[ things have been-- very much a confusing mishmash of events lately, and Archie is pleased to see them die down.
he's also intrigued at the idea that people can now go back to their homes now, if they like. not something he's interested in for self-evident reasons, but on the whole he likes the idea in an abstract kind of way. his assumption is that he and Horatio and Bill will all stay here, obviously.
he nudges horatio with his foot one evening as they settle into their evening routine of reading and research and general relaxation. ]
Funny thing, people getting to home now all of a sudden. I'll miss a number of them, I think. The Danae won't be the same without them.
[It's odd to find what a relief it is to be at one place at one time. It's odder still that this isn't the first time since arriving on this particular ship that this very specific form of relief had been ground into his bones.
For better or worse, it's a relief to know that, by the looks of things, he'll keep sitting exactly where he is until he gets up to move himself. Also a relief to feel the sensation of Archie close at hand, despite being half-absorbed in his reading.]
Hm. [Horatio's attention is largely distracted by the charts and figures he's sorting through, but his toe nudges idly back against his friend's.] Suppose we'd miss them either way.
[ the gentle toe-nudge in return is almost enough that he misses just what either way might mean.
he stares at his book a moment, then looks up with amusement ]
It'd be hard to miss them if they stay. This isn't exactly a First Rate and the crew isn't quite that large. I've got to make active efforts to avoid some people.
[There's a disconnect here--which, despite the displacement and the timelines and the odd discrepancies between their memories, is a bit unusual. Still, they'll have to come back to that, because that's not what's furrowed Horatio's brow and dragged his own eyes up to Archie.]
You've people to avoid here?
[It would be a far, far worse disconnect if he'd missed someone Archie needed (or even just wanted) to be protected from. (Just thinking of Simpson, even this far away, prickles the skin at the back of his neck.)]
Oh, not particularly. One just can't get on with everyone at all times, that's all. No need for worry.
[ he's quick to walk it back, both touched by Horatio's concern and keen to emphasise it was an exaggeration on his part. he isn't the scared Mid he was when he first joined. he knows he doesn't have to take-- what he had once accepted as the way of things. ]
[It takes a few heartbeats before he nods and drops his attention back to his reading. It takes absolutely no thought to shift his foot, setting it half on top of Archie's, not actually protecting anyone from anything but still a strange mental comfort in the wake of a ruffled feathers.
They were fine, here. And they'd be fine at home, because everything Archie and William had told him thus far very much lead him to believe they'd be together as time stretched on--where things might be less friendly and comfortable, but where they'd have one another.
[ now there's the faint hint of a furrow in his brow appearing, because surely Horatio isn't-- no, that's ridiculous. he and the other two lieutenants will stay here, certainly. ]
After all this time, Horatio has a real talent for keeping his emotions suppressed despite the empathy bond. That's not enough to stop the flicker of nerves now--not that the person who could read his face better than anyone without it would need the underlining.]
[ Horatio coming closer ought to be a reassurance, but not when-- this is happening. Archie leans back, his book left open, forgotten in his lap.
This is all wrong, bad, terrible. He wants it not to be. He doesn't want to leave on the off chance they find some other world he hadn't died in and then just be dead forever. Not when they're here and it's strange but so much more wonderful than back home.
And even if there's a world where he's both alive and not in disgrace -- does he want to go back to a world where Regulation will string him up just for the thought of what he wants in life. ]
There isn't much to be done in a pine box, Horatio.
[ He's not really aware of what's he's said. He just wants this conversation to end. ]
[Being leaned away from causes an ache in his chest. Having a horrible unvarnished truth laid between them out of the blue causes a rending in his heart.
If he could, Horatio would tell himself he'd misheard--but he can't. The room had been quiet. His attention had been focused. The words had come quietly but clearly in the space between them, with a familiar clarity that didn't bear fighting with himself over the interpretation. The first night of Archie's re-arrival comes crashing through with a terrible new pallor over every moment.
His breath comes and goes, and he can't quite accept what he's nevertheless certain he's just been told.]
[ That's vital. Horatio has to understand. There's nothing for him there. And he doesn't want Horatio or Bush to go either. He couldn't do what Horatio did, here on his own.
