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sonora_conejaPairing: Hannibal/Face, Face/Lynch, H-BAMF(lite)
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: non-con
Summary: Part One of a sequel for The Caribbean.
Basically my own sequel to a fic on the kink meme. Why? Because a comment asked me for more, and then... pirate!Hannibal would simply NOT get out of my head! Rather inconsiderate of him, if you take into account all the embarrassing little moments at work where he pops into mind and I start giggling... anyway, on to the sequel!
The pirate captain John Smith has a daring plan to raid Port Royal and kill his old enemy, Governor Lynch. Templeton’s willing to help, even if it means leaving out some vital little piece of information about the governor’s interest in him...
Lynch awoke with a start, the entire room in the stone fort seeming to lurch all at once, feeling rather like that earthquake he’d experienced as a younger man in Indochina. He cracked a eye and fumbled for the oil lamp he kept by his bedside.
A light was struck, but not by him.
It illuminated the narrow, dark eyes of his captain of the guard, and the colonial magistrate, former colonel, fell back against the headboard, groaning. Must have been kicking the posts again. The man was like a dog after a bone when he wanted something.
“The devil take it, Captain Pike! How many times must I insist that you not enter my bedchambers without my express permission?”
The smaller man just chuckled deep in his throat and slid a hand over Lynch’s leg where it lay under the heavy blankets. “When have I ever not been welcome here, Vance?” he purred.
Lynch slapped the hand away, ignoring the rising heat in his own belly at the words. Pike was a sadistic bastard, violent and inelegant, services for sale to the highest bidder. Made him suited perfectly to certain tasks, and the magistrate had made full use of his range of skills over the past few years.
But he had to be kept in hand.
“Poltroon,” he said witheringly. “What’s the meaning of this? Begging for penetration?”
The smile on that face grew wider, and the Caribbean mercenary slung a leg up, straddling Lynch’s through the covers. “Forgetting how these things work, lover?” he asked, moving up until they were almost touching, almost kissing. "You give it over to me, I take..."
And that earned him a backhand to the cheek, which didn’t quite knock him down. Hard enough to make Lynch feel entirely better about being roused like this. “Remember your place, captain,” he said, staring him down, not betraying the little thrill of panic that ran through him every time Pike did this, whenever they played this game that wasn’t quite a game..
Pike hisses, and yanked the blankets away, running his hands down Lynch through the thin muslin of his nightclothes. The magistrate shuddered.
Certain tasks, indeed.
“Right here, buggering your sweet arse through the...”
“I am not here at your leisure, captain.”
“On the contrary, magistrate,” and the words were blown hot across his cheek in tobacco-tinted breath. “I am here at yours, am I not? It’s been far too long since you made use of my services...”
“Four days?” Lynch scoffed, and pushed back against the man’s insistence, hand between them. “You’re pathetic.”
“Tell me you don’t desire me,” Pike growled, going a little lower, rough palm taking Lynch’s swelling length in hand. “Tell me you want me gone.”
Lynch gasped, and bucked up, grabbing for the headboard to steady himself as the stroking began. “You’d... you’d fuck your own mother to satisfy for lust for flesh.”
Pike laughed, both of them knowing he was going to win this. Just as he always won this. “Who says I didn’t, lover?” he murmured, and nipped hard at an exposed ear.
“Who... who says...” Lynch began, but was cruelly interrupted by a sudden...
BOOOOOOOOOM!
Both of them sat straight up, Pike tearing his hands away, ears pricked, eyes wide, coiled like a hound on the scent.
BOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!
They looked at each other.
BOOOOMBOOOOMBOOOOMBOOOOMBOOOOM!
“Cannon,” Lynch groaned, but Pike was already tearing out of the room, alarms sounding from the guardposts outside on the fort walls, the sound of exploding shot filling the air, the smells of sulfur and gunpowder and stone dust rising bright in the dark of night.
The magistrate sighed and went for his dressing gown, cast over the back of a chair by the sea-facing window. He leaned out this for a moment, scanning for... there, that, right there. A dark ship in the dark bay, guns blazing red, shining on the still waters. Pirate, judging from the lack of flag,
But Lynch wasn’t worried, and rightly so. All confidence was justified in the morning, ship turned tail and running within a few hours, and he finished breakfast as he took the captain's report.
The fort had repelled worse than this, was built to withstand the parasitic attacks of the region’s pirating sons-of-whores, and although a wave of the blaggarts had swept through the town that night and more than a few of his men toppled dead from the walls and the naval vessel at port was found smoldering in the dawn light, powder kegs all blown to hell, all in all, the damage wasn’t bad.
“Was there anything else, captain?” the magistrate asked idly, toying with his knife, playing with a piece of fruit as he waited for one of the slaves to fetch him his morning chocolate.
The mercenary glared at him, sweat streaking lines through the black residue of the night’s fighting still on his face. “One more thing, sir,” he answered evenly, and whistled to one of his men.
“A surprise, then?” Lynch asked without really any concern, and flicked his long ponytail back over his shoulder.
“I know how much you love them... sir.”
A bedraggled, sodden bundle of humanity was tossed at his feet. “Miserable wretch was at the gates this morning, begging to see you. Thought I might just toss him in the stockade but a few of the slaves said they recognized him.”
Shining blue eyes under matted blonde hair... Lynch stabbed his knife into the fruit and forced the thing’s head back, smiling a little with recognition. “Captain Pike, surely you recall our Templeton Peck,” he said, and laid a hand on the young Virgina man’s cheek. He hadn’t hoped to see his secretary again, not since he’d caught word that his ship had gone down with all hands about four months ago. And such a loss, too. That fine body, that face, just begging to be possessed.
