “I prefer Picasso’s earlier—”
Hamilton registers the strange, weak little sound Jefferson makes before he registers the gunshot—but then the sound echoes vicious and furious in his ears, joined by others.
Jefferson lists forward, his leg falling out from underneath him—and Madison rushes to catch him, already hauling ass towards the garage, towards cover. Hamilton shoots wildly, just trying to force their attackers into cover. He dives to the door, feels his knee slam hard against the ground, yanks the garage door up a foot. Jefferson hits the ground beside him, never stops moving, rolls inside, holds it open while Hamilton and Madison scramble inside.
The door hits the ground with a metallic shriek as they scramble away, backs flat to the ground. Bullets pierce through the sheet metal, leaving sunlight-puncture holes shining down.
“Mother fucking ambushing shit -eating bastards—” Jefferson swears, and then he looks down.
His face goes grey.
There’s blood. Jesus fucking Christ, there’s so much fucking—
“Hamilton!” Madison yells, shoving bullets into his revolver’s cylinder as he stumbles to his feet, rushes towards the Escalade as he shoots back, covering them. “Get him away from the fucking door!”
Hamilton scrambles to his feet, stays low, gets behind Jefferson and hooks arms under his shoulders, dragging him away. A sickly red streak follows his left leg as they go. He finally makes it around to the front of the Escalade, props Jefferson up against the bumper.
“Goddamn it, goddamn it, goddamn it—” Madison swears over and over, eyes scouring the machinery.
Something hits a door hard—the back room, Hamilton realizes, on his feet in an instant.
He makes it to the doorway just in time to see the door buckle, give way, people rushing inside—he lifts his pistol and shoots. The first doesn’t even see him—just goes down with a caved-in temple, a cavity through their skull. The second is faster, luckier—aims and shoots, forces Hamilton to duck back behind the doorway.
One two three four five six— a pause.
Six shots in the chamber.
Hamilton still has two in his, and the second cuts a path through the shooter’s stomach.
He reloads, keeps his pistol trained at the busted-doorway—but they’ve learned their lesson, fallen back. He can hear shouts outside, hear the person he shot through the stomach screaming, piercing, crying. Shut the fuck up, Hamilton viciously thinks, he’s just trying to think, think over the blood coating his hands—Jefferson’s blood, Jesus Christ, holy shit —and he aims his gun again.
The screaming stops; Hamilton can think again.
He thinks they’re fucked.
Jefferson’s hit. Their car is half-disassembled, and even if they get it reassembled, they still don’t know what repair’s the one they need. They’re trapped in a garage with no idea of how many people ambushed them, no idea how well-armed they are, how far they’ll go to take them alive or dead. They shot Jefferson in the leg, sure, but maybe they meant to shoot him in the—
“Hamilton!” Madison shouts. “I need you here—now!”
“We’re fucking exposed back here! If I move, we’re gonna get shot in the back!”
“Give me a damn second,” Jefferson grits out, and Hamilton turns in time to see him pull himself up with the Escalade’s bumper.
“Thomas," Madison starts to protest, rattled.
“I can hold a gun,” Jefferson interrupts, eyes screwed tightly shut as he sucks in rushed breaths. “And I’m not gonna stop shooting until they’re all fucking dead, or I am,” he laughs. “Whichever’s first.”
“You’re not going to die,” Madison tells him, desperate, his usual poise lost. “We’ll be fine, Thomas. It’ll be alright.”
“Of we course will be,” Jefferson reassures him, forcing a smile more pained than any Hamilton’s ever seen.
He leans forwards, presses his forehead against Madison’s. The touch seems to ground Madison—grounds Jefferson just as much, melts some of the agony off his face. He breathes out, and his eyes are focused, single-minded when they open. And then he limps—which is too generous a word, really—towards Hamilton, nearly crashes into the wall, leans heavily against it.
“I’ve got it,” Jefferson tells Hamilton, voice thick. “Go help him.”
The shooting through the garage doors has at least stopped, and now the entire world seems silent, save for the breathing—Jefferson’s hitched, choked-off inhales, Hamilton and Madison’s heaving gasps for air. Madison’s in motion, pulling things from his pack—he yanks Hamilton’s off his shoulders, goes to carefully ease off Jefferson’s, starts rifling through those too.
“Did you see how many?” Hamilton asks, strategies playing out in his mind.
Before Madison even answers, he’s around to the trunk of the Escalade, popping the hatch, dragging out the crate of empty glass bottles he so painstakingly saves. Madison catches on instantly, swipes up a container of oil, grabs their siphon, starts siphoning gas out of the Escalade’s tank. They fill bottles, douse rags, line half a dozen unlit Molotovs along the front of the car.
“Five, at least,” Madison says as they work. “I couldn’t get a good—goddamn it. They knew we were here—Christ. ”
“I got two, but there's more left. Probably lots more.”
“Have you got a plan?”
“Part of one.”
“As do I.”
Hamilton glances over his shoulder every minute to Jefferson. Jefferson’s pale, sweaty, almost certainly in shock by now. The front of his leg is still bleeding sluggishly, but the back isn’t—no exit wound. The bullet is still lodged somewhere in his leg, then, staunching the worst of the bleeding.
Good, because he’s not bleeding out while they’re surrounded by fuck-knows-how-many people, but bad because it already seemed like so much fucking blood, and Hamilton’s already—
“We know you’re in there,” a deeply Georgian voice calls out.
Hamilton’s eyes snap to the front of the garage to the voice on the other side of the sheet metal doors. Immediately, his hands finds his pistols, levels it in the voice’s direction.
“Look, we know at least one of you’s hit. Y’all already got two of ours. No need for anyone else to get hurt. Come out with your hands up. It’s nothing personal. Nothing against ya—I was for the country, you know. Fuckin’ hated the King. But it is what it is. Some of us got families to take care of.”
“Awful hard to take care of your family when you’re dead,” Jefferson at last speaks up, voice iced-over.
“Counteroffer,” Madison seamlessly builds off of him. “And listen carefully, because I’ll offer it exactly once: cut your losses. Leave us be and walk away.”
“Look,” the person sighs, weary. “You know we can’t do that. Fuckin’ bandits running us over every other damn day of the week, and all the infected keep wanderin’ up from Atlanta. Got hordes passing through three times a month.”
“Tough fucking luck,” Hamilton says, voice flat. Jefferson and Madison are having one of their silent conversations, speaking with barely-there nods, meaningful expressions, the occasional hand motion. Hamilton is surprised that he picks up some of it—enough of it, in fact. He hesitates, then inflects as much fear into his voice as he can manage. “Shit—look. The one you got earlier. He’s bleeding bad.”
Madison and Jefferson watch him, eyes narrowed. Hamilton tips his head towards the voice, keeps his gun raised—trust me.
And they do.
“We got a vet,” comes the response a second later, coaxing, plying. “Farm animal vet, but he can patch him up just fine if you come out. People and animals, they ain’t that different.”
“I mean—Jesus. Just… promise. You won’t shoot? ”
“Hamilton, what are you—” Madison cuts in, protesting, panicked: a nice touch.
“What other fucking choice do we have?”
They pause—Madison gives in.
“Fuck. Fuck! Fine.”
Hamilton reaches forward, curls his fingers around a wrench.
“Okay,” Hamilton says. “Shit. Just don’t shoot. We’re coming out. Over there, on the right.”
He hefts the wrench up, aims at the far end of the shop—then throws hard, cringes at the vicious sound of metal striking metal. There’s not even a moment’s hesitation.
Brutal, violent gunfire explodes, shreds through the door, spraying everything in its path. Automatic weapons fire mercilessly until they click empty, and then other guns take over. Hamilton can't even count how many.
Even twenty yards too far right, Hamilton hits the floor out of habit, drags himself around the other side of the Escalade with his elbows.
Ten seconds later, the carnage stops.
Silence.
“Fuck,” a woman’s voice says—laughs, relieved. “Think we got ‘em.”
When the door’s pulled open and the three of them open fire, Hamilton doesn’t even hesitate.
They don’t get them all—the others notice the absence of bullet-ridden bodies too fast, certainly notice that the first few of their numbers are missing half their heads a second after entering—but it’s something.
“Here’s an idea,” Jefferson calls out once the shooting, the screaming’s stopped. He cuts off a second, grimaces hard, finishes with gritted teeth. “If you’re gonna fu—gonna fuckin’ pretend you’re comin’ in peace, maybe don’t maim someone first!"
“You’re going to have to come out eventually, you goddamned bastards,” someone snarls back. “Or don’t—make your little fucking boyfriend sit and watch you bleed out.”
Murderous is too kind a word for how Madison looks. Jefferson laughs, angry and low in his throat.
None of them say what Hamilton knows, what they all must know: they’ve thinned out the numbers of the people outside, but their odds are just as bad. They’re still fucking surrounded. The car’s still broken—and if they can’t get it fixed, they’re still irrevocably fucked. Trapped.
And Jefferson—the second Madison isn’t looking at him, his face is agonized, posture hunched, every ounce of his energy directed into staying standing, staying alert.
There are no good options—only worse options.
You should leave them, something hungry and cold and yellow-eyed and desperate to stay alive murmurs in his mind. They would leave you to save the other.
They wouldn’t.
Maybe they would’ve one, but now they’re friends.
A team.
They wouldn’t.
(Would they?)
Hamilton looks up in between loading bullets into a rifle.
Jefferson leans out of the side door of the Escalade, and he and Madison talk.
“Don’t do this,” Jefferson tells Madison, shaking his head. “I’m fucking begging you, Jemmy. Don’t do this. Don’t do something where I can’t be right there with you.”
Madison’s hand cups the side of Jefferson’s face.
“I love you, Thomas. No matter what.”
“Don’t say that. Not now. Feels too fucking final.”
“It’s not final,” Madison promises, at last pulling away. “I only wanted to remind you.”
Madison turns to Hamilton, and he takes the rifle’s Hamilton’s loaded, weighs it in his hands, takes an experimental look down the sight, then, satisfied, he looks to Hamilton.
“Are you ready?”
No.
“Yes.”
Madison goes first; Jefferson catches Hamilton as he tries to follow.
“Hey.” There’s a falter, a pause where Jefferson doesn’t seem quite sure what to say. “Stay alive.”
Hamilton looks to him, hesitantly lays his hand flat over Jefferson’s.
“Yeah. You too.” Throat dry, he lets his hand fall away. “And stop fucking getting shot.”
Dry and bitter, Jefferson laughs.
Madison stares up into the barrel of a gun, posture defiant, eyes angry.
“Go to hell,” he says.
It doesn’t save him.
“Wake up, Alexander,” Madison’s voice murmurs—from somewhere other than the body on the ground. “You’re having a nightmare. You’re alright.” A pause. “I’m here.”
Hamilton’s eyes flicker open. It's late in the night now, and it's silent, but he can’t get the image out of his head: Madison, toeing the line to the Other Side.
It goes differently in his dreams every time, ends the worst possible way.
The way it went is only marginally better.
Their plan is the best they can do with three trapped people, one of whom can barely walk without collapsing, can only stand out of sheer force of will and adrenaline and shock.
The plan is contingent on luck. All plans are, to some extent, but this one especially so.
Hamilton and Madison creep towards the doorway of the backroom, backs pressed flat against the side of the wall. Hamilton looks over to Jefferson, standing in the Escalade, top-half standing through the sunroof. Madison tips his head—go.
And Jefferson pulls the pin of a grenade, aims towards the far front of the shop, and throws.
The grenade arcs through the air; Hamilton and Madison rush into the backroom, put the wall between them before the explosion rattles the shop. Metal shrieks and creaks as things in the other room shift, collapse, give way. Shouts echo from outside, overlapping, confused.
“The fuck was—”
“Are they—”
“What was—”
Hamilton and Madison wait two beats—and then they’re through the back door, out into the open air, feet driving hard into the ground as they sprint.
Let it have worked, Hamilton prays. Let them be distracted. Let them have gone to look.
There’s gunfire, but it’s hard to tell where it’s coming from, if it’s coming from the trees ahead of them or from the front of the shop. It's impossible to know whether every step is going to be his last, if every breath Hamilton drags in is the final breath before the world goes dark. A shape ahead of them appears, stops mid-stride, turns, eyes going wide as it aims.
Hamilton slams into Madison, tackles, sends them tumbling hard and rough onto the ground. They tumble once, twice, roll, and then Madison’s rolling onto his feet, dragging Hamilton up and behind a thick tree. Wood splints and cracks behind them—but nothing punches through.
“Flank them,” Madison says, switching his rifle for his revolver. “I’ll cover you.”
Madison waits a beat, then swings around the side of the trunk, starts shooting—Hamilton makes a mad fifteen-foot dash to a tall clump of rocks, shoots blindly as he goes. He dives, comes into cover unscathed. It takes another twenty feet before he has an angle, forces them out of cover—and Madison, a snake lying in wait, takes them down with three shots squeezed in quick successfion.
They swing around, get the drop on another two—arms wrap around necks, knives cutting hard and fast across startled throats—and then there’s only the garage left.
Shotgun shells explode inside. Fire burns in thick, oily splotches from their improvised Molotovs. Bodies splay out across the floor, each in various stages of the throes of death, some screaming, some moaning, some glassy-eyed and silent. It hardly registers on him. All that registers is Jefferson’s shotgun.
That’s enough.
Madison hauls the rifle into his hand, takes aim. Hamilton does too—and they go, the two of them shooting from behind, Jefferson popping up from the sunroof to shoot, shooting through just-cracked-open windows, letting the Escalade’s armored walls, bulletproof glass absorb the hits.
Should’ve walked away, Hamilton thinks as he and Madison sweep in from behind.
Bullets shriek, and, finally, silence takes over once more.
Jefferson isn’t any worse, shielded by the Escalade. The driver’s side of the car’s been struck something like fifty times, patterns of bullets sprayed along the door, the windows. The bullets hardly dented the sides before they dropped flattened to the ground, but in the windows, they stay suspended, hovering halfway through the glass. At last, the Escalade looks like it belongs in the end of the world.
Hamilton walks forward, gun still raised, aiming at each body as he passes. The floor is slick with blood, oil, other fluids he couldn’t and doesn’t want to name. He and Madison aren’t much worse for the wear; the same can’t be said for everyone else, Jefferson included.
The Escalade door opens, and Jefferson stands, makes it all of two seconds before his leg buckles. Hamilton gets there first, just barely manages to keep him from hitting the floor. Madison is there half a beat later, murmuring in French: it’s alright, you’re alright, we’re all alright.
“I’m fine,” Jefferson insists, trying again, managing to stand with an arm around Madison’s shoulder. “Just… just tired, Jemmy. Really tired. Fuck, c’mon. We gotta get outta here. Sounded like there’s others somewhere. Gonna notice their little group of mother—Jesus, that hurts—notice their motherfuckers didn’t come back.”
Hamilton retrieves the car manual, pops the Escalade’s hood.
“Page sixty-one,” Madison tells him, helping Jefferson to the front of the car. “Tear it out and give it to me. “You work on replacing the spark plug—page thirty-three.”
“It’s gonna take, what, two hours? Three? And that’s just to maybe get the car working,” Hamilton protests, even though he’s equally aware that their others options as just as bad. They can’t get out of here on foot, not with Jefferson barely able to stand. There’s no guarantee they’ll be able to find another car anytime soon—and certainly not one like the Escalade. “What the fuck are we gonna do if we can’t get it to work?”
Madison doesn’t answer for a long moment. At last he looks up, face pressed into careful expressionlessness—to hide whatever he’s really thinking, Hamilton knows.
“Then we’ll find a contingency plan.”
A fucking politician answer—they’re in deep fucking shit, and Madison pulls out a goddamn politician answer on him. Hamilton’s eyes flash with anger.
“Contingency plan? Is that politician-speak for you have no fucking idea?
“Alexander,” Madison says in an all-too-placating tone, but Hamilton’s not hearing it.
“No fucking way.” He shakes his head. “That’s plan A. I’ll go look for another car—plan B.”
“Like hell,” Jefferson scoffs—agreeing with Madison, of course. “That’s a terrible idea.”
“What, are you gonna hobble over and stop me?” Hamilton shoots back, harsher than he means to.
“Oh!” Jefferson exclaims, acidic. “I’m sorry, mister fuckin’ bigshot. I didn’t realize you were immune to bullets too.” His hand falls to his leg as pain flashes over his face, but out of sheer force and spite, he spits, “Shit, I wish—wish that were me. Any wise fuckin’ words to share for us mortals?”
“Christ, I wouldn’t even know you’d been shot based off how much bitching you’re doing—"
“Shut up—both of you!" Madison shouts, so forceful Hamilton damn-near drops his damn gun, has to scramble to catch it before it hits the ground, shoots another one of them. Even Madison looks a little surprised, but he recovers the fastest of the three of them, fixes his stare hard on Hamilton. “How will you find us again if we have to make a break for it while you’re gone?”
“You’ve seen the half-collapsed farmhouse about three miles west? If I can’t find you here, then I’ll meet you there.”
Madison and Jefferson exchange a long, silent conversation that ends with an angry shake of Jefferson’s head, Madison turning back to him with his mouth pressed tight.
“Be back in two hours, car or not.” He turns to Jefferson. “Alright, then. Thomas, are you able to—?”
“Yes,” Jefferson flatly interrupts, already flipping through the car’s manual.
One last time before Hamilton leaves, Jefferson looks up, lips twisted into a careful frown.
There’s something he wants to say—but he doesn’t.
Hamilton leaves.
The keys are missing from the first half dozen.
The next dozen are automatic shifts: dead batteries, nothing he can use to jump them.
Manual, Jefferson’s voice echoes.
He finds one.
Push it downhill in neutral, he said.
That’s hard, requires more energy than he has after how much abuse he’s taken that day—but he fucking does it, sprints after the car, dives through the open door.
Release the clutch, Hamilton remembers.
Please fucking work. God, please—
The engine sputters once, twice, three times before it roars to life.
Hamilton stalls the engine so many times on the way back it’s a wonder the car even manages to keep running—but he’s never one to question an all-too-rare streak of luck.
He gets out a quarter mile before the garage, comes up quiet but fast, and he freezes.
Three, four, five people surrounded Madison, have dragged him out of the garage. On not entirely steady feet, Madison pushes himself off the ground, and even though the distance isn’t close enough to tell, Hamilton knows he’s hurt. And yet—a gun shoves itself in his face, and he looks up with an impassivity only he can pull off, something half as invested as boredom but twice as patronizing.
“Where are the other two?” one person demands, yanking Madison forward by the collar of his shirt.
Madison tips his head to the side, considers their words thoroughly.
“That depends,” Madison replies, “on whatever answer you’ll find most offensive.”
The side of a pistol cracks against the side of his face, and Madison goes down again. All that stops Hamilton from giving in to the red in his vision are the guns in the hands of the people above Madison, the lack of a gun in his. His teeth cut through his tongue as he assesses, thinks.
“Christ,” one of them protests, grabbing ahold of the other’s arm. “Calm down—we’re better than the bandits, aren't we? Isn’t the one enough?”
“Maybe you don't give a shit, but they killed our friends! My fucking brother!”
“Because you tried to kill them! That wasn’t the fucking plan! What the hell were they supposed to do?”
“We told them to walk away,” Madison sighs, shaking his head as he drags himself back onto his feet. His eyes are dark, focused, cold as his smile—what the hell is he doing? “Unfortunately, some mistakes can’t be made a second time.”
Baiting them, Hamilton realizes. As if on cue, there’s a flash of movement behind bushes behind them all. Jefferson and Madison have a play here, Hamilton understands. If he goes in too fast, too hot, he could send the whole damn thing sideways. There’s too many to take out before one pops a shot in Madison, too many to find any clear kind of opening unless Hamilton comes up with a good distraction.
Hamilton slips back to the old car, weighs his options, tracks down a heavy rock—and heaves it through the window. The alarm shrieks; Hamilton drops down, rolls under the bottom, lies in wait.
He hears confused shouts, but he’s too far away to quite make them out. Slowly, a pair of footsteps approach the car. Hamilton waits, hopes Jefferson—a rifle cracks.
Hamilton doesn’t wait for a written invitation.
He takes one from Samuel Adams’ book, shoots for the ankles, goes for the head when the bodies hit the ground shrieking—and then there’s silence. He scrambles out. Runs. By the time he makes it back, Madison has his back on the ground, his hand still halfway to a discarded gun, his eyes staring up into the barrel of a faintly trembling gun. Jefferson stands a handful of yards away, frozen, terrified, rifle half-raised and still, still unseen.
The Georgian air is hot, thick.
Madison’s eyes flicker over to Hamilton, and the conflict fades out of them, replaced by peace.
Take care of each other, Madison’s voice echoes in Hamilton’s mind, even though he says nothing at all. And then Madison looks away, manages an improbable, bright, white smile.
“Go to hell,” Madison says.
There’s no gunshot. For a moment, Hamilton merely thinks time’s frozen, but Madison’s eyes narrow after what has to be a few seconds, and the gun shakes harder.
“Please,” Hamilton pleads, and the person’s face turns to his.
Hamilton blanches, almost takes a step back.
It’s a fucking kid.
Hardly a fucking teenager, probably barely old enough to be in high school—if such a thing still existed. Wide, frightened, tired eyes meet his, skitter nervously between him and Madison.
“Please,” Hamilton repeats, tongue wetting his lips. When the kid doesn’t look away from him, he risks a slow, careful step forwards, raising his hands in a gesture of good will. “Look, we’ll go with you. Just don’t kill him. Please. He’s my friend. I—please. I’ll do what you want. Tell me what you want.”
“You’re Alexander Hamilton,” the kid says, voice surprisingly clear—and Hamilton places the voice, remembers it as the one that defended Madison earlier. “I know who you are. I remember you.”
“Because I punched Henry Laurens?” Hamilton guesses after a moment, forcing a friendly smile when he gets a hesitant nod in response. “Yeah. Glad that’s my fucking legacy.”
Better than nothing, he tries to tell himself.
There’s a pause.
“There was a defector,” the kid says at last, eyes locked onto him, searching. “From the Sons of Liberty—Anarchy. Whatever. She passed through here. She said you were immune. That she saw the bite.”
“She might’ve.”
“The King said it was a lie. No one’s immune.”
Hamilton swallows, this throat dry.
“Well,” he gets out, voice croaking. “Lucky for me.”
Slowly, carefully, he lifts a hand to his collar and tugs it away. Nearly half a year on, the scar isn’t nearly as unsightly as it used to be—but it’s still impossible to hide without high collars, still distinctly visible, still a sight that he catches Madison staring at, faint vestiges of guilt splashed across his face. Some of the fresher bites are still more visible, but none are quite as striking as his first.
“You didn’t say it. Answer. Are you immune?” the kid asks, jamming the gun forward. “Don’t lie to me. Don’t fucking lie. Please.”
“Yes,” Hamilton says, eyes slipping shut. “I’m immune. I’ve been bit. More than once. Too many fucking times. I don’t know why. I don’t know why it’s me. I don’t know anything else. Please. I don’t know.”
Moments wear on into minutes. Jefferson’s gun stays frozen, but Hamilton won’t look at him from anything but the corner of his eye, lest the kid catch on, get spooked, shoot.
“My family all got infected,” the kid finally shares, voice fracturing. “But it was early. We didn’t know what would happen.”
The gun falters, nearly lowers. Hamilton’s scrutinized, searched—but, at long last, trusted.
“Okay.” The gun drops. “I believe you.”
And then the gun is aimed at him. There’s no real anger to the gesture—only a bone-deep exhaustion Hamilton knows all too well, never imagined he would see on someone so young.
“But promise me. Promise me that you’re gonna make sure they find a cure.” The kid swallows, eyes growing hard, accusing. “No matter what.”
Hamilton’s throat dries.
In crystal clarity, he sees Laurens’ smile flashes before his eyes.
He owes Laurens.
He owes everyone.
“I will,” Hamilton vows.
The kid looks between him and Madison one last time—still oblivious to Jefferson behind—and lowers the gun one last time, swallows hard, gives them both a final nod.
And away the kid walks—away from the garage, away from them all.
“Where are you going?”
“Away from here. I knew I shouldn’t have stayed here. It’s better to be on your own.”
“Hold on, how old even are—”
“You should worry about yourselves.” Calm, polite, matter-of-fact—tired. “There are still others.”
There are people Hamilton thinks about sometimes. People from the old world, mostly. But, sometimes, there are people he’s met afterwards, after the outbreak, people that stick in his memory and refuse to leave, no matter how briefly they knew each other. Sometimes those people are hardly older than children, already quiet and solemn and world-weary—people that are as alone as he is.
(He’s not alone anymore, he tries to tell himself).
And, sometimes, Hamilton looks at himself in a mirror and those people are all he can think of.
But more often, he thinks of the people that he never met at all. The ones that didn’t make it. The ones that went out confused and afraid, infection swallowing their souls bit-by-bit until there was nothing left to spend.
“Done,” Madison says an hour later, stepping away, bringing down the hood.
He slides into the driver’s seat, gets his keys, turns.
The car doesn’t start.
He tries again—nothing.
“Goddamn it,” Madison says, quiet, tired, covering his face with the crook of his arm.
The key clicks out, clicks in again, turns—silence.
Then, at last, the Escalade comes to life.
Madison stares up into the barrel of a gun, posture defiant, eyes angry.
“Go to hell,” he says.
And in Hamilton’s nightmares, it doesn’t save him.
But, that night, Madison wakes him up, and Hamilton has to remind himself that they’re all alive, that they’re alright. He and Madison are beside one another on the floor, splayed out on bedrolls. Above them on the sofa is Jefferson, half-asleep, half-passed out from a potent blend of pain, alcohol, and morphine. It’s near pitch-black inside, but Jefferson occasionally whines in his sleep, face pained.
It’s nothing near as bad as it was earlier.
The memory flashes crystal-clear before his eyes.
“You’re doing so well, Thomas, it’s almost done. Right, Hamilton?”
“Fuck, I’m trying, but it’s stuck in—” Hamilton replies as he keeps trying to work out the bullet, his eyes wide, his hands slippery.
“You should’ve just said you almost fucking had it!” Jefferson screeches, gripping Madison’s hand so tightly Hamilton’s distractedly worried it’ll break—but Madison doesn’t even flinch.
Madison sweeps the hair out of Jefferson’s face, smiles so calmly it’s somehow devastating. Hamilton back to the tweezers in his hand, tries to get ahold of the bullet yet again—still intact, thank god. Jefferson flinches, gasps, and he and Madison have to hold him down, keep him from thrashing.
“It’s almost out,” Madison tells him, pressing a kiss to his forehead, letting Jefferson crush his hand. “It’s alright, Thomas. It’s almost through. We’ve got you.”
“Oh, you should’ve let me drink more. Or given me more morphine—fuck not mixing them too much. I should’ve just—god, I’m gonna fuggin’—”
Jefferson outrights sobs, the sound so terrible Hamilton’s hand is half a second away from shaking, slipping, fucking something up. It was so much easier the times he did it on himself, so much easier, so much more detached, aloof. Jefferson sobs again, and the sound’s about to break Hamilton in half, shoot his nerves to shit.
“You’re alright,” Madison says—but when Hamilton looks up, this time Madison’s looking at him.
Hamilton looks back down, exhales, forces his mind blank.
The bullet comes out.
“I’m not going back to sleep,” Hamilton tells him at last.
“Neither am I,” Madison says, quietly slipping out of his sleeping bag. “I found cleaning supplies earlier. I’m going to get the blood—to clean the interior of the Escalade.”
Hamilton slowly climbs to his feet, follows him out even though he’s not sure if he’s been invited to come along or not. With Madison, it’s tricky to tell. But he wants out of the room, and so he follows.
Madison stops at a supply closet, takes a few spray bottles, some rags. The bottles mostly have pictures of animals on them—but Hamilton supposes animals aren’t that different from people. Whatever washes out animal blood probably works just as well on human blood.
Around them, the animal hospital is silent.
It's just past sunset when the Escalade stops outside a white-sign building that Jefferson reads, horrified, listing tipsily.
“Are you serious? You’re gonna put me on a dog table?”
“Better this than a barn,” Madison replies, nerves frayed as he opens the backdoor, slings an arm under Jefferson’s shoulder. “Hamilton, here. Help me get him inside.”
The night air is much louder. Crickets and locusts chirp; bats swoop down in low overhead at the beam of the flashlight. The air is hot and thick, so damp that Hamilton swears he can see steam rise off the ground. The Escalade is parked around back, its bullet-ridden side facing them both.
“Guess he got his money’s worth out of the extra armor,” Hamilton tries to joke.
Madison says nothing, makes the kind of distracted sound that could mean anything at all.
He opens the backseat, which looks like the site of a low-budget slasher film. Jefferson’s leg bled sluggishly but reliably the entire ride, bled through bandage after bandage. Several bloody handprints mar the seats—but the leather is easy enough to clean. The carpet is what they really need to wash, lest it stain permanently. Neither of them wants that. The last thing either of them wants is another reminder of today—yesterday now, Hamilton supposes.
“Where are we going?” Hamilton asks as Madison peels out of the garage, so fast that Hamilton’s sure they’re leaving tire tracks in their wake. Beneath his fingers, the bandage he’s pressing tightly against Jefferson’s leg is growing damp, blood beginning to well up between his fingers. “We need to—”
“Jesus fuck,” Jefferson swears, head tipping back.
He shoves Hamilton away, reaches forward, fumbles out a bottle of wine from the seat in front of him. He tries once, twice, to uncork the bottle—Hamilton at last takes pity and does it for him. It says something that Jefferson doesn’t even snap at him for the assist, just lifts the bottle to his lips and drinks until it’s half-empty. He waits half a second—and when Hamilton presses harder, tries to slow the bleeding, he swears again and finishes the rest.
By the time they’re even close to getting anywhere, Jefferson’s well on his way to drunk as fuck—but before he gets there, his head falls into his hands, wretched.
“I almost killed a fucking fourteen-year-old today,” he says. “What goddamn kind of world is this?”
Hamilton didn’t have an answer to that then, and he doesn’t have one now.
He distracts himself from the question by helping Madison scrub, stains coming loose from threads of fabric beneath his fingers. A bleachy, lemony smell fills through the car—better than the smell of blood, Hamilton figures. Certainly better than the smell of death. Better than the smell of rot.
“Ah,” Madison murmurs, his face screwing up when Hamilton looks over. His hand is slipped between the seats of the Escalade, right where the seatbelt sinks into the depths of the car. He reaches deeper, curls his fingers around something and pulls. “I think there’s a bullet shell back here.”
Something small and metallic glints in the palm of Madison’s hand.
Hamilton realizes what it is before Madison—or at least before Madison reacts—and freezes.
Madison looks down at what’s in his hand for a very, very long time before a unique kind of pain starts to diffuse across his face, travels down his shoulders, crushes him whole.
Absolutely gutted, Madison stares down.
The band is silver, simple, inlaid with a single strip of understated pale purple gemstones.
You and me against the world, the carving on the inside of the band reads.
“I should’ve known,” Madison quietly says to himself. “It was our anniversary.”
And it’s nothing to do with Hamilton, nothing he should care about—but he feels just as gutted. Madison laughs, but the sound is so brittle Hamilton’s afraid he’s a second away from breaking.
“Of course he would’ve proposed. Why else would he have remodeled Monticello? Or insisted Washington move the inauguration three days earlier? Or insisted that we take the evening off?”
Hamilton remembers that day—the last day.
The image comes to his mind before he can suppress it: Jefferson in that god-awful ugly purple suit, white teeth flashed in a brilliant smile. And now Hamilton sees the ring too—imagines it in Jefferson’s suit pocket, bringing new meaning to the smile, new meaning to their crumbled plans.
Madison looks up, sees Hamilton, seems to remember he’s not alone. He looks away.
His fingers tighten around the ring for a long moment—and then he returns it to its hiding place.
“Neither of us saw anything,” he flatly declares, his voice leaving no room for negotiation.
“You’re not—?”
“I said neither of us saw anything,” Madison repeats, harsher than he must mean to. A second later, his face skews with guilt, and he softens his words with a quiet, broken, “I don’t want to think about it.”
And there’s something so despondent in Madison’s face that Hamilton can’t help but to agree.
Sometimes, there are moments when Hamilton is looking when he shouldn’t be, moments when Madison is looking at Jefferson, and Hamilton knows all he can think about is the ring in the backseat.
Notes:
you thought i was done making you depressed? think again! link for the side fic you should read right after this chapter--here you go: fic
all the other side fics will be posted in the Death of a Nation series well, so bookmark/subscribe to the series if you want notifs for everything!)
anyways comment and kudos feed an author. thank you for reading! :)
Chapter Text
There must’ve been some point in Hamilton’s life where it wasn’t all hanging on by a stressed, frayed thread, but he can’t remember it. Distantly, he can almost grasp onto the feeling, but it slips between his fingers before he ever recalls what it felt like.
Jefferson’s leg heals slowly.
They’re low on food, low on water—have to trek four miles to get to the closest source they can find. They dose Jefferson with antibiotics to ward off infection before it can set in. Madison changes the bandages religiously. Between the two of them, they do every damn thing they can think of to stave off the worst possible outcomes.
In rooms at the far end of the animal hospital, he and Madison quietly convene.
“I’m concerned that he lost too much blood,” Madison is quick to worry. “And we have incompatible blood types. We need to make sure he eats well enough to replenish his stores.”
And so the two of them ration food. If they’re lucky hunting, the cuts of the meat they give Jefferson are the best: everything iron-laden, protein-heavy, vitamin-filled. If they’re not lucky, then they scavenge. If they can’t find anything to scavenge, then they cut into their emergency stores. Jefferson knows, of course, presses his lips tight every time Hamilton takes him a heavy plate and feeds him a line only an idiot would believe:
“We already ate.”
It takes Madison rubbing constant, worried circles idly into Jefferson’s shoulder just so he’s able to swallow. Hamilton has been nicked before, only really shot twice—once in the shoulder, the other time in the calf. It fucking hurt. He knows it hurts. He knows Jefferson is hurt.
Anxiety settles like lead. They’re only forty, fifty miles north of the car garage, but it’s hard to imagine moving Jefferson anywhere. Hard to imagine what they’ll do in an emergency.
Jefferson tries, once, to get up on his own—and he and Madison come running when snarling and swearing puncture the silence, find him five steps away from the sofa, flat on the floor, bandages wet and red around his leg. His breaths come hard and fast, eyes shut tight.
“Thomas,” Madison pleads, voice brittle with worry as he sweeps forward. Hamilton rounds on Jefferson from the other side, slinging an arm under his shoulders and helping him upright. “Christ, Thomas. Why didn’t you call for one of us?”
Jefferson shoves them both away the second he’s back on the sofa.
“Because I thought I could go take a piss without someone holding my fucking hand,” he snaps—but neither of them flinch, because Jefferson’s angry at himself, at the world, not at either of them.
Madison tries again to approach him, coming in slower, gentler—and, this time, Jefferson lets him. He resists an instant, but finally gives in, melts, leans into the cool hand on his face. He swears again, quiet, shakes his head, humiliated—an expression Hamilton struggles to place. Jefferson has never, not as long as Hamilton has known him, ever been humiliated. His overblown vanity, his too-high self-esteem protects him from those things.
But then again, maybe not.
“Jesus, I’m pretty fuckin’ pathetic, huh?” Jefferson asks as he looks into Madison’s eyes, pain painting his face vulnerable.
“You’re not. This is only a momentary—” Madison says at the same time as Hamilton shoots back a wry, derisive, “What, I just dug a bullet out of your leg and you wanna go run the Boston fucking Marathon? How about you take a goddamn break?”
Madison fixes him with a look—but Jefferson almost seems to smile. He maybe tries to, at any rate. He hasn’t genuinely smiled the last few days.
He says he’s fine, but he won’t smile—not even at Madison. Can’t do it, even when he tries. Jefferson says he’s fine, insists oh, c’mon, quit fussing, I’ve had worse, I barely feel the fuckin’ thing—and that’s how Hamilton knows just how bad it is. When has he ever known Jefferson not to act like a goddamn drama queen? Whenever he knows how worried Madison is already, Hamilton answers his own question.
Hamilton wakes up to a hissed breath, fight-or-flight kicking in. He shoots up, grabs his gun, lifts, eyes wide, adrenaline thrumming, heart racing—
“Put that goddamn thing down before I get shot a second time,” Jefferson’s voice chastises.
It takes him a moment before he can calm himself enough to do it. Disoriented, he glances around—remembers where he is. He’s been bedding down near Madison and Jefferson—an extra pair of hands only a few feet away in case of emergency.
It’s—quiet conversations in the dark, I-love-yous before drifting off, Jefferson’s hand holding Madison’s even as the other man sleeps right below on the floor—fine.
It’s fine.
Hamilton crawls out of his nest of blankets, blinks until his eyes adjust to the dark. He finds Jefferson with his eyes screwed shut tight on the sofa, his brow damp with sweat. There’s a sickening, sickening moment where Hamilton’s terrified that Jefferson’s come down with a fever, that the wound has somehow gotten infected anyways—but the man just gasps again. The amount of choked-pain in the sound convinces him it’s not.
“Where’s Madison?”
“Needed to go on a walk,” Jefferson says, sucking in another bitten-off breath.
He reaches out for the bottle of bourbon beside the sofa, takes a long, desperate drink: he won’t let them give him morphine any longer. Insists they need to save it. Madison had argued: if not now, then when? Hamilton, rarely, sided with Jefferson.
There are much, much worse things any of them can go through.
“I’ll go find him,” Hamilton says, moving towards the door—but Jefferson’s hand shoots out and curls tight around his arm.
“No. Stay.”
Hamilton knows Jefferson doesn’t really want him there—only that he doesn’t want him to find Madison, worry him even more. And, truth be told, he doesn’t know how much good Madison could even do, if it would be enough to be worth stripping away what little is left of his sense of control. What’s more important?
Jefferson’s eyes, hurting, pleading.
“Fine,” Hamilton agrees, settling to sit cross-legged by the side of the sofa. His hands fidget in his lap. He tries to remember how Madison soothes Jefferson. Tries not to think of how he could never. That he has no right to do that. “Do you want me to…?”
“I don’t—fuck—know.” Jefferson drinks again, coughs, chokes. “Jesus, just do something obnoxious. Annoy me, for fuck’s sake. I don’t care. Please, Hamilton. Just do something.”
“Come on, give me some more direction than that—”
“So just fuckin' talk! Jesus. I’m givin’ you a goddamn excuse to use that smart ass mouth of yours.”
(There’s a way Jefferson means it, and then there’s the way that flashes obtrusive into Hamilton’s mind, that he shoves away out of hand—)
Madison would probably hold Jefferson’s hand. Rub slow circles into his palm. Steady. Calm. Present. Press his lips to Jefferson’s brow until the creased lines soften.
Those luxuries are neither Hamilton’s to give nor to take.
So he does the next best thing, the thing he knows he can always do to get Jefferson’s attention. He shifts, organizes his thoughts, lays out his logic, and he argues.
“Fine. Let’s talk about your obnoxious fucking accent first,” he says, launching into a speech he wrote ages ago. “I don’t know if it’s part of your rich Southern boy affectation or what, but the second I first heard you talk…”
I’m givin’ you a goddamn excuse to use that smart ass mouth of yours.
It’s the second time Hamilton wakes up that night because of Jefferson.
Jefferson eventually works his way up to a lurching, stunted hobble. His left leg trails behind him, trailing along the ground with every pitching heave forward. It’s ineffective, it’s unreliable, and it sends fear straight down Hamilton’s spine.
What if they get cornered? They’ve stayed still too long. The longer they stay put, the better the chances someone stumbles on them. The better the chances a horde of infected passes through, traps them inside without enough water, without enough food to wait them out. There are a million emergencies that could spring up at a moment’s notice, and they only have two out of three people ready to handle them.
What’s worse is that the problem builds upon itself: the less Jefferson uses his hurt leg, the weaker it gets. The weaker it gets, the less he uses it. Jefferson knows it all just as well as Hamilton, spends most of the day fuming, swearing—and, finally, he snaps.
“Hamilton,” Jefferson says one day when Madison is gone. His voice isn’t overtly emotional, but it sends a shiver of dread down Hamilton’s spine nonetheless. “If I can’t get to a point where I can at least walk a dozen fuckin’ steps without tripping, I’m going to drag you both down.”
“Quit talking,” Hamilton immediately cuts him off—but as usual, Jefferson doesn’t fucking listen. Jefferson’s not going to fucking listen, and he’s going to make Hamilton think about something that’s going to tug at the sloppy stitches that’re just barely binding him together. He doesn’t care that it’s true; he doesn’t want to think about it. Can’t think about it.
“You can’t keep a liability like that around forever. If something happens—”
“Shut up,” Hamilton snarls, anger flooding hot and raw into his voice.
Jefferson blinks, unusually taken aback. But he can’t fucking let it go, can’t let it drop, can’t understand why Hamilton needs him to stop. He pushes.
“If something happens, just make sure Madison’s alright,” he says. “Promise me.”
“Here’s my counteroffer: I’ll promise you that I’ll kick your ass when you can fucking fight back.”
He slams the door so hard on his way out that the walls rattle. An hour later, Madison comes back from a hunting trip, finds him outside leaned against the Escalade puffing viciously on a cigarette. The remnants of the better part of a pack litter the ground around him. His throat is dry, and his eyes sting from smoke, and his lungs ache, but he doesn’t care.
Madison joins him wordlessly, accepts a cigarette and a light.
“Smoking is a vice,” Madison says even as he takes a drag, the words falling familiar and automatic from his mouth. “So my father always told me.”
“That how you got Jefferson to quit? Nagging like someone’s goddamn dad?” Hamilton shoots back, voice dry and cutting.
“No,” Madison says after a beat, offering Hamilton a wry, private smile. “I told him I had asthma. Or let him believe as much, at any rate.”
“Hold on. You what?”
“While we were at boarding school, Thomas saw an inhaler in our room. It belonged to a friend, but I suppose my health was poor enough then that it was no great leap to believe it was mine.” Madison tilts his head to the side, thoughtful. “I hoped it would encourage him to stop smoking.”
Hamilton has to take a half second to process, then, surprising himself, he laughs.
“You faked an autoimmune disorder to guilt him into quitting?”
“To stop him from developing preventable diseases, yes,” Madison replies, exhaling a thick cloud of smoke. “I can excuse a well-placed white lie every now and then.” His head turns to Hamilton, and, again, he smiles a private smile. “That besides, I despise the smell of smoke.”
“My old roommate was like that,” he says, even as the words make his chest tight. “Didn’t even fucking matter in the end. Should’ve just kept smoking. Not gonna get much use out of those last couple of years I saved by quitting anyways.”
“That’s not true.”
“Come on,” Hamilton says, throat dry. “I should be dead. If I weren’t different, I would be.”
Sometimes Hamilton forgets how much guilt Madison carries. About his bite. About his immunity. About the constant burden crushing his spine. Sometimes, Hamilton says something, too caught up in his self-pity to realize what he’s doing until it’s too late, until guilt stings unexpected and sudden under Madison’s skin, wells up behind his eyes.
“But it’s for the best,” Hamilton hastens to say. “Something to see through.”
The guilt doesn’t go away at all. Madison doesn’t even look at him for something like a minute, expression carefully controlled when he at last does.
“Did Thomas say something to you?” he asks, voice measured.
“What are you talking about?”
“You were upset when I showed up.”
Hamilton’s mouth pulls down. He sees the conversation now for what it is: Madison’s attempt to lower his guard before asking what he wanted to know all along. Madison knows him too well, knows that Hamilton seals himself off tighter when he’s angry, knows it takes coaxing to get him to talk. And Hamilton knows Madison well enough to recognize the ploy for what it is.
He shakes his head, drops his cigarette to the ground and crushes it under his shoe.
“I wasn’t upset,” he lies, more upset than ever.
Of everything, that’s what upsets him most.
Jefferson is fucking inconsiderate, a goddamn asshole, but he’s hurt and trying and frightened, and Hamilton can forgive him for that when he’s not too angry and frightened to see straight himself. But Jefferson, even as misguided as it was, tried to bring him in.
Madison has only reminded Hamilton of what he is: a go-between.
“I’m going to wash off,” he says, voice tight. Madison blinks, tries to say something else, change the subject—but Hamilton’s already gone, cigarette left to smolder.
I’m givin’ you a goddamn excuse to use that smart ass mouth of yours.
The second time it wakes Hamilton up, he stares guilt-ridden at the ceiling—except this time, he slides out from the sleeping bag. A million excuses play through his head: it’s been too long, you’re too goddamn stressed, it was just a dream.
All of that makes it easy enough to justify slipping into a room elsewhere alone, to justify the usual frilless, perfunctory down-slide of his waistband, the almost too-much friction drag of his palm, the faceless, formless images his mind conjures.
It’s safe, so he sticks to faceless, nameless, imprecise people, and it’s justifiable. He’s human. What happens in his dreams is beyond his control. If it wasn’t, he wouldn’t have so many goddamn nightmares. Perfunctory. Get it out of his fucking system.
Thumb over the head. Twist his grip. Legs spread. Nails in his thigh. Up, down.
Faceless but warm, words without voices, nothing else.
His breath catches, hips stutter, hand speeds up, leans over the edge and—
Two and a half weeks on from the garage incident, it’s Hamilton’s turn to collect water.
The garage incident—that’s all they’ll call it now in some misguided effort to downplay the nightmare. Hamilton doesn’t think it works, because he’s pretty sure Madison is maybe outpacing even him. It’s hard to say for sure—he’s moved to sleeping in another room, isn’t woken up by the terrified sounds Madison makes in his sleep.
But the long and short of it is that two and a half weeks have passed, and Hamilton’s on water duty. The four-mile walk is viciously hot and filled with what feels like a maliciously excessive number of infected. Hamilton is never one to waste ammo—and that besides, his pistol’s too damn loud not to draw more—so he hacks his way through when he can’t sneak past. Good and blood-covered by the time he makes it to the stream, he bends over, frustrated.
He looks up after refilling the last bottle to see what’s left of Eliza Schuyler staring at him.
She—no. No, not she. It. It screams. Hamilton gasps, rolls out of the way, grabs a moss-slick stone from the stream. The infected launches itself at him.
He hesitates.
Teeth threaten to snag his throat, and, at last, he brings the rock forward.
Not Eliza, he reminds himself as he straightens, watching the water spread red with blood. On shaking feet, he walks forward, diligently scrubs his hands free of blood.
Hamilton can see now that it’s not Eliza—that it never was. The build isn’t right. The face isn’t right. The hair is too light, too short. It was only ever his imagination.
But even torn and bloodied, the blue dress looks so much like hers used to.
Hamilton doesn’t know why it shakes him as much as it does. It gets under his skin like the dirt beneath his nails: impossible to scrub away. Something is simmering just below the surface, trying to break through. Trying to—but maybe he isn’t quite letting it.
“Hamilton?” Jefferson’s voice cuts through his thoughts, vaguely irritated. “I asked if you want wine.”
Hamilton blinks, lifts his head to blink at Jefferson. Dinner sits in front of him—food he doesn’t remember being served. Jefferson’s tongue clicks against his teeth, impatient.
“Yeah,” Hamilton says at last, distracted as he nudges his glass over.
Jefferson pours—moves to pull the bottle away, but Hamilton motions for more, doesn’t wave him off until his glass nearly overflows. Jefferson arches a brow, but says nothing—his own glass is more than healthy, but wine is at least an improvement over bourbon.
The alcohol doesn’t ward the feeling off.
All it earns him is slinking little creased-brow looks the whole night through.
He can’t fucking remember what Eliza looks like.
He can’t fucking remember her face. He knew she wasn’t the infected, knew that face wasn’t right, but he can’t remember hers.
Eliza, the first person he ever fell in love with, who he was so head over heels for that he thought he was going to fucking marry her—and he can’t even remember her face. He’s already long since forgotten her voice, her smile, and now he doesn’t even have her face.
He doesn’t have any of their faces.
Perfectly, he can remember the bright yellow bouquet of daffodils clutched tight to Peggy’s chest, but he can’t see the graceful arcs of her face. He can remember how much Burr’s little smug fucking smile grated on his nerves, but he can’t see the man behind the memory. He can’t see the intelligent gleam in Angelica’s eyes, the kindness in Eliza’s, the restless energy in Laurens’. He can’t see any of them. He can’t even fucking picture Hercules, and he saw the damn man six months ago.
The realization hits him hard, carves away some piece of his soul he didn’t even realize he was trying to hold onto. He stumbles, gives up hunting, stumbles hard and sinks to the ground with his back scraped up against the rough bark of a trunk.
With his head buried in one hand, he fishes a photo out of his pocket with the other.
Laurens smiles up at him.
Hamilton tries to remember his voice, but he can’t.
(He can’t remember any of their voices).
He tries to picture their faces, but the ones he sees in his mind come from his imagination, not from any actual reality. He’s lost another one of his connections to the past. His hold is so damn weak now it may as well not exist. It’s nothing but thin, frayed threads.
Hamilton looks down at Laurens, tries to dedicate every detail of his face to memory.
What difference does it make? He’s still gone.
He tries to memorize it—but even as he does, without the photo, he knows he’d forget.
And just like that, the strongest of the threads tying him to it would snap.
Faceless shadows haunt Hamilton’s dreams. They stand together, whirl around one another, ignore him no matter how hard he tries to come close. Their voices eddy and swirl dulled and faraway as if they’re coming from underwater.
One of them holds daffodils in their hands. Another smiles from beneath shadows, self-righteous. Between flickers and flutters of shadows, baby blue peers out.
“I’m sorry,” Hamilton tries to tell them, but they don’t hear.
To them, he’s nothing but black.
A shadow, silent and faceless.
“I want to move out,” Hamilton tells Madison the next day when they’re out clearing infected around the perimeter of the hospital.
“Thomas can’t walk ten feet without tripping,” Madison points out, voice dry.
Hamilton’s stomach knots. He’s restless, filled to the brim with pent-up energy that has nowhere to go but his mind. Madison needs his meditation, Jefferson his yoga—Hamilton needs the open road. Needs not to feel trapped. Needs to stay on the move.
The one time he didn’t was where everything went to shit.
Hamilton’s silence draws Madison’s attention much more than any protest ever could, and the man studies him carefully. Madison takes in the exhaustion written under Hamilton’s eyes, the way his hands fidget at his sides, how his mouth is downturned, lips pressed thin.
Slowly, the coolness in Madison’s expression softens. He reaches out, thoughtlessly brushes his thumb over Hamilton’s knuckles in a soothing gesture Hamilton’s seen a thousand times.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he says, and then he turns away.
Hamilton’s seen Madison do it a thousand times and had it done to him exactly once.
The patchwork of scarred skin over his knuckles seems to burn.
“Hamilton and I are going on a day-trip hunting,” Madison tells Jefferson two days later.
Jefferson’s mouth twitches in displeasure.
“I’m coming,” he says as he tries to stand, makes it onto his feet for all of three seconds before he falls back, Madison catching him to ease him back down onto the seat.
“Stay here and rest,” Madison says, voice firm—but he softens when Jefferson fixes him with a look that’s as firm as it is pleading, touches Jefferson’s jaw. “Pour moi, chérie?”
Jefferson tries to stay stiff—but he can’t. With a shake of his head, he gives.
“Putain de merde,” he mutters, and even if Hamilton didn’t know French, he’d know the sound of Jefferson swearing anywhere, in any language. Jefferson looks up, fixes both of them with a hard look. “For fuck’s sake, be careful.”
“We’ll be careful,” Madison reassures. “Just stay put.”
“Oh, I’m not going far,” Jefferson says, barking out a dry laugh.
Hamilton and Madison pack: a rifle apiece, their handguns, Madison’s knives, Hamilton’s bow. Madison bids Jefferson one last farewell with a kiss while Hamilton waits in the door.
Then the two of them set off—only instead of setting off into the woods, Madison leads them to the Escalade.
“Do you want to drive?” he asks, indulgent.
“Where are we going?” Hamilton asks, dubious. “The woods around here are good enough to hunt.”
“They are,” Madison concedes. “But we aren’t going hunting. Now, do you want to drive?”
Hamilton pauses, waiting for information that Madison doesn’t give.
“Yes,” he says at last, taking the keys and sliding into the driver’s seat.
Madison settles in beside him, pulls a map from his pocket, lays it flat over the dash.
“We’re headed east, two hours away. I’ll give you directions.”
“Two hours? Are we gonna have enough gas for that?”
“I have enough siphoned for a full tank and a refill. I foresee no problems.”
“You think of everything, huh?” he wryly asks, earning an equally droll smile.
“I would like to think so.”
“Yeah, then what are you gonna tell Jefferson when he figures out you lied to him?”
Madison has no answer for that: the next time he speaks, he merely gives directions. Hamilton doesn’t know where they’re headed—and Madison doesn’t seem inclined to tell him. The answer only reveals itself when Madison at last tells him to turn into a lot, and the ivy-overgrown façade of an old white-wood-planked museum stretches overhead.
“What, am I getting a fucking history lesson?” Hamilton asks with narrowed eyes as they leave the car, gather their things: packs, flashlights, weapons.
Madison clicks his tongue in faux irritation—or maybe real irritation. Without an explanation, he heads inside. Hamilton lingers outside, reluctant—but he ultimately hastens after Madison, gun drawn. Side-by-side, the two of them creep through the bottom floor.
It’s eerily empty inside, eerily still. Every footstep is accompanied by the shriek of wood beneath their feet. The only sunlight creeps in through the cracks in shuttered windows, specks of dust suspended in its rays. Madison sneezes every other step, at last takes to pressing a handkerchief over the lower half of his face with his revolver-free hand.
“Come on,” Madison mutters in frustration as they pass through exhibits.
Hamilton’s eyes trail over the glass-encased items as they pass: old clothes, jewelry, paintings. There are old ship models, antiques, ends-and-pieces: the whole place strikes him more like the findings of an eccentric collector than any kind of legitimate museum.
“Madison, seriously,” Hamilton at last says, shaking his head as they pass panels of seemingly random British tapestries. “What the ever-loving fuck are we doing here?”
Madison finally looks over his shoulder, sighs.
“I’m looking for something,” he answers, as if that’s a suitable explanation for dragging them halfway across the state. “I’ve been combing through tourist guides for days,” he adds, frustrated, apparently deciding that that’s a statement that can stand just fine on its own.
They pass into another room; Madison at last slows his stride, coming to a stop. Hamilton follows, pauses right after him. This room is no different from the rest: dim, dusty, creaky—but it grabs Hamilton’s attention ten times as many as the others. His eyes make a slow circle around the room, eyeing display cases of muskets, early colonial-era rifles, military uniforms, ancient cannons. Madison starts to search, eyes picking over the selection.
Hamilton comes to a stop in front of a display with dozens of different bladed weapons ranging from knives to swords to things that surely have much more interesting names.
“You wanted a fancy eighteenth century gun?” Hamilton deduces, lifting his pistol.
He taps the heavy handle against the glass as a test, lifts the weapon, then smashes it down. Glass shatters unceremoniously, drenching the weapons in shards. Madison shoots him a disapproving look, which Hamilton summarily ignores in favor of testing weapons.
“No,” Madison answers, still distracted as he circles the room. His face twists with concentration. “This is for Thomas.”
“Jefferson wants a fancy eighteenth century gun?” Hamilton dryly asks, earning himself a sigh.
“I don’t understand why I tolerate you,” he says, but there’s a fondness that undercuts the words.
Hamilton plucks up a wicked-looking combat knife, slashes it through the air—then, satisfied, he takes the accompanying holster before joining Madison. Madison finally stops in front of the display with a sigh of relief. Hamilton follows his gaze.
He frowns.
Madison pulls his rifle, smashes the butt against it until spiderweb cracks appear and widen to crevices and then at last disintegrates into pulverized bits. Hamilton helps him clear away the glass, watches as Madison reaches into the display and withdraws a cane. He passes it over, distracted.
Hamilton blinks at the sudden, surprising heft in his hands. His brow furrows. It’s elegant, smooth dark wood capped with a silver pieces on both ends. Subtle gold inlays and engravings decorate the shaft. It’s nice, sure, but it’s still just a fucking cane.
He says as much, and Madison steps out of the display, takes it from his hands, toys with the top end, twisting, turning—and, finally, with a click, he pulls up on the grip.
Something sharp and metallic and long slides out, whishes through the air.
“What the fuck?” Hamilton asks, eyes going wide as he backs away from the three-something-foot rapier in Madison’s hand. Madison looks half as surprised, blinking.
“Well,” Madison says, retrieving the bottom half of the cane—the casing? “It would appear that it’s intact, at least.”
“That what’s intact, exactly?”
“Victorian-era weaponry,” Madison explains with a nod towards the placard: swordstick, the label reads. “Never particularly popular in the colonies, but I recalled seeing them on exhibition in the Museum of London. So as I remember it, they were created as a workaround to the disapproval that arose towards open-sword carries.”
Hamilton blinks.
“What, he wouldn’t’ve been happy with a regular fuckin’ cane?”
Madison busies himself binding the walking stick to the side of his pack.
“His pride is already wounded enough. I have no want to wound it further by suggesting he use a cane for the time being,” Madison explains, his voice taking on the quiet, worried timber only Jefferson can wring out of him. “I thought this might at least soften the blow. Act as a compromise while we’re on the move.”
“Lot of trouble to find a goddamn cane,” Hamilton replies, wry and dry-mouthed. Is there anything either of them wouldn’t do for each other, no matter how ridiculous? How far would they go for him? How far would that dedication extend? “Maybe he shouldn’t be so damn prideful.”
Madison fixes him with a half-amused, half-pierced look.
“When, pray tell,” Madison remarks, “have you ever asked either of us for help for anything that’s more trouble than getting a door open?”
Hamilton’s mouth closes.
“As I thought,” he says, his lips forming a wry, private smile that Hamilton doesn’t quite know how to read. “Both of you are far more alike than you give yourselves credit for.”
“How unfortunate for you.”
“Yes,” Madison agrees a moment later, eyes going back to the displays. “Unfortunate indeed.”
“First of all,” Jefferson scowls, “you fucking lied to me. What if something had happened? How long would I have spent wandering around the fucking woods before I died, huh?” Jefferson stands, leaning heavily on his good leg. Anger apparently mutes the pain, because he manages a lurching, dragging walk over, eyes flashing. “Secondly—I’m not fucking using that,” he snaps, eyes dropping to the cane in Madison’s hands.
“Think you would’ve noticed the Escalade was missing,” Hamilton points out, dry.
“Oh, fuck, thanks for that, Hamilton. So I would’ve had to expand my search radius to the rest of the goddamn country!”
“Thomas,” Madison says. “This is a discussion, not an argument.”
“The fuck it’s not an argument! Don’t you get it? If something happens when I’m not there, what the fuck am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to move on if I don’t even know whether you’re alive? You know how much that fuckin’ terrifies me? And I can barely walk, you don’t understand, if something happens, and I can’t even get to you—”
Choked-off, he goes quiet. He angrily shakes his head, and Hamilton pretends that it doesn’t matter that Jefferson is ignoring him entirely, talking right to Madison even though he’s right there. Madison doesn’t notice, Jefferson doesn’t notice—fuck, maybe neither of them even know what they’re doing. Maybe it makes sense: maybe Jefferson knows Hamilton was just along for the ride. Maybe there is an explanation.
But Hamilton doesn’t look.
Heart tight in his throat, he slips out. Shuts the door harder than he needs to.
He comes back late; they’ve already eaten. There’s a plate left out, but he packs it up, saves it for some other time. He goes to his room, alone, messes with his new knives until they’re sharper than anything. Eventually, he sleeps a little.
He doesn’t ask what happened, but the next day, Jefferson’s reluctantly hobbling around with the cane in hand, and that seems to be enough for Madison.
Should be enough for you too. Needs to be.
When Jefferson can reliably hobble a hundred feet, they pack up the Escalade and move out. The tight jaw while he walks doesn’t loosen but, but at least his gait improves slowly but surely as they head northeast.
Montpelier, Hamilton thinks.
If he were Madison, would he want to know?
Hamilton doesn’t know what it feels like. He’s not quite sure what to say.
Madison’s initial confidence in the course of action seems to have faltered some. At time, doubt creeps into the set of his shoulders and into his eyes. That’s only what Hamilton notices, of course—Jefferson must see what he sees times a dozen. It seems like there’s a constant hand over Madison’s, an ongoing conversation happening that Hamilton’s not in on.
Are you sure? We don’t have to do this. If we do, I’m with you every step.
No one asks him to, but Hamilton shoulders the biggest load anyways.
Scavenging, hunting, cooking. Infected.
He gets bitten, once, a combination of carelessness and bravado that leaves a crescent moon of shallow punctures along his wrist. He hides it, of course, dodges the guilt-worry that swells behind Madison’s indifferent eyes with each bite. The skin reddens, grows hot to the touch, aches. Hamilton slathers it beneath disinfectant and ointment, and it heals over in days.
He feels like he’s still waiting on his turn.
Did his friends wait on their turns? Look down one day and see a scratch of bite and know it was over? Think it was over? Sit down, close their eyes, and wait? Have one last moment of defiance? End it there?
What does it say if they did, and Hamilton didn’t? Didn’t have to?
He wonders about his friends more than he means to. If he had the chance to know about those that he knows could still theoretically be alive, would he? Even if he knew the news would almost certainly be bad? Would he feel better?
Or would he just think of those that weren’t? See them alone, fighting for every last second of sanity the infection hadn’t yet taken?
It would fucking haunt him. More than everything else already knows.
No, he doesn’t want to know. Not unless they’re alive.
That’s a difference between him and Madison: Madison has always known everything, has always been calm, collected, in control. Madison has always had the luxury of tomorrow, the promise of a roof over his head, a family to catch him if he falls. Hamilton, though, has lived with uncertainty ever since his mother’s last breath. Hamilton has scrapped just to survive for longer than he hasn’t. He’s never had a last name with any weight.
If he was going to make it, if he was going to have a lasting legacy—it was all always up to him and to him alone. There’s no hope of legacies anymore, not really, nothing but the possibility of a vaccine and his name somewhere nearby—but that mindset lingers.
Like Jefferson, Madison used to know everything, and now what does he know? Nothing, except that going to Montpelier will give him some sense of knowing, some way of moving on.
But what if they get there and everyone’s dead? What then? Not even Madison—cool, collected, in control—can go without grieving something like that. There’s no room to grieve anymore—not for long. People who grieve too long die. People who don’t stay at the top of their game every second they’re drawing breath die.
Hamilton has seen it before, and he’s pushed away his grief to a place where it can only hurt him in his lowest moments, and that’s where it has to stay. If he lets it go, he doesn’t know if he can keep his head above the water. If Madison gets in over his head, Hamilton doesn’t know if Jefferson will be enough to pull him out in time—or to pull him out at all.
He doesn’t know how many more people he can lose before he can’t hold back his grief. Before he has to choose between breaking himself or breaking what it is that makes him alive.
The uncertainty, the stress, the fear—they swarm him, dog his every step. Twists and builds, tension taut like a rubber band pulled too far.
He’s human, and that means he has all the failings of one.
Sometimes he’s so fucking mean he wants to knock the shit out of himself. He doesn’t even know where it comes from, when and where and why it’ll well up. Later, he tries to trace back his steps, but there’s nothing that could’ve set it off—Jefferson and Madison have been off together in their own little world all day, and he’s been left to his own devices, reading, writing, thinking. He doesn’t know where exactly it comes from.
(Only he does—knows exactly who he inherited his mean streak from. The person he got his last name from, who gave him that and all his cruelest parts, the worst pieces of himself).
“What if they’re all dead?” he asks as Jefferson slides silent onto the porch to join him one night in the last half of June.
They’re in Virginia now. Hamilton has been up for going on thirty-one hours—no sleep last night, only a couple hours stolen in the car. It’s well past midnight, but he’s not tired now. He sips at a bottle of beer procured from the house they’re squatting in, offers another to Jefferson. Jefferson stands there, surprised by his question, then at last takes it.
“I don’t think they all are. Can’t even know about all of them. But… shit, I don’t know,” he admits, joining Hamilton by the railing. He leans heavily on the railing, bad leg loosely touching the ground. Hamilton says nothing. “I don’t fucking know.”
“Bullshit. You always have a goddamn answer, even if it’s a stupid fucking answer. That’s why you were such a good goddamn politician,” Hamilton tells him, listing slightly as he stands upright.
From the corner of his eye, Hamilton sees Jefferson’s eyes narrow. Jefferson studies him, then drops his eyes to the half dozen empty bottles and cans scattered on the porch.
“Well, that answers whether you’re a dumbass,” Jefferson deadpans. “I can’t believe you’ve been getting drunk outside without even telling either of us where you are.”
“Not drunk,” Hamilton protests. “Drunk is when the only fucking thing I feel is that I’m about to puke.”
“Hamilton—”
“Jesus, Jefferson! Just answer the question. What are we going to do if everyone’s dead?”
“I told you—I don’t fucking know! I’m not the goddamn Oracle of Delphi. I don’t have all the answers anymore.”
“Well, who the fuck does know?” Hamilton shouts, fear licking up like a flame. “Because I sure as hell don’t! He’s your boyfriend. You’re the one who’s known him for a fucking decade! You’re the one that’s supposed to tell me what the hell I’m supposed to do if he loses it!”
“Take a fucking breath,” Jefferson orders him. “He knows how much he can take. He wouldn’t do something if he couldn’t handle it.” He pauses. “He wouldn’t do that to me.’
“How the hell can you know that? You didn’t even have a family,” Hamilton spits.
Surprise flashes fast across Jefferson’s face, anger hot on its heels.
“Did you forget Lafayette? Or Washington? John Adams? Abigail?” he hotly asks. Hamilton’s mouth opens—and then closes. Gonna regret that, he thinks, but the vicious part of him shoots back: too fucking bad. Jefferson’s eyes grow angrier. “I had family. We just weren't related. Think on that for a second. Think. No, you know what—feel. In that thick fucking skull of yours, have you got a goddamn ounce of regret?”
Don’t, please don’t, shut up—
“Yeah, I regret that your boyfriend’s alive, and that mine’s not,” Hamilton snaps in a perfectly calculated move to cut right under Jefferson’s hard anger to the soft, vulnerable part beneath.
He doesn’t even realize what he’s said until Jefferson’s eyes widen.
You didn’t just fucking say that. You didn’t. God, you didn’t.
The bottle slips from Jefferson’s hand and shatters as it falls.
Hamilton does this. He knows he does this. He can get so goddamn unlikeable, so goddamn mean, and he doesn’t mean it, never means it, but he does it anyways. He does it anyways. Like lashing out will spread out his hurt. Give him back the things that’re gone.
It won’t. It never has.
But he does it anyways.
“That’s a real nasty fuckin' thing to say, and you know it,” Jefferson says, voice quiet-taut with anger, and—even worse than that—genuine hurt.
Hamilton desperately wants to apologize. He means to. Really. But all the stress and spite swells hot and venomous in his stomach, and he doubles down.
“Go fuck yourself,” he tells Jefferson.
And Jefferson tries anyways.
“You know what? I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and believe you’re too shitfaced to know what you’re saying. Come find me to apologize when you’re feeling like less of a bastard.”
“Don’t call me that,” Hamilton snarls, pushing himself right into Jefferson’s space.
Let it go. Please.
There’s a moment where Jefferson thinks about just walking away; Hamilton can see it clear on his face. He considers it, considers deescalating—because clearly Hamilton can’t.
But Jefferson is only a man.
“Act like a little less of a bastard, and maybe I won’t,” he snaps, giving in to anger.
“Call me that one more time—"
“Why? Can call you a fucking asshole and an idiot and whatever else, but bastard does you in? How’s that?” Jefferson’s too-white teeth flash. “Daddy issues?” he guesses, too innocent.
Hamilton’s hands curl into fists at his sides. Jefferson notices, of course, laughs low in his chest.
“Every fucking thing you ever earned was because of your last name.”
“Oh, everything I ever earned? Bitch, please. At least people will remember me. The only fuckin’ thing anyone’ll know you for after you’re six feet under is for punching some jackass politician.”
“ Two jackass politicians.”
“You must think you’re so fuckin’ cute, huh?”
Hamilton stalks forward until they’re almost chest-to-chest, draws himself up to his full height. Jefferson still fucking towers over him by half a foot, but he doesn’t fucking care.
What is he doing? Why won’t he shut the fuck up?
Tension crackles like lightning, and Hamilton can feel something truly fucking awful starting to build in his throat, something he might not be able to come back from, and—
The door swings open a second time. Madison, tired and disheveled, steps out. All at once, he shakes off sleep, eyes sharpening as he appraises them both, notes the tension thick as blood in the air. His eyes narrow, slide between the two of them.
“For Christ’s sake, which one of you would like to explain what the hell is going on here?”
And, like that, Jefferson can just forget all about him.
“You know what? Fuck this. Leave him,” Jefferson says, taking hold of Madison’s arm and moving towards the door. “He owes me a fucking apology, and I’m not talking to him until I get it. I’m serious.”
“Thomas, what even—”
“Jemmy,” Jefferson says in an insistent tone that Hamilton rarely hears.
Madison pauses a moment longer, tries to get Hamilton to meet his eyes—but he won’t. And so Madison takes Jefferson’s side, turns and goes back inside.
Hamilton looks out over the yard to the fields beyond. He thinks, slow and angry. And then, in a fit of fury he fucking knows is juvenile, he hurls his bottle. Distantly, glass shatters, but there’s nothing satisfying in the sound. There’s nothing satisfying at all, only a sinking pit in his chest.
“ Goddamnit! ” he shouts, kicking at the fucking wooden railing and swearing violently when the rotted-out wood splinters beneath the force. “Goddamnit, goddamnit, goddamnit—"
The stress and worry and uncertainty in him hasn’t gone anywhere at all.
Jefferson is a man of his word.
Breakfast is a cold affair. A dozen words spoken in total. The car ride is cold, but at least there’s the defense of music playing through the speakers.
Dinner is outright icy. No conversation at all.
Jefferson doesn’t break all day, and Hamilton is agitated, restless by evening, pacing grooves into the floor of the boutique they’re bedding down in for the night.
The next day is the same—as is the one after.
Madison toes the line. He’s perfectly polite to Hamilton, but clearly conscious of just how fucking viciously angry Jefferson is, because his politeness never crosses over into warmth.
Hamilton paces nonstop.
He considers apologizing, and he dismisses the idea out of hand.
Jefferson won’t be content with a half-hearted sorry, and Hamilton doesn’t want to give him an explanation. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he has one—but he doesn’t want to bring it out. If he keeps it in the back of his mind, he doesn’t have to acknowledge it.
Self-preservation.
Another day passes.
Madison breaks on the fourth day, catches him outside as he smokes.
“Hamilton, I don’t know whether your argument was petty or not, but I am losing my damn mind running the middle ground,” he exhales, running a hand over his face. “If you did something wrong—note the if—then please make it right—for my sake if no one else’s.”
Hamilton smokes his cigarette until what’s left of it burns his fingers just to hold.
Jefferson looks tired when Hamilton sees him.
Hamilton looks in the mirror, and he looks tired.
(He always looks tired, he tries to tell himself).
He’s so goddamn tired. He can’t sleep at all.
Goddamnitgoddamnitgoddamnit—
It’s like he’s all fucking alone again, back to those first few months where he refused to care about them, refused to believe they cared about him—only neither of those things are true anymore. And now he can’t go back. He opened Pandora’s Box, and he can’t put it all back in.
He’s so goddamned miserable he can hardly stand it, and at last, he’s so goddamn miserable it doesn’t even seem to matter what he has to admit to make things right. After all, how much fucking worse can he feel? How much more fucking alone can he feel?
And it was his fault. Him who couldn’t shut his goddamn mouth. Him who cracked beneath the weight of it all because it got to be too much to hold up alone.
“I’m sorry,” he blurts out as the week mark approaches.
Jefferson pauses mid-step towards the treeline surrounding the road, utterly unimpressed. Hamilton finishes scrambling out of the Escalade after him, closes the door behind him.
“That all?” Jefferson flatly asks, brows arched. He turns, walks away. “Because I’ve got to take a piss. So.”
Hamilton swallows hard, but he’s hasty to follow, practically tripping over himself to catch up with Jefferson’s long, fast strides—even as his one leg drags slower behind.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats through the ache in his throat.
Jefferson ignores him.
Hamilton’s heart speeds up, anxious. He tries to reach for the explanation, but it slips right between his fingers, and he can only stand there dumbly. Jefferson at last turns, crosses his arms. In the sunlight, he looks more drained than ever.
“You look like shit,” Jefferson says, but the insult is flat.
“I always look like shit.”
“Then you look more like shit than usual.”
There’s a long silence. Jefferson at last either boils over or realizes it falls to him to start, because he shakes his head hard, words thick ,voice thin.
“You don’t know how goddamn sorry I am about what happened to John Laurens, but you had no fucking right to say what you did.”
“I know,” Hamilton says, voice dry.
“Yeah? Just now or…? ‘Cause I’ve been waiting a goddamn week, in case you fuckin’ missed that.”
Hamilton’s tongue is so damn thick he can barely get it to move. It takes Jefferson sighing impatiently and moving to turn away—maybe for good—before he can make it work at all.
“Because the more I care about you both, the more I have to lose,” he blurts out.
At last Jefferson looks at him like he’s actually listening.
“I’m not saying you haven’t lost, fuck, I don’t know, almost everything, but you always had Madison. You always had him,” Hamilton goes on, the words coming out in a frantic rush of air. “But I lost everything. Every last thing I had. Every last person. After Charleston, I had—I had nothing. I can’t bring myself back from that again. I fucking can’t—I just can’t.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Jefferson asks, but Hamilton is a goddamn runaway train, words spilling out of his mouth too fast to stop.
“I tried not to care about either of you, I really did, and I fucking couldn’t because I cared anyways—I do. I care so fucking much, and, fuck, I’m scared to lose you both,” he spills, his voice raw with desperation. “And, Christ, I just can’t stand the fucking thought of it. I can’t fucking stand the idea of losing someone else—and I just, I just screwed up, alright? I screwed up. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean any of it,” he says, voice cracking.
“Hamilton—"
“I was so goddamn alone. I can’t—” he says, quiet, and now his voice breaks. “I’m so fucking afraid of being alone. I won’t make it out in one piece again. I can’t. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Something harsh and wracking shakes his shoulders, his chest, his ribcage. Two years’ worth of grief threatens him, held back by nothing but sheer will, and he doesn’t cry. No tears. But his vision blurs to nothing, and Hamilton doesn’t even see him move until, skittish, almost nervous, Jefferson at last eases the last half-step forward. He wraps an arm around Hamilton’s back. Air rushes back into his chest. The world quiets, grief included.
Quiet: surroundings, heart, mind. Narrowed down to nothing but whatever Jefferson is saying, words he can’t make out, but the sorrow in his eyes belongs to him as much as to Hamilton. In this moment, the weight of it is shared.
The roar of grief quiets. The world quiets.
Chances are better than not that this will break him, Hamilton distantly knows.
He’s let them in. He’s letting himself get too attached. He’s setting himself up for tragedy.
One fuck-up, one second of bad luck, and he’s back to being alone. He can do it. He can survive. Stay alive. Go through the motions.
But not without losing himself.
And what the fuck are his alternatives?
No certain tomorrow: only today.
And today, when his feet threaten to give out, Jefferson keeps him from falling.
Hamilton keeps from falling all of two days later. Jefferson’s leg buckles, pitches him forward—and Hamilton surges forward, grabs him by the collar, hauls him upright. Madison replaces him in an instant, hands off his revolver—but Jefferson shakes him off, runs anyways.
It has to hurt, Hamilton thinks. Has to hurt like a fucking bitch. Jefferson can walk pretty well, can even run a little, but they’ve been sprinting full-fucking-force half a mile, trying to outpace the snarls and shrieks of hunting dogs, of their owners just behind.
Fuckfuckfuck
Jefferson probably can’t even fucking feel it, probably has adrenaline on his side, should be using his cane, but that would slow him down, and there’s the question, the question of how much he can take, how much his body can take before it won’t take him another step—
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
It’s raining so goddamn hard, so goddamn hard Hamilton can barely fucking see, can barely keep track of where Madison and Jefferson are. The rain hits him hard, pelts him like stones. It’s been raining all day, is so goddamn wet, so goddamn muddy—
They crest a hill, scramble up with feet and hands, roots and rocks. Come out on the other side full-speed. Don’t realize how steep it is, just how far down it goes until it’s too late.
Hamilton gasps, yelps, and his feet slide straight out from under him in half a step. He’s off his feet, off anything, flying disoriented through space. He scrapes against a rock, crashes straight through a bush, straight over a five-foot drop. He somersaults wildly down the mudslide, ass over ankles, completely blind. Get feet first, feet first, come on, come on—
His fingers clasp onto a thin sapling as he hurtles by. The sapling snaps, but it slows him enough that he can get control of his momentum, slide down feet-first on his back, hands scrabbling for purchase in the mud-soaked ground. It doesn’t help him to stop—he’s at the bottom of the hill before he’s not in free fall.
Even through adrenaline, everything fucking hurts.
Jefferson lies a dozen feet away, dazed, eyes glazey as he stares upwards. Blood drips out of a split lip, mixes with mud. Madison joins them both at the bottom of the fucking mountain a dozen seconds later with streaks of mud coating his face, sticks in his hair. It’s such an abnormal sight to see him so undignified that, absurdly, Hamilton almost laughs.
Whatever humor there is in the situation dies instantly.
Nearby, something clicks. Multiple somethings.
Hamilton freezes, slowly turns.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
Five infected shamble in their direction—not shamble. Shamble isn’t quite the right word. They thrash forward, arms and legs thrown out at odd angles as they move. Thick fungal plates conceal all but torn teeth and abyss-like mouths open in the frightening, guttural clicks.
God, no, please, not the fucking clickers—
The five clickers alternately look in their directions, blindly staggering closer, drawn by the sounds of the three of them breaking their fucking ribs.
Madison and Hamilton reach for their guns at the same time—and both come up empty.
Metal glints half-buried in dirt two dozen feet away—Hamilton’s pistol, lost in his tumble. Madison’s revolver is nowhere to be found, and when the man quietly unstraps his rifle, he looks down and, horrified, finds the muzzle crammed full of mud.
So Jefferson is the last one left with a working gun. Recovered, brought back to life by the threat, he quietly aims his shotgun at the nearest infected. It shambles closer—fifteen feet away—then pivots, turning to stumble right. Jefferson follows it with his barrel.
Somewhere not far-off, a dog barks.
A fucking rock in front of them and a fucking hard place behind them.
Hamilton doesn’t even know that the people saw their faces, doesn’t even know that they know who the three of them are. Maybe they’re just fucking hunting them.
One of the infected clicks, stops. Still. Clicks again. Jerkily turns to Hamilton. Takes a shuddering step forward, thinks, then steps forward again until it’s only a second’s lunge away.
Hamilton’s knuckles whiten around the hilt of his combat knife. It’s hard to say if something like the infected can think, really think—but it seems to be. Its head tilts sideways in a parody of something human, head swiveling from side to side. It moves to step forward—and Jefferson whistles once, sharp and piercing.
The infected whip to him, snarl, shriek—and Jefferson fires once, twice. The first goes down hard, but the second keeps moving—and Jefferson’s reloading, scrambling backwards. Hamilton lunges, drives his knife into the skull of the closest—but the blade catches, the infected whirls around, yanks it straight out of his hand. He dodges a swiping arm, shouts, dives for his gun—puts three rounds into the infected’s head before it crumples.
“Madison!” Jefferson shouts—and Hamilton’s attention spins just in time to see Madison hit the ground. Jefferson fires point-black, and skull splits into mist. Hamilton can’t pause, has to turn to the next clicker, shoots again, blows off armored fungal plates—gun clicks empty, right as Madison’s knife stabs through the side of its neck.
Jefferson is on his feet, gun empty, canesword out—slashes viciously, stabs until the last of the clickers falls. Bloody, gasping hard, the three of them reconvene, circle together.
Around them, shrieks rise into the air. More of the clicking infected appear through breaks in the trees, blindly closing in—and the others appear, shrieking as they see them all.
“Wait—I can’t find my goddamn gun,” Madison swears, pulling away from their circle to search.
“Jemmy, we need to go,” Jefferson says, eyes going wide.
“Thomas, that was—”
“I know, baby,” Jefferson interrupts in a rush of air, one hand clamped tight over where they pulled the bullet out of his thigh, jaw closed tight. The infected are getting closer, dogs getting close, Hamilton’s eyes going wide. “I’m sorry, Jemmy. I’m sorry. But we need to go.”
Madison looks around, mouth pressed tight—and then he shakes his head once, something upset cutting straight through his demeanor.
But they run.
Hands swipe at them as they go, teeth gnashing, slipping and sliding in the mud. Madison trips flat, swears, and Hamilton yanks him up—then Jefferson falls a dozen feet away, leg buckling. Hamilton shoots; Madison hauls him back upright, and they run again. Thunder smacks above them. The sky opens with a flash. Rain lashes Hamilton’s face, sharp, stinging.
Feet hurt. Legs burn. Lungs—move, move, move.
An infected appears in his path—Hamilton sees too late. He skids, slides right, but fingers snag his shirt, yank him back. His pistol connects hard with its jaw once, twice, again until it lets go. Madison dodges graceful, ducks, slides; Jefferson slashes so fucking violent with his swordstick at anything that comes within three feet of him that he hacks a path.
It’s two, three miles before the woods break, open into a field with a farmhouse a quarter mile away. Hamilton turns, sees flashes of the things chasing them, sees Madison and Jefferson just up ahead, Jefferson’s run quickly deteriorating into a hurried stumble.
“I’m right behind you!” Hamilton shouts as he peels off left, drawing packs of infected after him to take the pressure off of them.
Feet burn legs burn lungs burn—don’tstopdon’tstopdon’tstop.
He glances over his shoulder, sees two shapes at the porch, one disappearing through a window. Hamilton corrects course, rushes forward. The other shape—Madison—vaults over the railing, starts shooting at the figures behind him. Hamilton bounds up the stairs in a leap, inside, Madison hot on his heels. Through the window. Into the foyer.
“Up here!” Jefferson shouts from atop a stairwell.
