Temeraire!verse pt. 3
Untitled Temeraire!verse, pt. 3/4
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Words: ~7700
Rating: NC-17
Author's Note: The Temeraire universe, if you haven't read the books, is essentially Regency Era/Napoleonic Wars, with dragons. Here is a chart showing the different breeds of dragon. Eames' Regal Copper is the big one at the top. Arthur's Greyling is one of the wee guys. Cobb rides a Chequered Nettle (a heavy-weight), Ariadne a Longwing (an acid-spitting middle-weight), and Mal a Flamme-de-Gloire (a fire-breathing French middle-weight). And that should be all you need to know!
Disclaimer: The Temeraire universe/alternahistory and dragon breeds are all Naomi Novik. The Inception characters are Chris Nolan's. I own nothing. Sad face.
part one, part two
Dover
Not very long after Arthur had joined Eames' crew as his first lieutenant, they were relocated to the Dover covert to train with a new formation. A Longwing had relieved Rêveur in the south, and both he and Titus had been reassigned. Eames sensed that Cobb had pulled a few strings to be reassigned along with Mal. His affection for the Frenchwoman was not exactly a secret.
Eames hoped that he and Arthur were more discreet. They didn't even spend many nights together, and those they did were quiet and subdued-no more than reacquainting themselves extensively with the other's body. Eames had not realized how much he had missed the taste of Arthur's mouth and the feel of Arthur's light fingers skimming over his skin. It was all they were able to do, kiss and stroke each other in the dark, keeping very quiet. Arthur was always gone before the servants could see him leaving Eames' room.
He was as good a lieutenant as Eames could have asked for, as well. There was quite a lot to commanding a crew as large as one such as a mature Regal Copper afforded, and even having been brought up to it, there were days when Eames was sure he would never be able to keep it all in his head if he did not have Arthur. Arthur was the perfect lieutenant: he navigated the harness as though gravity were no issue, and seemed to know every man's position at any given moment. When he barked an order, men scrambled to obey.
Eames worried sometimes, though, when they were drilling, and he would turn and see Arthur crouching awkwardly between Lucretia's spines, pale-faced. Some days he was a step slower than usual. They tried not to discuss it-nobody else had noticed. But Eames could not go on pretending when he saw the spasm of pain that Arthur allowed to show through, just for an instant.
“Your leg is paining you,” Eames accused him when they were alone in the officer's club late that night.
“It is nothing,” Arthur said stubbornly. “Proper use will set it aright.”
“Or you will snap your bloody leg off altogether.”
“I will not let it affect how I work, Eames,” Arthur said, but that was not Eames' fear. He was afraid of that pained flicker he had seen in Arthur's eyes. Eames would not see Arthur hurt for the world. It was his greatest weakness.
Eames and Cobb were not the only ones with divided attentions. Lucretia was looking more and more furtive, and speaking less and less to Eames when he sat with her in her clearing at night; he was concerned, and a little hurt, until, churning up grass under her talons, she blurted out one day, “Titus is a fine dragon, do you not think so?”
“He is very fine,” Eames replied, taken aback momentarily, and then amused. After that he was content that Lucretia's distraction had nothing to do with him, and he was careful to leave her clearing earlier each day.
“It's natural,” Cobb said thoughtfully when Eames presented this revelation to him. “As long as it doesn't affect their formation flying I don't see that it will do any harm. It would be famous if something were to come of it,” he added with a wistful shine in his eye. “Lord, I would like to see the offspring of a Regal Copper and a Nettle.”
Bemused, Eames tried not to think about that. Instead, he concentrated on training with the other captains, some of whom he had never flown with before. He was still learning, but with Arthur there at his right hand to help guide him, things that had once seemed difficult now seemed positively easy.
It was Lucretia's closeness with Titus that alerted Eames to their problem. She was unusually subdued during a routine drill, and offered only short replies when Eames spoke to her. When they were finished for the day, and Lucretia had been unharnessed, Eames walked her back to her clearing and sat down with her, waiting for her to share what was on her mind, as something surely must be. She avoided his eyes, picking distractedly at the dirt with one claw.
“Titus says the officers talk about you,” she said suddenly, almost angrily. She screwed her talons into the loam, glaring down at the earth. “He said that, if it were him, he would not let anybody speak about his captain in such a way.”
Eames was struck by the realization that she was not only angry: she was embarrassed, as well. He reached out and stroked her snout slowly.
“What do they say, my dear?” he asked.
“The captains do not say anything,” she said, still glaring at the ground, “but the officers say that you have an unnatural vice, where it concerns Arthur; and I do not understand, because nobody would say such things about Titus and I, although I suppose it is true that I could simply crush anyone who did; but nobody talks of Cobb and Mal, either, and Titus says they have mated. So I do not see the difference, except that Arthur cannot give you an egg, and I do not understand.”
Eames' anger was slow and hot to build as he considered this. It was not only that some of the men were actively discussing this behind his back, but the fact that their gossip had caused distress to Lucretia that burned him. He noticed his hand had stilled, and went on petting her after a moment.
“Put it out of your mind, my dear, I beg you,” he murmured. “It is only idle talk. There is no truth in it.”
She lifted her head slightly. “You are close to Arthur.”
“Yes, I am,” Eames said truthfully; “we are very close, but that is nobody's business but our own, so I hope you will not repeat it. And we have never done anything like what those men are describing, so their talk does not concern me.”
“I will flatten them if they speak of it again,” Lucretia said stoutly, her tail swinging aggressively over the ground.
“Hush,” Eames said, “put it out of mind.” But he knew by the way her eyes narrowed in frustration that she was thinking of what Titus had said, that he would not permit any man to speak about his captain in such a way. All he could do was stroke her snout and wish he had never allowed Arthur to get him into this mess.
+“Some of the men have been talking about us,” Eames told Arthur in his room that night. Arthur was removing his neckcloth and unbuttoning his jacket-he would always insist on dressing formally.
“Yes, I know,” he said simply, unconcerned.
“You know?” Eames demanded. “You have heard that they think I have been-sodomizing you?”
Now Arthur looked perturbed. “I had not realized their imaginations had let them go that far. Although if it were up to me,” he continued lewdly, folding his jacket neatly and unbuttoning his shirt, “you would have tumbled me a long time ago.”
“Damnit, Arthur, be serious,” Eames growled, gripping the edge of the bed tightly, where he was perched. Arthur frowned.
“Why does this upset you so much?” he asked, and Eames snapped:
“Because it is wrong!”
They were both immediately silent, listening for anyone who might have overheard, but fortunately Eames, however heatedly, had not said it too loudly. After a moment they were able to relax.
“This isn't a joke,” Eames continued in an undertone. “Damnit, I will never know why I listen to you at all-”
He looked away stubbornly when Arthur walked to him and stopped directly in front of him, though it was hard not to look when Arthur's fingers trailed so gently down the side of Eames' jaw.
“I do not see any other men here,” said Arthur. Eames swallowed against the light press of his fingers.
“Of course not.”
Arthur unbuttoned his trousers slowly and removed them. Then he took Eames' hand, and placed it perfunctorily on his swollen cock. Eames squeezed his eyes shut, but did not let go.
“There,” Arthur said; “does that feel wrong?”
No, everything in Eames cried. He swallowed thickly and shook his head.
“I thought not.” Still holding Eames' hand, Arthur slid it loosely up and down his shaft until Eames found himself doing it unconsciously, squeezing and gentling in all the ways he had learned Arthur liked, and Arthur positively purred.
“On the bed,” Eames said at last, breaking. He pulled Arthur over onto the mattress, then got down as well so that he could swallow Arthur down, working the length of him into his mouth until his nose was buried in the coarse hairs at the base of Arthur's shaft. When he inhaled deeply, the scent of Arthur was musky and male in his nostrils, and God help him, Eames loved it. As long as he lived, he would never want anything else.
He sucked and lapped helplessly until he brought Arthur to completion, and swallowed the seed that painted his throat. When he withdrew, panting, he crawled up Arthur's body and lay heavily on top of him, feeling Arthur's own chest rise and fall rapidly while he gasped. Eames tucked his nose into Arthur's neck, breathing deeply.
“I am sorry, darling,” he murmured, when he could speak. “I don't mean to be such a prig about this.”
Arthur exhaled slowly, and dipped his chin so that he could kiss Eames.
“I should not push you,” he said quietly. “Forgive me.”
They breathed in tandem for several minutes. Eames' cock, full and flush in his trousers, lay against Arthur's thigh, but Arthur did not seem inclined to do anything about that. And in spite of his need, Eames could feel a great contentment washing over him. He did not care what the men said about him-truly he did not, anymore. It was aggravating that they should have upset Lucretia with their talk, but nothing more had come of it than that. Nobody had disobeyed any of his commands; he still had his men's respect, as far as he could tell. His primary concern had always been for Arthur, who was well-liked among the other aviators in spite of his genteel manner, and nobody had acted against him. Of course, aviators were a clannish group. Arthur had told Eames before that they were probably not the first such inclined pair in the Corps, but Eames had not believed it until now. Perhaps it was true that the aviators did not care what their fellows got up to if not presented outright with the evidence, except in the making of good gossip.
