Work Text:
So he was a traitor.
And he had bullied a girl of eighteen into being the one to disclose it. Emily Roland stood at the far edge of the small shipboard cabin, her back straight and round face wretched. “Thank you, Roland, you are dismissed.” The words were easy, mechanical, and she whipped round and quit the room without a word. He heard the rapid pounding of her feet down the hall a moment later.
The room felt stifling, the beams too low overhead. If he reached both arms out, each fingertip might brush the paneled walls. He imagined the intolerable crush of people who would soon cluster at the door: Hammond and Granby, Harcourt and Berkeley, and likely the physician as well, trailing dourly behind to observe this latest exacerbation of madness with clinical interest. He was certain he would go mad if he were surrounded by so many voices at once, all simultaneously explaining to him why he should not simply step out into the sea. It was cowardly, perhaps, but at present that did not weigh heavily against his other sins. He would flee.
The deck was washed in bright sunlight. Laurence gained it just as many interested parties began their convergence on his position at the ladderway of the fore hatch. "Oh, Captain Laurence!" He saw Hammond struggling through a knot of sailors trying very hard to get on with their work. From another direction Catherine and Berkley had begun to rise from their seats in the shade of their dragons, faces intolerable with concern. Near them stood Emily, urgently speaking with Temeraire.
"Laurence," Granby's voice was loud in his ear, as though it was not the first time he had said his name. Laurence started, hand reaching automatically for the guideline. Granby's hand shot out to catch his shoulder and steady him away from the opening of the hatch. The momentum turned him and for a moment Laurence stood poised, half balanced between deck and ladderway, Granby's grip firm on his shoulder, close enough to reach out and touch his face. "Will?" Granby asked again and the moment of recognition was gone.
"I do not know myself," Laurence said and wrenched away.
"Laurence? Laurence!" Temeriaire's voice carried above the others. He had risen from the deck, neck stretched as he looked about anxiously. Without conscious decision, Laurence found his feet carrying him towards the dragon. He moved with with greater and greater speed, until he was running pell mell towards the great beast. Temeraire's wings were unfurling, fluttering about him in anxiety and causing the sails to snap and the crew of aviators to move out of the way with practiced caution.
Only Ferris remained in his place, ruddy hair beating about his face in the gusts stirred up by the motion of the great wings. "Temeraire, wait a moment!" Ferris did not try to stop Laurence, simply thrust a harness into his hands. Laurence caught it blindly as he brushed by him and into the circle of Temeriaire's mantling wings.
"Away! Away!" He cried and Temeraire gathered him into his talons and leapt from the deck. Powerful wingbeats carried them high into the air above the Potentate and then Temeriaire was arcing out towards the horizon, the ship shrinking into the distance. Numbly, Laurence cinched the straps and buckles of the flying harness and reached above him to latch his straps to the chain at Temeraire's neck. He climbed up, muscles easy and accustomed to the work, hands mechanical in the steady rhythm of exchanging one secure clip for the next.
The wind tore at him as he stood at the base of Temeraire's neck. Temeraire's head was low, his sinuous body arrowing with compact efficiency. Laurence leaned into the straps. He could feel the shift of the dragon's great muscles beneath the bottom of his thin boots. The air stole his breath and ripped the heat from his body. His eyes streamed. It was like standing in the tops in a gale. It was more than that; as though the ship was his own body, his own blood.
He leaned into the straps further until they caught him at chest and hips. The toes of his boots dug into Temeraire's scales. His voice was a wordless cry, his throat raw at once, the pain spilling from him to be carried away by the wind. Temeraire answered him with his own roar. Then there was the great, drum-like swelling under him and Laurance shouted again, falling to his knees as the Divine Wind crashed like a thunderclap around him.
How long they flew in silence Laurence could not say. Temeriaire had said nothing, only darted a few anxious twists of his head back at Laurence, then continued his measured pace. His ears gradually stopped ringing and then he sat, listening to the meditative flap of wings and the faint chiming of the carabiners and anchor chain moving in time with Temeriaire's wingbeats. The air tore at him less now, and the sun warmed the dark scales until they were nearly hot under his palms.
