mmm, male bonding
Title: The Lineaments of Gratified Desire
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2500
Summary: An O'Brianesque moment of *cough* male bonding leads to some uncomfortable thoughts on Jack's part.
Author's note: shantih informed me of a sub-genre of Jack/Stephen fics that involve the marble bath in Stephen's castle in Spain, so I decided to try writing my own. This takes place immediately following Jack and Stephen's escape from France in Post-Captain. The title is stolen from William Blake.
The marble bath was certainly impressive enough - nearly large enough to swim in, carved from a single block of white stone veined with silvery-grey - but from a practical standpoint, it left something to be desired. It had taken the hired help (a sullen adolescent boy from Lerida) over an hour to fill it up with water, hauled from an outside well and heated up on the stove downstairs. "Gracias, gracias," Jack told the boy fervently, only to be answered with a hostile stare. Stephen spoke to the boy in Catalan and gave him a coin, and he went away looking somewhat mollified.
Alone at last, Jack pulled off his damp clothes and settled himself in the bath with a sigh of relief. He had washed himself in the stream up the hill from Stephen's castle, but the water - as fresh and cooling as it had been - had not taken away the damnable ache in his bones, nor ultimately relieved him of the sticky sheen of sweat which remained once the water dried. Dear God, there really was nothing like a hot bath, even in this weather. With food in his belly (new-laid eggs, fresh bread baked in a stone oven, and sheep's milk cheese) and the sure knowledge of safety, he could finally relax.
As big as he was, he was still able to submerge himself completely in the bath, and did so, lingering in weightless bliss for a moment before surfacing, snorting like a whale and shaking back his wet hair. He wanted a proper wash and a shave (he had a week's growth of yellow beard on his cheeks, like some odd fungus) but he had no razor with him and a quick look around the room revealed that his host had failed to provide soap. Given Stephen's low standards of cleanliness, this was hardly surprising, and indeed Jack's standards were fairly low as well, but he did want to get last remnants of grime off his skin. Rousing himself, he bellowed, "Stephen! Where's the damn soap?"
A long pause - punctuated by birdsong and the baa-ing of sheep somewhere not far away - and then Stephen appeared in the doorway, in shirtsleeves and spectacles, clutching a book in one hand. There were visible rims of dirt on his wrists and neck where he had presumably rinsed his face and hands in a washbasin. "Soap?" he inquired, looking baffled, as if Jack had just asked him to jump off the roof and fly around the castle turrets. "Why, there must be some here someplace... the kitchen, perhaps..." He wandered off vaguely and returned a few minutes later with a flannel and a small lump of a yellow, rancid-smelling substance which he assured Jack was "finest Castile soap." Jack accepted both items gladly and added, "You could do with a bath yourself, my dear."
"Joan has gone back to Lerida for the day. And I do not have the strength to refill this thing myself, and neither do you."
"You could use it after I'm done. Though the water won't be hot by that time." Jack thought about it. "Well, the bath is big enough for two, I reckon."
Stephen pondered for a moment, then shrugged and started unbuttoning his shirt. Jack watched him idly through half-closed eyes as he undressed. The poor fellow had been cruelly used - as he turned to drape his clothes over a chair, Jack could see clearly now the great bloody welts from carrying their belongings on his back. How he had managed to hold up for so many miles, with his meager limbs and bony shoulders, Jack had no idea. It was the strength of his wits that sustained him, Jack thought.
Stephen was so small, and the bath so large, that he nearly lost his balance as he clambered in. Jack sat up and drew his legs back to make room, and water slopped on the floor as Stephen settled into the bath, holding up his book so it wouldn't get wet. Jack had to grin at the whole situation: the bath dwarfed both of them - they were like two little boys about to get a scrubbing from their mother. Stephen adjusted his spectacles primly and set about reading his book (a monograph on marsupial species) while Jack washed himself. The soap stung in his multiple cuts and abrasions, but he hardly minded - he just wanted to be finally and completely clean.
"Jack, did you know," said Stephen, looking up from his book, "that the marsupial is born in its embryonic state, and must gestate an additional time outside the womb before it may emerge into the world?"