His colour is pale with cheeks flushed. There isn't an enemy here, but perhaps his heart doesn't know that with how fast it's racing. ]
[It isn't that he has to hear it said another way. It isn't that they need, in the midst of this particular disagreement, to get into the gory details of what's been set out between them.
It's just that the pain of losing Archie here (with the half-comfort of the logical belief that the other young man had gone home and would be properly able to take care of himself; would thrive alone as they had together) is nothing to the waves of knowing the pieces of Archie which weren't here were nowhere at all.
This isn't a good time to reach out, as much as it would help the panic of grief rising in the pit of his gut. His foot shifts instead, needing the certainty that his friend is still solid and present.]
When?
[That question can't sit. The knowledge that Archie had lived their lives longer didn't give a great deal of comfort that they still had years of life together ahead of them if he went back to the moment he'd left.]
[ This wasn't how it was supposed to go. He'd been working up to it, to how to tell Horatio how things would be for him in the future. He would have been calm, matter of fact. Not get caught up in--
He shifts, ready to get up and put more space between them, when Horatio's foot nudges against him. It makes him flinch, but keeps him in his seat.]
Eighteen- eighteen oh two. January 25th.
[ He can't meet Horatio's eyes. He doesn't want to. He just retreats into himself as he speaks, voice flat and distant as he goes through what he'd thought to say. ]
Remember I-- told you of our cliff diving escapades in the Caribbean? Well, the island was overrun with Spaniards and a slave revolt. Things were-- involved for a time, but we captured some Spanish prisoners and their ships and were going to bring them back to Kingsport. Except they-- got free and set about attempting a mutiny. We'd all have been killed if not for your quick thinking, as always.
[ He pauses. There's a lot more to say. That he has no desire to say. The Renown under Captain Sawyer had been hell for all of them, especially Horatio who hadn't had the foresight like Archie to be incapable of doing anything remotely useful about the situation.
He tries not to think of poor Wellard and how someone ought to have put a bullet in the Captain long before the prisoners had. Thinking about that does nothing. Realising he's been silent too long, he shakes his head. ]
And-- I took a bullet in the fray. We got back to Kingston, but there was nothing to be done.
They're sitting here, an unknowable distance from where and when their world turned to 1802. They're breathing, hearts beating, close enough to physically feel the certainty that they both exist here in the same space. For the moment, they aren't being driven toward this chapter of their lives.
Except that they have to go home.
Losses have to come and go. The list of names printed against the back of his skull has grown since Spithead, sometimes in a trickle and sometimes in an ugly rush. All that could be done was to carefully press the pain down as small as a body could manage and hope that the strain could be carried a little longer. This would have to come and go as well.
Maybe this would be too heavy. Maybe this would become too heavy knowing that Archie could be safe and secure here.
Words often fail Horatio. They certainly aren't helping him now, breath only forming an exhausted sigh as his head drops briefly into his hands. Rubbing at his eyes doesn't help. Another shaking breath doesn't help much either.]
[ Seeing Horatio respond so draws Archie out of himself; makes him want to reach across the space between them and offer a hand. He's still younger and hasn't lived through all the trials which were still in front of him. ]
I kept your noble neck from the hangman's noose, though.
[ Lord, this is all so utterly wretched and wrong, but Archie manages the ghost of a smile. ]
[Accepting the gospel truth about one's own future had been a strange sort of growing. Finally finding what felt like the bottom of the omission dear friends had been making to prevent one from having to accept that is a strange muscle to be attempting to exercise as well.]
From what?
[It was already another sharp pang of pain to imagine that the bullet that claimed Archie's life had been aimed in his own direction--that his wonderful, loyal, devoted friend might have put himself willingly into the line of fire on his own behalf.
It's just that the hangman's noose isn't exactly the typical metaphor for taking a bullet.]
The Captain-- it was rumoured that he was pushed down in the hold one night. Kept him unconscious for most of the journey. When we got back to Kingston there was a court held to decide who was to blame-- and more than a few of the crew were determined to set you in the court's sights as the perpetrator.
[ His words all sound so petty as he recounts it. How had it come to that? Their post on the Renown, as Lieutenants, so turned upside down because of an old man losing his mind and a handful of stubborn, idiotic sailors? He scowls to himself, shaking his head -- but presses the emotion down. It's too frustrating to think of that too. ]
And you'd have taken responsibility, to keep Bush and I safe. So I had to step in first. Not much point-- hanging a man who's already got one foot in the grave.