"Do you regret it?" Temeriaire asked finally. He did not turn his head back, but his words carried to Laurence and resonated up through his chest like a bell. "Taking the cure, I mean," he clarified helpfully when Laurence remained silent.
"No." The answer came to him unbidden. He looked down at his hands, still pressed to the dragon's scales. "No, and that is why I am afraid," he said. "I am not the man I thought I was."
"I think you are much better," Temeraire said promptly. "Only if we had not taken the cure, many dragons would have died."
"And many Englishman died when Napoleon occupied Britain," Laurence said heavily.
"Many soldiers," Temeraire corrected, emphasizing the second word. "But the dragons who died would not all have been soldiers. There would have been dragons in the breeding grounds who have never wished to fight and maybe do not even know why we might fight a war against them. And our friends, the Chinese, who do not like the French or the British government much either." He turned his head to look back at Laurence. "Would you not have also spoken out if they had loaded ships with poisoned grain and let them be captured?"
"They would never!" Laurence said, aghast.
"They would not,” Temeraire “But I do not see that it is different at all!” Temeriaire's ruff had fanned out in anger. "Only that would be men and women dying and not dragons and the government does not think we are the same. But I do not see why my life should be worth less, or that of Lily or Maximus. And if ours are not then I do not think that the French dragons' or the Chinese's are either." Temeraire had straightened his head around and was flying with abrupt, deliberate strokes. "I do not think your father is a particularly nice man, Laurence, and he certainly has the wrong opinions on dragons, but I think he is right that some people's lives are not worth less than others."
Laurence furrowed his brow. He had not expected his father in an argument justifying treason. "You are referring to the slave trade?" He asked.
"Yes, and you took those slaves away from the merchants because you knew it was not fair," Temeriaire continued. "Even though it cost you ten thousand pounds, although you did not know it would at the time." Laurence numbly added this to the shocking list of items to apply for further information about later. "So I think you have always known what was right. But I think before you became my captain you did not know dragons were people as well, which is why you are so upset by what you have done."
Laurence's head ached. He thought of the Principia Mathematica, with its worn edges, of the carefully copied tomes of Chinese poetry, of the conversation he was having now. He thought of Temeriaire's instinctive understanding as he had come pounding onto the deck trailing harness and carabiners. He felt the shameful lurch of his stomach when he realized how easily he had considered the aerial corp trained beasts and indulgent handlers.
"I have made you better because now you understand about dragons," Temeriaire said. "Although you were very good at first," he added hurriedly. "And you have taught me about discipline, and duty, and the obligations we have to the people who are not as strong as we are. And that is why we took the cure, I think, even though you lost ten thousand pounds, and lost Granby also, and we had to leave for New South Wales when they decided they would not hang you."
"Yes, Laurence said a little hoarsely. "I believe I begin to understand."
It was dark when they returned, the lanterns of the Potentate standing out between the dark of the sea and the starlight on the horizon. Temeriaire landed softly on the deck with practiced skill, then handed Laurence gently down. Iskerka stirred once, then twisted more tightly about herself, spikes sending gentle wafts of steam to shred in the night air. "You will be well, Laurence?" Temeraire said, lowering a great blue eye to Laurence. "Perhaps you might stay on deck with me tonight?"
"No," Laurence said softly. He put a hand to Temeraire's muzzle. The dragon closed his eyes and Laurence found himself shifting his weight until the whole of his height leaned affectionately against the broad expanse of Temeriaire's head. He closed his eyes as well and let the heat of the great body sink into him for a moment before patting his scales fondly. "You have been more of a companion than I knew I might ask for," he said, "but I will sleep more soundly below deck and I think a little rest is what I need." Temeraire let out an affectionate huff of air and nudged him on his way.