"That's certainly a piece of welcome news, Stephen," said Jack, rinsing the soap from his battered torso. "Why, I have waited my entire life for such a revelation."
Stephen reached over the side of the tub to gently place his book and spectacles down on the floor. He accepted the soap from Jack, then held his nose and briskly ducked his head under the water, dropping the soap in the process. He was attempting to fish around for it when Jack pointed out that it was floating just by his elbow. "It floats," Stephen observed, as water dripped down his face. "Now, Jack, why do you think it would float?"
"Soap is made from oil, ain't it?" Jack said. "Stands to reason."
"But not all soap floats."
"Well, write a monograph about it."
"Perhaps I will." Stephen seized upon the mysteriously floating soap and began to wash himself in a desultory manner, while Jack leaned back in the bath (more water slopping onto the floor) and fell gradually into a stupor born of relief and comfort, his eyes drifting shut. Presently he opened them again, dimly aware that the splashing sounds of Stephen washing had ceased, and that he had absentmindedly stretched his legs out, so that Stephen now sat between them. One foot was resting against Stephen's bony hip; noticing this, Jack moved it away, a little uncomfortably. Stephen, who had gone back to reading his book, looked up for a moment. Through his spectacles, his colorless eyes revealed nothing, but he smiled very slightly.
"The water is getting cold," he remarked. "You should get out before you catch a chill."
"I don't think I can move, Stephen."
"Should I haul you out, then?"
Jack had to laugh at that, but he wondered if Stephen might possibly be capable of it. Someone would get hurt in the process - probably Jack himself - and there would be a dreadful mess; he thought after all it might be better to climb out under his own power. So he hoisted himself up - the level of water dropping appreciably - got one leg over the side of the bath, and then the other, and leaned heavily on the edge, breathing hard as water streamed in rivulets down his body. Somehow even this small effort had exhausted him completely.
He found that Stephen was standing beside him, wrapping a towel around his shoulders. "It's said that the hoopoe - a most noble bird, in truth - has the habit of fouling its own nest. We're a fine pair of hoopoes, we two." Indeed, the bathwater had turned nearly opaque from their combined filth. "Come along, then, brother. Dry yourself now, and off to bed with you. I think you might have a touch of fever."
Jack did not want to be cosseted like a sick child, but he was too tired to protest; he let Stephen lead him into a bedroom and collapsed on the musty bed, no doubt made up hastily that morning by the sullen Joan. He pulled the covers up to his chin as Stephen went about opening the curtains, muttering to himself in Catalan. "You need light, and fresh air," he added in English, "after walking about in that bearskin for so long, and rest, most certainly."
"I could do with something more to eat." The bedclothes smelled distinctly odd, a barnyard smell. Stephen had said the castle had sheep in it... The thought might have put another man off his feed, but there was little that could stymie Jack Aubrey's appetite, once it was formed.
"Starve a fever," said Stephen.
"Old wives' tales."
"Are you a doctor, now?" Stephen gave him one of his sharp looks, and Jack shut his mouth, not wanting to risk a harangue. He rolled over and, as was his wont, fell instantly asleep.
He was drifting in a wide and featureless sea, the same blank blue as the sky. From the feel of wind and water, he knew he was in the West Indies, where he had been stationed as a lad, but there were no ships, no land in sight. Under the water it was as clear as blue glass, and a person swam alongside him, caressing him amid seadrift and silver bubbles: a person who, in the confusion of identity so common in dreams, seemed a combination of Sophie and Stephen. This struck him as not at all strange; he could only think how beautiful the sea and sunlight were, how his companion's body was warm against him in the cool water.
He woke, feeling sluggish and hot. He had slept the day away, by the looks of it. The rosy light of sunset shone in through the windows, and a tin lamp which hung from the bedpost threw flickering shadows on the walls. Stephen was sitting in an armchair by the bed, dressed only in his breeches; his eyes were shut, and his head lolled at such an alarming angle that for one dizzying moment Jack thought he had broken his neck. No, he was merely asleep - even as Jack watched, his mouth twitched like an old man gumming his food, and his monograph on marsupials, which he apparently had still been reading, slipped from his hand to fall to the floor with a faint thump.
