Archive of Our Own

It happens to him first as a patchy-faced, clumsy-limbed youth, barely one foot over the threshold of manhood. A fellow midshipman a few years older than he with Etonian vowels and Derbyshire graces, their eyes meeting for one charged moment over the dinner table. Edward had not known at first the meaning of it, only that it made his gut clench with a yearning he had not the words to describe. Even as the man had made his intentions clearer — a hand placed gently on his elbow for one glorious fraction of a second as he’d left the mess and eyes flicking in the direction of the ladder down into the depths — he had not known what was being offered, though he had followed without hesitation all the same.

Later, when wiping his thighs clean with a politely proffered handkerchief, he had wondered if all men of this inclination — an inclination he could no longer deny was his own — were granted the ability to recognise meaning and invitation in a glance.

He thinks of those thrilling few minutes in the humid heat of the orlop as the echo of Jopson’s footsteps recedes. It is all he can do to keep his feet moving, and when he rounds the corner into the next stretch of warren tunnels he’s no earthly idea of his original intended destination.

Well-practiced in self pleasure may his hands be, they provide little satisfaction as he lays in bed that evening. They are not elegant, his nails not carefully tended, his fingers lacking in a tailors’ calluses. On the back of the left he still feels the burn of Jopson’s knuckles where they had skimmed almost imperceptibly as they passed each other in the corridor. Had it been just that simple touch, he might still be sane. He could easily believe it accidental. Not so the sotto voce “apologies, sir” from lips close enough for Jopson’s breath to tickle the edge of his whiskers, and spoken in the same conspiratorial tone as a lordling at his club had muttered “the upstairs privy, five minutes” to him the last time he’d indulged.

He cannot indulge with a subordinate. There had been an officer once, when Edward was young and more foolish than even now. Older, well-established and well liked. Edward hadn’t minded the attention, would likely have said yes anyway, but he had been aware all the while that refusal was not an option.

Jopson is undeterred by failure. Every interaction that follows seems to contain an invitation, every moment in Jopson’s company is an agonising temptation. A holding of his gaze a fraction of a second longer than necessary, an exhale against his cheek when Jopson leans over him to refill his glass, a subtle shift closer as Jopson stands beside him. The kind words he has often spared Edward now spoken with increasing softness in tone, his familiar friendly smiles now almost secretive.

So often his eyes drift to Jopson, have done since first they met. Now, he realises, there are eyes upon him too.

In saner days, he had occasionally caught himself wondering how Jopson might look beneath that perfectly arranged uniform, before quickly pushing such thoughts away. Now such thoughts dominate every waking moment. There’s hair on the back of Jopson’s hands, and by the end of the day there’s always a thick shadow of stubble making itself known. Are these indicators of a torso resplendent with hair as dark and thick as Edward prefers? Is his arse hairy too? Edward knows it to be toned and shapely, for his eyes have drifted there often enough that had he any talent with a pencil he would be able to draw it from memory. His eyes stray also to the placket of Jopson’s trousers, the slight curvature of the fabric hinting at the shape and size of what lies beneath. A good handful, he finds himself thinking as he chews his way through something claiming to be veal one dinner. Plump stones and a fat prick to fill his grasp and more besides.

What joy it would be to undress him, to pluck open every button with the same diligent care Jopson surely shows in his own such work. Unwrapping him like the fine treasure he is. It would have to wait until they reached the Sandwich Islands, if they ever would. He’d find some rooms, somewhere deeper into the island and away from prying eyes, where they could luxuriate in one another. Skin against skin, the slick humidity of the tropics allowing his hands to glide smoothly over every curve and plane of Jopson’s body.

He endures — barely, torturously, abusing himself nightly, but he endures.

There is one evening he is sat alone in the Great Cabin, staring hazy-eyed at schedules and attempting miserably to either persuade himself to retire to bed or concentrate on the task at hand. The clatter of metal shakes him from his dozing as a fork falls from Jopson’s hands to the floor — he hadn’t even noticed the man enter, he must be tired indeed — and he is helpless but to watch as Jopson bends over to retrieve it. Slowly, his back arching, his perfect arse jutting out just-so. A glance over his shoulder to Edward that could not be called anything but coquettish.