To his frustration, rest evaded him. He had expected to sleep, if not easily then with the disciplined exhaustion of a man who has been through a battle that day and knows he will rise to face it again tomorrow. Instead he lay awake and felt the imprint of Granby's hand on his shoulder, felt the frisson as their eyes had met, even as Laurence had turned himself away to flee.
"And when you lost Granby, of course." Temeriaire's words returned to him as he lay in the dark. How many castles in the air had he already built on the most tenuous of conjectures? He thought with chagrin of studying Emily Roland, searching for any bare hint of himself in her stubborn face. How many more times would he mortify himself if he continued to chase headlong after each patchwork bit of the last eight years that presented itself?
And yet.
Abruptly he rose with conviction and went to his sea chest. He pushed past the layers of carefully packed clothing, the surprising number of well traveled books, until at least he drew out the small wooden box. The moonlight by the small window cast the contents into shades of gray, but he knew them by heart. First were the boyhood treasures; the bullseye agate marble, deeply coveted and pressed into his hand by his older brother the day he left for sea; the brilliant green parrot feather, the Chinese coin on the string. He sorted through them carefully. A lady's thin gold ring with a chip of citrine, the button from the coat of a midshipman, a scrap of folded poetry written in a bad hand. He took out a little square of paper and unfolded it and ran his finger across the lock of hair inside; blonde and tied with blue ribbon, the penciled "Yours, -Edith" daringly bold. He folded it carefully back into place. Below it all lay another folded scrap of cloth that he has known without knowing he would find. He drew it out and examined the second plain lock of hair in his palm. It was brown, clumsily snipped and bound with a looping of green string. He brought the cloth to his face and breathed deeply; the faint, persistent smell of black powder and the unmistakable sulfur note of dragon.
He sat back on his heels. It could be a momento he himself had taken from a comrade lost. It could be Jane's. It could be another lover's, any aviator. A longwing Captain in an open tryst, or another officer, more clandestine.
And yet it was not. He rose and went to dress.
Granby met him blearily at the door. "Laurence? What hour is it? Is it Temeraire? Are you ill? Wait a moment." He ducked back into his room to seize a pair of breeches and turned his back hastily to pull them on under his nightshirt.
Laurence stepped silently through the door, closing it behind him. "I think you hardly need trouble yourself," he said wryly as Granby hurriedly tried to finish tucking in his shirt. He held out his hand to Granby, the lock of hair resting in his open palm.
They both regarded it for a long moment, then Granby sighed. "I need a drink," he said, and went to fetch the bottle.
Granby drank his first glass of brandy medicinally, slipping it past his teeth with a grimace and immediately refilling the glass. Laurence sat on the room's lone chair. Granby perched on the edge of the bunk, the sea chest with a bottle and glasses drawn up between them.
"I thought we might not–," Granby began. "When you were–," he tried again. "Oh hell" he emptied his glass again. Laurence was not long behind him and he poured for them both. "It was all I might slip into your hand before they put you on the transport to New South Wales." He said. He looked weary, older than his years.
Laurence looked down at the lock of hair. "And now I have been lost again and am returned so altered," he said, his voice equally soft. He looked up at Granby. "I think I would know a little of what came before, if you would tell me." He asked.
A look of bemusement passed over the private stillness on Granby's face. "Ah, well," He sat his glass down and picked up the little twist of hair, turning it over in his fingers. "Naturally we must start with the base knowledge that eight years ago you were an overly starched Naval lobcock and the most wretched dragon assignment fate could have set me to…"
Laurence listened silently as Granby outlined in broad strokes their initial frictions, the grudging building of mutual regard, the tentative moments of camaraderie all underlaid with an aching, frantic hunger that neither had expected to sate. Then finally the towering row in China, Laurence determined to go headlong into danger, Granby digging his heels in and insisting on another course.
"Until I told you it was my prerogative as your first lieutenant and if you didn't like it, you might suck my cock," Granby finished, mildly chagrined. "I thought you'd finally dismiss me from the service but instead that night you came to my rooms and–
"And I still your officer?" Laurence broke in, dismayed.