The young man had always rebuffed his advances, and Lynch had come close to just locking him in a room and ravishing him on more than one occasion. And maybe, maybe this would be his opportunity to finally have him. “Where’ve you been, lad?”
“Captured,” he mumbled, twisting out of Lynch’s hand and flopping back on the floor. He stank. Completely soaked through with seawater, offal, hideous, truly. “They, they...oh sir, I understand if you wouldn’t want me back, sullied so, but I recognized the fort walls and I only barely managed the swim...”
He did look thin, too thin, under the rags he was wearing, and if he’d swum, that smell was probably from the last hundred of so yards of the tide, where the city’s refuse washed from the streets into the sea.
“You weren’t in the brig?” Templeton somehow curled up into an even more miserable mess, and Lynch felt a wave of anger. If someone had already taken his prize. “I won’t be mad, lad.”
“Captain ... a Captain Smith, m’lord. He was kind at first, and then...”
Peck looked up at him with those confused blue eyes, and Lynch rang a bell by his plate. “Don’t worry, Templeton. I won’t cast you away. You’re home now.”
“Thank you,” the young man mumbled, and his tone suggested nothing but pure gratitude.
A uniformed slave appeared from the kitchens or somewhere, and Lynch waved at his former secretary. “Draw a bath for Master Peck here, get him cleaned up, feed him and have his old quarters fixed up.” He turned his attention back to the yong man. “Can you stand, Templeton?”
The exhausted secretary nodded and pushed off the floor, following the slave back towards wherever she was leading. He cast a backwards glance at Lynch and Pike, who’d been silent through the whole exchange, and padded away.
“You know this Captain Smith, Vance?” Pike asked as soon as they were alone, staring at the wet spot on the floor, and Lynch made a note to have it cleaned up. And possibly have Pike flogged for his excessive familiarity.
“Possibly. Do you remember all your old enemies?”
“I find it good policy to keep an index of men who’d have me dead,” Pike said with a shrug, like it didn’t fucking matter to him. Maybe it didn’t. He was a dead-eyed sort of man, after all.
“Old enemies...” and Lynch had a sudden rememberance, an Irish-born naval commander with silver-streaked chestnut hair and eyes like the North Sea, the captain of the ship that had once carried him to the lucrative trading ports of the South China Sea, a young ensign himself...
The magistrate started laughing. A hell of a thing that would be, wouldn’t it? That insufferably noble SOB, gone pirate?
Pie watched him for a moment, cocked his head and then grunted a little. “That’s my report, magistrate. Crisis adverted and all that.” He leaned in. “Why don’t we pick up where we left off?”
Lynch kept chuckling.
"You like that idea?"
“Oh, I like.”
On the far side of the island, ship partially hidden in a little cove and safe for the moment from the threat of pursuit, Captain Smith paced the floor of his cabin. Four from balcony to door, six from side to side. Cold sheets in his bunk. Cold, where there usually was so much warmth. Almighty god above, what had he...
The door creaked, feet on the wood, one set bare, the other just heavy. “We’re at anchor, sir. Crew’s bunking down. I’ve posted a skeleton watch.”
“Thank you, HM,” he replied, still staring at the empty space where his sweet lad should have been.
The pirate was caught from behind in a bear hug, those familiar arms holding him close, his bosun nuzzling his cheek into a shoulder blade. “He’s really gone, isn’t he, John?”
His right-hand man never addressed him by his given name, never outside of intense arousal or in periods of depression, and John couldn’t allow that, not right now. He shifted them around, gathering HM in close. “Yes, Henry, he’s gone.”
It was a blow, to be sure. The lad had proven himself an invaluable asset to the crew, and as for their nightly amusements, well, the young Virginian had proven himself an adept and enthusiastic pupil.
“Don’t like this, captain,” growled Baracus, coming over now to lay a reassuring hand on HM’s back, rubbing softly. “You got no idea what sorts’a’things Master ... things Lynch wants t’do to...”
“Templeton explained it to me in detail,” the pirate captain said, a growl of his own creeping into his voice. He’d hardly needed fresh reason to want to kill Lynch, but after his sweet lad had told him about his first week in the fort, barely avoiding the man’s advances, and the scars Baracus himself had grudgingly revealed, attributed to the man’s idea of discipline... “Don’t worry about him. He’s turned out to be as good at subterfuge as any I’ve seen before.” Better, he thought to himself. The man was a genius with a lie. “He’ll carry this plan.”
“I hate this plan, John,” HM whispered againt his chest, and Captain Smith nodded. They’d become so close over the past few months, the happiest he could remember in an age. All of them, close, but those two especially. “I hate thinkin’ he’d betray you...”
Baracus looked at him, concern registering in those chocolate eyes of his. “He’d never betray the captain, or you, to that piece of scum,” he told the bosun firmly and bundled HM up into his own arms, pulling him back into the captain’s bunk. It was bigger now, the former slave’s own handiwork. Still a little tight, but none of them had ever complained. “Loves you, like we do...”
“Boots off,” John said distractedly, going for his pipe. Lighting up, he took a deep, steadying lungful of smoke. Held it in, felt the burn in his heart. He wanted to skin that poxy bastard Lynch, but getting into the fort was going to take more than brute strength.
“Ain’t doing anything until...”
“...we’ve got Templeton back.”
A small smile played over his lips, the first since Templeton had suggested this course of action. His lads, making such a pact. Warmed his heart. “We’ll get him back. I swore it to him.”
