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monaboyd_monthTitle: After the Mudlark
Author: Sema
Pairing: Billy/Dom
Rating: PG
Disclaimers: Obviously, none of this is real. I mean no disrespect to anyone whose name or likeness I may have borrowed for the purposes of this story and no profit has been made from the writing.
Author's Note: For your reading pleasure, a little Monaboyd historical AU. Long, long ago, when I wrote Lost, I always vaguely intended to write the story of the sailors who'd come to Dom and Billy's island many years before. Add to that the fact that I recently watched Master and Commander yet again, and have been reading about the HMS Beagle, and this story was born. I hope you enjoy! There's sure to be more later As a geeky historical note, the Cook Islands in the South Pacific were known as the Hervey Islands until 1824.
I.
"What're the bleedin' things for, anyhow?" asked Barks, youngest of the HMS Mudlark's carpenter's mates. He was a good enough lad, clever with his hands--might even make a master carpenter someday if he kept his wits about him--but just now the pages of enthusiastically-drawn plans for the fiddling little boxes he was required to build were driving him nearly daft. He no doubt wished himself back in Tahiti, consorting (quite against the orders of discipline) with some native beauty, rather than here on a beach in the Hervey Islands with his smallest saw, a stack of wood-scraps, and such a tedious task to perform.
"For the bug gentleman," Billy answered. "To bring home his wee creatures, I'd imagine." He could make out the gentleman in question just down the shore, jacket, shoes and stockings off, waistcoat open to the breeze, crouched down by the edge of a tidal pool, intent, as always--or so Billy assumed--on the tiny lives it contained.
As always, once his eyes had lighted on Mr. Monaghan, the Mudlark's gentleman naturalist, Billy found it hard to drag them away again: there was the young man's bright hair, the lovely curve of his spine, the fine spread of his hand above the water…
Count on Hoppswell, though, to spoil his small pleasures, with an ugly snort and his poisonous caw of a voice, "Gentleman, my arse, 'e's nowt but the cap'n's bum-boy, as every man aboard knows!"
Barks's glance sought Billy's, wide and frightened--he was young, impressionable, his captain godlike in his eyes.
Billy only smiled through his disgust, "Och, Hoppswell, we're not old lassies, made for gossip. And this boat won't build itself, aye?" He kept his gaze leveled upon the older man, forcing him to be the one to look away first, letting him know who was master and who was mate. Billy may have been a small man, may have been younger than Hoppswell by two decades, may have had a reputation as a good man, an even-tempered man, but Glasgow's streets had forged him, and he would never, ever back down, not before the likes of Jacob Hoppswell.
"Aye, Mr. Boyd, sir," Hoppswell muttered at last, and returned to his saw, as Billy bent the new boards, painstakingly, into the shape they would have to hold in the boat's frame.
Billy'd far rather have been watching Mr. Monaghan at his work, damn Hoppswell's eyes, but he'd an example to set, and ship's boats did not, indeed, build themselves. He pounded and sawed and sweated until a shadow fell across his body, an instant of near-coolness in the blistering heat. There was the naturalist gazing down on him, holding out something that waved at least two claws and several spiky legs in quite a furious and frantic manner.
"Pagurus Armatus. The hermit crab." Mr. Monaghan smiled, a slightly-crooked, utterly-delighted grin that crinkled his eyes and caused his whole face to light. "I saw you looking, Mr. Boyd, and thought I'd show you what I discovered."
"'s an ugly beastie, isn't he?" Billy found himself smiling in return, though he hadn't meant to, any more than he'd meant to watch the naturalist at his work in the first place. The worlds they occupied were so different, he might as well have been an little alien undersea beastie himself.
"Do you think so?" Mr. Monaghan regarded the creature thoughtfully. "I find it--him--" He smiled again. "Rather lovely. In his own way." His eyes flashed silver, flashed blue, and his voice dropped low, soft and rough all at the same time. "And--Hoppswell, is it?--I don't really mind how you speak about me, I'm not bothered, but I'll thank you to remember your respect for your captain in the future, if you'd be so kind." He smiled yet a third time, waving the hermit crab gently before he turned to go. "I'd best return this little one to his home, I think."
"Goodbye, then, sir," Barks called after him, but Billy said nothing. He turned to his work and, resolutely, did not watch the young man walk away.
He wanted to, though. Christ, he'd have liked nothing better than to watch his every step and motion.