[This is clearly a scratch of the surface. This has to be where all the tension that crept into the corners Archie and William's lips came from when conversation strayed too deep into their futures together, and this has to be just the highlights of what must have been a sprawling few years of ache and trouble.
And even this is a bit too much.]
Oh-- [But what is there to say? Even if there were, how could he say it with this fresh blossom of grief closing his throat?
Horatio isn't certain when his shoulders had become this hunched, but they curl further still, face dipping back into his hands as if pressing his eyes with the heels of his palms could relieve any of the onslaught. ]
Oh, Archie...
[Perhaps it would help to reach out and clutch at Archie's hand; to bury his face against the familiar solid warmth of his friend's shoulder and combat the truth of home with the truth of this place. It's just that Horatio can't quite manage to untangle himself from the ball he's been slowly folding into.]
[ Archie has been leaning away as he speaks, eyes staring past his friend's shoulder and ears closed as he tries not to listen to the words coming out of his own mouth. ]
Horatio--
[ But he can't stay deaf to the distress in that tone. That wounded and vulnerable sound from his friend makes Archie's fingers twitch, close on empty air like he wishes they would close on his friend's hands.
And it isn't fair-- having scratched the surface Archie can feel that his own well of pain is still a raw, stinging thing within him, one that he desperately wants comfort for -- but not like this. He doesn't want to hurt Horatio with his own pain.
It takes effort to move, more than he'd have thought possible, but move he does. And to hell with propriety and decorum; he puts his arms around his friend and draws him against his chest. ]
[There's a clear welling of relief in the aching as Archie moves closer. It would have been something to grip his friend's hand or feel the press of knee against knee, but being held? Being able to feel the solid warmth of the other man, the faint constant sensation of Archie's heartbeat?
The swirling sensations of grief and comfort can be examined properly later. All he has proper capacity for now is burrowing his face in against Archie's neck, arms wrapped tense and fingers clinging tight to the fabric of our other man's shirt.
The future will be what it will be--but here and now, Archie is alive and breathing, completely filling his senses as he curls in snug.]
...but... [His voice is muffled against his friend's shoulder, but he can't move.] ...but you're here.
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timeasmymeasure
after the anomaly things have died down
Date: 2022-02-15 04:21 pm (UTC)he's also intrigued at the idea that people can now go back to their homes now, if they like. not something he's interested in for self-evident reasons, but on the whole he likes the idea in an abstract kind of way. his assumption is that he and Horatio and Bill will all stay here, obviously.
he nudges horatio with his foot one evening as they settle into their evening routine of reading and research and general relaxation. ]
Funny thing, people getting to home now all of a sudden. I'll miss a number of them, I think. The Danae won't be the same without them.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-15 05:05 pm (UTC)For better or worse, it's a relief to know that, by the looks of things, he'll keep sitting exactly where he is until he gets up to move himself. Also a relief to feel the sensation of Archie close at hand, despite being half-absorbed in his reading.]
Hm. [Horatio's attention is largely distracted by the charts and figures he's sorting through, but his toe nudges idly back against his friend's.] Suppose we'd miss them either way.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-15 05:18 pm (UTC)he stares at his book a moment, then looks up with amusement ]
It'd be hard to miss them if they stay. This isn't exactly a First Rate and the crew isn't quite that large. I've got to make active efforts to avoid some people.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-15 05:57 pm (UTC)You've people to avoid here?
[It would be a far, far worse disconnect if he'd missed someone Archie needed (or even just wanted) to be protected from. (Just thinking of Simpson, even this far away, prickles the skin at the back of his neck.)]
no subject
Date: 2022-02-15 06:02 pm (UTC)[ he's quick to walk it back, both touched by Horatio's concern and keen to emphasise it was an exaggeration on his part. he isn't the scared Mid he was when he first joined. he knows he doesn't have to take-- what he had once accepted as the way of things. ]
All in all, a fine crew to keep exploring with.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-15 06:24 pm (UTC)They were fine, here. And they'd be fine at home, because everything Archie and William had told him thus far very much lead him to believe they'd be together as time stretched on--where things might be less friendly and comfortable, but where they'd have one another.
It will be theirs. It will be enough.]