Granby raised his eyebrows. "Lord, Laurence, that is the part of this story you are shocked by?" He asked.
"I am as the Lord made me," Laurence replied. "I have seen what other men consider lesser sins cause far more harm. But I would have counted myself above applying my influence as a senior officer to–"
"Oh, it was not so much as that," Granby interjected. "I am only surprised now that your naval starch took you all the way to China before–" he shrugged. "We were on fire for each other from that first day. You told me later you woke hard each morning for a month in Loch Laggan, thinking of gagging every insolent 'sir' out of my mouth."
Laurence had to set down his glass very quickly, stifling a cough as a first wave of embarrassment and then a second of arousal washed over him. "I find myself playing the drunkard," he said weakly. "Who must blush for what he said even as he does not remember it."
"It's different in the corp," Granby said. "A good first lieutenant is as much in command of the captain as the captain is the rest of the crew. I could have had you bundled into the belly rigging with a word, bellowing at me the whole time, if it would have kept you safe from a boarding party." He pinched the bridge of his nose, "You didn't take easily or quietly to the change, I shall say."
"I am sorry to have troubled you," Laurence said blandly.
"Prepared me for Iskerka, I suppose," Granby said. He took a sip of his brandy. "It's even a formal arrangement with some longwing captains. The beasts barely tolerate a male first lieutenant. If their captains have real affection for him, sometimes it makes it easier." He smiled and set his drink down. "You need not fear you'll find yourself a villain."
"I am relieved to find it so," Laurence said. Granby had lapsed into silence, watching him. Laurence was conscious of the small space between them, of the bare skin at Granby's throat, of his hand still curled around the glass. Laurence took another swallow of brandy but found his mouth still dry. "You say we were on fire for each other, but I would know, was there more?"
"Yes," Granby's voice was quiet. "At first there was fire, but then there was more."
Laurence swallowed. "And if I find I am on fire for you still?"
Granby set down his glass. "Then you would find me the same," he said. He held out his hand to Laurence.
Laurence hesitated. "I would not sully– that is, I my feelings are–," he stopped and rubbed his face in frustration. "If there has been more," he said finally, "then I would not see you used for base desires."
Granby's breath exploded out of him in a gust. "Oh damn, Laurence, I would give you what comfort I can" He stood and drew Laurence up. His arm wrapped around the small of Laurence's back, drawing them close together. Laurence closed his eyes as Granby bent his face down and pressed his cheek to his. "Sir," he breathed against the shell of Laurence's ear, and the word rang up and down Laurence's spine like the peal of a bell, and then Granby's mouth was on his and he was lost completely.
The scant step and half to the bed was graceless, both of them unwilling to drag their mouths away. Granby's shirt was over his head with a single tug. Laurence's own shirt gave Granby a moment's pause as he fumbled at them with his single hand. He opened his mouth to apologize but Laurence kissed him again, pushing him softly back. Conscious of Granby's gaze upon him, he first slipped off shirt, then moved his hands to buttons on his trousers. It felt electrifyingly brazen to undress in front of a man who watched him with rapt attention. He felt his skin prickle with anticipation as Granby reached out and drew him down to him.
He had expected familiarity, expected to know John's body under his hands. Instead he found himself wholly tumbled. Each tracery of scar or pleasing curve of muscle was new, the ripples and hitches in his lover's breath as he explored intoxicating. His fumbling urgency seemed to set Granby on fire.
"John." The name felt unfamiliar in his mouth. Granby's hand and lips rove up and down him like sparks across his skin. Laurence's heart hammered. He felt drunk on the heady unfamiliarity of a new lover and Granby seemed to know –knew, of course– his body with an intimacy that he scarcely knew himself.
