PART 5
By Lizard
"Archie, what is wrong?" The seemingly gentle tone makes Archie start slightly in surprise.
"What do you mean, Horatio? There's nothing wrong with me. Just a little tired, is all. Perhaps you've talked us both to exhaustion" Belatedly Archie realises the unintended insult, but it is too late to correct himself now. He sees Horatio's face wreathed with emotion and his lips moving, on the verge of saying something. Again he stops and walks back to the far wall of the cell, staring fixedly at a particular patch of damp in the hope that it would restore a little of his composure. Evidently to no end, for he swung around, eyes blazing with an unnatural light, his feelings of betrayal and hurt tumbling out with his words.
"No, Archie. *What* is wrong? I have noticed you continually cutting off our conversations like this." Taking in a deep breath to feed his courage, he continues, "You are *not* tired - I have looked after you long enough to know when you are genuinely weary. This is ridiculous! I've been trying to liven up our captivity so that you may become well again and we may escape this wretched place. And yet you are...you are..." He halts the overflowing words, unable to describe Archie's charge of offence. Suddenly, he sees how inconsequential his so-called pains have been. Who is he to say that Archie is not tired? Perhaps he is just weary of Horatio's presence and his constant chatter. Perhaps he has never *wanted* me to look after him, Horatio acknowledges bashfully. Remembering once again with a start that it was in fact *he* who had caused this fundamental change in Archie by knocking him out senseless all that time ago...
Meanwhile Archie, ever sitting in his cot, watches yet another flush spread over his friend's face. Why is he so emotionally strung of a sudden? Perhaps that Duchess of his has been leading him a merry dance or two, he thinks bitterly. Surprised as he notes the slight pang of jealousy within his own breast, once again he berates himself for having thought such a thing about Horatio. You are not worthy of him, you bloody idiot! Get it through your thick head and stop being jealous over something you can never have. Should never have, and will never have. Yet for all his harsh and cynical thoughts, Archie still feels that faint yearning inside.
Thus, Horatio Hornblower and Archie Kennedy stay silent and morose in that dim cell, both of their faces reddened with guilt and chagrin in different measure. The silence becoming too unbearable, Archie parts his lips to form some semblance of an apology, *anything* to sort this mess out. But it is too late. Overcome with shame, guilt and disgust at his own unfeeling stupidity, Horatio walks towards the cell door and asks to be let out in order to beg an audience with Don Massaredo - he may as well get the blasted matter over and done with now, mightn't he? Archie does not stop him, but watches him go regretfully, gazing at his tensely-set shoulders and the despondent tilt to his head. But even as he continues to chastise himself sternly, Archie cannot prevent his faithless eyes from appreciatively glancing down to his friend's thighs and buttocks oh-so-well-defined in those godforsaken tight breeches.
The guard comes to the cell door. Horatio is let out after some reluctance from the Spanish man. He does not look back at Archie, guilt and anger still wreaking too much havoc within him to trust himself with one last backward glance. Archie is left alone in his cot. Unable to move, both from a mental and physical exhaustion caused by this encounter, he once again lays back and allows bitter thoughts of self-reproach to whistle through his mind.
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