He Who is Dry Cork

[eglantine_br]

Title: He Who is Dry Cork

Author Eglantine_br

Rating G

Word Count 461

He Who is Dry Cork

He had no fear of blows, or worse, coming out of the dark. He could strip his clothing to wash, without fear or shame. His body was his own, and Horatio loved it. No one beat him now, no one mocked him now. His value was known. There were no chains here.

Comments

[shezzawatto]

Excellent as usual. Great description of how some symptoms of PTSD can get at you.
But the title???

[eglantine_br]

It is from a song Anteros sent me. It is the Donne poem,'The Indifferent.' In the song, all the female pronouns are changed, so it is about a man. The first part has always reminded me of Archie and Horatio although the whole poem is not applicable.

I CAN love both fair and brown ;
Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays ;
Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and plays ;
Her whom the country form'd, and whom the town ;
Her who believes, and her who tries ;
Her who still weeps with spongy eyes,
And her who is dry cork, and never cries.

I guess Archie did cry, when Horatio found him in El Ferrol,(but he had to be half dead to be able to do it. I kind of see that part of him as closed off and inaccessible.

PTSD, absolutely.

[anteros_lmc]

I've been itching to read this all day ever since I saw the title :) This is perfect and perfectly heartbreaking. It seems to be almost canon that Archie does not cry. And that's certainly how I see him. Everything is locked down, locked away, closed and inaccessible like you said.

Some nights, still, he came up gasping like a gaffed fish
That's a really powerful image. (If you've ever gaffed a fish.)

Here in the dark, Archie knew what the small and harmless know. If he held still enough, if he trembled in the most careful silence, he would be safe.
That's really frightening. It brings the suffocating terror so much closer than graphic depictions of violence ever do.

This is a really powerful piece of writing, and strangely enough, it's perfectly in keeping with venusinfurs90's In the Lamb Inn.

[eglantine_br]

hey. I wrote this with you and your Archie in mind. I know that after the first verse Donne wanders off, but the first verse really does remind me of them.

And the Lamb Inn does fit perfectly, (how good to see her name again.)

I have gaffed a fish, sounds as if you have too. I kind of assumed Archie has as well. (Maybe when he still lived at home.)
Does that sound right. in Scotland, I'm thinking, not London.

I think animal imagery is a way to understand the past. When he was curled up, I was imagining him as a little being, like a vole or mouse.

[rikibeth]

oh, Archie.

That's what it's like, all right. :(

[eglantine_br]

I think Horatio knows a great deal. Love helps him to know things without really knowing why. But he does not get how shame and guilt are so crushing for Archie. Horatio sees Archie as pure and brave and worthy.

[rikibeth]

Horatio does see him that way. And the shame and the guilt are quite literally unimaginable to him: not that he isn't acquainted with the emotions, for he feels them keenly sometimes, but he can't connect "Archie has suffered ill-treatment and is still troubled by its effects at times" with the idea that Archie should have shame or guilt over this. Never mind that he'd feel exactly the same had he lived through it - he hasn't, and he can't make the connection.

It's not easy for Archie. On the one hand he loves that Horatio has no idea, that he's never been forced to know, and that someone so good and unbroken can love him - but on the other hand, because Horatio can't know, he can't really see what Archie feels himself to be, and there's always that hint of "if he really understood, he wouldn't love me."

The Horatio in my head is now giving me baffled looks and just says he wishes Archie would wake him, because it's not necessary for him to lie awake alone.

[eglantine_br]

Yes. Baffled and full of love, Horatio does his best.

[esmerelda_t]

Poor Archie. :(

Wonderfully descriptive though.

[eglantine_br]

Thank you. This one was visual, and a little strange, with no dialogue.

[donnaimmaculata]

Oh, this is so powerful. I can feel Archie's fear.

his body and mind threw him awake

An excellent description of waking up from a nightmare.

This really is chilling. Archie's "inventory" of his own body is particularly poignant, because we know that Archie has never expressed himself, his fear and guilt and shame, in words but that his body expressed it for him. Archie is so trapped in the dark, in the past and in his own mind; and yet, you make his strength palpable when he is able to calm himself down by controlling his breathing and pacing it to Horatio's.

[eglantine_br]

I was almost writing from the point of view of the body itself. This was almost a wordless experience.

[nodbear]

Very sad but also encouraging = he may still endure a lot but Archie here is more than just surviving and his endurance shows the Archie - inside to be growing stronger.

AS usual spare and evocative, and with added Donne a certainty of being a good read as of course it is

thank you

[eglantine_br]

He is getting stronger. I also think that the people who care for him are less oblivious than he thinks.