Chapter Text
He can hear Thomas behind him. He was definitely trying not to stumble, but was still rushing to catch up. James narrowed his eyes and willed the lock on the front door still stay still enough for him to throw it open. He succeeds in doing so, and manages to step out into the night and take another swig of the vodka before Thomas is upon him, gently but firmly prying both bottles from his hands.
“Enough of that,” he says, but doesn’t place the bottles back in Hamilton’s house before closing the door. He brought them up to his face, instead.
“Did you drink all of this?” Thomas asked.
James just shrugged, still walking down the stairs and towards their house.
“Alexander helped a bit. He was in a helpful mood today,” he said without turning around.
“Really? Because that’s not what Angelica said,” Thomas’s voice was growing spicy again, “remind me again what the two of you were doing down there again? Because we never actually got around to explaining literally anything.” He spoke quickly, moving to catch up with James, who was now in the middle of the street.
“We were talking about you,” James’s voice was loud and clipped and mean, and he didn’t even know why. Yes he did. He was hurt. He had been for a while. The only difference was that now he was drunk.
Thomas was quiet, and he stopped in the road, watching James walk away.
“What about me?” He asked, his tone muted.
James stopped too, but didn’t turn to look at his boyfriend. How dare Jefferson feel scared? He had no damn right to feel scared about what Madison felt. That was James’s right, was becoming all he had left. Thomas was the one who was never home. Thomas was the one who refused to have any serious conversation about them. Thomas was the one who left him for France, for work, for something something something time and time again. Thomas left him.
“Why are you even with me, Thomas?” He asked quietly into the darkness. He head Jefferson suck in a sudden breath behind him.
“What the hell kind of question is that James?”
There was fear in his voice. Damn him. James couldn’t hold them both together, especially not drunk like this. His head ducked down.
“One that I’m having a hard time answering.”
“Bullshit,” Thomas breathed out behind him, “James where is this coming from? I thought we were… everything has been… great. I didn’t know that you were…” he struggled obviously with every word, each drowning in emotion. James couldn’t speak. He couldn’t do this. He wished he could go back, erase this conversation. It didn’t matter, he was being needy.
“James,” Thomas’s voice broke, and he hadn’t moved a step. James could imagine him behind him, stock still, his shoulders dripped slightly in, looking afraid to move.
“Why you don’t want me?” James finally asked, his own voice suddenly far past broken.
Thomas didn’t say anything behind him, and the world seemed to crash around James. He let out a harsh, shuddering breath that quickly morphed into a sob. He wanted to move, to get inside the house, to shut the door on this conversation like he did with every other problem in his life.
“what?” Thomas asked, his voice soft like liquid smoke, evaporating in the air, “James, no, I don’t know what this is, I don’t know what I did, but I am so sorry if I ever gave you the impression that I didn’t… that I didn’t want you. Jesus Christ, Jemmy, you’re all I’ve ever wanted, right from the day I met you,” he was moving forward then, finally, coming up behind his boyfriend.
He extended a hand, intending to grab Madison’s shoulder and spin him around into Thomas’s chest. But he hesitated at the last moment, his hand hovering over James’s shoulder. James, who after the first escaped noise quickly clamped down on himself, and was standing as still and as tense as seemed humanly possible.
“Honey?” Thomas asked quietly, trying not to break down at whatever the fuck was happening as well. He felt panicked, like someone had yanked him down into the water and it was rushing all around him, ready to carry away his entire life. The worst part of it was that James had already been down there, and Thomas had no idea. He was supposed to fucking know these things, it was his damn job.
“Why don’t you want to marry me then?” James’s voice was smaller than Thomas had ever heard it, and his heart broke into a million pieces, even if he didn’t quite understand what was happening.
“What? What do you mean? James I never said that I didn’t want to-“
“But I did. I did say, Thomas, and I don’t need you to feel the same way, I can’t ask that of you, but I need an answer, I need to know how to work from here, what I’ve been doing wrong-“
“Stop it,” Thomas ordered, not hesitating this time as he reached towards his boyfriend.
James came without a complaint, completely limp in Thomas’s arms as he was pulled into his chest. Thomas clutched at him, willing for his boyfriend to hold him back, not just let Thomas do whatever he pleased to him.
“James, honey, I did not mean to…to give you that impression. You have done nothing wrong, you are the most perfect, gorgeous, caring love of my life I could have asked for, and I am sorry that I obviously couldn’t reciprocate that well enough. I love you so much, more than anything else on this planet, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I just assumed you knew that, which was stupid of me, and I’m sorry that I can’t stop being such an asshole and not seeing past myself-“
“You’re not an asshole,” James sniffed into Thomas’s coat tiredly, leaning in a bit and starting to reciprocate the embrace.