It would be.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-15 06:26 pm (UTC)[ now there's the faint hint of a furrow in his brow appearing, because surely Horatio isn't-- no, that's ridiculous. he and the other two lieutenants will stay here, certainly. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-02-15 06:35 pm (UTC)[This is a disconnect, but Horatio doesn't quite hear it.]
For everyone who stays.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-15 06:38 pm (UTC)You aren't thinking of going back.
[ he can't help the accusation in his voice. it feels like a betrayal for Horatio to even think of it. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-02-15 06:47 pm (UTC)After all this time, Horatio has a real talent for keeping his emotions suppressed despite the empathy bond. That's not enough to stop the flicker of nerves now--not that the person who could read his face better than anyone without it would need the underlining.]
Are you thinking of staying?
no subject
Date: 2022-02-15 10:40 pm (UTC)Of course I'm staying?
no subject
Date: 2022-02-15 11:26 pm (UTC)[Time to refocus. Time to set the tablet in his hand aside and shift forward properly to meet Archie's gaze.]
Archie, haven't we got to?
no subject
Date: 2022-02-15 11:35 pm (UTC)This is all wrong, bad, terrible. He wants it not to be. He doesn't want to leave on the off chance they find some other world he hadn't died in and then just be dead forever. Not when they're here and it's strange but so much more wonderful than back home.
And even if there's a world where he's both alive and not in disgrace -- does he want to go back to a world where Regulation will string him up just for the thought of what he wants in life. ]
There isn't much to be done in a pine box, Horatio.
[ He's not really aware of what's he's said. He just wants this conversation to end. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-02-16 01:12 am (UTC)If he could, Horatio would tell himself he'd misheard--but he can't. The room had been quiet. His attention had been focused. The words had come quietly but clearly in the space between them, with a familiar clarity that didn't bear fighting with himself over the interpretation. The first night of Archie's re-arrival comes crashing through with a terrible new pallor over every moment.
His breath comes and goes, and he can't quite accept what he's nevertheless certain he's just been told.]
Archie.
dw where is my notifffff
Date: 2022-02-16 01:55 am (UTC)[ That's vital. Horatio has to understand. There's nothing for him there. And he doesn't want Horatio or Bush to go either. He couldn't do what Horatio did, here on his own.
His colour is pale with cheeks flushed. There isn't an enemy here, but perhaps his heart doesn't know that with how fast it's racing. ]
I won't.
I would say it hates fun, but maybe it also hates pain??
Date: 2022-02-16 11:10 pm (UTC)[It isn't that he has to hear it said another way. It isn't that they need, in the midst of this particular disagreement, to get into the gory details of what's been set out between them.
It's just that the pain of losing Archie here (with the half-comfort of the logical belief that the other young man had gone home and would be properly able to take care of himself; would thrive alone as they had together) is nothing to the waves of knowing the pieces of Archie which weren't here were nowhere at all.
This isn't a good time to reach out, as much as it would help the panic of grief rising in the pit of his gut. His foot shifts instead, needing the certainty that his friend is still solid and present.]
When?
[That question can't sit. The knowledge that Archie had lived their lives longer didn't give a great deal of comfort that they still had years of life together ahead of them if he went back to the moment he'd left.]
no subject
Date: 2022-02-16 11:37 pm (UTC)He shifts, ready to get up and put more space between them, when Horatio's foot nudges against him. It makes him flinch, but keeps him in his seat.]
Eighteen- eighteen oh two. January 25th.
[ He can't meet Horatio's eyes. He doesn't want to. He just retreats into himself as he speaks, voice flat and distant as he goes through what he'd thought to say. ]
Remember I-- told you of our cliff diving escapades in the Caribbean? Well, the island was overrun with Spaniards and a slave revolt. Things were-- involved for a time, but we captured some Spanish prisoners and their ships and were going to bring them back to Kingsport. Except they-- got free and set about attempting a mutiny. We'd all have been killed if not for your quick thinking, as always.
[ He pauses. There's a lot more to say. That he has no desire to say. The Renown under Captain Sawyer had been hell for all of them, especially Horatio who hadn't had the foresight like Archie to be incapable of doing anything remotely useful about the situation.