Had he known, with other lovers, that he liked the hot draw of their mouth around his fingers? Had he known he wanted a hand tugging hard in his hair to pull him into a blistering kiss? Had someone before scraped their stubble along the sensitive skin of his inner thigh until he hissed with anticipation? "John," he breathed again, then gasped as Granby's mouth closed around him.
His hands gripped at Granby's shoulders, a moan stifled in his throat. God help him, it was so good. He could not keep his hips still. "A moment," he pleaded, and Granby tore his mouth away, panting. "Just a moment. It has been–" how long had it been since he had taken someone to bed? How to even measure such a thing. "You will overset me," he apologized ruefully.
"Lord, Will, but that is the point," Granby said with amusement, but allowed himself to be drawn up to Laurence’s lips. He pressed his forehead to Laurence’s, both of them catching their breath in the soft, private space they had made. "Let me have you?" He asked softly when Laurence reached for him again. Laurence nodded, and then Granby was gone, pushing himself up and disappearing beyond the small pale globe of moonlight above the bunk.
Laurence lay with his heart thudding in his breast. He heard Granby moving carefully about the small cabin, and the dry click of a sea chest. Unbidden, his memory took him back to a time he had lain in another dark room, a house party at a country estate. There too, he had lain bare under the coverlet, heart racing, listening for the click of the connecting door with simultaneous hope and anxiety.
They moved together in the dark. Laurence heard himself mummering endearments, sweet cajolings, phrases he barely heard and half understood as John labored above him. There was an intimacy he had not known before. He felt himself nearly undone by the tender press of mouths, the sweet, ardent kisses that stole his breath as much as the delicious arch of hips. He could not stop the soft cry of delight that left him at the moment of release. He put his hand to his mouth as John pressed his face into Laurence’s shoulder, stifling his own climax.
Later they lay together, clean and tousled in the hot dark. "Is it always so?" Laurence asked, languorous and a little stupefied. He stretched a foot out to brace against the frame of the bed, feeling the satisfying ache of muscles recently put to good use. They had closed the small window earlier in the evening in a facade of privacy and the air in the cabin was close. It smelled of Granby, and the sea, and sex. He closed his eyes and felt the rocking movement of the ship beneath him, as familiar as drifting off to sleep. It was more peaceful than he had felt in weeks.
"Oh lord, if I say yes I shall have my work cut out for me." Granby was laying pillowed on Laurence's chest, long limbs tangled and draped about him. He rolled to the side of the narrow bunk, resting his head on his arms and gazing up into the darkness of the planked ceiling. "But yes, it's often so."
"God in heaven," Laurence groaned, drawing a soft laugh from Granby.
The watch bell chimed distantly on deck and Granby sighed. "Sleep, Will, I will listen for the bells. You have prodded at your poor memories enough for the day."
Laurence sighed. "It is worse than having a tooth loose," he said. "Only yesterday I was considering with real anxiety that I might bear Emily some fatherly obligation. Today I find myself," he swallowed hard and continued gamely, "reformed traitor, seducer to my crew. The angels shudder to know what I will find tomorrow."
Granby laughed. "I suppose I am a worse embarrassment than a byblow. Well I am sorry to be the real skeleton in your closet." He trailed off, the unsaid looming large. "The only one still tucked away, now, I mean."
"Yes," Laurence said, though the pain felt more distant now, more bearable. The news of his flight to France would have destroyed his family, he supposed, and he felt that a hollow pit in his chest along with the disappointment of friends and former fellow officers. He remembered the feeling of his flight this afternoon, the shifting of scales as Temeraire's wings beat under him with the force of his own racing heart. He found he could not feel ashamed.
"Temeraire s–," Laurence paused at the momentary strangeness of speaking of a twenty ton beast as easily as that of an old friend. "Temeraire is of the opinion that love of country necessitates the critique of authority as much as service to it," he said finally. "I believe I begin to understand him."