Jack was thirsty. There was a jug on a washstand in the corner, and getting out of bed with some difficulty, he made his way over and drank of the warm, stale-tasting water. He tottered back over to the bed, and sat down heavily, too tired even to climb back under the sheets. Looking out the window, he saw that a pallid crescent moon had risen over the dim shapes of the mountains. Some creature - a cricket or a frog or somesuch - was uttering a monotonous buzzing call that sounded like heat and fever distilled into aural form. He found that he was sweating.
His gaze wandered around the room, and he noticed the dilapidated furnishings, the threadbare curtains. Insects had nibbled at the carpet and the plaster of the ceiling was stained and cracked. The place was like an architectural version of Stephen himself, shabby and dusty and neglected. It was only fitting, he supposed.
Stephen stirred, catching Jack's eye, and he watched his friend sleeping for a while. He saw the sharp shoulders, with a faint dusting of pale-brown freckles like a painter's daub, the way the shadows pooled in the hollow of his throat. There was a little dark hair on his chest, and a line of thicker hair leading down from his navel. His wrists were thin and knobby, and his hands - a surgeon's hands, fine and long-fingered - lay slack on the arms of the chair. Knobby ankles too, and long toes that twitched a little as he dreamed, like a dog twitching in its sleep. Perhaps he was dreaming of gallivanting after some strange beast, or a perilous ascent of a ship's rigging: there was a faint frown of concern between his brows.
The memory of Jack's own dream returned to him, and seemed to distort his gaze like the lens of a telescope. Looking at Stephen with this altered vision, for the first time he saw - not a body similar to his own, and hence innocuous, inert - but an unfamiliar country with its own rules, like a woman's body. The taste of his sweat would be different, the smell of his skin, the feeling of rough close-cropped hair against one's fingers. Not like Sophie, not like himself, but entirely unique, his own species.
He thought of them in the bath together, oblivious to any type of carnal desire, like children. He thought of what might have happened had he allowed the brief moment of physical contact to linger. It was extraordinarily disturbing to him, and he shook his head to clear it. He should not be thinking like this - he must certainly be ill, to be having these kinds of thoughts. He lay down again, covered his sweating body with the musty bedclothes, but did not close his eyes. There was an ache in his bones which would not leave him.
Stephen shifted position again and opened his eyes, that odd inconclusive no-color lambent in the lamplight. As consciousness returned, he seemed to realize he had dropped his book, and bent over to pick it up, each prominent vertebra casting its own little shadow. Straightening up, he noticed that Jack was awake and asked in the low voice one used with invalids, "Do you need anything then, brother?"
"No, I think not." The strange delusion, the altered vision, seemed to be fading; he blinked, rubbing his eyes, and saw only his friend, rumpled and unshaven, looking thoroughly exhausted despite his nap. "Is there no bed for you to sleep in, then?"
"I had Joan make one up, but I thought I would read here a while." Stephen rubbed his neck, which must have been sore from the odd position in which he had been sleeping, and yawned hugely. Then he rose and laid a cool, dry hand on Jack's forehead, and felt his pulse, and then looked down at him for a long moment, his face expressionless. Jack couldn't meet his eyes. "You do indeed have a fever," he said at length, stating the obvious in Jack's opinion. "I will fetch willow-bark and laudanum from Lerida tomorrow." He yawned again, scratched at his stubble, and glanced out the window, where full night had fallen. "I am going to bed," he said. "Call if you need me."
"Thankee, Stephen," Jack said. He watched as Stephen wandered out of the room in his abstracted way, leaving the door ajar; then he sighed and rolled over on his stomach, pressing his flushed face into the cool fabric of the pillowcase. He wondered if Stephen knew what he had been thinking. Stephen was a deep old file, after all. There was no point in asking him, of course - he would never say - but somehow or other, Jack thought he knew.
He thought he would not be able to fall asleep again, but he did. To his great relief, he slept without dreaming.