Up the stars, three steps at a time. Jefferson’s dragged a desk to the landing, and as soon as Madison’s feet touch the second floor, he braces, pushes it down.
Infected shriek up the stairs—and bones snap as the desk tumbles down, striking them straight-on like a bowling ball taken to human-soft pins. Jefferson shoves his shotgun and a box of ammo into Hamilton’s hands, and then he and Madison disappear into the house to build their barricade.
Hamilton holds the line as infected crawl up over broken bodies and wooden splinters—shooting, kicking, stabbing when he has to.
Three swarm him at once. Two, he takes down. One grabs his leg too fast, yanks hard—Hamilton screams wild and feral, goes tumbling down the stairs, infected too. He grabs the railing, desperate, stops his slide halfway down the steps, before he can be torn about at the bottom, but there’s infected racing and crawling towards him, an infected already on top of him, a fist crunching hard into his face. He screams, fights, has nothing on hand—no knife, no gun, nothing, nothing but the desperate, vicious fight inside him. Staying alive.
Kicks scratches punches shoves pushes
Hands grab him, and he thrashes, keeps fighting—
“Hamilton! Hamilton—”
The hands—Jefferson’s—drag him out from beneath the infected, back to the top of the stairs, Madison covering their retreat, shotgun cracking with every step. Hamilton grabs his fallen gun, shoots too. Something screeches; Jefferson comes back with furniture, Madison and Hamilton alternatively helping: a nightstand, an old chest, chairs—all of it goes down the stairs, tangling up in an unsightly barricade until at last nothing else can ascend, can only swirl and snarl down below. Hamilton only realizes how badly he’s shaking when it’s over.
He looks down.
Deep gouges mar his torso, clawed there by the infected that took him down the stairs.
He stumbles, leans hard against the wall. Pretends the blood isn’t his.
Hamilton breathes in and out, tries to drain the tension from his shoulders.
He can’t.
So he counts. Eleven infected—some clicking, some not—linger around the foot of the stairs, screeching, snarling, swiping at air. Outside, infected shriek, pound at locked doors and windows. More find the open entrances, trickling inside as the minutes tick away as the three of them try to remember what it is to breathe.
“Hamilton, Madison, come help me get this bookcase,” Jefferson finally says, drained.
The two of them, too exhausted to do anything but agree, follow. It’s a ridiculously heavy fucking monster of a thing. Pushing it to the top of the stairwell takes just about all Hamilton has left in him—but at least they’ve got two layers of defense between them and the first floor.
Good, he thinks, because there’s nineteen fucking infected downstairs now.
Out of ingrained anxious habit, Hamilton checks the top floor.
“I already made sure it was clear,” Jefferson sighs after him—but Hamilton checks again anyways.
A bathroom—empty. An old office—empty. A master bedroom—empty.
Not empty. Two bodies on the bed, decayed near to bone, empty bottles of pills on the nightstand. Hamilton looks away—not before he notices skin-stripped hands, fingers intertwined.
There’s one last room—a guest bedroom, it seems. That’s where the three of them converge, shutting and locking the door behind them. Jefferson moves a dresser, blocks it off. Hamilton staggers to the window, looks down through the heavy rain—a good fifteen, twenty foot drop. Questionable, but doable. Outside, infected shamble, dark shapes in the dying light.
He can’t calm down. Can’t stop planning. Can’t stop thinking.
“We’re not getting out of here before dark,” he says with a shake of his head. “The infected downstairs might wander out, but not for another few hours. If we’re lucky. So I wouldn’t fucking count on it.”
“Then we’ll stay here tonight and hope for the best,” Madison replies, running a hand over his face.
“How much ammo have y’all got?” Jefferson cuts in, shrugging off his sopping wet bag.
The three of them dig around. Hamilton has a clip and a half’s worth for his pistol. Jefferson has five shells for his shotgun, most of a clip for his handgun. Madison has the most ammo overall—but for his revolver, which is lost, buried in the mud somewhere miles away. With another upset shake of his head, Madison sets his bag aside, walks to a window.
“We’ll get you another gun,” Hamilton tries to comfort him. “Fuck, we’ve even got another revolver in the Escalade, don’t we?”
“That was a gift from my father. To celebrate my acceptance into law school,” Madison says, voice flat—and that’s why he’s upset. Another lost link to a past that they can’t get back.
So Hamilton tempers his disbelief, his want to wryly comment that Madison’s dad deemed a gun would be a good gift—fucking Virginians, I swear to god. Instead, his eyes flick to the gun in his hands—one of Laurens’ last gifts to him. When he thinks of losing it, he understands.
Jefferson joins Madison’s side and lays a hand on his shoulder.
Hamilton diverts his attention, studies their supplies: two, maybe three days’ worth. Then, muddy, sore, and soaking-wet, he strips out of his outer layers, lays them out to dry, goes to change into the clothes in his pack—but not carefully enough.
“My god,” Jefferson swears, eyes wide when Hamilton turns, worried.
Jefferson’s eyes are on Hamilton’s torn-up torso, following the nail-gouged lines that run from hip-to-hip, waistband-to-chest. Madison looks too, sickened.
“It’s fine,” Hamilton tries to brush them off, cringing beneath their stares. “Just give me some alcohol to clean them. I can take care of it.”
“Was that on the stairs?” Madison asks, the words seeming to cost him.
Only now, in his memories, Hamilton can see the pure, visceral terror on Jefferson’s face. The wild, frightened desperation in Madison’s. He wonders, then, just how loud he screamed before they made it to him. How long he screamed. If it looked like he was already gone. Like he was going to be ripped apart in front of them. Like they would be helpless.
And then, he wonders if it goes both ways: if the fear, the absolute abject terror he feels at losing them could go both ways, be the same for them.
“It’s not bad,” Hamilton says, avoiding the question. He looks at Jefferson. “How’s your leg?”
A cheap distraction.
“Fine,” Jefferson says, and they all know he’s lying, but no one calls him out.
The three of them wrench open a window, refill bottles with rainwater, wet rags to wipe themselves free of dirt. Hamilton cleans his stomach with still-shaking hands. Refuses to look up when he feels Madison’s eyes on him, inevitably wanting to offer help Hamilton doesn’t want to take.
“I think I skinned my whole fuckin’ ass when we went down that hill,” Jefferson complains as he coaxes dried mud out of his hair. “Miracle that I didn’t break my fucking neck.”
“That’s a real goddamn tragedy,” Hamilton dryly replies, needing a distraction.
“What, that I busted my ass or that I didn’t break my neck?”
“Guess it depends on how much of a jackass you feel like right now.”
Despite the exhaustion woven into his face, Jefferson manages a flicker of a smile, but there’s a strained quality to it. Hamilton looks away—looks back when Jefferson doesn’t think he’s watching any longer, notes the pained twist to Jefferson’s mouth, the way his nails dig into his thigh. He goes back to his own stomach, tries to keep from wincing. He foregoes bandages, tugs on a shirt.
He should be hungry, but he isn’t. He has to force himself to drink.
“I’m gonna call it early. Try to get some sleep. You two can take the bed,” Hamilton says when he’s gone through all the motions. He picks out a corner of the room. “I’ll take the floor.”
“Don’t be a dumbass. It’s a queen mattress,” Jefferson points out.
“Not drama-queen sized. I don’t want to get bitched at for stealing blankets.” He tips his head towards Madison. “Or punched in the jaw, ‘cause if that’s what you’ll do to your boyfriend while he’s sleeping, you’ll probably blow my whole fucking head off.”
“Then I’ll sleep in the middle and risk getting knocked senseless for both of us,” Madison offers, ever the diplomat.
“Thanks, but I’ll pass,” Hamilton says, fingers knotting in his pockets. “Really. The floor’s fine.”
“If it’s enough for you, then I suppose it’s fine enough for all of us,” Madison says, unassuming as ever save for the challenging glint in his eye. “Not to worry. I’ve slept in worse places.”
Hamilton’s jaw works, irritation mounting. He doesn’t need this—not right now. He’s strung-out, tired, can’t calm down. He doesn’t fucking need this—whatever this is. He just wants to lie down and pretend like he can sleep. What he doesn’t want is to shove himself to the side of a bed and think about why the hell he doesn’t belong. He’s had enough for one day.
“I don’t get why this is such a big sticking point. Bed, car, floor—it’s all the fucking same,” he argues, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.
“Hamilton,” Madison says, doing nothing but double down. “I’m exhausted.”
“So go the hell to sleep!”
Madison is bendable as steel and half as kind. Hamilton knows Madison is trying to do something good, trying to be merciful, trying to do him a favor—but he’s not. And Hamilton can’t explain that, not without giving away too much. They both wait for the other to give.
And from the corner of his eye, Hamilton sees Jefferson wince, visibly flinch, mouth slipping open in a silent gasp as his bad leg spasms. Hamilton’s jaw grits.
“Fine. Whatever.”
Muddy, sore, soaking-wet, the two of them strip out of their outer layers, change into whatever drier clothes they have. Because he’s an asshole, Jefferson elects to forego a shirt, just stumbles into bed with nothing but a pair of sweatpants. Madison gracefully goes next, and Hamilton reluctantly drops onto the far, far side of the bed, his back to them both.
It’s not quite fully dark out for another hour, by which time Madison and Jefferson have both shifted from shuffling and sighs to quiet breathing. The rain smacking the house isn’t quite enough to drown out the murmurs of the infected down below, and he stays alert, listening for any sounds of nearby footsteps. Behind him, Jefferson mumbles something unintelligible, shifts.
Hamilton stays stiff. Straight. Listens.
Keeps him from thinking about how he’s half an inch from falling off the side of the bed.
But the night wears on, and, despite his best efforts, Hamilton can’t keep his eyes open. He’s so goddamned tired. Too tired. So tired he eventually doesn’t even think about where he is.
He closes his eyes. Opens them. Closes them. Drifts off.
yellowbloodyruninfectedbittenjohnrunpleasenodon’t
“Wake up, Alexander,” a voice murmurs, cool fingers covering the arc of his cheekbone.
Mmhuh, he asks, too out of it to think better of leaning into the touch, blinking awake so hazily he might not even be awake at all. Madison, is all he coherently thinks.
“It was only a nightmare. We’re here. You’re safe,” Madison says, gentle, persuasive, and Hamilton is drowsy enough to believe it. “Go back to sleep.”
His eyes close.
Dark, imprecise, quiet are his dreams. Sometimes images appear from the dark, morph into shapes and scenes. Imprecise. Quiet. Dark. It’s hard to hold on. It all just slips straight through his fingers. Makes him cold. He tries to hold on. Reaches out. Holds on.
Wakes up again with someone pressed to his back, an arm loosely slung over his chest. Softly, someone breathes against the back of his neck, the rise and fall of their chest a steady rhythm. This time, Hamilton thinks nothing at all. Only feels: dazed, drowsy, safe.
He drifts back off.
Morning slides into the room. Streaks of pink and orange and red light the room until Hamilton can’t pretend he’s asleep any longer. Instinctively, he curls backwards, closer into the possessive grip of the sleeping frame behind him. The body stirs, makes a quiet half-awake sound, shifts again. There’s a pause, then a sharp, shocked inhale.
The words make sense when he says them.
“Mm, John?” Hamilton slurs out, still half-asleep. He opens his eyes. “What’s…”
The body behind him abruptly stills, stiffens.
Hamilton’s mind catches up with his mouth.
He yanks away, clumsily struggles out of the sheets and out of bed. The mad scrabble almost sends him flat on his face, but he doesn’t fucking care, fight-or-flight kicking in. The infected, he can fight. But how badly he’s just fucked up is something he can only run from.
The door is fucking blocked shut—why did we do that, Jesus, why the fuck—but he viciously shoulders the furniture out of the way, spills out into the hall. From behind him, Jefferson asks something slurred and confused Hamilton doesn’t hear.
Hamilton slams the door shut, stumbles through the second floor, only distantly aware of how his hands tremble at his side. Downstairs, the snarls of the infected are quiet.
Think. Just fucking think. You can still think.
Hamilton stops, peers over the railing. There are less than last night, but still enough of a crowd that he needs to come up with a plan. They need a plan to get back to the Escalade, to where it sits in a garage, what? Half a dozen miles away? They need a plan.
Making one is almost enough to make him forget the crushing black hole in his chest.
The plan works. They make do. The kills they rack up aren’t their most elegant: heavy shit dropped from overhead, crunching skulls and spines lingering below. Knives take out most of the stragglers; a few they take out with their low stores of ammo. They navigate back to the Escalade with a windy, complicated route, drive off without so much as a glance in the mirror.
Hamilton’s stomach, chest, torso hurts, but he blames it on the gouges.
He pretends to be asleep—like he’s not well-rested for the first time in. In a long time.
They stop at a diner. Hamilton tells them, no, his injuries are fine, no, it doesn’t hurt every time he breathes, thanks, hey, Jefferson, how’s your leg—?
He sleeps as far away from them as he can possibly fucking get.
Pretends to sleep. Doesn’t actually sleep.
At some point in the night, he gives up, slips outside to go for a walk. He loops a mile down the road, then walks two miles the other direction. A few infected meet him as he goes, but they’re all dispatched easily enough with his knife.
One moment, he’s looting the bodies of a pair of infected. The next, he turns around and finds Madison stealing up behind him.
“Shit," he swears once he’s no longer half a second from accidentally running Madison through. Angrily, he shakes his head. “What the fuck are you doing? I could’ve fucking shot you!”
“You didn’t,” Madison points out, and the impartialness in his voice grinds on Hamilton’s nerves.
“What the hell do you want?” he asks, knowing his lie is fucking awful even as he gives it. “I’m busy.”
Madison isn’t discouraged. He rarely is, even when Hamilton wants him to be. No, Madison is impartial as he steps forward, lays a hand on his shoulder. Hamilton tries not to, but he flinches anyways, steps away from the touch. It seems to burn.
“Come back. It worries me when you’re out alone in the middle of the night.”
Don’t do that. Just leave me alone.
“Madison, please,” Hamilton pleads, throat dry, not even sure what he’s pleading for.
Madison’s eyes read his face, pick up the dozens of cues Hamilton doesn’t even know he’s giving away. At last, the shorter man’s hand drops back to his side. He steps back.
“Alexander,” he sighs.
There’s something about the way he says it that evokes a memory Hamilton can’t quite conjure. It reminds him of something—something, or someone? He sifts and searches through half-remembered moments but comes up empty-handed, is forced to give up when Madison keeps talking, voice measured, inoffensive, unaccusing.
“I don’t harbor any ill feelings for what happened yesterday.”
“Good, because I don’t want to talk about yesterday. I didn’t…it wasn’t—it was a fuck-up.”
“I never said it wasn’t. Only that it’s alright.”
Pity blooms behind Madison’s eyes, and it cuts something vulnerable beneath Hamilton’s skin. It isn’t alright. It isn’t alright. He fucking had it. Had that goddamn thing that hurts him so much, and it was an accident. A fuck-up. Not something he was meant to have.
Anger wells thick and dark from the wound, and—he forces it down. Takes a breath.
“Fuck, Madison, why did you even care?” he asks, chest aching. “Why do you even give a shit if I sleep on the floor or not? It wasn’t a big deal. I mean it when I said it didn’t matter. I wasn’t offering out of kindness. I wanted to sleep there. Let you and Jefferson have the bed.”
“Don’t you understand?” Madison sighs. “That was the reason I pushed in the first place.”
“What?”
Madison steps forward, shaking his head.
“I’m not oblivious. I know how you feel.” You couldn’t. “You aren’t on the outside, Hamilton. I know you believe otherwise. I see it in your face every damn day, but the narrative you write for yourself isn’t reality, Alexander.”
As the moment wears on, Hamilton slowly isn’t quite sure what to say at all.
Pieces slot into place: in his memories, there’s Madison, making him coffee just so he has to sit down at breakfast, even when he doesn’t want to eat. Madison, steering conversations towards subjects he can speak on. Madison, teaching him about opera, wines, all the finer things, so that he can speak on them. Trying to make Hamilton feel included.
Even in moments when he doesn’t deserve to be.
But Madison goes too far, and in doing so, he pushes Hamilton towards the exact thing he’s trying to avoid in the first place.
How does Hamilton tell him that? How does Hamilton tell him that the problem is that no matter how much they care for him, that no matter how strong their friendship is, he will never be, can never be on the inside? That no matter how much they care about him, they can’t fill the aching, hurting black hole in his chest? That, shit, they—them, the them next to Hamilton’s me—are why it exists in the first place?
“I love Thomas dearly, but despite what you believe, you are not second-best to him. I care about you every bit as much. It’s merely...” At a rare loss for words, Madison stops, face twisting. “Different,” he finishes at last, like Hamilton hasn’t known that for as long as he’s been with them both.
“You don’t mean that,” Hamilton says, voice weak. “I know you can’t. And that’s fine. Really. I get it.”
Madison steps forward again, holds Hamilton’s gaze for an uncomfortably long moment, tries to convey something that Hamilton won’t, can’t believe.
“You are not expendable, Alexander—immunity be damned. I don’t know what more I can do to convince you of that.”
“Stop,” Hamilton tells him, heart withering in his chest. Madison is trying to give him an illusion, and it’ll bring nothing but hurt. It doesn’t matter if he wants to take it anyway. “Please. Just stop.”
Madison can care about him. Madison can and is his friend. Madison can even be willing to die for him—but he can’t care about him anywhere close to the way he cares about Jefferson. To tell Hamilton otherwise is cruelty. Dangling something in his face that isn’t his to have. Madison can’t see the way he looks at Jefferson, but Hamilton does.
And he knows that Madison doesn’t look at him the same way.
“I get it,” Hamilton says, turning away when he can’t meet Madison’s eyes a moment longer. “And it’s alright. Not something you’ve got to feel guilty over. Just let it go.”
“Alexander—”
“Please.”
There’s a long silence. Madison at last shakes his head.
“I won’t let you sleep on the floor,” he says, voice final. “End of story.”
And with that, Madison leaves him.
Hamilton is glad Madison and Jefferson are happy together. He’s glad they have each other. Jefferson and Madison are his friends. He would take a bullet or worse for either of them, and he has. He’s happy for them. He’s thankful that they don’t know what the black hole behind his ribcage feels like whenever it makes itself known. He’s thankful they still have a hand to hold, someone to hold them at night—and that it’s not accidental, not a mistake, that there’s never a moment of confusion about just who’s beside them when they wake up.
He is.
(But it hurts).
He tells himself all those things when it does. Tells himself he would never wish anything otherwise. Tells himself that it is what it is, and if it hurts, that’s on him, not them.
It doesn’t stop it from hurting more.
(Why does it hurt more? Why does it not hurt less?)
He’s happy for them. He is.
(But, Christ, something takes a knife to his ribs, cuts the black hole open wider, lets it spill out, lets it spill into his chest, his heart, his throat—)
Sometimes Hamilton doesn’t know if he misses Laurens more or the feeling of waking up with someone else at his side. Someone to bear the weight with him. Someone who looks at him like he hung the moon in the sky, and someone he can look at like they hung the sun.
Sometimes, it’s undeniably Laurens.
Sometimes, he’s not so sure.
It takes them the better part of a month to make it to Montpelier.
Even before they enter, Hamilton knows it’s going to be bad. They all do.
The estate is still standing, spared from Monticello’s fate, but the windows that aren’t boarded up are busted out and smeared with brown, there're dozens and dozens of dead infected in the overgrown yard, and, as they get closer, Hamilton can see bullet holes punching through the walls, the doors, the everything.
It’s a clusterfuck, and it was the site of a last stand, and Hamilton knows as well as Madison and Jefferson that not everyone made it out.
Jefferson forces the front door open; bodies piled in front block the way.
Leftover infected swarm instantly. They fall back through the door until the things rush through. With the choke point, the three of them shoot infected like fish in a barrel until no more come. The bodies are piled so high now that they go to find a smashed-out window rather than try to wade through the stack. Hamilton, distantly, thinks that they haven’t said a single word since they first pulled up the drive.
The smell hits Hamilton first: decay and rot and the distinctive smell of death. He can’t see the Schuylers’ estate in his mind any longer, can’t see the Schuyer sisters’ face, but the smell of the estate has never left him.
It smells like that.
An infected crawls towards them with shot-out legs, snarling and snapping with jagged teeth, its face rendered almost unrecognizably human by fungus. Madison’s mind is elsewhere as he looks impassively around, and a worried Jefferson’s attention is on Madison, so Hamilton takes care of it, dispatches it with a knife to the base of its skull.
It occurs to him as he does it that this could easily be one of Madison’s siblings, that he’s just offed one of them without even knowing.
With the infection so advanced, would Madison know?
The thought makes him vaguely nauseous.
Hamilton wants to wait outside, wants to escape the oppressive air settled over them. There’s so many fucking bodies, undoubtedly so many bodies left for them to find. The thought of sifting through them all fills him with dread—and, worse, he can’t even be of any help identifying them all. The hardest task is the one that Madison has to do himself.
And, once the bottom floor estate is relatively cleared, he does.
Body by body, one by one, Madison looks. Turns them over, tries to make sense of their faces, their statures, their clothes. Wordlessly, Jefferson helps as best he can; Hamilton keeps watch, picks off the occasional lingering infected drawn to them from further inside the house.
“I don’t think I recognize any of these,” Madison says at last, keeping his voice measured and guarded against false hope; disappointment fresh on the tailcoats of hope always hurts worse.
Hamilton takes point as they climb upstairs. Summer has heated the second floor to near boiling point as if to match the atmosphere. Hamilton redoes his bun, pulls sweat-sticky hair off of his neck. Jefferson follows suit—more to do something with his hands, Hamilton thinks, to give himself something to fidget with.
An infected at the end of the second-floor hall clicks, and Hamilton glances sideways to Jefferson, draws it over with a snap of his fingers. With a tilt of its head, the clicker shambles blindly towards them. Jefferson looks at Madison: no, Madison says with a shake of his head, a frown, I don’t know that one. And so, at the ten-foot mark, Jefferson’s shotgun cracks. Headless, the body crumples. Without ceremony, they move on.
Madison stops them in front of a dark wooden door.
Hamilton glances between Jefferson and Madison, trying to pick up on whatever cues he’s missing. Only Jefferson catches his eye, concern clear across his face.
With a heavy exhale, Madison pushes open the door.
A room bigger than his entire fucking New York apartment greets them. The room is plain and sparsely decorated: pale grey walls, a dark wood desk, an upright piano in the corner, a wall-spanning bookshelf, a mantle lined with neatly arranged awards. Books lie open-faced on every available surface, but otherwise, the room is without personality. Hamilton follows Madison into the room and stops to examine the few framed photos decorating a wall.
He blinks at the well-dressed, serious-faced teenager looking back, only belatedly recognizing him as Madison. It takes him longer to realize that the boy next to him is Jefferson, but the smug fucking look on his face and gaudy suit are unmistakable. Jefferson joins him, sucks a soft breath in through his teeth. Hamilton looks at the picture. Can’t help but to notice how Jefferson’s arm is slung innocently over Madison’s shoulder, pulling him close. The gesture seems innocent, perfectly friendly, but somehow, Hamilton knows it isn’t.
“Fuck. That was, what, ’97? Jesus. I wasn’t even fucking legal yet,” he murmurs to Hamilton. Like that, Jefferson’s face contorts into something tight and upset. He reaches out, pulls the frame off the wall. “Goddamn,” he swears, sorrowful. “I don’t even have pictures of us anymore. These are all that’re left.”
Hamilton thinks of how he only has one, and his throat stings so much he has to walk away. He leaves Jefferson to reminisce, turns to the rest of the room. If it weren’t for the thick layer of dust, the smell of death seeping in from beneath the door, Hamilton could easily believe Madison had only stepped out for a moment instead of years.
Here, he feels, is safe.
It’s irrational, inexplicable, but the thought strikes him nevertheless.
Hamilton joins Madison by the ceiling-high bookshelf, examining the books. It’s hardly light reading—hundreds and hundreds of books on ancient governments, politics, law. If the yellowed pages and covers are anything to go by, half of the books are probably older than the three of them put together. He looks, and he does, Madison’s fingers skim over the spines, stopping on a faded, purple-bound book.
He pulls it out, opens it up. There’s a hollowed-out compartment inside—full of letters, photos, old ripped pages. Something soft and tainted by sadness wells up behind Madison’s eyes, and Hamilton, suddenly, has never felt like more of an intruder.
Here he is, surrounded by memories that aren’t his, that he has no right to see, let alone know. This is their old lives, their history—history that isn’t his, that doesn’t even concern him at all. Madison’s room is somewhere safe, some piece of a forgotten past he never belonged to, and he doesn’t belong. He doesn’t belong here.
Hamilton steps back, clears the lump out of his throat.
“I’m going to clear the rest of the floor,” he says.
Madison, distracted, looks up from the twine-wrapped letters in his hand, nods. Jefferson’s eyes linger on him a moment longer, but Hamilton goes before he can decide to voice a protest.
The second floor is quieter than the first, but he finds a couple more infected milling around as he glances into rooms. Bedrooms. He refuses to notice that some are brightly painted, scattered with toys instead of books. The infected, at least, aren’t the owners of those rooms. It’s easier enough to take them out—quiet footsteps, knives to necks. He works his way through the floor, down a hall that leads to two massive, painstakingly carved doors at the end.
The doors loom well over his head, stare imposingly down.
Hamilton stands in front of them a moment, presses his ear to them—silence. Of course, that’s no guarantee there’s nothing on the other side, so he eases them open gradually.
The smell of old paper and dust hits him first, a comparatively bright reprieve from death and rot. Nothing inside moves, so he slides through, shuts himself in.
It’s a study—velvety, rich, filled with dark woods and antique furniture. Ceiling-high bookshelves line the walls, and light streams in from arching windows. Towards the middle of the room sits a colossal desk, bare save for a few miscellaneous things: letter openers, picture frames, pens. He edges towards the desk, picks up an engraved pen: James Madison Sr.
Madison’s dad, then.
Like everyone else, Hamilton can’t picture the man’s face, but he remembers his name, his politics: a career politician—like Madison—a separatist—like Madison—an even-tempered, impassive, brilliant man—like Madison. A Virginian representative—almost an ambassador. Would’ve been an ambassador if it hadn’t been for the—stroke? Heart attack?
Hamilton can’t quite remember. Either way, he was dead long before the outbreak, and it doesn’t look like his office has been disturbed since. For want of a distraction, Hamilton walks through the room, picking books off shelves, examining art and artifacts.
He finally comes to the desk, hesitates before sinking into the plush seat behind it. His hands come to a rest atop the table, and for a moment, he sees the future he should’ve had. His heart blisters and aches in his chest.
He pictures himself in the capital in Philadelphia, at a desk not unlike this one, hears a knock at the door, looks over, sees—sees Jefferson and Madison as they enter.
Coworkers, he thinks, rolling the word around in his mind, testing the sound of it.
He sits back.
They would’ve fucked hated each other—no contest. Even now, Hamilton and Jefferson can argue about politics and policies that haven’t existed in years. In the heat of the moment? Fuck, he imagines they would’ve come within half a step of strangling each other every Cabinet meeting. Probably would’ve fucking blackmailed each other if they’d ever gotten the chance.
But if he had the chance to take that over this, wouldn’t he?
Wouldn’t they?
Hamilton spends a few minutes with his eyes shut, then leans forward and begins to scavenge. There’s nothing particularly interesting in the first few drawers: pens and old documents and planners. The last drawer on the left side is locked, unresponsive to Hamilton’s tugs. He looks at the look a minute, then roots through the desk until he finds paper clips thin enough to pick it. It’s slow work, but he’s been practicing lockpicking lately, been getting better.
The lock clicks open after a few minutes, and Hamilton pulls open the drawer. A massive revolver with Smith and Wesson engraved on the side catches his attention first. It’s heavy, almost too big for him to hold, but the barrel’s so wide it has to have almost the stopping power as a shotgun shotgun. He slides the gun and ammo into his pack, makes a note to give it to Madison later, then keeps rummaging.
Mostly, the drawer is filled with letters arranged by sender and bound by twine. Hamilton finds a thick stack from a Lord North, a Robespierre, fucking Washington, early-in-his-career-George-fucking-Washington and—Hamilton pauses here—a Mr. Jefferson. Not Thomas, he realizes as he thumbs over the return address—but Peter.
Peter Jefferson, Hamilton thinks—he remembers even less about Jefferson’s dad than Madison’s, but from what he remembers, the man died relatively young. Some kind of accident.
Distracted by scouring his memory as he is, Hamilton almost misses the stack of letters tucked far into the back, hidden in the drawer's bowels.
Thomas Jefferson, the stamp in the top right corner reads, UVA. And then a few letters further than that: Thomas Jefferson, UVA Law School. Only a handful have been opened; others are still sealed, all dated nearly a decade ago. Still, what catches Hamilton’s attention most isn’t Jefferson’s name, isn’t even the return address, but the addressee: James Madison Jr., Montpelier.
Hamilton stares at the stack, thoughts slowing to a trickle.
He shouldn’t.
(He wonders if Madison knows about the letters).
He really fucking shouldn’t.
(Surely Madison doesn’t—not if they’re stuffed in the back of his father’s desk, not if they’ve been stuffed back there for a decade or more).
He really, really fucking shouldn’t.
Hamilton reaches forward, takes the oldest letter—October 17th, 2001. Delicately, he unfolds the expensive piece of paper inside, skimming over Jefferson’s thin, spidery cursive long before he ever actually reads the words.
October 12th, 2001:
Jemmy,
I don’t know why you won’t answer my calls—just write to me then. Look, I don’t know what the hell I did, but it must’ve been something. Just tell me what it is. We can work this out.
It’s you and me against the world, isn’t it? So where the fuck are you?
Y ours,
Thomas.
With his mind elsewhere, Hamilton delicately replaces the paper, eyes vaguely focused on the thick stack still before him. Hesitantly, more unsure than ever, he picks another off the stack, reads.
October 29th, 2001:
Come on. It’s been three weeks. You can’t just ignore me forever. Please, just talk to—
November 17th, 2001:
I don’t fucking get it. I think about it all the damn time, and I just don’t fucking get it—
January 2nd, 2002:
Is that it? Twenty-seconds, and we’re done? I wasted four fucking years on someone that doesn’t even have the fucking backbone to dump me to my face? I—
And a dozen others left unopened in-between.
Hamilton turns the letters over and over in his hand. The last of them is opened, dated long after the second-most recent. He thinks, then figures he’s in too fucking deep for it to matter. The handwriting on this one is different—no spidery curse, no looping letters. It’s written in sloppy print. Words drift from one line to another, intersecting, overlapping. The address too is clearly drunken, only just barely legible enough to have ended up in the right place.
Hamilton reads.
September 28th, 2002:
Jemmy Madison,
I’m sure you’ve heard by now, but my father was in an accident.
I know we’re I know that Things are I wish you would . If you have no conflicting obligations, your attendance at the funeral would be appreciated.
Let me know if you received this letter. I don’t know what the fuck you want me to say
Cordially,
T. Jefferson
I’m still fucking in
The door pushes open. Without thinking, Hamilton snatches the stack of letters, shoves them into his pocket just in time. Jefferson steps inside.
“There you are,” he says, something that might almost be relief splashing onto his face. He walks into the room. His eyes falling onto the other stacks of letters still left on the desk, and his brows raise. “Going through his shit?”
Jefferson picks up a stack, reads the name, takes another, interest pricking in his eyes.
“Did you know his dad?” Hamilton asks as Jefferson looks, his voice carefully neutral.
“Sure,” Jefferson answers, only half-paying attention. “When we were in school, I used to come home with Madison during the holidays. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter. Whenever.”
The stack with Peter Jefferson emblazoned on the top left corner finds its way into Jefferson’s hands. Jefferson’s face flattens, descending into detachment. He peels open the top of a letter, withdraws the paper inside and begins to read. Within moments, his mouth twists into a thin, angry line.
“Oh, would you look at that? He actually mentioned me,” Jefferson scowls. “Just long enough to bitch about everything he thought I was fucking up.”
“No lost love?”
“Mm. Funny story—when I was seven, he forgot my birthday. And instead of, you know, fucking apologizing, he told me that my birthday was actually a week later than it is.” Jefferson looks up, mouth twisting into something that could be a smile if it weren’t for hidden hurt. “And I believed him. Didn’t know when it actually was until I got my passport renewed five years later.”
For a moment, he looks hurt, vulnerable—and then it’s gone.
“He always fuckin’ busy. Always working. Always travelling the world.” Jefferson’s voice is laden with undisguised bitterness, something that approaches outright hatred as he goes on. “Whatever—I still saw him more than..." Jefferson stops mid-sentence and doesn’t finish. “It doesn’t matter." He tosses down the letter. “He doesn’t fucking matter. I did just fuckin’ fine on my own.”
Hamilton shifts, acutely aware of the contents in his pocket. Guilty.
“Did he, uh, know about you and Madison?”
“Are you shitting me? He couldn’t have paid me to tell him a damn thing about my personal life.”
“Yeah, well, what about Madison’s dad?”
Jefferson pauses, the set of his shoulders edging towards uncomfortable.
“Madison was closer to his family than I ever was, but he—mm. Didn’t like to talk about that kind of thing. His prerogative.”
Fucking fantastic.
Hamilton’s backed himself into a fucking corner, walked right into a fucking minefield of old mines, mines that he can’t even be sure will explode—but that easily might. He knows Jefferson still doesn’t know why the hell Madison dumped him. He knows now that Jefferson doesn’t know that Madison’s father knew—and Hamilton isn’t even sure that Madison knew his father knew. All Hamilton knows for sure is that the senior Madison had to know. If he didn’t know before he intercepted Madison’s mail, he sure as fuck had to know then.
But which of them is Hamilton supposed to tell? And what happens then?
There’s a missing piece, he realizes after a moment.
Madison’s hollowed-out book.
Madison had other letters from Jefferson. That mail came through without going to his father’s desk first. But those letters would’ve been actual letters, actual back-and-forths—not the desperate, pleading things Jefferson penned. The difference is in the dates.
Madison has the letters from before their breakup; Madison’s father has the ones from after. Hamilton’s hands fidget at his sides. Madison’s dad knew—but only knew for certain after they split up. The information doesn’t say everything, but it certainly fucking speaks, and, suddenly, Hamilton feels like he knows more about what happened than Jefferson himself.
Jefferson circles the room; Hamilton watches.
Is it better to know? What even is there to know?
Hamilton thinks.
And decides that, whatever the truth may be, it’s better left alone. Madison and Jefferson are in a good place. What good is digging up the past? What reason is there to risk fucking up they best thing the two of them have? Some things are better left unknown.
There are things Hamilton wishes he could unknow.
Places. People. The past.
Scars—above all, the scar on his neck.
Some things are better left unknown.
Face grim, Madison finds them.
“I found someone I know,” he tells them—and, if there was a chance Hamilton was going to change his mind, it’s lost.
It’s not someone from his family, Madison tells them as he leads them out of the study, down the hall—but his voice is still heavy, implies that it may as well be. It’s their family’s governess, he tells Hamilton—the one that taught all the children through grade school, himself included. Jefferson takes his hand as he talks, rubs quiet circles into his wrist.
Hamilton wraps the body (badly decayed, more like a high-budget Halloween prop than something that used to be a person) in sheets, lifts it easily (not much left but bones), and then they go.
Their family plot is half a mile away, Madison tells him, leading them out the back of the estate, through overgrown gardens, through clusters of brightly-flowered trees, into an old clearing. Crumbling, illegible headstones nearly trip Hamilton as they make their way further into the burial plot. He’s so focused on trying not to lose his footing that he doesn’t notice Madison coming to a halt, almost walks right into his back.
Hamilton stops just in time, looks over Madison’s shoulder.
This is where the bodies are. Not in the estate. No. No, the bodies are already buried.
Hamilton knows none of the names whittled across the fronts, but Jefferson does.
Madison does.
And Hamilton recognizes the shared last name—knows what that means.
One grave is more overgrown than all the others, half-buried beneath clusters of colorful wildflowers and wilted roses. The headstone—if it can be called that, since it’s really little more than two branches crudely lashed together in the shape of a cross—is concealed beneath clumps of orange-flowered vines. Madison steps forward hesitantly, takes a knot of vines in his hands and tears until the name carved into the cross is revealed.
Jemmy.
Madison steps back. Steps back again. Eyes wide. Surprised. Oh, he says.
It’s the most and least emotion Hamilton’s ever heard in a word at the same time.
Hamilton can’t imagine what’s going through his head, but he can imagine. He can imagine a scene: a family, seated around a TV, proud, smiling—a family, horrified, as what’s on the screen descends into chaos, crying as news come in about Philadelphia, no one made it out alive, they’re all dead, I’m sorry, he’s gone—
Maybe Madison’s thinking the same things. Maybe he’s not. Hamilton can’t tell.
Jefferson can’t either, it seems, because he merely stands, looks horrified at the cross. When Madison steps back a third time, only then Jefferson recovers, sweeps to his side.
(A yellow sky roils overhead; waves crash against the sand).
Hamilton stands frozen.
(Did Laurens want to be buried? Did Hamilton ever ask?)
“Oh,” Madison says again.
With faintly trembling fingers, he finally reaches forwards, brushes away more of the flowers. A silver chain hangs around the left end of the tombstone, and, delicately, methodically, he disentangles it, pulls it off, lets his fingers curl around the chain, the sapphire teardrop.
“Dolley—my friend—was here once. When she buried me, I suppose,” he finally explains to Hamilton, voice distant and detached, but in a drifting kind of way, not the indifferent way Madison has mastered so well. “I gave this to her when we graduated.”
Slowly, Madison works his eyes away from the marker, necklace still clutched in-hand, his eyes averted from his name, from his own grave—abandoned, overgrown, empty.
They start to dig.
There’s a grave right next to Madison’s, but they don’t mention that one. Madison inevitably saw it. Jefferson, inevitably, saw it. There was no way they could’ve missed it.
They don’t mention it, but it stays on Hamilton’s mind.
He can’t tell whether it stays on theirs or whether it’s any of the other dozen things weighing down that makes the walk back to the house unbearably silent, but it stays on his mind.
Thomas.
Thomas: a second empty grave next to Madison’s. A second necklace looped around the cross. His eyes slide to Jefferson.
If Jefferson is thinking about it, it’s impossible to tell.
It’s less impossible to tell later.
Hamilton can’t sleep—no surprise. What is surprising is that it’s because of the silence, something that would usually be the opposite of a problem.
These days, he’s too fucking unused to silence.
Before the outbreak, there was never a second of quiet in New York. It was always something. Pages turning in a library. The hum of the Hercules’ sewing machine. Cars honking outside. Clanking from the kitchen as Laurens bustled around. When the world screeched to a halt, all that stopped. For the first time in his life, it was quiet.
Silent when Laurens died.
He got used to it.
And then Jefferson and Madison reminded him of what quiet sounded like, of how comforting the low-grade hum of other people could be.
Tonight, there was nothing.
Silence.
Silence, Hamilton thinks, that was too fucking loud.
Hamilton can’t sleep, so he rolls out of the bed—an old guest room—and wanders through the dark until the tombstones come into view. A dark shadow stands there waiting; Hamilton’s hand drops to his gun before the shape turns, sighs.
Something golden glints in his hand.
“You saw it too, huh?” Jefferson asks, looking away.
“Let me see,” Hamilton flatly says, motioning towards Jefferson’s hand.
Jefferson looks over. Stays still a long time. And then, at last, his fist loosens.
The fine gold chain glimmers in the light, and when Hamilton’s eyes fall to the charms—one the outline of Virginia, the other of New York—he’s certain.
“That’s Angelica’s,” he says, voice flat, the suspicion from earlier becoming certainty—certainty he doesn’t know what to do with.
“I would fuckin’ know. I gave it to her. It was our first anniversary.” Jefferson shakes his head once, blows out a harsh, grating breath. “Goddamn. You know what fucking gets to me? That she was one of the last people I talked to before—” He motions wildly, shakes his head again. The motion is so vicious Hamilton’s half-afraid he’s going to snap a vertebra. “We never got to have that fucking lunch, and she thought she and Dolley and whoever else was here thought they had to bury me. And, Christ, that’s on me, isn’t it? If I’d just shown up somewhere after Philadelphia, let everyone know I was alive, then—”
He storms forward, lifts his foot—then stops mid-motion, like the gesture alone has exhausted him too much to go through with kicking the marker down. Slowly, his foot drops back to the ground.
“And I didn’t have a fucking choice,” he says, tired. “Redcoats would’ve... but it didn’t even matter in the end, huh? Didn’t fuckin’ matter.”
Hamilton thinks back, and he remembers Jefferson holding upright as he tearlessly sobs. His tongue wets his lips, but he carefully moves closer, lets an arm loop lightly around Jefferson’s side. Tired, Jefferson sighs. Leans over.
Because of the bad leg, Hamilton thinks, even though Jefferson is walking well, runs alright, only grimaces every now and then—after clearing a jump, after running too long.
The silence is profound. It weighs heavily, crushingly. But with four shoulders to bear the weight, they’re at least not crumbling beneath the pressure.
Six might even make it alright.
When Jefferson at last moves away, Hamilton’s sense of gravity shifts abrupt, hard without the weight on his side.
(Why does that, of all things, send loneliness shuddering down his spine like lightning?)
“Fuck it,” Jefferson says, stalking towards his grave, a knife suddenly in hand. “I’m not dead, and the whole fucking country already knows it. May as well make the tombstone match.” He pauses. When he speaks again, it’s quieter. “And, fuck, maybe they’ll come back.”
With that, he takes the tip of his knife to the wood, hacking a thick slash through Thomas. Painstakingly, below that, he carves two more words—not dead—and a date—5/13. He does the same for Madison’s, then steps back, considers them both. Without looking over, he speaks.
“There’s five of his siblings not buried here. Doesn’t mean they’re alive. But Dolley, Angelica—whoever got here, buried them first—whoever it was didn’t find the others.”
Hamilton does the math.
“There’s more than six new graves,” he says, voice quiet.
Jefferson’s shoulders fall.
“Everyone came to… during the inauguration.” Parents. Aunts. Uncles. Nieces. Nephews. Heavily, Jefferson looks over, then sweeps his hand towards the graves. His smile is the furthest thing from a smile Hamilton has ever seen. “Guess now he knows.”
They can’t find Madison.
And when the confusion in Jefferson’s face starts to give way to something visceral, something terrified, Hamilton feels it just as deeply—but he’s much better than Jefferson at managing that kind of thing, shoves it down, keeps a straight face, thinks.
“The Escalade is still here,” he says. “He’s either here, or he’s on foot—which means he isn’t far.”
Jefferson nods tightly, doesn’t speak.
Nothing in the bedrooms, the studies, the living rooms, the library—the library, Hamilton inappropriately thinks, some part of his old self resurfacing through fear to spend half a second dreamy-eyed. He forces it away, keeps looking.
Garage, empty. Home theater, empty. Gym, empty.
“Fuck,” Jefferson realizes as they come up empty-handed yet again. “The wine cellar!”
“Sorry, the what?” Hamilton asks, but he has to hurry after Jefferson before he gets an answer.
With guns raised, they creep down into a blessedly cool, not-so-blessedly pitch-black basement. Jefferson lights the way with a shoulder-mounted flashlight, Hamilton with a flashlight held between his teeth. Every one of his muscles is tightly coiled, every one of his nerves set alight—don’t do it, don’t go into the creepy fucking basement, you’ve watched horror movies, Jesus Christ, you’re going to die like a fucking moron—but he follows Jefferson anyways.
Shelves of wine arranged by year line the walls, glinting in the beams of their flashlights. The cool air quickly seems to turn chilly, and Hamilton turns each corner anxiously. Jefferson takes the lead, guiding them through a maze of shelves and tight corners until, finally, they reach—a door. A door, seemingly misplaced, at the end of a basement hall.
Hamilton blinks.
He doesn’t know where the hell a door from a secluded wine cellar might lead but given what he knows of rich people, he’s inclined not to fucking open it. Jefferson has no such qualms, apparently, because he steps forward, slowly eases it open without knocking.
The room inside is, surprisingly, lit. Not with sunlight, not with candles, not with flashlights—no, the overhead lights bathe the room in warm light.
That’s the first thing Hamilton notices. He doesn’t spend much time on the revelation, though. His eyes land on Madison on the opposite end of the room. Madison sits before a piano with his back to them, one hand in his lap, the other laid on the fall board. He hears the door open, hears Jefferson step inside—his head tilts ever-so-slightly-sideways—but he doesn’t turn.
“No one ever turned on the generator,” Madison explains, too measured. “There was still gas. You ought to go turn on the water heater. Go and take a hot shower.”
“Would be nice,” Jefferson replies, slow, careful, assessing. “Would you join me?”
“I’m thinking,” Madison declines. His hands move to rest over the keys. Without ever pressing down, his fingers move thoughtfully over them, playing silently.
“Jemmy,” Jefferson pleads, stepping towards him.
Madison’s shoulders tighten, posture defensive. Still, he refuses to turn around.
Hamilton wonders then if he’s crying—but he’s seen Madison cry before. Or seem him after crying that once, at least. Madison has cried in front of Jefferson, certainly.
So there has to be something, something on his face or in his eyes that’ll give him away if he turns around. Something he’s trying to protect Jefferson from seeing. Hamilton wants to do the same, wants to protect Jefferson too.
But the thought of leaving him here while he’s hurting, hurting so fucking bad he won’t even let Thomas, Thomas, the goddamn love of his life, won’t even let Thomas look at him—
Hamilton, briefly, is torn between the two of them, between deciding who to protect.
Like you could even fucking protect either, his mind snarls, unhelpful, blaming.
“Jemmy,” Jefferson tries again, but he stays still. “S 'il te plait regarde moi.”
Of course Jefferson knows too. Jefferson has known Madison years longer than him. Of course Jefferson would know why Madison won’t turn around.
“Please, Thomas,” Madison says in English—a response Hamilton is meant to hear, a plea to him, not to Jefferson. “I would rather be alone.”
Hamilton at last reaches forward, touches Jefferson’s arm. His hand is instantly and angrily shrugged off, and Jefferson seems to think about crossing the rest of the room anyways, Madison’s words be damn—but then he looks to Hamilton.
Hamilton doesn’t know what Jefferson sees on his face. Maybe he doesn’t want to know.
But whatever it is, it’s enough.
Miserably, wordlessly, Jefferson leaves.
Hamilton lingers a second longer after he’s gone.
“I found…” he says, and up until he finishes the sentence, he doesn’t know where it’s going to go. “… a revolver in your dad’s desk. I think it was his. I thought you could, you know, use it. Because of the old one. I’ll, uh… I’ll just leave it here.”
He does—and just before he leaves, Madison so quiet he doesn’t hear, Madison calls,
“Hamilton?”
He stills.
“Yeah?”
Silence stretches on for a lifetime. At last, Madison’s fingers strike several keys—discordant, confused, lost. Hamilton doesn’t know quite what to make of them. He isn’t sure Madison knows either.
“Never mind,” Madison exhales, shaking his head. “My thoughts are… It slipped away from me.”
He’s lying, Hamilton thinks, and it comes as a surprise that he can tell.
Maybe he should push. Maybe he should stay. Maybe he should do a lot of things, but there’s always such a goddamn complicated tangle, always so many ways he can fuck up.
So maybe he should do something differently, but he doesn’t.
He leaves.
Like a ghost, Hamilton wanders. There’s nowhere he can go to escape the silence. It makes sense, then, that like a moth to light, he finds the last place where there isn’t silence.
Jefferson lays across a weight bench, hair pulled back, gasping for breath as Hamilton enters the gym. He’s drenched in sweat, face twisted in pain, a ridiculously laden barbell racked above him. There’s nothing vain or indulgent about it for once; Jefferson doesn’t even look to Hamilton as he enters.
“You don’t look so hot.”
“Yeah, ‘cause I was planning on working out either ‘til I fucking puke or pass out,” Jefferson shoots back, forcing himself to sit upright. Obscenely, he adds another fifteen pounds to both sides of the barbell. “Haven’t done either yet, so here we fuckin’ go.”
“Here’s a bright fucking idea: don’t do that.”
“Either this or drinking myself into a goddamn coma, so I think I’m handlin’ it all pretty goddamn well,” Jefferson snaps, viciously cranking out another dozen bench presses. He reracks the barbell, covers his face with his hands as he tries to catch his breath.
Hamilton pushes.
“Then help me do a patrol.”
“I’d’ve already gone bat-fucking-shit on infected if there were any around.” Another dozen presses. Gasping. He looks distinctly nauseous, but this time, he talks. “I never liked coming here, you know. It was so fucking loud when I used to come, and I hated that. Couldn’t understand how Madison could stand it. My house was always so goddamn lifeless.”
Jefferson’s chest shakes and heaves as he tries to catch his breath—and maybe for other reasons, but Hamilton chooses not to ask.
“You know what I would give now to hear any of them? Any last one? If there was anything I could for Madison, I’d fuckin’ do it. And right now, there’s not, isn’t there? There’s not a single goddamn thing I can do.”
“That’s not true,” Hamilton protests, even though he’s not sure he’s right. “He just needs… time.”
What a weak goddamn excuse.
“And what am I supposed to do if you were right?” Jefferson asks, voice quiet. “What if he’s gone too far into the hole and he can’t drag himself out?”
Hamilton wishes he’d fucking knocked himself out.
He doesn’t know what to say to that—didn’t know the answer then, certainly doesn’t know it now—and so he says nothing, mouth frozen open.
Jefferson’s shoulders tighten when Hamilton has no answer to give him, and he launches into another set. Up. Down. Up. Down. He can’t have been kidding earlier, Hamilton realizes—he’s either going to puke or pass out. Neither of those are good options.
“I want to get out of here,” Hamilton says, because he doesn’t know what to say, so he goes with something he knows is true. “You were right. It’s too fucking quiet here, and I’m thinking too fucking loudly, and I need to get the hell out of here—just for a while. I don’t even care where.”
And maybe—maybe—Hamilton can be what Jefferson needs. Maybe Jefferson can’t be there for who he actually wants to be there for, but maybe if he squints hard enough, Hamilton can be good enough. A stand-in. If Hamilton phrases it right, inflects his words right, lets Jefferson do something for him, lets Jefferson do something that takes away the edge of his helplessness—maybe that would be enough.
(And maybe Hamilton really does need this, really does to get out of here. Maybe he just doesn’t want to admit it’s just as much for him as it is for Jefferson).
He wets his lips.
“I don’t want—it’ll—it’ll be just as quiet if I go alone.”
Jefferson hesitates at the bottom of his rep. And when he pushes up, he reracks his weight. Stands. Slowly. He winces—leg must hurt. Hamilton wonders if he tried to do other exercises, things that made it flare up. Madison would probably ask if he did, frown his disapproval. Hamilton doesn’t.
“Yeah. Sure.” He rolls his shoulders, meets Hamilton’s eyes. He tries valiantly for a smirk and miserably fails. “If you’re inviting me to talk, then you must be pretty fuckin’ desperate.” Then, seriously, quietly, with his eyes averted: “Shit, I could probably stand to get out of here too right now.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re going on about. I didn’t invite you,” Hamilton says, bristling in a way that’s nothing but show, nothing but putting on a pretense.
“Mm, but you did. Indirectly.”
“If you can’t fucking point to it, it didn’t happen.”
“Jesus, and I thought I was well-suited for law school.”
“You’re well-suited to shut the fuck up.”
“Make me.”
(Hamilton almost wants to).
Jefferson tells Hamilton to meet him in the garage while he goes and changes. Hamilton wanders between rows of cars—rows, actual fucking rows—and stops where there’s three empty spaces, black smears left in the wake of hastily existing cars.
He wonders if Angelica was on one. He wonders why she was here, who she was with, where she is now. If she knows he’s alive. She would’ve had to have heard, wouldn’t she? By word-of-mouth if not her own ears. And Eliza must’ve been with her.
Surely Eliza would be with her.
But where are they now? Why were they here? The questions claw at him.
Fuck. Fuck—this is why Hamilton doesn’t go looking for answers he doesn’t need. There’s just more fucking questions, more misery, more helplessness.
“I was gonna take one of the motorcycles,” Jefferson says as he walks in and spots Hamilton by the cars. “Guess we could take a car, though. You’d probably fall off anyways.”
Hamilton makes a rude gesture, then joins Jefferson by a truly obscene collection of motorcycles, pushes down amazement at just how different Madison’s childhood must’ve been.
“Where are we going?”
“Mount Vernon,” Jefferson answers.
Hamilton blinks.
“Mount Vernon like…?”
“Like Washington’s.”
“No,” Hamilton says, shaking his head. “Fuck no. I’m not trading one Virginian mansion for another. We can go mini-golfing for all I care, but, Christ, I don’t want to—”
“Look. Washington was my friend. All I want is to say goodbye in some way that’s worth a damn. We’re in the area, and, shit, I don’t—maybe they got something out of burying—of thinking they buried Madison and I. Closure.” He looks away. “And if I can, I should go.”
“Jefferson, I—"
“I already know he’s dead,” Jefferson cuts him off, reading his resistance easily. “It’s not gonna kill him twice to go. I’ll be fine, Hamilton. Worst case’s that I’m the same off as before.”
Hamilton hesitates a long beat.
“Just as long as it gets us out of here,” he reluctantly agrees.
Jefferson hesitates too. And then:
“Thank you,” he says, and, in a rare moment, Hamilton actually thinks he means it.
Hamilton fetches an old leather jacket, jeans, boots as the man works on getting a motorcycle started. By the time Hamilton makes it back, the low rumble of an engine greets him. Jefferson already straddles the seat, fiddles with the controls—controls? Whatever.
Jefferson tosses Hamilton a helmet.
“Only one that I can find. Pretty sure your skull’s too thick for it to matter, but you can have it anyways if it’ll save me your bitching about my driving.”
He ignores Jefferson, puts it on anyways. Jefferson slides forward, and, after a moment’s hesitation, Hamilton climbs on behind him.
“You sure you know how to ride one of these things?”
“Yeah, sure. I rode bikes all the damn time in France.”
“God, if I had a dollar for every time you talk about France, I could buy Madison’s fucking house.”
“Mm. Maybe even mine too,” Jefferson agrees, the smirk clear in his voice.
And fuck. It’s not what’s between Jefferson and Madison, but it’s familiar, it’s safe, and the two of them can fall back on it. Their bickering, their little jabs, their arguments—constants in a world that has too few. And even if it’s only a pretense of normalcy, it does what it needs to.
The motorcycle roars to life. Jefferson pulls out of the garage. Occasionally, he shouts loud enough over the roar to be overheard, instructing Hamilton—turn like this, lean here, here’s how you steer. Hamilton absorbs the information as easily as always, neatly filing it away.
Infected linger in the roadway at times, but Jefferson weaves expertly around them for the most part. There’s one or two swerves where Hamilton swears he goes near horizontal to the asphalt, but they make it through unscathed. And when Hamilton cusses Jefferson out when it’s over, he feels the man’s laughter echo with every vibration of his chest, realizing belatedly how tightly he’s pressed up against his back, how tightly his arms squeeze the man’s waist.
(He swears he can hear Jefferson’s heartbeat. Feel it through the palms of his hands.)
Hamilton’s teeth nip into his tongue as he moves away.
It’s an hour and change before the motorcycle pulls off of a road, winds up a long, green path. Jefferson at last stops the bike, but there’s still no house in sight.
“What,” Jefferson says, “the ever-loving fuck?”
“What do you mean, what the fuck? Are we lost?” Hamilton asks, eyes narrowed.
“I… don’t know.” Jefferson kills the ignition, slowly dismounting the motorcycle. He stares out at the empty field, confusion clear on his face. “I think I mighta had a stroke,” he says at last. “Mount Vernon should be right here.” He points at a flat expanse: empty space. “I’m not… am I? Fuck, I’ve been here a hundred times.”
He shakes his head, vaguely dazed, walking forwards. Hamilton follows, fingers curling around his pistol. He wonders, briefly, if Jefferson has lost it completely.
“It’s not here,” Jefferson says, awe-struck. He laughs a little too lightly. “Well, I’ll be damned. Guess I finally cracked. Time for you and Madison to put the sharp stuff away, I think.”
No sooner do the words leave his mouth than does Hamilton’s foot catch on something in the dirt. He barely saves himself from falling, stumbles forward, turns around with narrowed eyes. From the dirt, a few half-crumbled, rotted slats of white wood stick up. Jefferson sees them at the same time, takes a hesitant step forwards and drops to a crouch.
Jefferson’s eyes gradually move on and scan the rest of the ground around them. Hamilton follows along, and they gradually pick up on similar protrusions: shattered glass, broken white bricks, scattered chunks of red-roofing. Hamilton’s throat tightens. A pit grows in his stomach. He takes a step towards the pond, looking at the still blue-green water, the lily pads speckling its surface. Tufts of tall green grass grow around it, but there are no trees nearby: only jagged, broken stumps.
“I think,” Hamilton murmurs, “that someone bombed the ever-loving shit out of this place.”
“Someone?” Bitter, Jefferson laughs. “I think we both fucking know who. No one else has the resources or the goddamn pettiness to waste said fuckin’ resources. Jesus—on a dead man’s house? Are you fucking shitting me!”
Jefferson’s voice rises, rises, then at last cuts off. He shakes his head, joins Hamilton by the side of the pond. He stays there, shoulders held stiff as the minutes wear on—and in the end, he just exhales out wasted anger with a hiss, compartmentalizes the rest to wherever it is he keeps it before it boils back over. Exhaustion fills anger’s wake. Jefferson’s shoulders slump. His eyes flatten, but the longer they stay focused on the water, the more the light returns.
It’s a different light—subdued, still tired, maybe even fragile—but still present. Low and appreciative, Jefferson whistles.
“Damn,” he quietly says, almost reverential. “Sure is pretty though, huh?”
Hamilton looks out at the water with him, and for the first time, he sees all of what’s in front of him, the minute little details that he’s glossed-over. The silvery moonlight glazes over the still surface, gives it an almost glasslike quality. Every star in the sky is reflected in the water: the entirety of the Milky Way reflected in a wound on the earth’s surface.
“Yeah,” he agrees, just as quiet. “It’s certainly something.”
Jefferson exhales again, the glazed-over look in his eye vanishing with a determined shake of his head.
“To hell with it,” he decides with a tight shake of his head. “Can’t walk right half the goddamn time, but fuck if I can’t still swim.”
Wordlessly, Jefferson sheds his shirt, his jeans, his—he’s not going to—he does. Of course he does.
“You’re not going to—”
“—ride back with wet goddamn jeans?” Jefferson cuts him off, dry. “No, I’m not. Another thing the French are right about.” A smirk plays at his mouth. “Most swimsuits, you may as well be naked anyways.”
Nude, Jefferson wades out waist-deep in the water before he casts a look over his shoulder.
“You comin’?”
“What, bared-assed naked into the fucking crater-lake?”
“Mm, I’ll protect you from the water moccasins if that’s what’s got you bothered.”
“Fuck snakes—it’s probably radioactive, jackass.”
“Well, better to go out glowing than gutted.” He looks around. “And I’m no demolitions expert, but I think a nuclear explosion would’ve left the place a little more flattened. Probably a concussive blast.” He shrugs, arches his brow. “Your loss, though. Water feels like a goddamn dream.”
Hamilton’s jaw ticks. He watches Jefferson walk forward until he’s deep enough to swim—and then, pride winning out, he strips down and follows. Ahead of him, Jefferson’s quiet strokes disturb the surface as he makes his way to the center, Hamilton trailing behind with much sloppier form. It’s been a long time since he last swam.
“Reminds me of Maine,” Jefferson says, distant, his voice clouded in reminiscence. “Where I went to summer camp. Used to sneak out to the lake with Sam and John, go skinny-dipping. Watch the sunrise. Jesus—I miss that.”
It feels vaguely like Jefferson is offering him something, offering Hamilton some sliver of himself that Hamilton hasn’t asked for and doesn’t know what to do with. All he can think to do is slice off a sliver of himself to offer in return.
He doesn’t dwell on what it says that he actually does.
“There weren’t many lakes down in Nevis. But my, uh… I used to go down to the beach all the time when I was little. Make sandcastles. Swim in the ocean. That kind of thing.”
“My mother loved the ocean,” Jefferson comments like he knows the word Hamilton couldn’t quite get out. “She took me a few times to a little beach on the Virginia coast.”
“Were you two close?”
“Mm. Not particularly. I was eight when she died. She preferred to spend time with my father.”
“I, uh… I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be.” He shakes his head. “I wasn’t. Didn’t know her well enough to be sorry.”
They fall into a neutral quiet until Jefferson stops, sighs the deep sigh of someone that’s just set down a heavy load. His shoulders slacken, fall down loose for the first time in weeks. There’s still that certain, distantly pained strain to his brow that’s been there so often since he took the bullet back in Georgia, but even it too seems to lessen a little.
“Found a cool spot,” Jefferson explains, eyes slipping shut. “Christ, that’s nice.”
Jefferson turns over onto his back, floats languidly on the surface of the water. Before he can help it, Hamilton finds himself looking.
The moonlight catches on Jefferson’s skin, haloes his face with silver. Water beads, trickles down the curve of his neck, gathers in the hollow of his throat. It trickles lower too, down his broad chest, off of a well-sculpted torso—but Hamilton forces his gaze away before he can follow the water any lower. He lifts his eyes towards the sky, to the pinprick stars above.
In the night, fireflies spark golden like low-hanging stars. The constant danger, the constant fear, the constant fight just to see another sunrise all feel like a distant dream. Here, it all feels ethereal, unreal: time feels less like a moment, more like a memory.
Hamilton, gradually, is aware of his neck prickling, but it’s a long minute before he at last looks back over, this time to find Jefferson watching him. It’s hard to quite place what expression’s on his face; it falls somewhere past thoughtfulness, but a step short of reverence. Cautiously, with enough deliberateness to let Hamilton move away if he chooses, Jefferson reaches out. Hamilton doesn’t flinch away—surprising them both, maybe.
Jefferson’s fingers trail lightly along the curve of his neck, rest gently over the white-stretched-skin scar at the bottom of his throat. Something Hamilton can’t name waxes and wanes in Jefferson’s eyes.
“I need you to promise me,” he says, voice quiet and subdued in a way that Hamilton knows can mean nothing good. “You never promised me the first time I asked.”
“Oh, is that what you brought me all the way out here alone for?” he asks, voice biting. “So you could corner me where I can’t get away easy? Where Madison can’t step in?”
Jefferson looks away, looking as guilty as he’s capable of being.
“Hold on. You fucking did, didn’t you?” Hamilton realizes, eyes widening as he jerks away. “That whole thing about Washington was just bullshit? Christ—it was, wasn’t it?”
“It wasn’t,” Jefferson insists. His eyes flick away. He pauses, then adds, “Not completely. It played in, but I meant what I said.”
“Jesus! You’re such a fucking asshole. Have I ever told you that?” Hamilton shoots back, and it could be a joke, but it isn’t. His tongue is sharp, getting sharper, and to keep from going too far, he has to swallow the words that want to crawl up his throat: they go down like razor blades.
“Only every other breath,” Jefferson tries to joke, but Hamilton shakes his head hard, shoves off the attempt.
“No—no, I’m not gonna promise you shit. I don’t know what the hell you want, but it’s not going to be something that I want to hear, and I don’t want to—”
“Just hear me out, Hamilton—please. Fuck’s sake, you can get as pissed as you like once I’m done. Yell whatever the hell you want! I’ll forget it by the time we’re back at Montpelier. Just—whatever it takes to get you to listen. Just tell me. What’s it gonna take? Just to listen. That’s it.”
Hamilton’s jaw grinds tightly.
Jefferson doesn’t get that there are things he doesn’t think about. Things he can’t think about. Things that get brought out when worry and anxiety and fear crack the walls that hold back things he can’t touch, things behind the walls that could make him enough to earn him the silent treatment for weeks. There are things that he could do to earn himself worse than that.
Jefferson doesn’t get that. He hasn’t seen how far down Hamilton can go. Doesn’t know how far down he’s been. He doesn’t know what he’s asking. He doesn’t understand that whatever he’s going to say, whatever he’s going to ask is almost certainly going to make Hamilton look down into the gaping hole, push him to vertigo.
He doesn’t understand that Hamilton can’t say no.
Not to him. His friend. One of his two closest friends—even if only by default. Not when Jefferson needs—fuck. Jefferson doesn’t need him, but he needs something, and Hamilton’s the only one that can give him anything at all right now. He has to say yes.
(But he wants to, too—wants to pretend on some level that he is needed, that he isn’t just second best, isn’t just a substitute for someone else. Pretending—that’s all he can do.)
He wants to—he doesn’t know. He doesn’t fucking know what he wants.
“Talk fast,” he says, because he’s sure he wants that much. “Just fucking get it over with.”
Jefferson takes a long moment before he complies, and he. Looks so desperately grateful that Hamilton wishes he didn’t at all. It would make it easer to ignore him. To not listen to a goddamn word.
“It took me a week to find you,” Jefferson gets out in a rush of air, voice as hard to place as his expression. “I was scared out of my goddamned mind. I was so fuckin’ sure the last thing I was gonna see of both of you was that last look over my shoulder before I got chased off. It was—the worst goddamn week of my life. Worse than the first week of the fucking outbreak.”
It takes Hamilton a moment to realize what Jefferson is talking about: the blank-space in his memory spanning two weeks after his first bite. The time Hamilton spent drifting in the dark, days of black that only yellow could break through. Madison has never talked about those days; Hamilton has never asked. He’s certainly never asked what happened to Jefferson.
“Well, guess you got us to see us both again. Lucky you,” Hamilton says, eyes flicking away.
“Sure. But it was a long fucking week,” he tells Hamilton, voice older and wearier than it should be. He makes a sound more wounded than a sigh and looks towards the sky. “Longest goddamn week of my life. And I found you both, and I thought it would be alright, and as I’m going to Madison, he fucking breaks down. Because you were bit, and you were going to die.” Like broken glass, Jefferson laughs. Like molten silver, the moonbeams dance off his face. “Only you die, and you didn’t turn.”
“Shit, Jefferson, is there a point to this?” Hamilton asks, mouth dry, throat full of razors.
“Yeah,” Jefferson says, the word flat and final. “My point’s that I don’t wanna get infected and wait it out, count on maybe being the second person in hundreds of millions that’s immune.”
“And what—?”
“I’m asking you to take care of me if I get bit.”
Take care of me—now there's a fucking euphemism.
A dozen emotions hit Hamilton at once, but he finds anger and clasps on tight. Anger doesn’t force him to confront things he doesn’t want to think about. Anger, he can work with.
Anger is easy.
“Oh, sure. You want me to hand-dig your goddamned grave while I’m at it? Pick some fucking flowers? Write your damn eulogy? Because you can eat shit,” he snarls, shaking his head. “Don’t fucking put that on me. I’ve been through enough. I can’t take that, and I can’t take you talking about dying like you’ve already got one foot in the grace. If you get bit, choke yourself. ”
“And what if I can’t?” Jefferson pushes on, and Hamilton wants him to be angry, because then at least they can shout at each other, turn this into a fight, make it easier for him to blow up—but Jefferson’s not angry. He’s just tired and worn down and pleading, making this all that much harder. “I will, but if I can’t, Madison will want to. He’ll feel like it’s his responsibility.”
“And how’s that make it mine?” Hamilton counters, petulant, ashamed even as he asks.
Of course he knows the answer: Jefferson is the goddamn sun in Madison’s sky, and Madison’s world itself may as well go dark if the light in Jefferson’s eyes goes out. If Madison not only has to lose him, but to kill him—well, Hamilton isn’t Jefferson. Hamilton can’t drag Madison out of the dark. Probably couldn’t even find him in the dark in the first place.
How the fuck could Hamilton even think of doing that to him? To his friend?
In a rare bout of patience, Jefferson waits—that or he’s shocked into silence, too fucking angry to even find his voice. Hamilton refuses to look now, marinates silently in his shame.
Laurens didn’t ask you to kill him. He let you go.
Like he knew just how dark Hamilton’s world would already be.
“How much does it matter that you’re not one of them?” Hamilton at last gets out, dry-throated, voice so goddamn scratchy the words barely sound like English.
Silence comes long and heavy—but not angry.
“There’s only one other thing that scares me as much,” Jefferson eventually responds, his usually too-loud, too-slow, too-southern voice shaved down to something small and frail.
Hamilton thinks.
He remembers, remembers, remembers bullet-holes punched through bleeding skulls, remembers death, remembers Madison pleading with him, pleading for Hamilton to let him wait until after infection had burned his mind away—and that’s not fair, not a fair comparison to make, not fair, because Madison didn’t care then like he does now—did he?
Did he?
He couldn’t have.
But Hamilton, voice thin, eyes closed, tells Jefferson okay anyways.
And when Jefferson’s face loses its tension for the first time in weeks, at last seems to fully lose that pained-quality, even though it could cost him every damn thing he’s been scraping back together inside of himself, Hamilton feels like he’s made the right choice.
The one someone who gives a shit would make.
Still.
Hamilton doesn’t even have to ask. He doesn’t have to worry any longer about what’ll happen if he’s bitten, about whose responsibility it’ll be to pull the trigger. It’s not fair. It’s not fair that he’s backed into this fucking corner, made judge, jury, executioner (and only then because he’s the odd man out), and it’s not fair that he’s the only one among them that—
“Do you resent that I’m immune?” Hamilton blurts out, and familiar guilt flares hot and bright in his chest, the old should’ve been someone else mantra rattling loud and clear through his mind.
Of course he does, why wouldn’t he, it could be him or Madison, but instead, it’s you.
“What I resent is that you spend so much goddamn time tormenting yourself over it,” Jefferson answers without half a second’s hesitation. He looks at Hamilton out of the corner of his eye, goes on. “I resent that, sometimes, I swear that you believe the only damn reason we let you stick around is because you’re some kinda fuckin’ biological miracle.”
He straightens vertical in the water as if to drive home his point, swims close.
He’s—Hamilton blinks. There’s a sincerity in his expression like he’s been cracked open.
Not like earlier—not in desperation. Not like he is when he lets tiny slivers of the hurt and fear gleam through his blustering veneer. This is something else.
Of his own will, Jefferson lets Hamilton in.
“I don’t know if they can make a damn cure. I don’t know if we’ll even be able to find a place that could maybe make a cure, and I don’t know what a cure would cost you. The only damn thing I know is that—” And here he smiles their private smile, wry and haughty. “—even as much as you get on my nerves, even as regrettable as I sometimes find it, I give a shit about you.”
“I give a shit about you?” Hamilton imitates him, but his voice is weak, his throat dry. “Really? Heart-to-heart, a long-ass speech, and I give a shit about you is the best you can do?”
Jefferson laughs, the tension breaks, and, beneath the moonlight, in a moment that feels more like a memory, Hamilton forgets to hold his thoughts close to his chest, leaving himself vulnerable, cracked-open. He fucks up, and he pays for it.
“What, you want a fuckin’ love declaration?” Jefferson laughs.
Slipping through his cracked-open defenses, something faint, wistful, wanting.
The thought—less of a thought, more of an imprecise, indistinct feeling—chokes him before it’s even finished, wraps cold fingers around his neck and squeezes hard.
The imprecise sharpens, loneliness and hurt suddenly attaching hard and fast to something specific, something just as unobtainable, something precise, sharp, no—
Hamilton suddenly finds it hard to breathe at all.
His throat dries, his hearing cuts out—and Jefferson is still talking, going on, words like friend and trust and love sprinkled in his speech—and Hamilton can’t fucking breathe. He’s drowning under a yellow sky and the weight of all the water in the ocean.
No no no no no please no don’t do this no no no
“Hamilton?” he hears Jefferson ask, and Hamilton sees his face screwed with worry.
Jefferson swims closer, but suddenly he finds the proximity nauseating. Jefferson’s watching him too closely, and Hamilton’s suddenly afraid of what he’s going to see. If he’ll catch onto what’s sliding under Hamilton’s skin, trying to take root in his ribcage.
“I, uh, don’t feel good,” he manages, voice scratchy. “Too hot.”
And before Jefferson can get out another word, Hamilton slips below the surface.
(Sometimes it seems easier to just swim down).
Water cold and tight around his chest, he descends. Down, down, all the way down until his feet meet cool, muddy earth, and there’s nowhere left to swim.
(Sometimes it seems—)
The good thing about motorcycles, Hamilton thinks, is that they don’t facilitate conversation.
Which is good, because he’s still carefully compartmentalizing, still carefully denying whatever it is that’s worrying the fringes of his consciousness. He doesn’t want to talk.
The bad thing about motorcycles, Hamilton thinks, is that they fucking invent close quarters. The ride back to Montpelier feels much longer than it actually must be. He’s the first off the motorcycle once they pull inside the garage, halfway inside the house in an instant. Jefferson calls after him, maybe irritable, maybe worried, but Hamilton doesn’t stop to listen.
He peels down the stairs into the cellar, grabs the closest bottle, and starts drinking. If he drinks enough, gets fucking blackout drunk, maybe he’ll forget. Even better, maybe he’ll go into a fucking coma, forget the past two goddamn years. The bottle shakes as he pulls it away from his mouth.
“I feel the same,” a voice says, and Hamilton jumps, guiltily spins around.
It’s just Madison—is that any fucking better, though? He sits sprawl-legged with his back to the wall, a half-empty bottle in his hands and an empty one at his side. He looks strangely mussed, drunk, dark eyes too-focused as they try to make sense of Hamilton. There’s something deeply defeated in his eyes, something sad in his posture, but the worst of it has inevitably been dulled by alcohol, made bearable.
“Do you want me to get Jefferson?” Hamilton asks, already edging away.
Madison, studies him, then, valiantly, manages to stand.
“Come with me,” he says instead of answering.
Hamilton follows, finally hurries to match Madison step-for-step in case he falls. Madison takes him back to the closed door, into the piano room, directs him to sit on the bench, gently pries the bottle out of his hand. Madison guides his fingers over the keys, hands cool as they rest over his.
“Let me show you C Major,” Madison says. “That’s the easiest key.”
And, without quite knowing why, Hamilton lets him.
Madison at last sobers too much to want to keep company, and so Hamilton leaves without being asked. Goes to take a shower on Madison’s recommendation. When the water starts to heat up and steams fills the air, Hamilton steps beneath the almost too-hot spray. He washes pondwater out of his hair, blood and dirt from beneath his nails, scrubs his skin within an inch of being raw. The water strikes some of the tension out of his back, warms him until his skin is flushed, red. It doesn’t wash away the feeling. The cruelty, the violent fucking cruelty he’s inflicting on himself, the misery, the unbearable fucking misery he’s going to unleash.
One by one, Hamilton tries to pluck out the velvet-clawed talons piercing his chest.
Each try only drives them in deeper, sends them skirling closer and closer to puncturing his heart, and the wounds he leaves behind from trying well up wet and raw in his ribcage.
Slowly, carefully, Hamilton wraps what he feels up neat and tight, carefully coaxes it to the same place he keeps his grief, his fear, his worst parts. There are things that words can’t reach, and there are moments that he can’t acknowledge.
He leaves the shower clean, and he feels no better—but at least sleep finally comes.
Sleep goes.
His nightmares take on new forms. Not bloody, but undercut by anxiety. Always moving. Always chasing. Always reaching—and always coming away with nothing but air.
“As though as I’ve been stabbed,” Madison impassively answers before launching anew into a piece, some piece Hamilton’s never heard.
He doesn’t recognize the song, but it’s something gut-wrenching and cutting, raw as broken glass. Hamilton feels like he’s trespassing just by listening, has to force himself not to slip away, lest Madison turn around and find him gone. After a few measures, Madison stops mid-chord, makes a thoughtful sound, then carefully fills in notes on his manuscript paper.
It’s late afternoon, Jefferson is out doing fuck-knows-what, and Hamilton can’t fucking stand to be alone with his thoughts, not right now.
And that’s how he ended up alone with Madison in the piano room yet again, hot cup of tea in hands, how are you falling emptily from his mouth like there was any other answer Madison could give. Hamilton shifts on his feet. Madison keeps filling in notes.
“I brought you tea.”
“That was thoughtful. Thank you.”
“Well, do you want it?”
“Please.”
Hamilton shifts again, discomfort giving way to irritation. He’s quick to push it down, reminding himself that Madison has every fucking right not to feel conversational—but Madison must read something in his half second of silence. Madison sighs, low and weary, and then he turns, eyes so exhausted Hamilton can’t imagine how he’s still sitting upright.
“Come here,” Madison says, too soft to be a demand but too firm to be an invitation. He knows Hamilton too well, knows he’ll push back against both sides of the spectrum in pride. “We didn’t get far last night. I’ll show you A minor.”
Hamilton shifts on his feet, the cup of tea hot in his hands, beginning to burn his palms.
He tells himself he’s only crossing the room to set the cup down, but it doesn’t surprise him at all when he settles down onto the bench without another word. Guilt roils too hot and too tight in his chest for him to look over at Madison, so he settles for staring at the manuscript paper instead. The ink stains and scribbles splotching the page are so chaotic, so out of character and unlike Madison that he can hardly believe it was him who put them there.
“I used to write music frequently,” Madison quietly explains, observing. “I find it’s a helpful way to… organize my thoughts. Realign myself, so to speak.”
“What, when Jefferson can’t?” Hamilton asks, and he flinches when the words come out bitter.
“There are moments that words can’t reach,” Madison answers, quiet. If he’s noticed the edge in Hamilton’s voice, he doesn’t say so. “And Thomas is only a man, despite what he’d have you believe. He’d sooner let his spine break beneath my burdens than say a word.”
“And you wouldn’t?”
Madison is silent as he guides Hamilton’s fingers over the keys. They hover a moment, pensive, and then Madison’s eyes slide to meet his.
“You’re only a man too, Alexander.”
Hamilton never cared much about learning an instrument, but it indisputably chases the quiet away. He lets Madison offer to teach him as he pleases, and he always accepts. It’s easier to be around Madison. Easier than being alone with only his thoughts for company.
Certainly easier than being with Jefferson, who is slowly but surely watching Hamilton with narrowed, puzzled eyes. Jefferson isn’t oblivious. He can see the tight, rigid lines in Hamilton’s shoulders whenever he’s around. It’s easier to hide things he doesn’t have to think about. Not so easy to hide from something that’s always around, so often in front of him.
Hamilton pushes it down further. If he doesn’t think, doesn’t acknowledge it, there’s a chance it’ll go away. That he can walk away unscathed.
But all that aside, some selfish part of him likes being wanted.
Needed—needed first. Before someone else.
Minor scales. Major scales. Sharps, flats, sixteen notes, staccatos. Mostly, Madison is silent, reflective, always not-quite-entirely available. He shows Hamilton where to play, how to play, how to remedy mishit notes. Sometimes, he talks—quiet and reflective, almost like he doesn’t hear his own voice. He talks mostly about operas, orchestras, symphonies, about etudes and sonatas and nocturnes.
There are rare, fleeting moments where names are mentioned in passing, and when Hamilton at last connects the names to the ones carved into the tombstones behind the house, he understands.
Madison takes the worst parts of himself—the parts he won’t even let Jefferson see—and he sublimates them into something good. Something that won’t sink and settle like needles beneath his skin, always just one jolt away from spearing him straight through.
Madison is methodical, disciplined, careful in all things, grief included. Madison knows how to process these things. Knows how to create instead of destroy. Knows how to take things head-on. He’s better at these things than Hamilton.
(But is he really? Or did Hamilton just lose what made trying to move on worth it? Stop thinking trying to move on is worth the misery? What even is there to move on for? Nothing—not for him.)
“What are you thinking about?” Madison asks him one afternoon, and Hamilton blinks, startles.
The question is nothing special, but he can’t remember the last time someone asked him. Certainly can’t remember the last time he gave an honest answer. Would’ve had to have been John, he thinks, but there’s so much he can’t remember about the two of them anymore.
Thinking about John sends guilt straight down his spine, and the guilt only grows deeper when Madison’s eyes search his face, kinder and gentler than he deserves. Fuck, he never thought he’d miss Madison looking at him tight-lipped, disapproving, dispassionate but too indifferent to say a damn word.
“What do you mean?” he asks, hedging.
“You spend too much time in your own mind, Alexander,” is all Madison replies. “It might do you well to share every now and then.”
“What, you wanna start this Socratic circle? Not like you’re an open book either,” Hamilton retorts.
Madison’s hands rest atop the keys, mouth twisting into a wry, thin line. He begins to play.
“I was named after my father,” he says, voice thoughtful. “I inherited most of myself from him, I suppose.” A minor chord warbles from the piano as he pauses to think. “My oldest sister—Francis, spelled with an i—ah.” For the first time since they’ve arrived, Madison’s mouth tips towards a smile. “I hadn’t thought about that in years.” The scale switches to F major—something lighter. “The story, so I heard it, was that the ultrasound was misread. And, of course, she was given a name, then born—but they’d already had everything bought and ready for Francis as spelled with an i…”
It’s a tight fit on the bench with two grown men, and Hamilton has to pretend he doesn’t notice the way their thighs press against each other, the way Madison’s shoulder nudges into his every time he reaches over. He has to pretend that he’s the good friend Madison believes he is, even though he knows he’s not. He has to pretend like, somehow, whenever Madison stops talking, it’s only fair that he speaks.
But Madison doesn’t stop talking. Only ever pauses. Switches chords. Writes something down on his sheets of music. And when a beat of silence wears on when Hamilton still hasn’t found the words, Madison, patient beyond merit, finds something else to say.
That’s how it goes.
Madison composes. Hamilton learns. Jefferson waits.
Hamilton is distinctly on-edge, always aware of how out of his element he is. Between lessons, between walks with Jefferson, he wanders lost through the house.
And then one day, the worst of it is over.
Madison joins them for dinner. He sits next to Jefferson, slides his chair too close for polite company. Hamilton says nothing—acknowledging his absence will only make it more awkward—but there’s nothing at all that needs to be said. Not between the two of them.
Madison takes Jefferson’s hand, and if Jefferson’s shoulders shake just once, Hamilton pretends he hasn’t seen.
Madison goes on long, long walks. Sometimes alone, sometimes with him, sometimes the three of them—mostly just with Jefferson. Hamilton doesn’t know what the two of them talk about, but as the days wear on, the mystery starts to get to him.
He forces himself to focus.