He looked over at them then, two pairs of eyes watching him, trusting him, and he felt a surge of relief. “This plan’s going to work, lads. A few days, let Templeton work his magic. And when we tear that place down around him, it’ll be my hand that puts a shot between Lynch’s eyes.”
“I like that idea,” Baracus growled, and HM nodded his own agreement.
John stared out the windows, towards the open ocean, where he wanted to be, where he’d soon be again, Templeton back in place with him, with them, in this crew, on this ship, where he belonged. While the fish picked Lynch’s bones clean. And he grinned at the thought, feral.
“As do I, my friend. As do I.”
+++++
Templeton tried to relax as the pretty young slavegirl dipped the cloth back in the warm tub and went to work on his back. She hadn’t said a word to him, her dark eyes pointedly avoiding his, cast down at the floor.
They were in a little side room off the kitchen. The huge African woman who ran the place, Baracus’ mother, if he remembered correctly, had insisted upon it, shoving a huge steaming bowl of sweet potatoes in front of him. Slave fare, but he’d often come down here and begged her for it, and part of him was touched she’d remembered.
And now the warmth of the meal filled his belly and the water was heavenly, and he could almost let himself relax.
Almost.
The cloth felt good, but he caught her wrist as she brought it back up, around his shoulders, and that pulled a litle gasp from her. “I can bathe myself, girl,” he told her, taking the cloth away. “No need for you to do it.”
“Master Lynch said...”
“I won’t tell him,” he promised, but she was trembling. Templeton sighed. He’d been on Captain Smith’s crew barely four months, but it seemed a lifetime. A lifetime, away from this. Slavery was a fixture of life from Richmond to Barbados, but Lynch had always been a little excessive, not out of some cruel drive, but more from forgetfulness and lack of concern. The man cared for no one. “You do not have to be scared of me.”
“Master Templeton,” she asked, and then stopped when he shifted to look at her. “I apologize, I speak out of turn.”
“Baracus?” he asked, and that pulled a smile from her. “The captain of the ship magnanimously offered him a berth, which he accepted without hesitation. I assure you, he is fine.”
“Pirate?”
“Aye, lass,” he replied, knowing full well the story would be around the entire fort by day’s end. Good. Give them all some hope, and maybe some possibilities for...
She nodded, and smiled, and took the cloth back from him, going about the grime on his shoulders with renewed vigor and less sadness. The blonde didn’t bother fighting her this time, just leaned back in the copper tub and let her take the evidence of his supposed escape off of him. It seemed a comprehensive effort for her.
He’d insisted on rough treatment the last week or so, starvation rations and no comforts, going at far as sleeping on deck, exposed, nothing so good as the warm softness of John’s bed and John’s welcoming body.
The Virginian smiled a little, thinking of his lover, the fit he’d thrown at the mere suggestion of it. But Templeton had held firm, needing firm evidence in order to play better this part now, and John had taken him on deck anyway last night, fast and insistent, under the stars, just like the older man loved so much.
Promise you will return to me, lad. Promise me. John had whispered in his ear, laying down next to him on the sea-worn wooden planks. You belong here with us...
I would sail to the gates of hellfire and back for you, John.
And I you, lad...
And Templeton’s smile faltered, realizing that was exactly what he was doing here, just as the door banged open.
The slavegirl’s smile vanished, and she lowered her head again. “
“Don’t be so nice to this one, she’ll get all spoiled and we’ll have to have her beaten or something,” Lynch said casually, dropping into the chair where a set of clean clothes had been laid out for the former secretary. “How are you feeling, lad?”
Templeton forced a thin smile, like he was long out of practice with it, and nodded. “I am as well as can be expected, governor. ‘Twas a long swim.” He stood up, back to Lynch, wanting the man out, not able to express such a sentiment, knowing full well those eyes were upon him.
The slave wordlessly held out a towel, face strained, clearly trying to tell him something. He winked at her, unable to nod, and let her start drying him off.
“Through refuse, no less,” Lynch observed. “At least you smell less odious now, Peck.”
“Yes, governor,” and he chewed the inside of his cheek, considering his next move as the last bit of moisture possible was wicked from his skin in the hot, humid little room.
The plan was simple - John wanted to blow the fort and kill Lynch. Neither could be accomplished from outside the thick walls, but access to the magazine offered goodly possibilities for the place’s destruction, and Templeton had argued that he’d be able to get Lynch anywhere John wished him to be.
“Ten paces”, John had growled, and kissed him on their cabin balcony as Templeton prepared to disembark into the harbor’s waters during the previous night’s shelling.
“So he can see the look on his face as his worthless life drains out,” HM added, eyes flat, playing with the edge of his own blade, some of that madness creeping into his words.
He hadn’t explained to the captain, or any of them, how he planned on getting the man’s trust. Before, before John had shown him the nature of such things, he hadn’t truly understood Lynch’s interest in him. Before John had made him realize how good it could be...
But Templeton took a deep breath and tried to push the recollection of all of that, their last kiss from his mind, so forceful, stealing his air away.
Turning around, he smiled at the magistrate and held out his hand. “Can you pass me those breeches, sir?”
Lynch threw them over, expression...odd. Unhappy and yet pleased somehow. “Your frame is thinner than when you left.”
Fresh air, daily sparring, sometimes sparse meals, and then there was the last week... Templeton knew his scars were more prominent right now, tight against his ribs. John, who boasted a more extensive but older set from his own days as a cabin boy, had lamented this. The younger man looked away, purposely not answering him as he pulled the tight garment up, settling them around his hips. He held out his hand for the blouse, and Lynch offered it up, but caught his arm as he reached for it.
“You said sullied before, lad. What did you mean by that?”