II.
Dominic perched on the Mudlark's gunwale, journal nearly disregarded in his lap. He'd gone no further than writing the date: 8 December, 1818. His birthday, in fact. The twenty-third anniversary of his stay on this earth. He couldn't have named a day when he'd felt more alone.
Beside him, the sea was still as a sheet of glass, though the Master, Mr. Palmer, swore it would storm before morning. Here, on the underside of the world, the sky seemed vast as it never did at home in Lancashire, the stars so bright they seemed truly individual, each a different colour, each a different shape. If Dominic closed his eyes he almost felt he could hear them hum, a soft, clear counterpoint to the music the men were making this night, up near the bow. Someone was singing, a tenor sweet and true, and by the accent he thought the voice must belong to the Master Carpenter, Mr. Boyd--the song, aptly enough, "The Cruel Ship's Carpenter."
Only Mr. Boyd wasn't cruel, he was lovely, and the sweetness of his singing voice suited him utterly.
Dominic shut his eyes and granted himself, and his loneliness, a moment of indulgence, forming a picture in his mind of the man as he'd been on the beach three days before: shirt off, sweat slick on his tanned skin, the flex of his small yet powerful arms. He imagined the moss-green eyes, the way Boyd's mouth curved to a smile, little lines bracketing the corners, the brightness of the sun, taking fire in his dark-ginger hair…
And it's thoughts like that that have you here, on the wrong side of the world, Dominic, he reminded himself, Instead of home in England where you belong. It wasn't that he didn't love his work, because he did, and loved the adventure too--but leaving in one's own time, on one's own schedule, was one thing, and leaving one step ahead of scandal, because one's dad has called in a favour, quite another.
He felt very low in his heart suddenly, homesick for England, and not even the stars or the music were enough to cheer him. He still felt his mum and dad's disappointment, even from thousands of miles away--he felt disappointment in himself, too, that his own mind, good enough for so many things, memory, learning, imagination, was yet not strong enough to overcome the desires of his flesh.
He could have gone to gaol, without his father's intervention, and the intervention of his father's well-placed friends. He could have brought shame upon himself, and upon his family, shame they would never have lived down.
But when he thought of kisses, of lying sweetly tangled together in tousled linen sheets, it didn't feel shameful, or like any sort of sin. It only felt like love. Despite all he'd been taught, how could that be wrong?
If it had been love, though, what he'd felt for Richard then, why wasn't it his lover's long, pale limbs Dominic pictured now? Why, instead, did he see the tanned, small, sturdy limbs of the ship's carpenter twined around his own, in all his most secret imaginings?
"…if you will agree," sang Mr. Boyd, in the flickering lamplight around the Mudlark's bow.
And give your consent, love, for to marry me.
Your love it would cure me from all sorrow and care
If you will agree to wed a ship's carpenter.
"'Your love it would cure me from all sorrow and care,'" Dom echoed softly into the night, but his own voice sounded small to his own ears, and not the least bit sweet.
Besides, as he recalled, that song did not end happily.
III.
Billy wasn't sure what brought him rapping at the naturalist's door at five bells in the first watch--past 10:30 pm in landsman's time. He told himself that he'd meant to check on the quality of Barks's work, or apologise for the rudeness of Hoppswell's overheard words, those days before. If that had been the case, though--or only the case--why hadn't he come sooner? The hour was late; the gentleman should have, by all rights, been asleep.
Instead, Mr. Monaghan answered the door almost at once and stood gazing a moment at Billy before inviting him, with great courtesy, into the cabin.
He'd a large, grey, hairy spider, Billy noticed, cradled in the palm of one hand, and all ten of his fingers were badly smirched with ink. "Menemurus bivattatus," he said, indicating the creature in his palm. "Hairy jumping spider. Would you like to hold him?"
Billy did his level best not to recoil. "Not for a year's pay!"
The naturalist laughed softly, then turned to deposit the spider into its wee cage, murmuring as he did so words Billy could not quite hear, though they sounded quite like endearments.
"Will they survive the voyage home?" he asked, curious. Many small enclosures filled the cabin. Dozens more, larger ones, occupied the storage hold, and Mr. Monaghan worked amongst them daily, feeding and caring for his charges. He'd trust no other with the task, Billy'd heard.