No; it did not matter, and Eames loved this precious creature beneath him too much to care even if it did.
Presently he laid a kiss to Arthur's collarbone and stood up. Arthur stirred sleepily and looked at him.
“Where are you going?”
“To find oil,” said Eames, and Arthur came awake again at once.
By the time Eames returned, there was nothing sleepy about Arthur at all. He was waiting in Eames' bed for him, bright-eyed, his pale thighs spread, so that Eames had to sink down and fasten his teeth in Arthur's inner leg just to leave a mark there. Arthur sucked in a sharp breath, but he was distracted, his gaze fixed on the bottle of oil in Eames' hand.
“You are certain this will work?” Eames asked quietly, pulling off his clothes.
“Yes,” Arthur said. Throwing his trousers aside, Eames sank back onto the bed between Arthur's spread legs.
“You will tell me if I hurt you?” he murmured.
Arthur nodded.
“Turn over, then.”
Arthur did. He got onto his elbows and knees, presenting his arse, and for a minute Eames had to stop and just-look, and breathe, and he could see a pink flush working its way up the back of Arthur's neck and his ears, and it was so unlike him to be bashful that Eames fell in love with him all over again. It seemed a very long time from the first time they had tried this, and Eames was not quite sure what to do with the oil once he picked it up again. He opened the bottle and dribbled its contents over his stiffened cock, using his hand to slicken it liberally, and before long he was harder than he had been since those days when he had been young and stupid and Arthur was touching him for the first time.
Just to make certain, he poured some more of it down the seam of Arthur's arse, making him twitch. Hesitantly, Eames used his fingers to spread it around his hole; and then, before he could talk himself out of it, he gathered some on his finger and pushed it just a little way into Arthur's arsehole. He could feel when he was in, the little clutch and give of muscle, and felt Arthur's body hitch with his breath. Fascinated, he did the same-withdrew his finger, swept it around the rim of Arthur's centre to collect it on his fingertip, and then pushed it in again. As he grew bolder, he moved his finger around, probing the walls of Arthur's passage, coating them with the oil.
“Give me another,” Arthur said huskily; his voice was wrecked.
Eames obligingly eased a second finger in alongside the first, and pushed in even deeper, trying to forge himself a path that would be slick enough to take him. His prick was longer than his two fingers, though, and when he removed his fingers he double-checked that he had coated himself sufficiently.
“Are you ready?”
Arthur laughed hoarsely. “I have been for years.”
Eames took himself in hand, lined up, and pressed in, and in, slow and easy. Arthur's body resisted him; gave way; then squeezed as if trying to force him back out. Eames persisted, sliding in steadily until his thighs were flush with Arthur's, and the blood was pounding in his ears, and he couldn't think or breathe and his mouth spoke without his brain's permission; he was as hoarse as Arthur.
“How does it feel?” he asked, and slowly became conscious of Arthur's ragged panting under him.
“Full,” Arthur answered after a pause.
Eames' hands were shaking; he placed one on the bed, to steady him, and the other at Arthur's hip, squeezing.
“I'm going to move,” he said unsteadily.
“Yes,” Arthur hissed softly through his teeth.
As Eames slid slowly out, almost all the way, and then pushed back in, he had a brief, unbidden thought: this was worth sinning for. Arthur was hot and velvet inside, gripping his cock in the best ways, and it seemed to Eames that he fit perfectly inside him-as if this were the purpose for which they were intended. Arthur began to push back against him, bracing his elbows in the bed, encouraging Eames to take him harder, as if reminding Eames that he was no delicate maiden. It would not have mattered; Eames had no experience with those anyway.
They were quiet, so quiet, perpetually conscious of the occupants of the nearby rooms, however deeply asleep they might have been by then. Arthur gave a few soft little groans that Eames might have mistaken for pain had he not been so familiar with them by now; and for himself, he tried to keep his mouth shut but could not suppress a few strained grunts now and then. Later he would think he ought to have waited for a more perfect moment, but for the time being it seemed that nothing could have been better; he had not expected the heat inside of Arthur, or the softness, or the little tremors that wracked Arthur's body when he was forced to brace a hand against the headboard and put his head down on the bed; and he did not expect to reach between Arthur's legs and find his cock savagely hard and weeping from the tip. A few strokes of his oiled palm were all that it took to bring Arthur off a second time; he buried his face in the sheets, moaning roughly, a sound which resonated all the way to Eames' core. Eames wished dearly that he could see Arthur's face then.
As if hearing his thoughts, Arthur groped roughly behind him with his free hand until he found Eames, and drew him down for a kiss. His face was red and his hands as shaky as Eames' had been. Eames slipped his tongue into Arthur's mouth, swallowed his groans and chased the taste of him from each corner of his mouth. He rocked his hips more slowly as they kissed, and the angle of his hips had changed so that every time he slid back in Arthur breathed a shaky little “ah” into his mouth.
When his hand tightened in Eames' hair, Eames was gone. He shook and broke their kiss, pressed his face between Arthur's shoulderblades and didn't even have time to think about it before he was releasing himself inside of Arthur, for what felt like an age. His clamped his eyes shut and for a long time there was only the endless spill of his seed in Arthur's core, freezing him, transfixing him, making him quiver. It was like a tidal surge and for a minute he was afraid he would lose himself in it, and it wouldn't have mattered because he could have spent the rest of his life there anyway, living that moment of release over and over again.
When he was able to rally enough effort to pull out, he could see some of his seed shining wetly in Arthur's hole. Reverently, he pushed it back in with a thumb. That was a part of himself, inside Arthur.
Arthur was the one who recovered long enough to pull the sheets over them both, and he pressed himself back into the curve of Eames' body, his muscles lax and quiescent wherever Eames touched him. He was asleep within moments, still wet, and Eames could not bear the thought of him ever leaving that bed. Let the maids talk in the morning, he decided. He had kept his promise, and it seemed he had everything he wanted in the world.
+At Dover, their formation was called on often to provide naval support. Bonaparte was as determined as ever to choke Britain of her supplies, and the British as determined to engage him at sea. When they were in battle, Eames was single-minded; his world shrank down to him and Lucretia working as one unit. His thoughts were only for her safety, and that of the formation and Rêveur; if they were able to defend the ships, that was all to the better. Rêveur was the priority, though: England could not afford to lose its only fire-breather.
It was gratifying, too, to see the French hurriedly soaking down their sails, afflicted with the same fear they had been eliciting in the British for too long. It was a terrible thing for a ship to be set alight, and Rêveur took savage delight in targeting the largest ships-of-the-line. He had captured numerous prizes for their side this way.
The French were determined to take the Channel, however, and it seemed there were more dragons to engage each time. On Eames' last battle with Arthur as lieutenant, a full complement of French dragons was waiting to defend their fleet, and with the wind blowing in their favour.
The aerial skirmish lasted into dusk: all the dragons of the formation were hardened veterans who were not easily surprised, and by some miracle they held the formation together stoutly, while the British ships below likewise gave no ground nor quarter; Lucretia was not even particularly tired when she was attacked from above by a Fleur-de-Nuit.
They had tired of trying to separate Rêveur from the rest, and it was without warning that the middle-weights peeled around and attacked Titus and Lucretia, the formation's largest defenders, directly. It was Lucretia's bellow of anger and pain that first alerted Eames: the French dragon had descended directly onto her back, screwing its talons into her hide; it wrenched free and wheeled away as she thrashed mightily in midair, but not soon enough: in the fading light Eames saw a dozen figures detach from its back and leap to Lucretia's.
“'Ware boarders!”
There had been a crack of rifle-fire at the retreating dragon; now there was a scramble to draw swords and engage the French. Lucretia had dropped away from the formation, her wings snapping heavily with pain; when Eames squinted in the light of the flares Arthur had sent up, to momentarily blind the circling Fleur-de-Nuit, he saw gashes in her leathery wing.
“The formation,” he shouted to Lucretia, and she nodded her head gamely; two more Fleur-de-Nuits had appeared to heckle Titus, no doubt sent from the shore now that the light was fading, and Rêveur would soon be exposed to attack from the rear. Straining with effort, Lucretia beat her way back up toward her companions, gaining altitude in inches. Another flare went off; a quick glance told Eames that the boarders were still engaged, while others of his crew scrambled to pack Lucretia's bleeding wounds. She was gaining on the rest; she was there. A signal-flag went up from Rêveur's back; the dragons wheeled as one, leaving their attackers behind for the moment. Lucretia had closed the gap again; they were safe.
“Sir!” The shout came suddenly, high with panic, and Eames couldn't tell which officer it was. He twisted in the harness again to look, and saw one of the French officers, clinging grimly on, leveling a revolver with him as he climbed- Lucretia, turning her head, gave a cry of fury and frustration that rattled Eames' skull-
Arthur came bounding out of nowhere, not bothering to strap himself to the harness, just climbing loose, one-handed, the other gripping his sword. He came so quickly that the Frenchman failed to see him, not until Arthur had thrust his sword straight through the man's ribcage from behind. It happened so very suddenly that Arthur hadn't even wrested his sword loose when the Fleur-de-Nuit returned to the attack. Lucretia had leveled out and was beating steadily, trying to provide as stable a footing for Arthur as possible, but with the French dragon almost upon her she was forced to veer.