His usual fantasies have been of Jopson taking him, using him for the pleasure the man so deserves. That night he imagines gently arranging Jopson on hands and knees, a silk pillow or two under his hips so that he need not even support his own weight. ‘Let me take care of you,’ he would beg, and Jopson would let him.

The initial embarrassment of his desire turns to rumination on his faults, turns to a growing humiliation at the realisation that his fixation upon Jopson is born of more than just offered temptation and unsated lust. The craving goes deeper, has developed into a desperation to possess and be possessed, heart and soul.

When he offers to take over the tedious task of counting cans, his frayed nerves have him searching John’s expression for any sign of suspicion of the truth of it — that it’s not altruism driving him but the idleness of his hands and a desperate need to hide where Jopson cannot find him, where he cannot discover if the next quirk of lips or brush of fingers will be their undoing.

The air is musty and damp in the orlop, the ice closer. Louder. As though it’s scraping directly against his skull. At first he hardly registers the sound of steps upon the ladder. Then he hears it, the creaking wood beneath someone’s boots, too rhythmic and uniform to be the ice.

John had once mentioned - albeit with pink cheeks, stilted and vague - that patrols of the quieter areas of the ship might be necessary.

It will be a carpenter, a caulker, some lad sent to retrieve some rarely used tool. All the same, Edward emerges from his corner with rather more noise than is necessary. He has never had to weigh duty against loyalty to those of his sort, he cannot bear to face that choice now. When he has made it far enough to have a line of sight to the ladder, he peers through the jaundiced gloom of lamplight to see who shares the stale air.

Edward’s stomach lurches.

“Good evening, Mr Jopson,” he calls, his voice blessedly even.

“Sir,” Jopson nods. “I thought perhaps you might appreciate some assistance. Many hands make light work, as they say.”

Edward thinks of his father’s sharp nose and thick brows and how they sit upon his own face. He thinks of his father’s avarice and how that too must have been handed down.

“You needn’t—I would not wish to keep you from your duties, Mr Jopson.”

Jopson smiles, chin dipped and looking at him from beneath long lashes. “I’ve time to spare, sir. I assure you I won’t stay a moment longer than I’m able.”

He does not wait for an answer before weaving nimbly through the organised chaos to where Edward stands. There’s not a hair out of place, no sign of a flush to his elegant cheekbones — not counting the rosiness of cold, which of course Jopson manages to make look fetching. Edward’s own face is reminiscent of a bloated uncle with a fondness for port.

“Lead the way, sir,” he says cheerfully.

Edward scrabbles for something to say, some combination of words to save himself from what now seems all but inevitable ruin. There is nothing but dreadful awareness of the scent of Jopson’s pomade. He inches his way back through the crates and piles of rope and cloth, acutely aware of how he must steady himself with a hand at all times while Jopson glides unhindered by the sloping deck. He stumbles as they reach his corner, shoulder colliding with a beam and boots knocking together.

Wincing, he asks, “Was it like this in the south, Mr Jopson? The angle of the ship, I mean?”

Jopson stands almost imperceptibly straighter. A most charming trait, this quiet pride in having his experience acknowledged, and Edward has mentioned the South often to see it. “We’d a gentler angle, sir. We were lucky with our position, the currents were fairly mild so the pack did not drag us about quite so roughly.”

“I—I find I forget how to walk on level ground when I leave the ship. It’s most disorienting.”

“It’s a rather different skill to finding one’s sea legs, isn’t it, sir?”

“I was never particularly adept at that, either,” Edward admits with an empty chuckle. “You’ve never seen me in a real storm, Mr Jopson. I imagine you’d find much amusement in watching me try not to fall overboard.”

Jopson lowers his eyes, a lock of hair flopping over his brow. “You’d need only to hold onto me, sir. I could keep you steady.”

