Horatio froze. Many sailors had tattoos, of course. Some just crude things, done with a hot needle and boredom, others more elaborate dedications to their mothers, wives, or ships, crafted in distant ports. Even a few of the older officers had them-Simpson, for example-but none with prospects. True, Archie's was in a place unlikely to be seen, across the right hip bone, but it was still at odds with his expectations for an Earl's son. Of course, Kennedy's manners and behavior were frequently outside what Horatio found seemly for a mere doctor's son, let alone a member of the nobility.
Horatio tried to put it out of his mind, just another aggravating secret. His attention was needed instead for Kennedy's refusal to turn over for him. Though still senseless as best Horatio could tell, the boy resisted his hand urging the mid to shift with an abrupt flailing of limbs that set Horatio back on his heels, forcing him to consider new tactics. While he could overbear Archie, he feared both hurting and rousing the lad prematurely.
With some thought, he took up the nightgown he'd found, now warm from the flames, and began to coax it up Kennedy's arms. Hoping to stave off more protests, Horatio started to talk, just babble at first, little shushes and reassurances. "It's all right, Archie. let's just get you covered, and you'll feel more yourself again. Where is that hand now? Here it is, careful, there's the cuff, and up... isn't it nice?" He moved to the lad's head, and wedged himself under like a pillow. "No, no, don't fuss. It's only me, Horatio. Are you going to lift up for me? Of course you won't."
With a sigh, Horatio heaved up the limp shoulders, using his legs to prop Kennedy long enough for him to ease the shift over the boy's head. "We're just getting you dressed," he said in the same coaxing voice he used with other small animals. He tugged the linen down broad shoulders by feel, aware, under his fingertips, of a few faint ripples, breaking the smoothness of the other mid's skin. More scars, no doubt. These at least were expected; Archie had been flogged on a previous ship and Horatio knew that it was common enough for such punishment to linger on the skin.
He felt carefully as he drew the nightshirt down, checking again for injury. "Shh, Archie, just making sure you haven't hurt yourself," he murmured, at the slight squirming. It seemed only bruises at worst. "Oh, Kennedy, I think you'll do. And we're not on ship anymore, you can sleep in tomorrow, long as you like." Becoming too conscious of the warm body laying on him, and on the strong swells of muscle he was lately handling, Horatio extricated himself.
"You are the most maddening man I have ever met, you know, Archie" Horatio grunted, as he used his own weight to help him pull Kennedy, mattress and all, farther from the fire. He took blanket and sheets from the bed, making up a nest carefully far enough back from the hearth to avoid accidents. "Or might I call you Alex?" He knelt again, tugging more gently than he felt to ease the boy's upper body onto the new pallet. Alexander. It was a grand name, suited to this high-ceilinged room with silver candlesticks and velvet curtains. It did not fit with the irreverent, lazy, jocular, aggravating imp he thought he knew. In this rich house, helpless and vulnerable, with nothing-not expression or wit or even clothes-to hide behind, his sometimes friend seemed just a frightening stranger, too elegant, too far above, to ever be anything to him.
Beyond his reach, yet able to pierce him fatally with one small whimper as Horatio's hands wrapped around the boy's ankles, to heave legs onto the sheets as well. "It's just me, Kennedy," he promised, "moving you somewhere dry, no need to kick." He held tight a moment longer, anticipating the boy waking enough to fight, but Archie lay still, looking at least less a man and more a child with his nightshift rucked around the waist, cock exposed and mouth thrown open, ridiculous and erotic and pitiful.
Horatio gingerly drew the gown down in soft jerks, covering the other's nakedness. "Have I even met you? How should I know?" For himself, he leaned down one last time to kiss hot eyelids, the cheek where a bruise was rising, and the center of the boy's forehead, whispering, "I should very much like to know you, Alexander Archibald Kennedy. I wish you would only let me." He stood then, gathering towels and bowls, returning all to their proper place, and dragging the sodden mattress out of the way.
Fearing for Archie to wake in the dark, Horatio took the time to set a few candles carefully about, where they had no chance of being overturned by a flailing limb or bump against a table. Kennedy had never in his knowing had a second fit in a night, but a nightmare was always possible, or simply a befuddled clumsiness on waking. Horatio considered laying down beside the boy, or even taking Archie's bed, to be close in case of further trouble. But should they be discovered, it would cause talk among the servants that he wanted to avoid.
As he closed the door between their rooms, and made his way back to his own broad, soft bed, Horatio heard nearby birds begin to twitter, though the window showed no sign of impending dawn. He thought he might not sleep, what with fretting over his ill and secretive friend, nerves about Captain Kennedy and the blasted log books, and general worry over the expectations of being an Earl's house guest. Much less because his palms still tingled at the memory of Archie's back and his heart ached with the soft vulnerability of a bitten lip. The brevity of rest in the last twenty four hours proved the master of both anxiety and tenderness, however, and exhaustion pulled him under even as his mind lingered on the puzzle of the tattoo resting so confoundingly upon Archie's iliac crest...
He did not even stir with the expectation of the bells, and woke with the sun full up, and a maid tending to the fire.
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