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They’d been dreaming about this day for so long, both of them. First separately, and then together, a web of longing tangled around each other. And now the day is here: their first raid is in the morning, down in the Battery, and there’s a chance it might go wrong. There’s a chance that everything will go wrong, that they’ll end up staring down the barrel of a bayonet, that they’ll die before they’ve even begun to live, that they’ll never get to see that nation they want so very badly. They knew that going in, but still. These aren’t just drills with the other students anymore. This is real. It’s going to be real.
John arrives at Alexander’s house that night unbeckoned, unannounced, as though Alexander’s mere thoughts have drawn him there. He stands on his doorstep looking half-mad, a glittering ember in his eyes.
Alexander has always loved that look.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he says, shortly, and Alexander laughs before letting him in. John throws his coat onto a chair in the sitting area like he lives there, which doesn’t bother Alexander in the slightest.
“Wine?” asks Alexander, and John grimaces.
“Whiskey.”
Alexander is happy to comply, pouring both of them glasses while John walks around his sitting room, picking up objects at random, a frenetic energy to his body, pitching himself forward and back, forward and back. He accepts the glass from Alexander with a peculiar look.
Alexander feels the brush of his calloused fingers on his hand. “What?”
“I won’t say it,” says John, half to himself. “I won’t say ‘what if.’”
Alexander’s stomach rolls slightly; he takes a sip of his whiskey to calm it. “Then don’t.”
John makes an impatient sound in the back of his throat. “But what if, Alexander?”
Alexander shakes his head, keeping his eyes trained on John’s anxious face. “When our children tell our story,” he says, slowly, “they’ll tell the story of tonight.”
“God,” groans John heatedly, his voice raw. “I hope not.”
It sends shivers down Alexander’s spine. His heart is beating very fast with adrenaline.
“You’re the braver one,” John says thoughtfully, considering him. His face goes tender like it sometimes does, soft and malleable and beautiful in the lamplight.
Alexander swallows. “Not with this. Not now,” he says, and John exhales, the breath ragged. They both hear the challenge in his words. Alexander sets his glass down on the mantlepiece carefully, ignoring the tremor of his hands, the first move in this dangerous game of chess. He is aware of John’s every movement. “You’ll have to be the braver of us tonight.”
John is a blur then, quick as a flap of birds’ wings, setting down his glass next to Alexander’s and slamming him against the wall next to his fireplace, a tight hand wrapped around his wrists, securing them above his head. He’s so close, his breath on Alexander’s cheek, a rough current, his mouth inches away.
“Like this?” he asks, and the question is as much a dare as it is a request. He tucks his head to one side, leaning to whisper in one of Alexander’s ears. “Say yes.”
“Yes,” breathes Alexander, not even conscious of the word before John is kissing him frantically, needily, his teeth scraping at the corner of Alexander’s mouth. He drops Alexander’s hands to go to work on the buttons of his vest, shaking with the effort. John’s skin is surprisingly soft when he presses it against Alexander’s chest, and so is his hair when Alexander digs his hands into it, pulling him closer against him. Everything feels flushed.
John pulls back an inch suddenly, eyes focused like a cat on Alexander’s face, searching for answers there.
“If this - if this is the last time - ” he whispers hoarsely, his voice thick with something that sounds dangerously like tears, but Alexander shakes his head, clearing away the words.
“We don’t have enough time for ifs,” insists Alexander again. “Neither of us.”
John lets himself be pushed back, then, eased onto the chair in front of the fireplace, bending at buckling knees.
“We just have tonight,” says Alexander, feeling like he’s in a trance as he kneels before John, tearing the laces from his breeches in impatience.
“Fuck,” breathes John, cupping the side of Alexander’s head. “Oh, fuck.”
Alexander’s never done this before, but it doesn’t seem to matter; John is already hard and slick when he rubs him roughly with his palm just before sliding his mouth over his length. John makes a wild, keening noise that seems to come from his bones when Alexander hollows his cheeks, his nails digging into Alexander’s scalp.
“You’re - so good,” he moans abstractedly, and the praise sends blood rushing to Alexander’s head.
He can feel John tighten in his mouth, the tension coiling outward from his hips.