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2500
Summary: An O'Brianesque moment of *cough* male bonding leads to some uncomfortable thoughts on Jack's part.
Author's note: shantih informed me of a sub-genre of Jack/Stephen fics that involve the marble bath in Stephen's castle in Spain, so I decided to try writing my own. This takes place immediately following Jack and Stephen's escape from France in Post-Captain. The title is stolen from William Blake.
The marble bath was certainly impressive enough - nearly large enough to swim in, carved from a single block of white stone veined with silvery-grey - but from a practical standpoint, it left something to be desired. It had taken the hired help (a sullen adolescent boy from Lerida) over an hour to fill it up with water, hauled from an outside well and heated up on the stove downstairs. "Gracias, gracias," Jack told the boy fervently, only to be answered with a hostile stare. Stephen spoke to the boy in Catalan and gave him a coin, and he went away looking somewhat mollified.
Alone at last, Jack pulled off his damp clothes and settled himself in the bath with a sigh of relief. He had washed himself in the stream up the hill from Stephen's castle, but the water - as fresh and cooling as it had been - had not taken away the damnable ache in his bones, nor ultimately relieved him of the sticky sheen of sweat which remained once the water dried. Dear God, there really was nothing like a hot bath, even in this weather. With food in his belly (new-laid eggs, fresh bread baked in a stone oven, and sheep's milk cheese) and the sure knowledge of safety, he could finally relax.
As big as he was, he was still able to submerge himself completely in the bath, and did so, lingering in weightless bliss for a moment before surfacing, snorting like a whale and shaking back his wet hair. He wanted a proper wash and a shave (he had a week's growth of yellow beard on his cheeks, like some odd fungus) but he had no razor with him and a quick look around the room revealed that his host had failed to provide soap. Given Stephen's low standards of cleanliness, this was hardly surprising, and indeed Jack's standards were fairly low as well, but he did want to get last remnants of grime off his skin. Rousing himself, he bellowed, "Stephen! Where's the damn soap?"
A long pause - punctuated by birdsong and the baa-ing of sheep somewhere not far away - and then Stephen appeared in the doorway, in shirtsleeves and spectacles, clutching a book in one hand. There were visible rims of dirt on his wrists and neck where he had presumably rinsed his face and hands in a washbasin. "Soap?" he inquired, looking baffled, as if Jack had just asked him to jump off the roof and fly around the castle turrets. "Why, there must be some here someplace... the kitchen, perhaps..." He wandered off vaguely and returned a few minutes later with a flannel and a small lump of a yellow, rancid-smelling substance which he assured Jack was "finest Castile soap." Jack accepted both items gladly and added, "You could do with a bath yourself, my dear."
"Joan has gone back to Lerida for the day. And I do not have the strength to refill this thing myself, and neither do you."
"You could use it after I'm done. Though the water won't be hot by that time." Jack thought about it. "Well, the bath is big enough for two, I reckon."
Stephen pondered for a moment, then shrugged and started unbuttoning his shirt. Jack watched him idly through half-closed eyes as he undressed. The poor fellow had been cruelly used - as he turned to drape his clothes over a chair, Jack could see clearly now the great bloody welts from carrying their belongings on his back. How he had managed to hold up for so many miles, with his meager limbs and bony shoulders, Jack had no idea. It was the strength of his wits that sustained him, Jack thought.
Stephen was so small, and the bath so large, that he nearly lost his balance as he clambered in. Jack sat up and drew his legs back to make room, and water slopped on the floor as Stephen settled into the bath, holding up his book so it wouldn't get wet. Jack had to grin at the whole situation: the bath dwarfed both of them - they were like two little boys about to get a scrubbing from their mother. Stephen adjusted his spectacles primly and set about reading his book (a monograph on marsupial species) while Jack washed himself. The soap stung in his multiple cuts and abrasions, but he hardly minded - he just wanted to be finally and completely clean.
"Jack, did you know," said Stephen, looking up from his book, "that the marsupial is born in its embryonic state, and must gestate an additional time outside the womb before it may emerge into the world?"