“I obviously am,” Thomas wasn’t speaking to contradict James, but out of pure misery. James peeked up at him and saw his face for the first time. He looked absolutely wrecked.
“No,” James sighed, “I’m just drunk. Let’s just go home, forget I ever said anything.”
Thomas’s face wrinkled up in confusion and horror, “No!”
James looked at him sadly and squeezed his arm softly before pulling away to go inside. Thomas latched onto his hand, though, and stopped him. The taller man’s eyes zeroed in on their joined hands, and suddenly he was the one avoiding eye contact.
“James…I know I did…I did deliberately avoid that question, when you brought it up. I didn’t want to talk about…about getting married. But that’s not because I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with you, because I don’t even have to think about it to know that I undoubtedly do. It’s just that…it didn’t really occur to me that we needed to be married to do that.” He stopped for a moment and bit his lip, “well, that’s a lie. It did occur to me. It occurred to me a lot. And I think about it a lot. How nice it would be… but after what happened between my mom and dad…”
The words hang in the air and James winced a bit, remembering Thomas’s retelling of the lovebirds whose love was ruined by marriage and turned into something awful right in front of Thomas’s six year old eyes.
“I’m scared, James. I don’t want you to ever feel like you’re with me out of some obligation. I don’t want to hold you back.”
A silence hung for a moment, as James stared at his boyfriend with wide eyes.
“hold me back,” he breathed quietly, reiterating Thomas’s words, “hold me back from what? There is nowhere in the world I want to be more than right here.”
Thomas swallowed, “and if that changes?”
“Thomas I’ve been in love with you almost my entire life. I don’t even remember what it’s like going a day without your face at the front of my mind. There is no way I’ll change my mind. You have royally pissed me off about once a month but never have I come anywhere close to changing my mind. You are my mind. There is nothing-“
Thomas rushes forward, and his cheeks are wet when he presses their faces together, gently caressing James’s lips with his own.
“I love you,” Thomas’s voice is wet and shaky against James’s lips.
“I love you too,” James responds in kind, clutching fiercely at his boyfriend.
They spend a few moments like that, locked in each other’s embrace, reminding themselves of every inch and cranny that the other possessed.
“James?”
Madison just hummed in response, letting their faces fall together so their foreheads touched, and closing his eyes. He was exhausted, and the vodka wasn’t making it any easier to keep his eyes open.
“Will you marry me?”
That opened his eyes.
“Nope,” he sighed, pulling away and walking up their steps.
“Wait, what?” Thomas asked after him, befuddled for the millionth time that night.
“After all that, I think I deserve something a bit better the happy resolution to another one of you and Hamilton’s fights. I want to be blown away Thomas, go big or go home.”
Thomas just stared after him, mostly in awe. James stuck his head back out the door when Thomas didn’t follow, an eyebrow raised.
“But you can actually just go home cause I’m tired and drunk and I need you to help me up our five hundred stairs.”
Thomas let out a breathy, unexpected laugh. He felt…lighter than he had an hour ago, and letting the sound out was cathartic. James smiled softly at him from the door before somehow stumbling while standing still against the doorframe.
Thomas rolled his eyes and marched up the stairs, “come on then, love of my life, darling and dearest,” he approached James and, much to the other man’s obvious chagrin, easily scooped him up.
“Easy there tiger, we aren’t married yet,” James reminded him clutched at Thomas’s shoulders.
“Not yet,” he agreed, “beautiful, my little minx, sweetheart, valentine, my sweet piece of-“
He stopped abruptly as they passed the kitchen. They both stared in amazement at the scene in front of them.
Brown dust covered every foreseeable surface, and brown goo covered a third of them. There were several empty milk jugs scattered about, along with vacant hot chocolate pouches.
“He didn’t even use hot water,” James spoke softly.
“Did…did you let Hamilton into our house?”
“Yes.”
“Unsupervised?”
James looked up at him, his face questioning, searching Thomas’s.
“No?”
“So you were here and you let this happen?”
“Oh. Well, no.”
“I should drop you,” Thomas spoke in amazement.
“Honestly I would just fall asleep on the floor and then you’d be cold in bed without anyone there to warm you up you natural hypothermic,” James spoke confidently, and Thomas was so overcome with love and exhaustion from the night that he just leaned down and kissed James in agreement before moving towards the “five hundred” stairs.
“You do have to help me get back at him for that now, though. You’re officially involved,” Thomas pointed out.
“That’s fine,” James yawned in his arms, tucking his head closer to Thomas’s throat and knowing he would regret his words in the morning.