Mr. Monaghan sighed, glancing back over his shoulder. "I'll try to ensure that they do. If fortune wills it…" Another sigh. "No, most likely not. I ought to have left them where they belonged. But I've my orders, y'see, to bring what I can home. Only it's such a long way…" His eyes, turned to Billy's, were imploring, very young, very blue. He ran an inky hand back through his bright hair.
A demon inside Billy goaded him, needled him, asking him what it would feel like to lay his own rough hand against the flat planes of the naturalist's chest, how it would feel to brush the backs of his fingers against that smooth-shaven cheek. Mr. Monaghan's tongue poked out, wetting his lower lip in a sudden appearance of nervousness and it started up the old, familiar ache between Billy's legs. He wanted: wanted what he couldn't have; wanted what he daren't so much as desire.
"I ought…" Billy began. "I ought to..."
The naturalist's brows rose, questioning. He was laughing a bit at Billy, though not in a cruel way. "You haven't said why you've come. Can't leave yet. Have a glass with me?-it's my birthday," he said, by way of explanation.
Somehow Billy found himself in a chair, the one seat the small cabin contained, a glass of not-indifferent whisky in his hand, the best he'd drunk since he'd last seen Glasgow. Mr. Monaghan himself perched on the edge of the narrow bunk.
"Now, then, what shall we drink to? Not 'England,' I suppose." He laughed again--his face seemed as made for laughter as any Billy'd ever seen--and Billy, unable to help himself, joined in. "I've got it! To friendship."
"Friendship!" Billy raised his glass. "Though you should be drinking with the officers, lad."
"But I'm not an officer," Mr. Monaghan responded. "I'm neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring. I defy classification."
"You're a gentleman, though," Billy said.
"Am I?" Mr. Monaghan answered, and smiled his crooked grin. His eyes, looking into Billy's, appeared simultaneously amused and a little sad. "It's Dominic, by the way. My given name. Dom."
I can't call you that, Billy thought, but surprised himself by answering, "William. Billy."
"Billy," Dominic repeated, his face crinkling in delight. Billy didn't think he'd seen anything so lovely in all his life.
He lingered for as long as he would allow himself, sipping slowly at his drink, making a catalogue of the younger man's expressions, committing them to his memory, stored up for a rainy day.
When Dominic bade him goodnight, taking Billy's hand just before he opened the door, Billy held on to it a little longer than was proper, nearly closing his eyes at the feel of the cool, smooth skin against his own.
He wished he dared more, wished and wished in his very soul--but it was one time his courage failed him utterly. He'd have faced French cannons--and had done, in his life--but he could not face what he most desired.
The younger man's eyes were troubled as Billy let him go, so much so that Billy wondered if Dominic had, somehow, been offended.
IV.
It was a quirk of Captain McKellen's that, because he didn't sleep much, he assumed others didn't either. Here it was, well into the middle watch, they'd already spent an hour discussing Linneaus and now Ian seemed intent on perusing every page of Dominic's journals, exclaiming over the watercolours Dom had painted, remarking on his notations. Any other time, the praise would have been gratifying, but just now it was getting on to six bells, and Dominic was exhausted. Not helping matters was the fact that the weather had come on just as the Master predicted, making the Mudlark jump about like a cork in a stream. That, and the whisky he'd drunk with Mr. Boyd--Billy, he corrected himself, with a secret grin--weren't doing his stomach any favours.
More than anything, he'd wanted to lie in his bunk and think about Billy, even if it was only the sweet, rough press of Billy's palm against his own that Dom remembered.
"There are simply lovely!" the captain exclaimed, his heavily creased face wreathed in smiles. "I predict you'll be the toast of London for these, dear boy. Scientific London, at least." He set the journals aside suddenly, his faded blue eyes catching Dominic's. "Come here to me?"
Dom came, as he was commanded, slipping down from the bunk to face his captain. All around them, the small creatures whirred and scurried in their cages.
"Do they keep you awake?" Ian asked him, the tips of his long fingers slipping in beneath the lapel of Dominic's dressing gown, brushing the bare skin over his heart.
No, you do, Dom thought, but he only laughed a little. "I scarcely notice them. I'm oblivious, I suppose."
"I don't think that you are. Oblivious, that is." The captain's other hand curved round Dom's hip, holding him steady as the ship rocked and jounced. "I believe you notice most things." He pulled Dom closer, until he was astride the captain's knees, held tight and near, as he'd been so many times before, and if Dom heard an ugly echo of the carpenter's mate's words in his head, he paid them no mind, because it was good to be cherished, and he felt, most times, so terribly, terribly lonely.