Edward exhales sharply, the words like a fist to his gut for all he can breathe from the impact. His fingers twitch and clench with the desire to neaten Jopson’s hair, his traitorous prick twitches too as it threatens to fatten. The weight of insignia upon his shoulders threatens to pull him to the ground, his eyes fall to Jopson’s own shoulders and Edward imagines how the muscles there might flex beneath his fingers.

“Please,” he rasps. “You don’t—it would not be right.”

“Why, sir?” Jopson asks, his voice falling to a low murmur, his tone not that of earnest questioning or cajoling, but amusement.

“You…” Edward’s tongue dies in his mouth as Jopson takes a step forward.

“We both want this, sir.”

He is close enough now that Edward can feel the soft huff of his breath. Can smell the oil in his hair, enough so to know that Jopson does not use fine Macassar as Edward’s last dalliance had, but nor does he use the cheap grease he’s smelled on dockhands and ordinary sailors either.

Jopson’s eyes dart across Edward’s face for several long seconds, finally fixing upon Edward’s lips. His hand comes to rest lightly upon Edward’s whiskers before Edward can remind his body he ought to breathe. For a moment neither of them move, Edward incapable and Jopson searching for something in Edward’s eyes. A flash of a smile upon Jopson’s lips is the only warning Edward receives before those lips are pressing a gentle kiss to the chapped skin of his own.

It is only fleeting. He is afforded only the slightest second to catalogue the warmth of Jopson’s mouth upon his before the cold air is rushing to fill the space between them.

His hands are upon Jopson’s waist before he can catch himself, before he can beg forgiveness, before he can tell Jopson he is not obligated and must never feel obligated, never feel afraid with him, never—

With a half stifled groan, Jopson is pressing against him, one hand in the small of his back and the other tangled in his hair. He flinches to feel Jopson’s tongue insinuate itself between his lips, shudders as Jopson’s thigh does the same between his own.

He must be dreaming. Must have at last lost his mind, is surely currently laid out in the sickbay with McDonald trickling coca wine into his mouth.

He breaks the kiss, punch-drunk and gasping for air, and Jopson takes it as invitation to nip and suckle at the thin strip of flesh between jaw and collar.

“Thought you’d never,” Jopson whispers against Edward’s fevered skin. “Thought you’d keep on trying to be noble.”

“Noble,” Edward gasps, clawing helplessly at Jopson’s back as the shapely thigh between his legs presses closer.

“Mm. I was sure I was right about you, though. Saw the way you looked at me.“

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

Jopson cuts him off with kiss, tongue trailing lightly over his lower lip before that finely cut nose is pressed to his sideburns. “I looked at you, too, sir. The only thing you’ve to be sorry for is making me wait so long to get my hands on you.”

A pitiful sob fights through the shreds of Edward’s control, though he retains some dignity by burying the sound in the soft skin behind Jopson’s ear. His mind is a blur, his thoughts tangled and frantic. Without conscious thought he sinks to his knees and feels a precarious calm settle even as his heart pounds. Presses his face against the thickening bulge of Jopson’s prick, inhales, shudders.

“Is this how you want it, sir?” Jopson says above him. His fingers twine in Edward’s hair and gently, though leaving no room for argument, tilts his head back so that Edward cannot hide from the vivid eyes appraising him. “You enjoy giving, don’t you?”

Edward nods, mute and shamefaced.

“Ought to be careful, sir. Some men might take too much.”

“Don’t call me sir,” Edward begs. He presses his face to Jopson’s trousers again, and Jopson lets him, stroking his hair. “Not—not here. I cannot be—”

“Edward, then,” Jopson whispers. “But only if you call me Tom.”

“Tom.” It is sweet on tongue, a forbidden fruit.

He brings his clumsy fingers to Tom’s buttons, moves back just enough to allow the fabric to drop away, presses close again and feels the heat of Tom’s flesh against his own burning cheek.

From the very first encounter he has known peace at service to another, found calm in how readily these acts come to him. Even after service had been demanded, more willing moments had not been entirely tainted.

