–––––– the moment my muse realized they’re in love with yours.
alexander hamilton is dead.
the report reaches camp in the early morning, a letter sent from some captain or other to washington. john’s on bedrest, a stray cannonball glancing off his ankle and leaving it unbelievably painful to try to walk on ( though he would, if it meant he could go back into battle ), when he hears, and it feels like the cannonball has gone straight into his chest and lodged there. or perhaps that would be more MERCIFUL than this, this pain that comes out of nowhere at the news spreading through the camp. they haven’t even known each other for that long, for god’s sake — a month, two months, who knows — and yet he hasn’t felt like this since jemmy. one failed attempt at standing up later ( he doesn’t know where he’s planning to go; perhaps back into battle to be as reckless as he possibly can ), he feels a tear trickle down his cheek and REALIZES.
he loves him. of that there is no doubt — there’s an empty space in his heart at the news. he’d tricked himself, for a time, into believing he was in love with martha, but that counterfeit attempt at love is NOTHING in contrast to this. there’s an all too brief moment of joy at the realization before he REMEMBERS — then, only a crushing grief leaving him breathless. even if hamilton were alive, it couldn’t be — they’re both men, after all, and he cannot afford to let either of their legacies be stained with something so sinful. but the realization, and the fact that it only occurs after alexander’s death so there’s nothing he can do about it, hurt nonetheless, for days and days.
eight days. it's eight days later that hamilton comes back to camp, unaware that everyone who knows him believed him to be dead. laurens, who has kept his grief to himself for the past hellish week, also keeps the extreme relief he feels at hamilton’s revival to himself. the realization he’s had during those days cannot be known to anyone, so he keeps it to himself, shoves it in a tiny room at the back of his heart, locks it and throws away the metaphorical key. he can’t love alexander, and there’s no way alexander will ever love him in return, he reminds himself. it’s best to keep it SECRET.