Templeton let his whole body sag. “The captain, he wanted to, he intended, but, ah, but I did not allow it, refused him...”
“He bugger you, lad?”
Templeton again didn’t say anything, letting his silence speak for him. After a long moment, sensing the other man’s ire beginning to rise, he leaned back against the nearest wall and closed his eyes. “Please, let me stay, m’lord. I know I am ruined, but if you turn me out, I do not know where I am to go...”
Lynch got to his feet. He leaned in a little, just taking the younger man in, almost how John looked at him. Exactly how the magistrate used to look at the younger man while he was in his employ. The former secretary bit down the sudden rise of anger flaring up in him, schooling his features into something slightly scared, extremely wary, hoping this was going to work.
Finally, Lynch laughed in that way he did, and fingered a strand of Templeton’s hair, still wet from the bath and laying heavy on his bare back. It dripped down the sleeve of the govenor’s rich jacket, the Venetian lace bunched around. “I trust we can come to some kind of arrangement,” he said sftly.
“Thank you, sir,” Templeton replied, listening to his voice shake.
“Get dressed,” Lynch said, letting go and walking away, opening the door. There was somebody standing out in the kitchen, short, dark, frowning back at him, wrapped in soldier’s garb. Somebody new, and the Virginian watched with interest as the two spoke softly together, walking away. “Then come to my office. We’ll talk about your former position.”
Templeton walked over and slammed the door shut, heart pounding in his ears. If he actually had to bed this man, John’s enemy, Baracus’ former owner, would his lovers ever forgive him? But if that was the only way of killing the whoreson...
“Master, you alright, sir?” the slavegirl, still huddled in the corner, asked.
He nodded. He could do this. He could do this for John. For HM, who seemed to take the ancient insult as deeply as did their captain. For Baracus, who’d suffered under that man’s ownership. The man pulled the white linen shirt on, adjusting the neck a little, and motioned to the boots by the chair. “Help me with these,” he told her.
“Certainly,” she replied.
Swimming to shore last night, he had been afraid of getting too comfortable here.
Suddenly, he didn’t think that was going to be a problem.
+++++
It was three days, maybe four, before Templeton was able to slip from the fort. Lynch had him working again, little tasks, some of his old work. Taking dictation and examining correspondence. Nothing strenuous. The govenor was specific on that.
He was unable to relax, though. His old room, small and sparse, seemed even colder than it once had. Bare stone, where John’s quarters were warm wood and beautifully furnished. The entire fort felt like that, actually. He missed the roll of the sea, the smell of the salt air, and he didn’t even need to force the desperation with which he asked Lynch if he could take a walk about the town.
Pike, that new man who seemed to running the guard now, had frowned at the request. Templeton didn’t know what to think of that one. He’d been watching him since he’d arrived back here. Mercenary, clearly, not proper military, and probably a suspicious man by nature. But something else was going on. Some kind of jealously or resentment, and Templeton didn’t want to tempt fate by provoking the mercenary’s anger
Thank Providence Lynch let him go that afternoon.
They had set up arrangments, meeting times and places. Templeton had an hour window, every day, with which to talk to them. Late afternoon, a tavern HM had described quite well and one Templeton found easily enough. Evidently, he and John had attempted assassination a few years ago.
The bosun was sitting back in a smoky corner, wrapped in a rough cloak and playing with a half-empty tankard of local rum. Those mad, bright eyes caught Templeton’s attention, and he slipped in next to his friend.
A hand was laid over his. “You well?”
“As well as can be,” Templeton said, and took a deep drag from HM’s rum. It burned wonderfully. “And you?”
That hand squeezed. “The captain’s out of his mind with need for you,” and Templeton sighed as HM leaned in further and played with his ear, “as are we all.”
Missed? Truly? “Henry...”
“So,” HM said, pulling back and smiling a little. “When are we to scale the castle walls and slay the dragon?”
Templeton grinned in reply and thought of the intelligence he had collected over the last few days. “There’s a new man in the fort who has the keys to the armory, captain of the guard, name of Pike...”
“Pike?” HM asked sharply.
“Is he an old acquaintence of yours?”
“John and I have run across him before,” HM said and tapped the table. “Are you sure he has the keys?”
“Yes.”
“No other set with Lynch?”
“Not that I can discern.”
The pirate nodded slowly. “If Pike is involved, the captain may wish to...”
“No, no. I can get the keys,” Templeton said firmly, thinking about how important this was to John. “I can do this.”
“When?”
“At the captain’s leisure.”
HM took his rum back. “No good, amigo, captain will want a time. Tomorrow night agreeable?”
The younger man felt his heart leap. Oh, the prospect of having this mission done. “Very much so.”
“Great!” HM clapped his hands together, scooted out of his chair. Nothing more needed to be said. They’d gone over and over the plan, signals and times and positions, no use in further, but the pirate’s earrings jingled rhythmically as he brought their faces close. “Templeton? It is wrong of me to steal a kiss?”
“Very dashing of you, Master Henry,” Templeton replied in kind, and HM took the liberty of pressing their lips ever so softly together. So much sweeter than John or Baracus, love them all though he did, Templeton thought. He parted just a little, licking lightly, tasting rum and smoke and that hint of madness HM carried. “Very much like a pirate.”
HM grinned wide, and slipped away without another word. The former secretary waited a few minutes, threw a few coins on the table - the bosun always forgot to pay - and passed back out in the sunlight of the later afternoon. John, coming for him the day after this. His heart felt light.
Caught up in his happy thoughts like he was, Templeton missed the single figure following him through the busy streets of Port Royal, all the way back to the fort.