His lips find Tom’s stones easily, tongue savouring the salt-musk there for a moment before he wraps his lips around the plump head of Tom’s prick and works the foreskin back over it. The hand in his hair tightens, and Jopson’s breath catches in his throat. It’s a ragged sound, the sound of a man given to vocalising though well-practiced in silence. A similar sound comes when Edward’s tongue dips into the leaking hole at the tip, again when he draws in his cheeks and begins to suck.

There could be no reward in the next life greater than being permitted to hear such noises break free of Tom’s control in this one. If he must be weak enough to allow this to happen, let it happen again and with the full freedom to allow Tom any pleasure he desires. He thinks of the Sandwich Islands again, how they might find some hideaway where they would not be heard. He thinks of his father’s land, the absurd turret folly on the grounds quite some distance from the house, the thick oak door and solid stone walls. He thinks of a cottage, a fireplace with two chairs, a sympathetic maid arranged by his spinster sister, unconcerned that only one bed needs making each morning.

His tongue flattens against the rosy head of the prick in his mouth, his hands find anchor on an arse more perfect than he had dared imagine, his watering eyes risk opening and lock with a pair that seem at once dazed and aflame. Jopson’s lips open, his speech too quiet for Edward to hear but the two syllables of his own name familiar enough that he recognises the repeating movement.

He sucks him down deeper, abandoning artful tricks for repeated and rapid entrance to his throat. He must taste him. He must see him finish. Tom’s buttocks are tense beneath his hands and a light push communicates well enough the desire to have his mouth used, to feel the snaps of Tom’s hips as they work together to the same end. Steamy huffs of breath escape Tom rapidly now, his prick leaking, his eyelids fluttering. There is a brief spasm of his hands in Edward’s hair, a stuttering of his hips. His perfect pink lips open in a silent cry and then he is spilling, thick pulses of spend almost choking Edward as Tom’s body cannot help but drive deep into his throat. When he withdraws, it’s as the last spurt of it is erupting, leaving a welcome astringent streak across Edward’s tongue.

Tom stumbles, legs and buttocks trembling as Edward’s hands savour the last permitted moments of the fine musculature beneath them before falling to his sides. With locks of hair falling across his sweat-slick brow and cheeks flushed red, Tom is more beautiful than he has ever been. His spit-wet prick, still plump, hangs from the open front of his trousers. Undone by Edward’s own hands, made ruffled and ruined by Edward’s attentions.

He is so focussed drawing up the dregs of his strength to stand, to navigate the dark and turmultuous waters that come after such encounters, that he does not notice Tom slipping to his knees to join him on the floor. Awareness comes with kiss; clumsy, wet, Tom’s tongue and lips as weak and unsteady as the rest of him. It is the finest kiss Edward has ever received.

It is a rare treat to be kissed at all. Men seeking pleasure in darkened corners do not often care to kiss, nor do men who sell their company for coin, and though Edward has long since made his peace with it, the desire for lips against his own has never truly left. It strikes him as their tongues seek each other that Tom must surely taste himself in Edward’s mouth, and the thought is so shocking, so thrilling, that it is a mercy he does not embarrass himself in his trousers.

“What do you want?” Tom gasps when he finally draws back for breath. “How can I please you?”

“You do not need—,” Edward replies.

Tom smiles, a soft and almost mournful thing, and presses his lips to Edward’s cheek. “How can I convince you that I’m exactly as willing as you? Moreso, perhaps.”

Edward’s eyes close, his heart pounds. He cannot— yet Tom’s hands are stroking his face, trailing over his chest and skimming his waistband. Tom’s lips are seeking his own. Tom’s eyes are bright, eager, his voice gentle and betraying no small amount of hunger.

“Anything,” he rasps. “Anything you wish.”

Tom nuzzles into his neck and kisses him there, a subtle nip of teeth as he retreats just enough to whisper, “dangerous, to offer a man anything.”

It is, Edward knows it, yet he can offer nothing less and feels only peace in doing so.

The hand cupping his cheek slips away, fingers dancing over his chest, pressing against his useless heart to induce him to lay down. When he is flat on his back at Tom’s mercy, the fingers wander to his aching prick for the briefest of caresses before plucking open his trousers and working inside.