Arthur should not have lost his balance-he had been raised in the harness from the age of seven and had flown in the most undesirable of circumstances. Eames would have missed it had he not been watching so anxiously; he saw the exact moment that Arthur's leg failed him, that it crumpled beneath him; and when Lucretia twisted in the air, Arthur buckled and fell. He was over her side in an instant.
“Arthur!” Eames shouted, and in that second, it seemed that everything in the world he held dear was falling away from him. He could do nothing, Arthur was gone. “Arthur! Lucretia!”
Lucretia folded her wings and dropped out of the formation in a maneuver that should have been difficult for a dragon of her bulk. She was beating downwards, and Eames heard confused shouts, many of the crew perhaps thinking that she was being attacked from above again. His own heart was in his throat with the speed of the dive, his eyes were prickling with water, and he could only think that maybe she would be fast enough, maybe she would overtake Arthur-
Eames could only see the rising sea below them, could only hear the wind whipping painfully past his ears; his senses returned to him slowly. The French dragons had plummeted after them gleefully. Titus was engaged above, roaring furiously. And in the distance, a Petit Chevalier beating its way toward the formation.
“The formation!” Eames shouted at Lucretia, coming back to himself suddenly; the wind tore the words from his mouth. He pounded on her shoulder. “Lu, the formation, damn you-”
She unfurled her wings all at once with a leathery snap and a bellow of pain, and it seemed that time slowed around them; Eames could see the ships in front and behind them, the black water coming up to meet them, too quickly, could feel the strain of Lucretia's wings as she fought to slow her descent, and he squeezed his eyes shut in the moment before her belly hit the water. It sprayed up around them in a mist, hitting Eames in the face, icy cold.
The Fleur-de-Nuits battered the air, trying to pull up before they could meet the same fate; before they were clear, there was a crack of cannonfire from the nearest ship and one of them plummeted noiselessly to the water, tangled in its wings: it had taken a blow directly to its chest. The other two fled, one screeching, bleeding from the shoulder and limping badly in the air; Eames doubted it would reach the shore.
All this happened in the instant that Lucretia met the water: almost as soon as she was in, she was out, pounding her wings. Her air sacs had not even let her submerge fully. The water sluiced easily from her scales, though it weighed the leather down, and she was struggling to gain altitude.
Eames' second lieutenant, Briggs, appeared over Lucretia's side, spluttering and soaked. Eames grabbed him, demanding hoarsely: “Arthur?”
“Not below, sir,” Briggs gasped, spitting water.
If Arthur had not been able to latch onto the harness when Lucretia's belly was submerged, he was lost. Sorrow rose up in a great clamouring chorus and for a second Eames thought he would be sick over Lucretia's neck. He blinked, trying to bring his bleary vision into focus. The Petit Chevalier he had espied was descending upon them rapidly, and Lucretia was in no state to engage with him. They were all lost.
He heard Titus' roar before he saw the Nettle: Cobb's dragon dropped out of the sky like a righteous thunderbolt. In the last moment he pivoted aside, neatly as an Anglewing, and caught the Chevalier a smashing blow to the side of the head with his heavy spiked tail. Signal-flags flashed urgently from his back: retreat.
It was all Lucretia could do to make it back to their side of the Channel. She was listing very heavily and Eames was terrified she might fall right out of the sky. She descended as quickly as she could when the covert was in sight, and for a moment it seemed they would crash into the ground, but she beat her wings quickly at the last moment to keep herself aloft, and lowering very cautiously, her sides expanding rapidly for breath, she landed in an awkward crouch on her haunches. Eames was scrambling down from the harness at once, but scarcely had he reached the ground than she turned her head and said, in tones of exhaustion:
“Eames, I have him.”
Then she opened her forehands slowly, and let Arthur spill onto the ground: soaking wet, shivering, white as a bone and gasping: but alive.
“Oh, I am so tired,” Lucretia said, while Eames was still gaping at her precious cargo; and she laid down alongside Arthur, and went to sleep.
+Arthur was taken to the surgeon along with the other men who had been wounded during the skirmish. Eames did not go with him. He sat with Lucretia in her clearing for a very long time, helping the dragon-surgeon to dress her wounds, and coaxing her to take small bites of food when she woke up. Once she had eaten a little from his hands, she became ravenous: a very good sign.
“That was a clever idea,” Cobb said later, when Eames dragged himself, exhausted, up to the headquarters. The other captains were sitting around dully, hands clasped around their drinks. Cobb's gaze was sharp and knowing. “Drawing the French dragons down to the range of the ships. That was very clever.”
“How is Titus?” Eames asked wearily.
“Eating well,” said Cobb. “He will have a week's rest; Lucretia will have a little longer, I think.”
Eames nodded, feeling sick at heart. He had let his dragon down; he had led her into danger. He excused himself from the other captains and went to his room, where he slept fitfully all night.
The next day was spent with Lucretia also, and she seemed brighter. She curled a foreleg around him, rumbling affectionately, and Eames rubbed her cheek and sat down to keep her company. They chatted idly, and he began to realize, she did not blame him for her injuries.
“Lu, I have to ask you something,” he said, when he was certain they were quite alone in the clearing. “Why did you stoop like that, during the battle?”
“Why,” she said, surprised, “to fetch Arthur back, of course; he would have landed in the sea, and been lost.”
“Yes, but ...” Eames did not know how to word himself. He settled on, “You would not have done that for any other man on the crew.”
Lucretia snorted forcefully through her nostrils. “Of course not, Arthur is different. He is your mate.”
“He is not my mate.” Eames hated lying to her, but he had seen what could come of her knowing the truth now. He swallowed around the tight band in his throat. “Lucretia, you must promise me you will never do that for him again, no matter what happens.”
“Of course I cannot promise you that,” she said, infuriatingly implacable. “You would never recover.”
“I would, I promise,” Eames lied. “Only you cannot do that, do you understand? You risked yourself and the entire crew, not to mention Rêveur and the rest of the formation ...”
“But we were fine,” she said, politely baffled. “I am sorry, Eames, but I cannot promise you what I will do if something like that happens again. It was very instinctive.”
She did not understand, and of course, she would not. It was dangerous for a dragon to have such attachments. It was common knowledge how possessive dragons were of their crews, but a dragon that could not keep going when it lost a crewmember was a dragon who would be easily distracted and targeted in battle. The captain was the dragon's greatest weakness; Lucretia could not have a second weakness in Arthur, or it would only take one of them in danger for her to surrender, and then what would become of them all?
It was not until the next day that he visited Arthur in the infirmary. It was painful, how Arthur's face immediately relaxed into a smile when he saw Eames.
“How are you?” Eames asked, pulling up a chair next to his bed. He was quiet; the room's other occupant was asleep.
“Recovering well,” Arthur said. “The surgeon says I will be well enough to leave the infirmary by tomorrow.”
Lucretia's talons had left a gouge under his ribs. Eames focused on the bandage, rather than Arthur's face.
“Good,” he said. “That is good.” He took a deep breath. “Arthur-what in God's name were you thinking?”
Arthur's face darkened. “He would have captured you and taken Lucretia. I was doing my duty as your lieutenant: protecting you.”
“We could have all been killed.”
“I did not ask Lucretia to fly down after me,” said Arthur tartly. “I took a risk and I eliminated a threat to you; I did my duty. You should be asking your dragon what she was thinking.”
“I have,” said Eames. “She thinks she did nothing wrong.” He paused again. “Your leg failed you.”
“I lost my balance when she turned.”
“No; I was watching you. That would never have unseated you, before. You are still injured.”
“My leg is perfectly serviceable,” said Arthur stubbornly, “just as I am.”
“I know you better than any man,” said Eames, sharp now. “I know when you hurt and I know when you are hiding something. Your leg worsens every time you have to scramble up and down the harness, and you think I don't see. You are wrong.”
Arthur clenched his jaw. “It is getting better.”
“No, damn you, it is getting worse.” Eames took another deep breath, swept a hand through his hair. “I cannot let this happen again. I simply can't. That is why I went to the admiral yesterday. There is a Greyling ready to hatch at the Falmouth covert and I have put your name forth as its potential captain. If you refuse the post it will be a serious mark against you.”
The blood drained from Arthur's face, giving him an unhealthy grey pallor.
“A Greyling?” he said, struggling to sit upright. “A Greyling?”
“Yes, a Greyling. This won't be some courier beast; it requires a captain practised in formation flying, so that it may be used as a-”
He broke off; Arthur had grabbed the glass of water on his bedside table and hurled it furiously. It shattered on the floor in a hundred pieces.
“You cannot put me on a Greyling, Eames,” he said, breathing hard, his tone angry and low. “I will not go.”
“Then I will tell the admiral about your injury, and you will be taken off my crew and won't ever fly again. I thought,” Eames said, his voice tempering so quickly that it broke, a little, “this would be a better compromise. You don't need to climb a Greyling's harness, you see.”
“You have no right,” Arthur snarled. Eames had never seen him so angry. “No right to meddle in my career like this-not that I will have one, on a Greyling. A Greyling!”