“I won’t - not much longer,” pants John, jutting his chin toward the ceiling. He looks like he’s in prayer. “Not if you keep doing that.”
Alexander regretfully pulls his mouth away with a long stroke of his tongue, and John digs his hands into the arms of the chair.
“Do you have - lard?” asks John, coloring at the cheeks, and Alexander stares at him.
“Lard?”
John looks like he is going to laugh, but he doesn’t. “Yes, Alexander,” he repeats slowly, “lard. For us.” He stands, pulling Alexander to his feet, dragging one of Alexander’s hands over his cock, achingly slowly. He sucks on Alexander’s jaw before whispering, “Because I’m going to fuck you,” and Alexander goes slack with want.
They’re a rush of limbs into his bedroom, (with a frantic and heated stop in the kitchen), both of them biting and scratching at stretches of exposed skin. John knocks him onto his bed ungraciously, Alexander pushing himself up against the headboard. John pulls Alexander’s breeches off easily, throwing them to the ground beside the bed, his light eyes wandering Alexander’s body. He warms some of the lard between his hands and then pauses, leaning in to kiss Alexander gently, his mouth searching and light.
“Is this alright?” he asks. “Is this what you want?”
There aren’t enough words in the world to describe how much this is what Alexander wants. He could write a treatise on how much he wants John, and in all the ways he wants him, and all the ways he loves that John wants him. But he settles for “God, John, yes,” as John pushes a finger gently into him. Alexander goes limp with the sheer pleasure of it, clutching at John’s shoulders. John laughs lightly before kissing the side of Alexander’s face.
“I’m going to add another,” he warns before doing so, and while the intrusion is unpleasant, it’s nothing compared to the ecstasy. Nothing compared to the feeling of John’s skin on his, soft and heated.
“Please, John,” he’s babbling inanely, “please, I need to feel you.”
John groans like an obscenity, his whole body wracked with desire. “Are you sure?” he asks. “I don’t want to push you - ”
“Yes,” says Alexander at once, the words wrenched from his body. “Yes, this is what I want. I want you. God, I want you.”
John rubs the lard on himself generously and then works his way inside him, emitting a low, guttural growl.
Alexander is alive with sensation, every part of him singing out, and the chorus they're all singing is John, John, John, John. Alexander bites the tender skin of John's shoulder, neck, chest, heady with how right this feels.
“Mine,” he whispers into John’s skin, and John’s muscles tighten at the word.
“Yes, yes,” he agrees, hips bucking against Alexander, kissing everywhere he can reach - his hair, his forehead, his temples.
Their bodies are in tune, so in sync, so hungry for each other, for more, for everything, for their lives that for an instant seem to stretch into eternity before them.
John comes with a shudder and a stifled cry and Alexander sings with how good it feels. But John isn’t finished; he flings himself downward, tugging on Alexander’s cock, licking it, sucking with a kind of mania. It isn’t long before Alexander is coming too, fast and hard in John’s mouth, John looking up at him with something like reverence.
They’re sweaty and saturated, lying back against Alexander’s pillows, John wearing something like a satisfied smile.
“You’re awfully proud of yourself,” says Alexander, grinning, and John only shrugs.
“If I’m going to die tomorrow,” he says, “at least I got to kiss you first.”
Alexander blushes, hiding his face. “You did more than that,” he says, like it’s a joke, but really he wants to remind himself, this happened, this happened, that all the aching in his muscles are because of John.
John grows serious for a moment, looking at Alexander and kissing him again. “I did,” he said. “And I’d do it again.”
Alexander’s face grows hot. “Where are Lafayette and Hercules?” he asks, and Laurens laughs, rocketing out of him.
“Some pillow talk,” he says, but he looks unbothered. “At the pub, getting drunk, of course. Do you want to see them?”
So considerate, always, John is. Alexander nods, lets John clean them both up, watching the way his eyes hit the light.
“I love you,” says Alexander, in a moment of vulnerability, and John makes a face.
“If you’re saying that because you think you’re going to die tomorrow, don’t. I can handle it.”
Alexander pulls his arm, drawing his face close to his. “I’m not,” he insists, and John looks at him for a long moment before pulling away.
“Tell me again tomorrow,” he says, somewhat evasively, so Alexander does. Again and again, every day until he can’t.
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