Work Text:
Alexander Hamilton is stubborn. Everyone knows it -- he knows it, his coworkers know it, and now even the people of New York know it beyond any shadow of a doubt. They’re all looking at him like he’s stupid, raising eyebrows at him as he passes, as if he’s any more unusual a sight than literally anything else in Manhattan. The heat wave, despite its heavy grip on the city, is not enough to bring everything to staggering halt, but everyone still moves sluggishly in the high temperatures, desperate to get inside before they all begin dropping like flies.
A good sign that they’re all smarter than Alex is (at least in this one instance), that his tuneful whistle is out of place when it’s hotter than the devil’s asshole out, is that there are fewer carts on the street than usual. Hot dog vendors and piragueros all seem to be retreating to where their dollar waters won’t go piss warm and their ice blocks won’t melt. But even though he’s sweating through his shirt, even though he feels more tired than usual, even though his mouth is dry, Alex is happily traipsing the streets toward Jefferson’s apartment, only having left work at all because Washington made him. The building air conditioning simply wasn’t sufficient, and Washington made them all go, but even after he’d issued the order to get out of the office for the day, Alex had tried to stay. He was the last one remaining when Washington, ready to leave himself, had opened his office door to find Alex still seated at his desk in his own office, fingers on keys.
“What part of ‘get out’ was unclear to you?” he’d asked, albeit not unkindly. “Go home, Alexander. I’m not going to be accused of working my staff to their deaths in this heat wave.”
Alex had sighed and gathered up his things to go, but not before slipping papers into his bag that required Jefferson’s signature. Maybe Washington had kicked them all out, but he hadn’t said anything about working outside of work, and Alex will be damned if he’s going to wait until Monday to get this done. His coworkers can call him an arrogant overachiever all they like (he hears the snarky whispers), but he likes to be on top of things, to know that they’re done, because then no one can accuse him of failing to be organised and orderly. More than that, should Jefferson himself question any of his work (as he is wont to do on almost a daily basis), Hamilton can whip a perfectly composed piece of paper out of a neatly labeled folder and shove it in his face as proof that he’s got more work ethic in his little finger than Jefferson’s got in even one of his tightly coiled curls, let alone his entire body.
And so he finds himself in Jefferson’s building, at his door, leaning against the doorframe and steadily knocking without ceasing solely to annoy him. It takes Jefferson a long time to answer, but when he finally does, Alex has to pause a moment to look him up and down. He’s wearing only boxers, but they’re slightly twisted as though he’d hastily put them on before making his way to the door. Alex can’t help but wonder what exactly Jefferson was doing moments before he’d knocked. He swallows, forcing his eyes away from abs and thighs that, truth be told (and he’d tell no one), make his heart thud in his chest. Despite the fact that he and Thomas are no more friends than oil and water, the man is Alex’s idea of personified sex. He smiles an overly sweet smile at Jefferson.
Jefferson merely groans and shakes his head, wipes sweat from his brow, and steps back to let him in. “What the fuck, Alex.” It’s not even a question, just an exasperated declaration of agitation. “Washington said go home. I don’t recall seeing your ass making me breakfast every morning. This is not your home.”
Alex waves away his protests, shutting the door behind him. “Aren’t you just wonderfully accommodating. Don’t worry, I’m not staying. I just need your signature.”
Jefferson frowns at him. “Seriously? You’re walking around the city in this heat like a dumbass so you can get my signature.” Again, not a question, just irritated incredulity. “Jesus Christ, Alex, forge it if you want. I don’t care. Just stop bothering me.”
Jefferson turns and wanders back toward the kitchen, then slowly lowers himself down to the floor, lying on his back, sighing with just the slightest amount of relief. Alex raises an eyebrow and follows him. “Uh, am I interrupting some weird naked yoga thing, or...?”
