AUTHOR: carriecmoney

August 27th, 2014 - Conscription

"Ah! Christ on the cross! Do you have to do that?"

Arthur tutted as he dabbed his whiskey-soaked cloth more over the whiplashes on Alfred's back, unheeding of his hisses and protests. "It's for your own good, lad, or you won't get healed in time for the next time you fail to escape."

Alfred glared at him over his shoulder, prone on the only cot in the sailor's hold, most of the beds as hammocks. "Who says I'll fail?" Arthur just rolled his eyes and pressed his shoulder down with one hand as he uncorked the whiskey bottle with his teeth.

"Hol' shtill." Alfred started to argue, but Arthur just poured the whiskey straight on the deepest cut, right along his spine, so deep he saw the flash of bone. His stomach turned at the sight, and turned even more as Alfred's hissing gave way to a wail he couldn't repress. "Shh, shh." He quickly recorked the bottle and wiped away the blood and alcohol foaming from the cut. "You'll be all right, lad, don't move, I'm right here."

Eventually Alfred's breathing evened out again, but his eyes stayed screwed shut and his jaw clenched, blood trickling along the valley of his cheekbone. Arthur's heart ached this time, so he busied himself with pressing linen strips along the worst of the weals, whispering comforts all the while. When Alfred could sit up again, he'd wrap them tight.

"I hate this." Alfred's low whisper twisted under Arthur's skin and stayed there. "I hate this ship, and the captain, and the king, and the entire fucking country of Britain-"

"Watch your words there, love, or you might offend me," Arthur said, keeping his tone and touch light. Alfred flashed a pained smile over his shoulder.

"You know you're different." He sighed and relaxed a little on the cot, more like a table - but he hadn't really relaxed since getting press-ganged on this Royal Navy ship seven months ago. "I need to go home."

"A sailor's home is the sea, no matter the master."

"So you say. But you hated your home, just as much as I hate this tub." He knocked his fist, clenched by his head, against the wall at his ear. Then he grinned, and Arthur had to grin back, fingers trailing over the sweat and blood-slick skin at Alfred's neck.

"Hmm. Well, Master 'I'm an American citizen', let's see if you can sit up. I need to wrap you up."