“There are men lined up twenty deep to harness the beast,” Eames snapped. “You should be glad of the opportunity.”
Arthur fixed him in a very cold glare, and Eames felt his resolve waver.
“I thought you had more regard for me than this,” Arthur said.
“I do. I think the world of you, Arthur-I love you,” Eames whispered. “That is the problem. Don't you see? I will get us all killed for you.”
Arthur turned his head to glare at the wall, instead. Very low, he said, “You love me, yet you would insult me like this.”
“The dragon will be invaluable if it is trained properly, and you have the most experience ...”
“Stop trying to sell the thing to me,” Arthur interrupted him.
“This is what is best for Lucretia and us both,” Eames said desperately.
“Keeping me out of harm's way is what is best. I see.”
“That is not my intention at all,” Eames said, but he knew Arthur did not believe him. “Arthur ...”
“Leave,” Arthur said flatly, still staring at the wall rather than at Eames. “I need to think.”
“Very well,” Eames said quietly. He got up and took his leave.
In the morning, Arthur's infirmary bed was empty. Eames looked around the covert for him until he ran into Cobb.
“Didn't you hear?” Cobb said, surprised. “A carriage came first thing this morning to take him to Falmouth. They have a Greyling ready to hatch over there. I thought you knew-he was saying goodbye to Lucretia earlier.”
“I knew,” Eames said, a heavy weight settling in the pit of his stomach. “I didn't think it would be so soon.”
“A Greyling,” Cobb said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Can you imagine, a lieutenant from a first-rate flyer like Lucretia being put on a Greyling-it's an absolute insult. I wonder whose idea that was.”
Eames went to Lucretia's clearing and found her in a fretful state, stamping anxiously and flexing her wings.
“Eames, oh,” she said when she saw him, craning down, “Arthur told me he was leaving, and that he would not be coming back; they have taken him away, Eames. We must hurry-”
“No,” Eames said, pushing away her foreclaws when she reached to lift him quickly. “We cannot go after him.”
She stopped, and stared. “But it is Arthur,” she said.
“I know,” said Eames tiredly, and his whole body ached. Once again he had not even gotten to see Arthur before he'd left, had not had a chance to kiss him one last time or say goodbye. Lucretia had gotten a goodbye and Eames had not. “Arthur is going to Falmouth to get a dragon of his own.”
“But he is my first officer,” said Lucretia, perplexed.
“He is going to be another dragon's captain, and you will have a new first officer.”
Lucretia stared at him for a minute. Then her eyes widened and the spines down the back of her neck rose stiffly. “You knew,” she said. “You knew and you let him go anyway.”
“Please, Lucretia,” said Eames, sick at heart. “I don't wish to talk about it.”
Her eyes narrowed again. She snorted hard enough to ruffle Eames' hair.
“I would never have let him go,” she said coldly.
“I know you wouldn't have,” Eames said softly. “And he would never have gone, either, so it had to be me. I had to send him away. And I know you don't understand now, Lu, but I hope some day you will. I hope you will see that I had to.”
Lucretia gave a low, sorrowful rumble, still confused and frustrated. But she put her head down so that Eames could lean against her, and he rubbed her cheek slowly. They spoke no more of it.
+++
Loch Laggan
Arthur was up early one day. Eames found him in the courtyard with a slumbering Felix, surrounded by sleeping dragons. He hesitated, then walked over.
“Good morning,” he said.
Arthur glanced up and gave him a cursory nod, and Eames could not tell if this was due to unfriendliness or absorbtion in a task; Arthur was just removing Felix's harness, and picking up a bottle of oil, which drew Eames' eye forcibly.
“I have just heard who will be flanking Lucretia and Titus in the Longwing formation,” Arthur said after several minutes had passed of Eames watching him in silence. He was examining Felix's hide, frowning at the dry or flaky scales, and rubbing oil into them until they gleamed. “Nash, on Marius; and a captain named Yusuf, from the Turkish corps-he has an Akhal-Teke.”
“Good,” said Eames, even though he could not stand Nash. The corner of Arthur's mouth twitched.
“Perhaps a promotion will have taught Nash to keep a civil tongue in his head.”
“I doubt that very much. He will be worse than ever.”
Arthur smiled slightly. He laid out Felix's harness on the cobblestones, then knelt and began to wrap each buckle in cloth. Most dragons developed callouses where their harnesses chafed them; not Felix.
“May I ask you something?” Eames said. “You take his harness off whenever you have a moment's rest; why?”
Arthur shrugged. “He has a small harness; it is no great task.”
“I mean, are you not afraid he will go haring off some day?” Eames asked.
Arthur glanced at his slumbering dragon. “He would not, any more than Lucretia would, if given the chance.” Finished wrapping the buckles, he picked up the oil and began to work it into the leather of the harness. “You have seen courier dragons: broken-winded before their captains are even ready to retire, covered in scars from the harness. The admiralty believe Greylings are expendable; they would have me fly him across the Continent and back without a thought for him if needs be. This is one comfort I can offer him-the last comfort for some time, as it were.”
He reached across as he spoke and rubbed Felix's snout with one hand, an absent-minded gesture. Felix snuffled, leaning unconsciously into the touch, then brought his head round and laid it across Arthur's lap. Arthur smiled down at him, forgetting Eames for the moment.
“You are very good to him,” Eames said. Arthur's smile faded; he rested a hand on Felix's head and lowered his eyes.
“He has a remarkable capacity for love,” he said quietly. He paused, and his voice sank even lower. “He deserves a better captain than I.”
“Not true,” Eames objected. “I doubt he could have found a better captain, Arthur.”
“No. Lucretia was right. I did not want him. I would have done anything to remain on your crew.” He stroked Felix slowly, still gazing down at the sleeping dragon. “I was so prepared to resent him-and he loved me from the very moment he was hatched. Did I ever tell you about his hatching?”
Eames shook his head. They hadn't had a conversation this long or civil in over a year.
“Oh,” said Arthur, “he came out of the shell like a shot, as Greylings do, and almost immediately struck the ceiling and fell in a heap at my feet, all wrapped up in his wings; and I thought, God, so this is the wretched little beast I have to harness. But I had been talking to him, in the egg, and when I spoke to him he recognized my voice; and he lit up just as if he had been presented with the King of England. He ate every scrap of his first meal right out of my hands, and then he crawled down my shirt and went to sleep, like a kitten.”
He watched his dragon with a fond smile on his lips. “He is a funny little beast. He always surprises me. He begs me to sing him every song I know, which of course are not many, and tries to learn the words, but he can never keep it all straight in his head; and when I have exhausted my repertoire he asks me to make up songs, which I never can. So I sing him a few lines about goats or sheep or things, and it delights him every time.”
Eames laughed to hear the affection in Arthur's tone. It sounded almost unfamiliar after so long. Arthur chuckled after a moment, too, and the familiar sound made Eames' chest throb with longing.
Felix had been snuffling gently for a minute; now he snorted awake, and lifted his head muzzily.
“Arthur!” he said, recognizing his captain. He nuzzled into his chest. “Sheeps?”
“Yes, go and find a sheep, you great lump,” Arthur said fondly, pushing him off. “Eat two if you can manage it; we have a long journey ahead of us.”
Felix scrambled to his feet, beating his wings once with excitement; then he shot off. Eames watched him go, and suddenly felt a guilty pang for his earlier question. Of course Felix would never leave. Arthur was the absolute centre of his universe. He loved his captain dearly and desperately. And Eames was starting to see, too, that where once Arthur's world had revolved around him, Felix had now taken up that space. He wondered if there was any room left for him at all.
“Where are you going?” he inquired.
“To the Continent.” Arthur suddenly busied himself with the harness once more, fiddling distractedly with the buckles. “We will be there for the rest of the summer. Spying.”
Eames' heart dropped. They had only just been reunited.
“What about Ariadne?” he asked, after a pause.
“She knows; I told her last night.” Arthur glanced up, and flushed when he realized he had misunderstood the question. “Cobb will be taking over her training.”
“I see,” said Eames. There was room enough for Ariadne in Arthur's sphere of intimates; that much was obvious. His chest throbbed again.
Arthur dropped the harness abruptly and stood up. “I have a meeting with the admiral,” he said. “I had better go before Felix returns; he will want to leave at once.”
Eames let him get partway across the courtyard before his heart compelled him to chase after Arthur, grab him by the arm and turn him.
“I miss you,” he said hurriedly. “I miss you so much and I want for things to be well between us-if not the way they were, then at least for things to be right. Please, Arthur.”
Arthur stepped back, startled. “Eames,” he started, and Eames' heart began to race desperately. Slowly, he said, “I do not know if things will ever be right between us again.”
“Please,” Eames begged again. “Can we not talk about this?”
Arthur glanced in the direction Felix had taken, then back at the headquarters, where the admiral would be waiting.
“At the end of the summer,” he said at last, firmly, facing Eames again. “When I return. We will talk then.”
He hesitated, then offered a hand.
“Goodbye, Eames,” he said, and Eames understood he was being given the farewell that he had missed more than a year ago. He shook Arthur's hand, wanting to cling, like a child.