Jefferson lifts his head enough to glare at Alex before letting it thump gently back against the tile, rolling his eyes to the heavens. “Does your mind have permanent residence in the gutter or are you just visiting? While you clearly lack such precautions for yourself, I’m going to try not to die in this heat. My air conditioner is broken and it’s cooler down here. Take notes. You look like you’re about to collapse. I mean, I’m from the south and this is too much.”
“I’m from the Caribbean,” Alex reminds him. “This is nothing.”
Jefferson wrinkles up his nose and rolls his eyes. “Oh, you’re one of those people. Like the ones who wear shorts in six feet of snow and claim they’re not cold because they were raised by penguins in the Arctic or some shit. Your breathing is fast and shallow and you’re all flushed, you idiot. Just get down here and shut up. I’m not going to have you die in my apartment because you’re a stubborn asshole.”
Alex smirks, ignores his insults. “Usually I’ve been dating someone a couple of weeks before they wanna talk about heavy breathing. Anyway, I thought you wanted me to leave?”
“I don’t want to be the last one to have seen you alive if you drop dead on your way home,” Jefferson says airily. “That’s traumatic.”
“How thoughtful of you,” Alex deadpans, and he leaves his bag on the counter and sits down next to Jefferson. He’s about to lie down, too, but Jefferson raises an eyebrow at him..
“It’s not going to help if you don’t undress, you know. It’s the coolness of the tile on bare skin that helps.” His voice is even, nonchalant, but Alex grins nonetheless.
He dramatically holds a hand to his heart. “Why, Thomas, if you wanted me naked, all you had to do was ask.”
Jefferson lazily raises one hand and thwaps it against Alex’s knee in a pale imitation of a smack. “Yes, you’ve found my weakness. Small stature and scrawny bodies really turn me on.”
“Rude,” Alex says, loosening his tie and pulling it over his head before moving to the buttons on his shirt. “I do work out, you know.” He slides his sweat-damp shirt off his shoulders, dropping it on the floor next to him, barely hiding a grin when he watches Jefferson’s eyes trace over his chest as he lies down beside him, a mere foot between them.
“Hmm,” Jefferson says, closing his eyes and tipping his head back. “I take it back. Not bad. I guess.”
“You guess,” Alex says, drinking in the sight of Jefferson’s neck, wrestling with the sudden urge to have his mouth on it. He licks his lips instead, starts unbuckling his belt. “Liar.”
It’s not as though there hasn’t been tension before, just that they don’t talk about it. Alex has never had an archenemy before now, not really, and he thinks the idea is to want to fuck them over, not just fuck them. So he lets himself be caught eyeing Jefferson like a choice cut of southern grass-fed beef now and then, lets Jefferson brush against him with his whole body in the tiny break room when he intentionally squeezes past him instead of walking around the table to get to the coffee maker like a normal person. But they don’t speak of it. It bubbles and festers and builds, but Alex thinks they’re both aware it would be A Thing if it were said aloud, and so they haven’t.
But maybe the heat really is getting to him, because as always, Alex can’t shut up. And this time, he quickly chases the spark, dares it to turn into lightning. “You wanna get a good look at my ass, too?” he taunts, or maybe invites. He lifts his hips, slides his pants down and wriggles out of them, turning onto his stomach and resting his head on his arms. Jefferson wasn’t wrong; the cool tile feels nice. His skin is warm like a sauna.
Jefferson’s eyes open again and meet his before they slowly take in the rest of him. Alex suddenly feels as though his choice of boxer briefs today (slightly too tight and an utterly wild shade of green) was a good one. Not that he could have guessed he’d be spending his afternoon getting undressed on Jefferson’s kitchen floor, but maybe something in his subconscious had some sort of notion.
As is typical, however, Jefferson has to respond by pushing his luck. “You could make more money as rentboy, you know,” he drawls.
Alex scoffs. “Well, if I were a rentboy, you couldn’t afford me. You might be rich, Thomas, but I’d be far out of your price range.”
“So you’d want someone who pays well but couldn’t give you half as good a time as I could? That’s just bad business. No wonder you come up with these cockeyed impractical financial plans you try to shove down my throat every other day.”
