A/N: I am rusty, so so rusty. And likely there is no one left to read this. But if I don't get it out now, who knows when I ever will. So seven years later, I finally present the world's most awkward sponge bath.
Horatio started where it was safest. With a gentle daubing motion he mopped the trickle of blood tracing down Archie's cheek, chasing it back to its origin. His other hand stroked his friend's damp temple, trying to soothe. Though still apparently unaware, the older boy's eyes were squinched tight, brow wrinkled with pain or its anticipation. The cut had slowed to seeping, and Horatio was able to stop it with some pressure, and clean the dark smears from Archie's hair. He was pleased to see the other mid's face begin to ease. Next he wiped away the sweat, blood, and spittle from lips first pinched tightly, but gradually softening, falling open in a way that made Horatio's gut clench
Kennedy once a fit had passed was always affecting. But Horatio had never seen the aftermath like this, flooded with the light of the fire and half a dozen candles. It gave no cover to the boy's vulnerability, and left Horatio feeling a voyeur. He wasn't meant to see eyelids swollen from shed tears-why had Archie been crying?-or the lower lip jutting out, swollen from being bit. Red freckling suddenly marred otherwise marble pale and translucent skin. A word floated from the memories of his father's medical books: petechiae. He did not know if it was typical, and with less light he'd just not seen it before, or sign of a fit of greater than usual harm. Should he ask John to wake the servants and send for a doctor? Kennedy would hate that.
The boy looked to be in no distress, breathing at a slow and steady rhythm. He would wait. As Horatio removed the last traces from Archie's face and began on neck and shoulders, his fingers felt the prick of stubble where a few hairs along the jaw had escaped a pre-supper shave. Leaning down, and swabbing gently with the damp cloth, he caught the scent of Captain Kennedy's cigars, and under it soap and lavender. He couldn't help but contrast this to the stink of old sweat and dirt of the last, horrible time Horatio had treated Kennedy. He had been stopped then, from the same service he was doing now.
A fancier of other boys. So Simpson had named him, banishing him from Archie's side, and Horatio no longer denied it. He was mad for this hapless, infuriating boy at least. Was there truth in all that vile man had said? Was he even now simply taking his opportunity to ogle and fondle? Was his friend the sort to invite those attentions? Had Kennedy bent over-even thinking the words sent a shudder through him-for other men? Could his own inversion been drawn out through some taint in the older mid? Horatio tumbled over, as he had half a hundred times since it happened, the feeling of Archie's willing, mocking lips against his in the carriage, versus the memory of a fist in his face, and disgust in a dark hold.
His hand slowed, and his gaze dropped down to where it rested. He found it hard to look lower, as if the bright white of Archie's skin could blind him. It was not lust, though his stomach clutched and churned the longer he let his gaze linger on the dusky hair that lightly thatched the chest below him. He felt dizzy, and half ill, but not hot, not like the fever dreams he'd had, of a feminine and child-like Kennedy made of rounded softness, lush and wanton. The reality under him was hard, distant, cool, and very masculine.
Horatio let his washrag slide down over arms he never imagined were so roped with muscle, and recalled the pressure of them wrapped around him, securing him to the shrouds, assuring him he could never fall. This was no womanish catamite. Reaching the end, he found the blood on the boy's knuckles wasn't his. He cleaned the scrapes, brushing the small raised scars he now knew were the broken welts of a caning, meant to teach Kennedy not to climb. He had never asked if Archie had been punished for going aloft to save him anyway.
There were so many things he had never asked Kennedy. And the body laying before the fire answered nothing, just hinted at more secrets. He washed down the rest of Archie's torso, marveling that he had ever thought the boy plump, and wondering at the shyness that led the mid to hide behind oversized clothes and blankets. There was nothing to shame the lad, so compactly put together, symmetrical and strong and lovely. Horatio began to feel faint again, as he started to clean the rippled plane of Archie's stomach, and had to stop. Seeking distraction, his eyes, then fingertips found the thin seam of a scar between the last two ribs, left side, two fingers wide.
The boy under him twitched as he touched it. Even in the oblivion trailing a fit, some remembered pain caused the mid's face to pinch and tighten again. Horatio pulled back his hand at once, but peered closer. It looked like a knife wound. For a moment Horatio thought this must have been what Simpson did, on that shore leave-a lifetime and less than a month ago-that left Archie so sick. But no, it was well-healed and old, he realized. Studying closer, Horatio found several more odd marks, less orderly, most pale with age.
The ratings and older officers of the Justinian had had scars enough, especially those who had fought in past wars. Even peacetime life on a naval ship lent itself to accidents. Archie did say he'd been to battle, but never mentioned any injury that would leave those irregular ridges at his waist. And this one, a partial ragged arc low on the chest, reminded him of a dog bite. Could be this was what Archie did not want others to see? Yet none were disfiguring. No, perhaps it was as the boy had always said, and Kennedy just did not like to be cold. Though it was warm enough close to the fire, Archie looked to be taking a chill, flesh goosepimpling and nipples-Horatio re-wet his washcloth and tried to work more quickly.
Finishing up that disconcertingly firm stomach, he dared to swab lower, and had to look at what he was doing. Though he knew well enough that sleeping cocks lied, Archie's seemed appropriate, being rather thicker than his own, and somewhat shorter, and indefinably more manly. Perhaps it was that it nestled amid a damp mass of curls, darker than the hair on Kennedy's head. Horatio cleaned the his friend's prick with a determined briskness, as much focused on his own body, expecting betrayal, as the helpless one before him. He cursed his lack of gentleness when Archie reacted with a low whine and turned aside, curling slightly, but not quite pulling away.
Still awkward, he tried to part Archie's legs to do a thorough job, but this set off an awful whimpering, and he desisted at once, settling for pouring some of the soapy water over the boy instead. The mattress would dry, and it should serve the purpose. Putting aside cloth and bowl, Horatio was relieved to have the worst done, and to feel no awful stirring in his own groin. He was not so lost, at least, as to find anything alluring in this pitiful scene.
Thinking it was best to be thorough, Horatio girded himself and set hand to Archie's hip, meaning to encourage the boy fully onto one side, so that he could wash his friend's arse down as well. It was then that he saw the mark. Not drying blood or dirt he had missed, but a tattoo the size of his thumbnail, a tiny symbol and the letter J, like the pip for the Jack of Spades.
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