Hamilton can finally put a name to it.
The indistinct, imprecise, ever-lingering hurt he last names: jealousy. The word strikes him as sick and ugly and twisted, screws guilt deeper and deeper into his heart. It’s maybe not always so much jealousy as it is envy or longing or something too nuanced to call anything but hurt, but there’s unmistakably jealousy in the mix. Thick jealousy, impossible to swallow down, burning hot and sour in his throat like bile.
He goes to sleep, and he never feels colder.
Madison spends less time in front of the piano, more time with Jefferson. Hamilton tries not to be bothered—how the fuck can he bothered, not when he doesn’t belong to either of them, not to anyone—but he is. It hurts. It hurts so fucking badly that he can hardly breathe.
What maybe hurts most of all is that they really are happy.
Madison smiles, tentative and fragile, and Jefferson smiles too-white like the sun in the sky decided to shine just for him. Even when Jefferson starts blustering, gesturing too-wildly with whatever utensil is in his hand as he debates with Hamilton over the dinner table, Madison watches him with a kind of old, warm, unfaded love that seems to belong more in a memory than real life.
They’re happy. That’s what you want. Madison is your friend, Jefferson’s—they’re your friends, for fuck’s sake. They’re happy. That’s good.
Hamilton wanders to the library: beautiful, vast, warm. He sits by the fireplace. Passes out reading on the ostentatious-rich-people-fucking-bear-rug. Surrounds himself with books.
Let them be happy together. Let them be happy. Don’t fuck this up for yourself.
“What’s that?” Jefferson asks at breakfast one morning, voice strained.
Hamilton looks over, follows his eyes to Madison's hand, the silver band slipped past the knuckle on his fourth finger. Madison’s eyes almost slide to Hamilton’s—then stop.
“I found it among my father’s things,” he explains, looking at his hand. “It was his wedding band. I didn’t want to leave it.”
Jefferson makes an unintelligible, slightly strangled sound, and Hamilton and Madison both pretend like they don’t know Jefferson is thinking of the ring stashed in the Escalade’s backseat.
They’re happy, but sometimes Hamilton wonders.
Wouldn’t they trade in this life for their old one in an instant, regardless of whether it erased him from the narrative? Would they wash him clean entirely if they could?
Wouldn’t they?
Of course they would.
Hamilton leaves breakfast early, and all day, he thinks of how they would’ve been happier if they’d never met him at all.
Hamilton goes to the wine cellar late that night. All he means to do is grab a few bottles of wine. Slink back to the library. Get wasted. But there’s light shining from the music room, and he finds his feet turning around, quietly creeping towards the door.
Meaning to enter, he cracks it open—but the music stops him.
A skirling, unhinged melody fractures the silence: harsh flats and wild sharps, staccato notes punctured by gasping, breathless rests. Musically incomprehensible, coherent only by its complete incoherence, a lifetime’s worth of grief crammed into a swan song.
The music takes him to Nevis, to New York, to Charleston—then back through all three again, hurt and hurt and hurt building on top of itself until it’s suffocating.
Harmonies swell around him. The song crescendos—a wounded, stinging shriek of keys. A soft refrain. Two chords. A few beats, silence. And then something soft, something regretful, and something that puts a sucking black-hole of sadness right into Hamilton’s chest.
Madison’s hands move to his lap. He sits still, silent—oblivious to his audience.
One last time, his hands go back to the keys.
Something sad. Something lost. And at the end, three quiet chords in a major key.
Madison breathes out, and, easily as that, Madison lets go. Or maybe doesn’t let go, per se. Let go is a strong word. But he lets go of something. Some kind of grief. Some kind of guilt. Lets go of enough of it to pry the needles underneath from out of his skin.
Absolution.
Madison lets go.
They leave Montpelier the next morning.
He lists the reasons.
- I’m writing this with one of his three-hundred dollar fountain pens, and, yeah, fine, it writes better than anything else. Whatever. He’s right that it’s the best fucking brand of pen out there, but he was a smug jackass about it. Also: knows about pen brands, which is a good reason to hate him on its own. What’s worse is that this piece of shit is engraved with his whole name.
- His teeth are too goddamn white, and I know he’s got fucking veneers, but he gets so goddamn offended every time I call him out on it. Who the fuck but Thomas Jefferson himself has an inferiority complex over veneers?
- Won’t shut the fuck up about France
- I almost beat him at chess, and he got so goddamned nervous I was going to win that I fucking swear he somehow cheated just so he didn't experience the humiliation of defeat.
- His stupid fucking yoga
- His stupid fucking workouts. There are no fucking wet t-shirt contents anymore, so put on a fucking shirt and be done with it. Vanity was born in 1982, and its name is Thomas Jefferson.
- His stupid fucking clothes. Not as bad as they used to be, but Jesus, the fact that anyone still dresses the way he does and hasn’t died yet is a goddamn miracle.
- He’s so goddamn brilliant, and he wastes it on being a fucking Democratic-Republican. Sometimes when he argues one of his awful fucking points, I almost even believe him.
- His goddamn laugh. I wish I’d punched him over it the first time I’d met him. I hate it so damn much. I want to shut him the fuck up every time. I fucking hate it. I swear I do.
- I punched him, and he chased after me. Who the fuck does that? Who the fuck gets punched, then decides to let them come along anyways? Why the fuck would he do that?
- It used to be so fucking easy to hate him, and now it’s not. I can't fucking go back. Why can’t I go back? Why am I such an awful fucking friend? I can’t fucking stand him, can’t fucking stand the way Madison trusts me, can’t fucking stand that I’m in love with him and that it doesn’t even matter, that it’s too late, that it was always too fucking late, and everything hurts so much, is it ever going to stop, please, just fucking make it stop, I can’t
It worked once, but not anymore.
June wears on: hot, steamy, unpleasant. July nears.
Hamilton checks himself constantly. Hides that, sometimes, some mornings, he can hardly breathe. Hides that the talons in his chest are getting tighter, not loosening. Hides the feeling that swirls and eddies beneath his skin like an oil-slick atop the ocean.
He can’t scrub himself clean. He ignores it. Tries not to let it touch him. Shoves down the sting and ache in his chest like he’d shove away a nightmare. Doesn’t think about it.
The two-year anniversary of the outbreak is coming close. There’s plenty to occupy his mind anyways. Things like the Schuyler sisters, Hercules, Burr—Burr, who he never even really hated, who he never thought to tell otherwise until it was too late. He occupies himself with that—with things he never said to distract himself from the things he can’t say now.
Not that there would be anything to say, he always tries to remind himself.
Almost two years now.
Some nights, he dreams of New York—before New York.
He prefers the nightmares. Nightmares only hurt while he sleeps; nightmares can’t hurt him when he’s awake. Thinking of the old New York can—and it does.
“Did you sleep?” Madison asks him every few mornings while he coaxes a mug of coffee into his hands. Not how did you sleep or did you sleep well—only ever did you sleep?
“Some,” he answers, and sometimes he’s not lying.
Most of the time he is, and Madison knows he is, but they leave it. Let the truth lie.
But he’s staying alive, and, most of the time, things are good as they get. Things aren’t even bad. Things are maybe even good—actually good, not relative good.
Madison smiles more than he ever has—and that means Jefferson smiles more too. And Hamilton is happy that they’re happy, so he tries to smile too.
They head northwest a while. Then south. Slowly start tracking east again.
Hamilton keeps his mind busy. He spares moments to wonder what the country’s heartland’s like, what the situation’s like in the western territories. There would’ve been less Redcoats stationed there, of course—but the English extraction was so hasty, so sloppy that it seems impossible that lots wouldn’t have been left behind.
And that takes him back to the most important distraction he has.
There has to be someone left in the country still trying to create a vaccine. Even if he can’t make it in one piece to England, there has to be something—
But what if there’s not? What if this is all he has?
It’s too much, and it’s too little, and he wants more and less and nothing and everything, and he doesn’t fucking know, he doesn’t fucking know what to do. Madison and Jefferson have fed him, clothed him, cared for him. They’ve let him come along. They gave him their friendship even before he wanted it and long before he ever let himself take it. They give and give, and he takes and takes.
And he still wants more.
You will never be satisfied.
Accusing, indicting, the phrase plays in his mind with a voice whose owner he can’t remember.
Madison is so fucking good to him. Too good. Makes him coffee in the mornings. Listens. Lets him rattle on and on and on without interrupting when that’s what Hamilton wants to do, even when the fond, subdued amusement in his eyes fades to tolerant irritation—but that last bit doesn’t happen often anymore. No, Madison might let him go on forever, never let the barely-there tick of his mouth slip. Madison, too good to him, too good for him, who chased Hamilton down to try to tell him no, you aren’t second best. Even if it couldn’t have been true.
How can Madison be so good to him? So good to someone that’s as much of a fuck-up as him? It’s all only because he doesn’t know. Doesn’t know that Hamilton is a fucking traitor to him. To his friendship, the friendship he gives so goddamn willingly, so goddamn unconditionally. Hamilton can’t let him know. Can’t let either of them know, can’t screw up the one good thing he’s had going for him ever since—
You will never be satisfied.
No, maybe not—but at least he doesn’t have to be alone. That has to be enough. If he doesn’t give himself away, he doesn’t have to be alone. Even never belonging is better than being alone. Even the wet-slick slide of a knife between his ribs every time Jefferson sees Madison and smiles is better than being alone.
(Jefferson always smiles. Every morning, every afternoon, every evening, every time he sees Madison, even if he’s only been gone just for a handful of minutes. How can a person look at someone the way Jefferson does? How can Hamilton be so in over his fucking head?)
Just stay alive. Stay alive—that’s enough.
“Good,” Madison tells him when he plays a piano chord right, manages a simple melody, and Hamilton can’t fucking look at him. Madison is too fucking good to him, and the guilt roils and swells until it boils over. “That was very-well done,” he tells Hamilton, smiling, too good, and—
“Don’t look at me like that,” Hamilton snaps.
Madison stills, and the warmth in his eyes quickly cools to nothing. There was a time when Hamilton always mistook Madison’s aloofness for dislike, but he knows now that he just as often wears it as a shield. Uses detachment as a defense, distances himself from certain things, certain sorrows. Guilt swells fresh in Hamilton’s chest, and he rushes half-thinking headfirst into an apology.
“I mean, don’t—it’s that…” What can he say? “I can’t fucking—Christ.”
Madison’s expression thaws the longer Hamilton struggles. He takes mercy, cuts Hamilton off with a hand placed on his shoulder, waits until Hamilton at last looks over.
“I understand,” he says kindly even though he can’t, not really, and it’s as easy as that. With that, Madison gives Hamilton forgiveness he never has earned nor deserves.
You don’t understand anything, Hamilton thinks, his throat thick.
When Madison is gone and the house is empty, he finds himself back at the piano.
He looks at it—walks away. Paces. Comes back. Leaves. Paces. Again. He wants Madison and Jefferson to come back. Starts to worry. Hasn’t been three hours even, stop worrying. Back to the piano.
God-fucking-damn-it-all.
Hamilton sits.
He fumbles his way through minor chords, keys clashing asynchronously every other measure—but he finds a rhythm after a few minutes, finds melodies, finds motifs and fitting chords. And the keys, the keys—they shriek.
He understands, then, Madison’s music.
He understands, understands that there’s something about it that takes everything that can’t ever be put into words, everything that he’s always going to have leave unsaid, and there’s so fucking much of it all—because there may never be another moment without this miserable-sick-guilt feeling, huh? He’s always, always going to be looking in from the outside. He’s always going to be drowning. Always going to be surrounded by what’s killing him, and it’s going to fucking hurt. It’s always, always going to fucking hurt.
Don’t belong never belong never have never will don’t have anything don’t have anyone nothing nothing not yours, nothing, alone, not alone no one nothing, alone, alone, alone—
Hamilton only realizes he’s forgotten to breathe when he has to stop, gasp for air.
So. This is it.
This is where he is.
This is the price of not being alone. He’s traded it one form of loneliness for another, takes one form of hurt, imprecise, flat-edged, generalized loneliness, and he’s turned it into a fucking dagger-point. And where’s the light at the end of the tunnel?
There is no fucking light. It’s just him. Madison and Jefferson. Madison and Jefferson—and him. It has to be enough—but it isn’t.
It isn’t, and he may have moments where he’s happy, moments of belonging, but it will never be enough. It will never last, and—
I will never be satisfied.
Hamilton sits, forearms falling onto the keys as he leans forward, resting his head on his arms. A minute passes, and at the end of it, he swears the floorboards behind him creak. But by the time he turns around, he’s alone.
If he ever wasn’t at all.
Notes:
jesus. long end notes. it's been a minute! and, unfortunately, it will be another minute before i'm here again. i'm busy as fuck right now and need to take a little pressure off myself, so i'm putting DOAN on a semi-hiatus. except one, maybe two more updates before the end of the year. by 2021, i should be be out of crunch-time and back to 1-2 updates a month
in the meantime, here's the next side fic in this series to tide you over. this one's for our dear brick wall mr. madison: so comes the cadenza
alright--that's all! have a good week :)
Chapter 7: A Damage You Can Never Undo
Notes:
this chapter title is from congratulations. congratulations to me for not being dead and for you for still being here after my very extended hiatus. it's emotional trauma hours! but if you haven't already, let yourself be traumatized by the james madison side fic here
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
To tell the truth, Hamilton always half-overlooked Madison before the outbreak. In a sea of flashier, louder politicians, Madison faded into the background. He understands the game now in a way he never would’ve otherwise: when Jefferson talks, Madison watches. He’s the rook backing Jefferson’s knight, the equal opposite reaction to every action.
When Jefferson talks, Madison watches. Not just Jefferson—he watches their surroundings too.
Watches him.
He’s sure that Madison doesn’t know the worst of it—not yet—but he’s not sure he wants to know everything Madison sees. He doesn’t want to know if Madison’s realized that Hamilton’s studying him because he doesn’t look at Jefferson unless he has to. Hamilton can still see Madison clearly, at least.
The draw of his brow over his serious face. The way he smiles: subdued little twists at the corners of his mouth. His eyes, sharp and unreadable.
Madison sees it all in clean lines, everything precise and perfect, exactly as it should be. Hamilton is an aberration in his world. A fucking traitorous bastard with a knife to his back.
Hamilton looks at Madison anxiously, watching, gauging, weighing what he knows.
And he doesn’t look at Jefferson unless he has to. That’s what’s best.
One by one, he begins to rebuff Jefferson’s little gestures of friendship—an invitation to play chess after dinner, an offer to loan him a book that they could discuss. He accepts just enough advances to avoid outright suspicion, but even when he does, he stays distant, at arm’s length—slips right underneath from the perfectly friendly arm around his shoulder, averts his eyes, eats faster at meals so he can escape the room sooner.
He looks away from Jefferson.
Madison is clever, perceptive, so skilled at reading him, and it’s him who will almost certainly be the first to find out that Hamilton has taken Jefferson’s friendship only to greedily, selfishly want for more. It doesn’t matter if he never says it aloud or never acts on it; the feelings are betrayal enough on their own.
And when they don’t go away like he so desperately hopes, he gradually has to come to terms with knowing that one day, he’ll slip. Make some mistake, smile at Jefferson in some way that pulls back the curtain.
And what then? What will he do?
Sometimes—only ever for fractions of a second—he catches Madison watching him with a look that he can’t quite make sense of.
Hamilton wakes up one morning to the smell of something he’s gone so long without that he can’t name it. It's a good smell, thankfully, something light and sweet and vaguely spicy. Infinitely better than the blood and rot he’s grown jaded to.
He rolls out of bed, tugs on pants and a shirt, then bounds down a flight of steps to follow the smell. To his surprise, it’s Jefferson in the kitchen, leaning over their camping stove. He doesn’t Hamilton for a moment, too occupied with the contents of a cast iron pan.
“Morning,” he says once he at last glances up—and then his mouth twists into a wry smile that’s almost pained. “Well, Happy Independence Day, huh?”
Hamilton blinks, abruptly stopping midway to the stove.
“It’s the fourth of July?”
“Mhm. Two-year anniversary of declaration, two year apocalypse anniversary. I’m being an optimist today, so happy fuckin’ birthday to the United States.”
Hamilton doesn’t know quite how to process that. He knew it was close, sure, even strongly suspected that they’d slipped from June into July, but still. Two years.
Two years since he was last in New York. Two years since he last went to class. Saw most of his friends. Two full years since he sat next to Laurens in their apartment and watched a detached Jefferson read from a piece of paper as the world started to crumble.
Things had been so different. Then, the space between Hamilton and Jefferson had been the irreconcilable distance between the couch and the TV. Now they’re separated by nothing but a few feet, but Laurens is on the other side of a curtain Hamilton can’t pierce.
(But who would he rather even reach?)
Two years. Not much time at all. Not much time to lose everything from his old life except the photo strip he’s left upstairs. Two years for Jefferson and Madison to go from enemies he hadn’t yet properly met to the only two people he has left.
Fuck, he wants a smoke.
“What are you making?” he at last asks, stiffly making his way to the stove and peering at the golden-brown swirls of what looks like dough inside the pan.
“Cinnamon rolls,” Jefferson responds right as Hamilton identifies them. Cinnamon: that’s the smell. “Never thought I’d say it, but thank god for fucking preservatives. Found a shelf-stable roll of dough in a house a few weeks back. Been saving ‘em for something special.”
“Fuck,” Hamilton says, mouth-watering. “These look fantastic.”
“Yeah, well, they’d be better if I coulda made ‘em from scratch, but…”
Hamilton dubiously arches his brows, glances askance. He’s sure Jefferson is leading him on so he can brag about some shit or another, but he takes the bait anyways.
“You know how to cook cinnamon rolls from scratch?”
“Mhm.” Self-satisfied, Jefferson smirks: definitely bait. “Used to be what I made on special occasions. Breakfast-in-bed.”
“I have a hard time believing you’d ever boiled a pot of water on your own before the outbreak.”
Jefferson spends a moment deciding whether he wants to look offended before admitting,
“Made it to my twenties before I did. Probably still wouldn’t’ve if I hadn’t had a girlfriend that told me she’d dump me if I didn’t learn.” He laughs at some memory Hamilton’s not privy to, mouth pulling into a smile that’s just a little sad. “She said it was, uh, pitiful that a grown-ass law student couldn’t even scramble an egg.”
The admissions dredge up a memory Hamilton had forgotten he even had. What seems like a lifetime ago, Eliza had always invited him to Sunday night dinners with her sisters. He remembers standing in the kitchen in Angelica’s apartment, remembers the yellow walls, but he can’t remember her face. He can’t see her in his memory, but he can imagine the way her brows arched at him as he stood at the sink, unimpressed.
“You expect me to give you my blessing to date my sister when you don’t even know how to peel a potato?”
It's not her voice he hears, only his imagination’s best approximation, but it feels real anyways.
“Was Angelica the one who told you that?” Hamilton asks unthinkingly. Jefferson glances up, surprised, and, after he’s recovered from the shoot of sorrow that takes hold of his expression, he looks away. “Yeah. She wasn’t impressed with my cooking skills either.”
Hamilton crosses the kitchen to heat some water for coffee and tea; if Jefferson’s awake, Madison will be down soon. Silence stretches on, and there’s a look somewhere between horror and surprise on Jefferson’s face when Hamilton looks at him again.
“Christ, don’t tell me you dated her too.”
“No,” he replies—almost too fast. Jefferson settles down. His throat tightens, and he’s not sure why he admits it, but he does. “I dated Eliza.”
Jefferson’s head snaps back towards him. Visible surprises washes over his face before he turns away shaking his head, muttering something under his breath.
“What?” Hamilton sharply asks, a wave of defensiveness crashing over him, irritated that he’s opened up only to get a cold shoulder in return.
“You know, I was a politician. All my friends were politicians. Half my fucking exes were politicians. And yet you still manage to be the cagiest motherfucker I’ve ever known.”
“What, it’s a crime not to overshare? You wanna know my social security number too?”
“For fuck’s sake Hamilton, I didn’t even know you weren’t gay until twenty seconds ago.” Hamilton blinks, and while he’s still taken aback, Jefferson shakes his head, sighs. “But who fucking knows? Maybe you are and that was just a one-off. How would I know?”
He’s weirdly fucking hung up on it, obnoxiously petty as he fiddles with the pan. Hamilton scowls in response, steps closer up into his space even though some part of his mind chimes in that it’s a bad idea.
“C’mon, you seriously care about everyone I’ve dated?”
“I couldn’t give less of a damn about who you’ve dated. I care about feeling like I know you,” Jefferson sighs, runs a hand over his face. “I don’t know shit about whole swaths of your life. I don’t know anything about where you grew up or what it was like. I don’t know when you came to the American colonies. I don’t know anything about what was important to you.”
“Does any of that matter?” he asks, voice brittle. “It’s all gone now, isn’t it?”
Jefferson glances over to him.
“All of that matters to me. But… fuck it. Forget it,” he dismisses the entire thing, irritatingly flat. “I know you’ve got reasons you don’t wanna talk, and that’s fine.”
Hamilton ignores him, goes back to his pot of water. Makes himself a cup of coffee, makes one for Jefferson. Lets the water heat up a little more for the tea.
“Bisexual,” he says at last, looking down into the mugs.
“What?”
“I’m bisexual. Since you wanted to know.”
There’s a pause, then Jefferson half-smiles at him. Hamilton feels like he should leave the room before he lets something that he can’t take back slip.
“Aren’t your rolls done?” he asks instead, breaking the moment.
Jefferson looks at him a second longer, then he too turns away.
“Just about,” he says, lifting the pan off the flame.
He rustles through cabinets until he finds a set of china, then pulls apart a third of the rolls onto the plate, drizzles them with white icing from a little plastic tub. Hamilton doesn’t have the patience to wait, just swipes a finger over the rim of icing and sucks.
“Kind of fucking fancy for breakfast, don’t you think?” Hamilton asks with an arched brow at the china as he grabs a cinnamon roll.
“Kind of fucking savage of you to just tear that shit apart bare-handed,” Jefferson shoots back. Hamilton just smirks, shoves another chunk of pastry into his mouth. “You’re fucking uncivilized.” Jefferson rolls his eyes. “I’ll be back downstairs to eat with you in a few minutes.”
“Back downstairs?” he asks, worry creasing his brow. “Madison sick or something?”
Vague discomfort flashes across Jefferson’s face, and Hamilton instantly suspects he’ll regret asking.
“Like I said a minute ago—I, uh, make breakfast in bed for special occasions.” At Hamilton’s blank look, he elaborates. “It’s the fourth. You know. Our anniversary.”
“Oh. Uh. Right.” He turns away, tries not to think too much. Doesn’t think about how he’s getting pushed to the side yet again. About the stab of jealousy in his chest, or the hot splash of guilt that follows. “Hold on.” He pours a glass of hot water, scrounges up a tea bag, hands it over. “Take a cup of tea up too. Make it full service.” His smile feels razor-thin.
Jefferson feels bad for him. Hamilton knows it with a certainty that prickles like needles under his sting. He thinks you’re fucking pathetic, Hamilton tells himself with so much vicious contempt that it surprises even him. He keeps all of it from showing, just pastes on a neutral, pleasant expression that he’s afraid Jefferson will see straight through.
“Don’t eat the rest of the rolls. I’ll be back to finish ‘em off with you,” Jefferson promises.
Hamilton waits just until he’s gone up the steps to slip his fingers in his pocket and clasp around the worn edges of an old photo strip that he rarely looks at anymore.
Jefferson comes back down as promised twenty minutes later. Madison’s much quieter footsteps pair with his, almost perfectly in sync. But Hamilton’s cleared out of the kitchen by then and doesn’t feel like talking, so he’s splayed out on the couch, pretending to be asleep. The footsteps slow then still at the base of the stairs.
“Is he asleep?” Jefferson asks in quiet French
Madison pauses almost imperceptibly before answering. Hamilton gets the distinct impression that he’s not fooling him. Either way, Jefferson lingers a moment, edges nearer, then stops. Pulls the frayed blanket off the back of the couch and lays it over him. Goes back upstairs. Madison hesitates another moment, then follows.
Sometimes, laughter filters down the stairwell.
When he can’t stand pretending like he’ll ever fall asleep any longer, he throws off the blanket, leaves to get fresh air. An infected on the sidewalk outside clicks in greeting at the sound of the door opening; he puts a knife through its neck before it can think of coming inside. The rest of the street is empty and quiet at least, so he resolves to go scavenging.
It’s easy. Mindless. Rummaging through cabinets and drawers and closets, pick out things of interest. After so long, it feels less invasive than it should. Feels less like he’s rooting through the remains of lives that probably no longer exist. That might still exist—but only as violent scooped-out shells—and that’s worse.
There’s not much in the way of food anywhere—nearly every pantry has been picked clean after two years—but he comes up with other things. He finds a canister of gas, beer, a new insulated water bottle to replace the one he has that was dented to hell the week before while he bashed in an infected’s head—a close scrape.
And then there’s the last house. An infected in stained, discolored overalls lingers in the stairwell, but he takes it out with little fanfare. One room is full of charcoal drawings pinned to the wall—sketches of statues and bridges and landmarks. There are a few faces, but all are vaguely smudged, like the features are intentionally hard to make out. Maybe they are.
Hamilton ends up at the desk in the corner, looks down at an immaculate set of charcoals and a sketchpad. He doesn’t quite know what possesses him to do it, but he takes it, tucks it into his pack. There’s not much else of interest around until he finds the ladder leading up to the attic. He debates a moment, but at last climbs.
The space above is colorful, bright, lit by broad windows and skylights. It smells sour, which makes sense, because paint’s splattered everywhere. Dozens of canvases lay propped up against walls, on easels, in stacks. Flowerpots sit in the corner of the room, brown plants so wilted he’s sure they’ll crumble if he touches them.
Hamilton has never cared much about art, but he feels his heart squeeze in his chest as he approaches the closest easel and recognizes the skyline. Smoke rises in great waves up into a blood red sky as New York burns in the distance. In the foreground, the Brooklyn Bridge crumbles. Little smudges of paint that he knows must be people and infected spill over without direction. Somewhere in the jungle of burning buildings is his old apartment, he knows.
Something deeply wounded in his chest rears its head. He rips his eyes away.
The rest of the canvases are similarly grim: burning skylines, bombed-out shells of cities, destruction, chaos, death. The most disturbing paintings are those of infected—the close ups, the ones so lovingly and painstakingly painted that the gnashing teeth seemed as though they’re half a second from sinking into his flesh. Dead, bloodshot, vicious eyes stalk him as he moves through the room.
At the far end of the room, just in front of a full-length mirror, there’s a portrait of a young woman with thick dark hair and flat, resigned eyes. Parts of the painting are unclear, grow blurred, like the artist was painting with a shaky hand. And on the woman’s neck, there’s a deeply gouged wound with teeth marks on full display that looks just like his used to.
She’s wearing overalls.
“Alexander?” Madison asks.
He snaps out of his thoughts, yanks his hand away from the scar on his neck, snaps,
"What?”
It doesn’t even faze Madison, Madison who’s good to him even when Hamilton doesn’t deserve it, when he has no right to call himself Madison’s friend in the first place. Guilt crashes over him, but Madison speaks before he can decide how to apologize.
“You looked like you were lost in thought.”
Hamilton feels even worse now, because that’s Madison’s polite euphemism for you look fucking miserable. He says it to Jefferson sometimes when he’s gone too long without saying something obnoxious—an invitation to get whatever is bothering him off his chest.
And Jefferson takes it, spills out his worries while Madison runs a thumb over the back of his hand, presses his lips to his knuckles. But that liberty isn’t Hamilton’s to take, and even if it were, there’s no way he could reveal everything that’s bothering him.
“I was,” Hamilton answers for the sake of common courtesy.
He shifts in his seat, makes it clear that he doesn’t want to talk, and Madison reluctantly goes back to his conversation with Jefferson. Hamilton listens halfheartedly, but it’s something about an opera that he doesn’t know about or care to know about, so he drifts back into his mind, peers out the window of the Escalade. They’ve been in the car a couple hours already—Jefferson insisted on driving—and they’re somewhere in Maryland.
The close proximity kickstarts his claustrophobia, and he desperately, desperately wants to get out of the car, escape to somewhere where Madison and Jefferson can’t look back at him and wonder what’s weighing on his mind. He closes his eyes and tries to block them out .
It eventually occurs to him that the car’s gone silent save for the quiet piano through the speakers. Hamilton glances up to the front, finds Madison dozing, Jefferson humming along to the melody. He shouldn’t, but with Madison asleep and Jefferson focused on the road, he looks.
At his broad shoulders and ridiculous fashion. The ear whose top third is missing, that Jefferson hides beneath his hair, the one Hamilton barely ever catches a glimpse of because Jefferson’s so goddamn vain that he’s still not over it.
He doesn’t look at Jefferson’s mouth. That, he avoids for the sake of self-preservation.
But he takes in everything else, feels his chest grow tight with everything he can never say. None of it is his to notice, and none of it is his to say, let alone appreciate.
It’s not fucking fair. Nothing is fair.
Jefferson makes a sound, drawing Hamilton from his reverie. He jolts, flinches, goes stiff when he sees Jefferson’s eyes are on him in the rear view mirror and most likely have been for longer than is unobjectionable. His mouth twists into a mocking scoff.
“You’re pathetic, you know.” He turns around in his seat, white smile flashing sharp. Hamilton feels an ingrained instinct to snarl, to throw up defenses, but he finds all he can is wilt, crumple inwards beneath the weight of humiliation, the hot flash of loathing in Jefferson’s eyes. His limbs feel heavy. His tongue tastes like blood and lead. “Some fucking friend you are.”
The car jolts to a stop—and Hamilton gasps awake, disoriented, confused, a gaping hole in his chest where his heart should be. It takes him a moment to differentiate dream from reality, fact from fiction, and by the time he’s settled enough to sink back into his seat, Jefferson’s worried eyes are on him.
“Do you want—?”
“No,” he snaps, sharply enough he just knows he’ll put Jefferson into a snit.
Predictably, his eyes narrow. He turns away scowling.
Great, now you’ve been a fucking jackass to both of them today. Good fucking job.
He doesn’t care. He tells himself he doesn’t so many times he almost believes it, tells himself that he’s not still bruised from something his subconscious told him—because he’s not.
Hamilton hastily slides out of the car—fucking coward, just run away, why don’t you?—and looks around, blinking in surprise when his eyes find blue water and sand where he expects to see none. They’re at a beach, which doesn’t quite match Hamilton’s geographical knowledge of where they are—or where they should be.
“—you said we were in Maryland,” Madison remarks as he exits the passenger’s side, clearly having arrived at the same conclusion.
"Mhm, and I strategically misled you,” Jefferson drawls, coming around the front of the car to flash an obnoxiously self-satisfied grin. “Happy anniversary, baby.”
He tunes out their conversation and turns away, digs into their surroundings. There’s a nice little white house off to the side of the driveway—then just beyond that, a tall stark white lighthouse. The ocean is endless, blue, and the beach is wide and crisp white. He sees a dark figure staggering on the shore in the distance, but its movements are lurching, uncoordinated. He makes a note to go down and take care of it later.
“So where are we?” Hamilton asks once Madison and Jefferson untangle from a sweet kiss. He tries to sound upbeat, an olive branch for his irritability earlier. “Not in Maryland, I’m guessing.”
Jefferson’s eyes narrow a second, but he accepts the gesture.
“Nah. This is ‘bout twenty miles north of Jamestown.” He motions to the lighthouse. “Jane Jefferson Memorial Lighthouse—commissioned by my father after my mother died. Used to spend weekends and summers vacationing here. It’s nice and secluded, good to get away.”
“Damn. You had a beach house to escape to, and I had the corner bodega.” It’s a joke, but there’s an uncomfortable note in this tone that humor can’t hide.
He can tell there’s more history here than Jefferson’s letting on, some special significance the place holds—Jefferson wouldn’t have driven them all the way out here if there wasn’t. Madison wouldn’t look as touched otherwise.
Hamilton turns away.
“Well, I’ll let you get settled in. Gonna, uh, check out the area,” he says.
“I’ll come with—”
“No, it’s all good. Consider it an anniversary gift.” He checks his watch—eleven thirty—tries not to think about just why he’s clearing out. “I’ll be back at three.”
“Don’t need that long,” Jefferson tells him, an edge of guilt in his voice.
“Yeah, I’m sure you don’t,” Hamilton shoots back, brushing off the fucked-up blend of guilt and jealousy and bitterness in his throat. He forces a smirk, calls out over his shoulder as he turns to head nowhere at all but away. “But maybe you would if you’d try being more considerate.”
He kills the infected down at the beach. There’s blood on his hands, so he dips his hands into the water, washes himself clean. Pulls off his sneakers and socks and walks barefoot in the surf.
He feels like he’s looking for someone while he walks. There’s no one to find, he knows. He’s not even sure who he’s looking for to begin with, but the feeling sticks to him like a sandburr in his heel. Because whatever he’s looking for is gone. He can’t find it.
For a split second, he thinks he hears footsteps sinking in the soft hand behind him, but when he turns, there’s no one there.
There never was.
It’s past three when he finally makes his way back.
Music drifts from the house as he returns—piano, Madison playing—but something else too. Another instrument. There’s a second melody: elegant, glassy, pretentious notes from some unknown instrument drifting outside. Hamilton almost goes on edge, but reason dictates that there’s no one else it could be but Jefferson.
The duet finishes just as he makes it to the front porch. As he quietly steps inside, he just catches the tail end of Jefferson saying,
“...didn’t say I didn’t like it. It’s just… uh, different.”
Hamilton debates listening a second longer, eavesdropping, but he can’t. The last goddamn thing he wants is another fucking secret. As he walks by the door, they take note of him and go silent, and, fuck, maybe he should’ve just left and come back later. Maybe he should leave, let them finish without him there to fuck things up.
But Jefferson looks strangely awkward and off-kilter, and Madison looks distinctly uncertain, almost grateful to have had him interrupt. It doesn’t track with anything he’s seen from either of them before, so he doesn’t leave. Instead, he looks at the instrument in Jefferson’s hand—a brown wood stringed thing—and rolls his eyes.
“Leave it to you to play the only instrument more elitist than the piano.”
“Mmhm,” Jefferson preens after an indistinct pause, falling almost perfectly back into obnoxious overconfidence. “Even better: it’s a Stradivarius.”
“Is that some kind of reference I’m too poor to understand?” he asks; Jefferson falls just as comfortably back into bragging as Hamilton does into their bickering.
“Well, it woulda been a multi-million dollar gift two years ago, so I think that counts for something. If you had any taste in music, you’d know.” He laughs, but it’s playful, nothing mocking in the sound. Hamilton almost wishes there was.
Jefferson studies him a moment longer, smiling brightly, then tips his head towards a loveseat in the corner of the room, smiles wider.
“Sit down. I’ll play something for you, show what an actual violin player sounds like. Trust me, you've never heard a real one before," he brags, blustering louder than ever to make up for whatever threw him off earlier. "Pick something. Whatever you like! I’m feelin’ generous.”
Beside Jefferson, Madison blinks, brows lifting in surprise, but he schools his expression just as quickly. It’s so out-of-place that Hamilton files the reaction neatly away and resolves to examine it later. Fuck, he’s been off their entire conversation. He's not a talker like Jefferson, thank god, but he always has something to add.
“The Flight of the Bumblebee,” Hamilton tells Jefferson after a moment.
It’s one of the few songs he knows violinists play, and, more importantly, he remembers Madison commenting once on how long it took to learn the song’s piano arrangement, so he doesn’t really think Jefferson will be able to do it. He doesn’t need to boost the man’s ego too much. And he doesn’t need to be any more impressed than he already is.
Maybe screwing it up will bruise Jefferson’s pride enough that he’s quiet enough for an hour or two. Just long enough to give Hamilton some rest. Enough time for things to feel like normal again. Because he misses it so fucking much, misses the friendship without the threat of them finding out. Even then he was on the outside, but at least it was easier. Easier to be on the outside of a friendship than someone’s heart.
Jefferson rolls his eyes. He probably sees what Hamilton’s trying to do, just without fully understanding why. At least he doesn’t call him out on it.
He just lifts the violin. Takes the bow. And he plays.
It’s a little sloppy. A little unsteady. The notes clog up in places, and it’s probably slower than it was written to be. But it’s got feeling. More feeling than Hamilton thinks classical music does—Jefferson’s touch, he figures. It’s good. Really good.
And it dries out Hamilton’s throat like few things ever have.
The two of them head down to the beach for a walk while the sun sets. They invite Hamilton along. He declines once, twice, but Madison at last convinces him to come along with a look that’s mixed parts exasperation and a demand.
It’s later in the evening, almost sunset by the time they leave, so it’s not so unbearably hot with the breeze. Hamilton just lingers half a step behind and zones out from their conversation. He finds himself thinking instead, and despite urging himself not to let his mind wander that way, his mind grows green with jealousy.
They’re so goddamn synced up, even when they walk. Jefferson, that much taller, slows his long strides and Madison, shorter, speeds up just so to make their paces perfectly aligned. It’s effortless. Entirely unconscious. Years and years of partnership in a movement.
He’s lucky their anniversary is on the date of the outbreak. It gives him an excuse to be withdrawn, cranky, upset. It’s lucky, because he doesn’t know what he wants. If he wants to be Madison or to be in his place. If he wants Jefferson to be perfectly synced up to him instead. But he’s not Madison. He could never be him, and Jefferson could never love anyone else as much. Even if Madison weren’t around, Hamilton could never make Jefferson as happy.
“Hamilton?” Madison asks.
He snaps to attention, but forces down the snarl in his throat, swallows hard, gets out a much more amicable, “What?”
“I asked what you thought of the beaches.”
“Oh.” His eyes dart to the ocean. “Uh, well, it’s nice. Not quite the Caribbean, I guess.”
“If it’s not good enough for you, I could sail us down there,” Jefferson laughs.
“You know how to sail?"
“Sure. Me and Sam and John learned at summer camp.” He predicts the sarcastic curl of Hamilton’s lips and deprives him of the pleasure of bitching by cocking a brow and adding, “Mhm, you’re right, that is elitism in practice.”
Hamilton’s scowl deepens, and Jefferson’s smirk widens. I fucking hate you, Hamilton tells himself, desperately wishing it were still true. It was so much easier to hate him instead.
It was so much easier to hate him when he was nothing but an elitist asshole in Hamilton’s mind. How the markers of their childhood mange to be so wildly fucking present even into the end of the world astounds him—the way they talk, dress, act, how Madison and Jefferson can’t stand to rough it like he can, haven’t ever slept contorted into all the strangest shapes to find at least some semblance of protection, how they get grumpy after two nights of sleeping in the Escalade in a row, how they never feel compelled to skip meals—and sure, they’ll ration if their food is low, but not like he would. Not like he did.
Jefferson glances back out towards the ocean, thoughtful. Hamilton watches him for a moment and tries to tell himself their lives had been too different, too irreconcilable to make a relationship work anyways. He can’t ever be Madison, and he could never fit with Jefferson the same way.
“Long time since I last sailed, but I was half-decent at it. Not as good as John, but bet I could still do it.” He sucks in a breath through his teeth, shakes his head mournfully. “Fuck, what I wouldn’t give to go back to the Bahamas. Pool-side bar at a resort sounds damned good.”
“A cold drink would be nice,” Madison says, undoing another button of his shirt. “Every day, I mourn the loss of air conditioning more and more.”
“Then you probably don’t wanna go live in the Bahamas now,” Hamilton dryly remarks.
“You lived there, so guess you’d know,” Jefferson concedes.
Hamilton sends him a look out of the corner of his eyes.
“I grew up in the Caribbean,” he replies coolly, gratified when Jefferson makes an oh, fuck face. He forces himself to suppress any lingering irritation, shrugs. “But at least it’s windy. Forgot how fucking stale the air feels away from the water.”
“The beaches are nice, at least?”
“Guess so. Didn’t really go down to the water the last little bit I was in Nevis.” He wets his lips, an old flare of anxiety making itself known. “Not a big fan after the hurricane.”
There’s a half a second where they both process that, which is just as long Hamilton needs to realize that, no, he doesn’t think he’s ever mentioned the hurricane before. He glances sideways, pleading silently that they’ll just drop it, but only Madison catches the look.
“You were in the Caribbean during the hurricane? The one back in, what, ‘06?” Jefferson asks, concern creasing deep into his brow alongside something soft Hamilton finds he can’t stand.
“Thomas,” Madison says, gentle but pointed, but Jefferson either doesn’t hear him or doesn’t pay attention, because he zeroes in on Hamilton with a pity that makes him tense up.
“I, uh, I’m sorry. Saw the clips afterwards. Whole fucking archipelago got flattened.”
“I know. I was there,” Hamilton snaps, harsher than he means to, but he’s in such an unstable frame of mind between their anniversary and everything else that he can’t soften his words in time. “And I also know that you both were in office working on the relief package—which wasn’t fucking enough, by the way.”
Jefferson’s sorrow twists into guilt. He looks genuinely upset, Hamilton realizes—something he didn’t want at all. Good fucking job, he snarls at himself. He knows it’s not fair of him to blame them, certainly not when Jefferson is just trying to comfort him.
“You know just as well as we do that the colonies collect no taxes. What we send to fund intercolonial relief comes out of what money we get from England,” Madison firmly points out, coming between them before Hamilton can do any more damage. “The responsibility laid with England to supply appropriate aid—which they did not.
Hamilton forces himself to breathe, inhales sharply before he’s able to concede.
“No. They didn’t do a goddamn thing.”
Their walk is quieter after that. Hamilton finds he regrets ever having come along at all.
Madison and Jefferson go up in the lighthouse to watch the sunset. He doubts they would’ve invited him, but he makes himself unavailable anyways. Once they’re out of the house, he retreats out of the stuffy house to sit on the back porch overlooking the ocean.
It’s nicer now that the sun has set, but his mind won’t slow down enough to appreciate a damn thing. It’s all focused on every conversation he’s had that day: backtracking and reviewing all he’s said, every expression he’s made, trying to track if he’s let through any hints slip.
What he finds is that he’s fucking awful. He’s miserable, and he’s fucking miserable to be around. He feels like shit. He is a piece of shit.
Self-loathing rolls over him in a wave, sours the taste on his tongue.
Was there a single goddamn moment the entire day where he was happy?
Hamilton goes to bed before the two of them come down, but he’s awake hours later when they come in. They murmur in whispers that don’t quite make it through the door, but the thought that they’re there together, the knowledge that they’re going to sleep in each other’s arms fills him with aching loneliness from his fingertips to his chest.
He dreams about yellow skies and rain and death and blood dripping from his neck. Voices cry in his dreams, and he can’t find them. He can hear them. But he can’t find them. Can never get to them. Only hears them cry. Can’t reach them.
It’s worse when the crying stops and even worse when he wakes up and his first thought is to search for Jefferson and Madison.
He goes crabbing with his line and net before the sun’s even fully risen. He needs to do something, needs to distract himself somehow. The thought of being around when Madison or Jefferson wakes up seems too oppressive to bear. There’s a set of foldable fishing poles in the Escalade, but the sets of keys are with Jefferson and Madison, so he improvises, dips back into childhood memories to remember what to do.
The line is just a fishing string he’s found lying around, the net an old dip net. A weight and canned tuna on the end of the line, he casts the line into the water, waits. Within half an hour, he’s remembered his old technique, the one his brother taught him in the times before they were split up: wait, reel, net. He catches half a dozen crabs before ten, spends the rest of the early afternoon scavenging up a decent bucket of clams and oysters.
He mostly succeeds in not thinking about his brother. Wondering if he's still alive. It's not hard. Not when they'd lost contact years before the outbreak.
It's not hard.
(It is.)
Lunch is good: Jefferson supposedly spent a fair amount of time in the old Creole colonies down by the Mississippi, manages to whip up a half-decent seafood boil, even though he spends the whole time complaining about the absence of butter. They compensate with spices and hot sauce.
“Mm. You’re gonna have to teach me how to catch ‘em like this,” Jefferson says between bites of crab. “Fuck. I’d wake up before sunrise too to eat like this every day.”
“I woke you up when I left?”
“Yeah, well, you know how it is.”
Hamilton doesn’t, but there’s some look shared between Madison and Jefferson he can’t quite decipher. He wonders if he should try. But he’s afraid of what he’ll find if he looks too hard—just like how he’s afraid of what they’d find if they did the same. He eats silently.
He knows that today he doesn’t have the two years since the outbreak excuse, knows that he needs to at least put on some pretense of happiness not to rouse suspicion, but it seems like too much to manage for the moment. He’s still hurting from all of yesterday.
Maybe you should leave, he bitterly thinks.
And at first, he only means it as a barb to himself, some awful thought to throw in his own face. Something he doesn’t ever intend to actually follow through on.
It’s rare to hear them argue, but that sound is what draws him to the bathroom. As he approaches, their voices filter out from the bathroom into the hall.
“What’s wrong?” Jefferson asks, anxiety evident in his voice.
“I, ah, don’t know how to start,” Madison admits, The texture is… different from mine.”
“You told me you helped cut your siblings’ hair!”
“Yes, I told you I helped my mother cut their hair—when I was fifteen! I’m thirty, Thomas!"
“Even if it’s pretty fucking bad, it’s not like I’m gonna end up bald, right?” At Madison’s responding silence, Jefferson’s voice had gone up half a pitch, grown shrill. “Right?”
The bathroom door’s open, and even though he shouldn’t, he peeks through.
Jefferson sits on the edge of the tub, his tight curls neatly sectioned off with bands, Madison standing haplessly behind him with hair shears in hand. It’s one of the few moments Hamilton has seen Madison looking absolutely terrified—at least when there was no imminent threat of death.
“I’ll try my best,” Madison just tells Jefferson, despair plain in his voice.
“It’s like riding a bicycle, though, isn’t it? You’ll remember how as you go along?”
“Thomas, have you ever even ridden a bicycle?”
“I’ve ridden an exercise bike—same difference, isn’t it?”
“How the fuck have you never ridden a bike before?” Hamilton interjects. They both turn to him, surprised. “Did you seriously get chauffeured around your whole childhood?”
“No,” Jefferson says, but he pauses too long not to be lying. “What do you want, anyways?”
“Nothing,” he replies, eyes narrowing at Jefferson’s words. “Just came to see what was wrong.” He motions to the shears in Madison’s hands. “Can’t you just cut your own damn hair?”
“No,” he says again, burying his face in hands. “I paid four hundred dollars for a haircut every two months before the outbreak, and every damn time I try to do it myself, it looks like I took a goddamn pair of garden shears to my head. Go ahead. Fucking laugh.”
Hamilton almost does—but there’s genuine distress written into Jefferson’s features, genuine dread in his voice, and he stays silent. He knows how particular Jefferson is, how vain he is, how he uses it as some kind of defense mechanism to pretend nothing’s changed.
His eyes slide over to Madison, who looks vaguely despairing. He must know all these things. Not want to be the one who fucks up something so important to Jefferson.
“I can cut it,” Hamilton offers, swallowing. “Or try to, at least.”
He doesn’t miss the way Madison’s face lights up with gratefulness. Jefferson raises his head from his hands, sends him a vaguely suspicious look.
“You can?”
“I cut…” John’s, he almost says. But the name gets caught on a lump in his throat, and he has to swallow before he can speak. “...hair with a texture kinda like yours. Curly hair, I mean. A few times. I, uh, sort of know what I’m doing.”
Jefferson swallows, looks between him and Madison. Then, finally, just shakes his head.
“Christ. I’m gonna lose it all from breakage anyways if I don’t.” He looks vaguely nauseous, actually closes his eyes before he says, “Just get it over with.”
Hamilton feels anxiety lick up and down his spine as he takes the shears from Madison, steps up to study Jefferson’s hair. Jefferson cracks open one eye, forces a smile.
“Guess this how you know I seriously trust you, huh?”
Hamilton manages a laugh, but the words cut deeper than he thinks they were meant to.
He redoes the sectioning in Jefferson’s hair. Gets it damp. Slowly cuts inch by careful inch, as little as he possibly can with each snip. Madison and Jefferson talk to one another, but he tunes it out, tries to concentrate, not fuck this up as he works through the sections.
Madison says something; Jefferson responds. Madison says something again, and this time, it’s Hamilton’s name. He looks up, focus ruptured.
“What?”
“You just never cease to impress me is all,” Madison says after a moment, laughing quietly.
That too means more to him than he thinks it should.
“It’s just hair,” says Hamilton as he makes the last few cuts. “Means nothing. It’ll grow back if he thinks it looks awful.”
He knows it’s a lie, but he tells himself that anyways as he steps away, lets Jefferson stand up. He makes a beeline for the mirror, face pointedly blank as he stares down his reflection. Shifts on his feet to see himself from the side and the back. The ghost of a smile breaks on his face as he glances sideways to Madison, who’s already read exactly what Jefferson thinks given his soft smile.
“So, Jemmy. Do I look good?”
“Of course you do. And your hair is fine.”
“Well, then, Hamilton,” Jefferson says, smile widening as he turns around. “Guess you’re better at haircuts than debates.”
“Fuck off. I’m still holding these,” he threatens, stabbing vaguely in his direction with the scissors.
“Please, I could take your ass in a fight.”
“Alexander is scrappier than you,” Madison mildly remarks. “I would refrain from placing bets.”
“At least your boyfriend’s got some fucking sense,” Hamilton laughs—and for a moment, everything is alright in the world.
“Your hair’s getting long too, you know,” Jefferson notes that night, and Hamilton half-startles, turns to see him unexpectedly leaning against the bathroom door frame.
“Don’t fucking sneak up on me,” he snaps on instinct, angrily setting down his toothbrush.
“Well, I can’t help if I’ve got the feet of a thief.”
Hamilton scowls without meaning it, trying to calm his racing heart. He breathes in, breathes out, then turns back to the mirror. Jefferson’s right: his hair is getting long—just long enough to fall past his shoulders now. Hell, he could probably graduate from a bun to a braid if he knew how to do one.
“Yeah. Didn’t realize it’d grown out so much,” he agrees, trying to compensate for snapping earlier. He threads fingers through the strands. Frowns. “Guess I should cut it soon.”
“I didn’t say that,” Jefferson replies, almost affronted at the possibility. He steps into the cramped bathroom, looks Hamilton over again—too long and too thoroughly for his tastes, then nods his approval, grins just a little as he reaches out to brush a few stray strands out of his eyes. “I think it suits you. Looks good.”
And his heart wrenches in his chest.
How the fuck can a single person make him feel like that with one stupid compliment? How is he… why is he letting someone make him feel like that?
“Long hair’s a liability,” Hamilton flatly remarks after a moment, averting his eyes to the mirror. “I should’ve cut yours shorter today.”
“Don’t I fucking know it,” Jefferson laughs, tugging on one of his curls and letting it spring back up just because he fucking can, apparently. “But whatever James likes, right?”
Hamilton thinks Madison has little to do with it, but he doesn’t say as much. He just looks back to his reflection. When his hair is down, if it falls just right, it hides the scar on his neck. Makes him look a little more like he used to.
There’s a brief moment where he wonders if Jefferson keeps his hair long to help hide his ear.
“I’ll cut it tomorrow morning,” he says without conviction.
He doesn’t.
His nightmares are worse the second night they’re there.
Eventually, Hamilton can’t stand lying still and staring up at the ceiling anymore. He creeps downstairs, lights a candle, grabs the closest book he can find—something Madison’s been reading about Greek oligarchies. It’s so goddamn boring and dry that, in a miraculous stroke of luck, he drifts off again on the sofa.
It’s light out when he wakes up to the sound of quiet footsteps on the stairs. By the time he identifies the source as Madison and Jefferson, they’ve already rounded the bottom of the stairs. They haven’t seen him, he realizes as the sounds of footsteps trail towards the kitchen. There’s the sound of shuffling plates and pans, Madison humming some lilting melody Hamilton’s heard him play on the piano, the sound of water boiling for tea and coffee.
“What would you like for breakfast, dear?” Madison asks.
“Fuck, baby, I don’t know,” Jefferson replies, and Hamilton can hear the eye roll in his voice. “We have such compelling choices. Cereal, protein bars, or oatmeal. Hardest damn question I gotta answer every day.”
“I suppose that means you’d rather have cereal over the fruit I so painstakingly climbed to pick?” Madison lightly sighs, and there’s the sound of something dropping onto the marble counter.
“Holy shit, Jemmy. Where the fuck did you find these?”
“A few streets over. There’s a fig tree in someone’s backyard that I noticed the day before. I went over yesterday evening.”
“Well, shit, you made the right fucking choice, ‘cause I woulda gone and broken my neck climbing for 'em.”
Madison laughs, light and clear. There’s the sound of movement, Jefferson humming contentedly, slow kisses. Hamilton closes his eyes tighter, tries to block it out, fall back asleep. He doesn’t want this intimate glimpse into their private world. He absolutely doesn’t fucking need to hear the pleased little sound that drifts out of the kitchen, or the image his mind supplies an image of muscled arms encircling a waist, hips slotted together, his stomach heating—
“I’m not going to blow you in the kitchen,” Madison tells Jefferson, but he’s amused and playful in a way that Hamilton rarely hears.
“Mm, who said anything about you blowing me?” Jefferson shoots back, and there’s a long beat of silence before Madison must shake his head because Jefferson huffs, disappointed.
“Alexander will be up before long,” Madison reasons.
“Mm. He’s still asleep?”
“His door was still closed when we passed. The Lord knows the man needs the rest.”
“Ain’t that the fucking truth?” Jefferson exhales, laughing humorously.
The conversation in the kitchen shifts to more mundane things—what they might have for dinner, whether they might head further inland once they leave for someplace else—but Hamilton’s mind is elsewhere. Their voices fade into the background.
Is this always how they talk when he’s not around? Light and playful? With more laughter shared between the two of them in the space of a few minutes than Hamilton usually hears from either in a whole day? Are they in a constant state of censorship around him?
Christ. They sound happier when he’s not around.
And that begs the question whether they actually are.
The third night, there’s a crack of thunder that jolts him awake, sends him scrambling for the pistol beneath his pillow. He has a flash of a moment where he’s back beneath swirling yellow skies in Nevis before he remembers where he is, but the unease lingers enough that he knows he won’t get back to sleep. He sits up. It’s pitch fucking black in the room with the clouds blotting out the moonlight, but he always keeps a lighter and candle by his bed for that reason. Flashlights, he saves for emergencies, for situations where candles can’t cut it.
The room feels distinctly uneasy in the weak light. His first thought is to see if Madison and Jefferson are already awake until he reminds himself he can’t do that any longer. Not if he’s trying to keep his distance. His second thought, then, is to read. But each clap of thunder breaks his focus, and the pounding rain beats unease into his chest. He’s back on Nevis, helpless, rain flooding into the house, up to his ankles, rising past his waist, up over his head—
Hamilton tastes blood when he at last rolls out of bed, resolving to pace around the house until the worst of the storm passes. There’s something unsettled prickling beneath his skin as he moves towards the bathroom, but it abates at the scraps of conversation drifting through the door halfway down the hall. It takes him a moment to place that the two of them are speaking in French—which means they don’t want him to overhear.
“ ... he’s up?” Jefferson murmurs.
“Dear, he’d wake up… dropped a pin outside his door.”
“Think he… storm because of … ?”
“We… always check on him.
He shouldn’t, knows he shouldn’t, but he creeps closer anyways.
“... might still be upset from… been off since then. Don’t know.”
“It’s like I told you, Thomas,” Madison says, kind, sympathetic—and even though Hamilton suddenly finds himself desperate to know just what Madison means, the floorboard beneath his foot betrays him with a wooden shriek.
He swears silently to himself, then hastily steps forward and knocks to avoid looking like he’s been eavesdropping. There’s a short pause, footsteps, then Madison answers the door. He’s shirtless, which Hamilton notices right before he registers that he’s wearing nothing at all but boxers. It’s the most jarring thing that’s happened to him in weeks: Madison is never anything less than fully put together in front of him.
So it’s a shock, and not only because it turns out that Madison is much broader through the shoulders than he would’ve thought. He wills himself to push the knowledge out of his mind and prays his face shows nothing.
“Sorry,” he apologizes, swallowing. “I, uh… was going to walk around for a bit and heard you talking. Thought I might see if one of you wanted to play chess or something.”
“Can do you one better than that,” a voice calls from further back in the room. “Luckily for you.”
Their room is candlelit too, so Hamilton can barely make Jefferson out as he sits up and stretches in bed, bare muscles flexing. Lightning flashes, brightening the room just enough that Hamilton can make out the vague red outline of what looks like a handprint on his hip. But before he can fully process it, he’s saved by a resounding crack of thunder, flinches so soundly any reaction is dulled. Madison, oddly uncertain for a split second, lays a hand lightly against his forearm for just a moment. Hamilton refuses to meet his eyes.
“Yeah? If it’s gonna involve a violent fucking hangover, I’ll pass,” he tells Jefferson, swallowing.
“Christ, you think you have bad hangovers? Wait ‘til you’re over thirty.” Jefferson stands, swipes up a shirt discarded on the floor, throws it over his head. “But nah, that’s not it. C’mon.”
“You’ll poison yourself,” Madison dryly warns them both, in tune with whatever Jefferson is alluding to. He rolls his eyes. “Alexander, I beg you to exercise your common sense.”
Hamilton shifts on his feet. His common sense tells him he should just go back to bed, turn down whatever Jefferson is suggesting. But he’s only a man, and he’s already dug himself halfway into this hole by almost getting caught eavesdropping anyways.
“You find Ambien?” he asks, brows arched. “Because the last damn time I slept more than six hours was when I got into someone’s old stash of that shit.”
“Sure, somethin’ like that,” Jefferson remarks cryptically, setting off towards the stairs.
Madison lingers just long enough to shoot Hamilton a half-chiding look before retreating in their bedroom to presumably get dressed too. Hamilton doesn’t linger, heads downstairs after Jefferson and watches as he pulls down a painting. Behind it, there’s a painted-over panel that flips open to reveal a wall safe. Hamilton scoffs.
“Jesus, have you never watched a single mystery movie? That’s so fucking cliché.”
“Yeah, and clearly no one’s found it anytime in the past two years, so who won?” Jefferson retorts as he inputs the combination.
Hamilton stares, then crosses the room, eyes widening as Jefferson extracts a cigar box. The cigars look well-wrapped but they’re plain, no cigar band in sight, and the smell isn’t—
“Holy shit. Are those joints?” he gasps, wide-eyed.
“Uh-huh. Been sitting around for two-odd years since the last time Sam and I came down here to shoot the shit. Forgot about them ‘til earlier today.”
“You smoked weed?”
“What, you mistook me for a Puritan?” Jefferson laughs. “Please, Hamilton. I went to law school. I’ve done more damn drugs than you’ll see your entire life.”
“I've heard the stories,” Madison mentions, a certain tension set in his shoulders.
“So, what? Thomas Jefferson, Golden Boy of the South grew up passing around joints? Damn. I guess celebrities really are just like us."
“Yeah, well, I cut way back on all that once I got to campaigning. Had to keep a cleaner image—kicked the drugs, kept the womanizing. Least in the eyes of the media,” he smirks. He drops his eyes back towards the cigar box. “So? You wanna smoke or not? Because I'm not gonna peer pressure you like we're fucking twelve if you don't. Happy to kick your ass at chess instead if not—up to you if you wanna endure the humiliation.”
“You in?” Hamilton interrupts with a look towards Madison.
“I’ll abstain.” He sends Jefferson a look that Hamilton finds he can’t read before he settles onto the sofa with a sigh and retrieves his Greek book. “I dislike drugs.”
“Except alcohol?”
“That’s different,” he replies impassively.
Hamilton’s tongue prickles with the urge to argue, but the temptation of getting high as soon as possible wins out. Fuck, it’s been so long since he had a chance to partake. He plucks a thick joint from Jefferson’s case, drops onto the sofa opposite Madison’s. Jefferson slides onto the seat beside him, offers a light from thin air.
“You ever smoked before?”
“Of course I have,” he scoffs, answering even as he tries to suppress memories of simpler times: Herc, him and John on a couch, passing around blunts between rounds of beer.
“Good, ‘cause if you cough, I’m gonna laugh at you.”
“Fuck off,” he shoots back without feeling before he drags in a deep inhale.
He almost fucking coughs. Almost. Because shit, even after sitting for two-odd years, it’s fucking potent. Better than the shit college students slung around. Good enough to give even Herc’s stash a run for its money. So he almost coughs. But Jefferson’s eyes are watching, mouth twisted into a preemptive smirk, and his willpower to deny Jefferson the satisfaction of laughing at him beats out the harsh sting in his lungs.
“Don’t choke,” he tells Jefferson when he passes the joint over.
Jefferson, in a second that fills him with so much satisfaction that he momentarily forgets about the sorry state of his heart, takes too deep of a hit and explodes into a coughing fit. Hamilton bursts out laughing, only growing louder when Jefferson sends him the nastiest, most indignant look Hamilton has ever gotten from him—or from anyone else, for that matter.
“That’s what you get for being prideful,” Madison impassively chides Jefferson in French without so much as a glance up from his book.
Jefferson sends him an overdramatically betrayed look, then turns back to Hamilton.
“See if I ever do anything nice for you again,” he scowls, but there’s a certain pleasure in his eyes, a restrained tightness at the edges of his mouth that suggests he’s holding back a smile. He passes the blunt back over, waits until Hamilton’s taken another hit before asking. “So—you ever gonna laugh like that at something other than my expense?”
It’s a question that goes deeper than Hamilton wants to go while he’s trying to get a buzz going on. He’s surprised to find that there’s a flicker of anger in his chest, a voice in his head that wants to pin the blame on Jefferson— no, the angry part of him wants to reply, you’re never gonna hear that any other time because you don’t need me.
He closes his eyes. Breathes in smoke. Tries to calm himself.
“Nah. Nothing’s ever gonna beat seeing you taken down a peg.”
“Huh, so Madison’s your favorite?”
“I don’t have favorites,” he replies. “Just preferences for people who’re right sometimes.”
“I’m right more than sometimes,” Madison fondly pipes in, and Hamilton has to wonder just how intensely he’s actually reading that book.
He doesn’t ask, though, because a pleasant heaviness settles into his limbs. He leans further back into the couch, lets his eyes slip closed when Jefferson takes back the blunt. It smells earthy and strong and distinctly sweet—he can’t help but to think of Hercules, his insistence that they never smoked near his fabrics, that they always kept a window open if they were at his place, even in the dead of New York’s winter.
Fuck, he can still remember the last time they’d smoked together. Can’t remember what they talked about. Can’t remember Hercules’s face, let alone his voice. Refuses to remember that Laurens was there too, arm thrown over his shoulders—refuses to. All he remembers is that Herc had leaned into their long-standing joke, freestyled something crass about corsets and horses and fuck, he misses that so much, misses everything so much, because it’s all so fucked up now. He was a better person back then, still knew who he was, still had—
“Want it back?”
“Sure,” he says, playing off the sudden scratchiness in his voice as a symptom of the smoke. Fingers linger over his when the joint comes back into his hand. It’s an accident, he figures. Drug-induced clumsiness.
Jefferson starts to talk—something about Greeks and the classics that’s probably pretentious enough to warrant a strongly-worded debate—but Hamilton refrains and just listens. Focuses on that, centers it in his mind to keep his thoughts from drifting, lets the heaviness of his limbs melt him into a mercury puddle on the couch.
Jefferson’s voice—familiar, his usual drawl drawn out to an absolute crawl—lulls him. Quiets his thoughts. Or the pot does, anyways.
He feels good. It’s cheating, he knows, not real goodness or happiness or relief, but he doesn’t care. It’s as hollow as the hunger that gnaws in his stomach, but it’s better than feeling something real. He lets his world narrow to the sound of Jefferson’s voice, Madison’s occasional hum of agreement, the borrowed euphoria in his chest.
Hazily, ridiculously, he debates himself about whether Jefferson is talking because he has something to say or because he thinks Hamilton prefers his voice to his own thoughts. Long minutes tick on as his limbs grow heavier. His last thought is wondering something about when he slumped over and melted into Jefferson’s side. When an arm curled loosely around his shoulder. And then he fades away, wakes up well-rested to sunlight outside his window in a bed he doesn’t remember falling asleep in the night before.
He cuts his hair. Just an inch: barely a trim. He means to cut more, but he doesn’t.
The days blend together. Hamilton can’t fucking sleep—he never can—but now he has restlessness compounding the issue. A plea to leave is on his tongue every time they’re in the room together, but a heady mix of pride and guilt keeps it from ever coming out. Jefferson and Madison seem so goddamn happy here, like they’re falling in love all over every day. If his friends are happy, he’s happy. Never mind that it’s only a pretty lie he tells himself.
He spends most of the rest of his time wandering around on warm sand by the ocean outside. At intervals, he’s tempted to go in the water, swim, but his mind brings him back to the hurricane, to the black water rising above his ankles, knees, waist, shoulders, neck, head—and he backs off before the surf rises above mid-calf.
In his nightmares, back after the one night of quiet sleep, the ocean is far less comforting: grey waters under a sickly yellow sky.
Hamilton gets twitchy, further on edge, his dreams growing into such a muddled mess of screams and blood and grief that he dreads lying down. Jefferson notices, offers up his stash of pot more than once, but Hamilton turns him down.
(He can’t stand it, can’t stand the vague, blurry memory of drifting off next to him, a taste of just what he wants so badly—only to be carried upstairs and left alone. Nightmares are better.)
He keeps himself busy wherever he can: chores, cleaning weapons, clearing infected. He’s too damn tired to focus on reading or anything else that requires higher brain functioning. He pretends he doesn’t notice Madison watching him, impassive as ever except for the few miniscule hints that betray his worry. He doesn’t let himself get cornered lest he’s asked to explain something he can’t, and he works himself to the bone.
In the moments when he can’t outrun his thoughts, his mind looks towards the future.
He wonders if he’s ever going to be able to live anywhere again. If he’ll always be on the move, never settling, never sleeping more than a couple nights at the same place. He’s stopped places recently—Montpelier and the clinic where Jefferson’s leg healed—but those were different. Involuntary stops. This is intentional stillness. And he doesn’t know if he can ever do that again.
There’s being noticed to worry about. It’s easier to see someone when they overstay their welcome. He’s wanted in the entire country, for fuck’s sake. How long will it be before he’s no longer recognizable as Alexander Hamilton? Five years? Ten? He fucking feels unrecognizable already, but even though his hair’s longer and his dark circles are deeper and his ribs jut out more than they used to, he’s still recognizable as the man who earned prime time television for cold-cocking a sitting colony representative.
Moot point. You’re not going to make it five years, the cold voice in his head reminds him each time his thoughts go down that path. Probably be dead by this time next summer.
Hamilton forces himself to ignore it. He’ll stay alive.
Just like he always has and always does and always will, because even though the odds are against him, they always have been.
(He knows the real reason why he can’t stay still. He knows the answer is lying dead somewhere in Charleston. Has seen it: if you settle, you die. It’s instinct as much as it is grief. Knows that he can’t explain it to them, knows that he barely got out of Charleston the first time. Doesn’t know if he can get out again if he lets his mind go back).
It doesn’t matter that claustrophobia closes in on him. He’s trying to be the friend he wants to be, and that means making sacrifices.
Because maybe Jefferson and Madison really aren’t as happy with him around—but that they sacrifice comfort and their dynamic when they’re alone for him.
Someday, a few years down the line, they’ll probably settle. Maybe alone. If there are communities of survivors left, then maybe they’ll lay roots in one once they’ve aged enough to be unrecognizable. But they’ll probably live somewhere in a nice house with a garden out back, surrounded by walls that don’t keep them nearly as safe as they think, the kind of walls Hamilton finds suffocating, that he knows aren’t ever really safe.
It’s probably what they want.
And just another piece of evidence for how he works wrongly into their lives. A piece of a puzzle crammed into a position where it doesn’t fit.
They’re going to leave you one way or another, Hamilton’s mind whispers to him. Maybe you should just leave them first. Spare yourself the humiliation.
“It’d be nice to have some kind of base,” Jefferson remarks over lunch one afternoon, and Hamilton feels every fiber of muscle in his body turn to stone. “Just to have a rendezvous point if we ever get split up. And, you know, someplace to stash some extra supplies. Storage space. Fuck knows I hate having to throw out books when things get tight in the trunk.
Hamilton knows that the last bit is perfectly manufactured bait, laid out just for him. Even Jefferson doesn’t hate getting rid of good books as much as he does.
He also knows that what Jefferson’s suggesting has very little to do with storage space and everything to do with a sense of stability. It’s what he’s been telling himself for days: Jefferson will probably want to settle someday. Madison too.
Jefferson, always so perfectly rooted, always so perfectly secure, never used to growing up on an empty stomach, negative numbers in a bank account, fending for himself. Still longing for the stability Hamilton gave up pursuing months and months ago. Of course Jefferson wants home to mean something other than the backseat of an Escalade. Of course he wants to have roots, somewhere he can come back to. Of course he wants to settle.
He still has someone to build something with.
“People find you when you stay still,” Hamilton thickly says, because that seems easier to say.
“Doesn’t mean we’d settle down. We could come now and then to rest. Once a month, max.”
It feels like a negotiation, and Hamilton’s eyes slide to Madison to see just who he’s negotiating with, whether it’s just Jefferson, or whether this is a premeditated discussion, if Madison is merely a moderator letting Jefferson do the talking. It’s pointless, he knows. Madison’s expression is neutral, impassive: he’s there in the pretense of mediation, yes, but he’ll choose Jefferson first. He always will.
“Once a month is too regular,” Hamilton protests. He wants to argue against it all, make Jefferson drop the subject, but… compromises, he nauseously reminds himself. Just fucking try not to be a piece of shit for once. He sips at his wine, swallows the phantom bile in his throat. “Too easy to track. Three months.”
“Six weeks,” Jefferson counteroffers, slipping easily into the role of the politician Hamilton used to hate. “And,” he tacks on distastefully, “I’ll do your chores while we’re here.”
And, fuck, from Jefferson, who practically gags at having to do any goddamn menial labor, that’s a pretty big goddamn compromise. Never mind that the mindless tasks are most of what’s been keeping him sane while he’s here. Hamilton’s teeth nip into his tongue.
Fuck. Jefferson is trying. He has to try.
“Two months,” he weakly replies.
“Six to eight weeks.”
He wants to push harder. Really. But there’s a flicker of strange vulnerability beneath Jefferson’s blustering pride, something almost pleading, and he folds.
“Six to eight,” he concedes, breaking eye contact. “But at irregular intervals. Longer if anyone sees. And... we don’t park the Escalade in front of the house. You can put in a garage somewhere a mile or two away.” He keeps his face desperately blank, because the last thing he wants is for them to know how much he fucking hates being here when they’re so fucking happy. “Those terms to your satisfaction?”
Jefferson sits back in his seat, substituting seriousness for a bright white smile. His hand slides unconsciously over to take Madison’s.
“Of course,” he says, smile gleaming. “What more could I want?”
Madison finds him wandering the shore later that evening, eyeing the little sandcrabs that rise out of pools every time the waves recede.
“Would you like company?” he asks, considerate; Jefferson wouldn’t ask. Hamilton still can’t decide whether he thinks that’s endearing or obnoxious—and then he feels awful for even wondering as much when Madison is right fucking there.
He hesitates.
“Sure,” he says weakly, and Madison has the composure not to look nonplussed about it.
They walk along in companionable silence for a while, waves lapping at their bare feet.
“We haven’t spoken much the past few days,” Madison remarks, conversational.
“You’ve been busy with Jefferson,” he says, almost not concealing a note of sourness.
“I suppose this place just encourages me to make up for lost time.” Sadness flickers across his face for a split second. “I have more lost time than most.”
Hamilton walks another few steps before he at last decides to ask,
“You, uh… still alright with everything from Montpelier?”
“Alright is overly ambitious. You never fully heal from loss when grief is nothing but love with nowhere to go. You simply learn to live with it all and move on,” Madison replies quietly. “And I’ve suffered enough loss. Even if I had no obligations to anyone else, I deserve to move on.”
Hamilton wets his lips.
“You can talk about it. If you want.”
“I’ve run through it all enough times in my mind already. Some of my siblings were there for the inauguration but weren’t buried in the plot. It stands to reason that some survived.” He closes his eyes a moment, stops walking. “I think my eldest sister took them and escaped. Perhaps it’s just a fantasy to think that anyone else alive,” he concedes, “but it’s one I believe benefits me. And I have the convenient excuse of being at the top of the country’s hit list as a reason to avoid searching for them and possibly finding out otherwise.”
“Yeah. Not knowing is better,” he agrees numbly.
Because wouldn’t he choose not to know about John if he could? Choose to keep some shred of flickering hope in his chest that believed he was still alive?
“Thank you,” Madison says. “For earlier today,” he clarifies. “I appreciate you compromising for Thomas’s sake.”
“Didn’t do it just for him,” he responds, but as the words leave his mouth, he realizes they’re the truth. “If it weren’t for being wanted, you’d want someplace to settle too, wouldn’t you? But you didn’t want me to feel like I was outnumbered. Is that why you didn’t say anything today?”
He’s right, because a flash of surprise crosses his expression—gone in a second, concealed by a cough, but not fast enough.
“What makes you say that?”
You miss the stability. A sense of place. That’s what meditation’s about, isn’t it?
“I just know you,” he deflects, shrugging defensively. “I pay attention. That’s it.”
Oh, Madison says, quiet. It holds some weight that Hamilton feels like he doesn’t quite understand. Silent seconds drag on as they walk, as he tries to work it out. Then, Madison asks what he’s almost certainly found him intending to ask in the first place.
“Alexander, have I done something to upset you?”
Hamilton falters mid-step.
“No.
“You’ve been—”
“You haven’t.”
“Alexander, if—
“Drop it.”
Hamilton only looks at him from the corner of his eye, but he sees the aggressive unreadability of Madison’s face, feels a flash of frustration swell in his chest.
Yes, some awful fucking part of him says, you fucking have.
He hates himself for thinking it. It’s not fair to Madison. Madison can’t help what he doesn’t know, what Hamilton can’t tell him, and Hamilton has upset him over something that isn’t even his fault, that could never be his fault. It’s Hamilton’s fault, and his alone.
“No,” Hamilton says again, though he can tell Madison is too clever, too perceptive to truly believe it. “I just…” There’s nothing he can safely say to finish the sentence. So he just says, “I just want to keep looking for a cure, I guess. It’s nothing to do with you, Madison. Really.”
And they both pretend not to notice how flat his voice sounds.
It’s only in the middle of July when he finally scales to the top of the lighthouse. It’s a gorgeously clear night, and, fuck, he can see the whole damn Milky Way. He brings a six-pack of Sam Adams brand beer scavenged from the house’s pantry, two packs of cigarettes, and his astronomy book. He hasn’t had a good chance to look at the constellations in a while now, and it’s so damn hot on the second floor of the house that his sheets stick to him like glue.
It’s cooler up so high with the breeze blowing, altogether pleasant. He spends half an hour alone, alternating between smoking cigarettes down to stubs and scrutinizing stars before Jefferson slides through the door and greets him with a tired but content smile. He’s dressed for bed in sweats and a t-shirt.Hamilton chooses not to remark on the bruise purpling on his collarbone or the flush that still warms Jefferson’s neck. He knows the score.
“Do you need something?” he asks, as curt as he can get away with.
“Was just gonna see if you were plannin’ on coming in anytime soon. James and I were gonna crash, so I wanted to make sure I wasn’t gonna accidentally lock you out.”
“Thanks.” He shrugs. “Not tired. I’ll come in through the upstairs window.”
He bends back over to read right as Jefferson steps forward and leans against the railing. He blinks up at the sky, moonlight bathing his face.
“Still reading that?” he asks, tipping his head towards the book in his hand. “Well? Feel like you’re officially an astronavigator yet?”
“Sure, if all I need to know how to do is head north. Why?”
“Just thinking ‘bout sailing away again. You know, classic escapism,” he laughs. “Finding some nice quiet island somewhere. Doesn’t have to be tropical long as there’s no infected, no bandits, no fucking Redcoats. Just the three of us together. But...” He shrugs airily, smiles in a way that makes Hamilton’s heart twist. “This ain’t too bad either.”
Hamilton wants to believe him, but the truth of the matter is that he’s slowly coming to the realization that he won’t ever be happy around either of them again. It isn’t bad, maybe not for Jefferson—not yet. But it is for him. He’s not happy. Not in any way that really matters. Maybe for little flashes at a time. Maybe for impermanent, fleeting moments.
Maybe anything more is too much to ask when he’s the person that he is. But is being alone really better than this? Because, god, he doesn’t want to be alone.
(But it’s better to choose to be alone than to be abandoned, isn’t it? And that’s what’ll happen when Madison or Jefferson catches on, isn’t it?)
“What, you don’t miss your stupid fucking suits and sommerliers and all your other materialistic shit?” he wryly asks, desperately trying to deflect from what he’s feeling.
“Course I miss ‘em. I’m not Mother fuckin’ Theresa,” Jefferson scoffs lightly. “Asceticism never really suited me, but that’s besides the point. I’ve got you and James. These days, having two people you love seems pretty damn good to me.”
If Jefferson had sliced through his sternum and pulled out his heart, it would’ve hurt less. Hurt less than for Jefferson to say I love you and mean it in the wrong way. Hurt less to be put in the same category as Madison when their situations couldn’t be more different.
Because Jefferson would leave him for Madison if it came down to it. That has never changed. Maybe they are close, maybe even closer than he thinks—but Hamilton will never quite bridge the gap that isolates him.
Does Jefferson think he’d do the same? Trade either or both of them for Laurens if he could?
Would he?
It terrifies him that he doesn’t know. It terrifies him more that he doesn’t know what that says about him.
“It’s not my old life. Can’t get that back. Or most of the people that used to be in it,” Jefferson goes on, grief slipping into his eyes. But he looks over, somehow manages to shine with happiness anyways. “But fuck it. This is good too. Different, but good. Even if I don’t ever stop missing the old days, doesn’t mean I can’t be happy.” His smile softens. “And I am.”
Hamilton shifts on his feet, wanting nothing more than to get away. He doesn’t want Jefferson to look at him like that. Not when it’s the kind of way that he usually reserves for Madison. He doesn’t even want to have this conversation to begin with.
“That’s…”
“That’s you, you know. Part of it, at least. I’m happier than I was because you’re here,” Jefferson tells him, not an ounce of sarcasm or anything but sincerity in his voice.
One of his ribs must be broken. Cutting into his ribcage.
When Hamilton proves that he can’t quite make the words, Jefferson twists his smile into a smirk, challenges him with raised brows, gives him an out.
“I know. Surprises me too.”
“Jackass,” Hamilton weakly replies, because he doesn’t know what else to do if not take the easy out he's been handed.
He looks out to the ocean, tries not to close himself off, afraid it’d be too suspicious. A moment passes, then Madison calls to them from somewhere down below. Hamilton makes no move to the steps. Jefferson lingers a moment longer, then reaches out, lays a hand over his. Hamilton resists the urge to yank away with every fiber of his being.
“Come inside soon?"
“Okay,” he lies.
He doesn’t. He falls asleep with his back to the door, curled up on the inside of the landing of the lighthouse stairs. Going back to the house feels unbearable.
Hamilton pretends he isn’t as thankful as he is when they finally fucking load back up into the Escalade, but he feels more fidgety than a kid during the Christmas service. And Madison touches his shoulder just before they all slip into the car, so he wonders how well his facade played off after all.
As the house fades in the rear view, it’s like an anvil has been lifted off his chest. Just being back on the road is enough to drain the pent-up anxiety from his chest. The restless itch under his skin soothes with each mile further away they get. He doesn’t know how he’ll stand going back in less than a couple months. Doesn’t know what he’ll do.
(Only it’s not a couple months. It’s much, much longer than that, and he comes back alone.)
He’s so exhausted that he passes out to the Escalade’s quiet hum before they even hit the highway. His dreams are quieter for a while—almost pleasant. A smile white as the lilting ivory keys he hears. He searches for the music’s source but never finds it, wanders lost until the sound is buried beneath the shrieks of infected he can’t see, gunfire he can’t hide from.
There’s a moment when he wakes up, a brief moment when, out of the corner of his eye, he catches Madison looking at him in a way that doesn’t quite fit into the perfect perception he has of their world.
But it’s just his imagination.
July passes. They fall back into familiar patterns: driving, scavenging, foraging. Between being hunted and immobilizing injuries and grieving, Hamilton had hardly paid attention to his inanimate surroundings for months. But with nothing imminent weighing on his shoulders except for the one thing he’s desperate to ignore, he finds new distractions in the world.
It’s July, and humanity is slowly succumbing to terminal illness, but the world is brilliantly alive. Orchards and berry bushes and fields and untended gardens grow heavy with fruit even without people to tend them. The streams are thick with fish, the woods are full of food to forage, and it’s so goddamn green everywhere he looks. Ivy creeps across half the surfaces in sight in some places; grass and moss encroach onto pavement and asphalt, and even though he knows better, it doesn’t feel like the world is dying.
(Distantly, he wonders about New York. If there’s anything green left—or just burnt-out building husks. He wonders if his old apartment is still standing. If there’s anything left.)
They stop at a luxurious sprawling estate for a few days. There’s fucking croquet court out back that he fucks around with just for the novelty of it all—shit, he thought they didn’t even exist outside of old 90s high school movies. There are gorgeous gardens. He spends a lot of time in those. Sometimes brings out of the set of charcoals he found a few weeks—but he can never quite bring himself to start drawing.
Mostly, he spends most of his time with a book in the house’s expansive library. He and Jefferson come up with a game, force the other read one of their favorite books to discuss. He’s not sure why they bother—each time, they eviscerate the other’s choice.
Hamilton finally resolves himself to just making Jefferson read the worst literature he can find, which he picks out off a shelf of bodice rippers according to how sensual the cover is. Jefferson responds by dropping a copy of Atlas Shrugged onto his lap. Reading that one almost convinces Hamilton that maybe he isn’t in love.
It’s all good entertainment—and some of the only entertainment they have. Maybe more of a distraction, because Madison’s conspicuously absent during their stay. He spends nearly the entirety of their stay alone, meditating. Or claiming he’s doing as much, at least.
