Page 111 of Rears & Vices

He was surely an ass. But by the sound of it, also a righteous ass.

“It could not wait ’til morning, Lieutenant?” Vitaliy whispered. “I am so tired.”

His quiet, weary voice knifed through Everard. Nonetheless:

“Told me what?” he demanded.

Vitaliy shut his eyes, his brow furrowing, looking more than anything else in pain as he sank back down into the bedding.

D’Arcy put his arm in Everard’s and frog-marched him to the door. “I’ll sort it, Vee. Go back to sleep, if you can. You,” he said to Everard, “you are what needs sorting, God help me. Come with me. You don’t deserve to breathe his air just now.”

“But—” Everard didn’t disagree, but he still wanted answers. He twisted round, resisting: but Vitaliy was already asleep, curled around his pillow, hair spilling like silken gold thread over bulky shoulders, lips pale. So beautiful it hurt, and why had Everard woken him like that?

D’Arcy dragged him through the companionway and onto the quiet weather deck, across to the bow, the forecastle, and there, as though he had just pulled Everard away from a fistfight, he let him tug free at last.

“I’m not dressed!” Everard spat.

“I can’t believe you did that,” D’Arcy said, low and weary. “He needs every bit of sleep he can get, and not to be startled from it like we’re back at war.”

Back at war?

“We’re pirates!” Everard clung to the rail and began to lose his breath. “When have we not been at war, pray? Anyway, how d’you… how d’you know about his sleeping?”

D’Arcy hadn’t shared their bed for nearly long enough for that. There hadn’t been any episodes recently. Unless Vitya had warned him?

“Don’t you love him?” D’Arcy said fiercely, ignoring this. “You don’t act particularly as though you do. But then”—he laughed—“you never have. The Navy got hold of you far too early.”

Everard squeezed his eyes shut. There on the deck, they were so exposed—others would overhear, would see—he had hardly any clothes on. The Gulf breeze was warm, but lifted his hair from the root and gave him gooseflesh all over. How could D’Arcy know about Vitya’s sleeping? Unless… unless.

One other. Once.

“Do you and he know each other?” Everard demanded. He clutched one arm round himself and shivered. “Have known each other previously? Is that what’s to tell?”

But D’Arcy went on as though he hadn’t spoken. “You’ll be the luckiest goddamned fuck on the ocean if he trusts you to share his bed again, Ever.” He put his face over his hands and groaned. “But he shall anyway because he’s Vee and he does love you, you absolute self-centered donkey.”

“I know…” Everard didn’t know a single goddamned thing. “I know he does… Please.” His knees no longer seemed to work. He slid to the decking, bent his legs in front of him so he wouldn’t keel forward. “I’ll take my dressing-down as you see fit, and well deserved. But please, not out here in the air?”

D’Arcy eyed him with distinct sympathy, anguish, regret. Like it’d been his trust that Everard had shaken out of him.

“Fine,” he spat.

To the hatch he went, slid down the ladder silently; he was still barefoot. Everard stood and followed, shaking.

The farther belowdecks they went, the trembling uneasiness receded in fragments, chipping away until Everard felt nearly his usual self again.

Nearly.

They made it to the orlop before D’Arcy ambushed him, a hand over his mouth and an arm thick around his chest. He flattened Everard tight between his stone-stiff body and the hatch’s panelling. Everard was still too teary and startled to react; that was, until he heard the noises coming over D’Arcy’s harsh, shallow breath at his ear. He gasped—D’Arcy’s hand became painful over his mouth.

Fucking noises, somewhat distant. Slapping flesh, grunts and groans, several. A pause, laughter; more fucking noises. Several voices, encouraging, cajoling—more slapping—a vaguely familiar whisper, like scripture⁠—

Everard fought the hand; D’Arcy released him but was still frozen against him. He put his head on Everard’s shoulder and shook, just for a moment, trembling; then lifted his head and met Everard’s wide eyes with teary hazel ones.

He pointed up to the third gun deck, to the right of Perran’s workshop, where the carpenter’s mates had slept before they’d gone aboard the San Telmo. The doors were solid for fireproofing, the panelling reinforced—there, they wouldn’t be overheard.

Everard nodded. They slunk up the ladder once more, quietly as they could go.

As soon as D’Arcy shut the thick door behind him, Everard whispered, “Was—was—what was—was that⁠—?”