Fic: "Feu dans le Sang" (Hornblower)
And sometimes I deal with the junk going on in my life/my head/whatever by going to the coffee shop at the bookstore, burning my hand, and writing a short flailing!Horatio bit. Complete with pretentious French title. Yes.
Set back in the movieverse. No gangsters here. Set, er, I guess post-"Wrong War," it isn't specific except that it's a Horatio who is younger and flaily.
I love my OTP. Even when one of them is being a flaily spazz. ::pets Horatio's curly little dork-hatted head::
So this is the focus of the poets and the playwrights, the dream of young girls in bright dresses, the object of the thundering sermon on Sunday. Or perhaps there are two things, separated by a shade, a matter of degree. You don't know for certain. You know only that they are hopelessly conflated in your heart, blended together so that you cannot name either with any degree of certainty. Love or lust, the breeding of the two is a dull heat under your skin, a fever in your veins, an infection unchecked.
It weakens you.
You watch him; you can only tear your eyes from him for duty. He smiles, when he catches you watching--the slightest curve of his lips, the faintest hint of amusement. Or perhaps it is meant to be reassurance; you cannot tell, have never had to knack of reading faces, and anyway could not think clearly through the pounding of your blood in your brain.
Fever indeed. You have seen men afflicted with fever--in your father's house, and both aship and ashore. You have seen the infections drive men from their wits, reduce them to raving nonsense and thrashing in sweat-soaked sheets. And you think of yourself, the words that came from your mouth as he put your body through the most exquisite torment, the words he drew from recesses from your mind you had thought never to touch. No less than raving, than madness, that, brought out by him and your strange need for him, the heat and pressure under your skin that only he seems to summon and only he can calm.
It terrifies you. It shames you. It thrills you and you want it more than anything, this fire in your blood that drives you mad. He meets your eyes across the wardroom--raises his eyebrow the barest degree--and you are lost again, your blood pounding in your ears, your chest gone tight and breathless, your body suffused by a wave of raw heat.
It's more than you can bear, you sometimes think. It must burn you to ashes. It must tear you to ribbons. It must destroy you.
He seems to have no such fears, or perhaps he hides them better. He is strong, has always been strong; you saw him at his moment of greatest weakness and still know in your heart that he bore up better than you would have.
You hate him for it, sometimes, hate that mingles hopelessly with the other crossed emotions in your head and leaves you shaking, helpless, hot and then chilled and damp with sweat. Impossible. Intolerable. You cannot stand it, and you cannot stand the thought of letting it go.
This must be madness, then. Purest madness, to return again and again to the source of this helpless need, to twist and sweat in your cot when denied it, sliding your hand beneath the blanket to wring what solace you can from yourself. You know that when it is over you will open your eyes in the brief window of respite and seek him, swinging peacefully in his own hammock. Perhaps his eyes will be open--perhaps they will meet yours--perhaps they will be fond and knowing and oh so very blue--and you will feel the first stirrings of tension and heat in your stomach again.
You're as sure as you can be of such things--things you do not understand; things that perhaps you cannot understand, things beyond your nature--that he does not intend to torment you so. He's never been less than careful when you follow him ashore--through the dockyards to the inns, up the stairs from the tavern to the bedrooms, from the door to the tattered mattress. And then you cannot remember, will not permit yourself to remember, anything but an empty blur of heat and need. You are certain, though, that he has never been anything but gentle, and cautious not to cause you pain.
He is not afraid, and you envy him that, the surety you seem to find nowhere except in commanding your division. And even there, the surety is only in the heat of the moment, and deserts you before and after.
Perhaps that is your true illness, the fears and worries that cloud your mind and choke your throat in the still and idle hours of the day. And the heat in your blood when you look at him is no fever at all, but purifying flame, cleansing you of doubt for a precious stretch of moments. You don't know, you can't know; you are a doctor's son, but you have never understood such things.
Toxin or salvation, you cannot bring yourself to wish it gone. You look for him, your fingers brush his skin in unguarded moments, you dream of him while you shift in restless sheets. Tangled sideways glances at the shore-leave memories you won't let yourself view head-on, in those dreams. More exquisite torture. You summon the fire over and over, let the flames race through your veins, and neither know nor care if it will burn you to ashes or forge you anew.