Whatever it is he’s working through, it’s not going well. There’s a certain distance in his eyes, a tension in his shoulders that doesn’t quite drain no matter how many times Jefferson presses kisses to his hand. He avoids eye contact and speaks shortly. Hamilton thinks little of it for a bit—even though it’s rare, Madison is entitled to being in a bad mood just as much as him and Jefferson—but as time wears on, worry replaces indifference.
“Is something wrong?” he asks Madison early the third morning when he stumbles outside to smoke and finds Madison sitting on the patio, cold tea in hand. “It’s five in the fucking morning.”
“You’re awake, aren’t you?” he asks, terse. “Am I not allowed to do the same?”
A sliver of anxiety creeps up his spine as he replies, “Yeah, but you and Jefferson usually get up at the same time.”
Madison doesn’t meet his eyes, keeps his gaze fixed on the barely orange horizon.
“Look,” Hamilton tries again, wetting his lips. “Is everything okay? Jefferson’s worried about you. You’ve seemed kind of off the last couple days—and that’s fine!I just wanted to see if… uh, you know, if I can do anything. I mean, can I?”
“No,” Madison says, and there’s a distant but distinct sour note in his voice that he doesn’t quite manage to suppress. “You do plenty already, Alexander.”
Hamilton freezes.
Madison fucking knows. That’s what this is about. He fucking knows.
He’s sure of it.
“Okay,” he gets out, throat dry. He swallows hard. “Just let me know if you...”
And then he turns on his heels and beats it back inside.
A tired Jefferson meets him on the stairs as he’s rushing to his room to do—fuck, he doesn’t know. To pack his bags and go? To fucking sleep and hope he falls into a coma? He doesn’t know. All he can hear is the wild pounding in his chest, feel the certainty that he’s about to be caught and called out, discarded, turned away from the only two people he has.
Jefferson sees the look in his eyes, grabs his arm, holds him there.
“What the fuck’s going on? Infected?” he asks, instantly at full alertness. “Where’s James?"
“No, no infected, I just…” Jefferson waits, dramatically tosses up expectant hands when he trails off. It’s so infuriating that Hamilton scowls on instinct, the familiarity of the exchange calming him down. Jefferson’s still treating him just like he always has, still acting just as he always does. He doesn’t know, at least. And Madison would tell him something that important, wouldn’t he? Maybe Hamilton’s just on edge. “Madison’s out on the patio. It’s all fine.”
Jefferson relaxes half a fraction, lets go of him, but a frown lingers on his face.
“Don’t know why he didn’t wake me up,” Jefferson remarks. He doesn’t dwell on it, though, turns his attention back to Hamilton. “Fine, so no infected. What’s got you whipped up then?”
“I don’t know,” he exhales before realizing that the answer’s not nearly good enough. He bites his lip, feigns anxiety. It comes to him easily. “I just had the thought that I might’ve left something at the motel we were at last week. An, uh, a knife. Went to check in the Escalade.”
“Yeah? Need help looking?”
“Uh, no. Don’t think so. It’s not important. Just… stupid shit.”
He looks over his shoulder out to the patio. Is he strung out over nothing? Is he just on edge over a single irritated comment from Madison?
“Is he still upset?” Jefferson quietly asks, reading his look backwards.
“He didn’t really want to talk. He…”
“It’s not personal,” Jefferson sighs. “When he’s upset over something like he is now, you can’t get a damn thing out of him. Family and friends too.”
“It happen often?"
“No,” Jefferson says, eyes narrowing at some thought Hamilton isn’t privy to. “Not much in the last few years. I had, uh, suspicions about why . ”
He seems to debate sharing for a moment, but shakes his head at the last second. Freezes him out. And then Jefferson smiles, melancholy.
“But he’ll still sit with me even when I don’t wanna say a damn word. Just being there counts for something, doesn’t it?”
Hamilton thinks of all the times Madison has done just that for him: sit and wait, even if he doesn’t want to talk. Even if he never ends up opening his mouth at all.
Christ, if he does know, maybe Madison’s already done that for him for the last time. The thought sends a resurgence of nausea up his throat. It’s all so goddamn incongruent in his mind. He just doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t even fucking know what he wants.
Jefferson strides down the rest of the stairs. Hamilton watches him leave.
No, you know at least one thing you want, his mind cruelly reminds him.
He wants to sit next to him, even if he’s in one of his obnoxious shitty moods, wants to be there until he feels better. He wants to hold his hand, be loved, feel like he’s not a bystander to someone else’s life. He wants to feel wanted again—not second most wanted, but fully wanted, wants to give away a piece of his soul that he couldn’t get back even if he tried.
He wants to run, to try to put this stupid, impossible fantasy behind him because he has no chance of keeping his friendships unspoiled if he stays. He wants to forget he ever met either of them. He wants to be back in Charleston before the walls fell, back in New York before the outbreak. Wants to hold onto John and his friends and everything else and never let go.
And stupidly, so goddamn stupidly, he wants to chase Jefferson down.
It’ll never happen. He trudges back up the stairs to his room.
There are a thousand irreconcilable differences that separate him and Jefferson, and the greatest of all is that Jefferson loves Madison more than he would ever love him.
And Madison deserves that. With Jefferson, he’s the dearest person in Hamilton’s small world. If Madison had said something, had given him anything he could do, he’d have moved hell to do it. If Madison had told him then and there to leave—fuck, he would’ve done that too.
Madison accompanies such a complicated web of guilt and loyalty and love and a dozen other things he’s wise enough not to let himself feel. Madison’s...
Hamilton doesn’t let himself finish the sentence.
They head up to the mountains in West Virginia, try to outrun the heat. Hamilton has half the mind to just drive them all the way up to the damn Canadian border, but there are probably more Redcoats up north, so he restrains himself. At least they all handle the heat fine.
(Even though every time Jefferson eschews a shirt, Hamilton wants to strangle him).
It takes another day for Madison to at least partially realign his world on its axis. He casts aside his curtness, returns to normal on a conversational level. He talks the same, acts the same when they’re around, but he spends hours a day meditating. And he pulls back. Finds more excuses to be alone. Gives ambiguous answers when asked if something’s wrong
Jefferson fidgets, anxious, never looking quite certain with what to do with his hands. He privately speculates after another few days to Hamilton that it’s something to do with grief, something belatedly triggered by Montpelier. But even as he speaks, Hamilton sees the unconvinced downward draw of his mouth like he doesn’t quite believe what he’s suggesting.
So he doesn’t know, then.
Hamilton doesn’t know what to think. He alternates between fear that Madison’s found him out and certainty that Madison wouldn’t simply sit on that information if he knew. He’d tell Jefferson. Confront him. Kick him out. Fucking laugh at him.
But none of those things happen. July wears on. With the exception of his extra alone time, Madison gradually returns back to normal, and Hamilton finally forces himself to put it out of his mind. Jefferson does the calculus, must decide it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie, because he too seems to let it go. If it is what Hamilton’s afraid it is, then that’s a blessing
It has to have been something else.
But maybe he’s just desperate not to think he’s on the brink of being forced out.
He’s picking up a nasty smoking habit again, feels the twitch in his eye whenever he goes more than a couple hours without one or the irritation that wells in his chest. After all, it’s not like he’s got any shortage of stress to want to forget about. He smokes—even the shittiest brands, even fucking Marlboros—when it gets to be too much.
Too much happens often.
Jefferson catches him one night towards the end of July as he’s stumbling outside. He’s alone, notable because Madison almost always rises with him, morning or not.
“Can’t sleep?” Jefferson asks, sympathetic.
“Never fucking can,” he replies, more bitter than he means to. He swallows the sourness, softens the words with a question. “It quiet outside?”
“Haven’t heard any infected.” He catches sight of the carton in Hamilton’s hand, raises a judgmental brow. “Gonna go outside to smoke? Don’t need you to trigger James’s asthma.”
“Uh-huh, got it,” he says, even though he knows perfectly well that Jefferson doesn’t need to worry given Madison’s nonexistent asthma.
“Well, stay close to the house.”
“Sure,” he numbly agrees as he unlocks the front door and slips outside to the car.
He’s down to smoking Marlboros, but he’ll loot some souped-up Ford trucks and old gas stations soon, find more. Withdrawal sounds like the last damn thing he needs right now. He chain-smokes through one pack, then the next. Just like back in his early New York days.
Hercules would be disappointed in you , he thinks guiltily—but not guiltily enough to stop.
If things had been different, if he and John and Herc hadn’t gotten separated getting out of New York, if that one fucking car hadn’t cut them off before they could follow Burr and the Schuyler sisters—where would he be? Would they all still be alive?
(Are any of the others even still alive?)
Fuck. He doesn’t want to know. Doesn’t even want to think about it.
He’s suppressed this exact line of thinking for years. Why is he thinking about it all now? Is he really so goddamn worn down by it all that he can’t control his thoughts? A whirlwind of nausea creeps down his throat—but maybe that’s just the cigarettes. He lights another anyways, debates breaking into the Escalade to find some booze to wash down the dry itch in his throat.
“You’re going to develop a habit,” Madison impassively remarks.
It scares the ever living shit out of him. Hamilton’s halfway to drawing his gun by the time he realizes who it is. He’s got half the mind to tell him off on instinct alone—but he just barely manages to refrain, reminding himself that Madison’s still a touch off-kilter. He doesn’t need—doesn’t want to push him further off his axis. He runs a hand over his face.
“If I do, then I’m gonna get cut off fast. Down to two packs,” Hamilton sourly replies, taking another long drag and pretending like he doesn’t have a habit already.
Fuck, his throat hurts.
“Then I’ll teach you to meditate.” Madison moves towards the Escalade, starts searching for something. So that’s what it is. He didn’t come out here to check up on him—of course he didn’t. He just woke up and came out to get, what? A book? Hamilton doesn’t know why the thought bothers him as much as it does. “If you’re smoking, it’s safe to bet that you’re anxious.”
His mouth twists into a pained kind of smile.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
There’s a long drawn-out pause. Madison emerges from the Escalade with a biography in hand, and there’s a definite crack in his expression with something raw beneath.
He looks tired. Fucking exhausted, Hamilton realizes. His gaze is fatigued, barely half-awake. Deep shadows beneath his eyes stand out even against his dark skin. His posture is half-slumped over—a far cry from the straight spine he usually carries.
“Then may I talk?” he asks, a note of desperation in his voice that seems so ill-fitting that nerves strike him like knuckles.
“You don’t need an invitation,” Hamilton swallows. “It’s a free county.”
“I would wager that it isn’t,” he replies, wry, and Hamilton laughs wryly despite himself.
There’s another long pause, and something Hamilton would’ve called pity once wells in Madison’s eyes. He knows better now—knows that it’s guilt—but he can’t help but to feel like it’s pity anyways. Like Madison sees right through him, knows what he wants, thinks he’s nothing.
It’s a surprise, then, when Madison says,
“Thomas and I would’ve had years more of good time had I not broken up with him.”
“Yeah,” he replies without thinking, his mouth and mind out of alignment. “I don’t get why you did. And apparently he doesn’t either.” Somewhere in his head, he knows that he should back off instead of pushing forward. He doesn’t. “Pretty big secret to keep for so long.”
“Because I’ve never felt certain I made the right choice,” Madison admits after an agonized pause, “and I’m afraid more than ever that I didn’t.”
That’s what he’s been worried over, Hamilton realizes with a start. As it sinks in, he almost fucking laughs in relief. Laughs at his own damn paranoia. But the joy is short-lived, because a flush of guilt comes hot on its tail. It doesn’t even matter in the end.
Madison hasn’t worked it out—yet.
He’s only got extra time, but the outcome is always the same if he stays.
“I believed,” Madison carefully says, “that it was the moral choice. Perhaps I wouldn’t ever find a relationship with a woman I could openly and genuinely love—but Thomas could. It was…” He trails off, the pained grimace on his face speaking volumes. “... a burden on him that he could never openly hold my hand. Kiss me. Tell anyone I was his partner. He pretended otherwise, but I knew. He’s always been that way—loud, eager to live his life in the public eye. I’ve never been quite so keen on that. And our careers would’ve been dead in the water the moment someone caught wind of our relationship.”
It’s a confession so unlike Madison’s usually carefully dolled out information that Hamilton isn’t quite sure what to process first—let alone what to say. He’s considered it all before, of course. He knows what it’s like.
Sort of.
He and Laurens had been cautious in public, considering future careers, John’s family—secrecy Hamilton had traded away in a moment of furious impulsivity at the gala. But with everything said and done—it’d been worth it. He’d make the same decision a thousand times over.
(He still remembers fleeing the scene, how once they were alone, Laurens laughed and kissed him like there wasn’t a damn thing left in the world, how he never looked at him the same way afterwards, how he looked at him like he could see their entire futures laid out back when the future had seemed so bright).
He pushes it all down. Refuses to think about it. Immunity means he has a new future, even if it’s one where he ends up alone. But that seems far from the right thing to say now.
“Why didn’t you just tell Jefferson that?” Hamilton asks, shaking his head, even though he’s beginning to get an inkling of why. “You don’t think he would’ve agreed with you? Or at least understood?”
“There was… more to the situation. It was complicated.”
Hamilton makes a sound that means nothing, offers Madison a cigarette. He takes it, checks that he’s out of the line of the sight of the windows. He almost asks if Madison ever plans on just telling Jefferson the whole asthma thing was made up to get him to quit smoking—but the hypocrisy feels like too much while they’re both doing it, so he just lights Madison up, lets him be lost in thought. He works his way through another few cigarettes before Madison finally speaks, voice heavy.
“I was blackmailed,” he says. “Or my father was, rather. In an election year. A particularly close race against a Tory.” His face twists. “The aesthetics of having me as a son, you understand, would not be helpful. It would’ve jeopardized his career.” Forced him to stop riding the line, condemned his son, or ostracized the people that would. Hamilton knows the score. “My career would’ve been dead in the water before it’d begun. And Thomas’s too. And so I called it off.”
And there it is.
There’s the reason what was in Madison’s father’s desk at Montpelier, the letters that Hamilton still has tucked away and doesn’t know what to do with, and he suddenly feels distinctly sure that the decision wasn’t Madison’s choice as much as he seems to think it was. There’s a reason that the letters from Jefferson never made it to Madison’s hands.
And there’s a reason for the way the bitterness in his voice seems turned toward no one but himself when that should never have been the case.
“And your dad?” he asks, because that’s what leaps out at him as the common factor in it all.
“He paid the blackmailer off. Wasn’t even surprised when he called me into his office,” he says. “But it was a temporary solution to what would inevitably be a recurring problem. I decided the risk to our careers wasn’t justifiable—not when Thomas could easily find someone else.”
Before he can think better of it, Hamilton laughs—a short burst of noise that sounds so much louder than it should. He shakes his head at the absurdity, at the rare display of complete cluelessness on Madison’s behalf. Is that what he fucking thinks? That he’s that goddamn replaceable? Is that what it looks like from on the inside of Jefferson’s affection? Thomas could easily find someone else, Madison had said, and he still isn’t even able to see it for the utterly absurd lie it is, is he? And why? Because he thinks Jefferson would’ve loved a woman more?
“You think he’d ever look at anyone else the way he looks at you?” Hamilton asks, more emotion slipping into his voice than he intends.
“He and Angelica were happy together,” Madison retorts, oddly taken aback.
“And who did he end up with? Come on, Madison. It was always going to be you. Any universe, any set of circumstances—he was always going to end up with you,” Hamilton insists, clawing back at the desperate longing that sucks at his chest because he needs Madison to believe at least that much. He’s not a good person, but fuck if he’s not trying.
Madison studies him, and Hamilton finds himself struck with the by-now familiar terror that Madison’s seen straight through him—but no, he’s still safe, because Madison breaks eye contact without an accusation, without hatred spilling into his eyes.
“Then you think I made the wrong choice,” he says, flat.
Hamilton looks away, a dozen overwhelming voices clashing in his head. One throws out ideas of what he should say, another narrates what he wants to say, one takes great pleasure in reminding him that it doesn’t matter how much he does for Madison because he’ll always be fucking terrible, always be a traitor to him, doesn’t deserve whatever scraps of love he gets—
He wants another cigarette. He wants to be away. He shifts on his feet, defensively sinks into himself, shields himself with closed-off shoulders and eyes that flick towards the dirt.
Madison is here having a conversation with him about one thing, and Hamilton can’t even give him his full attention because he’s too goddamn caught up in his own selfishness.
“I think the choice you made was because of your career. Not because you thought he would be happier with someone else,” Hamilton answers, and it’s as close as he can get to what he actually thinks without risking saying something Madison doesn’t want to hear. He inhales sharply from his cigarette. Feels the sting in his throat. Lets it distract from the burn in his chest. “He wouldn’t be. As happy, sure, maybe—but like I said. Look at who he went back to.”
Hamilton means it. He doesn’t know Jefferson’s full romantic history—it figures that Jefferson and Angelica were long since broken up by the time he met her—but he can’t picture Jefferson with anyone but Madison. It was always going to be him, and Hamilton never had a chance in this universe or in any other. Fuck, in any other world, he wouldn’t be in this situation at all.
A certain rare, raw vulnerability splits open Madison’s expression, rock-solid certainty cracking to expose something frail. Hamilton blinks, surprised, not sure what to do or say.
“And was I wrong?”
“I would’ve done the same thing,” Hamilton finally offers, scant consolation.
If he’d been in Madison’s shoes, that is. Built his career up on a lie. Found some woman he could make an agreement with. The South was so much less forgiving than New York. Even if he’d shot his own career in the foot with his Henry Laurens stunt, he hadn’t even begun his long climb. He had nowhere to fall to but the ground; Madison had a long way to go. And if he’d been in his shoes, Hamilton knows himself too well to believe that he would’ve risked his legacy.
Love had seemed important at the time—and now he has neither.
But he’s still got his shot at a legacy—something he can build comes from whatever’s in his veins that keeps him from kicking it like everyone else after being bitten. It feels sometimes like he’s still waiting on his turn. It has to mean something. He’s been living aimlessly for the better part of two years, living just to keep breathing. It has to all mean something.
(And maybe it’s better this way. Better than his legacy was handed to him rather than hard-earned. Maybe it means fewer people get hurt in the collateral. He might’ve broken Jefferson’s heart in Madison’s shoes, but forgiving himself for it? That’d be another matter.)
Hamilton drops his cigarette, moves towards the house.
“But fuck if I know whether that makes it right. I’m not the goddamn paragon of morality,” he says, and it feels like an apology and a confession rolled into one. The words Madison told him back in Montpelier bounce around his skull and force their way from his mouth as he moves back towards the house. “I’m just a man, right?”
Madison has no answer.
He sleeps, and he dreams.
They’re driving in the Escalade—just him and Madison. He doesn’t know where Jefferson is, and he’s afraid to ask. He’s certain that if he does, Madison will tell him Jefferson is dead, and he’s sure it’s somehow his fault. So he sits in the passenger seat and tries not to fidget as they speed down an empty road towards a sickly yellow sunset.
“It should’ve been you that died,” Madison coldly tells him at long last. Hamilton doesn’t know whether he’s talking about his mother or Laurens or Jefferson—
Hamilton wakes up in the passenger seat in the Escalade. Madison’s reclined far back in the driver’s seat, chest rising and falling quietly, and Hamilton has a split second of terror where he can’t find Jefferson—but he turns around, finds his long limbs splayed out in the further row back. It’s so damn hot that even Jefferson and Madison can’t stand to sleep tangled together, he remembers as he tries to calm down his racing heart.
Hamilton lies still, desperately restless but not wanting to wake either of them.
An hour or two passes before there’s a sharp, abrupt inhale beside him, the sound of fabric shifting as Madison jerks awake. Hamilton stills, frozen as he debates whether to let on that he’s awake or not. His neck prickles. He’s sure, somehow, that Madison is looking at him. He almost thinks he feels the ghost of fingers over his cheek. But Madison shifts after a minute, lies back down, and eventually his breathing quiets again.
Hamilton opens his eyes, finds Madison on his side. He looks peaceful. Younger, without the façade of calm impartiality wringing his features flat. There are other things Hamilton might notice, he thinks-but self-preservation wins out. He forces himself to close his eyes.
“Do you feel fine?” Jefferson asks Madison the next morning as they traipse through the woods to refill their water containers.
“Yes,” he replies, lifting his brows. “Why do you ask?”
“I just woke up a little before you, saw you were sleeping on your side. Usually only do that when you’re sick.”
“Oh.” Madison puts a strange inflection on the word. “That’s odd. I don’t remember ever turning over.”
As July drags into its last days, Madison again retreats back into his own world. Hamilton tries to suss out if there’s any rhyme or reason to his ups and downs, but there’s nothing as far as he can find. Hamilton chalks it up to feelings over their conversation about the blackmail, but he can’t exactly interfere directly. Jefferson, attentive to a goddamn fault, notices. Of course he does.
Hamilton can’t tell whether Jefferson knows something he doesn’t or whether just can’t stand being in the dark any longer—but it must be the latter because he at last corners Hamilton late one evening while he’s out smoking out on the porch of some farmhouse-type place out in the country. His brows are drawn, stress written clearly into the way he stands.
“You’ve been smoking too much lately,” Jefferson remarks unhelpfully, too preoccupied to quite able to make the jab land. “Gonna give yourself lung cancer.”
“Yeah, well, at least it’d be a natural death,” he wryly replies, trying to ignore the blossom of warmth in his chest when Jefferson snorts, pretends he doesn’t think he’s fucking hilarious, relaxes just a little.
“Don’t think that anything that can be avoided with common sense counts as a natural death.”
“Didn’t you used to smoke?”
“Yeah, but I quit a decade and a half ago ‘cause of James.” His face twists with worry at Madison’s name, and the tension is all back. He sinks into one of the rocking chairs laid out on the porch, uncharacteristically fidgety. “I’m, uh, pretty worried about him. He says he’s fine, but, shit, I don’t know. It’s been a couple weeks, Hamilton. He doesn’t ever get wound up this long.”
Hamilton nips teeth into his tongue, then—even though his cigarette isn't even half-smoked—he grinds it under his heel and , then hesitantly sits down in a chair on the porch.
“You said….uh, you said a little while ago you thought it was ‘cause of Montpelier, didn’t you? I mean, he lost most of his family in a day. They might have already been gone, but… you know, it’d be hard on anyone,” he says. Guilt creeps in at his words; even if they’re not necessarily lies, it still feels like they are. Still feels like Jefferson’s trusting him, and he’s turning his back.
“Has he said anything to you lately?” Jefferson asks, turning to him.
Yes, he thinks, even as he opens his mouth to deflect.
“What do you mean?”
Jefferson’s eyes snap to him, and Hamilton’s certain he sees right through him. Hamilton holds his gaze steady, but Jefferson sees something he can’t hide and shakes his head angrily, stands so abruptly his chair nearly tips over. In a fit of frustration, he storms to the railing.
“Fucking Christ, you're both bugging out on me. Jesus, I just want to know if he’s said anything to you. I deserve to know what’s wrong with my own goddamn h—partner.”
It’s not his place. It’s not his place to get involved in their relationship, to interfere in things that aren’t his. His place is on the other side of the door that separates them from him.
“That sounds like it’s between the two of you,” he says, a defensive note in his voice.
“He told you not to tell me?” Jefferson deduces, and now there’s confusion accompanying the hurt in his voice. His entire posture shifts from concerned to upset in the space of a few seconds, and he whirls around angrily when Hamilton stands to join him.
“He didn’t,” Hamilton says. It’s not quite a lie, but it’s close enough.
“Uh-huh. Just implied it was between you, then?” Jefferson accuses, shoulders growing tighter.
With denial out the door, he falls back onto aggressiveness.
“It was—fuck. Look, it’s not my fucking problem, okay?” He steps away. “I’m not here to be your couples’ therapist. Leave me out of your damn relationship.”
“It feels like I’m the one getting left the hell out!” Jefferson snaps, almost shouting.
Hamilton can’t find his voice. He’s fucking lucky he can’t. He doesn’t know what he would say if he could. He just feels the furious tremble of his hands at his sides.
You don’t know a damn thing about what it feels like to get left out, he thinks.
Jefferson sweeps him over with a look. Hamilton doesn’t know whether he sees how short his fuse is to blowing or whatever else it is, but he backs off. Jefferson collects himself within a few seconds, shakes his head, pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Look—shit,” he exhales, remedial, forcing his shoulders to relax. His voice stays stiff, strained, and there’s iciness in eyes that doesn’t quite melt. “You’re right, okay? It’s not your problem, and you shouldn’t have to be caught between us. I’ll drop it.”
But he doesn’t want to.
Still, he reaches out, sets a pleading hand on Hamilton’s shoulder and squeezes. The touch feels like a goddamned fire brand. He tenses up tighter.
“But please, if there’s anything I need to know— really need to know—please tell me. We both care about him, right? No damn reason we shouldn’t be on the same team.”
A stiff yeah is all he’s able to agree to.
What’s one more lie? What’s one more fucking secret?
(Just one more, and then they all spill over.)
He’s out smoking one night when Madison joins him, sits down onto the steps beside him. It’s a surprise: he doesn’t know how Madison knew he was awake, nor did the man want much to do with anyone during the entire day. He spent it meditating, mostly.
“If you’d rather be alone, I can go inside,” Madison offers after a time’s passed.
Hamilton’s mind drudges up the conversation he and Jefferson had not all that long ago.
“But he’ll still sit with me even when I don’t wanna say a damn word. Just being there counts for something, doesn’t it?” Jefferson’s voice echoes in his mind.
He doesn’t want to be alone. He doesn’t want to be alone so badly, even though he knows there’s really no choice for him in the end. So he looks over.
Deep remorse fills him. He could be such a good friend. They could be such good friends. If it wasn’t for the invisible wedge between them, the one Madison doesn’t even know exists. They could be—they could be a lot of things in some other life, Hamilton thinks.
He wonders if Madison feels the same.
“No,” is all Hamilton says to him. “Stay.”
And Madison does.
“Alexander,” he says when the sun at last rises and he stands up to go inside. “You know you’re a good man, don’t you?
He freezes.
No, I’m not. If you knew, you wouldn’t believe that.
“I, uh… thanks.”
“I mean that, Alexander,” he says quietly. “I’ve been thinking as I’ve sat here, and I believe it. I know how much you do for us both. Regardless of what it means for you.”
Is he talking about the scar on Hamilton’s neck? The times he’s thrown himself between them and a horde of infected? How he’s skipped meals when he knows their stores are low?
“I only wish you could yourself the way I see you,” Madison says, even quieter.
And Hamilton doesn’t know how to tell him that he’s wrong. Too forgiving. That he should just put whatever energy he gives to Hamilton towards Jefferson, because Hamilton will just disappoint him in the end. So he just forces a smile and says nothing at all.
“Please pass the salt, dear,” Madison says absentmindedly at dinner one night.
Hamilton ignores the comment so clearly not directed at him. There’s a beat of silence before Jefferson reaches over Hamilton’s plate to grab the shaker. He spares half a second of irritation to wonder why Madison just didn’t fucking ask him—and then he looks over, sees a flash of mortification on Madison’s face, the pointed blankness on Jefferson’s.
There’s a ridiculous suspicion that brews in his mind, but he dismisses it with a scoff before it can take root and grow.
As the August heat bears down and wears on, it almost becomes routine—and then the sunsets and sunrises blend together into endless summer heat until it is routine, as much of a part of his life as breathing. The hiding. The lying. The moments where he forces himself to look away or leave a room because he’s sure if he doesn’t, he’ll expose the reason behind the awful guilt in his chest.
The guilt he learns to live with fastest. After all, he’s been living with some degree of guilt long since before he even left Nevis, when his mom died but he didn’t. He’s felt it even more acutely since Charleston, even more since he got the scar on his neck. The guilt he feels towards Madison is entirely different. Madison is still alive. Madison he can still hurt. But it’s still guilt. He gets used to carrying it, even if he never feels any less like a fucking traitor for it.
He doesn’t get used to the heartache. He holds onto irrational hope that one day he’ll wake up and Jefferson will make him scowl just like it used to, but the day doesn’t come. He tries to shove his feelings away with the rest of his grief and loss and everything else he refuses to let himself feel, but it’s not as easily hidden—not when the images are right in front of him. There’s nothing actively reminding him of New York, Columbia. He’s forgotten his friends' faces. Doesn’t have to see Laurens’ unless he pulls out the picture in his pocket.
But every time he walks into a room and Jefferson and Madison are sitting next to each other at a table even though there’s a seat on the other side, he has to live with it. Think about it.
And he thinks about it all the damn time.
Hamilton doesn’t get used to it. Doesn’t think he ever will. He only gets used to the idea that he’ll never be satisfied. The idea that the satisfaction he does have is temporary.
He knows that they’ll find out eventually. He’s known since the fucking start, and there’s a particular suspicion that’s lingered in Jefferson’s face for days, that wells up at odd intervals. Hamilton is certain it has something to do with him, is certain that Jefferson is collecting the pieces he’s been unable to avoid leaving behind.
Thoughts of leaving fade, then surface, then fade again. He delays serious thoughts of leaving, even though it seems inevitable now. It’s bad for him. He knows it is, because the more time he spends with them, the more terrifying the thought of being alone again becomes. And he’s fucking trapped. Trapped: the more time he spends with them, the closer they come to finding out. The closer he comes to fucking it all up.
And what then? He’ll stay alive, but there’s a distinct difference between staying alive and living. What he’s doing now is miserable and anxiety-inducing, but at least he’s living. At least he has moments where his feelings are far enough away that he can smile, laugh. The thought of dragging himself out of bed to do nothing but keep his heart beating sounds so fucking depressing.
But he has to. Has to remember how to survive on his own. He knows it’s coming.
And so he pulls fully away and finds comfort in the one constant he’s had nearly a year, in the one sliver of hope he can still look towards: immunity. The scar on his neck is healed enough to be indistinct. He could pass it off as some kind of burn if someone didn’t look too closely, didn’t notice the little teeth-edge ridges in the scar tissue. He knows better.
Inevitably, his mind shifts towards what he’ll have to do. How much more does he have to sacrifice? How far will he have to go? Sam Adams promised he would pass along any information he found on any kind of vaccine research, but that was months ago. They haven’t even heard from him or Hercules in weeks, and there was still nothing last time.
What if England is his only real option?
He would have to go alone. He’d probably be executed the second he set a foot into the king’s castle. But even if they listened, what life would he have? A rotting cell, waiting for news about Jefferson and Madison and the Sons? He’d be helpless.
(But isn’t he helpless here too?)
No matter how he parses it, he loses Madison and Jefferson. Whether it’s because they find out, or because he has to find someone who could make a cure on his own, the road ends in the same place. He ends up alone.
And as the truth settles heavy as lead into his limbs, he decides that it’s better that he ends up alone by his own choice. Better that he chooses to leave rather than has to leave hearing the awful taunts from his nightmares echoing in his ears. Better that he can hold on to what happiness he’s found with them rather than have it stripped away and spoiled.
Maybe they’ll be confused, hurt, but it’ll spare them all worse feelings in the end. Madison and Jefferson will eventually go back to their domestic bliss, the complete freedom they had before he ever showed his face.
Hamilton can still hold some place in their heart, but he can’t hold onto them.
The worst part of it all is that he won’t be able to protect them any longer. Won’t be able to wrestle infected away with his bare fucking hands to keep them from being bit. Can’t offer himself up as bait. Won’t be able to put himself on the line every damn time because he’s got his stupid fucking immunity to shield him.
He just has to trust that they can take care of themselves. They could before him. They have to once he’s gone. He’ll do the same.
Hamilton pulls away.
He eats alone when he can. Makes himself scarce during the day. Spends time wandering through abandoned neighborhoods, sharpening the skills he’s let soften while he’s had someone else to watch his back. He thinks, tries to acclimate himself to being alone.
It fills him with the same empty ache he felt after escaping Charleston.
Jefferson gets frustrated with his aloofness as the week wears on, torn between Madison and Hamilton slipping away from him at two angles, his inability to work anything out between either of them. He works out incessantly, vanity ever-present to protect him. Hamilton’s a brick wall when Jefferson questions him, stays well away from any conversations between Jefferson and Madison.
It’s a good thing that Jefferson’s hurt, he numbly tells himself. It hurts him too, but it’s a good thing. It’s a good thing. Jefferson wouldn’t be confused, wouldn’t be hurt if he had figured everything out.
It’s a delicate, miserable balance. There’s no happy ending for him, but there probably never was. The only way this was ever going to end was with him alone or dead.
Madison and Jefferson can have something better. Without him.
It's the middle of August when he fucks it all up.
He fucks it all up on the day he decides to leave. He just had to make it through one damn day, and he can’t. He fucks everything up. He fucks it all up. He’s so fucking—
There are half a dozen times when Hamilton should’ve learned his lesson.
After everything that happened with Laurens in Charleston, he drank too much, so damn irresponsibly, woke up once with an infected half a second from cannibalizing him. Wouldn’t have really mattered if he’d known then he was immune, but he hadn’t. Instead, it ended with him escaping putting a bullet in his brain by half an inch and a split second.
He doesn’t have to worry about that anymore, at least, but there’s a new set of ways to fuck up drinking around other people. He drinks too much and risks losing control of his tongue, his expressions. He drinks too much and sometimes he gets mean, as fucking mean as his dad was before he split, and he says things he regrets before he’s even half-sober. He’s done it before. He knows he does it. Knows a fuck-up is coming.
He drinks too much and fucking implodes the last two things he has that matter when all he’s tried to do is make sure they’re happy.
He tries to commit every detail of the day to memory. Tries to memorize every angle and curve and slope of their faces, even though he knows they’ll slip from his mind with time.
He cooks breakfast. Makes lunch. Goes hunting with his bow until he brings back duck for dinner. Lets himself get close one last time. Jefferson seems fucking thrilled just to have him talking normally again, and they cook dinner together. Jefferson doesn’t even act like a smartass when Hamilton uses what he’d usually refer to as an excess of hot sauces, really, there are flavors other than burning out your taste buds.
It would be so easy. So easy to just meet him when he turned. Lean up a little. Kiss him.
A goodbye, even if Jefferson wouldn’t know that yet.
It would be so easy. But he won’t. He won’t, and he doesn’t.
He feels empty. Untethered. Sucked dry.
Jefferson opens an exceptional bottle of sherry at dinner. It’s some bottle from the 1950s that’s probably worth more than Hamilton’s entire pre-outbreak net worth. Hamilton has half a glass and thinks it’s fucking terrible, switches over to his shitty paint-thinner beer as Jefferson always so lovingly calls it. He’ll miss that, he thinks.
He listens doggedly to the conversation, tries to commit everything to memory.
It feels like the last supper.
Jefferson says he sort of likes the sherry but that it’s too dry for his tastes. He switches over to water halfway through. Madison, who’s been especially withdrawn today—maybe because of Hamilton’s reinvigoration or maybe in spite of it, maybe the reason Jefferson chose to open such a nice bottle to begin with—slowly comes back to life as he makes his way through the better part of the bottle. He talks, at last cracks a smile at some joke Jefferson’s made, lays his hand over Jefferson’s where it sits on the table.
They’ll be alright, Hamilton tells himself. And you’ll stay alive.
He’s only half-present now, sinking deeply into dread. The conversation swirls on without him now that Jefferson has someone else to talk to. Hamilton escapes from despair just long enough to hear Madison offhandedly airs some grievance about the Redcoats and the minutiae of their economic maritime policies and colonial trade, then Hamilton goes off on a tangent, always so eager to talk about his biggest academic passion. Any kind of distraction.
He goes on way too damn long—talk less, some ghost of Burr’s voice echoes in his mind—and he abruptly shuts himself up.
But then Madison launches off into an equally impassioned speech, uncharacteristically animated. He’s maybe a little drunk, because there’s a flush warming his dark skin and his hands move to punctuate every sentence, and he stops only to take another sip of sherry.
It’s endearing, Hamilton thinks, even as something in the back of his mind warns him against thinking along those lines. Doesn’t matter anyways. He’s gone soon. But if he thinks Madison’s endearing, it’s nothing next to whatever Jefferson thinks.
Jefferson watches Madison talk with more affection in his eyes than it seems possible for any one man to hold. There’s relief there, too—probably that Madison has mellowed out, even if it’s only until his buzz wears off. In an unusual show of restraint, he refrains from participating in the conversation, throwing in some clever wrench that Hamilton usually hasn’t even considered.
Fuck, Hamilton hates him. Hates how damn smart he is. Hates that he’ll have no one to match wits with after tomorrow. Might not ever have anyone again.
“If it might interest you, I have a bottle of tequila tucked away,” Madison tells Hamilton, lifting and swirling the last of the bottle of sherry. “I’m sure it’s sufficiently terrible for your tastes, and I’m sure I’m too drunk to have preserved my palate.”
Hamilton swallows the last of his beer. Something in his mind warns him against getting too drunk. He’s already so close to leaving with everything still intact. He doesn’t want to somehow risk fucking everything up, have to run away with a sour taste in his mouth.
His instincts are right, but he ignores them. He’s going to keep drinking. Because this is the last time he can be a friend to Madison, who’s been a fucking rock to him even through his many, many fuck ups, his months and months of emotional distance. Because he can’t say goodbye, but he can at least try to make as many memories as he can to hold onto.
And because this is the last time he’ll have someone to chase away the loneliness. The last time he can pretend that he isn’t going to walk away tomorrow morning just as hollow as he was before they found him. Madison and Jefferson put the air back into his lungs, and—
Madison comes back down with the tequila, and he drinks deeply straight from the bottle.
There’s not a goddamn person that can stop him—certainly not himself.
There are bad ideas, and then there are ideas that belong to a category all of their own.
Hamilton catches up to Madison quickly, and soon the two of them are talking more animatedly, more openly than they have in weeks. It feels so damn normal that Hamilton can almost forget it’s the last time it’ll happen. Jefferson doesn’t jump in for the most part, visibly distracted. He disassembles his shotgun, strips the parts, cleans it all out—keeping watch while he and Madison get even more wasted off their asses than they already are.
Smart. And also probably fair. Jefferson has had to walk to bed with an arm around Madison’s shoulder more than once in the past month after cracking open a bottle of especially expensive wine. Still—the thought’s nice.
Sometimes, Jefferson is nice. He’s lots of things. Lots of things. Good, bad, obnoxious, too much. Too much for Hamilton’s bruised heart to handle. He doesn’t think much about those things, though. The alcohol lets them slip easily from his mind, sand between his fingers.
At some point, he and Madison stop debating and start talking.
He talks about Nevis. He talks about his mother. New York. Only the good things. Doesn’t talk about his dad or the hurricane. Doesn’t talk about lying sick next to his mom. Watching her breathe in and out. In and out. Until there was one last breath out and no more in.
He talks about the happy things. Happy images to hold onto. About all the trouble he got up to as a kid with his brother, summers spent scaling fruit trees and swindling anyone who would fall for their tricks. And then about his days as a teen, these stories sans his brother, and they know better than to ask. He tells them about stealing shipments from Redcoats in the Nevis ports. The spats he got into with loyalists at Columbia. He confesses to the dozens of angry calls and letters he sent in to protest their legislation, tells them about the rants he used to go on to anyone who would listen.
Madison listens with a fondness in his eyes that Hamilton can’t label until later. Jefferson pushes away his shotgun and just listens. He seems happier tonight. Relieved that things seem a little like they’re normal. Hamilton tries not to think about whether all the good will between them will be spoiled by tomorrow morning. Even if they never understand why he left, they’ll forgive him for it. Won’t they?
“And I’m hoping you’re eventually gonna get to the part where you realized you were wrong about us all along?” Jefferson smirks when Hamilton can’t think of another damn thing to say.
More wrong than you know, he wants to say. But he just scowls, hides his expression by taking another chug of tequila.
“See if I ever tell you shit again.”
A silence falls. Hamilton thinks they must find it comfortable, but he doesn’t. He feels the weight of it heavily on his shoulders. Knows that silence is all he’ll have before long. After a minute, Jefferson checks his watch, ducks outside to the Escalade, comes back with one of their jugs of purified water, sets it on the table.
“Remember this when you feel like being a jackass ‘cause you’re hungover tomorrow,” Jefferson chides him, and Hamilton is glad he can’t really see straight, because he’s sure Jefferson’s smirking at him in the way that always seems so damn taunting, the look that he always sort of wants to kiss off his face. “Even when you’re a brat, I’m still looking out for you.”
“Oh, you’re such a saint,” Hamilton croons to him. “What could I ever do to make it up to you?”
“If you’re that sweet to me already, maybe I should eighty-six you now.”
Hamilton laughs. Smiles. Is he smiling too brightly? Did he laugh too loud? He doesn’t know. Jefferson doesn’t look too long, so he figures it must be fine. It’s probably fine. It’s fine.
But when he turns back around, Madison is watching him, thoughtful, unreadable. Why is Madison watching him? Did he give something away? Hamilton’s heart starts to pound harder in his chest, but Jefferson steps over, kisses Madison.
“Think I’m going to bed,” Jefferson says, excusing himself, and what was left of his smile falls right off his face.
So that’s it. It’s over. Almost a year of his life concluded.
Hamilton wishes desperately that Jefferson wouldn’t go yet. If he knew it was probably the last time the three of them would, would he still leave? Would he say anything else?
What’s he gonna do tomorrow when you’re not there?
Hamilton can’t think of a way to ask him to stay. Can’t think of a way to hold on any longer. He has to let go. He’s holding onto a rope that’s getting pulled away, and it’s just gonna burn away the skin on his hands if he keeps holding tight. He has to let go.
“I didn’t realize it was so late,” Madison says, moving to stand.
There’s half a moment of something narrow-eyed in Jefferson’s expression as he looks over to Hamilton, but he shakes it off, seems to scoff at whatever thought’s crossed his mind. He turns back to Madison, smiles warmly.
“No. Stay. You two have fun.” His mouth twists into a smirk. “Someone’s gotta stay and tell Hamilton why he’s wrong if he starts talking policy again.”
“And you’re running away to leave your more articulate boyfriend to do it?” Hamilton goads him, hoping it’ll be just enough to make him sit a little longer.
But Jefferson just puts on a show of rolling his eyes and leaves the kitchen. And then he’s gone.
Hamilton almost chases him down.
I was thinking about what you said in the lighthouse. About being happier because I’m here. And I don’t get it. I don’t. But I’ve…
He doesn’t move. He doesn’t know what he’d say.
Hamilton pours himself another shot, throws it back. Pours himself another.
This is a bad idea, some distant part of his mind warns.
It’s just him and Madison, both drunk. Madison has his own issues right now. He doesn't need Hamilton adding to the pile.
This is a bad idea, he thinks, more urgently, the words clearer in his mind.
He looks at the doorway Jefferson just exited from. Thinks of telling Madison goodnight. Calling it a night. Going to bed. Leaving on a high note. It’s a good note to leave on.
But then Madison hums some four-note melody, pours them both a new glass of wine, and clinks their glasses together. He smiles just about as widely as he ever does, so wide his teeth almost show. Hamilton’s fingers knot tighter around his glass.
“To the two of us,” Madison toasts, laughing in drunken reverie. There’s something so light about it, so uncharacteristically free, that Hamilton can’t stand the thought of dampening his good mood by leaving him to drink alone. Not when he’s such a shitty friend already.
Hamilton lifts his glass, feels his mouth twisting into a matching grin.
“I’ll drink to that,” he says, and they clink glasses again, down their drinks too fast.
Bad, bad, bad idea.
There are bad ideas, and then, when all’s said and done, there are ideas that leave nothing left to burn but ash.
He doesn’t quite know how it happens. He replays it all over in his mind a thousand times, and he never pinpoints just when and where he fucks it all up.
It’s a series of things slowly going wrong, he decides.
It starts when he motions too dramatically mid-speech, throws himself off-balance, leans forward too sharply. Madison hastily reaches out, grabs hold of his arm, holds him steady.
Hamilton straightens again, vaguely dizzy but safely upright. Madison doesn’t move away. His hand stays laid cool against his flushed skin, and he lists unthinkingly into the touch.
God, he misses it. The simple contact of someone brushing back his hair. A hand on his arm to check in. A hand on his back to keep him steady. Just simple human contact.
Something he’s not going to get anymore. So it feels alright, then, to soak it in now. Like he can store it up in reserve. Draw back on it.
He looks into Madison’s eyes, finds them dark and full of some emotion he can’t quite pin down. He’s a little too drunk to think past the fog clouding his thoughts, so he just grins.
“What would I do without you?” he croons. Madison at last withdraws his hand, looking away.
“If you’re anything like Thomas, crash and burn, I suppose.”
And, Jesus, does he.
And then Madison says something about the future. About the three of them. About how they might all head west together soon enough.
And it sinks in that even though Hamilton’s part of their future plans, they aren’t in his.
“And perhaps you’ll have the chance to meet someone,” Madison finishes.
Suggestion is clear in his voice, and even though Hamilton hasn’t been listening for a minute, he hears that much. Suggestion that there’s still someone out there for him like the last person that would ever love him like he wanted is dead. Like the only person he’s met since that he has loved would never feel the same way. He smiles bitterly, laughs sourly, speaks acidically.
“I think someone’s already, uh, fallen in love with me for the last time.”
Madison’s expression shifts to something Hamilton doesn’t know how to read drunk. Fuck, he probably couldn’t read it sober. He can barely see straight for more than a second.
“Hamilton—” he starts, but Hamilton can’t stand the thought of being pitied. Not right now.
“Look, it’s fine. You know. Just how it all panned out.” His throat stings as he lies so unconvincingly. “I don’t care. Really.”
“Alexander,” Madison tries again, voice softer.
Hamilton has heard his first name plenty from Madison’s mouth by now, but there’s something new about hearing it here, in this context. He shifts in his seat, lifts his gaze, meets Madison’s eyes. The man regards him with dark eyes and an expression too hard to read between the light of a single candle and Hamilton’s swimming vision. The silence between them rests thickly, but it’s somehow less heavy than he’d expect.
“Perhaps a change of subject is warranted,” Madison says at last, forcing indifference.
At least, Hamilton thinks he is. His voice seems a little strained, but maybe it’s the tequila. Hamilton doesn’t know. He hardly ever fucking knows. Trying to read Madison is like trying to read a fucking—a fucking— god, he doesn’t even know.
“I never know what you’re thinking,” he blurts out, brows gathering together. And then quieter, without meaning to, he says, “Guess I never will.”
Madison’s hand slides towards him but stops. He looks away.
“You think more than enough for the three of us. You hardly need my thoughts bouncing around in your mind.”
“Well, maybe I want to know,” he carefully replies, lingering on the words so his tongue doesn’t trip. “Maybe I wanna be let into your head. Just for tonight. If it’ll—if it’ll help.”
“There are things that are better left unknown,” Madison says, eyes focused on his hands. “And there are burdens that are mine to carry and mine alone. You’re mistake—mistaking that I tell Thomas everything I don’t tell you. There are lots of things that neither of you know.”
He tries not to feel disappointed at being shut out when he knows that it’ll be the last chance he has to listen. But he understands. He does. Better than anyone.
“Guess we got that in common,” he tells Madison in some attempt at comfort.
“Perhaps. But I would wager I know more than you think.”
The words ring like a warning bell in his ears, and the alcohol in his stomach turns nauseating within the span of a second. Madison is watching him, but Hamilton refuses to meet his gaze. He swallows, tries to slow his heartbeat enough to speak.
“Like what?” he asks with a playfulness that falls flat, trying to play the moment off. “You find my old poetry journal or something?”
Silence drags on. Hamilton still refuses to look at his face, but he hears the coolness in his voice.
“I don’t understand how still you don’t trust me.”
Hamilton freezes. Even his heartbeat stills, waiting, the silence thicker than blood.
He knows. He fucking knows. He’s thought a hundred times before that Madison knew, but this time, he’s sure. He’s certain. Madison knows.
“I do,” Hamilton tries to say, but he waits too long, and Madison scoffs.
“Christ, I don’t know why…” He shakes his head, speaks heavily. “I know that you’re in love with Thomas. I’ve known for weeks, Alexander.”
For weeks.
How long is that? Since—Jesus, since Madison started to act oddly to begin with. Since Madison dismissed him on the patio. Jesus, the entire time. The entire time.
He knew the whole fucking time.
He tries to wake up. Tries to believe he’s just in some nightmare.
But the kitchen doesn’t disappear. Madison is still watching him, and he’s still painfully conscious.
Nausea hits him like a fucking truck. Blood pumps wildly through his ears. He shrinks away, wide-eyed, tries to sink into his seat and out of existence. One day. He was one day away from avoiding this conversation, the inevitable rejection, and now Madison knows, and—
ohnofuckohfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck—
“Why didn’t you…?” is all his horror lets him get out.
“I am trying to do what’s best,” Madison replies, frayed, gripping the tequila bottle tightly. “And I’m not sure of what that is, but you make it so damn hard.”
He knows.
This time, there’s no grey area.
Hamilton stumbles halfway onto his feet before Madison snatches hold of his arm, holds him down. Madison knows him too well, knows how he fights or flees on instinct, knows, knows everything. Fuck. He knows everything, fuck, fuck, fuck—
“It’s alright,” Madison tries to say, and he’s pulled in yet another direction, guiltier over Madison offering him more forgiveness that he hasn’t earned, guiltier over how much Madison fucking tries for him when he’s such a goddamn fuck up, ruins every damn thing he touches—
“Bullshit,” Hamilton says in a sound that approaches closer to a sob than he wants to admit. The hurt lurking under his ribcage starts to boil over its dam. What’s left of him that’s still sober frantically tries to hold it back and breaks down all at once. “It’s not okay! It’s not fine that I lose or ruin every goddamned good thing that happens to me! It’s not fucking okay!”
“Alexander—”
“You tell me you care and that I’m just as important and that it’s the same thing and it’s not, it’s fucking not, I’m not important. I know where I stand. Just fucking tell me that. Just tell me to get the hell out, tell me to leave, and I can…” His voice cracks. “And I’ll go back to being alone.”
There’s a long silence, then the most pitying oh, Alexander he’s ever heard. He tenses up every muscle in his body, feels his chest shake in sobs he refuses to let himself feel.
“Listen to me,” Madison says, soft, firm, unyielding, in the same tone he uses to try to calm Jefferson when he’s terribly upset. It feels like another betrayal. “You don’t know where you stand. If you did, then you wouldn’t ever believe that I could...”
“Please, just let me go,” he chokes out.
“Alexander, I—”
“Stop saying my name!” he blurts out, shaking his head—it feels like another intimacy he doesn’t deserve. “Just let me go. I’ll leave. You can—just go back to normal. Like I was never here.”
“For Christ’s sake, Alexander, I don’t want you to leave!”
“Well, what do you want?” he shoots back, but his voice grows frailer and shakier as he speaks. “You want me to keep hanging around knowing that I’m in love with your fucking soulmate? I’m...” And now, choking, he sobs just once. “I’m sorry. I’ve fucked everything up.”
“No more than I have,” Madison soothes him, and something about the statement seems wrong, but it doesn’t quite register. Not yet. It just sinks in and sinks in without settling.
“I don’t get it,” he chokes out. He’s the awfulest friend Madison could have, but he gets forgiven like that? It’s that easy? He can barely think, barely speak. “I don’t get it. Why are you okay with this? What do you—what do you mean, no more than I have? How could you...”
Something about the words seems even more wrong said aloud a second time. Hamilton wills himself to focus, to make some kind of fucking sense out of the words. He can’t. God, he’s so fucking drunk. He feels so fucking sick. Feels bile turning over in his stomach. But he swallows it down, refuses to bend. He needs to understand. He knows that much.
He’s only more certain he needs to push through it when Madison doesn’t answer.
“I…”
Hamilton’s mind thrums. He waits for the inevitable correction, the inevitable explanation or apology for misspeaking. He waits, but Madison never provides. His fingers only grow tight around the glass of tequila in his hand. His eyes only grow wide. Panicked.
“Madison?” Hamilton asks, feeling himself grow anxious in response.
Madison doesn’t answer, just suddenly stands, lurches, barely catches himself of the edge of the table, and Hamilton makes a big fucking mistake.
This time it’s him who reaches out, grabs Madison’s arm and holds him there.
“Let me go,” Madison demands, but his voice has none of its usual force when he’s so visibly overwrought. “We can have this conversation while we’re sober—not right now.”
“There isn’t going to be another time!” Hamilton snaps. Instantly sure he’s said too much. He hastens to get out, “Just tell me what you mean. I don’t get it. I misheard you, I had to have—please, just explain.”
Madison, a deer in headlights, stares him down. Makes no move to explain.
There’s a long silence where nothing at all makes sense, where the world’s fallen completely off its axis, where Hamilton is in complete freefall with no parachute.
He swallows.
“James,” he quietly says without knowing why, without knowing what he’s looking for until—
He finds it.
It’s the feeling of seeing lightning flash in the dark, a single moment of clarity where everything makes sense, a moment that feels better than any freedom he’s ever had.
Nothing at all makes sense, but it all falls into place.
Madison is in love with him.
He doesn’t know why he does it. What stupid, self-serving, selfish part of him drives him to do it.
(But he does: it’s the part of him that so desperately wants to be wanted. Wanted in the way he wants to be wanted. Wants him first, not just as a footnote.)
Madison wants him that way. He’s wanted. Someone wants him, wants to love him again, wants to fall asleep with him, wants to help him carry the burdens he bears, wants to be with him. Sees him for the fucked-up mess he is and cares about him anyways.
For just a second, something in his heart that he wasn’t sure was fixable mends.
The world narrows down to the two of them, nothing else, and he doesn’t wait, doesn’t hesitate long enough to let doubt in, to think things through.
Thomas isn’t even a thought on his mind when he leans in and kisses Madison like he’ll never be wanted again.
The world is still and silent and, in an ephemeral moment, perfectly safe.
There’s not half a second before Madison leans forward too and Hamilton is whole.
A hand on his thigh. Another on his shoulder. Lips on his: frantic, desperate, scrambling. Tastes like bad tequila and something Madison. Fingers flex, dig into his thigh.
Madison’s hand rises from his shoulder to cup his face and drag him in so closely that Hamilton wonders if he’ll ever be set free to breathe again. Madison kisses him back like there’s not a damn other thing in the world, and Hamilton believes it.
It’s the simplest, purest thing Hamilton’s felt in eighteen months. Uncomplicated bliss.
He doesn’t know whether it’s one second or sixty before the high crashes.
When, abruptly, Madison freezes, Hamilton feels in his chest it’s the last time he’ll ever feel loved again.
He knows the score before Madison even moves. Gasps. Horrified. Yanks away like he’s been burned. The regret isn’t a surprise. God knows that Hamilton feels it deeper than he’s felt anything else for months. But it still hurts.
Madison shoves Hamilton away so hard that he topples out of the chair. He swipes to grab at the counter, fails, only succeeds in sweeping empty glass bottles to fall with him. He hits the ground hard, pain from the impact dulled by alcohol, and glass shatters into thousands of shards around him. Above him, he hears a frantic, terrified monologue of what have I done, Christ, what have I done, no, no, how could I, I couldn’t have— and then Madison lurches up, retches, stumbles to the door and then outside.
And still it gets worse.
Jefferson scrambles into the kitchen before the door’s even fully shut, shotgun in hand, eyes wild. Worried eyes fall onto Hamilton laying stunned in a sea of glass.
“Jesus, what happened?” Jefferson rushes to ask, and, God, Hamilton wants to hate him so badly. He wishes he hated him. He wishes he— “Where’s James?”
Jefferson answers his own question with a glance out the door, exhaling a sharp sigh of relief. He turns, looks at Hamilton, so worried, so concerned, caring so deeply.
But under that, there’s suspicion that only mounts with each passing second, isn’t there?
Hamilton remembers, abruptly, painfully, that it isn’t about him and Madison. It never was. It never was, and, Christ, what has he done? Ruined everything. Disappointed them just like he knew he would. His breath hitches with a sob, and he’s at last too worn down to hold anything back a moment longer. Hamilton sobs viciously, deeply, as every tear he’s held back since Charleston fights to pour out of him at once.
He’s going to be alone, and it’s all wrong.
“Shit,” Jefferson swears beneath his breath before pivoting, backpedaling, trying to soothe. “Hey, hey, shh . Take a breath. Calm down. Tell me what’s wrong. I can fix this, alright?”
Hamilton closes his eyes, choking, prays Jefferson will just leave him the fuck alone. His shoulders shake violently. Jefferson moves instantly towards him, then stops, steps away.
“Look, don’t move, alright? Just give me a second to get some shoes.” He pauses. “Hamilton?”
Hamilton doesn’t reply, and he doesn’t wait for Jefferson to come back, cuts his palm on glass trying to stand. He staggers into a bedroom, fumbles with the lock, then collapses onto the bed. If he were any less drunk, he would already be gone, out the door into the night, gone, gone, gone.
He should’ve left sooner.
Tomorrow, he thinks, tomorrow, before they wake up.
There’s a knock on the door.
“Hey,” Jefferson calls, voice empty. “You, uh… wanna talk?”
He stays silent, but the door opens anyways.
“Yeah, well, that was a rhetorical question. We’re gonna talk,” he says. The bed dips beneath his weight as he sits on its edge. His earlier concern seems to have melted, left behind something colder in its wake. “Hamilton, what the fuck happened?”
There’s a particular look in his eye, a particular draw in his shoulders. He already has his own idea of what happened, and Hamilton’s afraid more than anything that it’s the right one.
He already knows, his mind whispers.
Has Madison already told him? Does he just want to hear it from Hamilton’s own mouth? Does he want to see if he’ll lie? Hamilton doesn’t know. Can’t do the math well enough.
He closes his eyes. Fuck. In for a penny, out for a pound. What the fuck does one more lie matter when he’s gone before sunrise anyways?
“I said something about his family,” Hamilton lies with a cracking voice, “and he got upset.”
“Okay,” he responds after a moment, quiet fury shaking his voice. “Right. And what specifically did you say?”
Hamilton just can’t do it anymore.
“Just stop, Thomas,” he whispers. “Just leave me alone.”
He swallows down the sob at the back of his throat, turns in the bed, and looks at the far wall. Even if it’s just his own paranoia, Jefferson is looking at him like he knows everything, and it’s just too much to take. He can’t take anything else. He can’t take another fucking pound of weight on his shoulders. He’s already crumbling under everything he’s carrying.
“You’re such a fucking asshole sometimes, you know that?” Jefferson asks, but it’s not a question, and there’s a barely restrained tremble of anger beneath each word.
The bed rises as he stands. The door closes.
Rest never comes.
He sleeps, sure, but never well.
His dreams are dark, confusing, lonely. He dreams of a hand on his thigh trailing upwards, lips on his. Being frozen beneath a horrified stare. Being chased by something he can’t see. Running alone. Jefferson’s voice, betrayed. Yellow skies and dead eyes.
He’s on a beach. Looking for someone. He doesn’t know who until he turns around, finds dead eyes watching him, pitying, hating. A body bleeding from a dozen different bites. Dead eyes that aren't dead, that have the same vicious sheen as every infected he's ever watched die at the end of his knife.
“You really fucked it up now,” Laurens tells him, smiling, and there’s no love in the gesture.
No, he thinks.
And then he’s alone for good.
No. No no no nononono—
Notes:
i said this at the beginning but really, thanks again to everyone who has stuck with this fic while my life has been an absolute shitstorm. it's been mostly good! just extraordinarily busy, and fic has been pushed to the back burner. it shouldn't be a surprise from someone who posts 25k chapters, but i am a hamiltonian level overachiever IRL, so. not committing to an update schedule anymore because historically the end of the spring semester is a bitch. i'll do my best to get the fic finished over the summer bc i know next fall will be equally chaotic. some housekeeping:
-wow we haven't even hit rock bottom for the three of them yet lmao. 140k just to get a fucking kiss goddamn
-can't believe i have to say this, but for god's sake, do NOT contact me about sexual themes in this fic if you're a minor
-i'm thinking of seriously cutting my chapter lengths to something reasonable (5-10k). please leave your thoughts on that and what you prefer for chapter length in the comments
Chapter 8: Fractured Into Factions
Summary:
did you know how slow this burn would be when you opened this fic
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Everything feels awful.
Hamilton doesn’t want to wake up. It would be easier to fall back asleep, but his hangover is so murderous, he’s surprised doesn’t wake up by rolling out of bed just to puke. His mouth is bone-dry, he slept like shit, his neck aches from the weird angle it’s been twisted at. He has a blinding headache.
He sits up, groans, falls back down. Yanks the covers over his head.
His memories from the night before slowly start to come back, but for a second, he can almost pretend he’s in New York. That he had too wild of a night out with Hercules and John. That everything is alright. He can’t fully insert himself into the illusion, of course, knows better than to see things for better than what they are, but he can almost pretend.
And then he remembers.
Holy fuck. Oh, fuck. FUCK. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck—
Hamilton scrambles out of bed, falls onto the floor, nearly throws up whatever’s left in his stomach. He almost bursts out of the room, stops at the last possible second. Madison and Jefferson are probably out there, and he can’t fucking face either of them now.
Now? Fuck now, you can never, ever—you’ve got to go. You have to get out of here.
Fight or flight fully kicks in: flight wins.
Hamilton stumbles through the room, throwing shit into his backpack, tugging on shoes, fleeing to the window. It’s raining outside, but he doesn’t notice until he pries open the window, eyes the drop. There’s an overhang, a covered porch over the back deck, so he can definitely make the jump without breaking an ankle—as long as he can keep from slipping off the damn roof. That’s the last thing he needs, the last fucking thing that could possibly go wrong now—
“Bad weather we’re having, huh?”
Hamilton freezes, turns around, and finds Jefferson in the doorway.
Jefferson stares at him for a long breath. There’s a slow line of tension that spreads from the tightly pressed line of his mouth down to his tightly wound shoulders, his rigid spine, the vaguely trembling hands at his sides. Anger is wound into his limbs, disbelief and disappointment in his eyes, everything Hamilton has never wanted to see directed towards him.
Hamilton has never even seen him so angry. He doesn’t even think there’s a word for how furious Jefferson looks, like he can’t push it down no matter how hard he’s trying to keep a straight face. He’s so, so fucking angry, and he looks at Hamilton like he hates him.
He knows.
“Look, I’ve got a hangover like I got hit by a fucking truck, can I get the meterology report when I don’t—” Hamilton snaps, sharper than he means to, but he can’t fucking think other than the frantic, desperate need to get Jefferson to go away.
“Are we really going to do this?” Jefferson interrupts, eyes burning.
“Do what?” Hamilton aggressively asks, stepping forward, defensiveness kicking in. It’s ridiculous, moronic to get angry, act put upon when it’s him that’s in the wrong, but he can’t think, can’t think of anything to do but escalate. Maybe Jefferson will do what Madison couldn’t last night, tell him to get the fuck out, make it easy on him—
“Christ above. What the fuck did you do, Hamilton?” Jeferson stalks across the room, jabs a finger into his chest, snarls, “Jesus, just spit it out. I already—just fucking say it. I want to hear it from you. Take some goddamn responsibility and let me hear it from you.”
“I already fucking told you. I said shit about his family, didn’t stop talking, and the fight got away from us both,” Hamilton lies on instinct, snappy, self-preservation kicking in. All of Jefferson’s six-foot-whatever looms over him, intimidating, and he should probably shrink away, but he doesn’t. Instead, he just scrapes every inch he can get out of straightening his spine, tipping up his chin. “Look, Jefferson, I don’t fucking know, I blacked out for half of it, and I woke up and feel like shit, so can you fuck off now?”
Jefferson isn’t even listening to him after the first few words, eyes glazed over in anger. His fingers flex at his sides, finally settling into clenched fists.
“Of all the times to do it,” Jefferson quietly says, each word thin and taut. He looks at the space over Hamilton’s shoulder, like he’s too angry to even make eye contact, to even look at him.
“Of all the times to do what?”
Jefferson doesn’t answer him this time either, too tired of him to entertain him any longer. He just looks past him entirely to the open window, out at the rain pouring outside.
“You know, I keep thinking that, one day, you’re gonna stop disappointing me.” He smiles, a flicker of hurt beneath a wall of anger. “But it never fucking happens, does it? You never change. I don’t know why I expect more from you than I’ll ever get,” he laughs, dour.
What hurts most isn’t what he says, but how he says it. Angry, yeah, but matter-of-fact. Accepting. Like he’s at last realized that Hamilton isn’t worth pinning any hopes on. And he shouldn’t. Never should’ve in the first place. Hamilton has always known what Jefferson is apparently just now realizing, and even though it’s always been that way—
Jefferson turns to the door, silent for a long second.
“Breakfast is downstairs.” He pauses halfway out of the room, doesn’t look back. “Don’t ever fucking call me Thomas again.”
On this morning of all mornings: breakfast for three of them. Three servings of hot water in the pot, three mugs on the counter, two instant coffee packets, a black tea bag.
Madison is nowhere to be found.
Hamilton stares into his coffee, pointedly ignoring the glass shattered on the floor, the empty beer bottles on the table. There’s a mostly empty bottle of vodka he doesn’t remember drinking, and he stares dully at it for a long time. Finally, he swipes for it, dumps the rest out into his coffee, chugs a few disgusting swigs to dull the endless anxious monologue in his mind.
Hair of the dog: it dissipates his nausea only a little. He still wants to puke. Hamilton ignores the food, not hungry—never hungry anymore—even though he’s getting too thin. He goes outside. Wonders if he should just leave his things. He’s had to before, back when he was alone, had to run with nothing but what he had on his back once when bandits rounded him off.
He could do it. Going back inside when Jefferson is still in there seems like too much. He doesn’t want him to see him leave, still clinging to some notion of a clean break, like he isn’t past that. Like he hasn’t already imploded everything.
Madison kissed you back, his mind murmurs beneath the mountain of more pressing thoughts. You kissed him, you fucked everything up, but he didn’t stop you. Not soon enough.
Hamilton walks across the yard, up and down the driveway, into the fenced-off garden.
He stops.
Madison sits at a table on the covered patio, one of his coats splayed out on the surface, a needle in hand. Hamilton almost turns around, but Madison knows he’s there, looks up. He seems, almost, like he’s about to say something, but he stops. Waits like he’s trying to draw out every second of Hamilton’s discomfort and fixes him with a blank stare. Perfectly stoic. As if he’s looking right through him. Maybe there’s nothing to look at anymore.
Hamilton averts his eyes, looks out to the overgrown garden. Offhandedly, he realizes that his room was just above the patio overhang, that there was never a way he could’ve made an escape through the window without Madison seeing him along the way.
Fuck, he thinks, sick. Just leave. They’ll know it’s for the best now.
“Well?” Madison finally asks, voice flat, emotionless.
“Hey,” he says weakly. Madison stares at him a second longer before returning to his coat, getting back to stitching it up. “Didn’t know you knew how to sew.”
“I don’t.” Hamilton, vaguely, has the vision of him before the apocalypse, throwing out any piece of clothing with so much as a lost button, buying another without a second thought. “But perhaps I shouldn’t rely on you as the only one to stitch one of us up.” His needle goes through the fabric too fast, too hard. “I’m simply hoping the skill is transferable from clothing to people.”
“Well, you’re using a—a sewing needle. If you use a suture needle, the technique’s completely different,” he manages to get out. “Not that you can’t use a sewing needle in an emergency.” Hamilton swallows. “Been there."
“I see.”
There’s something about his voice that makes Hamilton ache from the inside out, from parts of him he wasn’t sure he even still had. Madison’s voice is polite, perfectly polite, but so damn hollow. It’s the way he spoke when they first met, back when his disdain was only barely concealed, when he couldn’t have given a damn if Hamilton died the next day.
“Well, we’ve had our pleasantries. We have little more to discuss,” Madison says, half-detached, not even looking at him. “Consider yourself free to leave.”
That’s it: point-blank. Simple dismissal. Of course.
Bullshit, Hamilton wants to say. The one time he actually tries—
Why is he even trying? Some pathetic attempt at smoothing things over before he leaves for good? Some pathetic hope that things aren’t beyond fixing, that he won’t have to carry around this guilt for the rest of his life, no matter how much he might deserve to?
“I was drunk,” Hamilton blurts out, because he can’t say nothing, and maybe, just maybe, it’ll make things easier, simpler. “It was just a stupid, drunk mistake.”
If only it were so easy to say to Jefferson. If only he weren’t such a goddamn coward.
It’s not the right thing to say, but he doesn’t know what the right thing would be, and it’s easier to just do it like this. Easier to pretend that the entire thing meant nothing when he knows it didn’t. Not to Madison, at least. And it’s not like it meant nothing to him, it’s just—
“A mistake,” Madison repeats, cool. He nods stiffly, almost robotic. “I see. Are we done now?”
“It didn’t mean anything.” Hamilton tacks on, and maybe it’s a lie, but he’s lied so much. One more on the pile hardly seems to matter. “Never did.”
“No, Alexander, I imagine it didn’t,” he replies, and then there’s a note of anger in there too. “Now, for Christ’s sake, will you leave me alone? Or do you have more unhelpful things to add?”
He doesn’t get why Madison is angry over this of all things—until the memory of Madison’s face in that moment before he fucked it all up flashes through his mind. It had escaped him, been overshadowed by more pressing revelations, mistakes.
For a moment, Hamilton thinks he had to have imagined it. But he didn’t imagine their conversation, isn’t conjuring up the words that spilled out of his mouth the night before. He certainly isn’t imagining how he...
They both made mistakes, but Madison meant it.
Hamilton doesn’t know what else to say. He doesn’t know what Madison wants him to say. He doesn’t know what could possibly smooth things over. It was supposed to be a clean break, but now it’s so, so messy, and he still doesn’t understand how Madison could’ve looked at him like that.
He’s so out of his depth, so deep under the surface that he doesn’t think he’ll ever get his head above water. He may as well just swim down.
“I’m sorry.”
“That I’m not Thomas?” Madison shoots back too quickly, too sharp, a crack in the veneer. “How inconvenient for both of us.”
“I’m—look, I’m trying to do what I think’s best—”
“—and where does kissing me come into that? Who was that best for, Alexander? Not me. Certainly not Thomas.” The words seem to spill out of him, uncontrolled. “Did you get what you hoped for? At least one of us ought to be satisfied. It certainly isn’t me.”
“I told you, it was a mistake— ”
And here Madison stops hiding his expression, looks up with anger burning plainly in his brown eyes, such a far cry from whatever Hamilton thought he saw there last night.
“You used me.”
Air and sound is sucked out of the space in between them, and now there’s nothing left for Hamilton to say at all.
“I—that’s not…” he tries, useless.
“I’m not an idiot, and I’m certainly not blind. You don’t love me,” Madison says, “You like the idea of being loved, the thought of someone putting you above all else.” He looks away, but not before Hamilton sees a splash of humiliation, hurt wash over him. “It simply came from the wrong person, didn’t it? But you used me regardless. A means to an end.”
He says nothing, and Madison starts to sew once more. The gesture seems final somehow, a dismissal that he can’t shake off.
“He… he asked me about it this morning,” Hamilton at last gets out. “I didn’t say anything.”
Madison doesn’t respond. Another suture, another stitch. His work is sloppy, Hamilton thinks, and if circumstances were different, maybe he’d show him how to improve his technique. Guide his hand. Ignore the little smile Madison probably would’ve sent up at him before all this had happened.
“Are you going to tell him?”
Madison’s hand slips, punctures his thumb. He leaps up, swears viciously, swipes the thing nearest to him—some kind of candle—and hurls it into the goddamn fence. Hamilton leaps back, eyes wide at the sudden outburst, hand dropping to his pistol when the glass shatters against the brick so loudly he’s sure every infected in the neighborhood heard it. Hamilton startles at the sound— stupid.
“I get that you’re pissed at me, but don’t be a fucking idiot!” Hamilton snarls, ignoring the voice that tells him how pathetic he is to be grateful he has something justified to yell about.
“You just don’t think, Hamilton! From the moment I met you at that goddamn gala, I recognized that was your problem. You picked a fight with Thomas, you punched a senator, you picked a fight with Thomas again when we met in Virginia—always unchanging with the ill thought through impulses!” Madison goes on, hardly stopping to breathe, a volcano with its cap blown off. “You act and act and act without pausing to think about how you affect those around you. You don’t think, and everyone who loves you suffers for it! ”
Hamilton doesn’t let the words sink in, pushes them away, distracts himself with anger.
“Well, it’s a damn good thing I don’t plan on being around much longer, huh?” he snaps back.
A beat of silence.
“In what sense do you mean?” Madison asks, the anger in his voice finally tamped down. Not gone, still simmering lava-hot under the surface, but there’s a forced calm there.
“What do you mean, in what sense? I’ve always been a fucking flight risk. I’m just going to follow through this time. I was going to. I was going to leave last fucking night, and then...”
Hamilton shakes his head, angry at himself, angry at the world, angry at everything. He doesn’t need to take this from Jefferson, from Madison. He’s angry and upset and he deserves all the miserable things they have to say to him, but it’s much easier to hear them coming from himself. He never wanted to hear it coming from them.
There’s the sound of infected, more than one, approaching the other side of the wall, so he pulls out his knife and heads towards the gate to clear them out.
He doesn’t need his bag or his food or anything else inside. He has himself, just as he’s always had, and he always will. It matters more that he’s alive than he’s happy, and maybe Madison and Jefferson can be both of those things if he’s gone, whether he’s alive or dead.
He opens the gate, exits. It’s an easy escape. Not clean, but as close as he’ll get.
Except Madison breathes out a sound somewhere between a snarl and sigh, then follows after him, saying nothing. There are four out there, and they slide back behind the corner. They should talk, really, come up with a unified plan. But they don’t. Madison just leans over and picks up a loose brick with his free hand, then motions for them to turn.
Hamilton crouches, uses the long grass to creep up, get the drop on the first, knifes it in the soft spot at the base of its skull. The others look over at the strangled sound, the wet thump of its body hitting the ground, shriek when they spot him. Madison darts out, takes a second before it sees him, hurls the brick at a third. It crumples to the ground with a shrill noise, and Hamilton finishes it off before it can try to get back up. Madison’s already gotten the last one when he looks up. He stands, shaking, kicks the body harder than he needs to, hisses a swear.
“Did that make you feel better?” Hamilton asks coolly.
“No, Hamilton, it didn’t. It was a childish outburst, and now my fucking foot hurts,” he bluntly responds, a strange mix of heat and vulnerability in his voice. “Does that answer satisfy you?”
“No,” he replies after a second. “But nothing would’ve.”
Madison laughs, soft and sympathetic and bitter.
“You and I both.” The anger is evaporating, slowly, replaced with something that sounds almost like defeat. Anger is easy; everything else is harder. A pause. “I know what I did.”
Hamilton doesn’t ask what he means: the guilt answers that question. Madison doesn’t elaborate.
“But today, I have had my tantrum, and I find myself with remarkably little to say to you.”
“That’s, uh, what you said before you yelled at me for five minutes.”
He almost smiles.
“So it was.”
Madison doesn’t say it outright, talks around the issue like he’s so wont to do, but the implication is clear: the further away Hamilton stays from him—from both of them, really—the better. And he’s right.
Hamilton turns towards the house. Looking down, he realizes that he has blood on his hands. It shocks him, somehow, to think that he’ll never have Madison hand him a handkerchief to clean off ever again. Maybe he should at least wash off his hands before he goes. Who knows how long it’ll be before he has the chance again.
“Alexander,” Madison says, sharply, and Hamilton stops halfway to the door, looks back to find Madison with a hand covering his face. An eternity seems to pass before he looks up, meets his eyes with a tired, guilty, complicated expression. “I know it was a mistake.”
It has a hint, remarkably, of forgiveness. More of an implication or a suggestion than anything concrete, but there nevertheless. But it can’t be. He knows that.
Madison turns away now, back to him, quietly admits,
“And I would never sleep again knowing that you were alone again in the world.”
Hamilton stays for Madison. Not because he wants to. He can see no good from staying, but he’s already fucked up so much for Madison that it feels like it’s the one thing he can do to try to set things right. Not right—better. It’s confounding logic, utterly nonsensical, and he’s sure he’s lying to himself somewhere along the way, but he keeps thinking about the way Madison looked at him in the dark that night, and he just can’t leave.
And Madison… Madison will change his mind, he’s sure. Realize he’s made some error or judgment along the way, seen Hamilton through rose-colored glasses, seen him for more than he was like Jefferson did. Jefferson is through with him. Maybe not in an end-all-be-all sense, but in every sense that matters. Trust, friendship, love—not worth it. Not to be wasted on him.
Hamilton could’ve told him that all along. But he’d thought, months ago, that he could at least manage friendship . Something simple: basic human connection.
He’d been wrong.
It hurts more when he thinks that, once, he could’ve been the friend both of them deserved. He’s still smart and clever and stubborn, but he doesn’t feel charming or bright or good like he used to be. So much of his energy channeled into simply surviving, so much energy channeled into not being a burden, too much to be who he wants to be.
Hamilton works his ass off to keep them alive, doesn’t hesitate to risk himself, scavenges and hunts and surveys and protects until he’s got no choice to pass out. He works as hard as he ever did. He has that much of himself left, has the part of himself that his friends used to have to drag away from his computer at ten in the morning after an all-nighter.
But there’s parts of him that just aren’t there anymore. He spends his energy staying alive, and just about all the rest he expends into just keeping himself together. He doesn’t have time to be the kind of person someone would fall in love with. Not but for scraps of time, stolen moments alone. Maybe he was almost that person again before he slipped up, before Montpelier. Maybe he wasn’t perfectly happy then.
But he could’ve been.
And then all his spare energy went back into hiding, and he lost it again bit by bit.
So Madison will fall out of love with him, and there will be no reason to stay, and he can leave. He doesn’t know how Jefferson will react, but Madison can spin a version of the story, say that Hamilton kissed him, say that he pushed him away right away, tell him that Hamilton begged to stay, that Madison pitied him, that…
He cares less that they see him as pathetic if it keeps the peace once he’s gone. Maybe he’s grown up. Lost a little of his pride. Maybe he’s just tired of pretending he isn’t pathetic after all. He feels weak, miserable, draws himself into a shell and doesn’t emerge. He’s shedding the softness that hides the ridges of his ribs. He really shouldn’t be, not at this point in the year, not when he always comes out of winter too skinny, but he’s not hungry.
It’s telling that he saves most of the food in his own backpack, he thinks. Like he’s his own self-fulfilling prophecy. Just waiting for the hammer to drop.
And the hammer is dropping. Just not for him. Not yet.
Hamilton doesn’t talk to Madison, figures he’ll be able to see more clearly if he doesn’t have Hamilton clouding his judgment. Jefferson doesn’t fucking want to talk to him, so that’s easy enough. He doesn’t eat with them anymore if he can get away with it, skips meals, spends the days out on his own. The few times he and Jefferson or Madison unluckily run into each other in a hallway, he has to fight the urge to turn the other direction, come back the way he came. Jefferson watches him pass with hard eyes or ignores him entirely; Madison never says whatever he seems to want to say because Hamilton passes wordlessly.
Hamilton crawls out of bed after sleepless nights at sunrise, downs a few cups of coffee to get rid of the nausea from another restless night. And then he leaves, tries to exist on his own without anyone else to define himself by.
He uncovers the set of charcoals he found weeks—months?—ago in the artist’s house. Tucks them into his bag every morning. Tries to draw a few times, but he’s so damn bad at it. He gives up, quits, and there’s nothing to fucking do. No conversations or arguments to be had, no cooking together, no chores made bearable with company. There’s no more music in his life, piano, violin, or otherwise.
He misses writing.
It occurs to him one day, almost out of the blue, that he hasn’t written anything in more than two years. He’s scribbled down lists, sure, scrawled down plans. But not written, really written. And he used to. Essays, letters, publications. An endless outlet for all the thoughts pouring through his mind, a testament to the fact that he existed, proof that his mind was real, a means of making his words echo even after he ultimately died.
He’d written relentlessly on his faithful fifty-dollar computer from the thrift store, his first purchase after he’d immigrated. He’d written even more when the Schuyler sisters, Hercules, Laurens, Burr had all pitched in to buy him a MacBook on his twenty-third birthday—his last real birthday. It was the only expensive gift he’d ever not been too prideful to accept, an unimaginable upgrade to have a laptop that could hold a charge longer than an hour, whose space key didn’t stick, whose files didn’t randomly corrupt themselves.
“Are you crying?” he remembers Hercules asking, half-incredulous, half-amused. “C’mon, man. I’ve seen you cut your finger halfway off trying to slice bread, and you barely fucking shrugged.”
He thinks too much about the past these days.
Besides, what is there to write about now? And to who? There’s no audience to preach to, not even a friend—except Hercules, but it’s not like he could send a letter to him. He wishes he could. Just to hear from someone who he’s been a good friend to, to remind himself that he wasn’t always like he is now.
By some miracle, he gets Hercules on the radio one day in late August, feels something in his chest tighten at the man’s greeting, his you have no idea how good it is that I caught you just now .
“Well, you don’t know how good it is to hear from you,” he signals back as fast as he can, easily now that he has nearly all the code book Hercules gave him memorized.
“You in trouble?”
“No, no. I just…” and then he doesn’t know what to say.
“I get it,” Hercules says a minute later. It’s hard. Hard not to see him, know if he’s alright, not to know whether he’s worried or stressed or if something has gone wrong. “Same here.”
“Are you safe?” There’s a long pause that Hamilton knows to read as a no. “Are you still undercover with the Redcoats?”
“Barely. I’ve been arrested twice on the suspicion of spying. Talked my way out of it twice so far, but… I’m on thin fucking ice here, man.”
It’s been a while since he’s thought of the war—if it can even be called that. He’s been so damn caught up in his little world that he’s nearly forgotten about the very thing that used to drive nearly every damn thing he did.
"How is it?” he asks, hesitant, not sure he wants to know the answer—and there’s a long silence that seems to say more than words.
“It was always a long shot, Alex.”
“What, that’s it? You’re just giving up?”
Hamilton knows it’s not fair, but he desperately wants Hercules to rally, to tell him that maybe it’s not a lost cause after all. Just so he can have something. He needs to know something is going right, somewhere. Even if he can’t be part of it.
“We don’t have the manpower.”
Hamilton knows that. Knows that the only hope they’d ever have won the real war would’ve been if the French had chipped in. But Hercules keeps going.
