Oh puppet, my puppet.

This is purely fiction! No real historical premise, just a few budged in facts. It took me so long to do!

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Countless times, John has shown Alexander that his feelings were not reciprocated. Through his letters, he so delicately displaced and ignored Alexander’s attachments, giving him attention yet not enough to bring things further. Yet John’s efforts to create a stalemate in their relationship were fleeting. It wasn’t that there was a lack of attraction, oh no. Alexander was a beautiful man, the way his cheeks would flush, and his eyes would roll back, his hands desperately gripping at the shee- you got the idea. But that’s all it was.

Lust.

John had no real intentions of developing a relationship with the immigrant, they knew this. Yet, the blond was forced to watch as the ginger set himself up for rejection, as he desperately sought after John’s validation and attention. He wanted to give none of this. Nights of fun did not mean John wanted to give days of love. He wanted to lay in the warm bed beside the pale ginger as their bodies intertwined, the moon seeping through the blinds. But he didn’t want to be there when the sun was soaking its way onto their skin, forever leaving a mark and instilling the feeling of regret.

He didn’t want a lover, yet he never found himself denying Alexander’s advances, being led to his bed, John didn’t think. He would never think. That was now the gingers job. He never wanted strings attached to this. He didn’t want anything more than what they had. Yet his pale, large hands, crumpled the letters in his grip as he read page after page of Alexander incessantly requesting more letters, more attention. He wanted more, yet John wanted less. John was the one pulling the strings, making the decisions, but why did it feel like Alexander was manipulating them from behind the scenes?

Of course, he wasn’t a bad person, not at all. Alexander was ionate about everything he did, you could see the hunger in his eyes. It was never enough. He wanted more. John didn’t want to give him more. The blond liked keeping people at a distance, buying his friend’s loyalty with gifts and money, so he wouldn’t have to give any emotion to keep them. Emotions were not John’s forte, yet...the letters that Alexander wrote to him, were filled word after word, laced with emotion, desperation.

For a few seconds, John considered writing back, now that he was back home. But wouldn’t that just encourage Alexander, like feeding a stray? He couldn’t do that to him. He had already caused so much damage with just his intentions of lust. He knew the question Alexander would ask. The question that reappeared in every letter he wrote to him, whether subtle or scolding, it was one John had learned to accept.

“Why haven’t you wrote to me?”

Several reasons. Several excuses. Stacked up on top of each other, ready to fall down, ready to drown any victims waiting at the bottom of the tower. When Alexander had written the major letter, the one that begged for John’s attention, the one that made him picture the ginger practically grovelling at his feet, John was in the barracks. He was a soldier still, and anything he wrote to the outside world, would be read, monitored before being sent out, in case John revealed any sensitive information.

So, John didn’t write. He didn’t write to Alexander, as anybody who read John’s letter, would see the implications and undertones of the means of their ‘relationship.’ John wasn’t dealing with the consequences just so some needy, attached man could feel relieved that John still wanted him before becoming worried again seconds later. John didn’t want him. Not the way Alexander needed him to. He wasn’t good for him.

Yet he always ended up in the ginger’s bed. That stopped today.

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Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

John could only hope that the clearing of the rain meant that this would go well. But the blond knew that the weather didn’t guarantee anything, perhaps only encouraging him to make a mistake. Why did he continue this affair with Alexander, despite him having given his liberty to Miss Schuyler? Did John not play Alexander like a fiddle? Perhaps. The dark eyes of Elizabeth were the reason Alexander fell for her, so John could guess. The manly features must have appealed to him. Yet, all this time, he was still bowing himself, moving willingly as John played the role of a puppeteer.

He mustn’t. He could leave now. Yet he would not. He must end this. Alexander was getting greedy. He wanted more from John than he was willing to give. He needed to sully this attachment, remind the smaller male just what their relationship was and what it didn’t guarantee or entail. So here he stood, staring at the door in front of him. Alexander’s home. Staring. His hand gently, firmly placed on the door, fingers spread out as he waited, listened. There were no voices. Perhaps Alexander was home alone. The light clicking of widespread heels. Alexander’s shoes.

A perfect time. Was it not? John slowly, calmly knocked on the door, once, twice and then a third time. The blond had barely managed the third knock, as the door was opened. He saw the face he had given in to so many times, the face that was so sure that John was more than just a sinful affair; the face that was wrong. Now the southern man had to tell him. “John?” Confusion etched into the man’s expression, brows knitting together. There was something in Alexander’s eyes, something that John could always recognise. Fondness, happiness for John’s appearance no matter how unexpected it may be.