"That's certainly a piece of welcome news, Stephen," said Jack, rinsing the soap from his battered torso. "Why, I have waited my entire life for such a revelation."
Stephen reached over the side of the tub to gently place his book and spectacles down on the floor. He accepted the soap from Jack, then held his nose and briskly ducked his head under the water, dropping the soap in the process. He was attempting to fish around for it when Jack pointed out that it was floating just by his elbow. "It floats," Stephen observed, as water dripped down his face. "Now, Jack, why do you think it would float?"
"Soap is made from oil, ain't it?" Jack said. "Stands to reason."
"But not all soap floats."
"Well, write a monograph about it."
"Perhaps I will." Stephen seized upon the mysteriously floating soap and began to wash himself in a desultory manner, while Jack leaned back in the bath (more water slopping onto the floor) and fell gradually into a stupor born of relief and comfort, his eyes drifting shut. Presently he opened them again, dimly aware that the splashing sounds of Stephen washing had ceased, and that he had absentmindedly stretched his legs out, so that Stephen now sat between them. One foot was resting against Stephen's bony hip; noticing this, Jack moved it away, a little uncomfortably. Stephen, who had gone back to reading his book, looked up for a moment. Through his spectacles, his colorless eyes revealed nothing, but he smiled very slightly.
"The water is getting cold," he remarked. "You should get out before you catch a chill."
"I don't think I can move, Stephen."
"Should I haul you out, then?"
Jack had to laugh at that, but he wondered if Stephen might possibly be capable of it. Someone would get hurt in the process - probably Jack himself - and there would be a dreadful mess; he thought after all it might be better to climb out under his own power. So he hoisted himself up - the level of water dropping appreciably - got one leg over the side of the bath, and then the other, and leaned heavily on the edge, breathing hard as water streamed in rivulets down his body. Somehow even this small effort had exhausted him completely.
He found that Stephen was standing beside him, wrapping a towel around his shoulders. "It's said that the hoopoe - a most noble bird, in truth - has the habit of fouling its own nest. We're a fine pair of hoopoes, we two." Indeed, the bathwater had turned nearly opaque from their combined filth. "Come along, then, brother. Dry yourself now, and off to bed with you. I think you might have a touch of fever."
Jack did not want to be cosseted like a sick child, but he was too tired to protest; he let Stephen lead him into a bedroom and collapsed on the musty bed, no doubt made up hastily that morning by the sullen Joan. He pulled the covers up to his chin as Stephen went about opening the curtains, muttering to himself in Catalan. "You need light, and fresh air," he added in English, "after walking about in that bearskin for so long, and rest, most certainly."
"I could do with something more to eat." The bedclothes smelled distinctly odd, a barnyard smell. Stephen had said the castle had sheep in it... The thought might have put another man off his feed, but there was little that could stymie Jack Aubrey's appetite, once it was formed.
"Starve a fever," said Stephen.
"Old wives' tales."
"Are you a doctor, now?" Stephen gave him one of his sharp looks, and Jack shut his mouth, not wanting to risk a harangue. He rolled over and, as was his wont, fell instantly asleep.
He was drifting in a wide and featureless sea, the same blank blue as the sky. From the feel of wind and water, he knew he was in the West Indies, where he had been stationed as a lad, but there were no ships, no land in sight. Under the water it was as clear as blue glass, and a person swam alongside him, caressing him amid seadrift and silver bubbles: a person who, in the confusion of identity so common in dreams, seemed a combination of Sophie and Stephen. This struck him as not at all strange; he could only think how beautiful the sea and sunlight were, how his companion's body was warm against him in the cool water.
He woke, feeling sluggish and hot. He had slept the day away, by the looks of it. The rosy light of sunset shone in through the windows, and a tin lamp which hung from the bedpost threw flickering shadows on the walls. Stephen was sitting in an armchair by the bed, dressed only in his breeches; his eyes were shut, and his head lolled at such an alarming angle that for one dizzying moment Jack thought he had broken his neck. No, he was merely asleep - even as Jack watched, his mouth twitched like an old man gumming his food, and his monograph on marsupials, which he apparently had still been reading, slipped from his hand to fall to the floor with a faint thump.