“Goodbye, Arthur,” he said, and he let Arthur go.
next
Pairing: Arthur/Eames
Words: ~7700
Rating: NC-17
Author's Note: The Temeraire universe, if you haven't read the books, is essentially Regency Era/Napoleonic Wars, with dragons. Here is a chart showing the different breeds of dragon. Eames' Regal Copper is the big one at the top. Arthur's Greyling is one of the wee guys. Cobb rides a Chequered Nettle (a heavy-weight), Ariadne a Longwing (an acid-spitting middle-weight), and Mal a Flamme-de-Gloire (a fire-breathing French middle-weight). And that should be all you need to know!
Disclaimer: The Temeraire universe/alternahistory and dragon breeds are all Naomi Novik. The Inception characters are Chris Nolan's. I own nothing. Sad face.
part one, part two
Dover
Not very long after Arthur had joined Eames' crew as his first lieutenant, they were relocated to the Dover covert to train with a new formation. A Longwing had relieved Rêveur in the south, and both he and Titus had been reassigned. Eames sensed that Cobb had pulled a few strings to be reassigned along with Mal. His affection for the Frenchwoman was not exactly a secret.
Eames hoped that he and Arthur were more discreet. They didn't even spend many nights together, and those they did were quiet and subdued-no more than reacquainting themselves extensively with the other's body. Eames had not realized how much he had missed the taste of Arthur's mouth and the feel of Arthur's light fingers skimming over his skin. It was all they were able to do, kiss and stroke each other in the dark, keeping very quiet. Arthur was always gone before the servants could see him leaving Eames' room.
He was as good a lieutenant as Eames could have asked for, as well. There was quite a lot to commanding a crew as large as one such as a mature Regal Copper afforded, and even having been brought up to it, there were days when Eames was sure he would never be able to keep it all in his head if he did not have Arthur. Arthur was the perfect lieutenant: he navigated the harness as though gravity were no issue, and seemed to know every man's position at any given moment. When he barked an order, men scrambled to obey.
Eames worried sometimes, though, when they were drilling, and he would turn and see Arthur crouching awkwardly between Lucretia's spines, pale-faced. Some days he was a step slower than usual. They tried not to discuss it-nobody else had noticed. But Eames could not go on pretending when he saw the spasm of pain that Arthur allowed to show through, just for an instant.
“Your leg is paining you,” Eames accused him when they were alone in the officer's club late that night.
“It is nothing,” Arthur said stubbornly. “Proper use will set it aright.”
“Or you will snap your bloody leg off altogether.”
“I will not let it affect how I work, Eames,” Arthur said, but that was not Eames' fear. He was afraid of that pained flicker he had seen in Arthur's eyes. Eames would not see Arthur hurt for the world. It was his greatest weakness.
Eames and Cobb were not the only ones with divided attentions. Lucretia was looking more and more furtive, and speaking less and less to Eames when he sat with her in her clearing at night; he was concerned, and a little hurt, until, churning up grass under her talons, she blurted out one day, “Titus is a fine dragon, do you not think so?”
“He is very fine,” Eames replied, taken aback momentarily, and then amused. After that he was content that Lucretia's distraction had nothing to do with him, and he was careful to leave her clearing earlier each day.
“It's natural,” Cobb said thoughtfully when Eames presented this revelation to him. “As long as it doesn't affect their formation flying I don't see that it will do any harm. It would be famous if something were to come of it,” he added with a wistful shine in his eye. “Lord, I would like to see the offspring of a Regal Copper and a Nettle.”
Bemused, Eames tried not to think about that. Instead, he concentrated on training with the other captains, some of whom he had never flown with before. He was still learning, but with Arthur there at his right hand to help guide him, things that had once seemed difficult now seemed positively easy.
It was Lucretia's closeness with Titus that alerted Eames to their problem. She was unusually subdued during a routine drill, and offered only short replies when Eames spoke to her. When they were finished for the day, and Lucretia had been unharnessed, Eames walked her back to her clearing and sat down with her, waiting for her to share what was on her mind, as something surely must be. She avoided his eyes, picking distractedly at the dirt with one claw.
“Titus says the officers talk about you,” she said suddenly, almost angrily. She screwed her talons into the loam, glaring down at the earth. “He said that, if it were him, he would not let anybody speak about his captain in such a way.”
Eames was struck by the realization that she was not only angry: she was embarrassed, as well. He reached out and stroked her snout slowly.
“What do they say, my dear?” he asked.
“The captains do not say anything,” she said, still glaring at the ground, “but the officers say that you have an unnatural vice, where it concerns Arthur; and I do not understand, because nobody would say such things about Titus and I, although I suppose it is true that I could simply crush anyone who did; but nobody talks of Cobb and Mal, either, and Titus says they have mated. So I do not see the difference, except that Arthur cannot give you an egg, and I do not understand.”
Eames' anger was slow and hot to build as he considered this. It was not only that some of the men were actively discussing this behind his back, but the fact that their gossip had caused distress to Lucretia that burned him. He noticed his hand had stilled, and went on petting her after a moment.
“Put it out of your mind, my dear, I beg you,” he murmured. “It is only idle talk. There is no truth in it.”
She lifted her head slightly. “You are close to Arthur.”
“Yes, I am,” Eames said truthfully; “we are very close, but that is nobody's business but our own, so I hope you will not repeat it. And we have never done anything like what those men are describing, so their talk does not concern me.”
“I will flatten them if they speak of it again,” Lucretia said stoutly, her tail swinging aggressively over the ground.
“Hush,” Eames said, “put it out of mind.” But he knew by the way her eyes narrowed in frustration that she was thinking of what Titus had said, that he would not permit any man to speak about his captain in such a way. All he could do was stroke her snout and wish he had never allowed Arthur to get him into this mess.
+“Some of the men have been talking about us,” Eames told Arthur in his room that night. Arthur was removing his neckcloth and unbuttoning his jacket-he would always insist on dressing formally.
“Yes, I know,” he said simply, unconcerned.
“You know?” Eames demanded. “You have heard that they think I have been-sodomizing you?”
Now Arthur looked perturbed. “I had not realized their imaginations had let them go that far. Although if it were up to me,” he continued lewdly, folding his jacket neatly and unbuttoning his shirt, “you would have tumbled me a long time ago.”
“Damnit, Arthur, be serious,” Eames growled, gripping the edge of the bed tightly, where he was perched. Arthur frowned.
“Why does this upset you so much?” he asked, and Eames snapped:
“Because it is wrong!”
They were both immediately silent, listening for anyone who might have overheard, but fortunately Eames, however heatedly, had not said it too loudly. After a moment they were able to relax.
“This isn't a joke,” Eames continued in an undertone. “Damnit, I will never know why I listen to you at all-”
He looked away stubbornly when Arthur walked to him and stopped directly in front of him, though it was hard not to look when Arthur's fingers trailed so gently down the side of Eames' jaw.
“I do not see any other men here,” said Arthur. Eames swallowed against the light press of his fingers.
“Of course not.”
Arthur unbuttoned his trousers slowly and removed them. Then he took Eames' hand, and placed it perfunctorily on his swollen cock. Eames squeezed his eyes shut, but did not let go.
“There,” Arthur said; “does that feel wrong?”
No, everything in Eames cried. He swallowed thickly and shook his head.
“I thought not.” Still holding Eames' hand, Arthur slid it loosely up and down his shaft until Eames found himself doing it unconsciously, squeezing and gentling in all the ways he had learned Arthur liked, and Arthur positively purred.
“On the bed,” Eames said at last, breaking. He pulled Arthur over onto the mattress, then got down as well so that he could swallow Arthur down, working the length of him into his mouth until his nose was buried in the coarse hairs at the base of Arthur's shaft. When he inhaled deeply, the scent of Arthur was musky and male in his nostrils, and God help him, Eames loved it. As long as he lived, he would never want anything else.
He sucked and lapped helplessly until he brought Arthur to completion, and swallowed the seed that painted his throat. When he withdrew, panting, he crawled up Arthur's body and lay heavily on top of him, feeling Arthur's own chest rise and fall rapidly while he gasped. Eames tucked his nose into Arthur's neck, breathing deeply.
“I am sorry, darling,” he murmured, when he could speak. “I don't mean to be such a prig about this.”
Arthur exhaled slowly, and dipped his chin so that he could kiss Eames.
“I should not push you,” he said quietly. “Forgive me.”
They breathed in tandem for several minutes. Eames' cock, full and flush in his trousers, lay against Arthur's thigh, but Arthur did not seem inclined to do anything about that. And in spite of his need, Eames could feel a great contentment washing over him. He did not care what the men said about him-truly he did not, anymore. It was aggravating that they should have upset Lucretia with their talk, but nothing more had come of it than that. Nobody had disobeyed any of his commands; he still had his men's respect, as far as he could tell. His primary concern had always been for Arthur, who was well-liked among the other aviators in spite of his genteel manner, and nobody had acted against him. Of course, aviators were a clannish group. Arthur had told Eames before that they were probably not the first such inclined pair in the Corps, but Eames had not believed it until now. Perhaps it was true that the aviators did not care what their fellows got up to if not presented outright with the evidence, except in the making of good gossip.