Set back in the movieverse. No gangsters here. Set, er, I guess post-"Wrong War," it isn't specific except that it's a Horatio who is younger and flaily.
I love my OTP. Even when one of them is being a flaily spazz. ::pets Horatio's curly little dork-hatted head::
So this is the focus of the poets and the playwrights, the dream of young girls in bright dresses, the object of the thundering sermon on Sunday. Or perhaps there are two things, separated by a shade, a matter of degree. You don't know for certain. You know only that they are hopelessly conflated in your heart, blended together so that you cannot name either with any degree of certainty. Love or lust, the breeding of the two is a dull heat under your skin, a fever in your veins, an infection unchecked.
It weakens you.
You watch him; you can only tear your eyes from him for duty. He smiles, when he catches you watching--the slightest curve of his lips, the faintest hint of amusement. Or perhaps it is meant to be reassurance; you cannot tell, have never had to knack of reading faces, and anyway could not think clearly through the pounding of your blood in your brain.
Fever indeed. You have seen men afflicted with fever--in your father's house, and both aship and ashore. You have seen the infections drive men from their wits, reduce them to raving nonsense and thrashing in sweat-soaked sheets. And you think of yourself, the words that came from your mouth as he put your body through the most exquisite torment, the words he drew from recesses from your mind you had thought never to touch. No less than raving, than madness, that, brought out by him and your strange need for him, the heat and pressure under your skin that only he seems to summon and only he can calm.
It terrifies you. It shames you. It thrills you and you want it more than anything, this fire in your blood that drives you mad. He meets your eyes across the wardroom--raises his eyebrow the barest degree--and you are lost again, your blood pounding in your ears, your chest gone tight and breathless, your body suffused by a wave of raw heat.
It's more than you can bear, you sometimes think. It must burn you to ashes. It must tear you to ribbons. It must destroy you.
He seems to have no such fears, or perhaps he hides them better. He is strong, has always been strong; you saw him at his moment of greatest weakness and still know in your heart that he bore up better than you would have.
You hate him for it, sometimes, hate that mingles hopelessly with the other crossed emotions in your head and leaves you shaking, helpless, hot and then chilled and damp with sweat. Impossible. Intolerable. You cannot stand it, and you cannot stand the thought of letting it go.
This must be madness, then. Purest madness, to return again and again to the source of this helpless need, to twist and sweat in your cot when denied it, sliding your hand beneath the blanket to wring what solace you can from yourself. You know that when it is over you will open your eyes in the brief window of respite and seek him, swinging peacefully in his own hammock. Perhaps his eyes will be open--perhaps they will meet yours--perhaps they will be fond and knowing and oh so very blue--and you will feel the first stirrings of tension and heat in your stomach again.
You're as sure as you can be of such things--things you do not understand; things that perhaps you cannot understand, things beyond your nature--that he does not intend to torment you so. He's never been less than careful when you follow him ashore--through the dockyards to the inns, up the stairs from the tavern to the bedrooms, from the door to the tattered mattress. And then you cannot remember, will not permit yourself to remember, anything but an empty blur of heat and need. You are certain, though, that he has never been anything but gentle, and cautious not to cause you pain.
He is not afraid, and you envy him that, the surety you seem to find nowhere except in commanding your division. And even there, the surety is only in the heat of the moment, and deserts you before and after.
Perhaps that is your true illness, the fears and worries that cloud your mind and choke your throat in the still and idle hours of the day. And the heat in your blood when you look at him is no fever at all, but purifying flame, cleansing you of doubt for a precious stretch of moments. You don't know, you can't know; you are a doctor's son, but you have never understood such things.
Toxin or salvation, you cannot bring yourself to wish it gone. You look for him, your fingers brush his skin in unguarded moments, you dream of him while you shift in restless sheets. Tangled sideways glances at the shore-leave memories you won't let yourself view head-on, in those dreams. More exquisite torture. You summon the fire over and over, let the flames race through your veins, and neither know nor care if it will burn you to ashes or forge you anew.