Continue to Part Two
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: non-con
Summary: Part One of a sequel for The Caribbean.
Basically my own sequel to a fic on the kink meme. Why? Because a comment asked me for more, and then... pirate!Hannibal would simply NOT get out of my head! Rather inconsiderate of him, if you take into account all the embarrassing little moments at work where he pops into mind and I start giggling... anyway, on to the sequel!
The pirate captain John Smith has a daring plan to raid Port Royal and kill his old enemy, Governor Lynch. Templeton’s willing to help, even if it means leaving out some vital little piece of information about the governor’s interest in him...
Lynch awoke with a start, the entire room in the stone fort seeming to lurch all at once, feeling rather like that earthquake he’d experienced as a younger man in Indochina. He cracked a eye and fumbled for the oil lamp he kept by his bedside.
A light was struck, but not by him.
It illuminated the narrow, dark eyes of his captain of the guard, and the colonial magistrate, former colonel, fell back against the headboard, groaning. Must have been kicking the posts again. The man was like a dog after a bone when he wanted something.
“The devil take it, Captain Pike! How many times must I insist that you not enter my bedchambers without my express permission?”
The smaller man just chuckled deep in his throat and slid a hand over Lynch’s leg where it lay under the heavy blankets. “When have I ever not been welcome here, Vance?” he purred.
Lynch slapped the hand away, ignoring the rising heat in his own belly at the words. Pike was a sadistic bastard, violent and inelegant, services for sale to the highest bidder. Made him suited perfectly to certain tasks, and the magistrate had made full use of his range of skills over the past few years.
But he had to be kept in hand.
“Poltroon,” he said witheringly. “What’s the meaning of this? Begging for penetration?”
The smile on that face grew wider, and the Caribbean mercenary slung a leg up, straddling Lynch’s through the covers. “Forgetting how these things work, lover?” he asked, moving up until they were almost touching, almost kissing. "You give it over to me, I take..."
And that earned him a backhand to the cheek, which didn’t quite knock him down. Hard enough to make Lynch feel entirely better about being roused like this. “Remember your place, captain,” he said, staring him down, not betraying the little thrill of panic that ran through him every time Pike did this, whenever they played this game that wasn’t quite a game..
Pike hisses, and yanked the blankets away, running his hands down Lynch through the thin muslin of his nightclothes. The magistrate shuddered.
Certain tasks, indeed.
“Right here, buggering your sweet arse through the...”
“I am not here at your leisure, captain.”
“On the contrary, magistrate,” and the words were blown hot across his cheek in tobacco-tinted breath. “I am here at yours, am I not? It’s been far too long since you made use of my services...”
“Four days?” Lynch scoffed, and pushed back against the man’s insistence, hand between them. “You’re pathetic.”
“Tell me you don’t desire me,” Pike growled, going a little lower, rough palm taking Lynch’s swelling length in hand. “Tell me you want me gone.”
Lynch gasped, and bucked up, grabbing for the headboard to steady himself as the stroking began. “You’d... you’d fuck your own mother to satisfy for lust for flesh.”
Pike laughed, both of them knowing he was going to win this. Just as he always won this. “Who says I didn’t, lover?” he murmured, and nipped hard at an exposed ear.
“Who... who says...” Lynch began, but was cruelly interrupted by a sudden...
BOOOOOOOOOM!
Both of them sat straight up, Pike tearing his hands away, ears pricked, eyes wide, coiled like a hound on the scent.
BOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!
They looked at each other.
BOOOOMBOOOOMBOOOOMBOOOOMBOOOOM!
“Cannon,” Lynch groaned, but Pike was already tearing out of the room, alarms sounding from the guardposts outside on the fort walls, the sound of exploding shot filling the air, the smells of sulfur and gunpowder and stone dust rising bright in the dark of night.
The magistrate sighed and went for his dressing gown, cast over the back of a chair by the sea-facing window. He leaned out this for a moment, scanning for... there, that, right there. A dark ship in the dark bay, guns blazing red, shining on the still waters. Pirate, judging from the lack of flag,
But Lynch wasn’t worried, and rightly so. All confidence was justified in the morning, ship turned tail and running within a few hours, and he finished breakfast as he took the captain's report.
The fort had repelled worse than this, was built to withstand the parasitic attacks of the region’s pirating sons-of-whores, and although a wave of the blaggarts had swept through the town that night and more than a few of his men toppled dead from the walls and the naval vessel at port was found smoldering in the dawn light, powder kegs all blown to hell, all in all, the damage wasn’t bad.
“Was there anything else, captain?” the magistrate asked idly, toying with his knife, playing with a piece of fruit as he waited for one of the slaves to fetch him his morning chocolate.
The mercenary glared at him, sweat streaking lines through the black residue of the night’s fighting still on his face. “One more thing, sir,” he answered evenly, and whistled to one of his men.
“A surprise, then?” Lynch asked without really any concern, and flicked his long ponytail back over his shoulder.
“I know how much you love them... sir.”
A bedraggled, sodden bundle of humanity was tossed at his feet. “Miserable wretch was at the gates this morning, begging to see you. Thought I might just toss him in the stockade but a few of the slaves said they recognized him.”
Shining blue eyes under matted blonde hair... Lynch stabbed his knife into the fruit and forced the thing’s head back, smiling a little with recognition. “Captain Pike, surely you recall our Templeton Peck,” he said, and laid a hand on the young Virgina man’s cheek. He hadn’t hoped to see his secretary again, not since he’d caught word that his ship had gone down with all hands about four months ago. And such a loss, too. That fine body, that face, just begging to be possessed.