“We don’t have the officers, the training. Sam Adams is a great leader, don’t get me wrong, but his speciality is urban warfare, not general military tactics. The British have better guns, more food, more people. They’ve got special walled communities in Britain—food, electricity, water. They offer anyone who joins the Army earns a spot for a family member as long as they stick with it. Talk about a fucking recruiting strategy. We can’t even keep people from deserting.”
It’s a long rant, almost unintelligible at points when his mind seems to get ahead of how fast he can signal out the words. For a moment, Hamilton sees Hercules’s face clearly. Even though he couldn’t remember it any other time, he sees him for a flash: dark eyes tired beneath heavy brows, mouth curled into a frown, broad shoulders curled in. And then the image is gone, and he’s just listening to the sounds of a radio transmission, voiceless and impersonal.
“So it’s an uphill battle,” he tries to joke, hoping his tone comes across.
“Up a sheer cliff face,” Hercules radios back: he gets it.
There’s a long silence.
“You think we’re ever going to be able to sit down with a beer and a joint again?” Hamilton asks, tendrils of nostalgia crawling up his throat, shutting off his airway.
“I don’t know, man. Want it more than anything. It’s what kept me going all this time, you know? Thinking that I might see you and some of my other friends again.”
Hamilton pauses, closes his eyes. He wonders if it makes him a bad person—a bad friend—not to have looked. Not to have wanted to risk finding answers he wouldn’t have liked.
Hamilton isn’t sure he could’ve handled his own Montpelier.
“That’s why I have to find someone who can make a cure. So that you all can have that.”
If anyone else is still left.
“You all? What, you’re not gonna be there with us?”
An infection that grows on the brain. Fatal to everyone but him. And he almost died. He was sick. The infection was inside of him, and he’s not so sure it’s even gone now.
No, he’s not really sure he will see the end of it all.
“I’m going to see it through to the end,” Hamilton says.
He doesn’t want to die. He wants to scrap through life with every fiber of his being, no matter how miserable it may be, because he doesn’t want to die. Not yet. He’s always wanted to stay alive, has always pushed through—through his mother’s death, the hurricane, the hard times, always pushed through for the chance not to throw away his shot.
For a legacy, so his name wouldn’t be forgotten, so he wouldn’t fizzle out into nothingness.
(For a glorious end, because then, at last, he would be satisfied).
Laurens understood that.
“You don’t have to go through with anything,” Hercules is telling him. “And there’s nothing to go through with right now. I’m still keeping my ear to the ground, but—”
“At some point, England is the only option. I can’t die without even having tried.”
“Yeah? What do your Virginian friends think about that? Or am I the only one trying to talk you out of being a dumbass?”
Hamilton’s fingers freeze over the radio.
“Alex...? Alex? You still there?”
“Yeah,” he at last responds. “Don’t want to talk about them.”
“Oh, shit. Are they dead?”
“We’re not together anymore,” he responds. Yes would be easier, invite less questions. But Hercules has always known when to push, when to let things go, and this one he lets go. It’s not a lie anyways, not really. Hamilton may as well be in the rain for all it matters.
There’s a long silence that follows.
“Sorry. Someone came in,” Hercules hastily signals minutes later. “Don’t have much longer.”
Hamilton’s stomach tightens.
“I wasn’t sure what to tell you, if I should tell you at all… but you should hear it from me. I would want to know if I were you.”
“What?”
“Look, I’m not going to kid-glove you. Know how much you hate that, so I’ll just say it: Adams is gonna give in. There’s not enough fight left in any of us to keep pushing on.”
“When?” is all he can think to say over the sudden ringing in his ears.
“End of the month. We’re supposed to desert before then, ‘cause Adams thinks if the rest of the top brass gets captured with him, they’ll give us up to get off. I’ve been staying behind, sending everyone else on assignments where they can slip away. It’s only a couple of us left now.”
“What do you mean, if some others get captured with Adams?”
“I mean that he’s gonna give himself up. Let the Sons disband while he and a few others hold the line so they can get away. King’s not gonna rest ‘til he gets at least Adams’s head on a pike. Adams is hoping that that’ll be enough of a prize for the King not to waste resources trying to track down hundreds of scattered soldiers.”
It’s better than being wiped out, he tries to console himself. No one’s left to fight if no one stays alive.
Except, of course—
Hamilton feels his stomach drop into a pit. Jefferson doesn’t know. It’s all he can think about. That the news probably falls on him to deliver. And he and Jefferson aren’t even on speaking terms. But he has to tell him that his best friend—the friend he has that was actually a friend to him, that didn’t fuck it all up—is going to die an ocean away, strung up.
“I don’t know,” Hercules goes on, and Hamilton forces himself to focus, to swallow down the nausea in his throat. “Maybe we can try again someday, but right now, we’re barely even alive.”
“I get it. Live to fight another day.” Survival at all costs. He repeats it to himself, because if he lets himself believe anything else, he’s afraid he might break down. “Okay, fine, so that covers everyone else. But what about you?”
A pause. He doesn’t ever remember them having so many pauses back when they lived together, back when their friendship wasn’t strained by such an insurmountable distance.
“Wondering if I should maybe go down with the ship,” Hercules says, slow. “Go out in a blaze of glory or bide my time. Maybe see if I can get an audience with the King, take my shot… I don’t know, Alex. It can’t be for nothing. Too much blood’s been spilled for me to let this go.”
A longer pause. How can they keep having these silences? There’s so much to say. Too much. So much it’s almost overwhelming. And yet they can’t say any of it.
“This is probably the last time we’re going to talk, isn’t it?” Hamilton asks him, saying one of the things he’s certain he shouldn’t, and he knows the answer even before Hercules answers.
“Hey, next round of beer’s on me.” Hamilton almost hears him laugh. Almost sees him crack his sideways grin. “Even though you’re a fucking cheapskate who owes me at least a thousand beers. Just for the record.”
“If they were in the communal area of the fridge—”
“With the groceries that I bought—”
Seconds tick away into minutes.
“Herc?”
Hamilton sits there, radio in front of him, until long after the sky grows dark.
Hercules doesn’t come back.
Jefferson is perched on the foot of the stairs, eyes fixed on the front door when Hamilton enters. It seems to take him a moment to actually see Hamilton, as if he’s been staring so long he’s checked out. His face is neutral, aggressively so, and Hamilton isn’t in the mood.
He has no idea how to break the news. He doesn’t think he can. Not right now.
“Wasn’t sure if you were going to come back,” Jefferson calls out to him as he tries to slip past to wherever he can sleep on the first floor; he doesn’t feel like going up the stairs so long as Jefferson’s blocking them.
“I’ve survived every day so far,” Hamilton dismisses him, heading for the staircase.
“That’s not what I meant, and we both know it.”
“So what did you mean?” Hamilton asks sharply, whirling around. He doesn’t want to pick this fight, not right now, but he needs something to be mad at, something more tangible than the universe itself, because anger is better than just feeling hollow.
Jefferson looks him up and down, and Hamilton realizes that he looks tired. Absolutely exhausted, eyes flat and surrounded by dark circles. He stands, starts up the stairs.
“There’s too many windows on the first floor. Just go the fuck to sleep upstairs.”
He’s right, Hamilton thinks, looking down the hall. And he’d rather not get eaten in his sleep than be forced to walk past either of them, so he turns around.
Takes a step up the stairs. Then feels himself sway, his shoulder connecting with the wall with a thunk . He leans heavily onto it, exhaustion settling in his bones.
“My friend’s going to die,” Hamilton says.
Almost.
In the end, a sound never even leaves his mouth. He might as well be speaking to an empty room for all Jefferson cares about him anymore. And he doesn’t want to be pitied. He doesn’t want it, doesn’t need it, doesn’t deserve it. Doesn’t deserve to be comforted. He has himself. That’s it.
“Hamilton?” Jefferson asks, leaning over the banister upstairs.
“Yeah. Just give me a second.”
“Look. Did you get hurt?”
“No. Just… I haven’t eaten since breakfast. Lightheaded, I guess.”
“That was…” Jefferson pauses, and Hamilton can picture him checking his stupid fucking Rolex, that stupid sneer on his face. “...almost eighteen hours ago. Why didn’t you come back for lunch if you didn’t take any fucking food?”
“Christ, Jefferson. I just needed time to myself.”.
“Time to yourself or time away from me?”
“Is both good enough of an answer?” Hamilton snaps back, finding the energy to haul himself up the remaining stairs. “Now, are you gonna tuck me in? No? Then fuck off.”
Hamilton stumbles into the room he’s claimed for the night, barely strips off his shoes before he collapses onto the bed, worms onto his stomach under the covers. He’s tired, but not tired in the way that means he’ll sleep. He closes his eyes, tries to think.
He’ll tell Madison. Madison will tell Thomas about Adams for him.
“Hey,” Jefferson’s voice says, tight and stiff. The door creaks open as he speaks, and something pelts Hamilton on the back. “Eat something.”
The door closes before he can get out a word, and Hamilton untangles himself from the covers enough to find a package of peanut butter crackers on the comforter.
Hamilton dreams about standing in front of the gallows. Every face he knows marches one-by-one up the stairs. Nooses are tied like pretty little decorative bows around their necks, and no one at all fights, lambs to the slaughter. The platform beneath their feet drops.
Crack after crack after crack until Hamilton’s feet carry himself up step-by-step.
He puts a pencil to paper the next day, thinks for an hour about what to write, then ultimately lifts up the tip before he’s even scrawled so much as a letter.
Dinner time, he thinks. He’s not really sure, barely able to keep his face from falling into the rabbit he caught earlier that evening. It’s late—took him longer than it should’ve to clean the thing, cook it up. Jefferson and Madison have already eaten, but he’s still pushing food around his plate, glass half-filled. There’s a stupidly expensive bottle of wine on the table that Jefferson’s mostly worked his way through; Madison’s barely drinking these days. It would be too easy, Hamilton thinks, for alcohol to slip from a crutch into dependence.
It would be a perfect scene from the window, a sliver of civility in an uncivilized world. But the room feels cold inside, a thick, unpleasant silence hanging over them all. Jefferson has decided to deal with it by ignoring them both, meticulously deconstructing and cleaning each part of his shotgun. Hamilton pretends to focus on his food. Madison is doing—something. Hamilton doesn’t feel like looking over to see, lest they make eye contact, have to acknowledge that the other exists. It feels unholy to do as much in Jefferson’s presence.
“I’m tired,” Madison says, standing when he seems to decide he can’t take it another moment. “I think I’m going to bed, dear.”
“Mhm,” Jefferson says without looking up from cleaning his shotgun.
He doesn’t stand to join him as is typical, doesn’t even offer a goodnight. His acknowledgment isn’t even affectionate, spoken flatly, the barest hint of an edge in his voice. It all throws Madison off like few things have. He shifts on his feet, taken aback, and Hamilton looks back down at his plate, ignoring it all. He stabs a forkful of greens that one of them has foraged, crunches noisily.
“When are you going to sleep?” Madison recovers.
“I’m going to sleep in the other room,” Jefferson answers, still flat. “I couldn’t fall back asleep after you woke me up last night.”
“Because I was coughing?”
Genuine bewilderment.
“Whatever it was, I’m still fucking tired and don’t want to get woken up again.” He looks up, a hint of aggression in his voice. “Are we good? Go to bed.”
Hamilton doesn’t look up to see Madison’s expression, but he hears the door close shut just a fraction too loud, hears Jefferson’s exhausted, heavy sigh. He looks up, finds him with his face in his hands, shoulders slumped inwards. Hamilton stands, unobtrusive, and leaves for a smoke.
Jefferson and Madison have never slept separately for as long as he’s known them. Not when Madison has been sick, not when Jefferson’s leg was shot to hell, not even when they haven’t had a real place to sleep. He gets it. Gets the human comfort of it. Gets that it means something to fall asleep to the beat of someone else’s heart or the steady rise-fall of their chest.
It doesn’t surprise him at all when he stumbles down to the kitchen sometime in the middle of the night for a cigarette and finds Jefferson there, slumped at a seat over a cup of coffee.
“I can’t sleep,” he says, sounding miserable, and it’s the kindest he’s sounded to Hamilton since the incident. “I’d ask if you can’t either, but you never fuckin’ do, so… how do you do it?”
It’s probably the most words they’ve spoken to each other outside of dealing with the infected in a couple weeks. Maybe longer. He’s not sure what month it is.
“Never really slept much anyways, I guess,” Hamilton answers after a second. “Was hard to shut down sometimes. There was always too much to do. Besides, I still have coffee.”
The difference was just that he could sleep through the night. Even if it was just exhaustion, it was enough to make him drift off, stay that way. Exhaustion isn’t enough anymore. The only nights he doesn’t dream are the ones where something wakes him up.
“I could get worked up that way too. Madison usually knocked me out of it if he was around.”
He looks kind of sad standing here alone in his stupid fucking pajamas— who the fuck has designated pajamas anymore, doesn’t just fall asleep in whatever they’re wearing?
More than that, his silhouette looks lonely. But maybe he’s just being ridiculous.
“Go to bed,” Hamilton tells him, looking to the floor. “He’s probably awake.”
How long can they talk around the reason they’re here?
Hamilton hadn’t noticed if Jefferson was pulling away from Madison too, had reasoned that he would direct his anger solely towards him, because it’s his fault. And Jefferson couldn’t know that Madison—couldn’t know anything about Madison, or Hamilton would’ve already been out on his ass, wouldn’t he? Jefferson can’t know about the look Hamilton saw in Madison’s eyes or the way he held fast onto him for that split second—
He doesn’t get it. Doesn’t get why Jefferson has apparently been simmering under the hood at Madison too. Hamilton’s the reason they’re here. He’s the reason that Jefferson isn’t in bed with Madison right now. The reason that Jefferson is having this pretense of a conversation to begin with.
Jefferson seems to recognize it too, because he doesn’t respond for a long minute.
“We don’t have anything to say to each other. Not as long as he’s pretending we don’t.” Jefferson looks up, a flicker of anger mixing with the exhaustion in his eyes. “Same goes for you and me. So where the fuck does that leave me?”
“Sitting alone in the kitchen at two in the morning?”
“You know, Hamilton, why don’t you go and check on him?” Jefferson spits, and Hamilton bristles, feels venom swell up his throat. But before he can do something he regrets, Jefferson turns around with a scowl. “Whatever. I’m just going to go take an Ambien.”
And at the door, Jefferson pauses, inhales, exhales, looks over his shoulder.
“Look,” he says, heavy. “I’m tired of being angry. But at some point, I can’t keep forgiving you,” Jefferson tells him, and somehow it feels final.
Now that Hamilton’s looking for it, he sees.
Jefferson is trying with Madison. He really is. But his smiles are too bright to be genuine, his words somehow hollow, and he pulls his hand away when Madison reaches across the table, feigns like he’s decided to reach for something, except he does it too much and too consistently for it to be anything but evasion. He looks increasingly tired with each passing day, gets snappier, more confrontational. Any other time, Hamilton would fight him on it, ask why he was being such a dick—but he has nothing to say now.
The few joint meals Hamilton attends become so uncomfortable that they finally stop having them altogether. Another loss, another thing keeping them together slashed.
It leaves Hamilton more alone than ever, outright trying to dodge each of them whenever one comes within proximity. He ducks into rooms, lies across the back row of the Escalade with his back to the front, says nothing unless spoken to. They aren’t driving much more, thankfully—too much time spent with one another, he supposes.
When he’s alone in empty spaces, eddies of dust trailing through sunlit air, he can almost pretend all is well in the world.
Best of all, he can’t talk to Madison about everything Hercules told him. He puts it off until he can’t, and then he has to tell Jefferson. He doesn’t want to do it, but if Jefferson gets upset, lashes out, it’s better that he’s there to absorb it all instead of Madison, who’s only barely on better terms with Jefferson. He’s thought of a thousand ways to word it, to soften the blow, but in the end, he finds Jefferson on a porch one night and says it like he’d want it said to him.
(Or maybe he just says it quickly, rips off the band-aid as fast as he can to limit the time Jefferson’s eyes are on him. To limit seeing how they’ve cooled from warmth, ironic not-quite-right love into distrust, resentment, hate).
“The Sons are surrendering at the end of September,” he says, and Jefferson just turns away.
“I know. I talked to Adams on the radio two days ago. Heard all ‘bout it from him.”
“What?” Jefferson says nothing, just shrugs. “Are you…” He doesn’t want to say it, doesn’t feel like they’re in a good enough place for him to ask, but he does anyways. He’s trying. He really is. “Are you, uh, alright?”
“No, I’m not,” he says, cold but not quite unaffected. “But I don’t really want to talk about it with you.”
It hurts, but Hamilton expects it.
“Well, uh, do you want me to get Madison?”
“If I wanted to talk to him, I would’ve,” Jefferson responds. He turns around, fixes Hamilton with a stare, lips curling into something sour. “So. What’d he say to you? Did he tell you that I cussed him out? That you should be extra careful to look after me ‘cause of how upset I am he’s gotta go get himself killed?”
Hamilton blinks, face screwing up.
“What choice does he have?”
“Oh, he’s got a choice, but he just can’t stand not being the goddamn hero for once,” Jefferson snaps, pacing angrily. “But he just has to make a goddamn martyr out of himself. He could just walk away, but no, he’s got to go out guns blazing. ”
But what choice does he have?
“I don’t get why you’re so fucking angry. He’s—”
“I’m fucking angry because my friend is letting himself die,” Jefferson interrupts, furious. “But I guess you wouldn’t know a damn thing about that.”
John’s face flashes before his eyes, the photo strip in his pocket seeming to burn against his skin. Hercules’ last words to him echo in his ears.
“Oh, I fucking know about that,” Hamilton snarls, taking an aggressive step forward. “My friends aren’t too afraid to get dirt under their nails. You’ll pick a fight, but you don’t want to finish it? You’d rather run away, forget about everything you sacrificed?”
“You can’t keep fighting if you’re dead,” Jefferson counters, scoffing. “And, sometimes, Hamilton , you walk away because the people who love you need you to stay alive.”
“Doesn’t matter!” Hamilton shouts, unthinking, and he knows he’s said something wrong when Jefferson’s expression cools. He doesn’t back down, though, shakes his head, turns away. “Some things are worth dying for whether you win or not.”
There’s a beat of silence. Jefferson crosses his arms, speaks coldly.
“What, you think I wouldn’t have died for the Revolution?” He steps forward again, shoulders squared. “You wanna know the truth? I didn’t think we could win. I hoped we might, but there was a good chance I’d get hung, nothing to show for it—and I signed my goddamn name on the Declaration anyways. So don’t fucking act holier than thou because I’m willing to die for an idea, I’m willing to die for people. I’m just not stupid enough to throw my life away like you and Sam.”
“He’s dying so other people can escape!” Hamilton shouts, almost surprised at his volume.
“He’s dying because it’ll make him feel like he accomplished something!” Jefferson yells back.
“Christ, Jefferson, I hope you didn’t tell him that.”
A flicker of regret crosses Jefferson’s face, but he makes no apology, crosses his arms.
“You know, this is why you liked each other. Because you’re both willing to throw your lives away. If you’d stayed in Boston, you’d be beside him right now on his suicide mission.”
“I fucking wish I were,” Hamilton responds, bitter, unthinking.
Jefferson flinches, hurt plain in his eyes—and why should he of all people be hurt? But he shoves it away, scowls, fixes him with a dark, angry look.
“Listen to me, Hamilton, ‘cause I fucking mean this, and I’ll always mean it, even if I apologize for saying it later: if you die for no reason, I’ll hate you for the rest of my goddamn life.”
He means it.
Hamilton looks at him for another beat.
“You’re just like every other politician,” he says, shaking his head.
And maybe the hurt returns to his face, but Hamilton leaves before he can see it.
Hamilton finds Jefferson again, later that evening.
He’s trying, he really is, and he fucked it all up again earlier, got caught in another stupid fight, said more things he didn’t mean to say, even if he meant them.
Jefferson probably isn’t even mad at Sam—not really. He’s just upset. Upset that everything has turned out this way, and he took it out on the easiest target. And if he wants to let it out, if Jefferson wants to stand there and yell at him until his voice is gone, Hamilton will let him. He’ll shut himself up this time.
“I’m sorry,” Hamilton says. “About Adams.”
He didn’t say it earlier.
“That wasn’t hard, was it? So is it just hard for you to apologize for yourself?” Jefferson laughs, bitter, spits out a sarcastic, “But I guess you haven’t done anything wrong, huh?”
He digs his teeth into his tongue and takes it. It’s just another form of self-sacrifice. He talked and talked about it earlier, can’t not live up to it now, now that’s the last damn thing he can do to make himself useful.
Jefferson paces, agitated, turns on a dime. And then he sighs mid-step, all the anger evaporating out of him, collapses heavily onto the nearest piece of furniture with his hands over his face.
“I know you’re sorry,” he says. A pause. “About Sam.”
Nothing more.
A cool night just on the cusp of October finds them sleeping in the Escalade.
Hamilton can’t sleep, and there’s an itch under his skin just begging for a cigarette. He crawls through the sunroof, looks up at the sky, goes through the list of constellations in his head. The stars are different from when he last took a good look now that fall’s closed in.
The constellation Hercules, he sees, has disappeared from the sky.
They’re in trouble.
Madison does their inventory, but Hamilton double-checks the important things. He noted, carefully, a couple weeks ago, that their stock of bullets is getting low. Hamilton responds by keeping an eye on their diminishing supplies, limiting the amount of shots he fires, relying more on knives and his bow.
But their stash dwindles and dwindles, and then it’s too low.
He can take risks with knives and bows and other close-range weapons that come with another layer of risks for Madison and Jefferson.
And he doesn’t want to leave them vulnerable. He’ll leave any day now, he’s certain, but he can’t bear the thought of doing it when they’re vulnerable.
“What are you doing?” Madison asks when he walks in to find Hamilton with a pen over a map. His voice carries the perfect level of detachment: no real interest. Only perfunctory politeness.
Loneliness squeezes his ribs like a vice. He doesn’t think he can keep doing this. It would be better if it could all just be a memory in his mind. Something he could pretend was never really real. He could trick himself, maybe, into believing that none of it ever mattered at all, but he can’t do it when the people he most wants to forget are right there in front of him.
“I’m going scavenging. Mostly for ammo.” Hamilton answers.
“I see.” Madison doesn’t fucking leave. Instead, he joins Hamilton’s side and looks down at the map. “You have an, ah, interesting assortment of locations marked.”
“Just based off experience,” he says, voice tight. “Where I’ve found stuff in the past.”
“When are you going?”
“Today.”
Madison leans away from the map. Hamilton half-relaxes, thinking the conversation is over, that Madison will feel like he can at last drop whatever facade he’s putting on.
He’s wrong
“I’ll drive,” Madison says, impassive, not a suggestion.
“What?”
“The closest place you have marked is half a dozen miles away. Are you going to walk?”
Panic mixes with defensiveness, and he looks up sharply.
“I’d planned on that, yeah.”
“Change your plans,” Madison plainly responds, exiting.
An hour later, the three of them are packed into the car. Madison drives; Hamilton navigates. Jefferson sits in the backseat, saying nothing to either of them. He looks tired, and the instant he sees Hamilton watching him in the rear view mirror, his eyes narrow angrily.
Hamilton looks away.
The paved road gives way to a gravel path that ends in a dilapidated trailer park whose better days were over long before the outbreak. Corrugated metal walls and peeling white paint sprawl out for dozens of rows, trash scattered across marshy patches of grass. A ways away, a half-rotted tire swing twists idly from a frayed rope, an abandoned children’s playset to its left.
It’s a dreary day. Dark, ominous grey clouds hang low overhead like the sky is sinking.
“This place is fuckin’ creepy,” Jefferson scoffs from the backseat, the first thing Hamilton’s heard him say all day.
“I have to concur with that assessment,” Madison remarks, disdain plain on his face.
“So why are we getting out of our nice bulletproof car to go poke around?”
“I’ll let you know we can go loot Beverly Hills,” Hamilton scoffs, opening the door. “Just stay in the car if all you’re gonna do is complain.”
But two car doors open and shut behind him.
He wonders if he can find another car once he leaves. Get an old-stick shift jumpstarted like how Jefferson taught him: get a manual in neutral, push it downhill, put it in second, release the clutch. He could drive instead of walking, biking if he finds an old 10 speed lying around.
But there’s nowhere to go. Only away from the infected, away from people.
And there’s nowhere like the Escalade, the most solid constant in his life for more than a year. If he does have a home—if that concept isn’t too foreign now that all he remembers is how to stay on the move—then it’s the Escalade. One of the few places he’s felt somewhere close to safe.
He can probably find a car. But it won’t be the same.
“I’m going to go home by home,” Hamilton tells them. “I’ve got the right side. Two of you start over there on the left. Closets, nightstands, air vents. Places where people hide shit.”
Hamilton doesn’t wait for confirmation, just clambers up to the first trailer. It’s open, long since ransacked, nothing of value to be found. He does find a tin of chewing tobacco, which is disgusting, but he really doesn’t feel like running out of cigarettes and going through withdrawal: he takes it. Nothing in the next house. In the third, he finds a box of .223 ammo that they can’t fucking use. He takes it anyways. But there’s no food, no weapons, nothing of any use at all. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
He wonders, frustrated, how difficult it would be to make his own bullets. Surely, at some point, the demand will exceed supply, because there can’t be anywhere else in the world still making shit like that—except maybe in England, but he doubts he’ll ever see the fruits of that labor unless he finds himself on the wrong end of a British bayonet.
A shotgun cracks.
“Goddamnit!”
Hamilton reacts before he thinks.
Outside: Jefferson’s shotgun, sideways, shoved against an infected’s neck. Teeth barely kept at bay. Arms slinging towards his face.
Hamilton sees without processing. His hands reach for his pistol, but there’s a resounding crack before that, then a second. The infected on the other side of Jefferson’s shotgun collapses. Hamilton’s eyes snap across the gravel road to find Madison on the stairs of the house opposite him, revolver still aimed at the infected sputtering on the ground. Dark, rotten blood pools under its body, torso mangled, head caved inward.
“Shit,” Jefferson swears, wide-eyed, stepping away from the gurgling body. “Didn’t go down when I hit it, got to me before I could rerack. It was one of—one of those fuckin’ clicking ones.”
Somewhere, there’s a screech that sounds like more infected. Hamilton warily turns around, scans their surroundings, neck prickling as his guard rises.
“You could’ve shot him,” he dryly tells Madison, just sharply enough for him to narrow his eyes.
“I’ve been shooting guns since before you were born.”
“What, so since you were six?”
“I grew up in the South.”
There’s an absurd humor in how he says it, as if it’s so obvious, and Hamilton can’t resist laughing—at his expense or what, he doesn’t know. He stops laughing, abruptly, when another infected screams. No, more than one—several. Several really fucking close, and the three of them abruptly straighten, turn back to the Escalade.
“Great, now that we’ve had a gun safety lesson—” Jefferson starts, but he doesn’t finish.
The infected rounds the corner in the alley between the first houses, shrieks violently when it sees them, sprints. Hamilton almost shoots it before another slips out. And another. And another, more and more, all cutting off the path to the car, clicking and shrieking and screeching intertwining into a horrific, pained chorus.
“Oh, fuck me,” Madison swears from behind him, coarse and horrified, and Hamilton knows what he’s going to see before he even turns, spots no less than a dozen infected clambering out from between trees and the passageways between houses, busting through doors half on their hinges, and oh, shit, oh, shit, oh shit—
Go, go, go, Hamilton’s mind shouts, and he’s moving before the words even leave his mouth, yanking them both behind him until they catch the memo. He cuts through the closest row, shoots the rotted thing that rushes out at the end, has to pivot and branch through another path when more appear at the end.
No, this way—right—left—run, c’mon, go, go, go fuck, FUCK, FUCK FUCK FUCK
He skids hard when another exit gets blocked, goes down, gravel and broken beer bottles shredding his legs. When he’s back on his feet, there’s an infected lunging for him, stopped only by the crack of wet bone and flesh when the sole of a purple shoe connects with its jaw. He’s up, running, running, scampering like a rat in a maze, exits cut off, and there’s no way out. There’s no way out, and maybe there never was.
Maybe this is how they’re going to die. And it will all be for nothing.
He’s going to stay alive.
And then they’re back in the road, right back where they started, except there are dozens more, writhing masses of rats stumbling and falling towards them. He’s thankful he can’t hear over the deafening pounding in his ears, or else he thinks his nerves would shatter.
Jefferson points towards a building, shouts, and turns, vaults the steps in one leap. Hamilton turns around the second he’s at the top, shoulders Madison into the wall, as far away as possible from the hands of infected reaching for them, positions himself in front of them both as he starts shooting.
The door is locked.
Shit shit shit, he hears, and it could be any of their voices, but it’s definitely his when his pistol clicks empty. Madison is still reloading his revolver, and there are still infected swarming the stairs, clambering up over the dead bodies, slipping on splintered wood wetted by sour blood: four wooden blocks standing between them and being torn apart.
He kicks violently, yanks out his sharpest knife and stabs. Behind him, Jefferson slams full-force into the door, shoulder rattling the frame. Once, twice—and then it bursts open, nearly knocked off the hinges. Madison yanks him away before he can fully yank his knife out of an eye socket. One last look, then it’s gone forever, and they’re inside.
The door isn’t going to lock again.
Hamilton slams it shut anyways.
“Left!” Madison’s mouth says. They skeer hard.
And the fucking trailer ends in a kitchen with no door, no exit, shit—
“Hamilton!” Jefferson shouts, darting to the fridge, and fuck, the door bursts open behind them—
Hamilton’s with him in an instant, strength shooting up from some hidden part of him as they shove the thing screeching over tiles. Madison’s revolver cracks as he shoots out of the doorway, and just as he switches to his pistol, they barricade the entrance with the fridge. Green and yellow and grey mottled hands claw through the gaps, snarling rotting teeth.
He isn’t going to fucking die here. He fucking refuses to.
The sounds rush back full force as a hundred infected swarming into the living room, so damn loud his teeth nearly rattle, a new soundtrack for his nightmares.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Jefferson chants, retrieving his shotgun and aiming. “Not gonna hold long!”
“The windows,” Madison says, whirling around. “The left side of all the trailers had windows.”
“Not much fucking good unless you want to get eaten outside,” Hamilton replies, already having rushed over. Jesus, they’re fucking surrounded.
You can make it out if you leave them.
The fridge nearly tips over as bodies slam against it. Hamilton sprints faster than light back over, throws his shoulder against it to try to keep it steady. Black-mottled fingertips reach around the cracks between the fridge and the doorway, almost snag the hems of his clothes. Jefferson rushes to help with the fridge, but Hamilton snarls a no, shakes his head violently. They can’t be side-by-side without both getting scratched.
“Shit. What if we make a choke point? Move the fridge a little, let a couple trickle in at a time,” Hamilton suggests as he runs the math in his head, calculating how to maximize their chances of survival. “I’ve done it before alone. We can do it with three people.”
He doesn’t mention that his choke point was for a dozen infected, not a hundred.
“We don’t have enough bullets in the entire fucking Escalade for this,” Jefferson fires back. Fingernails reach out and graze his forearm, leave behind five faint pink trails in their wake. Jefferson loads his shotgun frantically. “How many spare rounds do you have?”
“Three reloads for my pistol, two for your shotgun, two for Madison’s revolver,” he gets out, beads of sweat forming on his brow from the strain.
“Shit. Shit, okay, we’ve got knives, then. We can get through this.” He turns around as Madison suddenly shoots past him, wrenches the low table towards the center of the room and vaults atop it. “Madison?”
“Look up,” he says, almost breathless with laughter.
“There’s a skylight. A skylight!” Jefferson says, and he laughs. “Thank god for shitty architects!”
Hamilton takes his word for it. His eyes are fixed on the floor. His legs ache, back burns with the effort of holding back the tide of infected. Spots flicker across his vision as he forgets to breathe. He shifts when his foot loses grip on the tile, accidentally slides left, and— shit.
Fingers curl in his hair, yank him sideways. He yelps. Jefferson stabs through the hand holding him, slashes and hacks, just barely avoids slicing into Hamilton’s skull. The grip loosens, lets go, and Jefferson hesitates, moves towards him—
“Go fucking boost him up! Boost him the fuck up!” Hamilton shouts, kicking a leg to ward him off.
The fridge rocks behind him, bears weight down on him, but he grits his jaw, strains harder. He’s not built for this, is fading fast, muscles trembling. Jefferson interlaces his fingers together, lets Madison step up with one foot on his shoulder, grimaces, tries to keep his balance. Madison whips out his revolver, warns something about closing his eyes—then bashes through the window, clears as much glass from the frame as he can with his handkerchief-wrapped fist.
“Go!” Jefferson orders him, giving him one last push upwards to scramble onto the roof. No sooner than Madison is through does Jefferson turn, eyes flashing. “Hamilton!”
“Fuck that, you go first—”
Jefferson doesn’t even let him finish, leaps off the table and physically yanks him away. Then there’s no time to argue, only a moment where they both need to go. They leap up onto the table, a mad scramble. Jefferson laces his fingers, boosts him up, up. Madison’s fingers press bruises into his wrists as he yanks him through the rest of the way. He’s not even fully settled before he’s leaning back down through the ceiling, arm outstretched.
The fridge crashes deafeningly as infected push it over.
Deadened eyes.
(Expect they’re not dead—they’re vicious, hateful, malicious in a way that nothing dead could ever truly be, in a way no nightmare could ever recreate—and that’s somehow worse.)
They spill into the room like a tsunami, launching themselves forward.
“Thomas!” Madison shouts
Jefferson jumps up. The infected reach the table, lunging with outstretched arms.
It’s such a big gap, so far down that—Jesus, they barely grab ahold of him, even though they’re halfway to falling back through the skylight themselves. He’s afraid, terrified, suddenly that they’re all going to fall back in, and Madison’s eyes widen like he’s about to lose his balance when Jefferson grabs hold of his wrist. Hamilton’s free hand goes to grab Madison, hold him back, and then he has no free hands to hold himself.
He yanks Jefferson up with every he has, swiping fingers inches away from snagging his ankles, and—
Jefferson scrambles up onto the roof, sucking in frantic breaths of air. The three of them scatter backwards from the skylight like bugs, and then Jefferson, already half-pulled into Madison’s arms, collapses on top of him. Madison clutches onto him.
There’s a moment where Jefferson looks like he’s going to cry as the terror catches up with them all, but then Madison is reassuring him, kissing him, cupping his face like his mere presence is a miracle, and they’re alright. There’s nothing restrained or dignified about it.
That’s what it takes to cut Madison down: a call so close that another half second would’ve led to another outcome.
Hamilton comforts himself. He relies on what he’s always had—his mind—and it turns quickly, anger replacing adrenaline.
“Why didn’t you let me go last?” he asks Jefferson, shaking his head, rising and turning away to hide how shaken he is, the way his hands still tremble. “It wouldn’t have mattered if—”
“You’re too short, and I’m too heavy,” Jefferson cuts him off.
He says like it makes the most sense in the world, but it doesn’t, and Christ, Hamilton almost just watched him die, and damnit, why can’t he stop fucking shaking—
“You should’ve just fucking let me go last.”
“Jesus, you must wanna be canonized as a fuckin’ saint for all your self-sacrificing,” Jefferson says, and maybe it’s supposed to be a joke, but it doesn’t land that way.
“Well, I’m not letting someone die for me again!”
He says it without thinking, leftover adrenaline fueling him. He doesn’t know why he can’t calm down. He’s usually better than this when he has close calls. Maybe it’s because he hasn’t had certain kinds of close calls in a while. Maybe his immunity has actually made him weaker.
Jefferson says nothing for a moment, but Hamilton hears him approach.
“Hey. Look at me.” And when he doesn’t, Jefferson comes to his side, moves his stiff arm, wraps his hand around his wrist. Hamilton almost flinches away, frozen. “I’ve still got a pulse, don’t I? I’m fine. Look—Madison’s fine. You’re fine. See? We’re fine.”
He feels it, then. Something wild and skittering, but comforting enough that he forces himself to bite down the comment welling in his throat about being talked to like a scared animal. He just nods and exhales. Lets his hand drop back to his side.
He doesn’t know what to do. It’s the right time Jefferson has talked to him with a tone that doesn’t fall somewhere between irritation and anger in weeks.
“You’ve got glass in your hair,” Hamilton notes, glancing up. He tries to smirk: bickering is his failsafe, just as it always has been. “Should get that out. If anyone’s dumb enough to slice an artery with something like that, it’d be you.”
“Please, you’ll probably die by slipping on ice,” Jefferson rolls his eyes. “God knows how many times I saw you do that last winter.”
“If we could not be so morbid,” Madison interjects, joining them. “And, please, let’s step away from the edge of the roof. I’ve experienced enough stress for one day.”
It’s like air in his lungs, the sudden burst of normalcy. It doesn’t matter that they’re still stranded, that their odds of long-term survival are no better, that the infected below are still launching themselves against the trailer. He can hear the clicks of the clickers down below, the wet thunk of skulls against metal as infected bash themselves against the walls again and again until fungal plates and bones split open and spill out brain matter like tissue paper from an overstuffed gift.
It hardly even matters that Jefferson and Madison have only temporarily forgotten that they hate him.
“Okay,” Jefferson says, nudging him back. “Either of you got any water?”
“Which of the fucking three of us is carting around a goddamn backpack?” Hamilton grumbles, sitting down and pulling it off. “How many damn times have I told you never to go anywhere without having one on you?”
“Enough that I’m tired of hearing it.”
Hamilton pulls out a canteen, almost hands it over, then pulls it back at the last second.
“Admit that I was right, or I’m not giving you shit.”
“You know what? I’ll take my chances with dehydration.”
Hamilton half-laughs under his breath, handing it to him anyways.
He thinks he feels most human like this, in these moments after he’s come so close to mortality. He’s aware of it all then, everything from the blood rushing in his ears to the gash across his arm where he came from the skylight. He sits down, lies back, looks up at the sky.
It’s good to be alive, he thinks, and, until the last of the adrenaline fades, it is.
Madison painstakingly pulls the glass from Jefferson’s hair, his hand wrapped in a handkerchief. Hamilton intersperses watching with trying to get his shoulder to stop bleeding.
“Do you need—?” Jefferson suggests, looking over at him.
“No. It’s fine,” he interrupts, closing his eyes. “It’ll stop.”
“Uh-huh, well, doesn’t look like it is.”
“What an astute observation. I see why you were such a great lawyer.”
Hamilton’s not worried about bleeding, because he’s bled a lot more and been fine before. He’s more worried about the fact that they’re still fucking stranded, that the Escalade is a couple hundred yards away. He can see it from the rooftop. He can also see that no less than two hundred infected stand somewhere in the way.
(He also sees, off in the distance, a shape on the ground that looks like it was human not all too long ago, that infected still mill around, shoveling scraps into their face.)
He thinks about something else.
He’s got enough water for himself to last two days. Himself alone. Split amongst three people, that’s nothing. He doesn’t have enough food to last them long either, and their bullet dilemma is the entire damn reason they’re even here.
Once he starts pacing, he doesn’t stop.
“Did you find anything worthwhile when you were down there?” he asks.
“Can of peaches,” Jefferson says. “Not much else. Fucking hellhole’s been picked clean.” He fishes in his coat pocket a moment, comes up with the can. Finds his knife, jams it through the lid, starts carving out the top. “Speaking of which, I’m fucking starving.”
“Great,” Hamilton says, sarcastic. “At least you’re satisfied.”
“Alexander, sit down and stop pacing,” Madison sighs. “Just watching you is making me tired.”
Hamilton doesn’t want to, almost snaps back, but maybe it’s better to preserve his energy anyways. He sits down, stiffly, across the both of them. They’re both beside each other, closer than he’s seen them in days, legs touching. He wonders how long this peace between all of them will last. If it’ll extend beyond them getting out of here—or even that long.
Jefferson pries open the lid, sips juice from the can. Offers some to Madison, who declines, then Hamilton. He hesitates but takes it, sweet, sticky juice sliding down his throat.
You’ll need the energy, he thinks, because he really only sees one way out of this.
He doesn’t say it yet, though. Figures they’ll be less resistant after they’ve softened up.
It’s better to wait, anyways. Maybe some of the infected will have wandered off.
Tomorrow, he thinks as he pulls off his backpack, rummages for some food.
For the first time in too long, they eat together.
It’s in the middle of the night when he hears it.
None of them are sleeping, he knows—because how can they? The howling from earlier has quietened, but now it’s just the infected’s pained moans, the occasional sounds that sound too much like sobs, too human to sleep to. It’s cool out tonight too, and Hamilton is several feet away from either of them, determinedly staring up at the sky.
Jefferson stirs after a few hours, sits up, then stands. Madison mumbles something tiredy that Hamilton doesn’t quite catch, but Jefferson talks him down, moves to the far end of the roof. There’s silence—as close as it’s going to get—and then there’s a sharp, shocked inhale that’s almost drowned out by the sounds below.
Hamilton sits up at the same time as Madison.
“Thomas? Is everything alright?”
There’s no response for too long, and Hamilton knows something is wrong, knows Jefferson is lying when he answers, voice strained.
“Yeah. All good. Go back to sleep.”
Madison doesn’t lie back down for another minute, only then reluctantly.
Jefferson doesn’t come back over for much longer.
It’s during the break of dawn the next day when he suggests it.
“I can make a run for it.
Jefferson doesn’t even respond, which seems to surprise them both, because both Hamilton and Madison look to him first. He’s looking down, seemingly not paying attention at all.
Apparently their little facade at normalcy couldn’t even last the night.
“Jefferson?”
“What?” he asks sharply, looking up
“I said that I can make a run for it.”
He says nothing, doesn’t even react for a few seconds. It’s distinctly unsettling.
“I’m fucking sick of all your plans sounding like that,” Jefferson at last scoffs. “Just fuckin’ once, could you not be the goddamn sacrificial lamb? Let me do it. I’m faster than you.”
“Even if you were —which you’re not—you aren’t not as light on your feet. You can’t barrel through every infected here, or you’re gonna get killed.”
“What, and you’re so certain that you won’t?”
“No! But only one of us is immune!”
“Which won’t be worth shit if you get taken down!”
“Both of you, stop arguing,” Madison interrupts, looking between them both before his eyes fall to the ground. “Thomas, you know as well I do that Hamilton is the best choice.”
Jefferson’s expression hovers somewhere between incredulity and betrayal, and it tears his paper-thin patience in half. His eyes flash, and he shakes his head.
“Are you fucking serious? No. I’m doing it. We’re not debating this.”
“All our conversations are discussions,” Madison says hotly, before Hamilton can even cut in that they all need to quiet the fuck down. “Is that not what we agreed on?”
“I don’t know, James! You’re not exactly in good standing with our goddamn relationship rules either, so I don’t feel that fucking inclined to follow the rulebook to the letter! And right now, I’m more concerned with keeping you alive than I am with keeping you happy!”
It’s his fault. His fault they’re arguing. His fault everything is so messed up.
“Both of you—shut the fuck up,” he harshly interjects, cutting between the two of them. “I’m going, and it’s not a fucking discussion.” He turns to Jefferson. “And I’ll drop off this roof right fucking now if you so much as even think about going in my place.”
“Mind your own fucking business. You don’t get to make choices for me,” Jefferson snarls. “You don’t get a goddamn say in my relationship.”
Hamilton will be proud of himself, later, for not cracking. He’ll be thankful he’s so damn good at pushing it all down that he doesn’t even blink. Instead, he just shoves past Jefferson to the edge of the roof, looks out at the Escalade, pretends like he’s planning instead of trying to hear over the sudden thundering of blood in his ears.
(He’s not his father’s son. He’s not. He’s not. He’s not—)
“Give me the keys,” he says to no one in particular.
Infected shriek below them. The sound grates on him, grates on his patience, but he won’t lose it. He won’t. He won’t tell Jefferson everything he wants to, won’t throw vicious truths back into his face to spread his hurt around. He won’t.
Madison hands him the keys.
He sits down on the edge, feet dangling over the side, eats, drinks, and waits.
Hamilton doesn’t let them wish him luck, one of those just-in-case goodbyes. Maybe they would’ve liked to. Maybe when Madison’s expression softened for just a second once they’d finished laying out their plan, he’d been about to. But Jefferson was there too, expression tight and stiff and miserable somewhere below all of that, so Hamilton had turned away, said alright, sounds good, then walked away.
If he dies, he’s not the one who has to live with it anyways.
Selfish. You’re a selfish bastard.
Jefferson’s shotgun blasts from the far end of the trailer; Madison’s revolver cracks beside him. Hamilton waits, watches as the infected are drawn away from him—dozens of half-decayed bodies, shrieking, vicious. The clicking ones—the clickers—are the worst.
And then the path is as clear as it’ll ever be.
His ankle is sprained. He registers it the first step he takes after he lands, but he doesn’t acknowledge it beyond brief recognition, acknowledgement, a label. He just runs. Legs pumping, arms swinging, barely letting the ball of his feet strike the ground.
Something grabs him, holds on, and he blows its fucking head off. And then he really runs, runs like he’s not sure he ever has before, runs until the Escalade’s an arm’s reach away, and then something hits him hard from behind, and—
For a fraction of a second as he careens forward, he hears a click in his ear, sees his face hurtling towards the Escalade’s dark tinted windows. His reflection is fractured by the veins of a million spiderweb cracks, visage shattered. But he’s tumbling forward, and his hands aren’t moving fast enough, and he’s going to break his fall with his fucking face.
Holy shit, he thinks. This is how I’m going to die.
His eyes widen.
I love you, he thinks. Even though they’ll never hear it.
And then there’s the impact.
Get up. Get up, Alex. Come on. Get up. Get—
“Hey, hey, you’re dr— Jesus Christ!” Jefferson swears, leaning over and wrenching the wheel right just as the Escalade’s left tires whirr angrily through thick mud towards thick trunks. They swerve right hard, but Jefferson course-corrects, keeps a white-knuckled grip on the wheel. Are they in the car? When did they get here? “Jesus fucking Christ.” His voice swims like he’s underwater. “Okay, fuck a mile down the road, you need to pull over now.”
“I’m...” Hamilton says, but trying to concentrate just makes his head hurt more. He’s moving through water, can barely see. “Where…?”
He doesn’t remember getting out, but suddenly Jefferson is half-helping, half-shoving him into the backseat, busting ass back to the front.
“I’ve got you,” Madison tells him, but his voice is fuzzy, like a radio with a bad connection.
Hercules, he thinks, someone has to ask where he is.
It should be him, but the words slip away from him before he can get them out.
Someone—it must be Madison, he reasons—pries away a hand he didn’t realize he had pressed tightly to his forehead. Warmth gushes down his face, plasters down his hair.
He can’t see.
It’s terrifying, frightening— he lifts a hand to rub his eyes. Before his vision blurs again, he sees bright red. There’s a moment of relief, of oh, it’s just blood, but it’s followed shortly after by an oh, shit, I’m bleeding a lot.
He makes a weak, panicked noise. There’s a shushing sound, like someone’s trying to calm a frightened animal, and then he’s fading again.
You’re pretty fucked up, huh? You’ll be fine, though. Get up, man. You still gotta pay for your own booze a little while longer.
“... Alexander? Alexander? Oh, thank God. I’ve got you, dear. I’ve got you.”
“Where am I?” he manages to get out, so dizzy he can only recognize Madison by his voice.
“We’re in the car, Alexander. You hit your head.” There’s a silence. Good, he thinks. Silence hurts his head less. “Do you remember what happened?”
eyes opening infected-in-your-face knife blood
car door opening driving driving throw back door open
thomas james inside go drive fucking drive go go go go—
“No,” he mumbles. “Where am I?”
“I told you. We’re in the Escalade,” Madison answers, patient, sounding worried. What is there to be worried about? It’s making him worried. “You’re safe. We’ve got you.”
His face is wet. Why is his face wet?
“Am I bleeding? I don’t…” he groans, closing his eyes. “My head hurts so fucking bad.”
“A bit, but head injuries always seem worse than they are,” Madison reassures him, almost eerily calm, thumb sliding comfortingly along his jaw. Something dabs the blood from his eyes, pressing against his forehead. He identifies it as a handkerchief once he can see clearly, and he feels a twinge of guilt. How many of those have you ruined, now? “I need you to stay awake. Can you do that for me, Alexander?”
“Of course you’d have to ask… ask that when I feel like I’m gonna...” pass out, Hamilton tries to joke, but a wave of nausea overcomes him.
His throat spasms. He gags, and then he’s leaning over, and Madison just barely manages to sweep the hair out of his face before he’s puking, miserably heaving up the next-to-nothing that’s in his stomach. He almost falls off the seat entirely, straight into his mess, but Madison throws a hand in front of his waist, steadies him.
“Are you fucking serious?” Jefferson snaps from the front seat. “Did he just puke on my floorboards?”
“Thomas, Christ, don’t we have bigger problems right now?” Madison asks, and now he’s not calm anymore, he’s angry, and Hamilton struggles to remember why.
“Uh, I don’t know. My car smelling like fermented vomit is pretty damn high on my list of concerns right now!” he retorts, almost piercingly shrill, making Hamilton’s head throb.
Shut up, Hamilton tells him, but it doesn’t quite make it out of his mouth before more bile is coming up, and fuck, now the world is spinning. He moans.
“For Christ’s sake, I’ll clean your car. God knows I’ve cleaned up enough messes in my lifetime,” Madison replies, an edge of hostility creeping into his voice. “Yours included.”
“It’s not—you know what, Madison? Never mind.”
“ Madison? I’m sitting back here with Hamilton’s skull nearly split in half, and you’re acting like a goddamn child!”
Jefferson says nothing, and Hamilton is too busy heaving up the last of what’s in his stomach to try to catch his eye in the rear view. He at last sits up, shifts uncomfortably. Madison reaches over, but he waves him off, sinks back into the seat.
“Sorry,” he tells Jefferson, guilty for reasons he can’t quite bring up, but he knows that there’s more than him just puking, that that’s his fault, but that there’s other things that are his fault too. “I’m sorry,” he hacks out. “I can… I can clean it.”
There’s a stiff moment of tension, but it breaks when Jefferson exhales heavily.
“No, no, you don’t have to. Fuck. Fuck, it’s fine. It’s fine!”
He sounds so damn hysterical, so damn shrill that even through his haze, Hamilton can tell there’s something else wrong. There was something earlier, and there’s still something wrong now. It just hurts too much to try to work out what. His thoughts feel thick, heavy, sticky like the blood oozing down his face. He sinks back into semi-consciousness, but Madison refuses to let him fucking sleep, keeps gently shaking him every few minutes.
“Why are you bothering…” he complains, swaying. His tongue feels thick as his thoughts, like it keeps getting caught on his teeth. “...’s not like you can take me to a hospital if I don’t wake up.”
“What did he say?” Madison asks after a moment—not to him but Thomas.
“Fuck if I know. Sounds like he popped a fucking bottle of Xannies.”
There’s a pause, a moment where Madison looks down at him. Hamilton doesn’t want to try to read his expression.
“Thomas, pull...”
Something that sounds like a garage door opens. The Escalade pulls forward another few feet, then stops again. Something screeches. Hamilton fumbles for the door handle, but misses it. It opens from the outside. Jefferson doesn’t even bother, just scoops him up in his arms. He makes what he hopes is a sound of displeasure, but Jefferson ignores him.
“Can you take point?” he thinks he hears, but then when he’s fully aware again, Jefferson’s laying him down on a sofa, stepping away, pacing agitatedly.
Madison lets Hamilton adjust, shifts the pillows, mouth twitching downward every time Jefferson passes. He moves to the door of the room, opens it, and Madison turns around.
“Where are you going?”
“Gonna go look for some kinda upholstery cleaner. There’s still vomit in my car, in case you forgot.”
“Jesus Christ, Thomas! What is your goddamned problem? Would it kill you to have some damn sympathy for someone other than yourself?”
“Jesus, James, can I just go and fucking think for twenty minutes? Is that so damn selfish? To just want a goddamn second to breathe away from both of you!” Jefferson shouts, but there’s the same hysterical note in his voice that’s been there for hours.
Even half-dead to the world, it doesn’t fall beneath Hamilton’s notice. It can’t fall beneath Madison’s either, because he visibly stops from saying something sharp, inhales then exhales.
“Please, not so loud,” Hamilton pleads with them both, speared through with guilt.
It’s his fucking fault that they’re arguing. It’s his fucking fault that everything’s going to hell. He’s got a blurry memory of a kitchen, of a mouth that wasn’t his to kiss—
Madison looks down at him a moment, then back to Jefferson. There’s four of each of them, and he thinks he’s going to puke again.
“Thomas, I’m sorry I raised my voice,” Madison exhales, the words labored. “Please tell me what’s wrong. I want to help. What exactly do you need to think about? I can’t do anything to lessen the burden if you don’t let me in.”
Jefferson buckles, almost breaks, but at the last possible second, something sour overtakes his face. Petulantly, he turns away, stalks back towards the door.
“Rich, coming from the fucking king of the silent treatment. You know what? Fuck it. Whatever. Forget about it. You’ve got your hands full. Fuck it!” he rambles, growing more hysterical.
Madison heaves out an angry, frustrated breath, turning back to Hamilton with tension written into every line in his body. Hamilton swallows, tries to make his tongue move.
“I’m fine,” he gets out. “Go talk to him.”
“No, you’re not. None of us are fine,” Madison spits out, and there’s too much he could be talking about for Hamilton to know just what he means.
“I’m sorry,” Hamilton says a moment later, quiet.
Madison hesitates—then folds just a little, lets out a rushed breath.
“I don’t know what you’re apologizing for.”
“You do.”
“Alexander…” There’s a long silence. “We can talk about this later. Just close your eyes and stay still. I’ve got you, Alexander.”
They’re never gonna talk about it, he knows. But he’s too dizzy, too ill to do anything about it, so he just lets Madison clean his forehead, dress it, coax Tylenol down his throat. His entire head throbs, searing white radiating from the front of his skull.
Hey, get up. For fuck's sake, get up.
“...xander. Alexander?”
He makes a vague mmfh sound.
“Stay awake for me. I’m going to get you a cold pack, alright?”
He nods, dazed, hears Madison’s footsteps fade. He tries to stay awake. He really does. Counts as high up as he can go. Thinks about everything stupid anyone has ever said to him.
Burr, of all people, comes to mind, which maybe isn’t really a surprise given how often he was wrong. Hamilton is too dazed to remember he should be fighting thoughts about people he used to know, hears voices play back in his mind, arguments he knows he would’ve won if Burr had ever taken a stance to fight against. He doesn’t remember what Burr sounded like, but he remembers the unaffected tone, the little upturn to his lips when Hamilton got going a mile a minute.
“Really, Alexander, if you’d ever stop talking and take a second think—”
“Yeah, well, if you’d ever stop sitting the fuck down and stand up—”
But it’s not enough to keep him awake, and voices follow him into unconsciousness.
He comes back with a gasp when someone carefully shakes him awake. Jefferson looks down at him, concern knitting his brows together.
“Hey,” he says, trying to force a smile. “Glad to see you’re still with us.”
Hamilton’s head spins, where and how echoing in his mind. It takes him too long to come up with answers. It frightens him, really, but he refuses to let it show, says nothing until he remembers that Jefferson hasn’t given a goddamn shit about him all day.
Something’s wrong, he tells himself, but it doesn’t really stop the stab of anger he feels.
“Uh-huh,” Hamilton slurs out anyways, forcing himself upright. “Where’s…?”
“He went to track down that ice pack and some water. He’s, uh...” Jefferson grimaces. “I’m real fuckin’ high on his shit list right now.”
“Yeah, no shit, ‘cause you’re more worried about your stupid fucking car than me,” he spits, and there’s real vitriol in his words, acid that seems to sting Jefferson almost as much as it surprises him.
“I wasn’t. Jesus, I couldn’t give less of a shit about my car right now, I just…”
Jefferson looks away, but Hamilton doesn’t think to look away from him. It’s still light outside, so he can’t have been out for long. His entire being feels chalky. He doesn’t know how the fuck to describe it. Just all feels dry and wrung-out and bright white.
“Look,” Jefferson says. Somewhere along the way, nothing but anxiety and dread has taken over his face, and, somehow, that cuts through his haze, even though it makes his head ache even more. “I know you’re not doing hot, alright? I didn’t mean to write that off or to be… or to be such a jackass. This entire time.”
“Just fucking say what you’re going to say,” he rushes to get out.
Jefferson looks at him like he’s speaking in goddamn tongues, and, fuck, for all he knows, he is. He tries again, forces himself to slow down on the words, enunciate each syllable. Jefferson understands this time, and Hamilton has to add slow down to his list of things to keep track of: apparently, he’s unintelligible if he’s not focusing.
Jefferson hesitates a moment, then settles down onto the couch beside Hamilton.
“I’m sorry,” he says, plastering a hand over his face, and the last of his strength seems to escape him.
Hamilton’s ears ring.
Sounds like funeral bells.
“For what?”
Each passing second of silence makes Hamilton’s stomach twist more and more.
“Sorry to ask a lot of you right now. I, uh, need you to stay awake for… fuck. Whatever comes next,” he gets out, burying his face in his hands—to hide, to cry, Hamilton doesn’t know, but he hates it, feels his heart speed up, sits up further.
“Christ, quit with the fucking riddles!”
“I, uh…” Jefferson wets his lips, shoulders curled in. He looks small, unimportant, pathetic, and it unsettles Hamilton like few things ever have. “Look, it was a while ago, but you remember what you promised me, don’t you? At the lake back at Mount Vernon?”
But before Hamilton can ask what he means or try to dredge through his muddled mind, Madison reenters the room with a handkerchief-wrapped cold pack. Jefferson, abruptly, stands. Madison looks between them but says nothing, settles gently onto the now unoccupied space beside Hamilton and eases the pack against his forehead. It’s blessedly cold, drains some of the hurt from his skull, but none of the stress.
“We have one more pack,” Madison tells him as he uncaps a water bottle and lifts it to Hamilton’s mouth, “but Thomas and I will find more.”
Hamilton doesn’t even think that he can feed himself. He just drinks, even though there’s a vague premonition in his gut that he’ll puke it up before long. His eyes flicker to the side, where Jefferson is standing uncharacteristically nervously at the edge of the room, like a rabbit about to make a run for it. Madison keeps his back to him, hard angry lines written into his face.
“James,” Jefferson cuts in, usual suaveness evaporated, nothing but dread in its wake. “I’m sorry I was upset.”
“I see,” he says without turning, unsympathetic, icing him out.
“Look. You were right.” He swallows, looks down. Hamilton follows his gaze as best he can, forces his double vision to disappear, trails down Jefferson’s leg to where there’s a mottled dark patch staining the leg of his jeans. His vision goes grey. “We do need to talk.”
Silence falls over them like darkness when Madison sees Hamilton’s face.
His resolve holds for a long moment before the anger melts. He seems to know what Jefferson will tell them even before he turns, but Hamilton sees the exact moment it sinks in. Sees the way his whole body seizes up, how his skin greys, how his eyes go widen and don’t shut. He doesn’t even react when the words come out of his mouth.
“I might be infected,” Jefferson at last struggles to say, voice cracking.
Once it sinks in, it hits Hamilton like a slug to the stomach. He finds, suddenly, that he can’t breathe, that all he can see is Laurens in front of him, Laurens bloody and bitten and dying alone , Laurens—and then it’s Jefferson’s face, and he doesn’t think he can do it again.
Bright blossoms of pain spread from his palms into his arms, the only color he feels in a world that’s suddenly gone dark. He’s not sure how many seconds pass before he can see again, but when he can, someone’s pried open his death-vice hands, shoved handkerchiefs into his palms to staunch the bleeding, to stop him from driving his nails deeper into his hands.
Little puddles of blood well up into the fabric, and Jefferson stands over him, worried, and he still can’t relax his grip, still can’t calm himself down.
“I’m fine,” he tells Jefferson, both deaf and numb, not even sure where he’s supposed to look or what Jefferson is saying. His mouth moves, but he says no words. Or no words reach him. Madison hasn’t moved. “I’m fine,” Hamilton repeats, like saying it again will make it true.
He isn’t. He doubles over the side of the sofa, and the water he’s just swallowed comes back up. He coughs and chokes and sputters until there’s nothing left, head spinning wildly.
“James?” he hears Jefferson ask through his haze. “James?”
“I’m listening,” Madison says without moving, voice thin like wind whistling through reeds.
“I don’t—look, I don’t know, okay? Maybe it’s not,” Jefferson tries to tell them. “I just... fuck.” He collapses heavily onto the couch beside Hamilton, buries his head in his hands. “I don’t know. When we were on the roof, my leg kept stinging and wouldn’t stop, and…” He pulls up the right side of his jeans, revealing a single jagged gash down the side of his shin. The cut is deep, swollen, red, and it looks like a death sentence. Funeral bells clang. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know. But I was close when I got pulled up, and I’m afraid—”
The bones in Hamilton’s hands seem to creak as he squeezes his fists tighter.
“Why didn’t you fucking let me go last?” he gets out, tears gathering in his eyes. “Why didn’t you just fucking—just fucking let—let me…”
“Because you were too short to make the jump yourself,” Jefferson answers, gentle, firm. “I made the right fucking call, or you’d be dead instead. Maybe both of us.”
“I—I could’ve… I could’ve…”
He can’t get out anything else, because he remembers the lake now, remembers promising Jefferson crystal-clear I’ll kill you if it means Madison doesn’t have to do it.
Fuck. Jesus Christ, fuck, oh fuck, fuck, fuck—
“I see,” Madison says, breaking the silence.
And just like that—sometime in the last thirty seconds while Hamilton’s been hurtling towards self-destruction—Madison has neatly put himself back together. It’s artificial, he knows, a pretense of calm, but it’s so goddamn effective that he can almost believe it.
Hamilton can’t—he—he can’t fucking do it. Not right now. He can be as strong as he needs to later, but not now. Not right now. He needs—
“Shit, fuck, I need a minute,” he manages, trying to sit up. His mind tells him to escape, even though it’ll change nothing, even though he’s not sure he could if he tried. “I need—”
“You don’t need to go anywhere,” Madison tells him, pushing him back down.
“Then get the fuck out!” he shouts even though the volume hurts his ears, rattles his brain in his skull. His voice cracks violently. “Get out, then! I don’t care! Just leave me the fuck alone!”
“Hamilton,” Jefferson says, voice despairing, but Madison stands, takes him by the shoulder.
“We should speak privately anyways.”
And then they’re gone, and he can finally fall apart.
Hamilton tries not to. He really does, because he’s had the fear for months upon months that if he starts crying, he might never stop. Each time he’s broken down, he’s pulled himself together. But it’s all too much, and this could be it for him.
Before he let himself get attached, he used to never cry at all. It was easier not to care. It was better to have less to lose. He was better off then, less vulnerable, less at risk of losing. Hamilton should’ve left all those months ago when Madison gave him that backpack and told him to go, because now he’s losing everything all over again.
Hamilton sobs. He wants to scream, shout, destroy every damn thing in sight, but he has to be quiet, doesn’t want to distress Madison and Jefferson more, and he can barely move anyways. He’s so damn tired, wants so badly to sleep, and maybe when he wakes up, things will be different. Maybe it’ll all have been a bad dream.
He wants to fall asleep, but he can’t.
Pull yourself together, he tells himself without pause.
He has to. Has to go back out there and keep the promise he made if it comes down to it, even if it fucking kills him. He forces himself to breathe. Tries to remember what Madison has told him about meditation, but Christ, his head hurts so much.
Hamilton counts. Up one through nine in French. Un deux trois quatre cinq six sept huit neuf. Back down. Neuf huit sept six cinq quatre trois deux un. Up and down over and over until he can breathe again and until the door finally opens again.
Un deux trois quatre cinq six sept—
“Hamilton?” Madison asks. “Is it alright if I come inside?”
It takes him more than a few seconds to scrape up the strength to answer.
“Sure,” Hamilton says, empty.
He doesn’t move to flip over from his stomach. He doesn’t want Madison to see whatever ugly sight he looks like right now. Madison probably doesn’t have a fucking hair out of place, because he sounds perfectly calm as he gently settles onto the sofa beside him.
“There is a time and place to be upset, but that time is after… if the worst comes to pass. But right now—”
“I know.” Pretend like everything’s fine while he’s watching. Fall apart later. A minute passes. He forces himself to sit up, unfurl himself from the covers. “Are you…?”
Fine? It seems like too stupid of a sentence to finish. Madison answers anyways.
“Don’t worry about me,” Madison tells him, but it’s not a trick of the light that his eyes shine, that his voice shakes. “We’ll be fine.”
He holds out another few seconds.
But then the tears finally spill over, and Hamilton has no idea what to do.
He’s never seen Madison cry. He doesn’t know how Jefferson handles it. Doesn’t know what he'll do now—certainly doesn’t know what he’ll do when— if —Jefferson is gone. Hamilton doesn’t know whether he even should touch Madison, if so much as laying a hand on his shoulder is overstepping, too much after weeks of nothing.
The only thing he does know is that it hurts him. That every ounce of his heart aches for Madison, wants to reach out, do something, even if it’s a mistake he can’t make a second time.
In the end, he doesn’t do anything. It’s not a dozen seconds before Madison stands and hastily wipes his eyes dry, pushing past the moment as if it never happened.
“I should have better control over myself. I’m sorry,” he says as though there’s something to apologize for. He looks away, clears his throat, and speaks before Hamilton can tell him as much. “Would you allow us to join you here?”
“For what?”
A silence. His head throbs.
“To wait.” There’s a pause, then a burst of emotion. “He’ll barely let me touch him,” Madison says, voice thick and thin all at once. “Afraid that he could infect me too. And I don’t even remember the last time we kissed.” He smiles, frail, laughs bitterly. “How terrible that we rarely know when we’ve done something for the last time.”
There’s a moment where Hamilton thinks Madison will crack again, but he doesn’t—whether through sheer force of will or divine intervention, Hamilton doesn’t know.
“Don’t you… want to be alone?”
Now, Madison looks back at him.
“Oh, Alexander,” he says, too close to pitying for his tastes.
There’s a sort of weight to the words that Hamilton can’t pick up on, even as much as he’s trying to force himself to focus. He struggles to even remember their thread of conversation, eyes wrenching shut as pain courses through him.
“He hates me.”
“You catastrophize. He’s… deeply upset. But to think he hates us is absurd.”
But how can he know? How can he be certain, regardless of how sure he sounds? Maybe Jefferson does hate him. Maybe Madison is just willfully ignorant to the truth.
“Maybe not you. But I’m...”
Disposable, his mind provides. But he has some idea of what Madison will say to that. Besides, this isn’t about him, and he doesn’t want to be coddled, told lies that can’t be true no matter how much he tries to will them into existence.
And it’s true that they love him. Or that they did at one point, if not now. But it’s not the same thing. Love doesn’t last. It can’t last when he is the way he is, when he fucks up the way he does, when he’s pushed them all a step away from imploding in on all of each other, and now that could be the note they all end on.
“Do you really think so little of yourself?” Madison asks, and he doesn’t sound angry like Hamilton thinks he should. He just sounds sad.
He doesn’t feel like hearing it, doesn’t feel like hearing about how much Jefferson loves him, because it will never be enough. Not for him to be satisfied.
“What were we talking about?” he asks, head spinning.
“I asked if we could come in here. If that would be alright with you.”
“You can come,” he says. “If you want. Just… wouldn’t you rather be alone?”
“We just went through this, Alexander.”
“We did?”
It sounds true, but he can’t think back on what they said. He wonders, vaguely, why his head hurts so much. He hit it somewhere, but he can’t think where.
Madison lingers another moment, then tucks the discarded ice pack back into Hamilton’s hand before leaving. A few minutes later, the door opens again to two pairs of footsteps. Hamilton doesn’t open his eyes until a weight gently nudges him to the side, then settles down beside him. He knows it’s Jefferson, recognizes his shape, the way he moves, breathes.
He doesn’t know what to say.
“How do you feel?” he asks at last, carefully making out each syllable.
the feeling of skin tearing, skin burning like boiling water, lungs filled with pneumonia-blood, slipping, slipping, slipping.
All at once, the memories of being bitten that first time flood back, overwhelm him. His heart picks up. He can’t stand the thought of Jefferson going through the same, only not coming out at the other end of it. His throat pricks, but he refuses to cry. He can’t cry. None of them are—not even Jefferson, who looks so ill Hamilton’s afraid he’ll keel over any second.
“I dunno,” Jefferson answers, strangely detached. “Can’t tell what’s me, what’s…” He trails off, then shakes his head. Silence, until he blurts out, “If I die, you both have to be more careful. Neither of you are as tall or strong as I am. You have to—”
“Stop,” Hamilton gets out, voice breaking.
“Stop what? Worrying? I’ve had Madison’s back since before college! Yours for more than a year! How the hell can I not worry about not being around to protect you anymore?”
He sounds hysterical.
“I don’t—”
“—need to be protected? Yes, you do. Your brain’s half fuckin’ pulverized, but even when it’s not, you do. All three of us need each other, and I can’t...” Voice breaking, he has to stop, start another sentence. “Just once, Hamilton, let me fucking be right without throwing a fit.”
“I was going to say I don’t know,” Hamilton croaks, throat stinging, voice cracking, “but that it’s the least you can do to pretend like you’ll be fine. For me.”
Jefferson looks down at his hands, grips tightly onto his knees.
“But what if I’m not going to be fine?” he asks, voice growing quieter. “Can’t waste a goodbye. Not many people get the chance to have one.”
“I don’t want you to tell me goodbye,” he responds, throat tight. “Say it all you want to Madison, but I don’t want to hear it.”
“You might not have a—”
“Then I’ll deal with it then!”
“By not fucking dealing with it, you mean?”
“Jefferson, I can either deal with it or I can fucking keep myself alive! Pick one or the other, ‘cause both aren’t gonna fucking happen,” Hamilton explodes.
Silence reigns.
“Fine,” Jefferson concedes. “Then stay alive, and worry about the rest later. Things will be… things will be better one day.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Well, how much fucking worse can they get?” he laughs dryly.
(Much worse, the answer is).
“So?” Jefferson prods him, and he snaps to attention, realizes he’s almost faded away.
“I can do that,” Hamilton gets out, and he hates that it feels like a promise. Historically, he hasn’t exactly been the best at keeping those.
But he has another promise to keep first.
I’m asking you to take care of me if I get bit.
What a fucking euphemism.
He shrugs off Jefferson’s hand, sits himself up on the edge of the couch.
“What time is it?”
“Quarter to three,” Madison answers with a glance at his watch.
Hamilton does the math: one to two days from first exposure before infection takes over.
(Before Jefferson could be gone.)
But he has a job to do, something to focus on, a promise to fulfill, and he has to do it. He has to. It might be all that’s keeping him sane.
“Where’s my…” Gun, he tries to say, but the word evades him. By the time he’s got it figured out, Madison has read his mind, retrieved it even though Hamilton doesn’t remember him getting up.
Jefferson stares firmly at some distant point while Hamilton fidgets with it, checks the clip—five bullets missing, none that he remembered firing.
“Did you shoot it without reloading?” he asks, irritated.
“No,” Madison says, gently. “You shot the infected that knocked you into the car, remember?”
Hamilton doesn’t. He just nods in the hopes it’ll abate Madison’s concern, but Madison’s worry disappears on its own when he sees Hamilton set his gun on the coffee table not even out of reach. His expression fades into something flat, a false control.
Madison’s not stupid. He knows the score.
He almost says something about it, but moving makes him too dizzy. Hamilton falls back into the sofa, sinks back as far as he can.
“I’m really fucking concussed,” Hamilton murmurs to no one in particular.
Concussed. That’s the word he’s been looking for.
“I thought you were gonna die,” Jefferson admits after a moment, scared. “I saw the fucker come around the side of the car. Tried to warn you. You went down, and I thought that was it.”
“But I’m fine,” he says, a poor attempt at reassurement.
“Fine’s a fucking stretch for what you are.”
Oh, Hamilton thinks as it hits him.
“So that’s why you wanted to go instead of me,” he says, eyes closed tightly like it’ll conceal whatever emotions he’s afraid are playing out on his face. “Because you thought you were already infected.”
“I thought I might be,” he says. “Seemed worth the risk.”
Still stupid, he thinks, but he doesn’t say it.
Either way, he’ll be fine. He will be, or he’ll die. There’s really no alternative, and denial is his best defense. Against his own injuries, Jefferson’s too. He can’t prepare for the worst-case scenario like Madison, can’t resign himself to that unless he wants to lose it here and now.
And he can’t. He can’t. He can’t, so he keeps his eyes on his gun.
Focus, he tells himself. Focus.
get up. get up. you need to get up.
Hamilton’s eyes flicker open. He can’t figure out where he is until he moves, realizes he’s had his head tucked into Jefferson’s shoulder. All his senses check in one after another, tumbling unpleasantly in. He’s tired. He’s thirsty. His head hurts. He’s hungry too, but that’s easy to ignore. He doesn’t move in fear of hurting his head more, gradually starts to make out a quiet murmur of French conversation.
“...my blessing, or whatever the hell you want to call it.”
“Christ, Thomas, I don’t want it. Keep it, and stay alive instead.”
“I would if I knew I could.” A pause, Jefferson shifting. “He just woke up. Still pretending he’s asleep. You think he’s ever going to learn that we can tell when he’s actually sleeping?”
“Don’t change the subject.” Madison sounds upset, almost angry, and Hamilton wishes he’d woken up sooner. “Well, are you going to have this conversation with him too?”
There’s an uncertain pause.
“Should I?”
“I… Christ, no. You’ll have upset him too much by the time you get to your point. Reassure him all you want, but he won’t listen to a damn word you say once he realizes what this is about.”
“Well, shit, I can’t exactly tiptoe around his feelings right now! I’m trying to walk the line, but I just… I just don’t fucking know, alright? And I’m…” Shakily, he exhales. “I’m scared.”
“You think I’m not?” Madison answers, and they shift. To hold hands, Hamilton figures. Maybe for Jefferson to press a kiss to Madison’s hair. Then there's a silence, a wait. “Did you ask him to kill you for me, or did he put that responsibility on himself?”
Hamilton coughs loudly, abruptly pulls away from Jefferson—too fast, because his head spins, and he has to close his eyes. He wants to go back to sleep. Wants to, but knows he can’t. He can’t even fucking enjoy it. His mind is already whirling, trying to piece together the scrap of a conversation he got, make sense of it all.
“Water?” he asks, because that’s a problem he can at least solve.
“Yeah,” Jefferson answers, subdued. “Of course.”
Hamilton almost asks him how he feels, but it seems too final. Too daunting to know what the answer might be. He’s thirstier than he thought, drinks down a bottle in one go.
Selfish, his mind criticizes him. He looks out the window, almost gasps when he sees purples and blues in the sky.
“What time is it?”
“Half past seven.”
“What?” he gasps, shocked, torn between being furious at himself for fading out for that long and at both of them for letting him sleep so long— now, of all times.
“Talk to him,” Madison orders Jefferson.
Jefferson stands, shifts.
“Can you walk?” he asks him.
Hamilton can’t, not really, but he makes himself do it anyways. It’s like feigning sobriety, all his attention directed towards placing one foot in front of the other. Jefferson moves towards him like he’s going to help, but Hamilton sends him a look, warns him off. He needs to do this, at least, on his own. He has to.
And then they’re in a den. Jefferson closes the doors, runs a hand over his face.
“Were you talking about something when I woke up?” Hamilton asks, throat dry.
“Uh-huh.” He doesn’t give more detail, just steps towards the middle of the room. “Short of it is that I’ve got a living will now, and here’s your inheritance.”
Jefferson swipes his sawed-off shotgun from the table, presses it into Hamilton’s hands. Hamilton blinks in surprise. It’s not like he’s never held it—he’s shot it in emergencies, for fuck’s sake—but the weight of it suddenly feels too heavy in his hands.
He doesn’t want it. Doesn’t want to have it because he knows what it’ll mean if it’s really his. But Jefferson’s trying, is even trying to phrase it like it isn’t an immediate inevitability. Hamilton can’t argue with him now. He can’t.
“Oh. This is great,” he says, the words choked out. “It’ll be nice not to need any shooting skill.” Jefferson almost manages a smile. It’s not that he’s in denial. It’s that he can’t accept it until the evidence is in his face. “Why not give it to Madison?”
“Because he doesn’t need something of mine to remember me right.”
Hamilton looks at the shotgun in his hands. Jefferson expects him to ask a question, ask what that’s supposed to mean.
He doesn’t. His head hurts, he’s so tired, he’s scared, he doesn’t know what to do, and maybe he just needs to let sleeping dogs lie.
“Thank you,” he says, leaning into denial, “but I’ll be too old to use it by the time it’s mine.”
“Damn, never thought I’d see the day where you’re optimistic.”
That’s how you know it’s dire is left unsaid.
“Denial and optimism are two sides of the same coin, both practiced by equally stupid people.”
“Guess you really got your curtains rattled if you’re accidentally insulting yourself and me at the same time, huh?”
Hamilton laughs thickly.
“I’d be as stupid as I’d need to be if it would keep you alive. I’d be so fucking stupid that I’d agree with everything you’ve ever said and will ever say your entire life.”
Jefferson probably doesn’t mean any of it anyways. Is just putting on the front of forgiveness out of some kindness, some misplaced feeling of indebtedness.
“Uh-huh.” Jefferson, too, laughs quietly, “Love you too.”
It’s never the right kind of love. And Hamilton wants to say it back, wants to actually tell Jefferson that he loves him too in so many words, because he does. And not just in the wrong way. He loves Jefferson like he’s only loved a handful of people, how he loved the handful of friends that stuck through him through his best and worst: Eliza, Hercules, Laurens.
Hamilton does love Jefferson. In more ways than one. In a myriad of feelings, complicated emotions that tangle up like old spools of thread.
But he can’t say it, can’t say it without feeling like he’s deceiving him somehow, pretending like he’s good and righteous and unflawed when he’s not. He can’t say it. Can’t say something and have it mean two things, be two-faced when this could—
“I’ll be there with you, you know,” Hamilton says instead. “No matter what.”
(He shouldn’t make these promises. Really. He can’t ever seem to keep them.)
“If it happens, you won’t have to pull the trigger,” Jefferson says. “I promise. I said I wouldn’t make you do it if I could do it myself. I’m not gonna put you in that position.”
Hamilton’s trying not to get upset. He really is.
“You don’t—”
“We’re good, Hamilton. I mean that.” His eyes flick away. “You know what I’m talking about. And I was fucking pissed. Pissed about what you did, but more about that neither of you thought you could trust me. But... I get it. I do. And I wish I could change how things have played out.”
He doesn’t know everything.
Hamilton realizes it in an instant. Jefferson has the shape, the outline of it, the rough sketch, but he’s missing all the shades of grey. He couldn’t be so forgiving if he knew just how deep the iceberg goes. No, Jefferson only sees what’s on the surface—or maybe he just willingly blinds himself to all that hides below.
He sees Hamilton and Madison in the kitchen, drunk, laughing, maybe even flirting, one of them leaning in a little too close, Hamilton, impulsive, closing the gap: a mistake that lasts a fraction of a second before an abrupt, shocked break-up.
He doesn’t see Hamilton calling Madison James, doesn’t see the look in Madison’s eyes before the disaster, doesn’t see that Hamilton...
He doesn’t know that Hamilton is in love with him.
He doesn’t know that Madison is in love with them both.
He doesn’t know the worst of it.
Jefferson is trying to forgive him, absolve him of his sins, but it doesn’t count. It will never count, because he’ll never know more. Neither Hamilton nor Madison can afford that, even if the opportunity to tell Jefferson the truth extends beyond the next day. And, Christ, there’s nothing Hamilton can do now but to take his forgiveness, even if he doesn’t deserve it.
He can’t say more. Not ever, certainly not now.
“You feeling okay?” Jefferson asks, worried as he steps forward with hands half-raised, like he’s afraid Hamilton might keel over on him.
“Yeah,” he gets out. “Yeah, just… just dizzy.”
“I’m sorry I yelled at you for puking in my car earlier,” Jefferson tells him, a hint of sheepishness in his voice. He laughs, solemn. “Just so it’s clear we’re okay on all fronts.”
“It’s fine,” he says, distant.
The world feels faraway. Like none of this is happening to him. Or happening at all. Maybe he’s just dreaming, and he’ll wake up tomorrow and it’ll all be fine.
He’s so damn tired, and he hates it, hates that his body is failing him like this. He needs to be there. For Jefferson or Madison or whoever needs him. If not for any of them, for himself. He can’t be like this, can’t be this weak, and expect to survive. He can’t be a burden.
“C’mon,” Jefferson says, taking his—Hamilton’s?—shotgun from his hands. He’d forgotten he was holding it. “Let’s get you lying down again, ‘fore you keel over. You look fucking terrible.”
“Uh-huh,” he agrees, too tired to come up with a rebuttal.
Jefferson’s face creases.
No, Hamilton thinks, don’t let him worry.
He racks his mind with every bit of energy he can scrape together, thinks, tries to come up with something. He had an itemized list, once, of why Thomas Jefferson wasn’t to be trusted, and he tries to remember a good reason. Politics, politics, politics, clothes, politics—nothing. And then at last it comes to him, and he laughs.
“Least I don’t scare kids. Remember that one time…” Hamilton says. “...when you were on the campaign trail? In ‘08 or something? And some lady handed you her baby for a picture, except it started screaming the moment it was in your arms?”
“What?”
“And you looked...” He laughs, tilts forward, has to be steadied. “... looked like a fucking clown, eyes all wide, and the microphone picked up you saying someone please get this fucking kid away from me? And the second Madison took it from you, it stopped crying?”
The memory is faint, vague, but he remembers watching the video, cracking up, tweeting about it for hours. Even now, he’s laughing like he’s drunk, almost struggling to breathe. But, really, he’s not laughing for himself, he knows.
“Yeah, I remember that. Fuck that little shit. I went down three points in the polls ‘cause of that,” Jefferson scowls, and Hamilton just laughs harder.
And then Jefferson cracks a smile, and they’re both laughing, cracking up over some stupid incident from a world that no longer exists, but it’s alright. It’s alright.