Dominic leaned his head on Ian's shoulder, allowing himself to sink into his warmth, knowing he cared for his captain, he did, even as a mutinous part of his mind wondered what it would be like to sit this same way on Billy's lap, to feel Billy's small, strong arms around him, to hear Billy Glasgow lilt murmured in his ear instead of Ian's more-than-proper King's English.
It wasn't to be, Dominic reminded himself. It wasn't to be. Some things were never, never meant to be.
And he wished, suddenly, more than ever, that Ian would go away and let him dream.
V.
Billy had been through more storms at sea than he could count, and at the best of times they meant misery--a lack of warm meals and dry clothes, the nippers and the younger midshipmen losing their dinners over the railings. This unseasonable storm, however, seemed to have an evil life all its own: the sky and sea alike darker than slate, the waves so high at times they seemed to rise nearly to the yardarms. They'd already lost two men overboard lowering the sails, and that had been before the storm reached its current pitch. The Mudlark was a two-masted brig-sloop, not the most maneuverable of vessels at the best of times. Just now her rudder was useless, she twitched and spun in awkward semi-circles, driven before the tides.
The captain was everywhere, his booming voice raised, trying to hold his ship together, trying to put heart in the men, but what could he do? What could any of them do before the unbridled rage of nature?
Billy was not the least surprised when a call went out for the carpenters: the seams of the ship had sprung, the ocean pouring in. It came to him, suddenly, what an acquaintance of his, a shipwright in Portsmouth, called Cherokee-class ships, like the Mudlark. "Coffin-brigs," he'd named them. Too top-heavy, if overturned, they'd head straight for the bottom.
Coffin-brigs.
Billy shivered, in a way that had nothing to do with the unsummerlike cold, or the wet. If the Mudlark went down, the ship's boats would be useless in these seas.
He fell more than climbed down the ladder into the hold, somehow managing to keep hold of his chest of tools, Barks and Hoppswell on his heels. Below, in the dimness of the swaying lantern-light, things were worse than he'd feared, water pouring in, already hip-deep. The great planks in Mudlark's port side had warped and split, resembling a bitter smile.
"Tell the captain…" Billy shouted to Barks, hoping to be overheard above the rush of the sea. He couldn't fix this. He couldn't. There was no way in bloody hell. "We'll do our best. Only…" He could feel the skin of his face tighten, the seriousness in his own eyes. "Tell him to expect the worst."
Billy was thirty-one years old, too young to die. Even Hoppswell was too young to die, to drown here in the empty seas somewhere between the Hervey Islands and New Zealand. Even Chippings the Cook, oldest of them all, was too young to die here, carried down on a storm so far from home.
Billy waded closer to the hull, pressing his hands against the crack as if that could somehow hold back the flooding waters. He knew this was a time for quick thought, but he didn't know how to begin, didn't know what to do. It was hard enough merely to keep his balance and his footing.
"It's all over, isn't it?" asked a hoarse voice, quite near his ear.
Dominic, Billy thought, warmly. Poor lad, he was pale as wax, almost green with it, and as Billy watched he turned away suddenly, with something like shame, retching drily.
Billy steadied him with a hand on his shoulder, telling him, in his kindest tones, "Go back to your cabin, lad. This will soon be mended."
"Will it?" Dominic seemed to read the truth on his face. "My specimens, Billy. It would be cruel to let them drown, don't you think? Better I should give them a quick end before that can happen." He turned away again, retched again, but when he turned back, his face, though greener than ever, was resolute. "I didn't take them, only to be cruel."
Billy couldn't watch, his own work held his attention, but whilst he and Barks and Hoppswell pushed and hammered and swore, as a horde of men poured down from above to pump vainly at the rapidly rising waters, Billy knew that Dominic went from case to case to case and never faltered.
He knew exactly how it felt in that moment to have all one's labour come to nothing.
VI.
Dominic's memory of his time in the water was dim and awful. He'd clung to something--what it was he now can't even remember, only that it was buoyant and he'd locked his arms around it until they'd ached and trembled and, finally, gone numb. For an unknown length of time the storm raged, pitching him up and down, round and about, his sickness so complete and so miserable, he almost thought he'd have preferred drowning, except that something within him, some strength he'd no idea he possessed, gave him just enough will to keep on.