The young man had always rebuffed his advances, and Lynch had come close to just locking him in a room and ravishing him on more than one occasion. And maybe, maybe this would be his opportunity to finally have him. “Where’ve you been, lad?”
“Captured,” he mumbled, twisting out of Lynch’s hand and flopping back on the floor. He stank. Completely soaked through with seawater, offal, hideous, truly. “They, they...oh sir, I understand if you wouldn’t want me back, sullied so, but I recognized the fort walls and I only barely managed the swim...”
He did look thin, too thin, under the rags he was wearing, and if he’d swum, that smell was probably from the last hundred of so yards of the tide, where the city’s refuse washed from the streets into the sea.
“You weren’t in the brig?” Templeton somehow curled up into an even more miserable mess, and Lynch felt a wave of anger. If someone had already taken his prize. “I won’t be mad, lad.”
“Captain ... a Captain Smith, m’lord. He was kind at first, and then...”
Peck looked up at him with those confused blue eyes, and Lynch rang a bell by his plate. “Don’t worry, Templeton. I won’t cast you away. You’re home now.”
“Thank you,” the young man mumbled, and his tone suggested nothing but pure gratitude.
A uniformed slave appeared from the kitchens or somewhere, and Lynch waved at his former secretary. “Draw a bath for Master Peck here, get him cleaned up, feed him and have his old quarters fixed up.” He turned his attention back to the yong man. “Can you stand, Templeton?”
The exhausted secretary nodded and pushed off the floor, following the slave back towards wherever she was leading. He cast a backwards glance at Lynch and Pike, who’d been silent through the whole exchange, and padded away.
“You know this Captain Smith, Vance?” Pike asked as soon as they were alone, staring at the wet spot on the floor, and Lynch made a note to have it cleaned up. And possibly have Pike flogged for his excessive familiarity.
“Possibly. Do you remember all your old enemies?”
“I find it good policy to keep an index of men who’d have me dead,” Pike said with a shrug, like it didn’t fucking matter to him. Maybe it didn’t. He was a dead-eyed sort of man, after all.
“Old enemies...” and Lynch had a sudden rememberance, an Irish-born naval commander with silver-streaked chestnut hair and eyes like the North Sea, the captain of the ship that had once carried him to the lucrative trading ports of the South China Sea, a young ensign himself...
The magistrate started laughing. A hell of a thing that would be, wouldn’t it? That insufferably noble SOB, gone pirate?
Pie watched him for a moment, cocked his head and then grunted a little. “That’s my report, magistrate. Crisis adverted and all that.” He leaned in. “Why don’t we pick up where we left off?”
Lynch kept chuckling.
"You like that idea?"
“Oh, I like.”
On the far side of the island, ship partially hidden in a little cove and safe for the moment from the threat of pursuit, Captain Smith paced the floor of his cabin. Four from balcony to door, six from side to side. Cold sheets in his bunk. Cold, where there usually was so much warmth. Almighty god above, what had he...
The door creaked, feet on the wood, one set bare, the other just heavy. “We’re at anchor, sir. Crew’s bunking down. I’ve posted a skeleton watch.”
“Thank you, HM,” he replied, still staring at the empty space where his sweet lad should have been.
The pirate was caught from behind in a bear hug, those familiar arms holding him close, his bosun nuzzling his cheek into a shoulder blade. “He’s really gone, isn’t he, John?”
His right-hand man never addressed him by his given name, never outside of intense arousal or in periods of depression, and John couldn’t allow that, not right now. He shifted them around, gathering HM in close. “Yes, Henry, he’s gone.”
It was a blow, to be sure. The lad had proven himself an invaluable asset to the crew, and as for their nightly amusements, well, the young Virginian had proven himself an adept and enthusiastic pupil.
“Don’t like this, captain,” growled Baracus, coming over now to lay a reassuring hand on HM’s back, rubbing softly. “You got no idea what sorts’a’things Master ... things Lynch wants t’do to...”
“Templeton explained it to me in detail,” the pirate captain said, a growl of his own creeping into his voice. He’d hardly needed fresh reason to want to kill Lynch, but after his sweet lad had told him about his first week in the fort, barely avoiding the man’s advances, and the scars Baracus himself had grudgingly revealed, attributed to the man’s idea of discipline... “Don’t worry about him. He’s turned out to be as good at subterfuge as any I’ve seen before.” Better, he thought to himself. The man was a genius with a lie. “He’ll carry this plan.”
“I hate this plan, John,” HM whispered againt his chest, and Captain Smith nodded. They’d become so close over the past few months, the happiest he could remember in an age. All of them, close, but those two especially. “I hate thinkin’ he’d betray you...”
Baracus looked at him, concern registering in those chocolate eyes of his. “He’d never betray the captain, or you, to that piece of scum,” he told the bosun firmly and bundled HM up into his own arms, pulling him back into the captain’s bunk. It was bigger now, the former slave’s own handiwork. Still a little tight, but none of them had ever complained. “Loves you, like we do...”
“Boots off,” John said distractedly, going for his pipe. Lighting up, he took a deep, steadying lungful of smoke. Held it in, felt the burn in his heart. He wanted to skin that poxy bastard Lynch, but getting into the fort was going to take more than brute strength.
“Ain’t doing anything until...”
“...we’ve got Templeton back.”
A small smile played over his lips, the first since Templeton had suggested this course of action. His lads, making such a pact. Warmed his heart. “We’ll get him back. I swore it to him.”