Alex snorts. “Oh, wow. Would you call that Freudian, my dear Thomas? The way you just used the words ‘cock’ and ‘shove down my throat’ in the same sentence? Again, you had only to ask…”
“You’re the worst,” Jefferson says mildly, his hand smacking against Alex’s leg again, gently, almost playfully. Alex thinks he’s just too lazy in this heat to mean it as harshly as he wants to.
“Mhmm,” Alex says in a knowing tone, as if he’s in on some secret that Jefferson isn’t. “You just keep telling yourself whatever it is that’s gonna get you to sleep at night. If pretending you don’t want me helps, then of course, you should do that.”
Alex knows he’s standing on a ledge now, a thousand feet in the air, arms full of all the strain between them, lording it over Jefferson, all too prepared to drop it on him like a bombshell. When did that happen? Maybe it’s just that in here, he really does feel the heat. He can almost taste it boiling, stirring up like a sandstorm things that have long since settled just enough so that they can work together without something as pesky as sex getting in the way. Not because they both don’t want it, but because it’s easier just to hate someone, rather than hate them and crave them at the same time.
But Alex is hungry now, and thirsty too, belly aching with an appetite too long unsatisfied. This is the closest they’ve ever been and still, they are dancing around it, temptation towering and resistance dwindling. Because somehow, in their mutual folly, they’ve both come to the conclusion that the high they get from all the backbiting and backstabbing is better than what they know instinctively would be phenomenal sex. ...What a couple of fucking idiots.
“I don’t want you,” Jefferson insists to him now, but his voice falters with deceit, wilts like a flower with Alex’s eyes on him.
Alex crawls on his belly, snakes his way into this forbidden territory, moves until his face is level with Jefferson’s. Until there’s barely a millimeter between their faces. Until he can feel Jefferson’s ragged breathing across his mouth. “Tell me again that you don’t,” he challenges.
“You didn’t come here for this?” Jefferson tries, and it’s a statement but this time it’s phrased like a question, a last-ditch effort to maintain a rapidly changing status quo out of fear for the unknown. But Alex has learned not to look a gift horse in the mouth. It doesn’t matter how quick it’s happening, or how it came to be, so long as it did. And it is.
“You take what’s good when it comes,” Alex says, shifting his shoulders in a half-shrug.
And then his mouth is on Jefferson’s. Alex is not sure what he thought it would be like to kiss him. Maybe he thought it would carry the flavour of misery or hostility, that it would taste like misfortune. But it’s bliss. Elation. Jefferson’s lips part, give way like a cave in, his tongue moving like a tidal wave across Alex’s. It’s slow for a moment, soft and if not chaste, then certainly restrained. But then something snaps in an instant, and Alex is climbing over him, straddling him, hands roaming over his chest, his shoulders as if by touch alone he could turn him from pure desert to oasis. He is unyielding and so is Jefferson, digging hard into untouched soil, diving in and diving deep, breathing in the clear water of each other until it feels like drowning and one of them has to pull away.
Alex goes first, prying himself away even though he could kiss Jefferson all day, oxygen be damned. He can feel Jefferson’s heart pounding like a war drum under his palm, but there’s no fight in either of them now. Instead there’s breathless laughter on his lips, on Jefferson’s too, a startling contrast to the look he normally has on his face when he looks at Alex. Jefferson’s got greedy hands at Alex’s hips, fingertips sliding beneath the waist of his boxer briefs and it feels like they’re burning up at every point of contact, searing his skin, marking him as Thomas’s. It’s just so goddamn stifling, hot enough that Alex wonders for a second if all of this is merely a heat mirage, a very vivid hallucination.