It was after , when the storm calmed and the sea turned to glass again, when he was carried in a current over which he had no control and his throat burned with thirst, that things became harder still. It was then he spied the tiger sharks (Galeocerdo cuvier, his brain supplied helpfully) in the clear, clear water below his feet, and shivered with the thought of those dreadful teeth rending his flesh. It was then he remembered pleading with Billy back in the hold, telling him there was surely nothing more that could be done, as the water rose nearly to their shoulders. Telling him it was time to be away, to save himself.
He couldn't remember whether or not Billy'd listened, and the thought of Billy drowned, those bright green eyes dulled for all time, came near to breaking Dominic's heart. He almost knew, in another age, another place, where such things were allowed, that he would have loved the ship's carpenter.
Dominic remembered, too, clinging to Ian's arms, shouting at him that a captain going down with his ship was only so much foolishness, screaming over the howl of the wind. Ian had held his arms in return, looking at him with such fondness, and such concern, clasping Dom close to his heart, despite what the men might think.
"I am sorry that it ends this way," Ian told him-or at least Dom thought so. With all the noise and confusion, it was hard to tell. He only knew they were in the boats soon after, trying to keep their seats as if riding wild horses.
And then they weren't in the boats any longer. At least, he wasn't.
There had been the water for a long time, and then there had been coral, a veritable fence of branch coral that sliced stinging cuts into his fingers and toes and knees as he climbed it, but after that he was on dry land, still and safe on dry land, sand powdery and hot against his cheek, his chest, his thighs. Despite the stillness, everything seemed to sway, as if the sea, though it has lost him, was reluctant to let him go.
Dominic felt drained of energy, utterly drained, and still more than a bit sick. He knew he should rise from this hot beach and seek a proper rest in the shade before the sun made him sicker still.
And he would, he would do so, in a little while.
In a little, little while, he'd do everything he needed.
Only, just for now, let him lie here.
VII.
Billy woke at dawn, the way he was accustomed to do, and made his way down to the sea, splashing his face with the clean salt water. For breakfast his drink was the milk of a green coconut, drilled with his pocketknife, which had miraculously made it to shore with him--a far finer drink than the so-called "Scots coffee" of charred ship's biscuit steeped in hot water of which he'd partaken most mornings of his adult life, and though he missed breaking his fast on hot porridge, he did not mind the fresh, ripe coconut meat and bananas that took its place.
He thought of his shipmates, and hoped they'd made it to some equally kind land after the boats overturned. He thanked the cooper whose cask he'd clung to all the long way here-somehow, in his heart, he'd never for a moment feared that he would drown. Despite his despair in the Mudlark's hold, despite the losses of his younger life, the deaths of his parents when he was only a boy, Billy was an optimistic man by nature. Given the chance, he'd hope for the best and rarely look for the worst.
He wasn't precisely sure how long he'd been at sea before reaching land, but this was the second sunrise he'd seen here, on this island. By the growing light, Billy could make out a tangle of spars and rigging, caught up on the coral reef he'd crossed to make his way ashore. Perhaps there'd be something he could salvage-the rope would be useful, and likely the sawn boards. More than that, if he'd managed to make it here to land, and bits of the Mudlark as well, perhaps he wasn't the only survivor, it might chance some other fortunate soul would come ashore, as he had done.
Perhaps--and here Billy laughed to himself--if he was very lucky indeed, his fellow survivor would be Hoppswell.
"Christ forbid," Billy said aloud, the loudness of his own voice shocking not only him, but a dozen birds in the nearby trees. They launched themselves, shrieking , toward the sky; likely they'd never heard a human voice before that day.
Billy determined that he would spend the morning walking the perimeter of the shore, seeking for flotsam and jetsam, seeking, most of all, for company in this deserted place. It wasn't a large island, so far as Billy could tell-he turned a slow circle, taking in the dense jungle behind him, the slim dark come of volcano, without a single breath of smoke or steam, at the island's heart-a morning's ramble ought to see him back to his starting place.
Billy set out slowly, letting the early stiffness ease from his bones, strolling down by the water where the sand was moist and firm. He was a bit bruised and battered (the sharp coral, especially, had not been kind to his skin) but not really hurt at all, and for that he was thankful. To find himself in these circumstances uninjured, in the prime of his life, sharp-witted and with his skill intact--those things were a boon; his lot might have been far worse.