He looked over at them then, two pairs of eyes watching him, trusting him, and he felt a surge of relief. “This plan’s going to work, lads. A few days, let Templeton work his magic. And when we tear that place down around him, it’ll be my hand that puts a shot between Lynch’s eyes.”
“I like that idea,” Baracus growled, and HM nodded his own agreement.
John stared out the windows, towards the open ocean, where he wanted to be, where he’d soon be again, Templeton back in place with him, with them, in this crew, on this ship, where he belonged. While the fish picked Lynch’s bones clean. And he grinned at the thought, feral.
“As do I, my friend. As do I.”
+++++
Templeton tried to relax as the pretty young slavegirl dipped the cloth back in the warm tub and went to work on his back. She hadn’t said a word to him, her dark eyes pointedly avoiding his, cast down at the floor.
They were in a little side room off the kitchen. The huge African woman who ran the place, Baracus’ mother, if he remembered correctly, had insisted upon it, shoving a huge steaming bowl of sweet potatoes in front of him. Slave fare, but he’d often come down here and begged her for it, and part of him was touched she’d remembered.
And now the warmth of the meal filled his belly and the water was heavenly, and he could almost let himself relax.
Almost.
The cloth felt good, but he caught her wrist as she brought it back up, around his shoulders, and that pulled a litle gasp from her. “I can bathe myself, girl,” he told her, taking the cloth away. “No need for you to do it.”
“Master Lynch said...”
“I won’t tell him,” he promised, but she was trembling. Templeton sighed. He’d been on Captain Smith’s crew barely four months, but it seemed a lifetime. A lifetime, away from this. Slavery was a fixture of life from Richmond to Barbados, but Lynch had always been a little excessive, not out of some cruel drive, but more from forgetfulness and lack of concern. The man cared for no one. “You do not have to be scared of me.”
“Master Templeton,” she asked, and then stopped when he shifted to look at her. “I apologize, I speak out of turn.”
“Baracus?” he asked, and that pulled a smile from her. “The captain of the ship magnanimously offered him a berth, which he accepted without hesitation. I assure you, he is fine.”
“Pirate?”
“Aye, lass,” he replied, knowing full well the story would be around the entire fort by day’s end. Good. Give them all some hope, and maybe some possibilities for...
She nodded, and smiled, and took the cloth back from him, going about the grime on his shoulders with renewed vigor and less sadness. The blonde didn’t bother fighting her this time, just leaned back in the copper tub and let her take the evidence of his supposed escape off of him. It seemed a comprehensive effort for her.
He’d insisted on rough treatment the last week or so, starvation rations and no comforts, going at far as sleeping on deck, exposed, nothing so good as the warm softness of John’s bed and John’s welcoming body.
The Virginian smiled a little, thinking of his lover, the fit he’d thrown at the mere suggestion of it. But Templeton had held firm, needing firm evidence in order to play better this part now, and John had taken him on deck anyway last night, fast and insistent, under the stars, just like the older man loved so much.
Promise you will return to me, lad. Promise me. John had whispered in his ear, laying down next to him on the sea-worn wooden planks. You belong here with us...
I would sail to the gates of hellfire and back for you, John.
And I you, lad...
And Templeton’s smile faltered, realizing that was exactly what he was doing here, just as the door banged open.
The slavegirl’s smile vanished, and she lowered her head again. “
“Don’t be so nice to this one, she’ll get all spoiled and we’ll have to have her beaten or something,” Lynch said casually, dropping into the chair where a set of clean clothes had been laid out for the former secretary. “How are you feeling, lad?”
Templeton forced a thin smile, like he was long out of practice with it, and nodded. “I am as well as can be expected, governor. ‘Twas a long swim.” He stood up, back to Lynch, wanting the man out, not able to express such a sentiment, knowing full well those eyes were upon him.
The slave wordlessly held out a towel, face strained, clearly trying to tell him something. He winked at her, unable to nod, and let her start drying him off.
“Through refuse, no less,” Lynch observed. “At least you smell less odious now, Peck.”
“Yes, governor,” and he chewed the inside of his cheek, considering his next move as the last bit of moisture possible was wicked from his skin in the hot, humid little room.
The plan was simple - John wanted to blow the fort and kill Lynch. Neither could be accomplished from outside the thick walls, but access to the magazine offered goodly possibilities for the place’s destruction, and Templeton had argued that he’d be able to get Lynch anywhere John wished him to be.
“Ten paces”, John had growled, and kissed him on their cabin balcony as Templeton prepared to disembark into the harbor’s waters during the previous night’s shelling.
“So he can see the look on his face as his worthless life drains out,” HM added, eyes flat, playing with the edge of his own blade, some of that madness creeping into his words.
He hadn’t explained to the captain, or any of them, how he planned on getting the man’s trust. Before, before John had shown him the nature of such things, he hadn’t truly understood Lynch’s interest in him. Before John had made him realize how good it could be...
But Templeton took a deep breath and tried to push the recollection of all of that, their last kiss from his mind, so forceful, stealing his air away.
Turning around, he smiled at the magistrate and held out his hand. “Can you pass me those breeches, sir?”
Lynch threw them over, expression...odd. Unhappy and yet pleased somehow. “Your frame is thinner than when you left.”
Fresh air, daily sparring, sometimes sparse meals, and then there was the last week... Templeton knew his scars were more prominent right now, tight against his ribs. John, who boasted a more extensive but older set from his own days as a cabin boy, had lamented this. The younger man looked away, purposely not answering him as he pulled the tight garment up, settling them around his hips. He held out his hand for the blouse, and Lynch offered it up, but caught his arm as he reached for it.
“You said sullied before, lad. What did you mean by that?”