They were quiet for a moment, then Granby said dryly "Let us never take Temeraire to meet the Americans," He sighed and stretched, and continued. "Will, I know I am about the last character witness you would choose–" Laurence opened his mouth to protest "Captain to the worst behaved dragon in the known world, moral deviant," he waved his hand as though the list went on. "But I have not known a man who has wagered more personal loss for love of his country and his duty. The others -Berkley, Harcourt, Tharkay–you will see him again I'm sure– Hammond even would say the same."
Laurence considered this. "I must rely on your good opinion of me then," he said. "Until such time as my memories return or I might form my own. Although I feel Hammond would laud the devil himself if it might open a port in China." Granby snorted. Laurence raised his head slightly to gaze upon the naked form next to him. "And you are sure your opinion is not unduly biased?" He asked.
"Will, I didn't choose to follow you around the world for the size of your cock," Granby said tartly.
A huff of laughter left Laurence in a surprised gust. "Why the devil to you," he said, and Granby smiled in relief. "I have received no such complaints," he continued, catching Granby's hand and bringing it down to the organ in question. He leaned in. "Nor on the facility of my mouth," he said against Granby's neck. He felt the swell of Granby against his thigh, "What, not sated?"
"The trials of youth and good health," Granby groaned with dour humor. He cantilevered himself up to throw a leg to either side of Laurence's chest. Laurence ran his hands along the firm length of the man's thighs as Granby leaned forward, bracing himself against the wall above the head of the bunk. "We will have t–, oh!" as whatever he was about to say broke off in a sigh as Laurence drew him eagerly into his mouth.
He woke some time later, feeling like a new man. The soft irony of the thought followed a moment later. It was still dark, and above him he heard the soft chiming of the bell and the pad of feet as men climbed to their watch. Granby lay next to him, face slack with sleep. He stirred briefly as Laurence slid carefully from his embrace to dress, then subsided at Laurence's whispered reassurance.
The narrow passage outside Granby's cabin was empty after the change of watch, aside from a pair of feline eyes that regarded Laurence steadily from a dark corner. Laurence climbed instead up the narrow ladder to the deck, nodding briefly to the young officer on duty who looked anxiously in his direction. The first gloaming light of dawn was showing on the horizon and there was a chill to the morning air. Laurence hurried to the looming form of Temeraire, stepping inside the shelter of his wings.
Temeriaire's eye cracked as Laurence settled himself on the smooth planking of the deck next to the dragon's head. "Do not trouble yourself, my dear," Laurence said, as Temeraire raised his head. "I came only to sit a while." Temeraire curled a protective foreleg around him and closed his eyes again Laurence leaned back against the warmth of the scales.
Granby found them several hours later. Laurence had been drowsing contentedly. Temeraire much the same. Both of them roused as Granby stepped inside the great curtain of wing. "Oh!," Temeraire said with great interest as Granby offered Laurence first a hand to help him to his feet, then after a moment of hesitation, the briefest embrace. Granby raised his eyebrows at Temeraire, a finger to his lips and Temeraire's head lowered again immediately. "Oh yes, of course," he said contritely in the lowest tones he could manage. That is, audible for about twenty feet.
"I suppose they will come soon to see if I am run mad or not," Laurence said. He was scraping his hair back into its short queue, taking stock of the rest of himself.
“Something the like,” Granby said. He held out Laurence’s coat and neckcloth, evidently retrieved from his cabin. “Cheer up,” he said with dry good humor as Laurence applied himself to making himself presentable. “I am sure once they are satisfied of your sanity they will allow Hammond to send you over the precipice once and for all. If anything could produce a bout of brain fever it would be that man.” He went to the edge of Temeraire’s wing to have a cautious look. “Yes, there he is now, and before the physician even. He does get up very early in the morning, I will say.”
“God in heaven,” Laurence said, coming to stand beside him. Granby leaned against him softly and Laurence allowed himself to lean as well for a moment, breathing deep of the smell of him before straightening his spine. "For king and country" he said in Granby’s ear, giving his rump a sharp slap before stepping into the bright morning light. "Mister Hammond," he called, "I believe we were addressing the finer points of the kow tow…"