Hamilton looks up at Jefferson through blurred vision, sees his eyes crinkle with the hints of wrinkles that haven’t quite formed, that might never. Jefferson doesn’t hate him. In this moment, he believes that. And, yeah, it’s only because he doesn’t know everything, but he doesn’t hate him. That has to count for something.
Hamilton wonders if he’s ever told him about how much he loves his white smile. And then he thinks something along the lines of this is a good last memory and fades away.
Nocturne in C-Sharp Minor, he thinks without opening his eyes when he fades in.
He knows this song. Madison has played it for him, but it’s not Madison playing now. It’s not a piano. It’s the violin—Jefferson’s.
No, Hamilton realizes after a moment. There’s a piano playing too. A duet.
There’s something he needs to do. Something he needs to stay awake for. He tries to think of it, but he can’t. And the music is pretty, much better the dull ringing in his ears. It’s good. So good. And he’s tired. His eyes are too heavy to open, his head seems to weigh an infinite amount, and he’s so, so tired. He should rest. He deserves to.
Nocturne in C-Sharp Minor, he finally thinks, distant. That’s Madison’s favorite song.
A hand touches his face.
Hamilton opens his eyes. He needs to make sure they’re safe. That there’s not someone or something here that shouldn’t be here.
It’s just Thomas. They’re fine.
Sleep starts to pull back at him, drag him back down under.
“Hamilton?” he hears Jefferson whisper. A hand settles onto his shoulder, shakes once. “Hamilton?”
“...mhm?”
“Just wanted to say goodnight.”
There’s something about it that niggles in the back of his mind, something that he knows he needs to be worried over.
Hamilton tries to find his way back. Really. But the foggy distance separating him from the voice is impossible to cross, and he sinks further away into the dark. The hand seems lighter and lighter until it’s gone, and the world sinks into silence and a stillness that’s disturbed only by a hand brushing away his hair, lips pressing lightly to his forehead.
And then it’s silent.
and the door opens and they’re home and hamilton looks up smiling—
“Alexander,” a voice urges him, frantic. “Wake up.”
Hamilton jolts up, too fast, but there’s an undercurrent of anxiety lit up within him about something he needs to do— Jefferson, his mind supplies. He looks around, but it’s only Madison standing above him, hastily loading bullets into his revolver’s cylinder.
“Do you know where Thomas is?” he asks. “I woke up a minute ago, and I can’t find him. Nothing’s missing except his handgun.”
Oh, Hamilton thinks. Oh. Oh no.
Madison is asking him, but he already knows what’s happened.
“He said he wouldn’t make me kill him,” Hamilton gets out, nauseated.
He should’ve thought about it. Should’ve thought about what Jefferson meant when he said another few hours around them wasn’t worth the risk, wasn’t worth chancing that Hamilton would have to shoot him. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck fuck fuck—
“Jesus Christ,” Madison swears, already rushing towards the door. “Stay here. I’ll be back when I find him.”
“Wait—” Hamilton protests, but Madison’s gone, the door shutting behind him before the word’s even fully left his mouth.
He can’t stay here. Madison’s off his game, at the edge, and it’s dangerous, exactly the kind of human weakness that gets people killed. A fucking recipe for disaster. Hamilton will drag himself half-unconscious out the door dogging his heels to keep him from being alone—to keep himself from ending up alone.
And if Madison does find Jefferson, only he’s…
Fuck. Fuck, fuck fuck fuck—
Hamilton stands, steadies himself, stumbles to the door. He almost forgets a gun, is by the front door before he even thinks about it. His head snaps sideways into the living room, where Jefferson’s shotgun sits on the table. He lurches over, grabs it—there’s a note beside it, scrawled in spidery cursive, but he ignores it, lets it be a problem for later—and goes to the door.
For a split second, he wonders if he should get his pistol. If he should really take Jefferson’s shotgun. It’s not his. He’s not taking it because it’s his.
I’m taking it so I can give it back, Hamilton reasons, the alternative too much to take. He tells himself that over and over again, his mantra as he hurries into the woods.
Fuck, Hamilton doesn’t even know what direction he needs to go. He could try to track them like Laurens taught him to—Madison, at least, had to have left prints with how fast he was going—but he’s too nauseated to look at the ground. If he loses his momentum, he’s not sure he can keep going. He walks as fast as he can get away with, face to the ground.
He should call for Madison. If there’s a body to be found, he needs to find Madison first.
The sun gets brighter. Painfully bright. Too many colors. It’s quiet in the woods.
Shit. He’s so fucking dizzy. Shit, he thinks. Shit shit shit.
Okay, fine, just sit down a second, okay, you’re fine, you’re fine, it’s okay, just close your eyes for a second. Just for a second. Just for a second.
Hamilton stumbles to a tree trunk, slides his back down against the rough bark, lets his head fall down onto his knees. He tries to breathe in and out, but the world spins even in the darkness until he slips away into unconsciousness.
Hamilton wakes up to ear-splitting ringing, then the sound of two more bullets firing and a wet crunch as an infected drops to the ground dead a dozen feet away. Processing takes longer than it should. By the time he’s figured out that it’s nearly pitch-black out, barely a hint of purple left in the sky, Madison’s on him, dragging him ungracefully onto his feet by his shoulder.
“Up, up, up,” Madison frantically orders. “Everything a quarter mile around is about to be on us, and you’re in no damned shape to run or fight. Christ , Hamilton, why aren’t you in the house?”
“Came out to look,” he manages, stumbling as Madison drags him along in a near-sprint, the shotgun heavy in his hands. “I care about him too.”
“Yes, I’m well aware of that. That’s no damn excuse for how idiotic you are for passing out while infected wander around trying to find you ten feet away!”
Infected shriek nearby, the sounds growing closer. Hamilton finds it in himself to run, even though there’s a chance he’ll eat dirt with every step. He doesn’t, only because Madison knows when to pull him up, knows him so damn well.
Madison still loves him too.
Hamilton doesn’t know why he bothers.
Madison rushes him inside, barricades the door behind them. Hamilton joins him, shoves something heavy in front of the door. Then he’s whisked into the back room, a hand wrapped tightly around his arm like he’s a child who can’t be trusted not to flee.
Madison turns on him, looming with a height he doesn’t actually possess. His face drawn in anger, shoulders stiff as he stalks forward, half-guides and half-shoves him onto the couch.
“What in God’s name were you doing?” he asks, just barely subduing his voice to something below a shout. “I told you to stay here!”
“You needed me,” Hamilton answers, listing into the steadying weight of his hand. “To help look. Not gonna apologize for trying to help.”
“You can’t help right now! Whether or not Thomas is dead, I need you alive!” Madison shouts, his shoulders beginning to shake in something that isn’t anger.
Madison’s eyes grow wet again.
The faint tremble in his fingers grows until his entire being is shaking like a leaf in a storm. Hamilton only has to make the barest move towards him before he tumbles forward, sobbing into his shoulder. Hamilton stiffens, out of his depth, afraid to somehow make it worse. Fingers clutch at his shirt sleeves and fist in the fabric, clutching him like a lifeline.
He doesn’t know what to do, but he knows he can’t do nothing.
And so Hamilton holds Madison back.
The body against his own heaves harder. Madison’s bleeding, Hamilton realizes worriedly, from a dozen cuts and gashes all over, like he’s fallen down or gotten torn up by branches or whatever other injury the woods could subject him to. He’s tired and thirsty and hungry and knows Madison has to be too, but neither of them seem to want to fix any of those things. Like the space right here is their safe harbor, and moving will batter them both into bits.
“I’m here,” Hamilton weakly reassures him.
Anything else—anything more—might be a lie.
He doesn’t know where Jefferson is, whether he’s alive or dead. He doesn’t know if they’ll find him at all. He doesn’t know if they’ll be okay. It’s all he can do not to succumb to unconsciousness yet again, to keep himself here longer than Madison does.
“I’m here,” Hamilton repeats when Madison’s crying picks up—maybe for hours—until he goes still and quiet but stiff against him. Hamilton follows him into the dark.
Hamilton finds Jefferson in his dreams, only his face is discolored and his eyes are yellow and hateful, and his white teeth are bloodstained, red-soaked, and he lurches, lunges towards Hamilton, and the shotgun shakes in his hands, but he can’t pull the trigger, can’t do it, and—
NO, is on Hamilton’s lips when he wakes up, but he forces the shout down. All his practice is doing him well. He tries to focus, gauge if he feels better than yesterday.
He’s not sure.
Cataloguing, then.
Madison is pressed along his side. He’s deeply unconscious still, almost entirely unmoving. Hamilton is almost afraid he’s not breathing until he sees the shallow rise and fall of his chest. He looks tired and anxious even in unconsciousness, small in a way he never is when he’s awake, a stranger next to the self-possessed person Hamilton cares so deeply about.
It upsets him more than he can describe. A deep sense of helplessness sinks into his veins: knowledge that no matter what he does, he can change nothing.
If Jefferson is dead, then he took part of Madison with him. There’s no question about it.
Maybe he’s lost Jefferson and the brightest parts of Madison too.
And Hamilton isn’t stupid enough to think that maybe the happier parts of himself won’t have been annihilitated in the fallout.
It’s not a strength, caring. It’s weakness. A particular human weakness that only ends with him hurt every damn time, like he shouldn’t have learned better by now.
You should’ve left them when you had the chance. Before you got attached.
But if there’s a piece of him that died with Laurens, a piece of him that Jefferson’s pried out and let die too, then there’s got to be a piece of him still living and breathing and beating in Madison’s chest. Some part that he still has to live for. And he will.
He always survives. It’s what he does. And Madison is more than worth dying for, but he’s worth staying alive for too—and that’s harder, isn’t it?
Madison stirs in his sleep, then blinks awake. He sleepily takes in Hamilton. For a moment, the stress on his face seems to melt away, a faint smile taking its place. There’s a second where the look in his eyes is the same way he looks at Jefferson in his finer moments.
Don’t, Hamilton thinks.
And then it’s gone.
“Where’s Thomas?” Madison asks abruptly, sitting up, distancing himself. “Is he here?”
Of course that’s his first thought, Hamilton thinks.
He tells himself he’s a fucking idiot for thinking it, even stupider for the flicker of something like jealousy, but it doesn’t change how he feels.
“I don’t know,” he gets out, and then Madison is on his feet, grabbing his revolver, the very light in his eyes seeming to extinguish and burn out. “Where are you going?”
“Back out to look. I shouldn’t’ve slept— goddamnit!” he curses, turning to the door. “And you’ll stay right where I left you this time.”
“I’ll either come with you or go out on my own!” Hamilton calls at his back. Madison whirls around violently, but he holds his ground. “Take your pick.”
“You’re no use to me right now!” Madison shouts—actually fucking shouts , whirling around with anger in his eyes. He jams a hand towards the couch, takes a threatening step forward. “You’re hurt. You’re a liability. If anyone here needs to be protected right now, it’s you—not me.”
His head hurts and his nose might be bleeding, but he doesn’t move to check.
“I don’t need either of you,” he protests when he can manage speaking again.
There’s a shade of something in his voice that he doesn’t mean to let slip. Madison picks up on it, bites his tongue, expression softening just a shade.
“Yes, you do. You’d rather run away than admit it, but you do,” he says, perfunctory, gentler, but not an ounce less of force behind his words. “Now, I am at the end of my goddamned rope. I need something to go right. I know you feel the need to be useful, but the absolute best thing you can do for me is to stay here and sleep.”
“Or what?” he counters, because he can’t. He can’t do nothing.
“Or so God help you.”
Hamilton wonders, vaguely, if Madison has ever threatened him before. He can think of nothing, except that one time all those months and months ago when Jefferson sprained his ankle, when Madison saw Hamilton almost abandon them both. He should’ve left then, but no, he could only make it a mile down the road before he turned back. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“He’ll either come back or he won’t!” Hamilton calls, a truth he hasn’t been able to admit until now, until desperation has overridden self-preservation. “If he didn’t want to be found, you’re not going to find him. I don’t want to risk losing you too.” He swallows. “Please.”
He almost says James. But it’s a liberty he can’t take, not even when he doesn’t even know what he’s asking for. If he’s asking Madison to stay, asking to come along, asking for something else entirely that isn’t his to take.
“You don’t know that.”
Madison speaks as if in denial, but they both know he knows differently. They both know Jefferson slunk away like a wounded animal hoping to die somewhere quiet, far away from where they’d have to see a thing. Be part of it. Taking away the few hours that there could’ve been to try to make it as peaceful as possible for them both. Selfless and utterly stupid.
They both get it. Hamilton gets, too, that Madison can’t do nothing. That he has to move, has to do something to keep from coming undone.
Madison pauses. Looks between him and the door and chooses Jefferson.
“I’ll come back,” he promises, and for a second he speaks with Laurens’ voice on that last morning.
I’ll come back for dinner, he said, and they never had the chance.
“You and I both know I’ve been alone in worse places and been alright. Stay here. ”
Hamilton doesn’t even wait a minute before he follows Madison outside, nothing but sheer will keeping him on his feet. He feels worse than yesterday, pain radiating from the skin on the soles of his feet to every inch of skin on his scalp. But he goes out anyways.
A human weakness, his mind incoherently whispers. The kind that gets you killed.
One step. Another. A foot in front of the other. Sounds around him. No sense of direction, no time, only struggling to keep his balance. He shouldn’t have left. His instincts shout at him, and it’s them that keep him from keeling over, but it’s Jefferson, Madison that keep him going.
He promised. He promised. He doesn’t remember what he promised, but he promised.
The world swims and blurs into a mess of colors. Sounds grow distant. He thinks his head is bleeding again, but maybe it’s just that everything is hot and sticky, or maybe it’s the infected blood he smeared across his face when he tried to wipe himself clean with a sleeve.
When did he get blood on his face? Is his gun still loaded? It’s not even his gun. It’s Jefferson’s shotgun—when did he get Jefferson’s shotgun? Where’s his?
Hamilton navigates near-blind, near-deaf, halfway dead to the world. The only thing he can hear clearly is the mantra in his head.
And when he thinks he hears a voice outside of that, he follows it. His feet catch on every rock, twig, and leaf underfoot, but he refuses to fall. He can’t. A familiar blurred shape looks up when his feet crunch the leaves, and he leans heavily against the bark of a tree before he hears something that sounds like his name in a voice he knows.
“Madison?” he asks, but he’s not sure if the sound comes out right. “Jefferson?”
Then there’s another voice, familiar too, and they’re only two voices he knows now anyways, so it must be okay. They’ll be fine. They’ll be fine.
They don’t need him anyways when they have each other, and so he falls.
Notes:
i can't believe i've been working on this fic for over a year. catch me never doing a fic this long again because this chapter actually fucking got split in two so this is technically chapter 7.5. now it's chapter Nine that has the event i've hinted at so much lmao. which is half-written, so the wait will be less than it was for this one
anyways, kudos and comments mean the world and also encourage faster writing
Chapter Text
...lton…. wake... c’m......ase, ...on.
hey... you ar…. down… hile. can you t...… for me?
...bad, James...know, Thomas, but…. wh... do... fu… if I do…….. awake. What d… I … …. ater…. him some.
….ander, can… …. can’t….. you. I n....
No. Don’t.... hey, hey… fine. I’m here… I’m.... bad dream…. here…. I’m... going any....
... ook at me…. Please.
He tries to stay awake, but the lights are too bright, and he slips away.
Time passes unclearly.
Dark and light. Voices. Hands. Warmth. Water trickling down his throat. Silence.
He drifts, flickers in and out of half-consciousness, a bystander to himself.
Conversations float up and around him. Sometimes his voice is part of them. When the ringing isn’t too loud. He doesn’t really remember what’s said. He can’t really remember where he is. Why he’s there. But he’s safe, and so he lets himself rest, floats away into the dark. Like his mind is absolutely nothing at all. A light that turns on or off with a simple switch.
Getting up starts to hurt a little more.
It’s dark where he is. Some little room where he’s always tucked in under covers and a heavy quilt. It’s quiet and chilly most of the time, no windows. The light still hurts at first, but it blinds him less each time he wakes up. Two voices come in to talk, and his vision finally unblurs enough to make out their expressions. Connects sounds to faces.
He’s safe. He knows that through the silence.
They tell him to be quiet when he talks—or tries to, at least—that he should just rest.
Thomas is here, he thinks, and that’s usually enough for him to fall back asleep. He doesn’t why it calms him down, but it does. He rests.
He starts to mark time, has the vaguest concept that a few days have passed. Talks and can hear himself, remembers what he’s said—-small increments, small, meaningless conversations, asking for food, water, the candles to be put out because they hurt his head.
Everything hurts his head.
He wants to think, to make sense of it all, but it hurts too much to focus for too long.
He tries anyways, tries to makes sense of the words swimming on the pages of books by his bed. It takes more than a few failed tries until he can parse out their meaning, hold onto the information for more than a fraction of a second.
And the second Hamilton wakes up with his brain healed enough to think of anything but recovery, the old instinct to stay moving rears its head. He isn’t even sure what he’s running from, but he knows he has to stay moving, that it’s how he stays alive.
He forces himself onto his feet, stumbles dizzily along a narrow hallway, leaning against the wall for support, looking for something he can’t name.
There’s something important he has to do, something he has to check on.
But he gets dizzy fast, slumps hard against the wall after a dozen feet. He shields his eyes from the blinding white seeping in through the windows, mind fighting his body’s weakness. Giving in feels like giving up, and he can’t.
He doesn’t even hear Madison approach, doesn’t even know he’s there until he gasps, speaks, arms wrapping around Hamilton’s waist and helping him up.
Madison, Hamilton thinks, emotion overcoming him. He’s known, of course, that it was him the entire time, but not quite so clearly. To see him in the daylight is… Hamilton feels. He doesn’t know what, but he feels it deeply, something he can never explain or share.
“You shouldn’t be up,” Madison says.
“If I don’t walk, I’m not gonna be strong enough to do it,” Hamilton replies. The sound of his own voice isn’t as echo-y as the last time he talked, which must be a good thing.
“You don’t need to be strong right now,” Madison sharply replies. “You need to rest, because I need you to get well enough that I can wring you out for doing exactly what I told you not to do.”
“Really?” he manages, trying for a smile. Moving his face sends needles driving through his skull. “Doesn’t sound like me.
Madison doesn’t laugh.
“Do you know what day it is?” he asks.
“Not a good question, if you’re trying to... “ He shuts his eyes, wills away his headache. “... trying to gauge how aware I am, ‘cause I wouldn’t know anyways.”
He needs to ask about something, but he can’t remember what.
“Then tell me what you remember.”
Hamilton closes his eyes. The urgent nagging at the back of his mind grows louder.
“I hit my head.”
“Yes, obviously. How?”
He strains to remember, finally recalling partial images. A blur of houses around him, gravel under his feet, the reflection of his face in cracked glass.
“I was… uh, I running towards the Escalade. Don’t really remember much after that. I know that… shit, uh, I threw up in Jefferson’s car. And he was pissed about it.”
Jefferson—it’s something to do with him.
You promised, his voice says.
It all comes back.
“Shit,” he swears, eyes wide and panicked, breaking away from Madison, spinning around. “Where is he? What happened? Where is he? Is he—”
“He’s fine,” Madison answers, taking him by the shoulder and setting him down into a chair. He knows that, knows that he’s seen Jefferson, but—
“Where is he? I—”
“Calm down, Alexander. He’ll be back soon. We’re low on food, so he set up traps. He’s out checking them now.”
The rest of the images flood back one by one: lying on the couch, Jefferson speaking to him, notes of a melody, Madison breaking down beside him, the colorful blur of a forest.
“Alone?” he asks.
“He’s not far. We couldn’t leave you alone.”
His head spins. Madison must notice, because he guides him over to a—a couch. Right.
“How long have I been asleep?” he asks, trying to fight the drowsiness that settles over him.
“Almost a week. You’ve barely moved for most of it. And you shouldn’t be now.”
“That’s because I need to—”
“Rest,” Madison finishes, stern, no room left to argue.
He needs to… he needs to do something else. The pressing feeling remains, but he’s losing steam fast, feeling his focus drifting away.
“Wake me up when he’s back,” he tiredly protests.
He thinks Madison agrees, but the truth is, he’s gone before he hears.
It’s dark when Hamilton wakes up.
There’s a moment of deep disorientation, of fear. He doesn’t know where he is, what time it is, where Madison and Jefferson are, if they’re safe.
Pieces of his earlier exchange with Madison come back to him as he pushes himself up, looking blindly around. They’re nearby, he’s sure, but he doesn’t know where, and it terrifies him. He’s in a strange place, alone, and doesn’t even know where his pistol is. He’s exposed, naked without it, feels bare even though he’s dressed too warmly if anything—
He frowns, looks back down, sees long sleeves and sweatpants. A snippet of a memory comes suddenly to him—unclear, warbling, like a fragment of a memory salvaged from just before getting blackout drunk. Clean clothes handed to him, an offer to help, him snapping no, almost concussing himself a second time falling to the floor trying to get dressed.
Where are they?
It’s dim, close to outright dark where he is, no candles lit, only a few flickers of dying light creeping in through closed wooden shutters. He almost calls out, but stays quiet in case infected are lingering around and settles for trying to figure out his surroundings instead.
It’s some kind of cabin. He’s in some kind of weird elongated main room, a kitchen and dining and living room wrapped into one. The walls are exposed logs, wood paneling. Floors and ceilings too. It’s rustic in an almost kitschy way, exaggerated like a Norman Rockwell painting. The entire place seems like such a fucking fire hazard that he wonders if the fire stove in the corner has ever been used.
He wanders to the kitchen, finds a covered bowl on the wooden table. Two bowls sit emptied and dirty, and a vague recollection of slipping awake on the couch, voices drifting from somewhere nearby, him too exhausted to investigate wells up in his mind.
Hamilton almost turns away, but hunger hits him like it’s never hit before. He’s not sure how much he’s eaten the past few days, if anything at all, and he drops into the chair, inhales what must be his dinner—some kind of salty soup, noodles with bits of meat.
Footsteps sound behind him. He jerks around, wields the nearest weapon he can find—one of Jefferson’s stupid insulated metal watter bottles—in lieu of his gun, grimaces and shrinks away when a too-bright light beams into his face.
“You gonna club me to death with my goddamn Brita bottle?” a Southern voice drawls.
“Might if you don’t get that fucking light…” he groans, shielding his eyes.
It’s Jefferson, he realizes. Standing, breathing, seeing.
Alive.
And Hamilton knew it, knew Thomas was fine, knew he could never have let himself rest like he has otherwise, but relief strikes him like a shotgun blast to his chest anyways.
“Yeah. Tends to happen when you don’t fucking rest after getting brained. Not that I’m sure there’s that fuckin’ much up there to damage. I had to carry you three miles back to the fucking car, you know, and you puked on me no less than three damn times,” Jefferson talks, barely sparing a breath.
He’s almost rambling—but not quite, because he never rambles. He just doesn’t. He always knows what he’s saying, never backtracks, just doesn’t get going if he can’t think of anything he thinks is worth saying, no matter how stupid it actually is.
“I mean, Jesus Christ, Hamilton, you’re an idiot,” Jefferson exhales, but he’s not rambling, except— oh, Hamilton thinks. He is.
He can’t even find the words. He stands, takes a shaky step forward.
And Jefferson meets him the rest of the way there.
He lets himself have it. Just this one thing, this one time. Holds Jefferson so damn tightly, breathes him in, chest shaking once with what might be a sob.
Jefferson holds him just as tightly, shaky on the inhale.
“You’re an idiot. A fucking idiot,” he repeats.
“God, I couldn’t’ve,” he chokes out. Jefferson doesn’t ask what he means; he knows. “You can’t fucking do that to me. You can’t. I care about you so damn much. I— ”
— need you, he thinks he was going to say. But that’s too much to say on its own, and he can’t be sure he won’t end up finishing his sentence with two different words, so he stops.
There’s a moment where Jefferson loosens his hold—or maybe stiffens—but it’s one more thing Hamilton can’t push on. One more thing left unsaid.
But whatever he has just has to be enough.
Convalescence, they suggest. Or not so much they suggest, because really it’s non-negotiable, no matter how much Hamilton complains, even once his migraines recede some. No, they keep him on a strict schedule of rest, rest, and more fucking rest.
He’s actually too tired to do anything but comply for the first week of it. Exhaustion strikes him suddenly and so damn soon after he gets up. Not even two hours into the morning does he have to go back to sleep for a nap. He keeps falling asleep in strange places, in strange positions: at the table when he leans on his hand a minute too long, beside one of them on the swinging chair on the porch, sitting on the stairs outside cleaning a goddamn rabbit.
He wakes up mysteriously in bed more often than not, hours gone by, and never asks how he ended up there.
It’s absurd how much sleep he gets. Uninterrupted. His mind is too rattled to even conjure nightmares, so he falls into inky nothingness every time.
A week out, Hamilton looks in the mirror and almost doesn’t recognize himself. There’s color in his face other than the still-present—but significantly less prominent—dark circles under his eyes. He doesn’t look so gaunt either. Looks a little scruffy, but a few minutes with a razor fixes that, and, shit, he thinks he doesn’t look that bad. Looks good, even. Other than the headaches that come and go, he feels good. Calmer. Sharper. In a way he hasn’t for a long time.
He knows the peace he has here can’t last. It’s just the oasis, the splash of color in the scalding yellow desert, but just this once, he lets himself have it. It’s the eye of the hurricane, but the skies are still blue, and the sun is warm, and he basks in what he knows he can’t keep.
Around and around in circles, his mind whispers in the silence. You say you’ll leave, and you’ll try. But you won’t be able to, because you love them. And you’ll stick to them like a tick, a parasite, desperate for any scraps of love you can get, and it’ll never be enough. You’re not going to leave them. You'll end up alone because they’ll leave you first.
By the end of the second week, he can focus again to read, to play chess, to insist that he’s well enough not to be forcibly confined to his little circle outside the cabin, always within eyesight of the two of them like some wayward little kid.
“He must be feeling better since he’s back to getting on my fuckin’ nerves all the time,” Jefferson mutters to Madison over lunch, loud enough for Hamilton to hear, perfectly inflammatory.
Hamilton throws one of the weird fucking fruits Jefferson has foraged, pegging Jefferson in the chest, ignoring his indignant sound.
“Children, the both of you,” Madison dryly says from Jefferson’s other side.
Jefferson’s hand is laying over his, unmoving.
Hamilton looks away and pops another of the fruits in his mouth. As he chews through the weirdly thick, bitter skin and the even more bitter seeds, he has an excuse to grimace.
“These are the worst fucking grapes I’ve ever eaten,” he complains after he swallows.
Jefferson blinks at him, mouth twisting like he’s taken offense.
“First of all, they’re not grapes. They’re scuppernongs. I used to grow them at Monticello. Makes the best damn wine you’ve ever had,” he lectures, and Hamilton scowls in burden, motions for him to make his point. “ Secondly , you’re not supposed to eat the damn skin. Or the seeds.”
Jefferson plucks one of the green grapes— scuppernongs, whatever—then dips the tip of his knife into the shell, makes a little groove. Hamilton expects him to hand it over then, but he doesn’t, instead lifts it expectantly to Hamilton’s lips. He blinks, confused, but opens his mouth. In a fluid motion, Jefferson pops the fruit from its shell onto his tongue.
There’s a moment where their eyes meet, where Hamilton isn’t sure what’s in his expression, where he doesn’t know how to read what’s in Jefferson’s.
It feels too intimate.
Hamilton looks away. Chews.
“So?” Jefferson asks after a moment’s passed.
It’s fucking amazing, sweet and tangy at once, but he doesn’t feel like admitting it.
“It’s fine,” he concedes, and soon after, he makes an excuse to leave.
Apparently, the fire stove in the corner works after all, and they crowd around it one night as the temperatures plummet. Madison manages to make what he deems a half-decent mulled wine, and they sip as they sit: Hamilton in his own loveseat, Jefferson and Madison curled up on the sofa that might’ve been big enough for three had Jefferson not so flagrantly sprawled out.
“I wish we had hot chocolate,” Hamilton complains after his third glass of wine, tipsy. “I mean, Jesus, don’t you all ever get tired of wine?”
“No,” Madison answers, amused as he sips from his mug. “But unlike you, I drink slowly enough to taste the flavors.”
“It’s wine. It’s fucking wine flavored.”
“That is so goddamn uneducated that I would cry if it came from anyone but you,” Jefferson responds, leaning over to press a kiss to Madison’s neck—just for the hell of it, apparently. “Besides, I think we have hot chocolate somewhere. Under all the tea shit.”
“Yeah, but we don’t have milk,” he mutters, looking towards the fire.
“Why would you need it? The powder’s got the milk in it.”
“Holy shit. I cannot believe that you just called me tasteless.”
“God, if I had milk, I wouldn’t waste it on hot chocolate like a fuckin’ five-year-old,” Jefferson retorts. “I haven’t had actual fuckin’ mac-and-cheese in like three years. Now that’s a goddamn tragedy.”
“Hold on, weren’t you the one who makes it with bourbon?”
He blinks, seems actually taken aback. Madison shudders, lips curling downwards with mild disgust, says,
“Yes. And that is why I typically suggested that we eat out.”
“I’m surprised you remembered that,” Jefferson tells Hamilton, expression strange.
“Only cause it’s so damn horrifying,” he defends himself, prickling.
Jefferson settles back against the sofa, looks into the fire.
“Yeah, well, I use both. That’s why it’s so damn good.”
“It was not,” Madison immediately reproves.
And then Jefferson ropes him into some conversation about his either existent or absent culinary skills, and Hamilton sinks into the exhaustion gradually creeping over him. Their conversation is pleasant background noise, and he’s almost slipped away before he registers the silence that’s settled over them.
When Jefferson speaks, it’s like lightning in his veins.
“I didn’t feel sick,” he says.
“What do you mean?” Madison asks after a brief pause, even though Hamilton suspects they both know exactly what he’s referring to.
“After my leg,” he says, trailing off. “I felt nauseous, but I also thought I was gonna fucking die, so not like we can separate that damn variable. And Hamilton... “ His eyes flick over to Madison. “You said he was down for, what? Two weeks?”
Pain flashes across Madison’s face. Jefferson’s eyes slide back to the fire.
“Yeah. Didn’t happen for me.”
“Then you don’t think you’re immune,” Madison says, flat.
“No. I don’t.”
“Maybe you just didn’t get sick,” Hamilton protests, shaking his head. “I mean, we’re working off a sample size of one here.”
“So you wouldn’t mind if I put myself between you and an infected the next time we’re out?”
Hamilton says nothing. Hope isn’t enough to trick him.
“Uh-huh,” Jefferson responds. “So as far as I care, I got torn up on, I don’t know, glass or something. I’m not immune. Just lucky. Real fuckin’ lucky.”
Hamilton finds that his hand has drifted unconsciously to his neck. He lowers it, but the feeling remains, the urgency that’s numbed and dulled into background noise. It’s not important, he knows, that he is happy. Not when this is so much more important.
But his happiness is the thing he’s been trying selfishly to chase anyways—or, at the very least, the absence of misery. It seems to be that he only ever thinks of the cure, a vaccine in the moments when he’s at his lowest, needing something to live for that won’t leave him. That his priority is the people in front of him. Temporary, impermanent things. Not a legacy.
It doesn’t matter. When this is over, he has no more excuses.
And, perversely, maybe he can do more to protect them if he’s gone. If he’s here, distracting himself with mundane things. If he can pull this off, get a cure in their hands, maybe that would be the best thing he could ever do for either of them. Even if it means leaving.
“It’s fine, you know,” Jefferson says. Hamilton feels his eyes on him. “Not like anything’s changed.”
And Hamilton is selfish anyway, so maybe all he wants is someone to shoulder the burden with, to look at him and understand what it is to still be waiting for his turn to—
“Yeah, I know,” he answers, but he reaches to refill his mug of wine.
The second week, they let Hamilton out beyond the porch. They’re somewhere high up in Appalachia. It’s peaceful. Quiet. It could almost be paradise.
Even though it’s growing cool if not outright chilly in the mornings, everything is still so damn green. He forages: persimmons, elderberries, watercress, oyster mushrooms, more of the ridiculous grape things Jefferson loves so much. The traps come back with something or another most days. Hamilton has his bow, usually manages to catch a squirrel or a rabbit or two if they don’t. It’s good eating, better than living off of canned food. Since meat and fruit won’t keep anyways, he eats his fill without guilt.
There’s a clear creek a hundred yards from the back of the cabin, drinking water at their disposal, enough water to properly wash off nightly. He only sees an infected once: Madison materializes from nowhere, slides past him, slides a knife right into its throat between fungal plates, takes it down silently. The little wood stove in the cabin does a surprisingly good job of warding off the cold. On the chilliest nights, the three of them sometimes curl up on their respective pieces of furniture, and Hamilton falls asleep to the sound of two bodies breathing almost beside him. His sleep is still. He doesn’t fall asleep randomly quite so often as the days go on, but he’s exhausted by the end of the day and his sleep is dreamless.
It could almost be paradise.
Almost. Could. The implication but not the existence.
Because it looks normal—but it’s not. It’s an elaborate illusion. All the details are just so slightly askew. Like looking into a clear pond as raindrops fall. The image is distinguishable but distorted. Picture perfect moments put into crooked frames.
Jefferson seems to believe that all is well. Of course he does. He, of all of them, is the one who clings closest to old comforts, out of vanity, pride, stubbornness.
That’s not fair to him, Hamilton knows. It’s more than that too. It’s just easier.
But it’s Jefferson who, of all of them, is the one most likely to keep his eyes closed, blind to the things he doesn’t want to see.
Madison sees because it’s in his nature to want to know the most of everyone in the room. Hamilton sees to survive. Jefferson looks only towards what makes him happy.
Hamilton thinks, dreadingly, that he has to have enough puzzle pieces to see the picture—or at least some part. He knows about what happened in the kitchen between him and Madison. Has had months to catch a glimpse of one of Hamilton’s slip-ups. To Hamilton, it feels like it’s just been too long not for him to have pieced something together. So now it seems like not a question of if he could figure it out, but when he will. What’ll push him over the edge, out of blissful ignorance.
And, besides, Hamilton is nothing if not a pretender now. He’s less concerned with his own happiness, more concerned about not tanking theirs. Or maybe he’s not. Maybe he’s clinging to what he still has, even as watered down and artificial as it is. As he gets better, it occurs to him that he could leave. Pack up without a word and go.
Alone. Forgotten. Fade into a faint memory in everyone’s mind. And maybe in his own mind too, because he’s not sure he knows who is he without someone else to define himself by.
He could leave, but he doesn’t. For Madison, maybe. But maybe it’s just himself.
Selfishness.
So Jefferson acts unbothered, unfazed, and Hamilton acts just as he always has: looking away at the right moments, leaving the room when he should, eyes guarded when he speaks.
It’s Madison who’s the disturbance. It’s Madison who Jefferson has to see is out of place, no matter how hard he ignores the rest.
Madison never comes along with Hamilton when he’s out—not unless Jefferson is with them too. Madison leaves the room with Jefferson, leaves Hamilton alone. Their conversations, the increasingly rare moments they have alone, grow blander and more uncomfortable as the excuses to tend to him fade. Like Madison still has nothing to say to him. Like he may never again.
Hamilton misses him. God, he’s right there, but he may as well be all the way across the sea. There’s some unspoken agreement, one that Madison enforces, that perhaps things will be better if they simply don’t allow themselves the space to fuck things up.
And Hamilton can’t stop missing him.
He can’t get it out of his head. No matter how much he tries, how much he refuses to dwell on it or on what it means that it’s so insistently occupying his mind, he can’t stop thinking about those few moments when the world was still and silent and perfectly safe. The feel of Madison’s hand on his leg, the taste of bad tequila, of not being able to breathe but not needing to.
There are questions that some quiet, self-destructive part of his mind is asking, but whatever’s left of his conscience and his common sense refuses to answer.
But he lets himself miss Madison. A small indulgence. Maybe enough of one to stave off the rest he might allow himself if he were weaker, weren’t so used to being at war with himself.
Hamilton wonders if Madison misses him too.
Madison is careful not to look. Even more careful not to be caught.
Life ticks on, uncaring.
Jefferson lets Hamilton rest, recuperate, and all seems well with him and Madison. The two of them have their pleasant banter in which Hamiton can take no part, an absentminded hand-over-the-other’s. Madison threading fingers through Jefferson’s hair when he sprawls length-wide like an asshole across the couch, head in Madison’s lap while they read. The scarf that appears around Madison’s neck every few days, an article of clothing Hamilton had nearly forgotten about until it appears again as the weather grows cold.
It looks good and well, but it’s not perfect. Only perfect’s reflection.
There’s a murmuring tension. A way that Jefferson’s eyes seem wary when Madison isn’t looking. A way that his eyes settle on Madison when he isn’t watching, thinking, like he’s piecing something together that he’s not inclined to share. A way that Hamilton feels his eyes on him when he’s not looking, knows that Jefferson is watching him too.
And he clings to Madison more than he has in Hamilton’s memory. Stands closer. Holds him nearer. Kisses him more. Consciously, maybe. It doesn’t evoke the same at-ease, comfortable, unthinking affection that once was familiar. But maybe Hamilton just notices it all more than ever. Maybe he’s only overthinking because it drives the blade that much deeper.
He hates that Madison’s eyes seem to flick uncomfortably over to see if he’s noticed more often than not, like he’s a child who needs to be spared from unpleasant things, needs to have his feelings guarded.
He doesn’t care. He doesn’t.
(He does.)
Jefferson stays warm to him, at least. Shows him how to set a couple of more complex traps that Hamilton hasn’t yet learned. They stay up late over games of chess, sometimes talking, sometimes reading in proximity to each other. Sometimes Jefferson swings his legs up onto the sofa, props them obnoxiously over Hamilton’s lap with zero regard for his personal space like the asshole he is.
And it’s good, seems normal, but it’s not the same as it used to be. Not like back when Hamilton didn’t have to consciously moderate each word, every expression, give Jefferson a reason to tip over the edge of seeing into acknowledging. He tries not to argue anymore either, afraid anything he might push too far, that might Jefferson decide that his forgiveness is too generous for a fuck-up like Hamilton after all.
And, eventually, he does. But not yet.
Now, at the end of the second week of his convalescence, Jefferson plays the violin for him. Whether unconsciously or not, he replaces the piano lessons Hamilton once had with Madison. Jefferson explains the posture, fingering, positions, even lets him draw the bow across the strings once—but the resulting sound is so violently shrill that Hamilton resolves never to touch the damned thing again, especially when Jefferson descends into stupid, stupid maniacal laughter that shakes his curls and chest and seems to make the air itself glow.
“You fucking set me up,” Hamilton accuses him, and he might be seething if he weren’t so damn pathetically in love.
“Of course I did,” Jefferson replies between laughs, and there might be tears in his eyes. “Bet that unimpressive scale I just showed you seems a lot damn harder now.”
He takes back his Stradivarius—that stupid damn gift Hamilton never could’ve thought to get him—and lifts the bow, consoles Hamilton with a piece he knows but can’t name.
And in that moment, he’s forgotten.
Hamilton lives for the moments when he forgets.
He lives for the way Madison is when he forgets too, his unreserved smile when he’s looking at something so long he’s forgotten to hide. But he knows the smiles he sees are finite, that he’s quickly approaching the day where Madison will look at him like he’s less than nothing.
And, eventually, he does. But not yet.
It’s all temporary, ephemeral, the last semi-happy chapter in a life Hamilton can’t help but feel has already had its brightest moments. He feels with certainty that he’ll look back on these days when he’s inevitably alone and want for nothing more than to return.
And, eventually, he does.
But not yet.
Jefferson pries the crack in the veneer open further. It’s ironic, really, because all he tries to do is close it up, but Hamilton is who he is: an extraordinary fuck-up.
It’s the middle of October, a cold but sunny autumn day when Jefferson forces the conversation. He corners Hamilton, really, one afternoon. Hamilton is sitting on the porch reading and Madison is out—out doing something. Hamilton doesn’t know. He doesn’t ask, but he imagines it’s meditating, which now seems like more of an excuse for Madison to get away from the two of them more than anything.
“How do you feel?” Jefferson asks as he slides out onto the porch.
It’s the same thing he’s asked an obnoxious number of times lately, except his face is serious, and Hamilton gets the impression that he’s asking more of a courtesy than anything. An opener. Something that won’t make him run from the first word. Not that it matters, he thinks, because he’s sure that this conversation is inevitably going in a single direction.
“Fine,” he answers, stiff as he looks back to his book.
Jefferson waits. Hamilton waits too, petulantly seeing if he might wait Jefferson out, make him give up first.
No such luck.
“We need to have a talk.”
Fuck. Fuck, he’s gonna kick you out, he was just waiting for the damn moment you could walk out of here on your own, wasn’t he—
He closes his eyes for a fraction of a second.
I’d rather not, he could respond. It would be easier.
He sets his book down anyways, looks up.
Jefferson almost seems surprised. He shakes it off, though, sits down on the adjacent chair, looks out to the woods before looking back at him.
“Do you remember what I said? Before I, uh… you know, left .”
“Before you fucking bailed into the middle of the wilderness without a word, you mean?” Hamilton asks, a flicker of anger in his voice, one that’s gone unaddressed. “Because that was easier than the alternative?”
And it’s probably hypocritical, sure, but leaving silent is one thing, and dying is another. He knows what it is not to get the chance to say goodbye for good.
“What would you have done?” Jefferson challenges him.
“Well, I told Madison to kill me when I thought it was my turn,” Hamilton snaps back.
“And that was before you could’ve given less of a damn about how much it would’ve fucking haunted him,” Jefferson shoots back, just managing to stay on the right side of harsh. “You wouldn’t now. It’s not the same situation and you know it.”
“You’re—”
“You know why? Because you told me not to put that weight on you at Mount Vernon. Same request. Only difference between before and then was that you cared.”
Hamilton has no answer.
“And I listened,” Jefferson goes on. “You might not have to worry about it anymore, but you did. You know what it’s like.” His voice quiets, and Hamilton thinks that maybe he knows too much after all. “And you love us too much now to make us do it.”
Jefferson gets softer; Hamilton gets louder, slips further away.
“That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have been there ‘til the end!” he goes on, voice rising. “I don’t fucking care about what would’ve happened after. I would’ve been there with you. I would’ve held your damn hand while you pulled the trigger if you’d fucking asked! And I would’ve been the one to pull it with my other hand if that’s what I had to do.”
“Jesus, Hamilton, you don’t have anything to prove! I know you would’ve, and you don’t know how fuckin’ much that scares me!”
Silence falls between them. The birds chirp in the trees. Seconds tick on.
“I know how I would feel if I saw either of you die,” Jefferson continues, voice tight. “I know you carry a lot of shit around, Hamilton. And I don’t want you to carry more.”
But he doesn’t get to choose what he carries around. Ghosts he can neither see nor touch bear down exhaustingly on his shoulders. He doesn’t even need anyone to punch him down into the dirt, because he can drag himself down there in the first place.
“I just needed you and you weren’t there,” he admits, exhausted, a moment of weakness. “You weren’t there, and there was nothing I could do.”
“Now you know what it feels like to watch you,” Jefferson laughs, dour. “You know how helpless I feel when I watch you do something reckless? When you won’t let me help?”
Hamilton has no answer to that, and silence falls between them.
“Is this what you wanted to have your talk about?”
“No,” he answers. “This is supposed to be about what I told you. Before I left, I told you that, whatever happened to me, ah, everything else was water under the bridge. That we were good.”
Hamilton says nothing, torn between the familiar urge to deny the wrongs he can no longer run from and a strange stinging in the back of his throat that stops him from speaking.
“And I didn’t mean for that to come with strings, but I also thought I was gonna die when I said it.” Strings. Of course. “I told you that things were going to get better, but I don’t know. I’m not a fuckin’ psychic. Things might get a lot worse.”
“This is a shitty motivational speech, just so you know. Stick to writing legal documents.”
“Well, just wait ‘til I get to the thrilling emotional climax about all of us dying,” he retorts, vaguely irritated at being interrupted. He clears his throat—to dramatically shake off the interruption, apparently—then goes on. “Look, the two of us could catch ourselves on fire all damn night to keep the other warm, but at the end of the day, one is gonna outlive the other.”
A cold truth, one that Hamilton hasn’t let himself dwell on. Maybe it’s a few seconds. A month. Maybe an entire lifetime—or whatever passes for one of those now. But it’s a concrete fact. No matter how willing he is to put himself in the line of fire, he can’t guarantee that it won’t be Jefferson who goes first. And not when he’s gone. He doesn’t know whether knowing is worse.
“I’m afraid that it’s gonna be me who goes first,” Jefferson finally says.
“It better be, since you’re a fucking decade older than me.”
“First of all, I’m thirty-one, not a goddamn relic , which makes me barely seven years older than you, and, for the record, everything that needs to fucking work works. Ask Madison.”
“God, I hate you,” Hamilton tells him, mouth curling in disgust.
“Second of all, stop with the fucking deflections. Listen.”
It’s a statement on its own, serious, no snarky follow-up. Hamilton almost deflects on instinct, some combative part of himself refusing to cooperate—but no. He closes his eyes a fraction of a second, inhales sharply and shuts the goddamn hell up.
Jefferson waits. Maybe a moment too long. Expecting to be disappointed. And then he continues.
“Maybe I make it through today but catch a bullet to the neck tomorrow or get my throat torn out or slip and fall off a fucking roof and die the second I hit ground. Anything could happen to me, and you’ll keep living.”
Hamilton almost protests.
And then he thinks of something Laurens said to him once, something about how he had to keep on living anyways, and he can’t speak.
“The point’s that,” Jefferson says, “no matter what, you mean more to me than I can make you believe.”
There’s a but coming.
Hamilton feels it. Knows that it’s all conditional, because conditional is all it’s ever been. Madison is unconditional; Hamilton comes with strings.
“But this thing where you’re treating me like I don’t have a stake in this isn’t working.”
And here it is. The cast out. Dismissal.
“I know you love me. I know you’d die for me without me asking. But for fuck’s sake, I need you to be willing to talk to me. I need you to trust that I can act like an adult about whatever you have to say.”
Jefferson leans forward, eyes unaccusing.
“I want this to work, H—….” and he almost seems to think better of it, but Hamilton comes out anyways. “But you and Madison can’t be icing me out of things I need to be a part of. This— this doesn’t work with only two of us on the inside and one lookin’ in.”
Hamilton almost laughs in his damn face. Oh, he fucking knows about how it feels to have two of the three on them on the inside, an odd man out. He’s lived it since day one. How Jefferson could be so blind to tell him this, of all people, he doesn’t know.
But he doesn’t say as much.
He’s trying. He really is. Jefferson is being so damned earnest, with none of his theatrics, and Hamilton said he’d shut up. And maybe that’s the best thing he can do anyways. He wants it to work too, even though he knows it’s a pipe dream. He wants…
Something. Everything. Nothing.
“I don’t want to—any of us to be unhappy. I know you’ve got shit weighing you down. This is your free pass to unload.”
Too good to be true.
“I’m not gonna promise that I won’t get mad,” he says, “because I might. But I promise you that I’ll get over it. Whatever it is, we’ll work it out. Together.”
It’s so damn earnest . Jefferson means it like he probably hasn’t meant anything else he’s ever said to him. Everything about him is open: expression, eyes, ears.
Hamilton doesn’t know what he’s expecting to hear, but he knows that Jefferson can’t handle everything he has to say. He’s not Hamilton. Physically stronger, sure, but not when it comes to invisible burdens. There’s just too much to bear, and it all goes too deep. He wouldn’t be pruning the rosebush: he’d be ripping it out by the roots.
I love you, he could say.
But it would make no difference at all. It would just open up a new crevasse between them, an insurmountable divide. He doesn’t want Jefferson to change around him, feel like he has to hold his tongue, feel like he can’t hold, can’t kiss the one he does love—and that would only be if he didn’t laugh outright in Hamilton’s face.
(He wouldn’t, some part of Hamilton knows. Not like the nightmares where he wakes up with mocking words echoing in his ears. Jefferson wouldn’t do that.)
So there’s that. His own load to bear.
And then there’s the other one, but there’s no way he can tell him about everything to do with Madison. That’s the one he shoulders with Madison.
Jefferson is trying to trust him, to repair what’s starting to break, but Madison has trusted Hamilton too, and if he says the wrong thing—tells Jefferson that he knows why Madison broke up with him, that Madison kissed him back, even about something as mundane as Madison’s feigned asthma—then he’ll implode three relationships at once.
And it’s not Madison who’s really at fault here. He’s the goddamn catalyst in all of this.
Jefferson is looking at him, waiting, and he has to say something. Something that sounds like something real but really is nothing at all. Has to give up some information to at least put on the appearance that he’s not brushing Jefferson off.
“I was going to leave,” he blurts out, “the night…”
…before I fucked all of us over and kissed him.
Even now, guilt keeps him from saying it. But Jefferson understands.
“You know that I would’ve looked for you,” he says as though it’s obvious, almost hurt. “Even if I’d known.”
“It was just easier,” he explains, looking away. “Better than…”
…seeing you realize how I backstabbed you. Watching you hate me.
“Maybe in the moment. Maybe for you,” Jefferson responds. “Come on, Hamilton. You don’t think that I wouldn’t be up late at night for the rest of my life wondering if you were still alive? Safe? Happy?” He shakes his head, something Hamilton almost thinks is pain in his eyes. His voice quiets. “You were in such a bad fuckin’ place when we first met.” He looks up, and his eyes seem to spear Hamilton straight through. “You didn’t want to die, but you were ready to, weren’t you? Had my shotgun pointed at you, and the first thing you said to me? Do it.”
“Well, I came into the world crying,” he looks away. “Wasn’t gonna go out that way.” He swallows. Then, in a rare moment of vulnerability he doesn’t see coming: “I was scared, Jefferson. Of fucking everything up. I didn’t want to stay and watch it happen.”
“You won’t.”
He doesn’t seem to have to think about it, but maybe he should, because Hamilton knows that Jefferson is smart somewhere beneath all his awful opinions. Maybe in spite of them.
“You don’t know that.”
“No, I do, because you care too much to let that happen.”
“I almost just did exactly that,” he abruptly laughs, sour.
“You’re not giving me enough credit. Madison either.” He looks away for a moment, uncomfortable—but looks back. “Look, Hamilton. You—and Madison. I know it’s never gonna be perfect. But it was never gonna be.”
You and Madison, he says awkwardly, and there’s something about the way he says it that sticks out in Hamilton’s mind, something wrong that he can’t quite place.
“Not even I’m perfect,” Jefferson adds, mouth curling into a dry smile, like the sun bursting through storm clouds. “Despite what I’ve tricked you into believing.”
It’s implicit permission to drop the severity. Almost like forgiveness.
“Oh, Narcissus lives,” Hamilton scowls, but it’s all love that he keeps out of his eyes. “Trust me, you’ve never tricked me into thinking that for a second. Madison’s a dozen times more tolerable than you.”
“Please. Half the time you think you’ve won an argument with him, he’s just letting it go so you’ll give him some peace and quiet.”
“If that’s true, what does that say about all the arguments you think you’ve won?”
Jefferson almost responds, then shuts his mouth, scowling. Hamilton laughs.
“Whatever. Point is—”
“—oh, you really thought you had me there, didn’t you?”
“— the point is, I’m not asking for things to be perfect. I’m not asking you to be perfect. I’m just asking you to trust me.”
Hamilton swallows, wets his lips.
And tells a lie.
“I do trust you.”
To his face.
He means it. He trusts Jefferson implicitly, would leave his life in his hands any moment of the day if he so much as asked him to.
And still he doesn’t.
It’s just that trusting someone and trusting that they need to know everything are two different things. He can’t lie to himself and believe that what Jefferson doesn’t know won’t hurt him, because it has. But it’ll hurt them all more if he knows everything.
He could come clean now; then it would be over. He’s just pushing off the date when his debt will be collected, but he’s so, so desperate not to be alone that he could almost laugh at the patheticness.
He trusts Jefferson, and yet he doesn’t. He loves Madison, and yet he doesn’t. Jefferson loves him, and yet he doesn’t. Everything is all wrong.
“I need you to trust me more,” Jefferson tells him, firm.
He’s sure that Madison and Jefferson have had some variation of this conversation already. And he’s sure that Madison lied too. Or hid truths. Not set this right like Jefferson wants to, because they’re in too deep together to tell the truth.
It’s such a cheap shot.
So much the easy route out.
“I will,” he says, “Thomas.”
How is it that Hamilton only says his name when he needs him to believe something?
Don’t ever call me Thomas again, he hears Jefferson’s voice echo, but he says no such thing now.
No, Jefferson looks at him. Like he wants to soften but can’t. He holds eye contact another beat.
“Is there anything else I should know? Because I can get over being pissed if you say it now.”
Hamilton pauses just slightly, then shakes his head. He can’t trust his voice. If he’s doomed anyways, he doesn’t want it to end here.
He never wants it to end, but life isn’t about the things that he wants. If it was, the things he has wouldn’t get ripped from him every time he lets himself be happy: his mother, the life he built in New York, John, this.
Jefferson watches him, aggressively neutral in a way Madison has mastered but that looks unnatural on him. In a way that seems artificial.
“Okay,” he says.
There’s a pause.
And there’s a split second where Hamilton knows that Jefferson doesn’t believe him. Not fully. There’s more there, half a dozen things blended, and somehow more is said sans words.
But he must be trying to, must want to believe that Hamilton is better than he is—at least enough to fool himself—because he at last stands.
(Or maybe it isn’t that. Maybe Jefferson is just too damn proud, too vain to keep pushing. Maybe he’s just too damn stubborn to live his life the way things were before with his fancy wines and nice clothes and perfect relationship and all. Maybe he’d rather live out his lie than face humiliating truths, rather pretend that things are the same than admit it’s all changed irrevocably, that life will never be what it was before, and that their relationships will never be as they were in those few months of absolution when Hamilton was as close to happy as he’d come since Laurens, as close as he’d ever come again.)
Jefferson has the pieces; he just must choose—unconsciously or not—to let them sit instead of slotting them together.
Denial. Vanity. Pride.
“I could use some help packing up the Escalade,” Jefferson says, and the warmth that’s been there seems to have cooled. Just a degree, but the difference between ice and water is just that.
But Hamilton’s bought himself more time, the one thing he always seems to be running out of, the one thing he’s always wanted more of.
And so he stands, almost makes it down the porch stairs, but Jefferson stops him before he can fully get by. Half a second, he hesitates—and then he reaches out, pulls Hamilton into an embrace.
For a second, the world’s still. Jefferson holds him tightly, exhaling out a breath that it seems like he’s held much too long, and Hamilton doesn’t know quite what to do but return the embrace. He does, and then he’s crying. Not even enough for tears to fall, but his eyes are wet, and he doesn’t let go when he should.
(Denial. Vanity. Pride. Love.)
Jefferson is here. It doesn’t seem quite to sink in until that moment that he’s alive, that he’s safe, that one of the people he’s spent a year protecting is still here, and—for the moment—wants him here too. Maybe Jefferson is thinking the same thing.
It’s comfort he shouldn’t take when he’s just lied to Jefferson’s face, but he lets himself have it anyways. In an indulgent moment of weakness. He’s weaker than he used to be. Soft. Unwilling to do the things he once would’ve not blinked at. It’s a serious question whether he can still survive alone now that he’s let so many of his carefully constructed walls tumble down, let people in when before he couldn’t have imagined it. He can learn how to do it again—because he can learn to do anything—but that process takes time he might not have. Humanity has never been an advantage.
“Your hair’s getting in my fucking mouth,” Hamilton complains when he at last can’t justify the indulgence anymore.
“Least mine’s not fuckin’ greasy,” Jefferson retorts as he pulls away.
“I washed it last night, you obnoxious prick.”
“The coconut oil in the trunk’s not for your hair, you know,” he smirks, so goddamn obnoxious that it’s one of the moments where Hamilton thinks he’s somehow been gaslighted into this entire mess.
“God, shut the fuck up,” Hamilton groans, pushing away from him and heading inside. “Come on. Do you want to get this shit packed up or not?”
Jefferson follows, and things are almost alright.
The thing is, they’re all much too smart to fool themselves into thinking things are fine.
He dreams about the scar on his neck reopening, unhealing in front of his eyes, his face growing discolored, eyes growing angry, the door opening, someone saying his name—
Hamilton wakes up in the cabin, glowing fire stove burned down to orange embers, Madison and Jefferson sleeping quietly on their sides on the couch, Jefferson’s arm slung around Madison’s back, trapping him near. He can’t breathe for a minute, sits up straight in his loveseat, inhales, exhales.
And the few hours before that nightmare are the last time he sleeps peacefully, the last night where he’s not so exhausted that sleep comes immediately and stays. He heals and perversely loses what’s helped him heal most in the process. The scrap of calm, the ability to defuse and not to catastrophize dissipates night after sleepless night. His typical short-temperedness swells back up.
It was easier when he couldn’t remember what well-rested was. It was easier when there was more distance between them all, when they weren’t eating together, when each of them slept alone, sleepless. It was easier when he didn’t have weeks of being looked after, weeks of convalescence telling a story that contradicts the neatly packaged narrative he wants to feed himself: that neither of them care as much as he wishes they would, that he could be expendable if he became too much of a burden. If only they would make things easy on him.
But nothing is ever easy. Not for him. It would be too easy if he let them be as much.
Madison comes down with a violent stomach flu somewhere between Knoxville and Memphis. Water they haven’t boiled, meat they haven’t cooked, some other exposure from a dozen possible contact points.
Hamilton’s driving, Jefferson and Madison are in the back, Madison lying across the seats with his head in Jefferson’s lap, eyes closed while Jefferson strokes the side of his head, murmurs to him in French that Hamilton wishes he couldn’t understand. Madison looks so violently ill, frail in a way that he doesn’t let his size suggest when he’s well. He only drank his morning tea and the crackers Jefferson insisted upon, too nauseous to do much else but sleep. Hamilton looks in the mirror for a long second, and Madison's eyes snap open. Before he’s even clamped a hand over his mouth, Jefferson hastily tells him to pull over.
“I’m sorry, baby,” Jefferson murmurs over and over while Madison vomits into a ditch at the side of the road, and, watching them, Hamilton is struck by the sudden memory of John holding back his hair while he puked up the remnants of the dozen vodka shots he drank the night before.
There shouldn’t be anything romantic about it at all, but it doesn’t stop him from going back to sit in the car alone, dark tinted windows rolled up while he closes his eyes and leans back in his seat and thinks.
Hamilton catches whatever Madison had the day after the man finally feels better, except he doesn’t have someone to read his body language before he says a word. And maybe part of that is his fault, because he refused to admit he wasn’t feeling well, forced himself to tough it out, ignored Madison earlier when he remarked that he was looking pale.
Either way, he pukes all over the dashboard before he can even choke out a warning, chest heaving so hard the muscles between his ribs ache.
At least you weren’t driving, he thinks, which is followed shortly by, Jefferson’s going to be pissed as hell that you’ve puked in his car two times in the past month.
But Jefferson doesn’t even bitch at him, follows him closely out of the car after they’ve stopped, puts a hand on his shoulder and holds back his hair when he throws up again, gasping miserably, nauseatingly ill.
I’m sorry, Jefferson sympathetically repeats—no baby or dear or so much as a Hamilton at the end of it, but he holds his hair back anyways, and for a second—-for a second—his eyes.
His eyes. Something that goes beyond words.
The door opens. Hamilton hazily blinks awake, just enough to gauge whether he’s being threatened. He sees Madison and relaxes. Head spinning. The hand on his forehead is so blessedly cool that he doesn’t even think to shy away. He’s so damned hot that his shirt’s off, sweat sticking the thin sheets he intermittently pulls over himself to stop his chills. The room smells awful, acidic, and there’s a bucket by the bed because it’s all he can do to lean over the side before his stomach churns.
“Drink,” Madison tells him, nudging him until he sits up, lifting a glass to his mouth. “You’re dehydrated.”
“What are you, a doctor?” he slurs, head aching, ribs throbbing from constant throwing up.
“When need be,” Madison answers. He talks as he tips careful sips of ginger ale into Hamilton’s mouth—more of a distraction than anything, Hamilton thinks. “I was when my siblings were sick. And to Thomas. You know how he likes to be fawned over as is. Imagine him ill.”
Hamilton’s stomach lurches, even though he’s long since out of things to heave up. He knocks away Madison’s hand, closes his eyes and wills the churning to go away before he heaves all over them both. His head spins.
“Where is he?” he asks, because he can’t protect what he doesn’t see.
Jesus, you’re so fucking pathetic—
“Reading. I’ve already had what you have. We may as well try to spare him coming down with this too.”
“Yeah, well, he’s gonna hold having a better immune system or… or something over me,” Hamilton complains, words heavy and not making sense, dizzily sinking back down into the bed.
“He won’t.”
“Have you met him?”
“I’ll tell him to shut up,” Madison concedes after a moment.
Madison smiles faintly, and Hamilton’s head is foggy and cloudy, and he can’t really work through what it means or what to do.
Another sip of ginger ale. Madison lays a cool, wet rag over his forehead. He shudders, overtaken by chills, and the thoughts are chased away.
“Brained senseless and then the fucking stomach bug. Sorry to have been so useless,” he mumbles, closing his eyes.
“Who convinced you that it is a weakness to allow yourself to be taken care of?” Madison asks him, too gently, and Hamilton closes his eyes, blocks him out.
It feels like he’s taking advantage of the situation. He’s a burden, holding them back, but he’s being looked after nevertheless, doted on by Madison in a way he doesn’t deserve, in a way that should be reserved for Jefferson and Jefferson alone. It feels like the simple act of being taken care of is a betrayal to Jefferson, taking advantage of Madison.
And what’s worse of all is that he almost wishes that he could stay sick so things could stay this way. Be sicker so that he could be taken care of without guilt.
So he could let someone else shoulder his stress for a while. Just lie here and rest, be weak for once without worrying about what will happen in his absence. Be even weaker still, like he was when he was concussed, sleep still, breathe still, be still. Forgiveness for the duration of convalescence
He wants—
No, he thinks. Stop.
And Hamilton gets better, because of course he does, and so he’s not a burden. He should be happy—and he is—but he can’t pretend that some shameful part of him doesn’t still desperately want that excuse to be cared for.
Weakness , he thinks.
But then they’re back at the dinner table. Maybe he’s not the only one who’s lost his excuse, because Madison suddenly doesn’t seem sure whether to look at him anymore or not.
At least not when Jefferson is looking too.
The thing is, Jefferson is so damn smart.
Brilliant.
Hamilton would never admit so much to his face. Never would’ve admitted it at all before he actually met the man, because damn did he do politics moronically (but, fuck, when his brilliance did shine through—). The point is.
The point is.
The point is that Jefferson is smart. More than smart. Brilliant. He’s the rare kind of intelligent who can match wits with Hamilton. He knows how to block, parry, strike every blow, whether by words or expression. He’s clever enough to know exactly how to get under Hamilton’s skin and how to stay there when he wants to. He’s just smart enough to be dangerous about it, and, more than all, he’s the rarer than rare kind of person who was made for Hamilton.
Or made for who Hamilton used to be, at least. The kind that got it, who could match him step-for-step, who wouldn’t get swept away and used up and burnt out by his ambition—whose own flames could burn back all that much brighter for it.
Passionate. Ambitious. Brilliant.
And it’s wrapped in smugness and showmanship and superiority, but sometimes he says things, things that Hamilton can’t have ever come up with on his own. Sometimes he lays the most brilliant traps when he plays chess, lures Hamilton in and snaps on him like a bear trap, laughing and taunting all the while, fielding Hamilton’s swears and scowling without a slip of his smirk. Sometimes he does the most brilliant damn things on the violin that leave Hamilton breathless. Sometimes it’s too much, and his white smile is too white, and he’s too brilliant to look at, the goddamn sun in the sky, and Hamilton has to look away.
He was worried, first, about Madison finding out about why he sometimes can’t look Jefferson in the eye. But that ship has gone and sailed, and whatever lies Jefferson has told himself to explain it away are silk stitches in their sails, temporary repairs that can only catch the wind for so long before it slips through their fingers.
The thing is, Jefferson is so damn smart. Brilliant.
And he’s a smarter man than he is proud.
Something’s there.
Hamilton blinks awake.
Footsteps .
Hamilton jerks awake.
He grabs his pistol from the counter before he even fully registers the shadow in the kitchen, hand in motion even as his mind registers Madison’s face flickering in the candlelight.
Hamilton exhales sharply. Sets down his gun.
Scowls.
He’d been dreaming, one of the rare good ones. Something about New York and an excess of booze and frozen packs of peas on a black eye.
He should be grateful, probably, that Madison woke him up before it twisted, warped into something yellow and screaming, but he’s too tired to be the bigger person. He’s awake, unhappily, and now he’s in the midst of one of his throbbing, pulsing post-concussion migraines.
He’s not sick, he’s not safe, and so he wants Madison gone because being alone is easier than being the one rejected. Avoiding whatever impasse Madison has decided on is easier than pretending they’re fine. He’s so damn tired right now. Just fucking tired.
God, he just wants to turn back time.
“Well? Are you going to shoot me?” Madison asks him, even.
Hamilton blinks, rubs hard at the ache behind his eyes.
“You know not to wake me up,” he deflects, snappy.
“A task that would be significantly easier if you didn’t pass out wherever you’re lying, sitting, or standing,” Madison answers, brushing past him to the pot of water they boiled earlier on the camping stove. He fills two cups, pouring liquid, the only noise in the kitchen.
And, fuck, the silence is genuinely uncomfortable. It shouldn’t be, but it is. It’s the seeds he’s sown. He’s grown this, grown dry stalks and a rotting crop from something that could’ve been good.
He hates it. Hates it. Hates that Madison can barely stand to be alone in the same room as him when he’s not half-dead, when there’s not an air of vulnerability around them both that they can use to excuse the moments that they shouldn’t have.
It would be better if Madison would snap. Yell again. There’s no shortage of things to yell about. The silence rings out, and the lack of sound counterintuitively aggravates his headache.
“It’s late,” Hamilton remarks when the silence wraps cold hands around his neck.
“So it is.”
“Neither of you could sleep?”
“Yes. That,” Madison says, but he hesitates. Hamilton reads into the pause, the rasp in Madison’s voice that’s just a bit more pronounced than usual.
Silence falls again: not a conscious choice. An absence of things to say. The art of speaking while saying nothing. Madison could do it forever: empty questions, empty answers, on and on, splintering ‘til one of them splits. Hamilton doesn’t know how much he can take.
Things that don’t have to be as they are but that are anyways.
But if he were dying right now, what would—
Stop, he tells himself, anger wrapping around him like armor.
“Alexander?”
Madison doesn’t seem quite to know what to do with his hands, settles for taking hold of the cups. He looks down into them a moment, then at last looks up.
“Yeah?”
The silence lasts an eternity, and Madison opens his mouth, and maybe whatever he’d been about to say would’ve fixed things—but he never gets the chance.
“I didn’t know you were awake,” Jefferson says, aggressively neutral, a touch too loud when he enters, enough that Hamilton jerks around even though he’s done nothing wrong—not this time.
Even in the dim candlelight, Hamilton can see the mix of suspicion that flashes across his face, the moment he abruptly masks his feelings.
“What were the two of you talking about?” Jefferson asks.
He knows.
“Nothing,” Hamilton instinctively answers—and then he realizes that’s the worst answer he could give. He wants nothing less than to explain, but he wants Jefferson to be unhappy even less. He swallows hard, forces himself to elaborate, “Just fell asleep. He woke me up when he came in.”
Jefferson stops by Madison, presses a kiss to his neck. There’s nothing possessive about the gesture but it feels that way anyways.
Hamilton stands, because he doesn’t want Madison to be caught between leaving and staying. Because he’s afraid—no, not afraid, he knows —that Madison wouldn’t choose him. By all means, Madison shouldn’t. It’s just better if Hamilton eliminates the need to choose himself. Then he can pretend that the outcome is something other than what it would be.
“Goodnight,” he tells Jefferson as he passes.
Eyes linger on him a moment too long.
Jefferson is proud, but he’s smarter than he is proud.
“Goodnight,” one of them says back.
Words without meaning. Sound just to chase away the silence that sinks over them in the moments where pretending becomes too much to bear.
But sometimes silence is the sweetest damn sound.
Silence between the three of them is something bad. Silence from beyond the three of them is good. A background of sound composed of songbirds, cicadas, storms—perfect.
Hamilton rounds the corner just as gunshots volley.
Oh shit, he thinks.
Someone steps out of a building nearby—the pharmacy, the exact one he’d been heading towards—and Hamilton sees red. Faded red fabric, shoulder to knee. More follow.
Oh shit, he thinks.
The person’s head turns in his direction, and then he sees half a dozen Humvees rounding the other end of the block.
Oh SHIT, he thinks, and he fucking guns it in the other direction, ignores the voice shutting at him to stop.
It’s two turns, barely two blocks, but he runs like a damn greyhound out of the starting stall, busts into the house like a goddamn man on fire.
“Jesus Ch—”
“Redcoats,” he exhales through breaths, snatching up the bags, any sign of life from in the room, leaping to the—
The garage. There’s no fucking garage in this house.
The Escalade is parked three doors down in a half-burned down house.
An engine revs outside. Somewhere down on the street.
Fuck. He throws open the closest broom closet, tosses their shit inside, and then Madison is dragging him up the staircase. On the second floor landing, Hamilton catches a glimpse out a window, spots Humvees rolling up outside, Redcoats spilling out into the street like fire ants from a kicked nest, rifles in hand—
And then they’re in the last room on the hall, Jefferson already positioned defensively on the other side of the bed, shotgun aimed at the door.
“Hide,” Madison tells Jefferson in less than a breath. “We’re hiding.”
“If they come up here—” Hamilton argues.
“Did they see you?”
“Not for more than a second—”
“Then they shouldn’t have recognized you. They can’t be bothered to look for long.”
“But—”
“There are at least twenty of them—fully armed soldiers—and three of us, two of whom will certainly be killed on sight if we’re seen. Abysmal odds by any standards.”
“And if we get cornered?” Hamilton argues, knuckles going white around the grip of his pistol.
He fixes Hamilton with a grim look, speaks with so much damn authority that it sets him off.
“Shoot and pray.”
“That’s not a goddamn plan! That’s a fucking last resort!” he hisses, nerves frayed. “I mean, fuck, where the fuck are three grown men going to hide? Under the bed? The first damn place everyone looks? I mean, fuck, have you ever watched a damn movie in your life?” Hamilton protests, because if he’s going out, he isn’t going quietly, isn’t going down easy—
“I am not letting you get yourself killed,” Madison snaps back, sharp, and there’s a second where their eyes meet, where there’s real fear somewhere beneath the indifference—
Silence hangs half a second.
“Maybe this is news to you, but you don’t make my fucking decisions for me,” Hamilton tells him. He twists around to Jefferson for support, sees him peering out the window. “Jefferson, tell me—”
“Oh, don’t look at me, I fucking hate this plan,” he answers plainly, “but since they’re out back right now, not gonna say that we have many—”
There’s a sound that could be from downstairs. They quiet. Hamilton leaps for the window, pries it open— maybe they’ll think we already escaped if they come in— and then Madison grabs him, yanks, a door slides shut, and it’s dark.
You’re fucking kidding me, he thinks as it strikes him.
A closet. A fucking closet. Second only to under the bed.
And then everything else registers. Oh, he’d rather his chances with the Redcoats now. Oh, no. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Shit, he thinks frantically. Shit, I need to get out of here.
“I can lure them—” he gets out, but Jefferson shuts him up with a hand clamped over his mouth.
Hamilton has half the mind to bite him. Another time, he might. But, knowing Jefferson, he’ll shriek, and—fuck. Hamilton thinks better of it at the last second, because Jesus, if he goes down fighting, he can’t take them with him. He’d have to go out alone, alone like he always—
I need to get out of here repeats in his mind, tenor rising.
It’s cramped and dark and cluttered, and there’s not enough space for two grown men, let alone three. Maybe if they were all Madison’s size, but no, Jefferson—fuck, they’re all contorted oddly, limbs at awkward angles, torsos twisted and necks crooked to make space.
And that could be fine. Another time, that could be perfectly fucking fine.
Except in this time Jefferson’s thigh is shoved between his fucking legs, broad chest pressed flush against Hamilton’s own. And that might be bearable if he had room to turn, to somehow escape the searing touch—except Madison is not even an inch backwards, boxing him in from behind. His breath is blisteringly warm against the nape of his neck, arm wedged in the space between Hamilton and Jefferson, wrapped loosely around his front. He’s crammed between them both. Nowhere to go. He doesn’t even think his nightmares are this bad.
Hamilton shifts, tries to at least extract himself from the leg shoved into his dick, but Madison makes a sharp, strained sound—fucking panicked— and that’s when Hamilton realizes that his ass is pressed flush against Madison’s lap.
He almost has to laugh.
I’m in hell, Hamilton thinks, hysterical. I died, and now I’m in hell.
Voices talk from somewhere distant, muffled. Downstairs? He hears Madison’s breathing steady into some meditative pattern, but there’s a distinct strain to his even inhales, exhales. Jefferson finally drops his hand from Hamilton’s mouth, and there’s no space to put his hand but practically on top of Hamilton’s hip. The sparse half inch of air separating his hand burns.
God, Hamilton prays. Don’t.
Somewhere nearby, a gunshot sounds. Rifle shot—a British one. And then there’s a flurry of them, the sound of shrieking infected, shouting people.
The minutes tick on. It’s fine. It’ll be fine. It’s better than dying.
Is it?
Hamilton tries to convince himself it is, and then his dick starts to get hard.
Just fucking kill me.
The blood that isn’t heading to his dick heats his face, and he’s sure he’s never been redder in his goddamn life. He’s thankful for the dark, that the only damn sliver of light from the door lands on Jefferson’s face, not his.
Hamilton shuts his eyes, tries to think of anything else at all, but his mind cycles back to the pressure in between his legs, blistering touch beating out humiliation. His skin prickles with the want to be touched, the want to have anything at all, and he panics, in a last-ditch effort, thrashes like a wild animal with teeth sinking into its neck.
“Stop moving,” Jefferson hisses at him, curling fingers around his arm, but it’s nothing compared to how Madison’s fingers dig so deeply into his waist that he’s sure he’ll bruise, stilling him.
“Quit fucking touching me,” he snaps back, voice pathetically shrill and panicked.
Jefferson shifts unsuccessfully to try to sate him, hisses,
“For fuck’s sake, I don’t have anywh—”
He moves the wrong way, shifts an inch too far forward.
Even in the dark, Hamilton sees the exact moment his eyes widen in understanding.
He doesn’t finish his sentence. Madison says nothing, asks no questions.
The silence is the worst of his life.
Jefferson clears his throat, awkwardly murmurs,
“Hey, it’s—”
“Don’t fucking talk to me,” Hamilton weakly interrupts, eyes still screwed shut.
He almost sobs. He’s not even sure why, whether it’s because he’s so thoroughly embarrassed himself. Or because he so desperately wants out of here so that he can at last wrap a hand around himself, settle the blinding pins and needles stinging under his skin, release the knot tying tighter in his stomach. He wants, God, he wants—
More rifle shots in the distance. Further away. Christ, he’s begging them to retreat, and he refuses to open his eyes because he thinks the burning there might turn to tears.
a mouth on his neck, teeth catching on his skin—
hips to rock forward—
and he wants Jefferson’s hand to slide sideway—
An eternity passes, and then it’s silent except for the sound of their breathing, the heartbeat Hamilton can swear is about to burst through his sternum.
Another eternity, and then Hamilton can’t take it another second.
He fumbles for the handle, throws it open, stumbles out into the blinding light.
“Wait, it’s—”
Sympathy, pity, kindness—he doesn’t want it.
“Don’t fucking talk to me,” he blurts out as he darts to the hall, humiliated, face flushed, half-wishing he’d just caught a bullet to the face. He’s fighting next time. God, he’s fighting.
If there is a next time.
Hamilton doesn’t wait to hear a response. He barely checks if the Humvees in the street are truly gone before he bursts outside, blood rushing through his ears. His tongue is bleeding, feels almost bitten-through, but even that isn’t enough to tamp down the urge to escape. He ducks into the first house that seems far enough away, falls face-first onto a sofa hidden in the back of the first floor.
He’s too hot, overwhelmed, overstimulated, not coherent enough to think of all the reasons why it’s a bad idea. Alone, he can think of nothing but getting a hand around his dick as fast as possible, the kind of fucking release he ever gets—
He can’t even picture indistinct faces.
He knows that he hasn’t for weeks, maybe longer, knows that it’s been a lie—
Some sliver of him is guilt-stricken, but it falls easily to what of him is overwrought, incoherent, willing to participate in his own destruction. And so he doesn’t pretend it’s no one.
No, for the first time, Hamilton imagines Jefferson clearly, doesn’t trick himself into thinking he’s picturing someone else, picturing no one at all.
He’s uncreative, already done in, sees the same scenario only under different circumstances, vaguely filling in details: some supply closet, somewhere else, sometime else. Jefferson in front of him in that stupid purple suit, and god, it’s kind of sexy, at least when he’s thinking of Jefferson’s leg between his legs, the purple fabric grinding against his dick, Hamilton fisting a hand in his hair, rocking back freely—
Hamilton moans aloud, shoves the side of his free hand between his teeth.
And Jefferson’s lips trail down his neck, bite a possessive mark just below his collar, sucks at the spot until it bruises, even though he knows Hamilton hates when he does it.
“Asshole,” Hamilton hears his own voice swear as he fumbles, gets a hand on Jefferson’s shoulder and shoves him down onto his knees.
“Gonna make me pay for it?” Jefferson challenges him, smirk nothing short of cocky.
“He looks so pretty down there for us, doesn’t he?” a voice murmurs in his ear, one he recognizes, dark and heavy and raspier than usual, a physical shiver down his spine.
This is a step too far, he’s sure, one of them is one thing but both is—
A body presses up against him from behind, deceptively broad, a possessive arm curling around his front, untucking his dress shirt with a carefulness so unbefitting of the moment, deft fingers undoing his slacks, painstakingly slow. Jefferson’s hand curls around his hip, thumbs pressing fingerprint bruises into the tender skin at the top of his thighs, and it’s all too much.
“Madison,” he gasps out, eyes closing.
“I know, dear.” Madison laughs, low in his throat. “We’ve got you. Don’t we, Thomas?’
“Mhm. Southern hospitality an’ all that.”
And it’s not fucking fair how good his drawl sounds when he gets into it—
“Show me,” Hamilton tells him, and there’s a mouth on his neck, glossy dark eyes looking up at him, white smile, a rough hand, wet mouth, three words—
The world whites out, blinding and brilliant and perfect, a moment where fantasy and reality coalesce.
But the high fades and he comes down hard. Hits the ground and cracks. Shatters.
He can’t make eye contact with either of them for days.
Madison.
That’s what gets him.
God, he can’t keep doing this. He’s tipping over the edge, in freefall, and the further he falls, the farther away he is. Away and away. Into aloneness.
October 28th.
“What’s your fucking problem?” Jefferson snaps at him, and Hamilton isn’t even sure what he said to elicit that reaction. He’s been in a haze the entire damn day, moving blindly through the fog, going through the motions to keep from staying still.
Madison is eyeing him coolly from across the table, but try as Hamilton might, he can’t remember any part of whatever conversation they’ve been having. It takes a second to even recall the sketch of what he’s said last, the impressions of what he’s snapped.
Why don’t you go suck Madison’s dick and leave me the fuck alone?
A step too far on its own. Certainly when his tone was much too vicious to be playful.
They’re waiting for him to say something else—to apologize, probably. Maybe for an explanation that they should know by now isn’t coming. Hamilton just feels all that much more defensive for it, angry without reason at both of them apparently against him. Hamilton almost sticks around to argue, but he can’t win a fight when he doesn’t know what they’re fighting over, so he just stands, storms towards the door.
Like a fucking kid, he thinks, derisive. At least he knows when he’s acting this way.
He slams the door anyways.
It’s cold outside. He regrets not taking his jacket, but it’d be too humiliating to go back and get it now. And he doesn’t have a key to Escalade: there are only two sets, of course, and of course he doesn’t get one. So he heads down the road on foot, swimming deeper and further into his thoughts until it feels like he’s drowning.
October 28th.
The grey clouds hang low, and it’s cold. He’s alone.
Of course he wouldn’t forget John’s birthday now that he’s dead.
His fingers curl into his pocket until they glance over something glossy.
He’s not sure that, today on all days, he can look at it without some part of himself cracking. He feels faint today, almost translucent, like he might as well not be here at all.
God.
He’d been busy their first October together—on an essay, not even anything that mattered—spent the entire day in the library digging through archives. Dropped by John’s dorm late at night, seen a wrapped gift on the desk, asked whose birthday it was—
Stupid. Fucking stupid. Time wasted.
He’d never forget again if he had another chance. But he doesn’t get any more chances. He had all of three of Laurens’ birthdays to celebrate with him while they were together: one that he forgot, one that he didn’t, and his last in the end of the world.
He fucking forgot. He forgot. And John had just forgiven him.
Yeah, I’m not going to say I’m not kinda pissed, but this is sort of just who you are, you know? You get caught up in your shit so much you block out everything else. And I knew that. I’m not gonna try to fix you ‘cause I knew what I was getting into, and I wanted you anyways.
Lost time. Love he can never get back. Love he can’t ever have again.
It’s cold outside, and Hamilton wishes he’d brought a jacket, and there’s a cup of black tea—still warm, not totally cooled down—waiting for him in the kitchen when he gets back. He heaves out a breath, sits heavily onto the chair, wraps his cold hands around the warm ceramic, watches little tendrils of steam rise from the still surface.
A hand at last slips into his pocket, searches until his fingertips find ragged edges. He pulls out his photo strip, nudges his tea aside, stares down.
The room slowly gets darker around him.
And then there’s a candle, flickering light, quiet footsteps in the doorway. He says nothing for a minute; Hamilton doesn’t look over. He already knows who it is.
“Is today a bad day?” Madison at last asks, voice low and unobtrusive.
Hamilton looks down at the photo on the table, runs a thumb around its frayed edges. Pins and needles start to prickle behind his eyes. He doesn’t let tears fall, because the grief he can’t let himself feel is getting too close. He’s run down. He’s tired.
