Youth of Delight, Come Hither, Part 3

[lemurling]

TITLE: Youth of Delight, Come Hither, Part 3
RATING: PG
WORD COUNT: 3370
PAIRING: AK/HH
WARNINGS: Emo. So much tedious emo. I could do nothing with them, stupid boys.
DISCLAIMER: Hornblower and characters belong to ITV and the Forester estate.
SUMMARY: Leave is not turning out to be very restful for Horatio.

V.
Horatio woke at regular intervals,

Comments

[lemurling]

I've been wrestling with this beast for two weeks now. I have a bunch of pieces written for after this, because I was so stalled I just had to move on. Hopefully it won't take as long to stitch those up into the next bit. Lots of Archie backstory coming up, and the whole Kennedy family.

The boys were so ornery! Horatio kept wanting to 'end it all forever' and I could NOT figure out what to do with them to get them to make up. It was annoying, especially since they were sort of sweet in bed and in the coach. Then they pull into London and Archie gets all grumpy and Horatio gets grumpy back and plunges into Twilight-levels of angst. Every night this week since Sunday I've tried to finish this and couldn't get them out of it. Luckily Archie finally kissed him. Sarcastically, sort of. But it shut Horatio up at least, long enough for me to get them out of this scene.

My husband gave me a lecture last night about not letting my characters boss me around. He also compared Archie to one of those psycho cats that acts all sweet and cuddly until you pet it, and then it rips your arm up, and then starts purring and wanting to cuddle again. I think he's a bit harsh.

Horatio was more surprised that he didn't get clocked while they were both in bed, because Archie is usually such a light sleeper. He was expecting the swinging when he woke Archie up. I'm a really really deep sleeper, I don't get nightmares, really, all sleep issues are foreign to me, so it's a little hard to write them. I know lots about cuddling in bed though. Alas, I think it's going to be months before I can get mine cuddling again. Can I borrow your Archie and Horatio for a while?

[eglantine_br]

Mine are cuddly for sure. Its awful though when they won't cooperate with our reasonable plans. I am having that problem with Hunter.

I love the image of yours back to back, so sweet...

[eglantine_br]

You know I just figured out Archie thinks he deserves to be punched in the face for kissing Horatio. He almost asks for it!

I know you said this, but I was slow on the uptake! Poor Archie.

[lemurling]

He feels very guilty, for a lot of things. And despite what Horatio thinks, Archie doesn't see anything about their time on Justinian as a joke, certainly not when he tried to drive Horatio away in the hold, and succeeded just a little too well. Archie just doesn't know how to make it better.

He doesn't really think Horatio will hit him, even though that's what any sensible man ought to do when another man kisses him. But he wishes Horatio would, because then Horatio would feel bad, and maybe after that, everything would be ok between them again.

He'd rather be beat up than have Horatio mad at him. He really would do anything, if it would make Horatio care about him again (because of course, Horatio being mad and wanting to 'break up' means that Horatio doesn't care :P I did say they were both being insufferably emo). Anything encompasses a lot of fairly ugly stuff, that luckily Horatio is way too innocent to even think about.

Archie's really freaked out about a lot of things, and he's desperate to hold onto Horatio, just as much as Horatio is freaked out about a lot of different things, and desperate to put distance between himself and Archie. Archie is going to win this one, eventually. Must pet the pretty kitty.