quigonejinn | Men and boys.

The daydream that plagued Kennedy had to do with being ashore: however, it was not the one about being home again, nor was it the one about blowing the side of Sawyer's head in with a pistol the moment that the Renown paid off.

Instead, it was very much about the fact that Horatio liked the new second lieutenant. Bush's support of Sawyer did not bother Horatio as much as it should have. There had been occaisions, in fact, when Archie had come into the wardroom after being on watch and found Horatio and Bush sitting at the table, talking. Pipe smoke from Bush had made the air thick, as they would have been been talking for a while, either discussing some point of navigation -- in which case Horatio would be the one talking, and there would be a map between them -- or it would have to do with some aspect of seamanship.

In that, latter case, Bush would be giving an account of when a ship he had been in had performed that maneuver. Once, he had been presenting the fine points of shifting three twenty-four pounders at sea in rough weather; another time, he had been discussing rough weather itself. Usually, he would be sitting very close to Horatio. Frequently, they would sit on the same bench, and Bush would demonstrate things with his hands. When Horatio modeled them with his own and made a mistake, Bush would grasp Horatio's fingers and arrange them or move the hand so that it was correct. The angle of the wrist, for example, or the spread of the fingers. Sometimes, he would hold onto Horatio's hand even after the correction had been made. Horatio would let him hold it, and they would sit there, talking, until Archie came in -- somehow, it was worse that Horatio would make a point of cutting that conversation off when Kennedy entered.

After all, Horatio would turn the conversation literature or art or politics, to things things that Bush could not model with his hands. Horatio would stand while Archie put his greatcoat and hat away.

Bush would let go of Horatio's hand. He would nod to Kennedy, slip back into a corner and return to smoking his pipe and looking at nothing in particular with his arms crossed over his chest. Horatio gave every evidence of being as happy to see Archie as he had been to talk to Bush. He would gesture sometimes with his hands, spread his fingers or angle his wrist in a certain way, and this, perhaps, was why Kennedy's daydreams so much in the way of hands.

A low, dark tavern room. On occaision, Horatio could be persuaded into spending his money at more expensive places, but as an old sea dog, Bush would have suggested this as a drinking place, and Horatio would have gone along. By a gesture of the hands, Bush would suggest that the three of them would go upstairs to a room, and together, they would go up the stairs. From seeing Bush at the quarterdeck rail, Kennedy could imagine what Bush's hands might look like on the walls up to the second floor. Perhaps he would put his hand near Horatio's back as the three of them went up together. Perhaps he would even put his hand directly on Horatio.

A lower, darker private room. Archie would find himself a chair; Bush would lock the door, and Horatio would bend down to kiss Bush. Later, after they had both taken off their clothes, Bush would turn Horatio around so that Kennedy could see them -- Archie had seen enough to know what Horatio would look like in that state, but the hand that Bush put along Hornblower's stomach would be new. So, too, the fingers along Horatio's hip, then the hand wrapped around his cock, slow and steady until Horatio had dropped his head back and was actively pressing himself against Bush. Moving himself up and down, his own hand wrapped around Bush's.

The bed would follow.

There were other daydreams, of course -- life at sea was vivid enough that Archie rarely thought of either Simpson or the Spanish prison anymore. Nevertheless, in addition to the usual dreams of women and fresh food and good beds, there were daydreams of his supper turning to a flock of sparrows and flying away under his fingers. In the morning, Archie thought he saw the faces in the morning fog. At night, there were moments when he wondered what it would be like to leap from the mizzenmast. Sawyer was a worry. A terror and a pressure.

Nevertheless, the most persistent of his daydreams came from the sight of Horatio playing the brilliant boy and explaining to Bush. Of Bush playing the wise man and explaining to the attentive boy.

There was the image of Horatio face-down on a bed, underneath Bush, giving voice to pain and lust. The way, at first, Horatio would hold himself still, as he always did on the verge of a great feeling until he gave himself over to it, and how he did give way to it in the end -- a shiver, a gasp, followed by wholehearted passion. Perhaps it would be caused by Bush kissing the back of his neck; perhaps it would be Bush putting a finger in him. Archie had only ever given Horatio the occaisional helping hand and received a helping hand in turn. They had never even kissed, and yet, he could imagine very clearly how Bush might position Horatio's hands, shoulders, and hips so that the two of them might spend a long time in that bed together.

Above all, the daydreams came from Archie's suspicion of what it was that men and boys might do together even if he were there. It was a deep-rooted fear, and in the end, it had very little to do with anything that Kennedy had experience of from his life as a happy, well-loved boy ashore.

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