“Yeah,” he eventually gets out. “A really bad fucking day.”
Footsteps approach him. Carefully. He sees Madison’s outline from the corner of his eye, but can’t bring himself to look over and up at him.
“Would you rather be alone?” he asks, quiet.
“No,” Hamilton answers, and he doesn’t think about it. Doesn’t have to. “Just… you know.”
He doesn’t even know what he means, but Madison does. He just sits beside him and doesn’t expect him to say anything at all. Just sits. Is there.
But there’s a distance between them. A physical gap Madison leaves where he might have once placed a hand over Hamilton’s. There’s space between their seats, six inches that keep their legs from accidentally brushing, and it’s all the distance in the world. Six degrees of separation even though Madison’s one of two people who still matter.
How are they all so far away?
“I miss you,” Hamilton blurts out suddenly, without thinking, on an impulsive whim.
Oh, fuck.
Madison looks over at him like he’s suddenly grown a second head. Hamilton’s already started digging this hole, so he figures he may as well make it six feet to lie in, talks and doesn’t stop, speaks from a place he never could with Jefferson.
“I feel like you’re as far away from me as you can get. You haven’t even tried to pretend things are okay.”
“And yet I’ve sought you out just now, haven’t I?” Madison asks, firm though his volume still doesn’t rise much above a murmur. “At any given moment I try to reach out, you simply pull away further. You want me to be there, but you won’t let me. So what would you have me do, Alexander?”
Hamilton stops.
“As much of me is here as you want to have,” Madison tells him after another elapsed moment.
“Not as much,” Hamilton says without thinking. Madison’s eyes slide over to him. Hamilton thinks Madison might ask what he meant, and that’s a question he neither wants nor knows how to answer. “And only when Jefferson isn’t around, right?” he adds, crueler than he means to.
“If my memory serves me well, you were the one to kiss me when he wasn’t around,” Madison says, sharp, aggressive. He inhales, sharply, reins himself in, speaks calmer. “I’m tired, Hamilton. Too tired to know where to go from here. I had the chance… the gift to wash my hands of everything, and I only compounded my guilty conscience by lying yet again.”
Hamilton says nothing. Wonders how little there is to be said between them.
And there’s genuine pain in Madison’s voice, genuine vulnerability, self-doubt in his voice, none of the quiet assuredness always in his eyes.
“Why don’t you—?”
Don’t I what?
Hamilton wonders if he knows what’s coming next, if it’ll be a four-letter word—but he never finds out. Madison slows down. Inhales, exhales. Like he’s meditating. When he opens his eyes again, detachment is plain on his face. Fingers play some silent melody against his thigh.
“I should get back to bed,” he says evenly, the same tone of voice Hamilton remembers from a year before.
Right. Of course.
All that talk about fucking caring and making him feel like he belonged, months and months of that shit—all of it for this. For the two of them to sit here without saying anything. For Madison to offer him scraps of affection away from Jefferson’s prying eyes, away from where he might incriminate himself like Hamilton is nothing but some skeleton in his cupboard.
Madison isn’t even trying . Not like Hamilton is. And when he does, like he has tonight, it’s a token effort, promises he can’t actually keep. Tonight is a bad night, and even if it’s not fair, Hamilton doesn’t feel like being fair. He feels desperately alone, embarrassingly abandoned, and nothing is fine. If Madison isn’t going to pretend, then Hamilton won’t either.
“I guess you know how it feels to be second best now too,” Hamilton says, the sour yellow thing in his chest boiling over.
Stillness settles over them for half a second.
Madison stands without looking at him.
“I hope,” he says, voice tight, “that you didn’t think about that before you said it.”
And then he’s gone
He might apologize, he thinks, if Madison could still stand to be in a room alone with him.
But he doesn’t feel like finding him out of Jefferson’s eyes—which almost seems damn impossible these days, because it seems like Jefferson hardly lets Madison out of arm’s reach.
If Madison isn’t going to try, why should he?
And time keeps on ticking on, miserably slow. God, it’s getting so cold at night. He can’t sleep for want of more blankets. For want of not wanting to wake up alone.
Smoking keeps him warm. If not his hands, then at least his insides.
It’s midnight. Hamilton thinks everyone is asleep when he slips outside to smoke, then almost trips on Jefferson sitting on the doorstep. He swears viciously as he regains his balance, berates himself for not being careful, tries to slow his pulse from heart-attack speeds.
“The fuck are you doing?” Hamilton asks, pissed.
Jefferson doesn’t answer, doesn’t even look back at him—concerningly unlike him—just motions to the radio by his side, the one Hercules gave him in Boston all those months ago.
His chest tightens, and then he hears what’s playing over the speakers.
God Save the King, the music swells. Just like back in...
“Song’s been playing half an hour,” Jefferson says, voice flat. “Keeps saying there’s about to be a royal transmission.” He laughs, humorless. “Guess I’ve been waiting for it. Don’t know whether it’s a relief to know it's over, or...” Again, he laughs: a harsh, grating sound like broken glass.
In another life, Hamilton might reach out.
In this one, he just sits heavily beside him.
“Good evening, everyone,” a deep voice says once the music rolls into silence. “Last night’s royal transmission will repeat at 7:00 A.M. Please stay tuned.”
Jefferson glances down at his watch.
“British time, so thirteen minutes ‘til.”
The urge for a cigarette itches under Hamilton’s skin. He tries to ignore it. But he’s freezing, and the nag persists until he can’t resist pulling one out, inhaling a stinging hit, chasing away the chill settling under his ribcage.
“Good evening, everyone,” a man’s voice sings just after he’s lit up a third, lilting to some melody silent to all but him. The voice is bloodcurdlingly cheery, artificial as the relief clutched between his first two fingers. “And it truly is a good evening.”
He never says his name, but he doesn’t need to. He needs no introduction.
Jefferson’s face sinks into his hands.
Hamilton could try, right now, to bridge the gap of the thing that is breaking between them. He could try to do it a hundred different ways. But he’s tired. He can’t take a hundred different rejections. And he’s tired of fighting it and hiding and running, and he’s ready for this to be over whenever they are. He has no choice but to be.
He doesn’t move.
“After some significant shipping delays,” the King says, voice briefly dropping to something dangerous, “I am here for supper with Britain’s homegrown traitor, the leader of the recently exterminated terrorist group The Sons of Anarchy, Sam Adams himself. Yay!”
Nothing short of thick air when, delighted, he claps his hand. The thin silence that follows.
“Mr. Adams, don’t be rude! Tell everyone hello.”
The sound of coughing—or maybe choking, spitting something out, clearing their throat.
Jefferson’s expression turns to dread before Adams even opens his mouth
“I’ll tell them about how I tarred an’ feathered your British fucks,” a strained voice gets out, accent heavy and unapologetically Northeastern: o to ah, r forgotten.
“How impolite,” the King remarks. The amusement has drained from his voice. Impersonal, flat, straight-line tension: a rope pulled as tight as it can go before it snaps. Somehow the absence of emotion is worse than the synthetic, enough to make a sliver of fear snake up Hamilton’s stomach even despite thousands of miles of distance.
“I’m from Boston,” Adams replies. “Impolite’s my whole fucking brand.”
“Aren’t you familiar with public broadcasting rules? Surely you would, since your colony is subjected to the Crown’s rules. No profanity, obscenity, indecency. But perhaps I shouldn’t expect such refinement from an American. Barbarians, the whole lot of you. Disgusting perversions of loyal British subjects,” he rants, voice descending into something dark.
“Been called worse by my voters,” Adams laughs, a distinctly wet rasp to the sound.
“Oh, you’re so full of funny things to say! I love a good quip.” There’s the whimsicality, the manic singsong cheer—and then the ball returns to the opposite side of the court. “It’s a shame I’m not looking for a court jester. Certainly not you, the little leader of these gross treasonists.”
“Guilty as charged.” This sentence he manages, coherent despite the slight slur in his words.
“Of course you are. I’ve declared as much. Fortunately, I’m a generous ruler. I’ll let you make a plea, because I am kind and fair and a loving ruler . A stern but forgiving God , if you will.”
Silence.
“Mr. Adams?”
The sharp sound of a palm to a face, the sound of someone jolting awake.
“Huh?”
“Well, Mr. Adams? Don’t you have something to say for yourself? To my loyal constituency?”
“Oh, lots of things.” A sharp drag in of breath, a conscious effort to speak louder, enunciate. “Now and henceforth, I… wait, sorry, what was the line?”
“I renounce any revolutionary activities,” the king’s voice hisses, not quite quiet enough for the transmission not to pick it up.
“Right, I renounce…” He laughs. “Not a damn thing. I’d dump all the tea you got on the table into the English channel if I had the chance,” he answers, laughing again. “Keep looking at me like that all you want, asshole. I’m not fucking afraid of you.”
“You will be,” he promises.
Something happens, something wet and distinctly fleshy and then wooden that Hamilton doesn’t allow himself to think about. Another sound follows, this one distinctly human. From someone else, it would be a scream. But here it’s tamped down, viciously suppressed, leads into wild skirling laughter, the sound of a man with nothing left to lose.
Jefferson jerks next to him, shrinks inwards. It fades to silence, which somehow feels even worse.
“Take him away,” the King commands someone, irritated. “And keep him alive!” he calls after them. “Toys are no fun when they’re dead.”
(Hamilton wonders if Adams is still wearing that coat, the peacock blue-green color. Wonders how starkly the red stands out.)
He reaches once more for the radio, but Jefferson knocks his hand away.
“I suppose I’ll have to do this myself,” the King sighs. “If you’re listening, Mr. Jefferson… if I’m not mistaken, that little traitorous brat is a friend of yours, isn’t he? Surely you’d want to secure his wellbeing? Well, mayhaps we could arrange an exchange? You for him? Or even more fun, you could swap him for your little boyfriend—”
“For fuck’s sake, turn that off,” Hamilton snaps, leaning forward, yanking the radio towards him. He turns it off, slides it away from them both. “He’s just playing you.”
“Oh, the one time you don’t advocate for self-sacrifice?” Jefferson dryly criticizes him, but his response comes a second later than it should.
And it’s here that Hamilton sees the tears on his lashes, the irrational guilt splashed across his face. And he gets it because he knows it. The feeling of helplessness. The thing he feels when he wakes up from nightmares of watching others succumb to infection when he’s still waiting for his turn. The violent unfairness of who gets to live and die. There’s no discrimination between the sinners and saints, because if that were the case, then it would’ve been Hamilton who died in Charleston those two odd years ago.
“You wanna know why I’m not dead yet?” Jefferson asks him, standing up. “Because I’m selfish. The only reason I’m alive is ‘cause I fucking froze when I saw the infected coming for us. I should be dead, and I’m not, and everyone else keeps fucking dying first—and for an idea!” he shouts. “More fucking death, more fucking guilt. For an idea. For nothing.”
“You can’t be mad at someone for going out the way they want to,” Hamilton protests quietly.
“Uh-huh, yeah, so you’d be fine if I put a bullet in my head right now?” Hamilton doesn’t know what his face shows, but it’s enough for Jefferson to scoff. “Yeah, that’s what I fuckin’ thought.” He turns away, sneers, derisive. “Why don’t you be a good little boy and fuck right on off?”
Red flashes across his vision at the dismissal. He stands, stiffly. Going anywhere is preferable than going back inside, so he steps forward, out towards the lawn.
“You know what I liked about Sam?” Jefferson says.
Hamilton thinks about ignoring but, no, he stops on the third stair down.
“He always told me the truth. You don’t get that from many people in politics.” Jefferson’s eyes burn into the back of his neck. “That’s why we were friends. Because I could always trust him to tell me if I was getting started on some dumb shit, being ridiculous.”
Hamilton’s shoulders stiffen. He doesn’t respond, just starts back down the stairs, but at the landing, Jefferson calls after him: one last question that demands a response.
“Am I being ridiculous, Hamilton?”
There’s nothing outwardly hostile about the way he says it, but it somehow manages to feel that way nevertheless. Hamilton doesn’t turn.
“Aren’t you always?” he asks, but it doesn’t come off like he means to.
It’s not light. Not teasing. Not the attempt to patch things up with their banter that he means it to be. No, he speaks, and his voice carries disdain he doesn’t actually feel, anger he does feel but that he hasn’t meant to direct towards him.
When he opens his mouth, maybe to apologize—
Jefferson’s sour laugh cuts him off. Fabric rustles as he stands. The door slams when he goes inside.
Hamilton just keeps racking up his debts, lie after lie going into his ledger. He knows he can’t keep it up forever, knows that his negative credit will come back to bite him, and yet.
And yet.
Impossibly, Jefferson keeps trying.
He keeps trying to give Hamilton an out, to give himself something. Some kind of confirmation that he can trust Hamilton after all—if not about himself, then at least about Madison. Because what else is there to trust him about?
Their little world of three. Jefferson wanting, needing to believe he can trust Hamilton with something even if just to fuel his fantasy a little bit further.
Jefferson comes to him, and Hamilton keeps letting him down.
“No,” he answers Jefferson, shrugging with a casualness he doesn’t feel and isn’t sure he puts on. “I don’t think Madison is hiding something from you.”
That’s not the question he’s being asked to answer, he knows.
The question is about what Madison is hiding. Not is he ? But he feigns ignorance of the true question and what he knows both, and Jefferson’s eyes flatten.
And Hamilton just can’t let a dead dog lie.
“He hasn’t said anything to me. Besides, he’s your boyfriend. He’d tell you whatever’s bothering him before he told me.”
That bit is unnecessary, he knows. Salt in the wound. He doesn’t know why he says it, if he expects it to lessen the sting of his own wounds, the bitterness that chafes deeper every day.
He says it anyways. Who is he if not a liar? A bad friend? A bad person? He’s doing them a favor in a way, making it easier to be cast aside when the bill comes to the table.
There’s resentment in Jefferson’s eyes when he says okay.
He doesn’t try to hide it today. Lets it stand. Knows that Hamilton sees.
Another charge to Hamilton’s card. More debt in his ledger.
Early morning. The end of October. Halloween. The night he and Laurens met, lifetimes and a world ago. God, he can’t stop thinking about it, about anything that makes him miserable.
He needs a distraction.
“I’ll drive,” Hamilton says when they finish packing, taking the keys from the table.
“I’ll do it,” Jefferson answers coolly. “I don’t want you to.”
“Why the fuck not?” he asks, prickling, hackles raising. “Did you even sleep last night? You look like shit. Why can’t I do it?”
Jefferson explodes without warning, eyes blazing, voice ringing.
“Because it’s my damn car and I’ll drive if I fucking want to!”
Hamilton looks to Madison—for what, support? But Madison is ignoring them both, practicing sutures on a clementine. In and out, hands steady. His stitches are clean.
“Whatever,” Hamilton spits, turning on his heels. “You’re right. You don’t need me.”
Jefferson doesn’t find him to apologize later. Madison doesn’t find him to check in.
The absence of the first is expected. The absence of the second is blinding.
November is a cold, colorless month. Only deadened yellow leaves hang to the trees.
They’ve been heading farther and farther inland, flirting with the Louisiana territory until they’re in the thick of it: Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa.
He can’t stop thinking about how desperately he wants to go home.
Home, as if there is a place that belongs to the word. Nevis was only home until his mother died, until he was separated from his brother. New York is a husk, a shell of a city shelled to oblivion. John’s home in South Carolina is somewhere he can never return to, and Charleston, the home that was even if only for a while, is overrun.
He remembers, not too long ago, feeling almost like he was home in the Escalade. The feeling seems foreign now. He’s welcome, yes, but not wanted.
Home: something imprecise, a relic from a time in his life that has passed him by, a thing he wants but can’t have. One of many.
Is it the same for everyone?
Hamilton wonders how things are further north in the old Michigan and Illinois regions, out west into the old Spanish colony states, up to Oregon Country. He hasn’t seen Madison’s continental states map in a long time—not that they’ve had any news about what’s left anywhere. If anything at all. He thinks about Boston and wonders if nothing is better than something.
When he falls asleep, the cold wakes him up.
Winter is coming. They still can’t agree on how they should get through it, but they’ve canned the conversation about it. Maybe they know it doesn’t matter. Maybe Hamilton isn’t the only one who thinks it’ll be the last winter they all see together. It feels like they just keep moving on principle, coasting on the fumes of familiarity.
Hamilton wants to leave, but he can’t. He doesn’t want to be the one to give up.
He doesn’t want to give up. He doesn’t want to be given up on. He wants to be happy, even though he knows he can only be that way with them. He wants them to be happy, even though he knows that, one way or another, that means leaving the picture. He wants too many things, too many that contradict themselves, and he’ll end up with nothing. He’ll end up pushed out the door.
There have only ever been two ways this could end: him leaving on his own, or him being forced out. He’s long since lost the chance to take the first way out. It’s his own fault. He’s tried. He really has. He’s tried at every damn step—to deny, fight, hide his feelings, and he blows it up every time.
And now it’s the worst time of the year, and he’s about to be out on his ass.
They’re not doing as well on food as they were this time last year. Maybe a week and some change’s worth for the three of them, a few weeks if they ration hard—but neither Madison nor Jefferson can ration worth a damn. They can’t stand to get by on next to nothing, to be satisfied with a packet of crackers or a cup of applesauce if there’s food left lying around.
They’ll have one less mouth to feed with him gone, but he worries.
There are so many things to worry about.
In the early days, he was so damn strict about what was his and what was theirs. Kept his things in his single backpack, never touched a thing of theirs if he could help it. He didn’t need their help then, didn’t want anything to do with them.
But the dividing line between what’s whose has blurred. Hamilton leaves his things scattered in the Escalade: books, tools, supplies, ammo. He uses their colognes, fancy soaps, detergents, lotions, dozens of little luxuries he couldn’t afford to spare space for when he was on his own. Things are passed back and forth, and at times it’s not clear what’s whose.
But now he needs his things.
(And more than that, he needs to give them as much as he can, do as much as he can to keep them safe when he can’t do it himself).
He needs his things.
So one afternoon he gets them.
Three bags, he has in the Escalade.
Three bags when he used to live out of just one. One, that held his entire life inside of it, everything he could carry and nothing he couldn’t. But now he’s soft, has extra space, doesn’t have to feel every ounce of the things he packs pulling on his shoulders, weighing him down.
Three bags: two for personal effects—extra clothes, spare weapons, spare supplies—and one for taking anywhere, everywhere, stuffed with everything he needs for an emergency, the one he takes with him whenever he steps outside, anywhere where he might end up cut off.
Three bags, he has now. Three. Not one.
It’s funny—darkly ironic—that a physical reminder of his newly found softness is the exact thing that makes him end up alone.
He can hardly carry the three bags from the Escalade inside. He can’t have it all.
So Hamilton sorts through his things, his two extra bags, his scattered items, figures out what he can give up and what he must have. He’s looking for a comb in one of his extra bags—a particular one, because lately he’s just been using Jefferson’s when his fingers don’t do it.
At the bottom of a bag, his fingers curl around an edge of something that gives and bends, crinkles like paper.
“What are you doing?”
Hamilton jumps, jerks around, finds Jefferson in the doorway, face flat, yanks his hand away as subtly as he can manage—not subtly at all, because Jefferson’s eyes track the movement, then across the room: one bag, two bags, three.
His eyes lock onto Hamilton.
“Just…” Hamilton exhales hard: another debt in his ledger. “Consolidating. Getting rid of shit to haul around winter clothes.”
Jefferson’s eyes flick bag to the bag that Hamilton is half-standing in front of, and then Madison enters into the room.
“Are we still going hunting?” he asks Jefferson, not sparing Hamilton a glance.
A pause that almost isn’t.
“My leg’s bothering me today,” Jefferson answers, hand absentmindedly going to the place Hamilton once dug a bullet out from. “Think it’s the weather. Take Hamilton.”
It’s not a suggestion. There’s a pause where Madison must weigh the risks of being alone with him versus looking though he has something to hide if he refuses.
Discomfort wins.
In seconds, Madison’s face is so obviously flat it’s obvious he has something to hide. That’s the problem, Hamilton thinks: he’s always been a goddamn tempest. It’s not out of the ordinary when he starts losing it and lashing out. Madison is his opposite: he gets too calm, too quiet, the still surface of a pond, glassy if not for the murkiness below. Jefferson notices, and, for a moment, seems unsure: he makes an aborted movement towards Madison, stops midway.
“Alexander?” Madison asks, fixedly not noticing.
“Fine.”
It’s not like the two of them can’t split up once they’re out of sight of the house anyways.
He’s acutely aware of the bag he’s still holding too closely in his hands. He knows they know that his go-bag is the green one on the table, and he knows that Madison notices when he trades it out with the bag in his hands. Knows he notices the other two.
“I’ll put your things away,” Jefferson says, and it’s not a suggestion.
Hamilton could argue, but he doesn’t. Doesn’t want to bring more attention to whatever it is they assume he’s doing. So he doesn’t argue, even though hindsight proves he should’ve. That’s the irony: the time he chooses not to pick a fight is when it might’ve led to the best outcome. A better one, at least.
Maybe he’s just tired. Maybe some part of him knows how it ends and just wants it to be over already. He doesn’t know.
Hamilton doesn’t know.
All he knows is that life just takes, takes, takes, and he has to keep on living anyways.
He and Madison don’t talk. They could, but they don’t. Hamilton wonders if even the empty conversations are no longer worth the expended effort.
Dead leaves, yellow faded brown, crunch underfoot. He’s cold, but didn’t bring a jacket. His mind pulls up a memory from the winter before, something he never could’ve accessed until this exact moment: Madison shrugging off his jacket, passing it wordlessly to him; Hamilton accepting, too cold for pride to make him reject.
Icy wind whips through the barren trunks.
Madison pulls his coat tighter around himself.
When Hamilton starts to shiver, he ignores the way he sees Madison look at him, like he’s about to offer something, like he’s about to do something that will mean too much.
He interrupts, harsh.
“Do you regret it?”
He doesn’t want it. Doesn’t want sympathy, doesn’t want love he can never accept, love he knows that Madison will never be able to give him.
(He wants it.)
( Fuck, does he want it, but it’s easier to stay out of arm’s reach than to be close to the things that aren’t his but could be.)
“What are you referring to?” Madison asks, so damn artificially measured that Hamilton wants to shake him.
“Oh, well, obviously wearing that ugly fucking scarf—Jesus, Madison, what do you think?”
Madison meets him as stone. His mask of complete indifference unbudging. Too flat.
A second passes them by.
“It doesn’t matter,” Madison says to the ground, a stroke of heartache in his voice. But then his eyes lift, and he turns, voice back to the cool, impersonal thing it once was, like they’ve erased a year of love in a single conversation. “It simply is what it is, Hamilton.”
“And what is it?” he asks, sharply, gaining momentum. Now that he’s starting, he doesn’t know if he’s going to stop. If he can stop. “Are you at least happy?”
“Happier than I would be otherwise,” he snaps back, an unexpected outburst.
And Hamilton could’ve said the same once.
Those glorious few months.
Those were worth an entire damn lifetime. It was worth it just to be cared about just for a short while, even if it meant the pain of watching someone else be loved.
It was worth it, but life takes and takes and takes, and now it’s taking from him again.
God, he wants to be happy. He wants it so badly. He wants nothing more than for Madison to turn to him and love him, to let himself be loved, to kiss him without—
“Was there anything I could’ve done,” Madison abruptly asks, “that would’ve made you happy?”
Hamilton laughs, bitterly.
“No,” he says, “because I’m never gonna be. I’m going to be alive, and that has to be enough.”
And it’s Madison’s turn to laugh, but he rarely laughs with humor anyways.
Great, Hamilton thinks, you’ve made him as miserable as you are yourself.
“I wanted to help you achieve more than the bare goddamn minimum.”
“Well, shit, James, you’ve got some fucking way of showing it,” he accuses. “I mean, how much more can you cut me out? All that talk about caring about me and making me feel like I belong, what, just out the window ‘cause I made one drunk mistake?”
“You know damn well it’s not about that. You were—”
“So what’s it about?” he challenges, and Madison turns to him, properly angry now.
“Of course I regret it!” Madison snaps. “And you know damn well that the reason why has nothing to do with you and everything to do with Thomas. Now that I’ve answered your question, answer mine. What is this about, Alexander? Your need to rationalize abandoning us?”
Hamilton’s foot catches on a rotten log, and Madison doesn’t stop, gathers speed, storm clouds darkening behind his eyes.
“What would you have me do, Alexander? What would you have me do when you don’t love me? It is what it is. The rules are what they are. ”
“Don’t pretend that things would be any fucking different if I did. It’s always been about Thomas, his constant fucking need for attention, and the way you give it to him first.”
“And so your response is to turn your back on both of us?”
“Don’t pretend like I was the first when I—”
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Madison explodes, veering on him before he suddenly reigns himself in, turns away, heels aggressively striking the ground, voice quieter but by no means calmer. “Am I supposed to stand here stoically until you hit a spot sore enough to provoke me? If you’re so miserable here that you would be better off walking away, then go.”
It’s like the air has been punched from his lungs.
“That did not come out how I meant,” Madison sighs, but his back stays to Hamilton. “I am not telling you to leave. Don’t take this as a dismissal.”
He turns, expression softened but still somehow distant.
“I know,” Madison exhales, “that you are not happy. I know I encouraged you to stay. But perhaps I shouldn’t have. And I would forgive you for leaving. If it’s what you want.”
If that’s what you want. What a goddamn mockery.
Black blurs around the edges of Hamilton’s vision. A simple rejection would hurt less.
“I know what I want, and I can’t have it because—”
He doesn’t know what he’s going to say, only that he shouldn’t say it.
It doesn’t matter how hard he runs or tries, he’ll always be like the man who made him.
Madison fills in the blank. Maybe with the only thing he ever could have said to finish the sentence. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Words left unsaid that might have stung less if he’d just finished what he’d started. The regret—regret too late—might be worse.
Because of you, Madison hears.
Madison’s expression is the perfect picture of indifference, but that’s all he manages.
It’s subtle, like everything about him, the way that his shoulders crumple slightly inwards, a tin can that Hamilton’s crushed under his heel. The slight lift of his chin for whatever height and air of untouchableness it gives him. And his eyes. He’s helpless as he watches Madison’s heart crumble in front of his eyes. A hundred cues he’s learned how to recognize too late, long after he could do anything about them. He’s the worst damn person ever to live.
“I see. So that’s where I stand, then,” Madison says, voice flat, perfectly controlled. “I’m an obstacle in the way of what you truly want. Regardless of everything, that is all you will ever let me be.”
“No. That’s not true”, Hamilton tries to backtrack, because it’s not true. God, he loves Madison, even if, no, almost as— “That’s not true. It’s just that—”
“Stop. Please, Hamilton, just be quiet this one time.”
Madison turns around. Walks away. Stops a good twenty feet apart. His shoulders visibly rise and fall as he schools his breathing, his expression. Welds steel over his broken heart, up around his voice, his eyes. And when turns back, every fibre in his body taut, everything gives away nothing except the impression of absolute barrenness.
“Go home, Alexander,” Madison tells him, flat.
How can he ever go home? There is no home.
“Madison,” he starts, vaguely sick.
“ Go. Home.”
He takes the words like a knife to the stomach, nausea creeping up in his throat. As Madison starts away, he rushes to catch up. Instinctively, he grabs hold of Madison’s arm.
“Please. I’m trying so fucking hard,” Hamilton says, voice desperate and thin. “I am.”
“To do what , Hamilton?” Madison asks, and there’s nothing in his voice, not even anger. Hamilton wishes he would be angry, because then he would at least know how to react, but no. Madison gives him absolutely nothing. Speaks detached and empty, looks into the distance.
And Hamilton doesn’t know, doesn’t fucking know how to answer that question, doesn’t know what he can say that won’t just make things worse, but he’s trying. Christ, he’s trying so damn hard, trying to do what’s best, and at every step, he just makes things worse. He knows it’s going to end, and he’s trying so damn hard in the face of failure anyways, clinging to hope in the face of an inevitable defeat.
He rises and falls and plays the game, but he’s always going to lose. That’s just who he is. He makes things worse for himself, worse for Madison, worse for Jefferson. And he wants to hold on, but he can’t. He can’t hold on any longer, can he?
Madison has already let go, hasn’t he?
Madison avoids him, stonewalls him, blocks him out. He just lets things happen, doesn’t fight, doesn’t yell, kick, scream. Madison has just fucking given up while Hamilton is clawing for every moment he can have, and Christ, he’s getting angry. He knows it’s unreasonable, knows he doesn’t have a goddamn leg to stand on, but it’s easier to be angry. It’s always easier. Easier to deflect from his own faults, to distract from his own misery, to earn some kind of reaction other than indifference.
And he knows Madison well enough to know just where to hit.
“Jesus, this is fucking par for course for you. You just fucking give up! You gave up Thomas, you’re giving up on both of us now, you don’t ever do anything! Christ, I mean, you’ve always been like this, haven’t you? You let your dad steamroll right over you—”
He doesn’t know it, not really, but it’s an educated guess, and he must be right, because that’s what does it.
Madison whirls around, grabs Hamilton by his collar, and yanks. Spins, slams him until his back up against the nearest tree, rough bark biting, unchecked anger fueling strength Hamilton wouldn’t have guessed he had. It’s all so sudden his eyes have barely widened by the time it’s over, staring into rage that goes all the way to the damn bone and deeper still.
And despite it all: low, quiet, gravelly. Dangerous.
“Do not dare to presume that you know a thing about me,” he says.
Hamilton meets his eyes, unflinching, grabs onto Madison’s wrist but doesn’t yet make a move to shove him away.
“You know that I am endlessly patient,” Madison says, almost a whisper, “so when you see that I am angry, and I tell you that I am angry, I want you to imagine exactly how strongly I feel.”
“Well, shit, if you’re pissed, at least that means you still give a damn,” he responds, unthinking, as raw as he can possibly come.
Love and hate are too similar, too alike: both burning passion, both implying a certain amount of dedication, the thought of someone persisting in their absence.
Apathy is worse.
Apathy is the opposite: absence of love, the absence of caring, placing someone even below hatred. Hamilton would rather Madison hate him than be apathetic.
At this rate, maybe he’ll cycle through both.
Madison’s expression somersaults through anger and surprise and confusion, something that could even be a flicker of sadness. He lets go. Steps away.
“I always will,” he says. “No matter how far away we are.”
But then he leaves.
It doesn’t matter, Hamilton tries to tell himself.
But it does, and it fucking hurts.
Hamilton walks through thick air, limbs physically heavy, ill to his stomach. He sits on the stoop, hands numbing and turning colors from the cold.
It’s only when he at last sees Madison trudging through the treeline empty-handed—expression calm, indifferent— that he finds the strength to stand up, turn around to go inside—if only to avoid an interaction.
How is he going to get through this winter? He can’t imagine walking endlessly again, not after the comfort, safety of a car. Maybe he wouldn’t have to, though.
Maybe he’ll find an old stick-shift he can coax into starting up. Jefferson’s instructions echo in his mind, push it downhill, change the gears—
Hamilton closes his eyes before he opens the door. Counts.
One. Two. Three. No point in getting mad now. Four five six seven—
He trails ahead into the hall, determined to keep space between himself and Madison. It’s not enough space. He should walk in the other fucking direction now and be done with it.
Later, he wishes he had.
Thirty seconds after he opens the door, he hears Madison come in. Hamilton follows a dozen feet behind. Madison searches the bottom floor for Thomas, finds him in the dining room. Hamilton moves towards the stairwell until he hears Madison speak. And then he stays still.
“Thomas?” Madison asks, voice thick with worry. “What’s wrong? Have you been crying?”
And when it’s time to collect the debt, Hamilton pays. He doesn’t have enough left in him, enough credit to his name to pay it off, but he certainly pays. Gives up every last damn thing he has.
Against what judgment Hamilton has left—against any judgment at all—he slides into the room. Maybe it’s concern, maybe it’s one more decision in a string of self-destructive behavior, but what matters in the end is that he’s there when the powder keg blows.
Hamilton lights the fuse.
Jefferson sits at a dining room table, a dozen opened letters splayed before him. His eyes are red-rimmed, faintly puffy, and filled with the worst accusations. It’s something that cuts to Hamilton’s core and shakes him senseless. It takes a long few seconds before Jefferson lifts his eyes from the table at all. His gaze slides right past Madison to Hamilton. Settles onto him.
Furious.
Hamilton isn’t looking at him. He’s looking at the table, its contents.
Papers at the bottom of the bag.
Letters, Hamilton thinks, and then he’s right back where he was in Montpelier, in Madison’s father’s office months ago, bearing witness to a history that isn’t his to know, a version of Jefferson a decade gone spilling his broken heart out in spidery cursive, unopened letters addressed to Jemmy, James, Madison in differing degrees of coolness.
The letters he read. The letters he took. The ones he should’ve thrown out but didn’t.
Stupid, he thinks, absolutely moronic.
“Why the fuck did you have these?” Jefferson asks Hamilton, voice cracked and swollen.
Madison shifts, turns to him, confusion fading fast to suspicion, taking Jefferson’s side without a thought. Of course, Hamilton thinks.
“You went through my fucking things,” is all he can think to say back.
Jefferson is up on his feet in an instant, stalking towards Hamilton, but Madison meets him halfway, puts a hand on his chest, stops him in his tracks, deescalating on instinct alone.
“Take a breath, Thomas,” he tries to soothe him, but Jefferson won’t even look at him. Madison turns, eyes angry, believing Jefferson over him without even an explanation from either of them, just as he always will. “Hamilton, care to explain?”
“Oh, he doesn’t need to explain anything to you, does he?” Jefferson snaps, abruptly stepping away from Madison, turning on him too. “I bet you already know exactly what the fuck I’m talking about,” he laughs, a tinge of hysteria in his voice.
Madison doesn’t respond right away, but Hamilton can see he’s still seething from their exchange. He sees it in the way his fingers stop tapping and knot at his side, an agitated melody cutting short. He’s frustrated, looks desperately tired, about to crack.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Madison says, like every ounce of his self-control is keeping his voice calm. “But I don’t think this is the right time to discuss this. I am tired and cold and too upset already to stand here and be yelled at—”
“Well, how the fuck do you think I feel?” Jefferson interrupts, overwrought.
“Oh, Christ above.” He rubs at some migraine appearing below his temples. “I don’t—listen, Thomas. Whatever this is, I am not going to discuss it right now. If it’s truly so urgent, let me have an hour to meditate, and then we will talk like adults.”
“Like an—like an adult?” Jefferson asks, stammering with wrath. “You treat me like a fucking toddler.”
“Because you act like one!” Madison snaps, stepping forward. “For God’s sake, listen to me! I couldn’t deescalate a goddamn playground dispute, let alone whatever we’re doing here.” He closes his eyes, pleads. “I need a break, Thomas. Please, just let me have a fucking break.”
Jefferson shakes with anger, compounded by the dismissal, hands trembling like leaves in a tempest as he picks up a letter.
“James,” he reads aloud, “I wasted four fucking years on someone that doesn’t even have the backbone to dump me to my face? All of your family’s emphasis on gentility, and you’re too much of a coward to have enough basic decency to tell me the truth about what I did wrong?”
The silence is profound. Madison pieces it together—or parts of it, whatever he needs to—and then turns to Hamilton, profound betrayal set in his eyes.
Thomas and I would’ve had years more of good time had I not broken up with him, some ghost, some memory of Madison confesses to him. To him alone. Because I’ve never felt certain I made the right choice, and I’m afraid more than ever that I didn’t.
Only two of the three of them should’ve known, and now they all do.
Madison opens his mouth to hurl an accusation at him, but Jefferson cuts him off before he can even speak, voice rising.
“Fuck him!” he shouts, “This is about us. Look at me and tell me you didn’t tell him before you told me. Tell me that you didn’t tell Hamilton about why you dumped and humiliated me.”
“Thomas, I don’t know about any letter,” Madison begins, “or any—”
“That’s not what I fucking asked!” Jefferson shouts, the outburst so shrill that Madison flinches away, visibly taken aback. “Do you think I don’t fucking know how you dodge questions? Do you think I wasn’t a fucking politican too? I asked you a direct question, and for once in my goddamn life, I want a direct fucking answer!”
Un. Deux. Trois.
Silence is a perfectly acceptable substitute for an answer, they find.
And an equally appropriate response, because all Jefferson can manage is a furious shake of his head, humiliation spilling hot and wet from his eyes.
“Get out,” Jefferson says.
He doesn’t look at either of them, but Hamilton knows who he’s talking to. Madison’s eyes snap to him, furious the second they’re no longer focused on Jefferson.
“Don’t move,” Madison snarls instantly after, “because this damn well does involve you.”
And Hamilton knows what he’s talking about too, because the letters on the table may as well be scarlet.
“Stop fucking talking to him! Stop fucking looking at him!” Jefferson shouts, switching to French, shutting him out. “This is about us! The way you’ve fucking treated me!”
“Thomas, I am begging you to let me take a moment,” Madison pleads, dropping his face into his hands, rubbing hard at his face.
“No! You’ve lied to me! You’ve gone behind my back! You’ve fucking cut me out when it should’ve been me who you went to! It’s supposed to be us against the world, and now it’s you and fucking world against me!”
Madison snaps.
“Christ, Thomas, I’m allowed to have other people in my life!” he shouts back, jerking up, and he’s slipping, snapping, too-tight tension pulling him to shreds.
“You think I’m fucking jealous?” he explodes, yelling too loud, too furiously not to attract attention. “Jealous? Jesus fucking Christ, are you even listening to yourself? Look at where we all are!”
“You can’t demand all of my attention every damn second of the day!”
“Well, you stepped over the fucking line! There’s a fucking line, and you crossed it! You fucking crossed the bridge and burned it too!”
“You’re already the center of your own damn world, Thomas, you can’t seriously expect to be the center of mine too—”
“—what, I can’t seriously expect you not to fucking humiliate me? Did you give those fucking letters to him? Me spilling my fucking heart out after you shattered it? Ha, Hamilton, look at pathetic little Thomas after you—after you... I can’t—!”
And they’re shouting, real anger and resentment in their words, interrupting openly, not listening to each other, just imploding in real time, and it all sort of fades. Hamilton stares blankly ahead, almost detached from it all, because if it’s in French, they don’t even want him there anyways. His mind tells him to turn, to leave while he’s ahead, but his legs don’t cooperate.
Real anger, his mind repeats. Not the tired, irritated bickering he’s heard in their spats, not even the genuine flicker of anger he’s heard in Jefferson’s voice over the past couple months. No, this is the real thing. This is the way he and Eliza talked to one another in the last hour of their relationship, some fight over something stupid, unimportant.
As he always does when it’s the two of them there and him off the side, Hamilton fades.
And then they bring him in.
“I didn’t even want—”
Oh, he thinks. But not oh as a breath, the implication of something more.
No.
Oh. Flat.
He hears the words rattle around his brain, a complete sentence. Static drowns out the second half. Some kind of defense mechanism. Let it go, his mind pleads with him. You could pretend you haven’t heard. And maybe if he tried, he could just stay in denial, pretend he hasn’t heard, block off the rest of the sounds and leave with his dignity intact. His pride. His heart.
His heart, still alive, not yet broken, still desperately feeling.
But part of him knows that there’s things that can’t be taken back.
It’s Madison.
“I didn’t even want to bring him with us! You were the one who insisted. Despite everything, you begged to go after him—and for what? To soothe your damned conscience! To wash your hands clean of all the people you left to die in Philadelphia!”
And when Jefferson doesn’t deny it.
“That I let die? We’d both be dead if it wasn’t for—”
They keep yelling, but Hamilton doesn’t hear a word of it. He walks back one step at a time, eyes frozen wide, heart frozen in his chest. Everything frozen. Yellow blurs and pops at the edges of his vision. Their yelling grows muffled, distant. He steps back again. The wall stops his spine. His mind rambles, on and on in a vicious, mocking monologue.
They didn’t want you there. They never wanted you there, here. This entire time, you thought they cared, and they didn’t, they never, ever fucking cared. They never—
Humiliation slinks up blistering from his lungs, stays in the hollow of his throat. It stings like wasps. Closes off his airway. His neck is hot. His face is hot. His eyes are hot. The pops of color take over his vision until he swims with yellow.
“Alex?” Jefferson asks, jolting him, and he realizes that they’ve stopped yelling, turned to him, slivers of confusion cutting through the anger on their face. The room is silent.
Alex.
He can’t breathe. His mind murmurs in voices that aren’t his, voices he knows.
You can’t be serious. You want to bring along a man who looks like he has fleas?
And Jefferson, Madison look at him with more and more worry, less anger as the seconds tick away in silence. But it’s not real concern. It was never real. It was all a fucking lie. Pity. Pity that wasn’t even for him. It was never for him. He was just the conveniently placed, conveniently in-need bastard they pinned it all onto.
He was nothing.
He always was.
He is.
Poor Hamilton, little pitiful Hamilton, too pathetic not to be personally tucked into bed. Our little charity case. Our mangy little adopted stray.
The tears that’ve been stinging his eyes spill over, but he wipes them away furiously, and all he can think of is how much he hates them both, hates himself even more for falling for their—their everything. And now they’re really feigning worry, but it’s a lie. Always a lie.
He was never anything at all.
What he can’t face, Hamilton pushes away. Swims down from. And he was colder once, frozen too solid for this to touch him, but damn if he hasn’t been thawed by warm hands.
And so he takes the opposite approach and burns.
He takes the humiliation in his chest, gasoline to the anger alight in his chest, and hatred comes burning out for flames, twisting his features. He knows that it’s temporary, only a brief flare-up, a split-second inferno before the flames fade, gasoline burnt down, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t fucking matter.
“Fuck you,” Hamilton says in quiet, flawless French. His voice trembles, and he hates that too, talks louder, angrier disguising how he can barely speak. “Fuck you both.”
Fuck you for not even wanting me around and for using me to feel better about yourselves and for making me think—
He’s going to choke if he keeps talking, look weak, and so he stops. He can’t be weak.
God, of course he was never anything. How could he ever have thought otherwise? Madison and Jefferson, from their swanky social circles and glitzy lives, never having to fight for anything, always having it all handed over on a silver platter, and him— him, with his ratty clothes and his shitty taste in booze and his inability to play a fucking instrument, scrapping for every shred of respect he could get. Of course. Of course.
The words settle. Quiet. Dawning horror between Madison and Jefferson.
The silence softens: for a second, the flames of Hamilton’s hate merely smolder.
And as the seconds tick by, maybe they all want to apologize. Maybe they all want to cry over the things that they can’t carry and take the things they’ve said back, but don’t know how to take that first step. Or maybe they’re all too proud to be the one to show quarter first.
They’re all too alike sometimes. All too proud, too stubborn, too set in their ways.
If one of them had tried, had a moment of vulnerability, laid their heart on the line—then maybe. Maybe things would’ve turned out differently.
But things turn out the way they were always going to go.
“Alexander,” Madison says, and maybe he even would’ve been the one to do it, ever the peacemaker between them all, because he steps forward looking like he’s been stabbed, steps away from Jefferson, and Jefferson’s eyes widen at the loss—
“Great,” he snarls over Madison, stalking forward, shoving a finger into Hamilton’s chest. “Fan-fuckin’-tastic. You speak French. Gold star. Another fucking lie! Christ above, is there anything else I should know before I get back to the argument I actually give a shit about?”
Hamilton looks down at the finger jammed against his chest. He looks up at Jefferson, how the sunlight through the window refracts through the dusty air and strikes his curls, how the remnants of tears shine at the edges of dewy lashes, how his eyes are burning with gasoline, how his white teeth are bared in something like a snarl.
Hamilton is on the edge about to topple over. He can either fade away or burn.
Stay alive, his mind sings.
And so he burns himself to stay alive.
He burns away everything inside his chest but his old stay-alive instinct and the very worst parts of himself—because those are what will keep alive. Everything else is ancillary, only hurts him or lets him be hurt, only humiliates him and whittles him down to the absolute worthlessness he feels now. But worth matters nothing if he’s dead.
He burns it all.
Sharpens every word left in his mouth into cruel points, spits like them like venom, and uses them to pierce Jefferson where he knows they’ll sting most.
Jefferson’s voice echoes in his mind, rattles, spits flames like a lighter: Is there anything else I should know before I get back to the argument I actually give a shit about?
“Sure,” Hamilton laughs cruelly. “I’m who your boyfriend gives more of a shit about these days.”
It’s not true, never has been, never will be, but it’s just enough of the truth to make it believable, to make it hurt more than anything else that he could say.
(And when it works, he realizes too late that it’s not what he wanted.)
Jefferson blinks. Steps away. Confusion floods his face, but resignation reigns in his eyes. But then he laughs anyways, like Hamilton has said something absurd, and the sound may be a little too hollow, but it’s still a laugh.
Madison stares at Hamilton, absolutely floored. Betrayal hasn’t even set in yet—only shock and the terrible, terrible realization of what Hamilton’s just revealed.
Jefferson looks at Madison.
And he stops laughing.
Steps back.
“Oh,” Jefferson says.
Oh. Flat.
Devoid of anger. Bravado. Self-confidence shaved to something small, nonexistent.
The space is hollow and ringing and too crowded all at once, and then Madison is coming at him, and for a split-second Hamilton thinks one of them is going to end up dead.
“It fucking gets me that I’m not surprised,” Jefferson says, and Madison stops his advance. “Isn’t that the saddest damn thing?” he asks, even though it isn’t a question. His voice is hollow. “That some part of me already knew , but that I believed you anyways. Because I wanted to. Because I wanted to think that I could trust— ”
Madison looks from Hamilton to Jefferson, torn between which to deal with first. But Jefferson takes priority. Of course he does. He always does, he always will, and at least Hamilton knows where he stands. At least he knows how fucking little he is.
“Thomas, what he said, I—” Madison tries to placate him. Too little too late, because now Jefferson has found his emotions again—every damn one at once.
“Don’t. I just want to know how the fuck you—how you even could.” Jefferson snarls, cutting him off, fury swelling even as his eyes grow glassy, overwhelmed by emotion and utterly incapable of settling on a single one. “You fucking kissed him, didn’t you? I thought it was him the whole damn time, the whole fucking time, but it was you, wasn’t it?”
“No, that isn’t—”
“Jesus. You did. You fucking did.” Jefferson smiles, acidic and bitter and full of self-loathing when he whips back to Hamilton. “You weren’t giving him space because he—it was because you— you both fucking lied to my face! Again and— again and again, and I knew you were lying, but I tried, and you, and you just spat in my face and lied. And I let you.”
“My God , just listen to me—” Madison begins, and then Jefferson boils over.
“What the fuck do you think I’ve been doing?” he laughs, tears streaming freely down his face even as he smiles, all white, all self-loathing, all hysteria hurt and anger and betrayal.
“You’re—”
“—a fucking joke to you both. A joke,” he sobs out, shoulders shaking, arms wrapping around himself like they’ll hold him together. “You didn’t even give me chance. I loved you both, and you made me into a joke.”
“You didn’t love me,” Hamilton quietly says before he can stop himself.
The hysterical smile slides from Jefferson’s face. Hamilton thinks of hiding, but then he realizes it doesn’t matter anyways. And when Jefferson finally just laughs, there’s nothing kind in the sound, his smile is equally parts watery and vicious when it returns.
“So it was me all along.”
Hamilton smiles, hoping he doesn’t look quite so broken.
“Who else?”
“You’re so brutal to those who love you,” Madison says, quietly.
Jefferson looks at him, then back to Hamilton.
“I thought it was him. Not me,” he says, laughing weakly. “I thought—well, shit, I thought a lot of things.” Each word punches, stiff, spat out. “And you know what I think now? Too fuckin’ bad you picked the wrong one, because I could’ve. I could’ve loved you. I—” He turns back to Madison. “But I fucking didn’t. I didn’t . For what, James? For you?”
“You could’ve,” Hamilton parrots him, sour, doubtful. “Be honest. Was I ever actually your friend? Or just your charity case? Your sad little foster kid?”
He sees the decision happen in Jefferson’s mind as he makes it, can see the humiliation and outrage and bitterness that condense themselves into the next words that leave his mouth.
“You’re not anything to me now, so I guess it doesn’t fucking matter.”
It seems to tax him, use up some of the last of whatever anger he has left. He looks away, overwhelmed, embarrassed, exhausted, ricocheting between emotions. Shakes like a leaf in the wind, so far removed from the overconfident figure that Hamilton knows too well.
Some part of Hamilton wants to reach out, offer an olive branch, but they’re beyond that. He burns the branch in his mind and watches it smoke to ash just before Jefferson scrapes together the last of his energy, like even speaking takes too much out of him.
“Get the hell out of my life,” Jefferson says, and when he looks at Madison, his shoulders shake with mostly silent, racking sobs. Between bitten-off gasps, he chokes out, “You too. I don’t need either of you. I don’t fucking want either of you. Get out.” He swallows hard. And then explodes in one last frenzied burst of fury, hysteria, voice scraping over itself in its volume. “Both of you— get the hell out of my life! Get out! Get the fuck out! Get the fuck out!”
“You don’t mean that,” Madison says after a long second has passed, and now his voice is quiet, sapped of anger, nothing left but a shell of fear. “You don’t want me to go.”
He steps forward, but Jefferson rears back, looks him down furiously, and now more than ever is their height difference pronounced: Madison small, Jefferson looming in rage.
“You know what? You’re right. I don’t want you to go. It’s my fucking turn to leave you. I’ll take my car, and I’ll get the fuck out, and—”
His voice cracks.
“I hope you’re real fuckin’ happy together.” He turns to Hamilton, vicious, and takes a page from his book. Takes out the worst page, turns back all the hurt into something that hurts back. “Who knows, Hamilton? Maybe you can keep this boyfriend alive.”
That’s the thing about love. That’s the thing. It makes you weak. You give someone your heart, and you put them in the best position to hurt you.
Jefferson’s last words to him.
“Thomas,” Madison gets out, horror briefly overriding fear, but Jefferson’s already halfway gone, and he starts to follow, but Jefferson slams the door so hard that Madison freezes, eyes wide.
He stands there, face-to-face with the door. A moment passes.
“Well,” Hamilton says emptily, because that’s all he can manage. No humor, no happiness, no emotion at all. Everything else has been sucked clean from the marrow of his smoked-dry bones. “At least there aren’t any more secrets, huh?”
Madison’s expression darkens to ash, but he says nothing, presses the knuckles of a knotted fist so firmly against his mouth that the skin must be bruised and his lips bloodied the next day. But Hamilton isn’t around to ever find out.
The seconds tick on.
“Well?” he prods, and maybe he wants Madison to unload, tell him all the worst sorts of things. Maybe he thinks it’ll clear his conscience.
And if that’s the case, Madison refuses to give him the satisfaction.
“I am telling myself,” Madison finally answers, “that I would rather my last words to you not be something I might later regret.”
It’s then, too late, that he realizes Madison does love him the same as he loves Thomas. Or only comes to believe. One or the other. But it’s another thing that doesn’t matter.
And maybe the same is true of him, maybe he loves—maybe it’s not—maybe.
It doesn’t matter. It’s done.
He leaves Madison there, bereft and frozen, knuckles pressed to his mouth. Alone.
Alone like Hamilton has been all along.
Hamilton heaves his backpack over his shoulders. Loads his pistol. Pulls on his hiking boots. His jacket. Tucks his knives into his belt. His pocket. He moves mechanically. Methodically. Searches for the brutal, vicious yellow thing in his chest that keeps him alive.
Outside.
The Escalade is gone, black tire-tracks smeared in its wake.
This time, Hamilton doesn’t walk down the road when he leaves. He’s no one’s charity case now, no one’s reason to smile. Never will be again. He doesn’t walk down the road.
No, this time he turns and heads into the woods—westwards, chasing the sun, dying daylight. West, he thinks, is as good of a direction as any. There’s nowhere to go. No one to be.
Tomorrow, the sun will still rise whether he’s alone, alive or dead.
I have to find somewhere to sleep, he thinks. And something to drink.
He pushes Jefferson and Madison away to the same place he lets Laurens live in his mind. Off into the periphery. Not forgotten, but where he wishes they were.
I’m on my own, his mind keeps telling him. But tomorrow the sun will rise.
How long can he make it? Does he even fucking want—
He's alone.
Alone the day after too, and the day after, and the day after, and the day—
Notes:
are you still happy i updated? let me know in the comments :)
and, yes, for the record, scuppernongs are the best fucking fruit in existence.
Chapter 10: The Means to Go On
Notes:
there are some content warnings for this chapter (moderate spoilers). CW: suicidal thoughts and behaviors/background drug abuse. proceed with caution if these bother you!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
He dreams in monochrome. Gold honeycomb hues that jaundice.
Whispers on fingers on his cheeks, of running after a train as it pulls out of the station, of his mouth sewn shut because it’s the only way to keep himself safe.
In the coldest and starkest nights, he dreams of Thomas.
He smiles: white teeth, that gorgeous white grin, so bright could almost bleach away the black, red, yellow stains on Hamilton’s heart. Brushes a few stray strands of hair out of Hamilton’s eyes. Looks at him in that soft way where that sharp edge of superiority is shaved down, where he’s open and vulnerable and like he’s—
“Think it suits you. Looks good,” Thomas drawls to him one night, fingers curled in the delicate little hairs by his temple, and Alex—
Jolts upright. Stumbles to the bathroom, throat tight and chest hollowed. Stares at himself in the mirror. He’s all concave curves and harsh angles. The only thing about him that isn’t sharp is his eyes, and his hair is much, much too long.
A fucking liability. It always has been.
Hamilton slams open the medicine cabinet, snatches a pair of scissors, thank god, and— shreds through it all in hasty, jerky strokes. Leaves it short and jagged and uneven, as close to buzzed as he can: safe. It’s safer, better to survive, just like he’s been doing all along.
He should have always had his hair cut this way.
It makes something in his chest ache, and he stares until he picks out a hundred things about his face he doesn’t recognize and the sun glints off the snow outside, piercing white.
The thing about self-destructing, Hamilton rediscovers, is that it’s so damn easy once you get started.
But death has always promised to take its time with him, whether he’s wanted that or not. Maybe even especially when he hasn’t.
Hamilton knows, vaguely, when his first week alone has passed. By the second, things get fuzzy. And once what might be the third one rolls around, he’s lost his sense of time.
No point in it.
So time passes. Maybe more than he thinks, maybe less. But he doesn’t know how much, and it’s better that way. All he knows is that it’s still winter, that the temperature drops so low at night he can’t stay outside unless he’s moving. His fingers freeze and refreeze. His knuckles crack open into raw ridges and pink valleys. Sometimes when he coughs, there’s a bit of red in it.
Snow keeps falling, and his feet, his limbs, his chest harden like permafrost.
He should go south, but he doesn’t know which way south is. He could look at the sun, figure it out, but the mere thought of it exhausts him. It’s all he can do to keep his head up. He’s weak and tired. Easy pickings. But he can still look ahead. So he heads that way, whatever it might be. Presses forward.
Thaw. Unthaw. Hunger. Hunting. Food. Fatigue. Sleep.
(It seems to him that one of these days he should close his eyes and just not— )
When Hamilton isn’t moving, not trying to force heat into his limbs, not doing something—h e thinks. There’s no choice, much as he tries to stop it. His mind, the whirlwind that it is, has only ever been able to be subdued. Not controlled. It must be part of what’s wrong with him, why he ruins so many things when he runs out of distractions.
He thinks about all the bodies that never made it to a morgue, that bled out and bloated and rotted out atop the soil and sunlight. Behind the shades of the curtains in ritzy downtown apartments.
(About John—whether he made it out to see one last sunset or sunrise or the stars or died indoors, a place he never quite seemed comfortable).
He wishes he could be burned when he goes. Cremated. Absolute certainty: it’s the only way he could never come back, it feels like. Where he could finally be free from the fucking heaviness of staying alive, float away on the wind in little spackles of dust.
He wants no more of these half-deaths.
In the in-between spaces, he thinks about his own death. He thinks until it crystallizes into not just a memory, but something that’s already happened, that’s happening to him with every step. It grows so familiar he no longer fears it, sees it in his sleep, seven feet ahead of him.
He lets it be.
Hypothermia, starvation, bullets, bloody: quick is what he cares about most. Fast, before he dies crying and screaming out for people who aren’t coming to save him. Who might not save him even if they were there.
(God, he wishes they were there.)
But as much as he thinks about dying, he can’t quite seem to do it.
Alone, he remembers how to survive. Dusts off his cold, quiet parts and lets them take the wheel. There’s no one to pretend around. No more masks. At his core, he knows who he is.
Alone, he remembers how to survive to only the sound of his heartbeat (no melody— no, that was Madison’s alone to manipulate, and Hamilton sees his fingers flying over the keys in his sleep). He survives in steps. Keeps busy. Tries not to think.
Find food. Avoid the infected. Kill them when he can’t. Find cover for the night. Thaw.
Being warm— like death—becomes a memory.
God, he’s always so fucking cold. And always shivering. It would be fucking misery, if he’d let himself feel it. But the dull throb of his broken, cracked skin grounds him.
Proof that he can’t seem to die. Can’t seem to just fucking give up.
(It occurs to him one day, that maybe he just needs to help it along.)
He makes a point to avoid mirrors.
With Madison, with Jefferson—that had been the last time his own reflection felt safe. Like he was truly there. Like it was safe for him to think, to exist, to enjoy it in little flashes.
But one day he doesn’t look away from his reflection fast enough, and, as he bores into himself because he’s too tired to look away, it occurs to him that he’s probably turned twenty-five. It’s at least January. It has to be. Surely it is.
Huh, he thinks with a particular kind of detachment that he’s mastered.
He looks older. Feels older. But he has already for a long, long time.
Twenty-five, he thinks.
If he died with his mother, he would’ve gotten half as many. If he hadn’t woken up to shake her shoulder, to tell her that his fever had finally broken—
Twenty-five, and he never thought he’d live past twenty.
But now here he is, older than Laurens ever was and will ever be. Here he is, getting older and tireder and colder by the day while the dead are frozen in time.
That hits him somewhere raw. Because here he is, growing older, and everyone he loves who’s gone is frozen in time, stuck like that forever. It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that it’s him who has to grow old, who has to struggle day in and day out about his legacy, his story, whether anything gets told at all or if he should just fade away to nothing.
He dreams that night of Madison bringing something down heavy against his skull ‘til he spills open like a pomegranate, rind and red arils pulp-beaten, bleeding.
It isn’t even a nightmare anymore.
The thing about being alone is that it’s freedom—and that absolute freedom is dangerous. No responsibility. No liability. No need to think of anyone, anything else. Only yourself. He eats when he wants. Stops walking when he wants. Avoids infected when he wants; kills them when he wants. Sleeps when he wants (never).
He can do whatever he wants, and there’s no one to get in his way. No one to tell him to slow down. To talk him off the edge. To tell him not to—
Blow his fucking—
John laughs at him when he sleeps. Asks,
Why did you let me stop you?
Hamilton wishes he hadn’t. It was the wrong kind of saving.
He wonders, sometimes, if they dream about him.
He wants to tell them that he’s doing fine. That he never needed them anyways.
Maybe his cruelty has saved them: maybe now they don’t have to care. If he’s alive or dead, hungry or safe. That he doesn’t keep thinking it would just be easier to—
Caring about anyone but himself has never been an advantage.
In February, January, maybe still December— what does it matter? —Hamilton breaks down.
He wakes up with pounding behind his eyes, a throat that feels stuffed with handfuls of loose gravel. His chest rattles with every labored gasp. Sick. Fucking sick. Bad sick. Sick like Nevis. Yellow skies. Like lying down to die, Madison lifting something over him and —
It takes all of his energy to dig medicine out of his bag, but he can’t even think. Can’t make sense of the words on the bottles, the way they blur into hieroglyphics. He settles for a little bit of everything. Maybe it’ll make it better. Maybe it’ll kill him. Fuck it.
He falls back into fever dreams.
Shapes and figures and bright colors. Incoherent: he melts into nothing and sinks into the soil and comes alive trapped under the surface. Someone digs him up and chases him with an axe to make him dead proper. He hides until the scene shifts, and then it’s dying all over but always without the relief. There’s always a sense of urgency following him: some undone task, some deadline, some knowledge he’s late. Nothing he does is enough, and then come the faces.
He dreams of someone who could be Angelica if he remembered her face. She looks down at him, laughing mockingly: congratulations, she tells him. And then the scenery shifts and he’s with Burr and Burr is chiding him too, you played and you raised the stakes and now you have nothing left to lose, and then it all twists again and the liberty bell is chiming, the sound deeper as the crack along its side widens, deeper, deeper, and his skull splits —
But he keeps waking up.
There’s a moment, sometimes, when he does. Wakes up and expects to see faces there that won’t be there. Different faces, usually. His mother’s, sometimes. His friends’. Others.
The first split-second before he remembers himself—the only moments of peace he has, followed by a nosedive every time.
“Madison?” he slurs out when he feels the fever of being infected settle in, and — and then he wakes up again, one more time, and he’s not alone.
Footsteps. Something that could be a voice—or not—but his head throbs too much and his ears are too stuffed full with cotton to figure it out. Maybe he’s still dreaming.
His hands curl around his gun. Vision spinning too much to see. Hands shaking, palms sweaty as he aims at the door. His throat aches with a cough he can’t let out.
But he can’t shoot. He can’t. Not if he wants to stay quiet, under the radar of infected. He can’t run. He can’t shoot. But if he has to... He’s weak, helpless, easy pickings. They’ll rob him and kill him, and again he forgets that he just wants the hurt to stop because he has to survive.
His vision blurs and twists, and he slumps backwards.
The last thing he sees is the knob as it turns.
And then it’s John.
Oh, how Hamilton wants what he is. He wants to go back to him.
But not today, he begs without knowing why, not today, please, not today.
He falls asleep.
Warm ocean breeze over his skin, the sound of gulls, waves against a yellow shore. He breathes out the only weightless breath he’s had in a long time. He’s not cold anymore. And it’s almost like he’s been here before.
But he wakes up. It’s Thomas’s face he sees this time, and then the pain comes rushing back.
Everything swirls in crayon melts of color. His stomach churls, vomit begging to burst through his ribs if it can’t come through his throat. But the colors gradually separate and dim as he works in and out of consciousness in the days that follow until he wakes up for certain.
He looks around, but the space in the bed next to him is empty. His head throbs at the light that sneaks in between the ugly gauzy curtains he made the mistake of letting John pick out.
Look! You like green, right?
Uh, I like not asparagus-puke-green, yes. And this is not that. Aren’t gay men supposed to have good taste?
Even as his limbs ache, the memory brings up a little smile. He looks down at his nightstand and finds a note there, next to a glass of water next to a few tabs of Aspirin. He picks up the paper, scrawled in two distinct messy scripts.
Went out for hair of the dog breakfast with Herc. Love you :) -J
You pathetic lightweight. You’re lucky you had me to drag your sorry ass home. -Herc
He laughs a little, then abruptly stops when his head pounds. God, his throat is dry. He throws back the water and the pills and stands to stretch.
“Fuck,” he grumbles as his spine pops a little too deeply. He trods to the shower and steams himself for a good hour, then heads back into the bedroom to get ready.
His attention gets diverted almost immediately by John’s nightstand. It’s so cluttered with random shit he can barely see the wood: papers and pens and chapstick and hair ties and lube—real classy, John, he thinks fondly as he steals a hair tie. His eyes flick to the back of it, to a photo frame, and a smile tugs at his mouth.
He picks it up: him and John smiling together, obviously tipsy or worse, covered in blue stripper glitter at some stupid shit Columbia football game John dragged him to for the sake of team spirit. And then they’d pre-gamed, tailgated and smoked an eighth between them at Hercules’s shop and showed up so, so drunk. He had asked where the home base was at halftime, and John had laughed at him so hard he’d nearly pissed himself. God. Fucking stupid idiots they were. That they still are— perfect reckless idiots enabling each other’s stupidity. John is perfect, wonderful, amazing, the best match he ever could have hoped for.
He’s still smiling as he sets the photo down, then goes to the garment bag hung on the closet: an all black-suit, crisp, tailored to him perfectly. Hercules did the fitting, because of course he did. How has he been so lucky, to end up with the best of friends and the best of partners?
He grabs John’s keys on his way out the door—doesn’t want to risk his suit getting dirty on the fucking subway—and then starts to drive.
(Something about it niggles in the back of his mind. He doesn’t have a license, does he?)
The roads out of New York grow quiet and empty as he goes, and he spares a moment to be grateful that there’s no traffic, because he can’t be late.
(Where is he going?)
As he drives, the bright sun in the sky clouds over: low and grey. Everyone is waiting when he gets there already, watching him as he approaches, almost breaking into a run. He checks his watch. He’s sure he’s on time, but—
Head low, he rushes to take his place in line and studies the almost sickly green grass below his shoes. He’s wearing sneakers for some reason, and the realization sends another flush of embarrassed red down his neck. He doesn’t look up again. He doesn’t know anyone here, and there’s no one to help him, save him from everything he’s already screwed him.
Why doesn’t he know any of the faces? Shouldn’t he, for this?
The people in front of him grab handfuls of dirt, one-by-one. He doesn’t know why, but he’s too afraid to ask, and so when it’s his turn, he leans down too. The dirt drips between his fingers even as he clenches harder around it, and his black suit cuff smears with brown.
He follows in line. Why are they in line?
Yellow flowers: carnations.
What is going on?
Where is he?
Why did he come here?
And the answer is obvious when he takes one step forward because it’s his turn and he looks down and sees the grave plot, eight feet long and three feet wide and six feet deep.
He suddenly remembers what he’s supposed to do with his handful of earth. He knows who it’s for. He finally sees someone he knows.
Madison’s eyes stare glassy upward at the sky, skin ashen, charcoal grey suit tattered and bloodstained. Hamilton freezes. Heart stops. Madison breathes in with a rattle, his slight chest rising weakly. His eyes, unfocused, hazy, slip to him. Bloodied lips move, mouthing words.
Help me.
“He’s not dead!” Hamilton protests, eyes shooting up, heart pounding, but it’s one of those dreams where he can suddenly neither speak nor move, trapped in quicksand, and his limbs lag behind his intentions. “Someone help him! Someone fucking save him! He’s not—”
His plea gets cut off when he sees someone he knows several feet away. Or someone he used to know, but there’s no one there anymore. There’s no one there behind Thomas’s eyes, and his neck is rotting away in strips of black flesh, and his teeth are yellow and broken and jagged—
He screams, and that’s what he’s doing as he wakes.
For a few terrifying moments, he can’t stop, and he’s afraid he’ll never be able to, that he’ll scream until he chokes up blood and curls over dead.
But then he has to suck in a ragged breath, but still, but still, he cannot calm himself down. Because it was a dream but it felt so real, felt like—
“Madison!” he calls out, voice rasping. He stumbles out of the sheets. “Madison! Madison!” He coughs hard, and then the word rips from his throat with a flood of wetness in his eyes. “James!”
Maybe the rest was just a dream, and he’ll come rushing in, and Hamilton can—he can… he can just —
He waits. No one answers. Of course no one does: he’s alone. Somewhere far away, an infected howls.
But the sick, nauseous feeling that something terrible has happened sticks to him all night and into the next day. He wakes up with the same heavy feeling weighing on him in a way he can’t shake, not like any of his other nightmares—lingering, lingering, lingering.
It doesn’t go away, and he doesn’t dream about Madison again.
He increasingly thinks about the two bullets in Charleston, South Carolina. The one that he saved behind the mirror for John, in case he’d ever been bitten.
And the one he’d saved for himself.
He feels sure that his is still waiting.
It starts on accident. He’s walking through the forest. Or what he thinks is the forest. And then the trees start to break, and—there they are. Two Redcoats, a dozen feet away, walking towards a break in the trees that he realizes too late is a road.
He freezes. Goes to draw his gun, and takes a step back, tries to duck behind a tree. Except his foot lands on a branch through the heavy snow that snaps with a loud crunch.
The Redcoats spin around; he freezes. There’s a moment when the three of them stare at each other, each daring the others to move first.
“I don’t want trouble,” Hamilton says after a second, because he can probably outdraw one, but two, and… maybe they won’t recognize him. Maybe the years and his hair and the fact that he’s still somehow fucking alive will throw them off his scent.
“Put your hands up,” one of the Redcoats says after a second, not unfriendly, but the words make his chest tighten anyways. “Got to make sure you’re clean.”
“Clean?” he repeats after a second. His voice rasps and scrapes in unfamiliar ways after so little with so little speech. Or maybe he’s just forgotten the sound, and that’s how it’s always been.
“Not bitten?” the other Redcoat asks, brows raising like he’s said something stupid.
“Found a live one!” the second Redcoat shouts over his shoulder to the road, and Hamilton’s heart thumps, pounds faster, not good, not good, fuck—
“You don’t look all that healthy,” the first says, giving him a critical scan. “But you must be tough if you’re still alive this far out. We could use another body. Do you know the area?”
Hamilton nods numbly as he feels his throat close. The other one is walking towards him, raising one hand to relax him as he eases some kind of handheld device out of his pocket.
“It’s not that bad,” the one goes on. “Guaranteed food, most of the time. Two-person signing bonus to send to one of the England safe zones. Four if you pick one of the east coast ones. And…” The spiel continues on but he fades out, fades away and wonders if this is where he dies.
The device is lifted to his head. He doesn’t move. For a moment, he thinks it might be a gun, that he’s been tricked, and now he’s dead. But it doesn’t fire—no. It screeches instead, an awful shrill sound, flashes bright red. And— oh, fuck, when has that ever been a good thing?
He catches a glimpse of a word on the screen of the thing as it falls, and—
INFECTED.
The Redcoats look at him again, but their expressions have changed. One of their hands twitches.
Hamilton goes for his pistol before he even realizes what’s happening. HIs gun goes up. Bullets go in both their heads, necks, chests.
There’s a shout from the road, then several, and then Hamilton realizes he’s fucked.
He runs, sprints. Thorns whip through his legs, arms, every inch of exposed skin as he clambers up a steep hill as fast as he can in the thick, powdery snow, and throws himself behind the first wide trunk he sees. Voices call, shout, and he spins around, shoots down two before they even know what’s hit them. The white helps here: there’s no good cover.
He counts figures as fast as he can— un, deux, trois…
Seven.
God. Fuck. He never should’ve stopped running. He doesn’t turn around again, because he can hear gunshots firing regularly, enough covering the others to make sure he has no chance. He can hear the shouts getting closer, hear them coordinating, communicating, closer, closer, closer to flanking him.
He wonders how many he can take out before he takes a shot to the neck. It’s not going out in a blaze of glory, exactly, but at least he’s going down fighting. Maybe he’ll have saved someone down the line, taking the few of them out that he can manage.
It’s numbers. Just numbers. Numbers. A numbers game.
(Seven to three would’ve been better.)
Numbers: that was why he stayed, and that’s why he’s going to die.
So this is it, then.
He closes his eyes and sees Madison sitting at the piano, hears a string of violin music. The low hum of conversation and tired smiles in the morning. Two cups of coffee and one cup of tea on the table. Feeling safe. Falling asleep on someone else’s shoulder: waking up wrapped in a blanket. Comfort. Friendship. Love, before he fucked it all up: the good kind of love, not the destructive, ruinous thing he brings into the world.
Alexander. Alex just the once. But Alex, always Alex with—
You could’ve been happy, he thinks. Even then.
He’s at peace with dying until he’s not, flirting with relief he can’t have when he remembers that, when he has to be, he’s cold and twisted and yellow inside, when he has to be. Or maybe always.
He twists around the trunk and takes down three more in a lucky spray. Then, with a thought and a prayer and a mental sign of the cross just in case, he goes down hard. Hand under his chest, arm pinned, face straight to the dirt. He doesn’t move, but even if he could, he wouldn’t breathe. He’s honestly still not even sure if he’s alive, or if the snow is melting red beneath him.
The shooting slows, then stops.
“Is he dead?” someone calls after a dozen seconds.
Still, Hamilton doesn’t breathe.
Footsteps crunch carefully through the powder. Hamilton stares down into white. Watches as a set of boots slowly comes up into his peripheral vision. A toe prods him. He can’t see what they’re doing, where they are, and he doesn’t know what to do, when to—
The boot kicks hard into his side. His eyes go wide as something in his ribcage cracks.
It takes a miracle and a half for him to stay silent, and it comes in the form of two faces flashing behind his eyes, an eye for each.
I’m sorry, he thinks.
“He’s dead,” the man over him says. “Fucking Americans.”
“It’s everything about this colony,” another voice laments, pitch rising as they approach hysterical. “We should’ve blasted this whole colony into the ground when—”
“Stop your damn whinging,” a third voice joins in this, sharp and rough, somewhere behind him. “We’re lucky to still be alive.”
“Yeah, and what about—?”
“On them. Shoulda shot him on sight. No one but bandits and turncoats out here.”
Play dead, play dead, play dead.
His mind chants the words until he no longer needs to breathe, to think. It almost takes away the fear that they’ll notice that he’s not bleeding out.
And then he hears the sound of fabric rustling, the sound of a gun being reloaded—
Fuck.
Hamilton explodes upwards, looks, one, two, three. He tracks movement without seeing, shoots, grabs the dropped rifle of the man closest to him, aims again, shoots down the one body he sees still moving, choking, bleeding, dying.
And then—because he learns from others’ mistakes (but never his own)—he double-taps.
He thinks of the radio the three of them had.
It was lying in the Escalade the day Jefferson left. He doesn’t know if Jefferson would even ever turn it on. If he still has it. What channel he would use.
If he’s even fucking still alive.
He’ll never try to use it like that because it’s better not to know, but he takes the radio with him anyways.
Jefferson never calls, of course. And even if he did, Hamilton wouldn’t answer. He’s done enough already.
He does, however, get an information highway. A secure channel on the radio, Redcoat-used. Military purposes.
Anything he could ever need to wreck their shit.
He shouldn’t, of course. But that’s the thing about self-destruction. After long enough, it starts to feel like relief.
Time drags on. The silence breaks with static from the radio, the occasional burst of activity. He tries to pay it no mind for a while. Turns the damn thing off completely. Detaches from it, shoves it as far as he can under the rest of his shit in his backpack.
The restlessness under his skin prickles like needles, then knives.
It’s so hard to eat, even to drink now sometimes, to just keep the functions going.
He fights infected when he could run.
He takes a bullet to the calf in a firefight with bandits.
He didn’t have to fight them. He could’ve slinked away. But he starts a firefight just for the hell of it, and when he gets shot and remembers that he doesn’t want to die, he thinks the same thing he’s thought a hundred times before.
You didn’t have to do this.
A bullet slices through the air beside his cheek.
But he closes his eyes and the ocean stretches out infinitely in front of him. Feels the sand under his bare toes. The sunshine on his skin. The call—
He sees the stars. Cool metal beneath his back: black Escalade roof. And the stars: all of them, beautiful, brilling in a way he could never see in the hazy, orange New York night sky.
Then a beat without a melody swells up in his ears, and string music sings, and—
He shoots the last of them, then drags himself to a library. The closest cover. Digs out the bullet with a pair of tweezers between rows of children’s books. Wraps himself up with shaky hands. Stares dizzily at the painted domed ceiling as his leg soaks through the bandages. Makes out the mural: children trailing after a man playing a pipe. Some fucked-up fairy tale. Here, it feels psychedelic. He wonders if this is it.
It isn’t.
(He doesn’t seem to—)
It never seems to be. He can look death in the eye, but he can never quite shake his hand.
His calf heals up ugly: a too-smooth purple-red indent just south of his knee. Another part of him warped, made unrecognizable compared to the before.
And now there’s no one to remind him who he is. No one to stop the bleeding.
He’d like to say he lasts a long time before the silence is finally too much. He’s pretty sure it isn’t, but every day drags endlessly.
He takes out the radio. He listens. Listens to the Redcoats chatter and prattle: shipments and trades and bandits.
Bandits.
Bandits: anyone not decked out in Tory red who doesn’t quarter troops or slash into their supplies and bend over for a boot up their ass. The Redcoats are all across the Midwest breadbasket: industrial farms, conscripted workers, the food shipped straight out across the sea. It’s hard to say if the cities sound better when anyone risks getting shot in the streets for the barest whisper of seditious hearsay between food shortages, riots, martial law.
And he starts to remember who he is. Or—who he was.
Who he was with Laurens, with John, the last good thing he had that he went and fucked up too when he didn’t die with him. John—the only person who he still has, in a way.
Because neither of them ever chose to leave each other. Because he still has the strip of photos in his pocket: something left over, something to prove his existence.
And what does he have of anyone else?
He finds more and more of his time spent running his thumb over the torn bloody corner of his photo strip. It’s faded a little by show, showing wear, but it’s still his. The last thing he has to ground him. Minute by minute as he looks, he remembers who he used to be.
Oh, John, still trying to save him from beyond the grave.
And, well, anything is better than the nothing he is now. Even an echo.
The thing is, he doesn’t expect to make it out alive.
Again and again: he doesn’t expect to.
He doesn’t really think about it, but he doesn’t expect to. He just doesn’t expect to see it coming: the bullet he keeps expecting. Entry through the soft palate, exit through the parietal. End it all in less than a second: a blink and it’s over, fuck a legacy.
It keeps seeming likely. Keeps seeming like the Redcoat platoons he finds through the radio have him outnumbered and outmanned and outgunned. But he somehow always pulls it off. Somehow finds strength he shouldn’t have, smartness he doesn’t seem to use except when it’s his neck on the line.
He hits them randomly. Irregular: three in a day, nothing for a week—or what feels like one, anyways. He’s everywhere: highways, backroads, suburbia.
He gets good at laying out his ambushes, and then he gets better. Strategic stops, high ground. Spike strips from an old police station. And then he starts to use the infected. Plays them against each other, throws bottles and bricks to get their attention, then stays out of sight until the fighting’s over. Takes out softened, tired stragglers. The grenades help immensely, when he intercepts weaponry cargo heading west.
And when the Redcoats wisen up and stop speaking about their locations, it doesn’t matter, because he’s already mapped out their routes. He’s already listened in, and he knows exactly where they’re going, exactly what safe havens they’ve carved out inland. He knows the roads into all of them, knows where to wait and how to choke them into using one path over the other.
He would have made such a good soldier, if the war had played out like it should’ve. Finished school, enlisted, worked his way up. That had been the plan.
John would’ve been beside him. If they had been able to live in that world.
He hears things about the world he has. Boston still exists, he hears. British colors. God. What a lifetime ago that was. Things were so simple then. Things are simple now too, he supposes. Only a thousand times more bleak.
He hears accusations in silence, all the things he should never have said.
The world deserves to end. It doesn’t deserve saving. It’s always been like this. He gets it now. No one has really changed: the holds have just come undone. There has never been justice or fairness or fucking anything, life just is what it is and always will be—people fucking looking out for themselves and doing whatever the hell it takes to keep themselves ahead and alive because anyone, everyone, the few who might have been a good person in a better life is dead.
The world doesn’t reward kindness. It never has. It rewards the bastards of the world, who backstab and defraud until there’s no one left who cares.
He doesn’t let himself stop moving long enough to care, or else he knows the world will get him too.
Violence is the only language everyone understands, his instrument, whose notes take the shape of his gun shooting first, the shkk of a grenade pin pulling, his feet pounding the ground as he sharpens his hunger, his scrappiness, and removes his holds.
He’s not delusional. He’s not one waging a one-man-war because he still believes in some free future, the fairytale that it is. It just keeps him from thinking for too long.
Having something to do. Having some purpose.
So he goes scorched earth on it all and hopes it’ll be over soon. That somewhere along the way, he might make enough of a ripple to make a difference in the world. That maybe he’ll have saved someone down the line when everything is said and done. Since he can’t with his immunity, which means nothing, since he can’t in any of the ways he had hoped, had planned.
And if the side effect of that is a bullet to the ribs, well, he’s been living on borrowed time anyway.
(England. They would kill him. But maybe he should go anyway.)
(When he’s not busy, he thinks about it.)
He doesn’t have to go hungry, the thing is. He intercepts shipments, cargo, all sorts of supplies. He couldn’t use it all even if he wanted to. He takes what he can carry. Creates stashes along the South, Appalachia, the Midwest. And it’s all still too much.
(He doesn’t have to go hungry, but he can’t make himself eat.)
(He’s read once, somewhere, that animals, people who are dying lose their appetite.)
If he could stay in one place, he would probably never have to leave again. A lifetime’s supply worth of ammo, food, water, supplies, medicine. He could settle.
But of course he can’t.
He puts the radio on channel thirty-two-point-five one day.
A lifetime ago—only a year or so, really—Hercules handed him a radio in Boston and told him to put it on 32.5 so they could talk. Hold onto one fragile spiderweb thread connecting him to the past. But now he’s dead, and Hamilton is talking into the void.
God. He misses him more than he thought possible. Because even though he’s fucked everything up beyond repair—he still could have had Hercules. Could have found him again. Could have… what? Something.
(He thinks about burying him, once—but what would there be to bury? He doesn’t have anything of his, nothing he’s given him, not even the fucking radio anymore. And it’s too final. Too much. He can’t let go like that, or it’ll be real.)
Hamilton puts it on the channel anyways. And he doesn’t have Hercules’s book, his code dictionary. Because he kept that safe in the glovebox of the Escalade. Somewhere he thought it’d always be safe, right at hand. But he remembers. Remembers enough, at least.
The numbers. That’s all he needs. He sends coordinates into the void: stashes of all he intercepts, hidden when he can, on the side of the road when he can’t.
He never gets a response.
He can’t remember the last time some part of him wasn’t numb. How he doesn’t have frostbite, how his skin hasn’t turned from blue to black is a mystery. Because he can’t wear gloves. Not if he needs to reload. Too bulky, too much time to strip them off if he has to. His socks always seem to be wet when the snow melts in. His clothes get holes faster than he can replace them or even cares to. He layers again and again, but the cold seeps through anyways. Exposure, exposure, exposure: a cold, dead, grey winter.
He thinks about the Escalade. About Jefferson cranking up the seat every time he noticed Madison shiver and pull his scarf a little tighter around his neck. He thinks about every time he woke up with a blanket around himself that wasn’t there when he went to sleep. He thinks about the time he fell asleep with someone else beside him.
He thinks, and then he thinks too much, and then there’s a day when it’s on the radio, and Sam Adams is dead. Painfully and slowly, the King says. Bled out through—
He doesn’t set an ambush that day. Can’t be bothered. Just starts shooting.
