6
Title: "The Nature of Trust"
Author: Darkover
Rating: K
Disclaimer: As far as I know, the characters of Richard Sharpe and Patrick Harper are owned by their talented creator, Bernard Cornwell. I do not own them. No violation of copyright is intended or should be inferred. I am not making any money from this, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so please do not sue!
Characters: Richard Sharpe and Patrick Harper
Summary: Why wouldn't Sharpe let Harper shave him in "Sharpe's Eagle?" This is a missing scene from that episode. Friendship only, no slash. Please read and review!
Sharpe and the Chosen Men were in a battle. The fighting was intense, and one by one, his men were being shot down before his eyes. All except Harper: there was no sign of the big sergeant.
Sharpe tried to fight back, but he could not move. He seemed incapable of movement; it was as if his body would not respond. His breathing was deep and slow. His heart rate began to increase, and so did his respiration as he took a deeper breath, and then another.
He called out Harper's name. Still new to command, Sharpe had come to depend on the Irishman, and to care about him so much that Sharpe considered it a weakness. It made him vulnerable, which Sharpe had always hated. But still he called his Sergeant's name, with increasing desperation. "Harper? Harper!"
Distantly, there was the sound of singing….
"HARPER!"
"Easy, sir." Abruptly, the Sergeant was in front of Sharpe, holding his shoulder gently but firmly, watching him closely. Harper spoke soothingly. "Maggie the Maggot has done her job, sir, and your wound's as clean as a whistle. You'll be runnin' up and down in a week."
Sharpe tried to get his eyes to focus. His heart was still pounding and he felt disoriented. He was lying in bed in his tent, just realizing that the Chosen Men—his men—were not dead, that he had been dreaming, when Harper said, "Now sit up, sir, and I'll give ye a nice shave." As he spoke, the Sergeant began applying lather to Sharpe's face. Sharpe, still discombobulated from the dream, got some lather up his nose and in his mouth, and promptly, loudly, spat it out in a spray.
Harper patiently wiped Sharpe's nose and mouth, and with greater care, applied the lather again. His officer—for that was how he now thought of Sharpe—had been sleeping for nearly twelve hours. When Sharpe had been wounded, his pain had been so great, and the sergeant had so feared infection, that he had brewed Sharpe a cup of hot tea and liberally dosed it with laudanum. By propping Sharpe up and holding the cup to his mouth, Harper had gently compelled Sharpe to drink it all at once. Sharpe had fallen almost immediately into a deep sleep, allowing the sergeant to turn his attention to Sharpe's wound, putting maggots in place to eliminate infection and deal with necrotic tissue. Over the last twelve hours, Harper had kept both the wound and the man clean; now it just remained to get Sharpe fully awake, shaved, washed, and dressed. Having expertly applied the lather, Harper tilted Sharpe's head back, and placed the straight razor against the latter's skin.
Sharpe froze in place, heart pounding. He was still discombobulated from the nightmare, and had no clear memories of the last day or so. It had not been very long ago that this man, the man now holding a straight razor to his throat, had tried to kill him. The two of them were alone in the tent. All the Irishman had to do was flick his wrist a certain way and Sharpe's throat would be cut from ear to ear. He could bleed to death in a matter of minutes, and Harper could swear it was an accident.
Harper, holding Sharpe in place, could feel his officer's tension, but put it down to the residual influence of the bad dream Sharpe had apparently been having just a moment earlier. Very gently, Harper began to apply the razor to the tight skin, scraping away beard and lather…
There was a sudden sound from outside of drummers and buglers playing "The Rogue's March"—the new South Essex regiment had arrived. Harper, momentarily distracted, put down the razor, and was surprised when Sharpe twisted out of his hold, yanked on a pair of breeches, and hobbled toward the opening of the tent.
Sharpe, standing in the opening, leaning on the tent post for support, took several deep breaths, which helped to clear his head. Rationally, he knew that Harper had more than proved his worth and faithfulness ever since Terra Antigua. Emotionally, the thought of someone else holding a straight razor to his throat still made him shudder. When Harper followed him out and again tried to apply the razor to Sharpe's chin, Sharpe pushed it aside, and then took the razor out of the sergeant's hand.
Sharpe sat down on his cot and began determinedly to shave himself. The Irishman was puzzled by the behavior of his lieutenant, as Harper had never known an officer who would willingly shave himself if there was a subordinate around to do it. Wondering if he had unwittingly offended Sharpe in some way, Harper cleared his throat. "Permission to speak, sir?"
"What is it?"
"Do ye not trust me to shave ye proper, sir? I've shaved many an officer, so I have, and no complaints yet," he could not resist adding.
"As everyone keeps saying, Harper, I'm not a proper officer." It came out more bitter than Sharpe had intended.
"I think we're past that now, sir," the sergeant said gently, wondering if that was the explanation. Sharpe, having risen from the ranks, might really not know any better. He might not know it was customary for a subordinate to shave him and help with basic valet duties.
But Sharpe, surprised as always by anyone showing him kindness, had glanced up quickly, startled by the warmth in his sergeant's tone, and Harper, seeing the momentary vulnerability in the other man's eyes, understood in a flash. Richard Sharpe was the bastard son of a whore. He had been born in the gutter, had been required from birth onwards to fight just to survive. He had not lived this long by trusting other men. Now that he was an officer, he was still despised by others who would exploit any weakness on his part in the hopes that he would fail. It would be as hard for Sharpe to trust another man not to do him harm as it was for Miss Teresa, after what she had been through, to trust a man to make love to her. And moments earlier, Harper, a man who had once tried to murder Sharpe, had been holding a razor to Sharpe's throat.
"What I mean to say is, you're my officer now, sir," Harper said, quietly but firmly, looking directly into Sharpe's eyes. "I'll always have your back, so I will."
Sharpe looked away; it seemed to Harper that his face reddened a bit. Harper handed the lieutenant soap and a towel. "Thank you, Sergeant," Sharpe muttered. Both men knew he was not just thanking the big man for the soap and towel.
"It's a privilege, sir," Harper said in the same vein, smiling.
Sharpe performed his ablutions, not making eye contact. He said awkwardly; "If you like, Patrick, you can give me a shave tomorrow."
"Thank you, sir."
This time, they looked at each other and smiled.