“Tell me,” Tom whispers.

“I…”

“What have you imagined?”

“Your hands,” Edward wheezes. He is rewarded with slender fingers wrapping around his aching length. “On me, everywhere.”

“Not yours on me?”

Edward nods his head vehemently. “That too. Christ, of course I’ve thought—you deserve to be worshiped.”

“I’d like to take you,” Tom says, dragging his lips over Edward’s heated skin, tongue darting out to taste his sweat. “Would you like that?”

“Please,” Edward agrees frantically. The hand on his prick tightens, the languorous rolls of Tom’s wrist quicken. “Just for you, always. Christ, Tom, I’m—”

His accent is slipping, the North beginning to seep through in his vowels. He would be ashamed of it, had he not the wild and foolish desire for Tom to hear him thus, stripped of all falsehoods.

The lips on his cheek brush over his whiskers and meet his own. The kiss feels like a claim, a marking. It is all he needs to go hurtling over the edge at last, pleasure crashing through him in steady pulses until he can hardly breathe.

Something presses against the agonisingly sensitive head of his prick and forces a final spasm of pleasure that is almost too much to bear; when he looks down he sees Tom carefully folding a sodden handkerchief and not a trace of mess upon either of them.

It is a conscientious act, it is for the best. It feels a grave injustice that he cannot leave this cavern of theirs looking as destroyed as he feels.

The act itself has always been easy for him; the aftermath has always been a struggle. There is always a tension. Uncertainty. Uneasiness. Edward braces himself for it now, his stomach roiling with shame as he comes back to himself and remembers the words he has spoken, the admissions he has made. The fear that Tom had indeed felt compelled to allow this. The still greater fear that Tom might now feel compelled to offer Edward his heart.

The silence is as thick and stale as the air, and the distance between them insurmountable. Edward fumbles his prick back into his trousers in silence as Tom does the same, thinking how mere moments ago he had been free to run his fingers through the mess of Tom’s hair and put it back in order. Now, his fingers twitch uselessly at his side, and he can only watch as Tom does the work himself.

Tom. Does the privilege of his name extend this far? Perhaps he ought to start thinking of him as Jopson again, lest the familiarity slip out now and cause offence.

He had thought, when he had allowed himself to imagine giving in, that with desires sated he would perhaps not be quite so captivated by this man. Would not believe quite so easily that this man is one whom Edward could fall for, could love and cherish and make a life with. There have been others, in the past. Edward knows himself to be cursed with the same overeager heart as his dearest sister, had returned often from voyages bereft over the loss of a love that never was to find her in a maudlin state for the same reason. He ought to have known Tom would not be easily exorcised.

“Let me,” Tom says, and he steps closer, fingers working their magic to make him presentable.

He expect the touches to be quick, professional, a polite rejection of further affections, a definitive return to their ordinary roles. Tom’s hands instead move slowly, lingering caresses across his body that make Edward feel as a land being mapped.

“I’ve never, with a subordinate,” Edward says, stilling Tom’s hands, marvelling even now at the shape of them and how neatly they fit in his own. “You must know I’d never wish you to feel compelled. This need never happen again, I won’t expect it of you.”

“Don’t be going all noble again on me, Edward.” Tom says, pulling one of Edward’s hands to his lips, kissing it. Edward understands suddenly why his sisters speak of the gesture in such swooning tones. “I’ve not done a thing I haven’t been wanting to do for weeks.”

“I’ve wanted you,” Edward admits in a weak whisper.

Tom laughs, not unkindly. “I know. As frustrating as the wait has been, I have rather enjoyed being wanted. Do you still want me?”

Edward nods.

“Then we’ll do this again?”

It is the first time in the entirety of the encounter, perhaps in the entirety of their acquaintance, that Edward has heard Tom sound anything other than confident. There is just then barest hint of nerves in his tone, a slight pleading hope in his eyes.

It is that which drives Edward to kiss him. The grateful, joyous moan that vibrates against his lips silences any lingering fear that he is taking what is not his to take.