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Alexander could never make long-lasting relationships with anybody, really. His background. His childhood. The things he had seen and the relationships destroyed. Mortality coming for his loved ones far too quickly or simply just the man that walked out on his family. They all impacted him. His ability to trust, his ability to rely on people. Alexander was desperate to be liked but wanted those who liked him, to stay away as irers. The crushing weight of a relationship always haunted him, the fact that they could wake up and one day decide to leave you. Why wouldn’t they? After all, his father did.

His mother, when they were sick, got too sick to speak, too sick to move. So the ginger would hold her hand. Three squeezes, meant ‘I love you.’ A sweet gesture, that assured him that she was alive, until the fatal day where she didn’t squeeze back. All of his loved ones either died or left him. So to feel so close to Eliza, or to John, it blessed him. The guard he could let down, the facade he could drop. Alexander could just relax. He needed John dearly, yet John didn’t need him.

Stood in the living room, face to face with John that travelled to see him, Alexander hoped for good news, so the ginger awaited with a pleased smile and ‘knowing’ eyes. John avoided his gaze. His smile dropped. “John...? What’s this all about?” Alexander asked, voice sceptical and eyes worried. John wasn’t one to overshare, he wasn’t one to share at all. His feelings were often concealed, hidden from Alexander’s reached as he desperately grabbed and grabbed.

“You need to direct your affections elsewhere.” John states, voice deep, husky as if trying to remain orderly and not act out of fashion. Alexander was left baffled. They had slept together numerous times, and the things John uttered into his ear during these times, were far different from what he was saying now. The ginger wanted a relationship. He let John know that. John’s silence surely had meant that it was okay to go on. Was it not? “I don’t understand. John. Forgive my forwardness, but we have laid side by side under the same sheets. You do not care when I am giving you affections then.”

John could hear nothing but his shallow breathing, the images filling his head, and regret laid heavy on his shoulders. He didn’t want to say it. So he found the excuse fumbling from his lips before he could stop himself. “You’re a married man.” As was John. He had a wife that he wouldn’t see again and a child that he would never meet. He only married the woman because he had gotten her pregnant. Alexander knew none of this. As, to John, he wasn’t married at all.

“You are the one that pushed me to marry despite having made my feelings for you quite apparent.” Alexander argued, looking up to the blond’s eyes. In search of anything, any emotion that shown him that these feelings were reciprocated. He reached out, in an attempt to take John’s hand. This attempt was avoided. “I was hoping to push those feelings towards Miss Schuyler.”

Alexander reached out, again, this time successful in taking John’s hand. “John, please. You’re baffling me. What is this incessant nonsense that you are spouting?” He asks in a desperate plea for it not to be what it sounded like. Squeeze, another squeeze. The third squeeze to John’s hand. He got nothing in return. Not a twitch. His grip loosened. It was what he was worried about, surely. It had to be. “You’ve been bending over backwards for my attention, Alexander. But when we had first...gotten intimate, I had no intentions of being with you in a romantic sense.”

The words were blunt, cutting no edges, but cutting Alexander deeply. The ginger had potentially ruined marriage for this man, and John, John, the man he loved, showed no gratitude. Alexander’s figure started to tremble, from sadness or anger, one wouldn’t be able to differ, eyes filling with frustrated tears, blinding the vision in front of him. The blond’s face was distorted, blurry with the sweltering tears that stormed down Alexander’s cheeks. “You just let me continue like this? Like a blubbering mess as I helplessly stumbled after you? You saw my feelings and you did nothing!”

Rage. Pain. Sadness. This was why Alexander didn’t let people close. This was why- enough. John only stared, and no emotion could be distinguished in his eyes. Did he not care? This was John. This was John. The man that would help the poor, encourage the rich to help rebuild buildings. The man that fights for equality no matter the race. Yet he was heartless. Heartless. Alexander felt a hatred burn, coiling in his stomach. “How could you do this to me? How could you just let me- let me-“ he breaths in, his hands having balled John’s clothes beneath his angry fists.

John brushed off Alexander’s hands, staring down at him as his silence only continued. His mouth opened, quivered momentarily, and closed again. He waited a couple of seconds, for the urge of begging for forgiveness to shove it’s way back down his throat. “I should go.” He tells the ginger. Alexander reached out for him, and his fingers barely brushed John’s arms as he left him, a mess in his own living room. John had cut the strings.

He has just entered Alexander’s home, messed up everything, ruined everything and not caring about the damage done as he left. John wasn’t Alexander’s puppeteer, he was his hurricane.

All Alexander could do, was a desperate attempt to clean up the mess again.

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Would you believe John if he said he was looking out for Alexander’s best interest?

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