No; it did not matter, and Eames loved this precious creature beneath him too much to care even if it did.
Presently he laid a kiss to Arthur's collarbone and stood up. Arthur stirred sleepily and looked at him.
“Where are you going?”
“To find oil,” said Eames, and Arthur came awake again at once.
By the time Eames returned, there was nothing sleepy about Arthur at all. He was waiting in Eames' bed for him, bright-eyed, his pale thighs spread, so that Eames had to sink down and fasten his teeth in Arthur's inner leg just to leave a mark there. Arthur sucked in a sharp breath, but he was distracted, his gaze fixed on the bottle of oil in Eames' hand.
“You are certain this will work?” Eames asked quietly, pulling off his clothes.
“Yes,” Arthur said. Throwing his trousers aside, Eames sank back onto the bed between Arthur's spread legs.
“You will tell me if I hurt you?” he murmured.
Arthur nodded.
“Turn over, then.”
Arthur did. He got onto his elbows and knees, presenting his arse, and for a minute Eames had to stop and just-look, and breathe, and he could see a pink flush working its way up the back of Arthur's neck and his ears, and it was so unlike him to be bashful that Eames fell in love with him all over again. It seemed a very long time from the first time they had tried this, and Eames was not quite sure what to do with the oil once he picked it up again. He opened the bottle and dribbled its contents over his stiffened cock, using his hand to slicken it liberally, and before long he was harder than he had been since those days when he had been young and stupid and Arthur was touching him for the first time.
Just to make certain, he poured some more of it down the seam of Arthur's arse, making him twitch. Hesitantly, Eames used his fingers to spread it around his hole; and then, before he could talk himself out of it, he gathered some on his finger and pushed it just a little way into Arthur's arsehole. He could feel when he was in, the little clutch and give of muscle, and felt Arthur's body hitch with his breath. Fascinated, he did the same-withdrew his finger, swept it around the rim of Arthur's centre to collect it on his fingertip, and then pushed it in again. As he grew bolder, he moved his finger around, probing the walls of Arthur's passage, coating them with the oil.
“Give me another,” Arthur said huskily; his voice was wrecked.
Eames obligingly eased a second finger in alongside the first, and pushed in even deeper, trying to forge himself a path that would be slick enough to take him. His prick was longer than his two fingers, though, and when he removed his fingers he double-checked that he had coated himself sufficiently.
“Are you ready?”
Arthur laughed hoarsely. “I have been for years.”
Eames took himself in hand, lined up, and pressed in, and in, slow and easy. Arthur's body resisted him; gave way; then squeezed as if trying to force him back out. Eames persisted, sliding in steadily until his thighs were flush with Arthur's, and the blood was pounding in his ears, and he couldn't think or breathe and his mouth spoke without his brain's permission; he was as hoarse as Arthur.
“How does it feel?” he asked, and slowly became conscious of Arthur's ragged panting under him.
“Full,” Arthur answered after a pause.
Eames' hands were shaking; he placed one on the bed, to steady him, and the other at Arthur's hip, squeezing.
“I'm going to move,” he said unsteadily.
“Yes,” Arthur hissed softly through his teeth.
As Eames slid slowly out, almost all the way, and then pushed back in, he had a brief, unbidden thought: this was worth sinning for. Arthur was hot and velvet inside, gripping his cock in the best ways, and it seemed to Eames that he fit perfectly inside him-as if this were the purpose for which they were intended. Arthur began to push back against him, bracing his elbows in the bed, encouraging Eames to take him harder, as if reminding Eames that he was no delicate maiden. It would not have mattered; Eames had no experience with those anyway.
They were quiet, so quiet, perpetually conscious of the occupants of the nearby rooms, however deeply asleep they might have been by then. Arthur gave a few soft little groans that Eames might have mistaken for pain had he not been so familiar with them by now; and for himself, he tried to keep his mouth shut but could not suppress a few strained grunts now and then. Later he would think he ought to have waited for a more perfect moment, but for the time being it seemed that nothing could have been better; he had not expected the heat inside of Arthur, or the softness, or the little tremors that wracked Arthur's body when he was forced to brace a hand against the headboard and put his head down on the bed; and he did not expect to reach between Arthur's legs and find his cock savagely hard and weeping from the tip. A few strokes of his oiled palm were all that it took to bring Arthur off a second time; he buried his face in the sheets, moaning roughly, a sound which resonated all the way to Eames' core. Eames wished dearly that he could see Arthur's face then.
As if hearing his thoughts, Arthur groped roughly behind him with his free hand until he found Eames, and drew him down for a kiss. His face was red and his hands as shaky as Eames' had been. Eames slipped his tongue into Arthur's mouth, swallowed his groans and chased the taste of him from each corner of his mouth. He rocked his hips more slowly as they kissed, and the angle of his hips had changed so that every time he slid back in Arthur breathed a shaky little “ah” into his mouth.
When his hand tightened in Eames' hair, Eames was gone. He shook and broke their kiss, pressed his face between Arthur's shoulderblades and didn't even have time to think about it before he was releasing himself inside of Arthur, for what felt like an age. His clamped his eyes shut and for a long time there was only the endless spill of his seed in Arthur's core, freezing him, transfixing him, making him quiver. It was like a tidal surge and for a minute he was afraid he would lose himself in it, and it wouldn't have mattered because he could have spent the rest of his life there anyway, living that moment of release over and over again.
When he was able to rally enough effort to pull out, he could see some of his seed shining wetly in Arthur's hole. Reverently, he pushed it back in with a thumb. That was a part of himself, inside Arthur.
Arthur was the one who recovered long enough to pull the sheets over them both, and he pressed himself back into the curve of Eames' body, his muscles lax and quiescent wherever Eames touched him. He was asleep within moments, still wet, and Eames could not bear the thought of him ever leaving that bed. Let the maids talk in the morning, he decided. He had kept his promise, and it seemed he had everything he wanted in the world.
+At Dover, their formation was called on often to provide naval support. Bonaparte was as determined as ever to choke Britain of her supplies, and the British as determined to engage him at sea. When they were in battle, Eames was single-minded; his world shrank down to him and Lucretia working as one unit. His thoughts were only for her safety, and that of the formation and Rêveur; if they were able to defend the ships, that was all to the better. Rêveur was the priority, though: England could not afford to lose its only fire-breather.
It was gratifying, too, to see the French hurriedly soaking down their sails, afflicted with the same fear they had been eliciting in the British for too long. It was a terrible thing for a ship to be set alight, and Rêveur took savage delight in targeting the largest ships-of-the-line. He had captured numerous prizes for their side this way.
The French were determined to take the Channel, however, and it seemed there were more dragons to engage each time. On Eames' last battle with Arthur as lieutenant, a full complement of French dragons was waiting to defend their fleet, and with the wind blowing in their favour.
The aerial skirmish lasted into dusk: all the dragons of the formation were hardened veterans who were not easily surprised, and by some miracle they held the formation together stoutly, while the British ships below likewise gave no ground nor quarter; Lucretia was not even particularly tired when she was attacked from above by a Fleur-de-Nuit.
They had tired of trying to separate Rêveur from the rest, and it was without warning that the middle-weights peeled around and attacked Titus and Lucretia, the formation's largest defenders, directly. It was Lucretia's bellow of anger and pain that first alerted Eames: the French dragon had descended directly onto her back, screwing its talons into her hide; it wrenched free and wheeled away as she thrashed mightily in midair, but not soon enough: in the fading light Eames saw a dozen figures detach from its back and leap to Lucretia's.
“'Ware boarders!”
There had been a crack of rifle-fire at the retreating dragon; now there was a scramble to draw swords and engage the French. Lucretia had dropped away from the formation, her wings snapping heavily with pain; when Eames squinted in the light of the flares Arthur had sent up, to momentarily blind the circling Fleur-de-Nuit, he saw gashes in her leathery wing.
“The formation,” he shouted to Lucretia, and she nodded her head gamely; two more Fleur-de-Nuits had appeared to heckle Titus, no doubt sent from the shore now that the light was fading, and Rêveur would soon be exposed to attack from the rear. Straining with effort, Lucretia beat her way back up toward her companions, gaining altitude in inches. Another flare went off; a quick glance told Eames that the boarders were still engaged, while others of his crew scrambled to pack Lucretia's bleeding wounds. She was gaining on the rest; she was there. A signal-flag went up from Rêveur's back; the dragons wheeled as one, leaving their attackers behind for the moment. Lucretia had closed the gap again; they were safe.
“Sir!” The shout came suddenly, high with panic, and Eames couldn't tell which officer it was. He twisted in the harness again to look, and saw one of the French officers, clinging grimly on, leveling a revolver with him as he climbed- Lucretia, turning her head, gave a cry of fury and frustration that rattled Eames' skull-
Arthur came bounding out of nowhere, not bothering to strap himself to the harness, just climbing loose, one-handed, the other gripping his sword. He came so quickly that the Frenchman failed to see him, not until Arthur had thrust his sword straight through the man's ribcage from behind. It happened so very suddenly that Arthur hadn't even wrested his sword loose when the Fleur-de-Nuit returned to the attack. Lucretia had leveled out and was beating steadily, trying to provide as stable a footing for Arthur as possible, but with the French dragon almost upon her she was forced to veer.