Templeton let his whole body sag. “The captain, he wanted to, he intended, but, ah, but I did not allow it, refused him...”
“He bugger you, lad?”
Templeton again didn’t say anything, letting his silence speak for him. After a long moment, sensing the other man’s ire beginning to rise, he leaned back against the nearest wall and closed his eyes. “Please, let me stay, m’lord. I know I am ruined, but if you turn me out, I do not know where I am to go...”
Lynch got to his feet. He leaned in a little, just taking the younger man in, almost how John looked at him. Exactly how the magistrate used to look at the younger man while he was in his employ. The former secretary bit down the sudden rise of anger flaring up in him, schooling his features into something slightly scared, extremely wary, hoping this was going to work.
Finally, Lynch laughed in that way he did, and fingered a strand of Templeton’s hair, still wet from the bath and laying heavy on his bare back. It dripped down the sleeve of the govenor’s rich jacket, the Venetian lace bunched around. “I trust we can come to some kind of arrangement,” he said sftly.
“Thank you, sir,” Templeton replied, listening to his voice shake.
“Get dressed,” Lynch said, letting go and walking away, opening the door. There was somebody standing out in the kitchen, short, dark, frowning back at him, wrapped in soldier’s garb. Somebody new, and the Virginian watched with interest as the two spoke softly together, walking away. “Then come to my office. We’ll talk about your former position.”
Templeton walked over and slammed the door shut, heart pounding in his ears. If he actually had to bed this man, John’s enemy, Baracus’ former owner, would his lovers ever forgive him? But if that was the only way of killing the whoreson...
“Master, you alright, sir?” the slavegirl, still huddled in the corner, asked.
He nodded. He could do this. He could do this for John. For HM, who seemed to take the ancient insult as deeply as did their captain. For Baracus, who’d suffered under that man’s ownership. The man pulled the white linen shirt on, adjusting the neck a little, and motioned to the boots by the chair. “Help me with these,” he told her.
“Certainly,” she replied.
Swimming to shore last night, he had been afraid of getting too comfortable here.
Suddenly, he didn’t think that was going to be a problem.
+++++
It was three days, maybe four, before Templeton was able to slip from the fort. Lynch had him working again, little tasks, some of his old work. Taking dictation and examining correspondence. Nothing strenuous. The govenor was specific on that.
He was unable to relax, though. His old room, small and sparse, seemed even colder than it once had. Bare stone, where John’s quarters were warm wood and beautifully furnished. The entire fort felt like that, actually. He missed the roll of the sea, the smell of the salt air, and he didn’t even need to force the desperation with which he asked Lynch if he could take a walk about the town.
Pike, that new man who seemed to running the guard now, had frowned at the request. Templeton didn’t know what to think of that one. He’d been watching him since he’d arrived back here. Mercenary, clearly, not proper military, and probably a suspicious man by nature. But something else was going on. Some kind of jealously or resentment, and Templeton didn’t want to tempt fate by provoking the mercenary’s anger
Thank Providence Lynch let him go that afternoon.
They had set up arrangments, meeting times and places. Templeton had an hour window, every day, with which to talk to them. Late afternoon, a tavern HM had described quite well and one Templeton found easily enough. Evidently, he and John had attempted assassination a few years ago.
The bosun was sitting back in a smoky corner, wrapped in a rough cloak and playing with a half-empty tankard of local rum. Those mad, bright eyes caught Templeton’s attention, and he slipped in next to his friend.
A hand was laid over his. “You well?”
“As well as can be,” Templeton said, and took a deep drag from HM’s rum. It burned wonderfully. “And you?”
That hand squeezed. “The captain’s out of his mind with need for you,” and Templeton sighed as HM leaned in further and played with his ear, “as are we all.”
Missed? Truly? “Henry...”
“So,” HM said, pulling back and smiling a little. “When are we to scale the castle walls and slay the dragon?”
Templeton grinned in reply and thought of the intelligence he had collected over the last few days. “There’s a new man in the fort who has the keys to the armory, captain of the guard, name of Pike...”
“Pike?” HM asked sharply.
“Is he an old acquaintence of yours?”
“John and I have run across him before,” HM said and tapped the table. “Are you sure he has the keys?”
“Yes.”
“No other set with Lynch?”
“Not that I can discern.”
The pirate nodded slowly. “If Pike is involved, the captain may wish to...”
“No, no. I can get the keys,” Templeton said firmly, thinking about how important this was to John. “I can do this.”
“When?”
“At the captain’s leisure.”
HM took his rum back. “No good, amigo, captain will want a time. Tomorrow night agreeable?”
The younger man felt his heart leap. Oh, the prospect of having this mission done. “Very much so.”
“Great!” HM clapped his hands together, scooted out of his chair. Nothing more needed to be said. They’d gone over and over the plan, signals and times and positions, no use in further, but the pirate’s earrings jingled rhythmically as he brought their faces close. “Templeton? It is wrong of me to steal a kiss?”
“Very dashing of you, Master Henry,” Templeton replied in kind, and HM took the liberty of pressing their lips ever so softly together. So much sweeter than John or Baracus, love them all though he did, Templeton thought. He parted just a little, licking lightly, tasting rum and smoke and that hint of madness HM carried. “Very much like a pirate.”
HM grinned wide, and slipped away without another word. The former secretary waited a few minutes, threw a few coins on the table - the bosun always forgot to pay - and passed back out in the sunlight of the later afternoon. John, coming for him the day after this. His heart felt light.
Caught up in his happy thoughts like he was, Templeton missed the single figure following him through the busy streets of Port Royal, all the way back to the fort.
Continue to Part Two
