Zero Two Three One | John Laurens X Reader [Hamilton]

XCVIII: One Million Flowers

❝So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.❞
—Paulo Coelho

Alexander titled this poem Ubey Menya, Lyubov Moya. I read it to myself. I love it.

What a selfish man I am,
what a deluded fool,
to want nothing but you
all to myself.

To have you in our field,
with nothing else beyond,
and nothing more intimate,
than one another.

To exist as we once did.
With mortality our only fear.
And hope for everything else.
I would give you it all.

To not believe you loved me more
when I was dying
than when I was 
alive beside you

But I am merely a selfish man,
and deluded fool,
to want you 
all to myself.

July 4, 2063.

We're so close to our destination now. So close.

There is a field just beside Rabynya. Large and open, it was said to once be where an abundance of trees grew before they were all hacked away for the sake of firewood to battle the fuel shortages during the New Russian Revolution (a shortage that never ended for the common man). If such a story is true, one could never tell, for all evidence of tree stumps must have long since decayed into nothing, leaving behind a vast area with a hill to one side and leveled land all around.

This field was widely ignored by the people of Rabynya, for it could provide nothing of use to them, and things of no use were a waste of time to a starving man. But this field was once mine. The place Alexander and I would escape to — to forget our poverty, our hunger, our losses, our responsibilities, and our doomed lives

This field was ours.

"What is this place?"

John's eyes scan the scenery, fascinated and curious by its lifelessness.

"This place?" I whisper, getting out of the car and taking the lead into the leveled region. "Well, it doesn't have a name."

I requested we stop here before we reach our destination and John kindly complied. Although, now that I'm here, I don't know what to do.

My feet move on their own, treading to the invisible path I've walked countless times and trailing upon it, motioning for John to follow. The snow had decreased greatly since the snowstorm, but it's still packed rather thick, making our steps slow as our boots sink into the powder.

Once we reach a spot not that far from the hill's base, I stop and sigh. This is approximately where Alexander and I would sit together any day we could spare. We have so many happy memories here, and yet, I can't help but wonder how many more happy memories we would have shared if only we had never left Russia.

What a heaven this field could have been. What a heaven it is.

I lower to the ground, situating myself comfortably on the snow and swinging my backpack off my shoulders.

"What're you doin'?" John asks with a raised brow.

"I'd like to stay here for a while, John," I say. "If that's alright."

Without a verbal response, John huffs and sits beside me, allowing an appropriate distance between us as he, too, sets his bag aside.

"Why here? This place sentimental or somethin'?"

I blink, then purse my lips into a polite smile. "More than you can imagine... It was a sacred spot of salvation when I was younger."

"It was?"