Still can’t seem to die.
Nothing really seems to be happening to him anymore. It all just happens. And he’s there, all of it around him, but none of it matters.
The motions of surviving. Catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror and finds he’s surprised he still exists, but that the man looking at him is a stranger. Hopes that that’s not him looking back, bloodied and muddy and half-dead, a step away from being mistaken for an infected. When did he start to look like that?
Step by step. Breath by breath. Choked bite by bite.
Maybe he has to fight. Maybe it’s all that he has left because when there’s a gun aimed at his face is the only time he still wants to be alive.
There’s a night where he can’t find shelter, and he’s walking. And at some point, some owl or fuck knows what else shifts above him. His head snaps up. Nothing there.
But then he stares up at the black fucking sky and every star, every constellation is on clear display. After a beat, he realizes that it’s just on the brink of spring because he sees Leo and the Sickle on the edge of the eastern horizon, and he starts to turn, to tell—
No one.
He turns to the cold empty space beside himself, and, even though he’s never died before, it can’t feel any worse than this.
When it finally hits him fully that no one will ever know if he dies, he loses the last little bit of momentum that might have been carrying him.
That would have been one small reason: the pain his death might cause, because even though he’s ruined something, they saw something in him once. A mistake, yes, but feelings are stubborn things, and maybe they’re kind enough not to blame him for being such a stupid, stupid fuck. He doesn’t mean to be. He never has.
But they won’t ever know he’s gone because he’d never have seen them again besides, so it won’t matter. Nothing at all does, and that’s why he has to get himself into something he can’t take back.
He decides to go out with a bang. Make it literal. Because dying will be the last thing he ever accomplishes, and this way, maybe someone will remember him.
Even if they don’t ever know his name.
So he’s scouting when he finds them. In the woods: a group of four. Or rather, they find him. He’s near a major Redcoat camp, he knows. It’s why he’s here.
To blow it to fucking bits. To drive in his fucking commandeered army truck of grenades and light it up like a goddamn nuclear reactor, because fuck this, fuck it all, he’s done.
(Or so he tells himself. He never gets far enough to find out if he’d actually have done it.)
They run into him, really. A man, stocky and dark-skinned, an automatic rifle in his hand. Three women: one bleeding profusely from her head but still snarling, shooting behind her, even though surely she can’t see with the blood gushing into her eyes. A second: wearing a blood-soaked red puffer coat, eye bruised black, expression incongruously calm. And another woman: tall and ashen, sweating so hard her locs stick to her scalp.
And pregnant. Not slightly, early, still questionably pregnant: full-term, should-be-in-bed—and- definitely -not-running, at least as fast as one can while eight, nine months pregnant.
Hamilton’s mouth drops open a little.
Fuck, he thinks. Fuck.
“Don’t fucking shoot me!” he shouts as he steps out, then raises his gun and starts firing at the Redcoats breaking through the treeline behind the three.
Someone—the bleeding woman—jams a gun hard under his jaw with a snarl.
He doesn’t even flinch.
“There’s a Humvee, quarter mile that way,” he says, shoving a finger in that direction. “Big Jeep, army. Go. I’ll hold them off.”
“Who the fuck are you?” the man shouts, leaping behind a tree as bark shatters around them. He gets his arm up to shield his face, but it just decides to splinter into his thigh instead.
“Doesn’t matter, who cares, fucking move if you don’t wanna die!” he snaps, eyes widening as a bullet zips an inch past his nose. The third woman returns fire for him, not paying a lick of attention to the exchange, expression even.
The pregnant woman leans heavily against a tree, vomiting hard as she leans over. “Fucking go,” she gasps, eyes shut tightly. “Go! Listen to him!”
“Armistead!” the bleeding lady shouts, looking over and clutching her revolver tighter to her chest. “Carry her!”
“And die? I think the fuck not, thank you kindly!”
“One of you move, or we’ll all die!” Hamilton snarls, fumbling to reload his magazine as it clicks empty. “Someone! Anyone!”
The bleeding woman looks at him, then back to the man, caught, conflicted, then shakes her head to clear it. In a flash, she lifts her revolver to her own temple, an eerie calm taking over her expression. “He’s right. Someone will die. And if you don’t move her right fucking now,” she threatens, “it’s gonna be me, and you’ll die when that nasty wound gets infected.”
“No!” the pregnant woman gasps, reaching for her. The third woman glances back but hardly reacts other than a little laugh; she continues shooting, unperturbed. “Don’t be fucking insane.”
The man—Armistead, whoever the fuck, Hamilton doesn’t care, he’s getting shot at— hesitates for all of two seconds. Then he launches forward. Bullets spray as he dashes out of cover. Hamilton shoots back. The man shoves his rifle—automatic, thank fuck—into Hamilton’s hands, scooping up the pregnant woman like she weighs nothing. Adrenaline. The bleeding woman rushes forward, body-slamming into an infected like it’s nothing and clearing the way. So maybe they will survive this.
Hamilton doesn’t watch longer. He whirls around the tree trunk and opens fire, and, god, there’s nothing better than the feel of fucking quick-hail bullets. He gets three Redcoats in a spray, beats back the rest. At least enough that when he checks over his shoulder again, they’re safely out of range, except for—
The woman in red is still at his side, shooting fast with a handgun. There are only three making a break, and the fourth is with him.
“Get the fuck—”
“They need more time,” she grits out.
“What the fuck do you think I’m giving them? A kiss and a card?!” he snaps, but she ignores him, doesn’t move, and a Redcoat screams close by as she clips him.
Fuck it, fuck this, fucking idiot—
Hamilton throws down his backpack, yanks out a pistol, and shoves it into her hands. He grabs another random gun for himself, shifting haphazardly through his things, and, damn, he’s definitely not abiding by gun safety laws with a backpack full of guns and— yes, there, thank fuck. His grenades. “Go fucking catch up with your friends!”
“Oh, you’re too kind, sir. I could do this all day,” she retorts around a hail of bullets, and she looks at him, and—
He couldn’t explain it if he had the rest of his life to try—how or why he knows—but he understands in an instinctive beat that she’s the same as him.
Cold. Angry. Hurt. Someone who knows what it is to survive. To lose—every last fucking thing, whose own fault it probably is too. Clinging onto that final goddamn shred of meaning until even it’s incinerated too. Stripped clean of everything but a base instinct to survive.
He looks at her and knows how low she’s been, how low she is, how much lower she has to go, because he’s going the same way.
“Your friend needs you,” he points out the next time he’s unloading, jaw gritted tight.
“Uh-huh. They’ll be fine. Does no one need you?” she challenges, and—ah, fuck, she’s seen it all in him too. So—they play chicken. And in the pause of gunfire, Hamilton looks up.
There’s a moment that passes between them. Another unspoken few beats where they decide that they don’t care enough to save themselves.
But they’ll run if it means saving someone else.
So they fire a few more times, and the next time her gun clicks empty, Hamilton tosses her a grenade with the pin in and pulls the pin out of his. He chucks it as close as he can towards the returning gunfire. She follows suit, and then they fucking sprint into the wind.
It’s a good thing after all that Hamilton makes it, because it turns out he still has the keys to the car. Not that he would’ve known that if he’d died. But some part of that dying sacrifice definitely would’ve been undercut by getting the four of them killed in another way.
Oh well.
As it is, he slam dives into the Humvee, not even waiting until the doors are closed before he peels away. And then things just… sort of fade out. He hovers out of himself, watching the road and driving without seeing, without processing. No one is talking to him, and so he has no reason to pay attention. He blocks it out: whoever these people are, they aren’t his. He doesn’t know who they are, and he doesn’t care to. That the Redcoats hated them was and is enough for him to kill them, to save them.
He takes special care to block out their names. Just replaces them with static in his mind when they’re said. Fills in the blank.
(If he doesn’t know them, then he doesn’t have to care.)
He shouldn’t care—not when they’ll almost certainly be dead soon.
Pregnant, concussed, clipped, and one person maybe half-healthy is not a winning combination.
Clipped is the man, bleeding from a wound to his side. Hamilton thinks it’s a gunshot for a moment, but then sees the shape as the man peels his shirt away with a low pained moan.
Ah. Stab wound.
Great. That’ll heal just fine.
The concussed woman, still bleeding and still ignoring it, slices up his shirt, grabs a needle, hands sure and steady, and—ah. She’s a doctor; now, he notices her lab coat, which escaped his attention earlier by virtue of being so bloodsoaked it’s no longer fair to call it white. She barks out orders to the woman in the red coat as she treats him, having her hold things, apply pressure, a myriad of menial tasks and… ah, so that woman is the nurse.
And that surely makes the pregnant woman their patient, and the soldier—dressed in a red officer’s coat—some unlucky fuck who agreed to help them escape and got the short end of the stick.
Makes sense.
(He doesn’t want to know more. He looks back at the road).
He looks back anyways when they start to argue, voices rising.
“You said you were off drugs!” That’s the pregnant woman, his mind notes impassively, detached. She’s angry, eyes narrowed, unsurprisingly looks nauseous and ill and unwell. She whips her attention to the nurse, who ignores her outright. “And you too? Why? Why? Why would you do that, when you’ve seen her!”
“I’m a surgeon, which makes it a prescription,” the doctor replies flatly, distracted, needle going in and out steadily even as the man groans and writhes. “And I didn’t want to worry you. I have it under control. Stress is bad for fetal development.”
“Stress? Oh, thank you for sparing me this stress in the middle of the apocalypse!”
Hamilton can’t help but to laugh at that, sharp and involuntary, and all of their eyes flick to him.
“What?” he asks. “I don’t have a dog in this fight.”
They fall silent after that—or at least lower their talk to bursts of hushed, intense whispers. The doctor finishes her work; the nurse is relieved. She crawls up into the passenger seat and sits silently beside him, eyes out the window, dead and flat. Hamilton flicks his eyes over to her, then back to the rear view. The doctor pulls an orange bottle from her pocket and pours out two pills for the soldier—then more when no one in the back is looking.
She swallows dry.
A few moments later, she leans up front. There’s a subtle flash of orange passed between her hand and the nurse’s, but he’s quickly distracted by the doctor’s eyes on him.
“You,” she says, face hard, voice stern, though it doesn't disguise the exhaustion he can lurking underneath. “What’s your name?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Fine. Then you’re kid, as far as I’m concerned. Do you know how to pull glass out of someone’s face?”
He doesn’t, but he agrees anyways. It can’t be harder than the things he’s done to himself.
The nurse drives. He feels only half-present as he tweezes glass shards piece by piece out of the doctor’s scalp, her temple and cheek, her nearly-blue-black hair.
“Bottle?” he asks after a while, unable to stand her silent stare.
“Vase, actually.”
“It hurt?”
“Like the morning after a ripper. Thanks for asking.”
They fall silent. She doesn’t flinch as he eases up a shard the size of his thumb. The truck rattles on. He finishes. Moves back up to the passenger seat. In the back, everyone either falls asleep or passes out. The truck rattles on. And on and on.
Occasionally, he sees the nurse cast a glance his way. He pretends not to notice the well-defined curves of her biceps, slender but corded with muscle, when she strips off her bloody coat and dirty layers down to her wifebeater. She catches him looking; he turns to the window.
He pretends not to feel the barest of flicker of— anything at having found someone who understands. And he does his best to refute the thought that maybe he ruins everything he touches because he’s never found someone as wrecked as he is.
The nurse is taking them northwest. No one asks him if he’s fine with it, but he doesn’t stop them. They probably realize he has nothing better to do with himself if he’s throwing himself into stranger’s gunfights. Or maybe they simply don’t care. Maybe if he’d protested, they would have stabbed him and left him at the side of the road to die.
If they could’ve afforded to, at least.
It feels unspoken—even if perhaps only to him—that they need him. Because as battered and beaten down as he is, he has no extra holes in his body, no baby growing inside of him, no concussion, no body-kept-going-with-little-white-tokens.
He doesn’t really know why he stays when he knows things can’t end well. Not only because they never do, but because this particular group of survivors is double-scoop-fucked with sprinkes on top. Logic has left the building when it comes to his choice not to book it the other way. But if he relied solely on logic, maybe he wouldn’t be such a fuck-up in the first place.
Still—this can’t end well. There are no happy endings, not here. Wrong time, wrong place, wrong people.
When he wakes up, the soldier tells him where they’re going as evening falls.
“Hanover, right in the northwest corner under Canada. No one knows ‘bout this, and I wouldn’t tell you if you hadn’t shot up a squadron of Redcoats in front of me—but that’s where mosta the Sons went after they officially scattered. Started up a small settlement. Calling it Washington.”
Even wrung out as he is, Hamilton somehow finds the energy to raise a brow.
“And that’s… substantiated?” he asks flatly.
The soldier hesitates, and that’s when Hamilton decides they’re all fucked, because oh, if that isn’t a fucking no—
“I heard it,” he says after a few moments, a complete dodge. “From a former colleague headed there a few months ago.”
“A colleague. And you are…?”
“Sons. Spy. Well. Former spy.”
Fuck.
Hamilton closes his eyes in the backseat and spends the next half hour forcing himself not to ask about another former spy he used to know.
He tells them they shouldn’t head to the settlement— if it even exists—an hour later.
That they never last, that they’re better on their own.
That he was in Charleston.
No one has anything to say to that.
“I would never go to another settlement,” the nurse tells him that night, voice low and harsh as the two of them clear the parking lot of infected. “Never.”
He doesn’t answer until the last of the clickers are dead.
“You shouldn’t.”
“Don’t think you have a right to lecture me. I just spent seven months in hell, around the worst tyrants you can imagine,” she says, voice cold and flat. “But the baby.”
Hamilton blinks—and, then, feels like an idiot. Of course.
To be honest, he doesn’t think that most settlements would even take in a pregnant woman—at least from what he’s heard. Maybe the mother, if she were valuable, skilled enough.
But not a baby. Not after it was born.
And even if they did, it wouldn’t change anything. It’s hard enough to survive alone, let alone with a dependent, helpless, ticking time bomb tied to your hip.
“If it weren’t for her,” the woman says, “I would have killed every man in that camp until someone stopped me. And I would have made them suffer. ” She turns to look at him as she yanks a scalpel out of an infected’s skull. “Promises are like that.”
“They’re always a mistake,” he agrees.
She looks him up and down, and it’s hard to tell whether it’s curiosity or longing or pity that colors her expression. “You know better than to come with us that far.”
And, oh, he does. It seems like he just can’t help but to get attached, desperate as he is to not be alone, even though it’s how he’ll always end up.
They hunker down in an abandoned McDonald’s that night. The driver’s side window on the Humvee is busted, and the left side passenger door was ripped off in their escape.
Hamilton has never claimed to be a licensed driver. And he is not.
(It’s not like he could’ve slept in a car that wasn’t the Escalade anyways.)
McDonald’s—as pathetic as it feels—is the only building that isn’t completely trashed they can find, and there are only a few infected in the parking lot. So once it’s cleared, the five of them end up in what used to be a freezer. At least the door is heavy and closes tightly and isn’t going to be opened by anything less than human.
(God. Hamilton would’ve rather slept in the Humvee than ever suggested this to Jefferson. He would’ve kept them up all night complaining about the indignity, and Madison—).
There’s no food to be found, of course. Apparently the four of them had time to grab nothing but guns and medicine, and Hamilton is only carrying enough food for himself.
Which means basically none, because he more or less no longer eats.
It goes to the pregnant woman—the mother, he decides to call her, because even if he allowed himself to hear her name, it would be much too long and seems much too French.
And he won’t think about that.
With three pills, the doctor puts the man—sweating and in pain but doing a remarkable job of concealing it—to sleep. When the pregnant woman is asleep, she pours out an extra four for herself, more for her nurse, then turns her back to the wall and closes her eyes, posture immediately shutting off into don’t fuck with me.
Again, the nurse catches him watching. She holds his eyes for a few moments. Then offers. Three little white pills with an M inscribed into the front in the palm of her hand.
Hamilton looks down for so long he thinks maybe time has stopped. He considers.
Don’t, his voice whispers to him. Don’t do it.
But he takes them. She stops looking, leaning her back against the wall beside the doctor.
“It makes it go away,” she says simply, the tired voice of someone who doesn’t have the means to go on. Her one eye has swollen shut, and the other is strangely flat. Like nothing at all is really registering. It probably isn’t, he realizes.
Something dangerous flickers in his chest when Hamilton wishes he could be like that. Wishes that he wasn’t so very fucking aware of his failures.
Maybe you can keep this boyfriend alive.
And he didn’t even try. He just left.
What if he had tried? What if he had stayed?
The pills lay heavy on his tongue.
In the end, he doesn’t swallow them: three pills in his pocket, saved for later, a time when he needs them.
(Later. Like when this little group has reached its unhappy ending).
Self-destruction is easy enough as is, and he doesn’t need any more abetters to aid him along.
Hamilton leaves the freezer while everyone sleeps. He sits at an old plastic table, still garishly red, and stares down. A clicker lurks out somewhere in the parking lot, click, click, clicking away, screeching in the terrible, tortured way that they do. Occasionally, it almost seems to sob.
He can’t move—not like he usually would. Because he has to stay here, at least for the night.
So he thinks about a lot of things. Why he can never be satisfied. Why he hurts the people he loves because of it. Whether he’s a bad person.
It’s dangerous for him to be still, to think like this. He shouldn’t; he knows he shouldn’t. He wants so badly for someone to come looking for him. To stop him. To find him for a well-timed interruption, in the way Madison was always so good at doing.
No one does.
Hamilton looks up at last when the sun starts to rise outside, and—there.
There in front of him, there’s a little display behind plastic glass of kid’s meals toys. He stares at it blankly for a long time, then gets up, goes outside, shanks the clicker, comes back in, busts through the shitty plastic glass without cutting an artery.
He pulls out a little stuffed sloth. The kind of thing a baby might like. Someone who, if they make it, will never know him well enough to know his flaws, but might hear just enough about him to think him an alright person.
Maybe, even though his motives are so clearly mostly selfish, it will be enough good to redeem him in some small way in the eyes of the world, shortly before he leaves it.
(He never gets around to giving it to her, but she’ll find it in his backpack one day regardless.)
It’s roughly a two-day straight drive to where the soldier thinks they need to go. He isn’t even certain on his coordinates.
A brilliant fucking sign.
A two-day drive—which, divided between five people, would be easy. But at any given time, the doctor is struggling with migraines and nausea and dizziness, the nurse is anywhere from flat-eyed to catatonically high, the soldier is stabbed, and the mother can barely stay awake at her best and is violently ill otherwise. What a fucked-up party they make.
Still, it would be easy. The mother or the nurse could drive a little, and they could pull over to rest when Hamilton needed to sleep. In two days, they could be there without worrying about supplies, and go their separate ways. Maybe they would find their settlement, maybe they wouldn’t. But it would be a happy ending—or as close to it as possible.
It would be easy. If not for the lack of gasoline, the way the truck uses fucking diesel —which is thousand times harder to find—and that it gets all of twelve miles per gallon on a 25-gallon tank that was only two-thirds full to begin with. So they can get two-hundred miles and change on a roughly three-thousand mile trip. Through territory they’ve never been through on routes they don’t know. Routes that might be blocked off. Needing to stop and resupply on the way, and—
It’s fucked. They’re never going to make it, and he’s going to die in a goddamn flyover state, which somehow seems like the worst of all fates. This all occurs to Hamilton as he walks along the highway with the nurse, trying to find some diesel-powered vehicle he can siphon gas from.
It’s day two, and they walk seven miles before they find gas.
Overturned eighteen-wheeler: the nurse scrambles right up the side before Hamilton can even get out a word, checks the round gas tank sticking up into the sky, then jumps down all of the ten feet from the top without missing a beat, lithe and light.
“Lucky us,” she says with a low grin that cuts through her usual dull, drugged eyes. That doesn’t mean there’s not an ironic twang anyways, because how could they ever be lucky?
Oh, they’re such a good match. Crabs in a bucket.
They spend the rest of the day raiding every garage within a three-mile radius for enough gas cans to stuff in the Humvee. Sixty-three gallons: not enough to make it even a third of the way.
Their little misfit group largely leaves Hamilton alone, at least, once they realize he has no interest in talking. Getting to know them. The silence has vanished, but the quiet that replaces it is different from what he’d let himself get used to. There’s discomfort in being around strangers, he remembers. It had been so easy to fill that old space with turning pages, a spoon stirring tea, staccato in the odd deep breath. Quiet where no words were needed.
He would’ve tried to get to know them all, once. Still, he catches soundbites every now and then. At the start of the outbreak, the doctor was just two years into a neurosurgery residency in Boston, where her accent suggests she was born and raised. The mother is well-educated: Greek and Latin and French, all of the arts. The soldier was a park ranger in Virginia, years ago. He doesn’t seem to know the others all that well—only along for the ride. The women, on the other hand…
Hamilton observes without intending to, the easy way they ebb and flow around each other. How the doctor preemptively tells Hamilton to pull over so the mother can throw up, before the mother has opened her mouth or even stirred. The sternness, the expressionlessness with which the doctor commands herself, pulling the nurse aside to give what must be timed lectures given her hushed but strict voice, the nurse’s utter irritation every time. But it’s not as though she doesn’t care, because he sees her carefully putting her portions aside, divesting them to the two of them, carefully treating the doctor’s head every evening, always somehow finding water to offer the mother after she’s wiped her mouth clean of bile.
But he feels, instinctually, that the nurse is a third party to a pair.
The two women don’t seem to talk as much to her—as if some wedge has come between them, and if that isn’t familiar—but the mother watches the other woman constantly, brows furrowed, eyes narrowed, mouth ticked downward in concern.
He tries not to think about it.
Especially since he and the nurse spend the most time together anyways—if only because they’re the healthiest. Still, they rarely talk beyond the necessities. I’ve got the door, cover me, this place looks promising.
They’re somewhere in Missouri when they get down to their last couple gallons of gas, and again the two of them go looking for more. And for food. And water. And shelter. Everything.
The soldier and doctor stay with the mother, on paper to protect her. Not that he expects either could do much good: the soldier has some infection, and the doctor is near-comatose a good portion of the day, though at least less than at first. Besides, Hamilton will give the mother this: even pregnant, sick and sapped and slowed down, she’s a tough bitch. Never complains, never hesitates, never fails to suggest something Hamilton should have thought of himself.
He hopes wherever they’re going will take her.
“So why’d you run?” he asks the nurse eventually as they wander aimlessly through suburbia hell. “If that camp was safe enough to stay running for seven months. If it had medicine like the shit I’ve seen you with, surely it coulda handled a kid. And at least you know it existed.”
“Well, I'm sure you've wondered how a pregnant woman made it this far. Her husband—legal husband, I mean, she got married again in secret after the shit hit, but that one's dead—anyways. The legal one was keeping us alive,” she responds after a moment. “He was a British officer. And he was going to die.”
He raises his brows. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” They agree on another house to search. She steadies herself, then slams her shoulder into the locked door before the dry-rotted wood gives. “Because I was going to kill him.”
The sound he makes this time is a little more surprised. She looks back at him, face even, then twists her lips up humorlessly.
“And I did. Him and every other fucker who got in my way on the way out. Him and every other prick the good doctor and I accidentally lobotomized on the surgical table. With a pair of surgical scissors.” She looks over, flames in her eyes lashing higher and higher as her voice rises. “You know how neurosurgery is. And, well, amputations, removing bullets, sealing stab wounds, sewing organs... Hands slip. All the damn time.”
“The two of you make a good team,” he observes neutrally.
“Oh, we’re not a team." Her smile is wry, then almost actually amused. “She’s in charge. Come on. You’ve met her. That woman owned a strap as big as my forearm.”
Hamilton does laugh at that, if only because it’s so immediately apparent as true.
She pulls out a flask, sips. “Anyways. I’m telling you this just so you know who I am.”
“You’re a survivor,” he equivocates. “You don’t make it this far without killing people.”
She hums enthusiastically as they start to sift through the cabinets, shelves, drawers. Eventually, she says, “Let me know if you see any booze. I haven’t had a good alcohol buzz in ages.”
He finds two beer cans left in a six-pack half an hour later and offers one to her. They sit down on the porch of some shitty Midwestern farmhouse and drink.
She looks out on the street, expression twisting into something barren. She stares down at her warped reflection in the aluminum, then pulls out her red-tinted chapstick, reapplies it.
“All our friends would be so disappointed in me,” she says eventually.
And if that isn’t a feeling Hamilton knows.
They marinate in mutual, miserable silence.
The next house comes up empty, and he swears, kicking an empty cardboard box lying about the garage. Her expression darkens in turn, and she cracks open a bottle: this one is viscous liquid, cloying even from a distance. She chugs it without bothering to measure.
“I never should’ve gone with the doctor’s lies,” she says when she’s finished, wiping her mouth. “At least then no one would’ve bothered keeping me alive. But fuck it. Forget me. What’s your story?”
“Does it matter?”
“No,” she says with a kind of even certainty he’s not sure he’s had in years. “We’re headed different directions, but we’ll both be dead soon anyways. So… way I see it, it doesn’t matter at all.” She offers him a swig; he waves her away. She takes another. “That’s comforting, isn’t it? That… nothing we say or do fucking matters?”
He looks at her slowly, expecting to see her eyes deader than usual. But no—they’re sharp and alert and there’s whatever person she is behind them this time. The person who’s as tired as he is. Whose certain lostness in her eyes reminds him of why he doesn’t like mirrors.
My story, he thinks. My story is that I went through all this fucking suffering for—what?
A few moments where he could convince himself it was alright, that he was alright, that everything would fucking be alright?
He’s not dead yet because he forgot a strip of photos he couldn’t live without in some stupid fucking house in Virginia. He’s not dead yet because there were no bullets left when he got bit, no way to make putting him down easier. He’s not dead yet because he let himself be found in a time when he didn’t particularly want to keep living. But the only alternative was dying, and that was worse, and it made him just desperate enough not to break off on his own.
Coincidence after coincidence, and fuck up after fuck up until he was worse off than ever.
My story is that I cared, and I hurt everyone I cared about in the crossfire.
He wishes he’d never met them. He would undo it all, to spare them the hurt.
But he says nothing. It could make it too real for another person to know; he knows better than anyone the power the right words can have. So he leaves the room without another word.
But nothing does matter. She’s right.
So four days later in Kansas, with the fewest frills possible, he tells her,
“I had to leave my boyfriend after he got bit. And I was with two men for a long time—a couple—but then I ruined their relationship, blew everything up, and ran away.”
And there’s something about saying it, maybe. Admitting it. It does make it more real. And, yet, to say it, to have someone acknowledge it without trying to release him from his guilt? Without trying to talk him out of something he knows is his own fault? Maybe, in the end, it’ll make it easier to accept. Maybe. Maybe.
“Mm. Cheating’s a bitch. You fucked one of them? Or just loved him?”
He doesn’t reply.
That’s something he likes about her: they can ask each other something and not respond for seconds, minutes, hours. And they never question each other, never push, wait for the other to be ready—if they decide they even want to answer at all. So when he eventually tells her,
“Loved. Both of them. In my own… fucked-up way.”
Well—she knows exactly what he’s talking about.
He doesn’t push it any further.
And in turn for her ear, Hamilton knows what she’s referring to when she jumps back four days too, back to a conversation they never finished.
“Her legal husband—the British officer—he and his British houseboys killed our friends. Her real husband. The other leader in our group. She was from New York too. And then my... Well. All four of them.” Even whatever pills she’s on can’t kill the pain that flashes over her face. Hamilton gets it. "But since that fuck Jacques was an officer, he saved us. Because she was his wife, and Abigail—” No, Hamilton thinks immediately when he catches himself, the doctor— “had medical training. I could have run with the others. I should have.” She closes her eyes. “But I didn’t.” She exhales. “I thought my odds were better staying with the two of them. And—I was right.”
But you paid the price, Hamilton finishes silently. For staying alive.
Yeah. He fucking knows that too.
“The doctor told them I was a nurse. I’m not, obviously. But it kept me alive.” She has another go at the cough syrup, then laughs bitterly. “And then I, stupid cunt that I am, got her hooked on Oxy. Oh, the doctor will pretend it’s the other way around to keep the peace, but—some fucking friend I am.” She laughs sourly. "My husband was right about me."
Hamilton listens silently. It’s all he can do.
He has some human instinct to tell her it’s not her fault. But he suppresses it. It would do as much good as if she had told him his fuckup wasn’t his fault. Their narratives are the last thing they have, and they aren’t saying these things to be freed of them. That is not what this is.
There is comfort somewhere in guilt.
Maybe it’s only an offshoot of wallowing in self-pity, but Hamilton has to take any consolations he can get. If he deserves this, if he believes it, if he lets himself be punished…tries to make some small amends…
“They found us first. Then the others too. And... they jumped off a bridge to try to escape. Into whitewaters—shallow ones. Jacques told me, later. Saw bodies floating away down the currents. And he never was a liar,” the nurse says at last. “But she thinks he’s—her real husband, the one who knocked her up—is still alive. Or, well—that’s what she says.”
They have another one of their long silences. It’s hours later when she speaks again, just after she’s chugged the rest of her cough syrup.
“But she knows different in her heart, or else she wouldn’t have kept the baby.”
And what response could there ever be to that?
They don’t bring the past up again.
He wakes up the doctor once. Just to check if she’s still alive.
Just the one time.
And he doesn’t even let himself feel a thing when she blearily calls him the wrong name.
Because there are lots of Johns in the world—or, at least, they were.
Their little party gets stuck in Kansas for a week. No gas—again. He and the nurse spend the days scouting out a small town, trying to scrounge up food to keep them all fed.
(The nurse, he notices, doesn’t eat much either.)
Hamilton misses his bow, left in the Escalade, but he picks off a few rabbits with enough patience. Still, he hates wasting bullets. They’re low on them. But they don’t have a campfire stove, so he has to start a real fire to cook the meat. Except then the scent sets off the mother’s sickness, and she can’t even stomach them despite valiant efforts. Squirrel too, which is so small of an animal to waste bullets on, and he doesn’t want to bother setting up traps, and—
The doctor tends to the mother, and her hands are steady, but her eyes are not. At least not all of the time. And when that happens, the nurse leaves the room.
Hamilton begins to get the distinct impression that the baby is coming, but the mother is going.
One evening finds him and her alone as the doctor tends the soldier inside. He watches with a sharp sense of melancholy as the mother leans back in her lawn chair in front of the fire, eyes closed, Walkman in her lap, headphones on her stomach. She looks grey. Too thin.
“Mozart,” she tells him when she cracks open an eye and catches him looking. “I would do… Chopin or Lizst. But I think he won’t need any help feeling the sad things of the world, and, oh, my husband was always wanting all of us to smile more.”
“He?” Hamilton asks after a moment, pushing away those last two words as they intrude into his head in a different cadence, a different voice. "You know?"
“Just a feeling,” she says, eyes drifting shut again as her mouth turns sadly. “A mom’s instincts.”
“What are you going to name him?”
“Oh, this or that.” She toys with the headphone cord. “After his father, maybe. But I don’t know that I could do that to myself. Oh, I already write him a letter every day—even now. No, there are already too many things listed in my selfish category.”
Hamilton wonders if it shows on his face that he knows what it feels like. It must, because she watches him for a moment longer, then offers,
“You’re a good man. I can see it in you—or else you would have left us a long time ago.”
He laughs wryly, kicking one of the logs down into the fire with a shower of sparks.
“I’m not. And even if I were, I couldn’t fix everything I’ve fucked up.”
“It doesn’t change that we were lucky to have run into you.” She tries for a smile. “You should stay with us when we make it to the camp. I would like that. Knowing someone else good is looking after my baby. And the nurse would like that, too.”
The last words have a little extra layer to them he won’t even consider. He prods another log deeper into the fire, then looks up with a tight smile that’s not a maybe, but an unspoken refusal. The smile she returns a second later is more tired and sadder, and, maybe, if he were someone else—if he were even himself from another time—he would stay.
At least here, in front of the fire, long enough to let her unload her heavy heart onto him.
But she’s wrong. He’s not a good man. He’s only ever been someone trying to make it.
And so he leaves.
The only time he ever hears the nurse laugh—a real laugh—is when they’re rummaging through the turned-over shelves of a small town Walgreens.
He looks over from where he’s scouring unsuccessfully through a few meager boxes of wrist braces, half-sure that she’s dying, but she’s looking back at him, holding up a red box.
“Are those…?”
She tosses it to him. He looks down.
“Seems like a shame to let them go to waste.” He looks up. She shrugs. “I’m sober, in case you’re worried.” And that was his easy out. Fuck. Because he should say no to this. “It doesn’t mean anything. None of this does. We’re going in different directions. And we should be.”
Hamilton considers this. He should say no. There are so many reasons not to. This is probably one more step down their spirals of self-destruction.
But the more he thinks about it, the less he cares. He’s weak. He needs some kind of break. He’s under stress, so much of it, and she looks pretty standing there, big brown doe eyes and long curly hair and strong, lithe thighs he wants wrapped around his waist.
She feels his hesitation, reluctance to leave, and takes a few steps forward, then leads him backwards until he feels his back meet something solid.
“Stay?” she says, cheeks tinting red like her lips, her jacket. He should go; he doesn’t want to. Then her mouth is on his, and he doesn’t say—
When he’s coming down—well, fuck. It takes him a long time to come down. Maybe it shouldn’t, considering he’s just had sex over a pharmacy refill counter in some shithole Kansas town, of all places. But it’s been two years, and the unceremoniousness fades to the blistering, almost overbearing feeling of being alive—and, more than that, human.
It’s been a long time.
And it’s the barest of comforts, doesn’t fix anything, doesn’t save him somehow—but everywhere she touches isn’t cold for the first time in months.
He slides next to Maria in bed that night. A moment of weakness.
She cracks one eye open—of course she isn’t sleeping—and hums a question.
It’s only another way of hurting himself, isn’t it? The same for her? Aren't they both pretending to be someone they aren’t? In all kinds of ways, every way that matters.
He probably still shouldn’t, but he’s only human.
Maria doesn’t flinch when he says the wrong name.
(God, he's pathetic, isn't he?)
It happens more than once; still, she doesn’t care. Doesn't let herself. Just like him.
In another life, maybe he could have loved her.
There are moments where his resolve to never let himself care about another person cracks, and he’s struck with the sudden urge to save her.
Save her—whatever that means.
To gather all the broken pieces and put them back together in some way that fits, that won’t shatter spectacularly at the next wind of tragedy, because fuck knows one is never that far away. She seems so helpless to him, sometimes. But she’s not—she doesn’t want to be…
He knows she hasn’t asked. That she doesn’t want to be saved, because all both of them know how to do anymore is spiral.
It’s not like… She can’t be beyond helping, even if she’s given up on herself. Right? There has to be some way, something that he could do to help her. Fix the broken parts.
If only because when she’s at her most high, pupils blown the widest and glossy, he can see his reflection best, gaunt and hollow.
Just as helpless.
And so things go. They get another car, eventually: the soldier hotwires them some suitably shitty Nissan that craps out on them five hundred miles down the road. They’re trapped for another few days. The doctor gets a bit better, then a lot better, and the soldier's fever finally breaks. The silences, the spaces in between, start to grow comfortable. Less stiff.
It means he needs to get away before he gets attached.
And so he does.
He never could have stayed.
This time, he knew better than to talk himself into it. Knew better than to pretend like he could be around others without taking the tenderness offered to him and spitting on it. Intention aside, he raises the desecration of everything pure he owns into an art form.
Because he’s a fundamentally broken person: that’s what it boils down to, in the end. If he was ever more than that, that person broke a long time ago. It’s what Maria sees in him; it’s what he sees in her. Someone he can’t hurt any more than they’ve already been hurt.
That person is all he’s ever been. All he ever can be. Isn’t it?
And the people he loves try to see him not for the man he is, but for the man he’s always strived to be. Struggled to become—and falls short of, every time. Fails.
So he really looks for a way out, as it is, and there are things he could have done differently when all is said and done. But he only has the one life, and if he chooses the wrong way, he can’t take it back.
It is simply easier to be alone, because then no one cares if he cuts himself on his own pieces.
He wakes up at the same time as Maria.
Click click click
Dragging footsteps on tile. A thump as a foot, a limb, a face collides with something. An angry screech, and then the soldier, sleeping a dozen feet away, jerks awake. His blankets rustle.
Hamilton blinks in the dark. He can’t see, but he can smell the cloying rot as it staggers closer, clicking more intently at the sudden sound. A shriek pierces too close. His heart pulses.
Where’s his gun?
He fumbles in the dark. The warehouse is wet and mildewy, and every step echoes. Sheet metal clangs distantly. Then, more clicks, more echoing cries as, somewhere, infected start to pour in.
Fuck. Oh fuck. Fuck, fuck fuck
A shape approaches. Lurching. Staggering. Hamilton reaches for the flashlight at the same time as Maria. But as he starts to turn it on, there’s the sound of a much louder, more human screech not far off. A runner: one of the ones that can see light, can see them. And if it sees them and screams and charges, all the rest will too, and—
Fuck! Fuck fuck fuckfuckfuckfuck
He hears Maria’s speed beside him.
It’ll be okay, he wants to promise, but, oh, they’re in the shit now. Blind, in the dark, forced to be silent, unable to see their escape without risking drawing the rest.
Hamilton fumbles for his gun as quietly as he can, tries to track the lurching shape in the dark as it grows closer, clicking louder. Rot grows harsher, and—
The clicker passes them.
Maria shifts quietly beside him, then comes up with something that glints as much as any steel can in the dull moonlight of a cloudy Idaho night.
She’s on the other side of him.
Good, he thinks, because he can keep her from getting bitten—at least until he gets his arteries torn out.
The soldier stays stock still, unmoving as the figure shambles a little closer. A little closer. A few feet away. It clicks: a question.
Then, thank god, it turns away.
But just as Hamilton thinks he can breathe again, just as he begins to believe that they’ll be able to sneak away alive and unharmed, he catches sight of Theodosia.
She’s five yards away, her back pressed to a column, hands gripping tightly around the concrete behind her. Her expression is obscured in the dark, but he can picture her face.
The air leaves his lungs. The infected doesn’t hear. Doesn’t stop.
One step, two steps, a hair's breadth away, faces almost touching, the start of a shriek—
Maria jerks beside him, and elsewhere in the room, someone gasps awake and then launches forward, but—no, Hamilton rips the scalpel out of Maria’s hand before she can move with a shout. The infected swings backward, screeches, lurches, and it’s coming towards him, but he’s panicked, can’t see, doesn’t know how close it is, can’t figure out—and it swings a wild hand.
The blow cracks him in the mouth before he can even make out the movement. Blood wells instantly around his tongue, but he notices only in passing. As soon as his footing is back beneath him, he lunges. Stabs.
The scalpel slides straight off the thick fungal plates, skids into its shoulder. He struggles his gun up between them as he pierces it again and again in the scapula, some inhuman, adrenaline strength swelling up within him. The roar, the screech of a dozen infected and five funeral bells wells up not all that far away, turning the entire building into an echo chamber.
“Go!” Hamilton shouts as snapping teeth lurches towards his face. He can’t hold it back. He turns his head. He closes his eyes. Doesn’t even feel it when… that same section of his neck gets split open. Torn into. Shredded. Raw meat. His tongue suddenly feels thick. “Fucking go!”
His vision just flashes white. Then drifts to a deeper, darker black than the one already around him. Not like the night—but warm too, heavy, settling over him like a thick blanket.
Warm.
Some part of him eases.
Someone kicks the infected hard. Its teeth take a few inches of flesh with them when it goes skirling off of him, and now he raises his gun—four shots to kill.
The flashlight is on now. He can see. The warehouse. Their shapes. Sluggishly, he sits up.
It’s Abigail in his face, shaking his shoulders.
“Come on, we need to move. Get…”
The words die in her throat as she takes him in, and, oh, the picture he must make. Dirty, bloody, dying. Still, he finds it in him to smile. Somehow, it’s even easy.
And John smiles at him even as his arm bleeds and Alex stars to come unraveled and—
He understands, suddenly. This must be how John did it, then: knowing that it would be over soon. Finally. That he’s done all he can, and that the people he wanted to save will be okay, even if only for a short while longer. That’s all anyone can do.
“Go,” he tells her. “Bring the car around for them. You have to clear the way.”
Abigail looks at him for one moment longer, then nods sharply. “Thank you,” she says, the most emotion he’s heard in her voice. And then she’s gone.
He stumbles onto his feet just as Maria appears in front of him, eyes wide. “We have to buy them—” She stops at once. It feels like a long time that she stares at him, at his neck, then at his face. All manners of horror and dread and loss. But it’s only for an instant: time is something Hamilton has never had.
How did you think this was going to end? Happily?
He doesn’t ask, but the question sits on his bleeding lips.
“Why do you all keep doing this to me?” she asks, half self-aware, almost amused, half breaking down. And there’s something else entirely that he couldn’t name if he tried.
“Different directions,” he reminds her, wry. Ironic because—isn’t he the lucky one between them? There’s a moment of silence, and then some fragment of the person he used to be leans forward and kisses her cheek. She cracks, too; some part of whoever she was smiles, sad and tired. And tomorrow, when the blood and dust have settled, he will have pushed her just a little bit lower. Hitting rock bottom is easy: it’s even more rewarding to dig once you’re there.
What can I say to you? How can I save you?
He’ll never know.
Because then the soldier is on them, and the moment is gone.
“We need to go,” the soldier says, loading a magazine into his assault rifle. “ Move!”
Hamilton shakes his head with a fresh gush of blood, then looks back and lifts his pistol, aiming into the dark. “You all go. I’ll hold them back.”
“Fuck that, I’m not leaving a man behind,” the soldier snaps. “Come—”
“Oh, so you’re gonna carry me and Theo at once?” he challenges. “No. Get out. Now.”
And then Theodosia is in his face too, intent, grabbing his shoulder so tight he thinks it’ll crack. “Thank you,” she says. “Thank you. What’s your name?” Doesn’t matter, he starts to say, but she anticipates, looks down, explains, “If it’s a boy—”
“Joke’s on you. My name’s gender-neutral,” he interrupts her with a little laugh. He pauses, then decides what’s the point of a legacy without a name to attach it to? They couldn’t work out who he is anyways. “It’s Alex,” he says calmly, because that’s how he feels. No pain. Now that things are settled, now that there is no one to stop him from leaving, no reason to stop him. That they don’t know he could still get away and be fine—it’s freedom. “Now go.”
It’s dim in the flashlight, but her face changes. Surprise. Confusion. Something inscrutable. Her eyes widen. And maybe there’s a question on her lips, but she never gets to ask it, because Armistead shoves his rifle into Hamilton’s hands and sweeps her into his arms.
“There’s only seventeen rounds. So don’t spray and pray,” he warns. “Godspeed, you crazy fuck.”
Maria rips off her necklace—one round of ammo in every possible caliber—and shoves it into Hamilton’s hands. Hamilton looks down at it, then back at her, pushes his pistol into her hands.
They never do get a proper goodbye.
He turns, and he has three seconds before the infected are on him. His thoughts fade. He moves unthinkingly. He blocks the rest out. Vision fringing yellow. He fights, just as he always has.
His neck bleeds warmly, his gun cracks in his hand, then eventually the butt of it, and the voices swell up and around him until everything goes silent. He stumbles. He stumbles again. Again.
Again.
There’s some kind of poetry in dying against the infected, just like he always should have, all that time ago. Not dying to man, from his own hubris—just to nature.
He fights. But eventually, inevitably, he falls. His eyes close, and, oh, there James is.
There’s a voice telling him that he shouldn’t, but Hamilton greets him like an old friend.
He sleeps, dreamless, for a long time. At peace.
It is a disappointment, then, when he wakes up, bruised and battered, with all his earlier adrenaline drained. Sunlight filters in through the windows. He feels like a chewed-up dog toy, and there’s a fever settling in his bones, a deep ache that radiates outward. Blearily, he sits up.
Bodies surround him: some shot, some beaten, some mangled so badly he can’t tell what happened. Hamilton is bloody all over, knuckles almost black and throbbing something terrible. The rifle is a few feet away. Brain matter and god knows what else dries along its length.
He stares up at the ceiling, so far above it may as well be heaven, until it starts to spin and wonders to himself— what now?
The question fills him with a dread that deadens his limbs so much he falls back down.
He looks down at the necklace Maria gave him, bullets wrapped tightly in little twine ties until he finds a 7.62 x 39mm. He looks over at the rifle.
Time crawls on.
He decides to get up first. To see if they made it.
Hamilton crawls onto his feet. Stumbles around weakly. He’s at the end of his stamina now, and he feels every one of his years in his bones. Not just every year he has, but every one it feels like he should. He sneaks past the infected he sees. Somehow a scattered few haven’t found him during his sleep. He should fight them, maybe. But he doesn’t, not yet.
He makes it outside. Looks. All around the building, several big loops.
There’s no car, but he can see black skidded tire tracks where something sped away.
And no human bodies.
Well, that’s something.
So he sits heavily onto the ground, back to the brick wall, cuts the 7.62 free. He rolls it around between his fingers, loads it up, and reaches into his pocket for the last comfort he has left.
Stop me, he thinks. Please. Stop me.
His fingers meet nothing. No—three little pills. But now what he’s looking for.
He inhales once, movement going slow as he searches more methodically. Inner pocket, outer pockets, pants, coat. All empty.
He stands and goes back inside. Kills the infected this time. Searches through the few blankets they brought in. But there’s nothing there either. They didn’t bother to unpack the car.
And the—the car… the car is gone.
His breathing starts to speed.
No, he thinks. No, no, no no no—
He keeps looking as his ribcage buckles and bends, then cracks, splits straight open, and everything spills straight out of his chest, back out and then right back in.
Oh, fuck.
He shrugs his coat off his shoulders. Searches a second time. Even though he knows it’s not going to be there from the first moment he tries in some desperate hope. Because he doesn’t have his backpack. His other coat, his light, easy-to-move-in one—it’s in his backpack. Why did he leave it there? How could he have been so stupid?
He takes everything out. Rips the seams by the pockets just in case. Hands shaking.
Ringing infringes on the corners of his consciousness, growing more piercing with each passing moment. Some dead part of him simply doesn’t care. But the part of him he hasn’t put a bullet through does.
What’s wrong? What isn’t wrong? Why does it matter?
He can’t do this. Not now. Not with that one last thing to ground him—
The voices in his head fade again. He stumbles. Fall again. Onto the ground. The world is blurs of brown and grey and yellow. His ribs heave so hard it hurts. Fever must be hitting, because he sees a ghost reaching out for his shoulder, but he’s too hysterical to even take any comfort and jerks away.
How could he do this? How could he be so stupid? How could he stay alive all this time, only to lose his last piece of John in the world, just as he was readying to leave it?
He feels panic, some deep primal hurt well up in him, and he lets it out with a broken wail that spills over into sobs, and he feels certain that he is never, ever going to stop. He’ll die, and he’ll have forgotten John’s face when he does. His last comfort.
A hundred times in the past year, he’s walked himself back from the edge. Taken in a deep breath. Grounded himself with a little bit of pain. Just enough to drag him back down to his body. Remembered that he can’t fall down, because he might not get back up.
He’s on the edge, staring down into the dark, cement crumbling all around him.
This time, there is nothing at all to catch him, and he falls.
When it hits Hamilton that John is dead, when he’s stopped ignoring and hiding and running from it, grief wrenches a knife into his stomach and yanks, disembowels him.
The pain is inhuman.
Which is ridiculous, really. Because he’s known this for months, for—years. Charleston. Winter.
He lays on the ground sobbing uncontrollably, and some part of him recognizes this. He’s completely breaking down, and some detached part of him is shaking his head at his own foolishness and thinking about how the first grass shoots of the year are finally sprouting, that the weather is finally about to warm.
It’s been two years.
Two years, and he’s never felt it—at least not like he does now. Not with the bright, blooming pain that starts in his chest and singes outward through every one of his nerves, splintering whatever’s left of him. In a moment, he’s a prism: a thousand refractions, a thousand memories torn and ripped and twisted. Glass shatters in his ears.
Oh god, he thinks, and it’s the last clear thought he has for a long time. John’s dead. Then: and because of me, Thomas and James probably are too.
He recognizes—in that last fleeting moment of clarity before he forgets to breathe—that all the grief and loss and pain he’s felt is only a fraction of what there was. That he’s been running so long he couldn’t even recognize just how much there was. That his impression was a scratch on the surface of a glacier. That he was waiting, biding his time, to find somewhere safe before he could let himself feel it all—as if such a place could still exist for him.
But he’s out of energy to wait. He’s out of strength. He’s done.
He can’t fucking do this anymore.
The world blurs and blends and he stumbles on shaky legs when he finally stands. It’s too much. It’s—
Why won’t you fucking let me die? Fucking why, why, I’m so—
And the voices—
Smile more, congratulations, come back to sleep—
The fucking screams—
Come in for dinner, we’ll still be here when it’s time—
It’s fucking time. It’s fucking time. He’s done. He never should have gone back.
Come on, Alex, you can’t let the last thing I do be to drag you down too—
It’s not. It’s not, he tries to tell the silence. He drags himself down. He does it to himself.
Hamilton sees himself in the eyes of history, clearly for once. And he sees himself, a footnote, scribbled down and promptly forgotten. He turns the page.
And that’s where the story ends.
He finds last night’s peace again as he lifts the barrel to his temple. He’s more tired, which makes it somehow even better. He’s done enough. He looks out on the forest. Blinks. The blur in his vision begins to clear, even though the tears don’t stop.
It’s a beautiful spring day.
Good, he thinks. He hates winter. Everything dies in winter.
What good is a photo? What good is a memory? None.
This is better: this way, he gets to put the punctuation at the end of the page, put away the pen himself. It’s his story, and he writes the ending. Not a happy one, but it’s his, and that is something. And, honestly—maybe this is the happiest ending. At least of all the options left.
His blood thrums. He can feel it at his pulse point. His neck, bleeding.
He’s too tired to pretend it matters.
But he keeps standing there. Watching. Looking out. The world is quiet and fuzzy, faraway as he floats away like he’s already got a hole in his head, but at least it’s peaceful. Doesn’t hurt.
Still.
And still.
And fucking still.
(He waits, because the weakest, most pathetic part of him so desperately wants to be saved.)
But no one will, and that’s his fault, and he knows it. It could very well be a year that’s passed before an infected stumbles out in front of him.
One shot to the head.
But, oh, it’s not his.
At once, the peace evaporates, and the sobbing takes on full-force yet again. He can’t stop it. He’s going to sob until he passes out. He doesn’t have any more ammo. He doesn’t have any more guns. He doesn’t have anything.
He takes the little three pills.
He can’t fucking—he can’t—he’s…
Why is he fucking like this? Why can’t he just fucking give up?
He’s so, so tired. Too fucking tired to even pull the trigger on himself, apparently, but not enough to pull it on something else. He cares too much, cares too little, and the tension between the two tears him in half. He can’t fucking do this. He can’t fucking quit. He can’t do anything.
His thoughts start to melt into a crayon-melt rush of color and voices and memories, and he curls up on himself, pain shooting along his nerves, and—
I want to go home, he thinks in a voice that’s much smaller than the one he has now.
And… he does. Want to go home. Whatever home is. Whatever feeling it was.
It hits Hamilton with the sting of vinegar in the back of his throat, needles pricking his eyes. He just wants to go home. He just wants to go back. Back to before everything went wrong.
He wants to go home, so he does.
The thing about self-destructing is that it’s so damn easy. So damn addicting, once that first domino falls. In for a penny, out for a pound. And when you’ve done it long enough, the flames start to feel good. Even a little like home.
But not quite.
There’s only one place Hamilton can go for that. The only place he can go where he last felt that feeling: the place he’s been running from all this time.
And at long last there’s no reason to run anymore.
So he ends up where he was always meant to go—to die. Whether it’d been when the walls collapsed or when he’d shown John the gun, their special two bullets, fuck it, let’s go out our way—
Somehow, it seems that the road always did end here.
He’ll never know quite how he makes it back or remember the process: how he did it, how long it took, how he even made it. It all enters one big fugue blur in his mind.
It’s a beautiful, searing hot summer day. Birds singing. Sun shining. Cornflowers grow in bouquets along the overgrown side of the road. Yellow carolina jessamine climbs along the road sign, whose letters are rusted and only half-visible besides.
He doesn’t notice. Limps along, arm cradled protectively on his chest. He’s been unwell before. But not like this. Not bleeding and starved and sick to top it off, completely unwilling to do anything about it. He feels like a stray dog begging to be put down, half-dead, dying, dying, dying. And that’s all fine. He wants to lie down. To go to sleep in the bed they shared.
Drift away on the summer ocean breeze.
The only thing that draws his attention are the walls up ahead. One split wide open. Crumbling structures. An old watchtower. The walls. Where, somewhere beyond, John is waiting for him.
Home.
Notes:
well... i did say rock bottom, didn't i? anyways. so much has happened since i was last here that i couldn't explain it in a 200k+ fic. no longer near a war zone though, so that's a plus. oh by the way here is the photo strip alex lost :) follow me on tumblr for more updates!
oh, also i am accepting dissertations on 1) how smart, beautiful, clever i am 2) how you are going to cross the sahara to strangle me to death with your bare hands in the comments below :)
Chapter 11: More Like a Memory
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
He enters through the west checkpoint. The same one he entered with Laurens. The same one he left through without him. It’s funny how he can remember these things, but not Laurens’ face.
It’s quiet in uptown Charleston. He had expected to be torn apart. He’s always hated the quiet.
The quiet in the countryside is far preferable to this kind of silence, a silence he’s seen inhabited. Emptied. The bodies on the street—some infected, others not—are silent as he passes. Passing silent judgment. He wonders which he would recognize if they weren’t weathered and decayed.
The bookstore on the corner—burned. The cafe he got his watered down coffee from—shattered. The square they used to play music on in the evenings—overgrown.
He’s a stranger traveling through a lost place, surrounded by sickness and toil, vigils unkempt, crossing a river he can’t swim back across. What good is immunity, in this world? What is his legacy? It’s nothing. It’s a curse. A lie. He doesn’t want to save the world anymore. He just wants to leave it. Leave it to someone else.
Here he is, maybe the last person alive in the world, ready to snuff out whatever flame still flickers.
For a second as he stands outside their apartment door, he’s even as foolish to hope that he’ll find what he’s been chasing for so long that he’s forgotten what it is to be still.
But their apartment is hollow, silent, and John’s plants are dead.
He takes a few steps over to the windowsill and rubs the dead leaves between his fingers. They crumble to dust under his touch.
Everything does in the end.
“Laurens?” he whispers. “I’m home.”
But there’s nothing here. He feels nothing but fever. Not even an echo.
There’s a portrait of him in the corner of the living room, half-painted, the rest sketched out. He vaguely remembers sitting for it, how Laurens had complained that he never stays still. It had been stupid, he thought, to pose for a portrait when he was right there, ready to be viewed at a moment’s notice. He looks at the canvas and hates every line of his face, every shadow in his smile, each a reminder of a time when he was still someone.
He knocks the easel across the room with a wild arm and bursts out onto the balcony.
He picks up a pot—forget-me-nots, once, he’s pretty sure—and before he even realizes it, he throws it down onto the street. A furious sob wells up from nothing as the terracotta shatters onto the asphalt below. There’s a raw scream, and for a moment, he thinks it came from him. But then an infected staggers out of a store across the street towards the broken pot, clicking and shrieking.
Rage blinds him. He hates them. He despises them. For doing what they've done to the world. For taking everything from him except his own damn life. Some foul part of him hopes that there’s still a person deep within, helpless, suffering like him, unable to stop a damn thing—
But then he thinks of Laurens, John, who’s lost, who might be one of them, and what it would mean if that were true. The idiot, the foolish idiot, who had thrown away the shots Hamilton had saved for them both—
He would kill every living thing in this city to spare even what remained of John from a second of suffering. He would scorch and salt the earth, things that come so easily to him, so that nothing could ever rise from the ash if it meant putting Laurens to rest.
His mind is halfway to taking him back down to street level when he feels in his soul that, no, Laurens isn’t here. Not really. Because he can’t feel a damn thing. He’s standing in their apartment, and there’s not even a ghost of him to hold him.
He can’t even remember the last time he felt Laurens with him. He’s not back at the beginning, before things went wrong. He’s just caught in another moment he’s rushing to end.
He grabs another dead planter and heaves it down. Hits his mark, somehow. Clay, bone shatter. The infected crumples like a rag doll with a wet crunch, shards caught in its skull, and he hurls another pot down,then another, another, another—and now he is screaming, swearing, losing his mind, and he isn’t even scared of how good it feels.
His arm is halfway cocked back when he sees a flash of green. He freezes mid-motion.
Sprigs of green from the soil that he’s too afraid to touch. Still alive. Holding on through the years and hardships of time neglected.
The memory comes to him before he can push it away. Laurens, bent over on the balcony, digging bare-handed into the dirt, smiling, talking about seasonings of all things. He can almost hear his voice. Can almost see his face—the face he’s lost and forgotten.
His heart twists and lurches, pulse burning through his sprained wrist, his lungs too mutilated to breathe. His fever has already burned so much out of him. Why can’t it burn away the pain too? He crumbles to the concrete before he even registers he’s falling.
I miss you, he sobs inwardly even as his body is too exhausted to cooperate. So, so much.
This was his last hope. His last hope to be happy before it all ended.
How could he have held Laurens here not that long ago? How could one of those times have been the very last, without either of them knowing it? How many times did he decline an offer to spend time together to do something that had felt more important in the moment?
Laurens had been teaching himself to cook. His mother’s recipes, salvaged from Mepkin. Moro de habichuelas. Sancocho. He had never slowed down enough to join him, or even bothered to learn the names of his plants.
Little pieces of Laurens he could have kept alive. There was enough room to have learned. But he doesn’t want memories—he wants Laurens, living and breathing, right in front o him.
How many times did he forget to say I love you at the door?
He wants to never have hurt anyone.
I hate myself, he thinks with the most clarity he’s thought anything in a long time, a searing thought that drives a spear-tip all the way down his throat to his feet.
He walks back inside. He gets a drink. A bottle of whiskey from the kitchen. He stares dead-eyed at the dried-out orchids over the sink until he passes out at the table.
He’s disappointed when he wakes up.
Should have drank another bottle.
Surely that would have done it.
He makes it as far as the living room before he vomits all over the floor. He’s so sick, and there’s no one to hold back his hair. He can hardly tell up from down when he staggers up, falls, then resolves to crawl the rest of the way to the bathroom. He thunks his forehead down against the porcelain seat, throat burning as he sputters into the bowl until he feels every inch between his ribs. Collapses against the side of the cabinet. His foot strikes the shower rod lying on the floor. Squints against his nauseating vision.
There’s dried blood on the ground. Disarray. What looks like a handprint on the side of the tub. He crawls towards it, falling twice. Lifts himself up just high enough to peer inside.
And there’s what he’s been looking for ever since he lost it.
Laurens.
Gone. Really gone. Not out there wandering somewhere. Really… gone.
He can’t see him. He’s wrapped in shower curtains. But there’s a gun he recognizes peering out from the edge of the tub—the one he had saved two bullets for, kept hidden just in case. One for each of them. Two bullets that John had, stupidly, used to save him when they had fled, instead of calling in quits right there when they had looked down at John’s bloody arm on the sofa, together. And he recognizes the curls. He doesn’t want to see more. He doesn’t want to.
He really is gone.
His mind slows to a stop. Even the room seems to stop spinning. He lays his hand over the bloody handprint.
They just seem to fit together.
Is it closure, or destruction? Even his mind can’t decide as it slows, slows, finally comes to a screeching stop, and—for the first time maybe ever—comes to a complete stop.
Eventually, he pulls himself up on the counter. His hand brushes paper. A letter.
He stares for a long time. Touches the paper.
And then, now, does what he came here to do.
He leaves it and closes the bathroom door. Goes to their bedroom. There’s a Columbia hoodie one size too big for him laid over the back of chair. He pulls it on. Crawls under the bed covers.
And he doesn’t move.
And doesn’t move.
And doesn’t move.
And doesn’t move.
Life has been a fugue state for so long that it takes him a long while to realize he’s not awake. The only difference between this and consciousness is that, here, he feels fleetingly safe.
So he must finally be dead.
He closes his eyes against the warm dark. For a few moments, nothing even hurts.
But even though his body feels faint, weightless, he’s still so heavy inside. Like he’s going to sink through the ground until he reaches the earth’s core, where maybe he’ll finally melt to nothing.
Then the air around him shifts, and he can sense that suddenly he’s no longer alone. Again, the first time in so long that he hardly knows what to do with himself. His eyes are still closed.
So Hamilton exhales and opens them.
Now the light around him is warm, the golden haze at the end of a summer day even though there’s no apparent source. The room around him seems to stretch on almost forever as he wanders aimlessly. The ceilings are high, the furniture velvet and rich. Where there’s carpet, it’s soft and plush beneath his feet, and where there’s not, his dress shoe heels clack crisp and sharp on polished hardwood. He even feels clean. He’s wearing a suit—badly fitting, but a suit nonetheless.
The afterlife is crowded. People flow around him like water around a stone in a creek, speaking words he can’t hear, burbling like a brook. Men and a smattering of women wear suits: navy, charcoal, black, formal. The rest wear rich evening gowns that shine iridescent in the light: a rainbow of reds and blues and golds, a flash of a yellow dress that feels distantly familiar. Sweet, fragrant cornflower and jessamine hang in the air, their delicate vines creeping up along the wallpapered walls.
The strange logic of dying, he reasons.
No one looks at him, and he doesn’t see their faces. It’s as if his gaze glosses straight over them when he tries, blurs them out. No one cares who he is—not ignoring him, exactly, but not paying attention either. Maybe they can’t see him fully either.
He’s nothing.
All he’s ever wanted was to be seen, to be acknowledged, but now he doubts if that was ever true. Maybe this is what he’s wanted—release from rock-bottom expectations that tied him down and the need to defy them. Release from his impossible ideals and goals. Release from everything.
In a strange way, he feels free.
Has he ever really been free before? Is that what dying is? Shedding the rotten pieces of yourself until you realize who you were always supposed to be, too late to change?
Somewhere, a string quartet bows away, playing some piece he knows but can’t name. The violin reminds him of something important, but he can’t name what.
“Alex,” someone says in his ear, a warm hand falling on his shoulder.
It’s been so long it takes him a moment to remember whose voice it is. “Laurens,” he croaks, and his name cracks in Hamilton’s throat, relief and joy thick.
Laurens. Right there behind him, now in front of him. Right as Hamilton left him. No—before that. Right before the world changed.
For a moment, Hamilton thinks he’s whole.
Laurens glows in his brown suit. It should be ugly; it isn’t. Hamilton wants to memorize the freckles splashed across his cheeks like they’re the constellations in the sky. He wants to map the line of his jaw and the curve of his cheekbones under his fingers until the shapes impress themselves into him. He wants it so much that he tries to look past how Laurens’ face isn’t quite clear, how the features shift like looking into a dirty mirror.
His smile is bright white, gleaming, and impossibly sad, and that sadness conduits in turn to Hamilton like electricity through a live wire, transferred through his touch.
“New haircut?” Laurens teases anyways, pushing levity into his voice.
Hamilton blinks, absentmindedly touching his head—the sheared, short hair that prickles between his fingers. Then, he laughs—but the sound dissolves right into a sob, one he’s never sure will stop.
“Oh, Alex,” Laurens laments, the sadness spreading now into his voice. He steps forward and presses their foreheads together. “Time hasn’t been kind, has it?”
All the memories flood over him until he’s drowning in them. Failure after failure. Loss after loss. His own hubris, his own self-destruction, spreading like rot to everything around.
“Laurens—John,” he pleas, tears rolling down his cheeks. “Is it over yet?”
Laurens pulls a handkerchief from his pocket, and Hamilton finds a rough laugh between coughs. When did he turn into the kind of asshole who keeps a handkerchief on hand?
He offers it to Hamilton, and when his arms are too heavy to take it, Laurens raises it himself to dab at his cheeks. “I’m not gonna ask you to keep going anymore.” His voice is calm now. “It’s okay, Alex.”
“So it’s over? Am I finally done? Dead?”
No, the pause says. But Laurens says, “You’re not exactly living.”
“I don’t remember the last time I was,” he sobs. “God—I’m so tired. It all hurts so much.”
“I know,” Laurens murmurs into his hair. “I know.”
Hamilton closes his eyes to block out the tears, the fear that he’ll open them and see disappointment on Laurens’ face. “I’ve fucked everything up.”
Laurens doesn’t answer. The silence is better than words. Better than reassuring him that he hasn’t. That someone accepts it, sees him for how he’s failed. So then why hasn’t Laurens pushed him away yet?
“It would just be easier to let go,” he tries.
“Easier.” Another silence. A long breath. “Maybe.”
Hamilton leans further into him; it’s at once too much and too little, that not even the joy of seeing him again is enough to take away all the pain. “I couldn’t do it, John. I couldn’t do what you asked of me. I couldn’t… it’s too much. It’s too much without you. I’m—sorry.”
John’s fingers thread through his, and then they’re swaying faintly side to side, comfortably lost in the crowd, like it’s happened a thousand times before and it’ll happen a thousand times again.
“I forgive you,” Laurens says, answering a question Hamilton hasn’t asked, that he was too scared to hear the answer to. There’s no hesitation. “Always.”
Hamilton doesn’t believe it. How could he? And more than that—
“Will they?” he asks from nowhere, not meaning to, so quiet that he isn’t sure Laurens will even hear him—the acknowledgement of everything he’s tried to evade for so long. So long, he can hardly even remember their faces either. It’s only in broken fragments—a glimpse of Thomas’s smirk over a glass of wine, a flash of Madison’s eyes looking at the keys of a piano.
“I don’t know,” Laurens admits, knowing who he means without having to ask.
“But will they be okay?” Because they were supposed to be, without him—
Another quiet exhale. “I don’t know that either.”
His chest grows tighter, grows heavier. “ Are they okay?”
His hand tightens around Hamilton’s, and he doesn’t answer. With an effort that takes all he has left, Hamilton leans away just enough to see his face. Laurens meets his eyes, smiling, but it isn’t happiness behind it. It’s something he knows that Hamilton doesn’t.
The words bubble up before he can stop them, quaking and afraid. “Are they here?”
It feels like a betrayal to ask these things, like he’s letting Laurens die all over again, like telling him he’s forgotten about him—but Laurens just presses a kiss to his mouth, slow and lingering.
Somehow, impossibly, everything it always was is still there, even though everything has changed. Even though Hamilton is a thousand miles away from where they began, and Laurens has been frozen ever since they last said goodbye.
How can Laurens forgive him everything when he must not recognize him anymore?
“I want you to be at peace,” is what Laurens says when he finally pulls away. “I don’t know how to make that happen. But whatever you do, wherever you go or decide, that’s what I want.”
“You don’t even know who I am anymore,” he croaks. “I hurt them. I would hurt you too.”
“Stop looking for rejection—from me most of all. I do know you. I see the intent, even when it ends up in in, frankly, a dumbass response. I know you, Alex. I know who I was going to marry.”
“Marry?” he coughs, incredulous. “I would have made a… a terrible husband.”
“Well, so would I. The dishes would never get done.”
Laurens smiles for real when Hamilton can’t help another cracked laugh. Hamilton lifts a hand haltingly to his cheekbone, tracing the curve. “It’s so good to see your face,” he whispers.
“Yeah,” Laurens murmurs, but he’s looking right at him.
“I love you, you know? Then and now and always. No matter what, I’ll always love you.”
“Nothing will ever change you and me. Not even the end of the world. I would never doubt that, even—”
“Even though we never even made it to Mepkin?” Alex interrupts, cracking again. “We had a plan, and you’ve been right here this whole time. I left you. How can you forgive that?”
“It’s not your fault,” Laurens argues, and there’s the fire in his voice he fell in love with, the heat that warms him from within, thaws the winter frost. He knocks Hamilton’s hand away from his face, grips it tight. “But I forgive you anyways. Not because there’s anything to forgive, but because it’s what I want you to hear. Because I love you. They will never change that. They will never make me doubt us. And I love them too for loving you when I couldn’t anymore.”
The nail on the head. What he’s asked himself for months. But—
“They don’t, anymore,” Hamilton says quietly. “So it doesn’t matter, does it?”
“Maybe not.” A tight squeeze to his hand, a promise. “But I won’t stop.”
He wars with a side of himself—the side that warns him he could still fuck that up too, somehow, and the side that wants it to be so true so badly that it hurts, because then, maybe—
“Then I must be broken,” he coughs. “Because I can’t feel it anymore, when I’m not dying. That’s the closest I get. I can’t feel you anymore if I’m not. It’s been so long since—”
Laurens kisses him before he can finish.
What if I just ruined this too? What if I haven’t—
Laurens doesn’t let him keep asking. He just keeps holding him, kissing him, until, gradually, Hamilton’s mind falls quiet. He’s so lost, drowning in sadness, in exhaustion, in the million mistakes he’s made, things that are all a thousand times more frightening than the emptiness he’s clutched to, but, briefly, it fades into background noise.
There are no answers even here, but somehow Laurens is still holding him, absolving him of sin.
He opens himself up to the possibility, sliver by sliver, that it’s true, and where he believes that the two of them would be just fine. There’s a fraction made whole, a fleeting hope—but there are things Laurens can’t absolve him of, living ghosts that haunt his footsteps.
Madison, silent, biting his knuckles as Hamilton walks away. Thomas’s eyes as Hamilton’s venom withered what good will they had.
Even this can’t erase those sins.
It’s a devastating thing to fully grasp. He wants that guilt to dissipate as much as he wants to fade away forever, as much as he wants Laurens to fill the oozing sinkhole in his chest that he’s fallen into piece by piece. But even if that gaping absence were filled, there’s just another one right next to it that he doesn’t deserve to have filled.
He has what he thought was the last thing he wanted. But even Laurens can’t make everything right anymore, and that’s the worst thing of all to realize. His forgiveness, infinite and impossible, isn’t all Hamilton needs, and he doesn’t deserve and couldn’t earn the rest of what might cleanse his dirty soul.
His mind whispers again—has he even tried?
He’s torn himself apart for so long trying to do the right thing, only for none of it to make him feel any better in the end. It’s made no one better. It just hurt everyone he loved again and again, and maybe not even hurt him the most at the end of it all.
He just wanted to go away. He thought that would fix it all. He wanted to fix it.
He hates himself. He hates that this cannot and isn’t enough to fix him, when he so desperately thought it would, that Laurens can see it that he isn’t enough, somehow, when he is, but—
“What do I do?” he asks, breaking out into another sob. “Laurens—what am I supposed to do? Please. Just tell me what I have to do. I’m so… lost. And… I’m afraid I’ll never be whole again. I don’t think I’ll ever be…” He doesn’t know how to finish, how he can possibly put the terrible black hole inside of him into words, because even if Laurens forgives him again for this, it’s still not enough.
“I don’t know,” Laurens says, and the raw honesty breaks him further into pieces. He shakes in his arms, sobs wracking.
“They’d never forgive me.”
“Maybe not,” Laurens exhales.
“And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, that I want—”
“Don’t do that,” Laurens interrupts, tucking Hamilton’s head under his chin. “Just don’t. Not to me.”
“Then—please. Just tell me what to do,” he begs. “When will enough be enough?”
“I can’t answer that for you, Alex,” he says, quiet and sad. “But I’ll be there when you decide.”
All of infinity before him, infinite choices, none that make him into who he used to be. He didn’t used to be like this. He doesn’t want to be like this. He doesn’t want anything to be like this.
“God,” he laughs in despair. “I can’t even die right.”
Laurens laughs too, but the sound is more sad than amused. “Maybe that’s your answer. Dying’s a lot easier than living for most of us.” He forces himself to look up, searching.
“It doesn’t hurt?” It’s not a question he asks for himself, and Laurens probably knows that.
“No.” He presses a soft kiss to his hair. “It’s just like falling snow.”
It makes him feel better, but—
“Is any of this even real?” Hamilton asks, giving the room a slow inspection—the swimming colors, the shifting shapes that aren’t quite right, the touch that’s solid but not enough to ground him, the face that fades every time he looks a little too closely. He swallows. “It’s not, is it?”
“Does it matter?”
Somewhere in the crowd, a face he knows turns to him. “What do I do?” he pleads, and the face melts back into the crowd without answering.
“You do what you have to, and I’ll be there,” Laurens responds, impossibly forgiving, impossibly soft. “But Alex…. you can love me and still let go.”
He doesn’t want to argue. He doesn’t want to ask another impossible question, even though impossible answers are all he wants. He doesn’t want Laurens to see him like this at all. He doesn’t know what he wants. There’s so little he knows, except—
“We were supposed to go to Mepkin,” he whispers, voice cracked.
“We can still go,” Laurens murmurs, pressing their foreheads together again. “You know, I would like to go home one last time.”
Hamilton closes his eyes for a long time, because he knows that when he opens them again, Laurens will be gone.
“I can’t wait to see you again,” he whispers.
“I can,” Laurens murmurs back. “It’s only a matter of time.”
When Hamilton opens his eyes, he’s right.
So he pulls himself out of bed, legs shaky, almost cutting himself on his ribs. Barefoot, he goes to the bathroom. Step by step. Laurens hasn’t gone anywhere.
And, against the voice that tells him not to, that tells him it’ll just make ending things harder, he takes the letter on the sink and opens the envelope.
Something falls out between the contents. Flutters to the ground. Faded colors, overexposed, a little blurry. He picks it up, hand trembling.
A photo strip. Part of one. Two photos, the third ripped off. Photos from a booth in a shitty abandoned mall in West Virginia that, years ago, he and Laurens were in together.
And they’re in the photos together.
Laurens’ arm around his shoulder, Hamilton’s cheek pressed to his, looking at him while Laurens grins at the screen. And the second: Laurens—he remembers. Laurens, pressing a messy, spitty kiss to the side of his mouth. Him, mid-yelp, hand frozen halfway up to smack him in the side of the head.
It can’t be happening, but by some grace, it is. He sobs, rough and raw, hitting his hip on the counter as he barely avoids another collapse.
For the first time, in so long, it’s not all sadness. There’s something else in the sobs, too, something he hasn’t felt for so long and wasn’t sure he would ever feel again.
Is he actually happy? Is that even still possible?
It seems impossible. But there it is, this feeling in his stomach that cuts through the rest, that chases just enough of the heaviness from his chest that he can breathe. He cries harder, disbelief sinking in, and clutches the photos as hard to his chest as he can, as if he can press them into his heart and burn the image to his skin, hold onto something he had thought was lost for good.
How much is really lost for good?
Emotion overwhelms him as he cries, a heady mix of sorrow and joy and a million other things he couldn’t name if he tried. He’s not sure how long he stays in place, frozen, but the sun is rising and golden outside when his fingers finally fumble to open the letter.
There’s ink smudged in several places, a little splatter of brown along the top edge. He tries not to think about all these things as his eyes find the first line.
Alex, it starts, and he hears Laurens’ voice in every line.
So they go to Mepkin.
Because this, at least, he can do.
He finds a car that he can coax into starting and drives away. These are the things he takes from the apartment: four living potted plants. An unfinished portrait. Food. Clothes. Paints, brushes, pencils. Books. A letter and two-thirds of a photo strip. Laurens.
He takes Laurens home, wrapped in sheets, laid out in the backseat.
He talks as he drives, about everything and nothing. The passing scenery. About the places he’s been and the people he’s met since. About how much he misses writing and sitting at the table with a coffee every morning to read The Economist. He talks about economics, the half-baked plans he would have put in place in a kinder world, and what they would have achieved in the war.
His voice waves and croaks, hoarse from disuse—but once he starts talking, he can’t stop.
He talks still as he carries Laurens’ body out back into estate’s overgrown gardens, talks as he digs a hole into the muddy ground beneath the shade of a willow by the lake, close enough to the rose bushes that the scent hangs fragrant in the air. He talks as he lays Laurens down, lays the half-finished portrait atop the sheets, because they should be in a grave together.
He talks as he fills in the grave, louder as if he can hide the violent shaking in his hands. He sits down beside the freshly filled earth and talks again and again. He talks as he walks alone through the gardens, around the rose bushes that he remembers John’s mother could never get to grow, that his father spent thousands getting to seed after she was gone. He walks around the lakebed, as he’s thinking that it would be easier to just swim down, as he’s thinking of another lake.
He talks as he drags a stone over the grave, talks through what he chips into the surface.
John Laurens, he decides. He was everything.
Because he was nothing less.
And when he finally starts running out of things to say, when it becomes too unavoidable, he talks about them. The little things first. Everything Jefferson has ever done to annoy him—his propensity for white shirts, never mind that they’ll inevitably end up bloodstained, the ridiculous silk pillowcase he hauled around everywhere, how he had no respect for personal space when he’s making an idiotic point. Madison’s encyclopedic knowledge of tea blends, his stilted way of speech, the way his fingers would twitch even when the rest of him is still. About how the two of them would have driven John crazy too, about how things might have been if it had been the four of them.
Gradually, piece by piece, he moves towards the heavy things. The things he’s tried to keep so separate from Laurens—as if to hide them when Laurens hasn’t already known them all from wherever he is, if there is even some place to go after death. He talks about how he didn’t mean for any of it to happen. Explaining again and again why he did what he did, why he can never be forgiven, even if he tried as hard as he did to avoid ever needing forgiveness in the first place.
He talks until he can’t, until he falls asleep with freshly turned earth pressed against his cheek and gritting up his hair. He falls with Laurens, six feet of separation between them, wishing he had long been safe and warm in the ground beside him.
And, day after day, he talks, wondering if he’ll finally waste away, if the choice of going on or not will be made for him. Maybe this is how he’s supposed to meet an end. Protecting what’s left of Laurens, a ghost, until he fades to thin air.
There’s something romantic about the idea, and it’s something.
Eventually, he plants flowers on the grave. Laurens’ plants, salvaged from the apartment, except for a succulent he keeps. Seeds from his mother’s garden. Daises and jessamine, cornflower and hydrangeas. Forget-me-nots. Laurens would’ve liked that, he thinks. Better to turn into the dirt that nurtures than to be left forever in a bathtub, away from the sunlight.
He’s afraid that they won’t take. That everything he touches will surely wither before it can seed. Their failure to take root will only prove the venom inside of him, that he’s poison to everything good in the world, like he always seems to have been. Even if he wasn’t once, he surely is now.
Eventually, he goes inside the house. Walks the empty halls. He talks to the portraits on the walls, too, most who he never knew, talks even to Henry Laurens. Tells him he’s sorry for their one encounter. He tells them stories that they never could have known, about who Laurens was and what Laurens was to him. He tells them he’s sorry, that he tried so hard to keep him safe and, now, to put him to rest where they’ll always know where to find him.
If they forgive him, there’s no sign of it in their expressions.
“I loved him,” he says the last time he speaks to them. “I’m sorry it wasn’t enough.”
What more is there to say? And there are no answers for the questions he wants to ask.
He talks when he finds a ring half-buried in the dirt by the car door, a ring with a stripe of jade that runs all the way round, a ring he only knew about from a letter and never expected to hold. He puts it on a chain and wears it over his chest, and he talks to Laurens about how much he would have liked to have gotten married. That, he talks about for a long, long time.
He sleeps shielded by the willow during the days, through the cloudless nights and the rain, and he talks away his days through the summer, wondering still when enough will be enough.
And, one morning, as fall closes in, he wakes up and sees blue. A thin stalk, budding indigo petals at the top, sprouted from dark earth.
The unimaginable.
The flower blows in the breeze long before he dares enough to reach out a hand, afraid they’ll vanish. He grazes the petals with his fingertips, delicate as he can, afraid they’ll fall away. Velvet under his touch. Leans in to inhale, the first real breath he’s taken in an eternity: mild, earthy, a hint of clover.
The seeds he planted.
“Okay,” he whispers into the quiet.
There is no answer, but there was never going to be one. Nothing but the answers he decided himself, insufficient and incomplete as they are.
There was never going to be a goodbye that didn’t leave him at least a little bit hollow, either. Because that was the only way it could have ended if any of it had mattered.
And every moment of it mattered. Every single moment.
With a hundred fuzzy willow seeds in his pockets, he heads north.
When he knocks at the door, he’s seen better days. His errant inches of hair are wild and stiff with salt, skin tanned, sand in his clothes from a scuffle on the shore. He’s barefoot because he lost one of his boots back in North Carolina and hasn’t found a pair that fit since, and his right arm is wrapped up from the last bite he had from an infected just outside of Richmond. His stomach is tight and hollow, nausea rising higher by the second. But he’s seen worse days, and tomorrow could be one of them.
There’s nowhere else to go, after this.
He knocks a second time when there’s no answer, harder, mouth growing dry.
A funny sense of déjà vu that comes over him when a shotgun racks behind him. It’s like there’s nothing new on this earth, and he’s lived through this life a thousand times before only to reach the same ending every time, but now he finally feels afraid again.
An acrid voice barks behind him. “Hands in the air. Do not fuck with me.”
But he doesn’t do that—he’s never been good at following orders. He turns around instead. If it’s his last moment, he may as well see what he came here for.
A man looks at him from the barrel of a shotgun, expression harsh, eyes bitter, a thousand years older and harder than when Hamilton saw him last.
But it’s still him.
For a long time, the only sound between them is the sea breeze and the waves lapping at the shore behind the house. An infinite silence and space between them that he has no idea how to bridge, if he’ll only be pulled back under the riptide and die trying.
He expects for a split second, when Jefferson’s eyes widen, when his expression twists, that the boundless silence will be broken with a shot, with his torso shredded into mince meat, with his insides splattered like a Pollock against the front door.
But then the barrel falls limp to Jefferson’s side.
Jefferson stares at him, silent, still, and they stay like that for a long time.
Notes:
well, look who's back from the dead...
in the time since the last chapter, I have learned a new language, been to eight new countries, fallen in love twice (don't ask me about how many times I've had my heart broken lol), become a legal drinker, finished two years of college, and a whole host of other misguided stories i should not share on the internet. if you've been waiting for a long time for this chapter, let me know what you've been up to too haha
and check out the last side fic if you've missed it! don't worry, it's definitely happy and nothing bad happens