But no. He can feel Jefferson, half hard and pressed against his ass through too-warm layers of cotton, the look on his face full of self-congratulation when Alex makes a quiet noise of delight, moving his hips forward like a solicitation for more. Jefferson’s eyes captivate, entice, even as he smiles and lies through his teeth, “I don’t know. It’s really too hot for this kind of thing…”
Alex leans back down over him, lies prone against him, runs a hand through curls that have gone frizzier than normal in the humidity. “Oh, is it?” he asks. He presses himself against him, grinds his hips down until Thomas’s breath catches hard in his throat. “Is it too hot for you to fuck me, Thomas? To let me ride you until you can’t take it anymore? To let me make you come?” He says these words like a provocation, without a shred of shame, tinges them with just the right amount of artificial innocence to call Jefferson on his utterly transparent bluff.
Jefferson gives up immediately. “Fuck it,” he mutters and leans his head up for another kiss. He yanks Alex’s boxer briefs down over his ass, grabs at soft flesh and caresses. His touch is both rough and soft, like a thunderstorm and a snowfall at the same time.
Alex thinks this is going to feel immoral no matter what, that it’s going to feel dirty and just a little bit wrong, both because it’s Thomas goddamn Jefferson and because the room feels enough like an oven to bake them right into the tile, pressed together like this for all of eternity. It’s filthy and sweaty and just hot, and neither of them are even fully undressed yet. Alex thinks he needs to rectify this.
He pulls away again, moves away, only long enough to gesture while panting for Jefferson to get his boxers off. “Too many clothes,” he mutters. “Don’t you think?”
“Inclined to agree with you for the first and only time ever. Don’t get used to it.”
He offers Alex a smug grin, lifts his hips and slides his boxers down around his thighs, lets Alex do the rest. And if he’s honest, it takes him a moment because he’s too busy staring. If he could breathe properly in this suffocating air, his mouth would be watering. It’s not exactly like Jefferson’s been hiding it anywhere in the tight pants that he wears to work, and Alex always knew what the guy was working with. But seeing Thomas laid bare before him is another story entirely. The self-satisfied look doesn’t leave his face; his eyes are alight with an arrogant sort of mischief.
“Impressed?” he asks.
Alex turns his own words back on him. “Not bad. I guess.”
Jefferson chuckles. “You’ve got eyes as wide as the world right now. Don’t kid yourself.”
“Oh, shut up,” Alex mutters, and it comes out a little more fondly than it usually does, than he means it to. He slips his underwear off and moves back to sit on Jefferson’s thighs. Without any hesitation at all, he leans over him again, presses his face into Jefferson’s chest, starts grinding against him again with all the energy he can muster. It’s slow and unsteady, but it feels fucking phenomenal. For all the times he’s imagined this, he never quite imagined there would be stars like the ones that are currently bursting behind his eyelids like fireworks.
Jefferson’s hands find their way to Alex’s back, then wander down over his hips. He moans, a long, low sound that seems to be swallowed up in the heaviness of the heat. Alex can’t help but laugh. He opens his eyes, lifts his head to look at Jefferson. “Now who’s impressed?”
“Shut up,” Jefferson parrots back at him.
It takes real effort, Alex can tell, for Thomas to rock his hips up like he’s trying to do. There’s something animal in him, something that perhaps might normally result in Thomas taking control, pressing Alex into the floor and fucking him senseless. That’s the kind of man Alex imagines him to be. But not now. Not in this oppressive warmth that drapes itself over their bodies like a thick woolen blanket.
Alex’s own energy is draining out of him now like an oil spill. Now that he’s inside, away from any chance of a breeze, not still but certainly not moving the way he was before... it’s easy to feel his strength being sapped away. The one thing that doesn’t go with it is his enthusiasm for this. This is not quite how he imagined the first time would be, if he could have ever really imagined this would occur at all. But it’s good nonetheless to be in this moment, his body weak but never more alive. His cock twitches, his thighs tremble at the idea that he gets to take control of a man who would never allow it under ordinary circumstances.
And so he leans back, uses his weight to keep Jefferson’s hips against the floor. “Let me,” he says, a small statement with all the power of a demand.