If not for the solitude. That troubled him most. Billy was a friendly man, he enjoyed the companionship of others, and while he was happy enough in his own company, no man, even the sourest hermit in the world, is meant to live altogether alone.
As the morning went on and the sun rose, sending sweat coursing down Billy's brow and back and chest, he found himself praying, half aloud, "Let there be someone. Ah, please, let there be anyone!"
When Billy came across the survivor at last, close on to noon, his sun-dazzled eyes missed him entirely. He might have walked on by and been none the wiser if he hadn't all but tripped over the prone form on the sand.
He scrambled on hands and knees, aware in an instant that it hadn't been a log or wrack of seaweed he'd stumbled on, but another human being. The need to touch this other lost soul nearly overwhelmed him, and yet he scarcely dared, terrified that if he touched and found the man dead he might go more than a bit daft in his already sun-addled head.
When at last Billy gathered his nerve and did reach out a hand, feeling the too-rapid thump of o living heart, he snatched his fingers away again as if they'd been scorched. It was only then he registered the bright hair, the profile of snub nose and angular, slightly crooked jaw pressed into the sand.
Dominic, his own Dominic, though he'd no right in the world to call him so.
No right and every right, it came to him suddenly, though he could not have said, in that moment, why such a thing should seem so absolutely true.
Billy touched again, his wits about him now, shaking Dom's shoulder gently but firmly. "Dominic. Dominic, lad, you need to rise now. You'll make yourself ill lying out in the sun."
Billy'd expected nothing, not the least response, but to his surprise Dominic pushed himself upward, arms trembling mightily with the effort, first to his knees, and from there to his feet, swaying like a palm tree in the wind until Billy put his own arms round his waist, holding tightly, more tightly, even, than was perhaps strictly necessary.
"That's it, lad," he murmured in Dominic's ear. "Only a little way, into the shade, and I'll make a bonny bed for us, you and me, under the trees."
Dominic's eyes flashed at him, red and swollen though they were, with salt water and with the sun. They'd reached the first line of the palms by then, the edge of the jungle. Dom straightened a little, seeming to find some last reserve of strength, holding Billy close, as Billy held him.
"This was meant," Dominic rasped, in his sore remnant of a voice, speaking into Billy's ear, as Billy had spoken into his own. Billy's arms shifted around Dom's middle, until what his hold offered was not merely physical support, but something else entirely.
There was no question, then, of right or wrong, of gentleman and carpenter. There was only Billy and Dom. together. Embracing one another a long, long while, on the shore between the living jungle and the endless sea.
TBC?
Author: Sema
Pairing: Billy/Dom
Rating: PG
Disclaimers: Obviously, none of this is real. I mean no disrespect to anyone whose name or likeness I may have borrowed for the purposes of this story and no profit has been made from the writing.
Author's Note: For your reading pleasure, a little Monaboyd historical AU. Long, long ago, when I wrote Lost, I always vaguely intended to write the story of the sailors who'd come to Dom and Billy's island many years before. Add to that the fact that I recently watched Master and Commander yet again, and have been reading about the HMS Beagle, and this story was born. I hope you enjoy! There's sure to be more later As a geeky historical note, the Cook Islands in the South Pacific were known as the Hervey Islands until 1824.
I.
"What're the bleedin' things for, anyhow?" asked Barks, youngest of the HMS Mudlark's carpenter's mates. He was a good enough lad, clever with his hands--might even make a master carpenter someday if he kept his wits about him--but just now the pages of enthusiastically-drawn plans for the fiddling little boxes he was required to build were driving him nearly daft. He no doubt wished himself back in Tahiti, consorting (quite against the orders of discipline) with some native beauty, rather than here on a beach in the Hervey Islands with his smallest saw, a stack of wood-scraps, and such a tedious task to perform.
"For the bug gentleman," Billy answered. "To bring home his wee creatures, I'd imagine." He could make out the gentleman in question just down the shore, jacket, shoes and stockings off, waistcoat open to the breeze, crouched down by the edge of a tidal pool, intent, as always--or so Billy assumed--on the tiny lives it contained.