He tries not to think of poor Wellard and how someone ought to have put a bullet in the Captain long before the prisoners had. Thinking about that does nothing. Realising he's been silent too long, he shakes his head. ]
And-- I took a bullet in the fray. We got back to Kingston, but there was nothing to be done.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-17 03:39 am (UTC)They're sitting here, an unknowable distance from where and when their world turned to 1802. They're breathing, hearts beating, close enough to physically feel the certainty that they both exist here in the same space. For the moment, they aren't being driven toward this chapter of their lives.
Except that they have to go home.
Losses have to come and go. The list of names printed against the back of his skull has grown since Spithead, sometimes in a trickle and sometimes in an ugly rush. All that could be done was to carefully press the pain down as small as a body could manage and hope that the strain could be carried a little longer. This would have to come and go as well.
Maybe this would be too heavy. Maybe this would become too heavy knowing that Archie could be safe and secure here.
Words often fail Horatio. They certainly aren't helping him now, breath only forming an exhausted sigh as his head drops briefly into his hands. Rubbing at his eyes doesn't help. Another shaking breath doesn't help much either.]
Nothing to be done.
[That doesn't help either.]
no subject
Date: 2022-02-17 04:56 am (UTC)I kept your noble neck from the hangman's noose, though.
[ Lord, this is all so utterly wretched and wrong, but Archie manages the ghost of a smile. ]
Not a total waste.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-17 06:44 pm (UTC)[Accepting the gospel truth about one's own future had been a strange sort of growing. Finally finding what felt like the bottom of the omission dear friends had been making to prevent one from having to accept that is a strange muscle to be attempting to exercise as well.]
From what?
[It was already another sharp pang of pain to imagine that the bullet that claimed Archie's life had been aimed in his own direction--that his wonderful, loyal, devoted friend might have put himself willingly into the line of fire on his own behalf.
It's just that the hangman's noose isn't exactly the typical metaphor for taking a bullet.]
no subject
Date: 2022-02-18 07:04 am (UTC)The Captain-- it was rumoured that he was pushed down in the hold one night. Kept him unconscious for most of the journey. When we got back to Kingston there was a court held to decide who was to blame-- and more than a few of the crew were determined to set you in the court's sights as the perpetrator.
[ His words all sound so petty as he recounts it. How had it come to that? Their post on the Renown, as Lieutenants, so turned upside down because of an old man losing his mind and a handful of stubborn, idiotic sailors? He scowls to himself, shaking his head -- but presses the emotion down. It's too frustrating to think of that too. ]
And you'd have taken responsibility, to keep Bush and I safe. So I had to step in first. Not much point-- hanging a man who's already got one foot in the grave.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-18 01:00 pm (UTC)And even this is a bit too much.]
Oh-- [But what is there to say? Even if there were, how could he say it with this fresh blossom of grief closing his throat?
Horatio isn't certain when his shoulders had become this hunched, but they curl further still, face dipping back into his hands as if pressing his eyes with the heels of his palms could relieve any of the onslaught. ]
Oh, Archie...
[Perhaps it would help to reach out and clutch at Archie's hand; to bury his face against the familiar solid warmth of his friend's shoulder and combat the truth of home with the truth of this place. It's just that Horatio can't quite manage to untangle himself from the ball he's been slowly folding into.]
no subject
Date: 2022-02-19 05:06 am (UTC)Horatio--
[ But he can't stay deaf to the distress in that tone. That wounded and vulnerable sound from his friend makes Archie's fingers twitch, close on empty air like he wishes they would close on his friend's hands.
And it isn't fair-- having scratched the surface Archie can feel that his own well of pain is still a raw, stinging thing within him, one that he desperately wants comfort for -- but not like this. He doesn't want to hurt Horatio with his own pain.
It takes effort to move, more than he'd have thought possible, but move he does. And to hell with propriety and decorum; he puts his arms around his friend and draws him against his chest. ]
no subject
Date: 2022-02-20 04:00 pm (UTC)The swirling sensations of grief and comfort can be examined properly later. All he has proper capacity for now is burrowing his face in against Archie's neck, arms wrapped tense and fingers clinging tight to the fabric of our other man's shirt.
The future will be what it will be--but here and now, Archie is alive and breathing, completely filling his senses as he curls in snug.]
...but... [His voice is muffled against his friend's shoulder, but he can't move.] ...but you're here.