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John scowled into his cider, watching the dark liquid swirl around his tankard through bitter eyes. He’d sat here like this for hours, in the dark corner of the tavern, not drinking, just glaring into his drink like it had said something particularly rude about his mother. Of course, much earlier he had been drinking, to the point he felt dizzy and sort of nauseous, and he decided his best course of action would be to sit down and wallow in his misery. And he was not usually one for sitting down. Patrons of the tavern milled about around him, and he occasionally saw one of his fellow delegates. They would often glance at him, and give him a nod of regard, if they were for independence. The ones who weren’t just acted like they hadn’t noticed him, lest he be incited to come and convince them over to his side. He continued glaring down miserably into his drink. His shoulders bounced with a slight hiccup.He really shouldn’t be this miserable, he reasoned with himself. Even through the trials and tribulations of achieving unanimity, Hancock had given them an extension, and he had managed to convince the, in his opinion, greatest writer in the colonies to write their declaration. He had no reason to feel this utterly miserable, to feel a sickened, empty, pit, burning a hole in his stomach. And yet he did. Perhaps it was because he missed Abigail. Well, he certainly did, and that was certainly part of why he was miserable. He tried, for a moment, to make himself believe that this was the utter and complete source of his misery, and when he failed, he slammed his cup down onto the table with a hiss. He didn’t want to put a name to the burning anger and emptiness inside of him, but he knew in his heart that he was miserable and sick with jealousy. He buried his head in his arms. Just earlier that day it’d been himself, Franklin and Jefferson’s wife, frolicking around in his back garden. The word in his brain made his face fall into a cringing sneer. He felt his fingernails digging into his palms, his knuckles cracking as he balled his hands into fists. The realization didn’t set in until long after she’d gone to bed, after Jefferson had tossed down the letter asking him to kindly go away. The realization that Jefferson had a wife, had love, and so did he. His hands shook with frustration. Besides the jealousy, there was also the guilt, gnawing a hole inside of him and making it difficult to breathe. He loved Abigail more than life itself, he didn’t doubt that. But he also felt that just looking at Jefferson in such a way was betraying her. Not to mention the fact he was looking at a man in such a way. The burning anger in his stomach turned to cold guilt, even fear, and he noticed he’d been gritting his teeth from the pulsating ache in his temples. The self-loathing echoing in his mind wasn’t alien to him. He’d felt it all his life, and had grown quite accustomed to ignoring it. But tonight it seemed set on dragging him down into his own personal hell, and, try as he might, he couldn’t manage the internal strength it took to dismiss it. He took a shuddering breath, his head still buried in his arms, like if he hid his eyes it would stop the tears that threatened to come. He stomped his foot against the floor, expressing in anger his misery, as he was accustomed to doing. He was a disgrace, he lamented silently, to not only even consider betraying the trust his wife had in him, but to consider doing it with a man, a fellow statesman, one with a marriage just as wonderful as his. He’d tried forcing the thoughts down, but every time Jefferson had even made a passing glance at him, every smile, every slight touch had the feelings in his chest rising like bile and he almost let himself fall into the comfort of entertaining them each time. As a result, he was left with a constant guilt that made his skin crawl with shame and loathing. But Thomas never seemed to notice, and continued with the gentle touches and lightly whispered words that made John want to both scream in frustration and hold the man in his arms, as if Thomas would be the cure to all this guilt and jealousy, all this anger.But instead he held it in, so uncharacteristically, he kept silent as if for once keeping silent could manage to keep all parties involved safe, and manage to keep him from hurting the people he loved. If he just managed to not scream, not cry, everyone would be alright. If he could just ignore and wave away the love that threatened to explode in his chest.Love. Love, the word felt like acid on his tongue and he mentally lashed out at the stupidity of it all. It wasn’t love, it couldn’t be, not after he’d been told time and time again that a man simply could not love a man the way he could a woman, the way he loved Thomas. He tasted blood when he realized he’d been biting into his lip. He could be hanged for expressing how he felt about Thomas, he told himself. He knew it through and through and yet the notion fled his mind every time Thomas was near, every time Thomas smiled at him from across the room. Everytime Thomas’ gentle gaze locked with his, the legality, the morality of it all was forced to the back of his mind, and his heart felt like it was going burst out of his chest, until Thomas looked away, and John was left with the horrible, cutting, emptiness of guilt. Thomas was like the sun, and every time John was without him he felt cold and dead to the world. When he picked up his head he noticed the tear stains spotting his sleeves.