Work Text:
Sun shone through the window, dappling the walls and illuminating a hunched figure at the large oak desk centered in the middle of the room. The precariously stacked papers had shifted where the man's head lay and the few that had drifted messily to the floor lay abandoned.
John walked to the window and stared out at the sky. Although clouds had settled in and with every moment darkened further, forecasting the coming rain, the room could not have been brighter as Alexander looked sleepily upon the other man. His toned arms and chest silhouetted in the window frame. “Alex” he said in a soft voice, a hint of a smile gracing his face and he turned back to the man laying in the bed. “Alex get up, you will soon have to leave, your wife expects you.” Alexander still did not stir. He looked so peaceful, tangled in the sheets and almost asleep. In that room where the stresses of everyday life seemed so far away and things like wives and children and responsibilities could be ignored for a few hours in favor of a warm embrace or lively banter. Laurens approached the bed and reached out a hand to slowly caress a stay lock of hair away from Alexander’s face and behind his ear. His fingers trailed along his right temple and down his cheek and then warm lips pressed upon Alexander’s.
Alexander startled awake as though shaken abruptly and gazed drearily at the unfinished letter he had been using as a pillow.
Yesterday, my lovely wife, I wrote to you, enclosing you a letter in one to your father, to the care of Mr. Morris. Tomorrow the post sets out, and I cannot refuse myself the pleasure of writing you a few lines. Constantly uppermost in my thoug
Was all he had managed to complete before sleep had crept through his exhausted body. Eliza had tried valiantly to convince him to join her, the children, and Angelica upstate with their father for the summer but the overwhelming pressure of work kept him in New York. Without Eliza to usher him to bed he had been neglecting sleep in favor of endless writing, pages filled with so many words it was impossible to tell where one essay ended and another began. The words that usually flowed so brilliantly had come more like a slow stutter in the face of exhaustion and so he had decided to write her instead of the essay he was in the process of drafting in his latest attempt to sway enough cabinet members to pass his debt plan.
His dream of days past faded like smoke. Those times, carved into his memory had seemed so fictional, so out of reach even back then that it was easy to let the dream fade away like a wisp of candle smoke. Back to work. Back to Eliza and her letter. Back to his real life. But the scent of the candle burned on.