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He brought flowers, like an idiot.
In his defense, he knew from the beginning it was an idiotic thing to do. Hamilton might be a little rough around the edges, but even he knew you brought useful shit after a death: a casserole or something the family could eat while they were too heartsick and exhausted to fend for themselves. But he sucked at what should be a submissive’s first and best skill: he couldn’t cook for shit. He doubted Burr would appreciate his vast collection of takeout menus.
And he had to bring something. There was no way he was going to show up at Burr’s empty-handed. If he did that, he might have to figure out why the hell he was going to Burr’s at all. Their friendship was in one of its off-again periods, after all; this time so very off-again that Hamilton had had to time his visits to Theodosia in the oncology ward for the rare periods when her husband had gone home to shower and snatch what sleep he could. It would have been awkward for him to be there at the best of times...Burr didn’t know about his pseudonymous side hustle advocating for subs’ rights, so he didn’t know Hamilton was three of the authors he’d recommended to his girlfriend years ago. He certainly didn’t know she had quickly become his editor. You have interesting ideas, she had written to all three of his personas, but your arguments could use refinement. Passion is a fine quality in a young submissive, but on its own it lends itself well to stereotype.
He had thrown two of the copies of the letter against the wall before admitting she was right, and beginning one of the most productive working partnerships of his life.
So trying to explain to Aaron Burr why Hamilton visited his dying wife once a week would have been a minefield even if they had currently been speaking. Especially since Hamilton suspected that the root of all Burr’s pissiness toward him over the years was that he felt left out. Hamilton suddenly announcing he and Theodosia had carried on a decade-long correspondence neither of them had ever bothered to tell him about would not have gone over well.
He couldn’t remember, now, why they hadn’t told him. It had certainly seemed imperative at the time--submissives needing something all their own, Hamilton not wanting to out his riskier political activities to a colleague. Now it just seemed petty--the sort of thing he would scold his son for, not letting another kid sit at the lunch table with them.
He couldn’t remember why he and Burr weren’t speaking, either. A stupid fight, he supposed, like all the stupid, petty fights before it. No matter what, he could always be counted on to pick fights over nothing with Aaron Burr. It had been an almost comforting constant. Now he just wanted it to stop, but he didn’t know how.
Flowers. He was permitted flowers. Flowers were an acceptable offering for a perpetually unattached sub to give a recently bereaved Dominant colleague with a child of a similar age, no matter what history there was between Hamilton and Burr, or Hamilton and Theodosia, for that matter. He could begin with flowers.
It wasn’t until he showed up at Burr’s door, bouquet in hand, that he realized how grotesque his choice was. The apartment was drowning in flowers, their scent so cloying Hamilton could barely breathe as he pushed the door open in response to Burr’s nod. He’d brought marigolds, which were at least Theodosia’s favorite flower--how he remembered that he didn’t know, it was one of the hundreds of tiny pieces of minutiae he’d somehow come to know of her, the bits of flotsam you got through years of correspondence.
So he’d at least managed to distinguish himself from the dozen bouquets of lilies in the foyer, but this was not an endeavor in which he could win points for originality or attention to detail. All he’d brought was another useless bit stuff, and worse, another horribly awkward few minutes in which Burr would have to perform all the social niceties he’d pulled off so well at the funeral.
Which he did, admirably. His smile was as wide as ever, which hurt Hamilton-- no, Aaron, don’t do that, he wanted to say, though he had no right to be so familiar. You don’t have to do that. God.
“Thank you,” Burr said woodenly. “How very thoughtful.”
Hamilton wanted to die, a little bit. All of a sudden, he was unfairly pissed at Theodosia for dying before she had had the chance to teach Burr he could have feelings without the world ending. Since that was obviously an impossible task, she should never have died, her work as a submissive doomed to be forever incomplete otherwise. Who was left for Burr to be angry at, or even in front of?
You should ask me what the fuck I’m doing here, thought Hamilton. You should ask me how I ever found the nerve. I certainly don’t know.