Thomas just nods, lazily lifts one hand from Alex’s hip and gestures at a drawer above them. “I have things,” he murmurs. “In there.”
Alex has to laugh as he leans up and away, tugs open the drawer to find condoms and an alarming amount of lube bottles. He selects one of each at random and drops them on the floor next to them, giving Jefferson a slightly judgmental look. “You keep lube in your kitchen? I know you’re a foodie and all, but please don’t tell me where your cucumbers go.”
“It’s a junk drawer,” Thomas snaps, “now get my fucking cock in you before I go insane in this heat.”
Alex shivers, considers making a joke about the state of Jefferson’s sex life if he keeps his supplies in a drawer with stray shoelaces, drill bits and a couple of flashlights, but he resists. Instead, he grinds down against Jefferson again, makes a quick note in his mind of how good this feels so he’ll remember it when this never happens again, and says, “Oh, baby, I’m gonna drive you insane long before the heat will.”
Alex thinks about taking the time to really prepare himself, to open himself up with his fingers while Jefferson watches, to tease until Jefferson really does lose his mind. But he doesn’t have the strength in him for that, nor the strength to wait so long, so he prepares Jefferson instead. Thomas makes gorgeous little sounds when Alex touches him; he moans loud and unbidden, stretches his arms up above his head, back arching, muscles going taut.
It’s good just to touch him, to play his body like an instrument, but Thomas’s response to Alex’s hand only spurs him into further action. He settles himself back on Thomas’s thighs and barely hesitates before he sinks down onto him, slowly opens himself up on him. Alex can’t tell if what comes out of his mouth is a gasp or a whimper or both. He collapses against Thomas’s chest again, pressing his face into his neck.
God, it’s been a long time. Months, or a year, maybe. There’s been so much to do but no time for relationships, for finding someone willing to put up with Alex’s dedication to work and the time he spends there long enough to even fuck him. So he’s rocked his hips against the mattress in the early mornings, touched himself in the shower, fucked himself on his own fingers a few times a week to sate these little inconvenient urges that won’t go away no matter how he tries to work them into non-existence. There are just not enough hours in a day to get what he needs to done and still try to satisfy himself in other ways, no matter how much he wishes there were.
Right now, though, the dam is breaking and all those times in which he’s put off time for himself are pouring through. He presses his body into Thomas’s, slowly rolls his hips until he can feel every inch of Thomas in every inch of him. It’s good, just so fucking good, the way he feels full, the insistent pressure building along his spine, in his belly. It tempts him to let go already, and he knows he will soon, though he is nowhere near ready for this to end.
He mumbles something into Thomas’s ear, but he’s not sure what. Something maybe about how good he is, how wonderful, or maybe a plea for more or faster or harder. His mind is trapped in a sudden haze and he doesn’t really know. But whatever comes out of his mouth seems to spur Jefferson on, gives him enough energy to grip Alex’s hips hard and thrust up into him, making sounds Alex would never have thought him capable of making. It feels like a goddamn religious experience, and maybe that’s why Jefferson starts confessing.
“I’ve wanted to fuck you since I met you,” Thomas gasps and Alex sits up in his lap, watches him with interest and without ever ceasing his movement. “Jesus Christ -- I’ve thought about it every day, Alexander.” He curls a hand around Alex’s cock, touches him steady but slow, just like their fucking.
“Oh my god,” Alex whimpers. “You utter bastard, you could’ve been -- all this time --”
Thomas lets out a shuddering breath, a laugh. “Oh, and you’d have let me?”
Alex bites his lip, tips his head back and rolls his hips just a little harder. “Yes,” he whines out and when Thomas’s thrusts start to cease, he adds, “and don’t you dare stop now.”
Thomas grins a lazy, wicked grin, his jaw slack, lips parted, the corner of his mouth turned up. “Can’t do all the work for you. Didn’t you wanna ride me?”
Alex confesses, too. “All the fucking time.”