Arthur should not have lost his balance-he had been raised in the harness from the age of seven and had flown in the most undesirable of circumstances. Eames would have missed it had he not been watching so anxiously; he saw the exact moment that Arthur's leg failed him, that it crumpled beneath him; and when Lucretia twisted in the air, Arthur buckled and fell. He was over her side in an instant.
“Arthur!” Eames shouted, and in that second, it seemed that everything in the world he held dear was falling away from him. He could do nothing, Arthur was gone. “Arthur! Lucretia!”
Lucretia folded her wings and dropped out of the formation in a maneuver that should have been difficult for a dragon of her bulk. She was beating downwards, and Eames heard confused shouts, many of the crew perhaps thinking that she was being attacked from above again. His own heart was in his throat with the speed of the dive, his eyes were prickling with water, and he could only think that maybe she would be fast enough, maybe she would overtake Arthur-
Eames could only see the rising sea below them, could only hear the wind whipping painfully past his ears; his senses returned to him slowly. The French dragons had plummeted after them gleefully. Titus was engaged above, roaring furiously. And in the distance, a Petit Chevalier beating its way toward the formation.
“The formation!” Eames shouted at Lucretia, coming back to himself suddenly; the wind tore the words from his mouth. He pounded on her shoulder. “Lu, the formation, damn you-”
She unfurled her wings all at once with a leathery snap and a bellow of pain, and it seemed that time slowed around them; Eames could see the ships in front and behind them, the black water coming up to meet them, too quickly, could feel the strain of Lucretia's wings as she fought to slow her descent, and he squeezed his eyes shut in the moment before her belly hit the water. It sprayed up around them in a mist, hitting Eames in the face, icy cold.
The Fleur-de-Nuits battered the air, trying to pull up before they could meet the same fate; before they were clear, there was a crack of cannonfire from the nearest ship and one of them plummeted noiselessly to the water, tangled in its wings: it had taken a blow directly to its chest. The other two fled, one screeching, bleeding from the shoulder and limping badly in the air; Eames doubted it would reach the shore.
All this happened in the instant that Lucretia met the water: almost as soon as she was in, she was out, pounding her wings. Her air sacs had not even let her submerge fully. The water sluiced easily from her scales, though it weighed the leather down, and she was struggling to gain altitude.
Eames' second lieutenant, Briggs, appeared over Lucretia's side, spluttering and soaked. Eames grabbed him, demanding hoarsely: “Arthur?”
“Not below, sir,” Briggs gasped, spitting water.
If Arthur had not been able to latch onto the harness when Lucretia's belly was submerged, he was lost. Sorrow rose up in a great clamouring chorus and for a second Eames thought he would be sick over Lucretia's neck. He blinked, trying to bring his bleary vision into focus. The Petit Chevalier he had espied was descending upon them rapidly, and Lucretia was in no state to engage with him. They were all lost.
He heard Titus' roar before he saw the Nettle: Cobb's dragon dropped out of the sky like a righteous thunderbolt. In the last moment he pivoted aside, neatly as an Anglewing, and caught the Chevalier a smashing blow to the side of the head with his heavy spiked tail. Signal-flags flashed urgently from his back: retreat.
It was all Lucretia could do to make it back to their side of the Channel. She was listing very heavily and Eames was terrified she might fall right out of the sky. She descended as quickly as she could when the covert was in sight, and for a moment it seemed they would crash into the ground, but she beat her wings quickly at the last moment to keep herself aloft, and lowering very cautiously, her sides expanding rapidly for breath, she landed in an awkward crouch on her haunches. Eames was scrambling down from the harness at once, but scarcely had he reached the ground than she turned her head and said, in tones of exhaustion:
“Eames, I have him.”
Then she opened her forehands slowly, and let Arthur spill onto the ground: soaking wet, shivering, white as a bone and gasping: but alive.
“Oh, I am so tired,” Lucretia said, while Eames was still gaping at her precious cargo; and she laid down alongside Arthur, and went to sleep.
+Arthur was taken to the surgeon along with the other men who had been wounded during the skirmish. Eames did not go with him. He sat with Lucretia in her clearing for a very long time, helping the dragon-surgeon to dress her wounds, and coaxing her to take small bites of food when she woke up. Once she had eaten a little from his hands, she became ravenous: a very good sign.
“That was a clever idea,” Cobb said later, when Eames dragged himself, exhausted, up to the headquarters. The other captains were sitting around dully, hands clasped around their drinks. Cobb's gaze was sharp and knowing. “Drawing the French dragons down to the range of the ships. That was very clever.”
“How is Titus?” Eames asked wearily.
“Eating well,” said Cobb. “He will have a week's rest; Lucretia will have a little longer, I think.”
Eames nodded, feeling sick at heart. He had let his dragon down; he had led her into danger. He excused himself from the other captains and went to his room, where he slept fitfully all night.
The next day was spent with Lucretia also, and she seemed brighter. She curled a foreleg around him, rumbling affectionately, and Eames rubbed her cheek and sat down to keep her company. They chatted idly, and he began to realize, she did not blame him for her injuries.
“Lu, I have to ask you something,” he said, when he was certain they were quite alone in the clearing. “Why did you stoop like that, during the battle?”
“Why,” she said, surprised, “to fetch Arthur back, of course; he would have landed in the sea, and been lost.”
“Yes, but ...” Eames did not know how to word himself. He settled on, “You would not have done that for any other man on the crew.”
Lucretia snorted forcefully through her nostrils. “Of course not, Arthur is different. He is your mate.”
“He is not my mate.” Eames hated lying to her, but he had seen what could come of her knowing the truth now. He swallowed around the tight band in his throat. “Lucretia, you must promise me you will never do that for him again, no matter what happens.”
“Of course I cannot promise you that,” she said, infuriatingly implacable. “You would never recover.”
“I would, I promise,” Eames lied. “Only you cannot do that, do you understand? You risked yourself and the entire crew, not to mention Rêveur and the rest of the formation ...”
“But we were fine,” she said, politely baffled. “I am sorry, Eames, but I cannot promise you what I will do if something like that happens again. It was very instinctive.”
She did not understand, and of course, she would not. It was dangerous for a dragon to have such attachments. It was common knowledge how possessive dragons were of their crews, but a dragon that could not keep going when it lost a crewmember was a dragon who would be easily distracted and targeted in battle. The captain was the dragon's greatest weakness; Lucretia could not have a second weakness in Arthur, or it would only take one of them in danger for her to surrender, and then what would become of them all?
It was not until the next day that he visited Arthur in the infirmary. It was painful, how Arthur's face immediately relaxed into a smile when he saw Eames.
“How are you?” Eames asked, pulling up a chair next to his bed. He was quiet; the room's other occupant was asleep.
“Recovering well,” Arthur said. “The surgeon says I will be well enough to leave the infirmary by tomorrow.”
Lucretia's talons had left a gouge under his ribs. Eames focused on the bandage, rather than Arthur's face.
“Good,” he said. “That is good.” He took a deep breath. “Arthur-what in God's name were you thinking?”
Arthur's face darkened. “He would have captured you and taken Lucretia. I was doing my duty as your lieutenant: protecting you.”
“We could have all been killed.”
“I did not ask Lucretia to fly down after me,” said Arthur tartly. “I took a risk and I eliminated a threat to you; I did my duty. You should be asking your dragon what she was thinking.”
“I have,” said Eames. “She thinks she did nothing wrong.” He paused again. “Your leg failed you.”
“I lost my balance when she turned.”
“No; I was watching you. That would never have unseated you, before. You are still injured.”
“My leg is perfectly serviceable,” said Arthur stubbornly, “just as I am.”
“I know you better than any man,” said Eames, sharp now. “I know when you hurt and I know when you are hiding something. Your leg worsens every time you have to scramble up and down the harness, and you think I don't see. You are wrong.”
Arthur clenched his jaw. “It is getting better.”
“No, damn you, it is getting worse.” Eames took another deep breath, swept a hand through his hair. “I cannot let this happen again. I simply can't. That is why I went to the admiral yesterday. There is a Greyling ready to hatch at the Falmouth covert and I have put your name forth as its potential captain. If you refuse the post it will be a serious mark against you.”
The blood drained from Arthur's face, giving him an unhealthy grey pallor.
“A Greyling?” he said, struggling to sit upright. “A Greyling?”
“Yes, a Greyling. This won't be some courier beast; it requires a captain practised in formation flying, so that it may be used as a-”
He broke off; Arthur had grabbed the glass of water on his bedside table and hurled it furiously. It shattered on the floor in a hundred pieces.
“You cannot put me on a Greyling, Eames,” he said, breathing hard, his tone angry and low. “I will not go.”
“Then I will tell the admiral about your injury, and you will be taken off my crew and won't ever fly again. I thought,” Eames said, his voice tempering so quickly that it broke, a little, “this would be a better compromise. You don't need to climb a Greyling's harness, you see.”
“You have no right,” Arthur snarled. Eames had never seen him so angry. “No right to meddle in my career like this-not that I will have one, on a Greyling. A Greyling!”