But Burr didn’t seem all that surprised to see him, really. Or if he did, it didn’t show in his facial expression. Nothing much ever did, really, which was one of the more irritating things about Burr.
“Anyway, I--I thought I’d stop by,” Hamilton said. “See if you and Theo needed anything.” There would be a list, he knew, of the people Burr could call in a crisis, and what types of support they could offer. Burr liked lists. He knew his own name would be nowhere on it, and he wasn’t sure if that stung or shamed him more.
“We’re...we’re holding up,” said Burr. “As well as can be expected.”
A stock answer, and not an answer to the question Hamilton actually asked. Leave him alone, said a voice in his that sounded a great deal like Washington. Maybe it was the voice of what little prudence he possessed.
But as usual, he couldn’t make himself listen to it. Burr was too often alone anyway--Hamilton had often thought he was the sort who could be alone even in a crowd, a talent Hamilton had never mastered. He would only go if Burr told him to, in clear and simple words.
Burr said, “Won’t you come in?”
That settled it. Hamilton stepped across the threshold. He’d always liked Burr’s apartment, even if he was wildly jealous of the man for taking advantage of what a trust fund could get you in New York City--Burr had done well for himself, but not penthouse well. The apartment was so much the opposite of Burr’s closed-off self, all light and windows and wide open spaces, more a luxury here than antique furniture. Every time he came here Hamilton wanted to spend hours in raptures over the bookshelves.
He left the marigolds on a side table to wither and hung up his coat.
Burr, ever the gracious host, cleared his throat. “Can I offer you something? Coffee, tea? I have some beer around here somewhere.”
Alcohol, he suspected, would be a very bad idea for Burr right now, and thus for him. “Coffee’s fine. I’ll make it, I know how you like it.” Burr pretended to take his coffee black. This was a disgusting and bald-faced lie.
Burr’s smile didn’t slip so much as waver for a second. “Do you?”
His own smile was genuine, if perhaps a bit too bright. “Law school wasn’t that long ago.”
Burr, thankfully, made no fuss about Hamilton doing him this small service. It was, he reflected, somewhat selfish, to always ask the bereaved how you could help, and so force them to come up with something so you could feel better about yourself. Burr took a seat at the kitchen table and waited for Hamilton to finish the coffee--strong and rich, with enough cream and sugar to make it nearly dessert in its own right. Hamilton hesitated, then poured slightly less cream and sugar for himself. Not so young anymore, boy, and not a military man, are you? You need to watch your figure.
He poured for Burr almost without thought, and only afterward noticed the flinch. “Oh,” he said, “I’m sorry, is this a...trespass, I didn’t think…” His face flooded with heat. Stupid, so stupid, he should have remembered that Burr was a widowed Dominant and you didn’t just do things for one of those, that had implications. Or connotations, maybe, which were unpleasant and tasteless and in no way applicable here.
“Why would it be?” asked Burr.
“Of course it isn’t, that would be ridiculous,” Hamilton babbled, setting Burr’s cup in front of him before taking a seat. “Still, if it...touches sore spots…” Idiot, he castigated himself. Shut up. Everything would be a sore spot for Burr now. He was a raw, walking wound.
“She took tea,” Burr interrupted, a small mercy. “And I made it. Every morning.”
Huh. He hadn’t known Burr was that sort of Dom, but it was unsurprising, somehow.
Hamilton sat down and sipped his own coffee. He could never understand people who said coffee made them jittery and unfocused--although it gave him energy, it also settled him a bit. Clarified things. Made it easier to breathe. “I really do want to help you and Theo in any way I can. I’m...at your service, sir.” The flash of nostalgia for the boy who had first said those words to Burr, years ago now, was warmer and more forgiving than he would have thought.
“Talk to me,” Burr said.
That was an abrupt change of subject, Hamilton thought, and then he realized it was not a change of subject at all, but Burr acquiescing to his request. It was weird, he would have thought Burr would tell him to shut up now that he had that request in his power.
Still. This, he could do.