Jack was thirsty. There was a jug on a washstand in the corner, and getting out of bed with some difficulty, he made his way over and drank of the warm, stale-tasting water. He tottered back over to the bed, and sat down heavily, too tired even to climb back under the sheets. Looking out the window, he saw that a pallid crescent moon had risen over the dim shapes of the mountains. Some creature - a cricket or a frog or somesuch - was uttering a monotonous buzzing call that sounded like heat and fever distilled into aural form. He found that he was sweating.
His gaze wandered around the room, and he noticed the dilapidated furnishings, the threadbare curtains. Insects had nibbled at the carpet and the plaster of the ceiling was stained and cracked. The place was like an architectural version of Stephen himself, shabby and dusty and neglected. It was only fitting, he supposed.
Stephen stirred, catching Jack's eye, and he watched his friend sleeping for a while. He saw the sharp shoulders, with a faint dusting of pale-brown freckles like a painter's daub, the way the shadows pooled in the hollow of his throat. There was a little dark hair on his chest, and a line of thicker hair leading down from his navel. His wrists were thin and knobby, and his hands - a surgeon's hands, fine and long-fingered - lay slack on the arms of the chair. Knobby ankles too, and long toes that twitched a little as he dreamed, like a dog twitching in its sleep. Perhaps he was dreaming of gallivanting after some strange beast, or a perilous ascent of a ship's rigging: there was a faint frown of concern between his brows.
The memory of Jack's own dream returned to him, and seemed to distort his gaze like the lens of a telescope. Looking at Stephen with this altered vision, for the first time he saw - not a body similar to his own, and hence innocuous, inert - but an unfamiliar country with its own rules, like a woman's body. The taste of his sweat would be different, the smell of his skin, the feeling of rough close-cropped hair against one's fingers. Not like Sophie, not like himself, but entirely unique, his own species.
He thought of them in the bath together, oblivious to any type of carnal desire, like children. He thought of what might have happened had he allowed the brief moment of physical contact to linger. It was extraordinarily disturbing to him, and he shook his head to clear it. He should not be thinking like this - he must certainly be ill, to be having these kinds of thoughts. He lay down again, covered his sweating body with the musty bedclothes, but did not close his eyes. There was an ache in his bones which would not leave him.
Stephen shifted position again and opened his eyes, that odd inconclusive no-color lambent in the lamplight. As consciousness returned, he seemed to realize he had dropped his book, and bent over to pick it up, each prominent vertebra casting its own little shadow. Straightening up, he noticed that Jack was awake and asked in the low voice one used with invalids, "Do you need anything then, brother?"
"No, I think not." The strange delusion, the altered vision, seemed to be fading; he blinked, rubbing his eyes, and saw only his friend, rumpled and unshaven, looking thoroughly exhausted despite his nap. "Is there no bed for you to sleep in, then?"
"I had Joan make one up, but I thought I would read here a while." Stephen rubbed his neck, which must have been sore from the odd position in which he had been sleeping, and yawned hugely. Then he rose and laid a cool, dry hand on Jack's forehead, and felt his pulse, and then looked down at him for a long moment, his face expressionless. Jack couldn't meet his eyes. "You do indeed have a fever," he said at length, stating the obvious in Jack's opinion. "I will fetch willow-bark and laudanum from Lerida tomorrow." He yawned again, scratched at his stubble, and glanced out the window, where full night had fallen. "I am going to bed," he said. "Call if you need me."
"Thankee, Stephen," Jack said. He watched as Stephen wandered out of the room in his abstracted way, leaving the door ajar; then he sighed and rolled over on his stomach, pressing his flushed face into the cool fabric of the pillowcase. He wondered if Stephen knew what he had been thinking. Stephen was a deep old file, after all. There was no point in asking him, of course - he would never say - but somehow or other, Jack thought he knew.
He thought he would not be able to fall asleep again, but he did. To his great relief, he slept without dreaming.