He closes his eyes, loses himself to the fireworks again, to the memories of when he did find the time to touch himself, of when he put a hand between his legs and thought of Jefferson. It had been tinged with guilt and shame each time, even as he’d come in his fist or across the shower wall or, one memorable time, under the desk in his office at work, with Thomas just feet away on the other side of the door. Far from kicking this dirty little habit, however, the fantasies had only become more intricate whenever Alex gave into them, until he could imagine exactly how Thomas would fuck him, until he could relish how he imagined Thomas would taste, salty-sweet on his tongue.
This, whatever this is, was never even close to one of Alex’s fantasies, but he’s not about to complain. He gives Thomas everything he has, goes as fast and hard as he can in this heat, which seems only slightly above a snail’s pace, but Jefferson isn’t complaining, either. In fact, he’s lost, too. He’s both here and somewhere else, Alex’s name on his lips over and over again. Alex isn’t sure whether that’s due to the way he clenches tight around Thomas or the way he leans forward and traces his thumb around a nipple until Thomas is shivering.
Thomas’s eyes are closed but he’s murmuring praises at Alex like a sinner prays in church, as if crying out a name, a plea, sweet words of admiration are truly the key to redemption. “Fuck, you feel so good,” he groans, and Alex has never heard him want this way.
Alex has spent years now listening to Jefferson go after the things he desires like an attack dog snapping at the heels of anyone ahead of him, turning around to bite those who might presume to hold him back. Better than anybody, Alex knows what Thomas sounds like when he desires something, the way his voice takes on a tone of urgent longing, the way his hands curl into fists as if he’s prepared to take out everybody on his way to the top. After all, he sees it in himself, too. But he’s never witnessed longing like this, with both of Thomas’s hands on his hips now, nails digging in, his back arching away from the floor, moaning clipped and broken little phrases about how perfect Alex is and how badly he’s needed this. Such yearning, and all for him.
Alex knows he is kidding himself if he pretends this was unexpected. The circumstances, perhaps, but not the act itself. It was always inevitable, and he knows that now as clearly as he knows this moment, however brief, will be the first of many. He’s on fire right now, writhing back on Thomas and bucking forward into his own fist at the same time, as trembling and as sensitive as a fault line. He reacts to Thomas in such a chemical way that this could only ever have been a sure thing. But this particular moment burst into being just now; it started fast and so it’s going to end fast, with the heat pressing in on them and both of them making shuddering sounds of arousal not quite satisfied.
Alex comes quick but hard, not nearly fucked long enough but damn good enough to send him spiraling into an orgasm that bows his body as he covers Thomas’s chest with his release. “M’sorry,” he mumbles, even as Thomas grips his hips, thrusts up into him once, twice more and comes, too. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to come so fast, I just --”
“Shut up,” Thomas moans, eyes rolling back, pressing himself hard into Alex’s body, hips quivering, thighs shaking with the strain. He collapses back against the floor, gasping and panting, muttering something about how even an orgasm is incapable of shutting Alex up.
Alex laughs breathlessly and stays where he is, still slowly moving on Thomas, coasting the wave of sparks making his whole body shiver. He wants to pull away, curl up next to him, maintain as much contact as he can, but it really is too hot for that. “Only meant that should have lasted longer,” he finally says, less apologetically than the first time. “Guess you were that good.”
“You guess,” Thomas throws back at him again before tightening his grip on Alex’s hips, steadying and stilling him.
“Yeah. I guess,” Alex sighs, still trying to catch his breath, thinking longingly of both a cool shower with Jefferson and succumbing to the stupor the heat pushes on them every moment. “And I guess we could do it again if you wanted. You said you’ve thought about fucking me every day since you met me. Don’t you think we should make up for lost time?”
Thomas groans. “I should not have told you that. Your ego is already an astronomical size. You’ll never get your head through the door next time.”
Alex ignores the insult. “But there’ll be a next time?”
“Mm,” Jefferson affirms, faux reluctantly. “I guess.”