He started with work, careful to be light on specifics...although one of their epic fights about policy, might be just the distraction Burr needed right now, he had the feeling it would be too much for himself. Burr rarely commented, but when he did his observations were on point and filled with the same dry, arch wit as ever, though he was slower to make them. That lasted them through the first cup of coffee. He avoided the children, thinking the subject might be too painful, but then as he poured the second remembered the book he had finished that morning. Theodosia would have liked it, he thought with a pang. He wasn’t sure Burr would.
“I should go,” said Hamilton after the second cup, putting their dishes in the sink. There were a few meals’ worth there already, a sure sign that Burr wasn’t holding up as well as he wanted Hamilton to believe, so Hamilton proceeded to wash and dry them.
“You don’t have to do that,” said Burr.
“I know. Where do your plates go? Never mind, I found them.” That task done, he turned back to the table, where Burr was staring blankly into space, his smile mostly gone.
“Can I get you anything before I go? Lunch?” He could show off his impressive knowledge of takeout after all.
“Hamilton,” said Burr, a note of iron in his voice Hamilton had not heard in a very long time, “tell me why you came here.”
Hamilton considered and discarded several possible answers, all of them true to a degree but none of them the whole truth, which he couldn’t offer because he hadn’t figured it out yet himself. I wanted to help wouldn’t satisfy Burr; I missed you would put pressure on him to resume their friendship, and that felt uncomfortably like taking advantage of Burr’s grief. I couldn’t not would just be weird.
How strange, that he should have no words here, when usually they were the only thing he had.
And then there was only one thing left to do.
He stood up. Walked to the other side of the table so he was next to Burr. “I offer you this as a friend,” he said, feeling more sure of himself than he had all afternoon. “I take no offense if it is refused.” And he went to his knees on the carpeted floor.
Burr sucked in a breath. Hamilton didn’t know if he was shocked or offended. This was done, sometimes, among friends--offering comfort by expressing their nature, whether Dominant or submissive, and allowing their friend to express theirs in turn. It was generally only done where great trust existed already. Hamilton didn’t think Burr could ever trust him that way.
From here, he could see the bookshelf, and noted with surprise one of his early polemics, next to...yep, that was the Federalist. He hadn’t known Burr would have that in the house, but he supposed Burr and Madison were friends, a fact he usually managed to forget. The shelving would have been Theodosia’s little joke--he trusted her honor well enough to know she wouldn’t have let Burr in on it.
We really should have told him about the books, Hamilton thought. He could have helped.
He would never get another letter from her again. The thought made his throat constrict with tears, but it would be grotesquely unfair to Burr to shed them here. He’d held back his pain for Doms many times...he was too much for so many of them, his emotions had a tendency to overwhelm scenes if he didn’t hold back. He could do it again.
“Aaron,” he said instead. “I am so sorry.”
“Shh, it’s all right,” Burr said, as though he knew Hamilton was apologizing for his lie of omission. As though Hamilton were deserving of comfort. He placed a hand, smooth and dry, on the back of Hamilton’s neck, barely brushing against the skin. “Is this...okay?”
Hamilton let out a breath, feeling a knot in his stomach come untwisted. His service had been accepted. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s fine, it’s good.”
After that there was no need to speak. Hamilton listened to Burr’s breathing. Waited him out. In this one aspect of his life, his self, he had far more patience than people gave him credit for.
Burr’s tears, when they came, were another relief. He had the feeling Burr was more surprised by them than Hamilton was--Hamilton felt him tremble as he tried to hold them in, and then finally let go. The sobs were soft, but racked his body with force all the same. Hamilton concentrated as best he could on staying still under Burr’s hand.
And then it was over, and there was true quiet. Hamilton found himself in no hurry to get up. He liked being on his knees, even knowing that was all it would be, here. Anything else would be truly grotesque, the longstanding attraction he could admit to feeling for Burr notwithstanding. He could do this one thing, and only this one thing, for as long as Burr wanted. And he would go when Burr told him to. For Hamilton, for once, it was enough.