“There are men lined up twenty deep to harness the beast,” Eames snapped. “You should be glad of the opportunity.”
Arthur fixed him in a very cold glare, and Eames felt his resolve waver.
“I thought you had more regard for me than this,” Arthur said.
“I do. I think the world of you, Arthur-I love you,” Eames whispered. “That is the problem. Don't you see? I will get us all killed for you.”
Arthur turned his head to glare at the wall, instead. Very low, he said, “You love me, yet you would insult me like this.”
“The dragon will be invaluable if it is trained properly, and you have the most experience ...”
“Stop trying to sell the thing to me,” Arthur interrupted him.
“This is what is best for Lucretia and us both,” Eames said desperately.
“Keeping me out of harm's way is what is best. I see.”
“That is not my intention at all,” Eames said, but he knew Arthur did not believe him. “Arthur ...”
“Leave,” Arthur said flatly, still staring at the wall rather than at Eames. “I need to think.”
“Very well,” Eames said quietly. He got up and took his leave.
In the morning, Arthur's infirmary bed was empty. Eames looked around the covert for him until he ran into Cobb.
“Didn't you hear?” Cobb said, surprised. “A carriage came first thing this morning to take him to Falmouth. They have a Greyling ready to hatch over there. I thought you knew-he was saying goodbye to Lucretia earlier.”
“I knew,” Eames said, a heavy weight settling in the pit of his stomach. “I didn't think it would be so soon.”
“A Greyling,” Cobb said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Can you imagine, a lieutenant from a first-rate flyer like Lucretia being put on a Greyling-it's an absolute insult. I wonder whose idea that was.”
Eames went to Lucretia's clearing and found her in a fretful state, stamping anxiously and flexing her wings.
“Eames, oh,” she said when she saw him, craning down, “Arthur told me he was leaving, and that he would not be coming back; they have taken him away, Eames. We must hurry-”
“No,” Eames said, pushing away her foreclaws when she reached to lift him quickly. “We cannot go after him.”
She stopped, and stared. “But it is Arthur,” she said.
“I know,” said Eames tiredly, and his whole body ached. Once again he had not even gotten to see Arthur before he'd left, had not had a chance to kiss him one last time or say goodbye. Lucretia had gotten a goodbye and Eames had not. “Arthur is going to Falmouth to get a dragon of his own.”
“But he is my first officer,” said Lucretia, perplexed.
“He is going to be another dragon's captain, and you will have a new first officer.”
Lucretia stared at him for a minute. Then her eyes widened and the spines down the back of her neck rose stiffly. “You knew,” she said. “You knew and you let him go anyway.”
“Please, Lucretia,” said Eames, sick at heart. “I don't wish to talk about it.”
Her eyes narrowed again. She snorted hard enough to ruffle Eames' hair.
“I would never have let him go,” she said coldly.
“I know you wouldn't have,” Eames said softly. “And he would never have gone, either, so it had to be me. I had to send him away. And I know you don't understand now, Lu, but I hope some day you will. I hope you will see that I had to.”
Lucretia gave a low, sorrowful rumble, still confused and frustrated. But she put her head down so that Eames could lean against her, and he rubbed her cheek slowly. They spoke no more of it.
+++
Loch Laggan
Arthur was up early one day. Eames found him in the courtyard with a slumbering Felix, surrounded by sleeping dragons. He hesitated, then walked over.
“Good morning,” he said.
Arthur glanced up and gave him a cursory nod, and Eames could not tell if this was due to unfriendliness or absorbtion in a task; Arthur was just removing Felix's harness, and picking up a bottle of oil, which drew Eames' eye forcibly.
“I have just heard who will be flanking Lucretia and Titus in the Longwing formation,” Arthur said after several minutes had passed of Eames watching him in silence. He was examining Felix's hide, frowning at the dry or flaky scales, and rubbing oil into them until they gleamed. “Nash, on Marius; and a captain named Yusuf, from the Turkish corps-he has an Akhal-Teke.”
“Good,” said Eames, even though he could not stand Nash. The corner of Arthur's mouth twitched.
“Perhaps a promotion will have taught Nash to keep a civil tongue in his head.”
“I doubt that very much. He will be worse than ever.”
Arthur smiled slightly. He laid out Felix's harness on the cobblestones, then knelt and began to wrap each buckle in cloth. Most dragons developed callouses where their harnesses chafed them; not Felix.
“May I ask you something?” Eames said. “You take his harness off whenever you have a moment's rest; why?”
Arthur shrugged. “He has a small harness; it is no great task.”
“I mean, are you not afraid he will go haring off some day?” Eames asked.
Arthur glanced at his slumbering dragon. “He would not, any more than Lucretia would, if given the chance.” Finished wrapping the buckles, he picked up the oil and began to work it into the leather of the harness. “You have seen courier dragons: broken-winded before their captains are even ready to retire, covered in scars from the harness. The admiralty believe Greylings are expendable; they would have me fly him across the Continent and back without a thought for him if needs be. This is one comfort I can offer him-the last comfort for some time, as it were.”
He reached across as he spoke and rubbed Felix's snout with one hand, an absent-minded gesture. Felix snuffled, leaning unconsciously into the touch, then brought his head round and laid it across Arthur's lap. Arthur smiled down at him, forgetting Eames for the moment.
“You are very good to him,” Eames said. Arthur's smile faded; he rested a hand on Felix's head and lowered his eyes.
“He has a remarkable capacity for love,” he said quietly. He paused, and his voice sank even lower. “He deserves a better captain than I.”
“Not true,” Eames objected. “I doubt he could have found a better captain, Arthur.”
“No. Lucretia was right. I did not want him. I would have done anything to remain on your crew.” He stroked Felix slowly, still gazing down at the sleeping dragon. “I was so prepared to resent him-and he loved me from the very moment he was hatched. Did I ever tell you about his hatching?”
Eames shook his head. They hadn't had a conversation this long or civil in over a year.
“Oh,” said Arthur, “he came out of the shell like a shot, as Greylings do, and almost immediately struck the ceiling and fell in a heap at my feet, all wrapped up in his wings; and I thought, God, so this is the wretched little beast I have to harness. But I had been talking to him, in the egg, and when I spoke to him he recognized my voice; and he lit up just as if he had been presented with the King of England. He ate every scrap of his first meal right out of my hands, and then he crawled down my shirt and went to sleep, like a kitten.”
He watched his dragon with a fond smile on his lips. “He is a funny little beast. He always surprises me. He begs me to sing him every song I know, which of course are not many, and tries to learn the words, but he can never keep it all straight in his head; and when I have exhausted my repertoire he asks me to make up songs, which I never can. So I sing him a few lines about goats or sheep or things, and it delights him every time.”
Eames laughed to hear the affection in Arthur's tone. It sounded almost unfamiliar after so long. Arthur chuckled after a moment, too, and the familiar sound made Eames' chest throb with longing.
Felix had been snuffling gently for a minute; now he snorted awake, and lifted his head muzzily.
“Arthur!” he said, recognizing his captain. He nuzzled into his chest. “Sheeps?”
“Yes, go and find a sheep, you great lump,” Arthur said fondly, pushing him off. “Eat two if you can manage it; we have a long journey ahead of us.”
Felix scrambled to his feet, beating his wings once with excitement; then he shot off. Eames watched him go, and suddenly felt a guilty pang for his earlier question. Of course Felix would never leave. Arthur was the absolute centre of his universe. He loved his captain dearly and desperately. And Eames was starting to see, too, that where once Arthur's world had revolved around him, Felix had now taken up that space. He wondered if there was any room left for him at all.
“Where are you going?” he inquired.
“To the Continent.” Arthur suddenly busied himself with the harness once more, fiddling distractedly with the buckles. “We will be there for the rest of the summer. Spying.”
Eames' heart dropped. They had only just been reunited.
“What about Ariadne?” he asked, after a pause.
“She knows; I told her last night.” Arthur glanced up, and flushed when he realized he had misunderstood the question. “Cobb will be taking over her training.”
“I see,” said Eames. There was room enough for Ariadne in Arthur's sphere of intimates; that much was obvious. His chest throbbed again.
Arthur dropped the harness abruptly and stood up. “I have a meeting with the admiral,” he said. “I had better go before Felix returns; he will want to leave at once.”
Eames let him get partway across the courtyard before his heart compelled him to chase after Arthur, grab him by the arm and turn him.
“I miss you,” he said hurriedly. “I miss you so much and I want for things to be well between us-if not the way they were, then at least for things to be right. Please, Arthur.”
Arthur stepped back, startled. “Eames,” he started, and Eames' heart began to race desperately. Slowly, he said, “I do not know if things will ever be right between us again.”
“Please,” Eames begged again. “Can we not talk about this?”
Arthur glanced in the direction Felix had taken, then back at the headquarters, where the admiral would be waiting.
“At the end of the summer,” he said at last, firmly, facing Eames again. “When I return. We will talk then.”
He hesitated, then offered a hand.
“Goodbye, Eames,” he said, and Eames understood he was being given the farewell that he had missed more than a year ago. He shook Arthur's hand, wanting to cling, like a child.
“Goodbye, Arthur,” he said, and he let Arthur go.
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