As always, once his eyes had lighted on Mr. Monaghan, the Mudlark's gentleman naturalist, Billy found it hard to drag them away again: there was the young man's bright hair, the lovely curve of his spine, the fine spread of his hand above the water…
Count on Hoppswell, though, to spoil his small pleasures, with an ugly snort and his poisonous caw of a voice, "Gentleman, my arse, 'e's nowt but the cap'n's bum-boy, as every man aboard knows!"
Barks's glance sought Billy's, wide and frightened--he was young, impressionable, his captain godlike in his eyes.
Billy only smiled through his disgust, "Och, Hoppswell, we're not old lassies, made for gossip. And this boat won't build itself, aye?" He kept his gaze leveled upon the older man, forcing him to be the one to look away first, letting him know who was master and who was mate. Billy may have been a small man, may have been younger than Hoppswell by two decades, may have had a reputation as a good man, an even-tempered man, but Glasgow's streets had forged him, and he would never, ever back down, not before the likes of Jacob Hoppswell.
"Aye, Mr. Boyd, sir," Hoppswell muttered at last, and returned to his saw, as Billy bent the new boards, painstakingly, into the shape they would have to hold in the boat's frame.
Billy'd far rather have been watching Mr. Monaghan at his work, damn Hoppswell's eyes, but he'd an example to set, and ship's boats did not, indeed, build themselves. He pounded and sawed and sweated until a shadow fell across his body, an instant of near-coolness in the blistering heat. There was the naturalist gazing down on him, holding out something that waved at least two claws and several spiky legs in quite a furious and frantic manner.
"Pagurus Armatus. The hermit crab." Mr. Monaghan smiled, a slightly-crooked, utterly-delighted grin that crinkled his eyes and caused his whole face to light. "I saw you looking, Mr. Boyd, and thought I'd show you what I discovered."
"'s an ugly beastie, isn't he?" Billy found himself smiling in return, though he hadn't meant to, any more than he'd meant to watch the naturalist at his work in the first place. The worlds they occupied were so different, he might as well have been an little alien undersea beastie himself.
"Do you think so?" Mr. Monaghan regarded the creature thoughtfully. "I find it--him--" He smiled again. "Rather lovely. In his own way." His eyes flashed silver, flashed blue, and his voice dropped low, soft and rough all at the same time. "And--Hoppswell, is it?--I don't really mind how you speak about me, I'm not bothered, but I'll thank you to remember your respect for your captain in the future, if you'd be so kind." He smiled yet a third time, waving the hermit crab gently before he turned to go. "I'd best return this little one to his home, I think."
"Goodbye, then, sir," Barks called after him, but Billy said nothing. He turned to his work and, resolutely, did not watch the young man walk away.
He wanted to, though. Christ, he'd have liked nothing better than to watch his every step and motion.
II.
Dominic perched on the Mudlark's gunwale, journal nearly disregarded in his lap. He'd gone no further than writing the date: 8 December, 1818. His birthday, in fact. The twenty-third anniversary of his stay on this earth. He couldn't have named a day when he'd felt more alone.
Beside him, the sea was still as a sheet of glass, though the Master, Mr. Palmer, swore it would storm before morning. Here, on the underside of the world, the sky seemed vast as it never did at home in Lancashire, the stars so bright they seemed truly individual, each a different colour, each a different shape. If Dominic closed his eyes he almost felt he could hear them hum, a soft, clear counterpoint to the music the men were making this night, up near the bow. Someone was singing, a tenor sweet and true, and by the accent he thought the voice must belong to the Master Carpenter, Mr. Boyd--the song, aptly enough, "The Cruel Ship's Carpenter."
Only Mr. Boyd wasn't cruel, he was lovely, and the sweetness of his singing voice suited him utterly.
Dominic shut his eyes and granted himself, and his loneliness, a moment of indulgence, forming a picture in his mind of the man as he'd been on the beach three days before: shirt off, sweat slick on his tanned skin, the flex of his small yet powerful arms. He imagined the moss-green eyes, the way Boyd's mouth curved to a smile, little lines bracketing the corners, the brightness of the sun, taking fire in his dark-ginger hair…
And it's thoughts like that that have you here, on the wrong side of the world, Dominic, he reminded himself, Instead of home in England where you belong. It wasn't that he didn't love his work, because he did, and loved the adventure too--but leaving in one's own time, on one's own schedule, was one thing, and leaving one step ahead of scandal, because one's dad has called in a favour, quite another.
He felt very low in his heart suddenly, homesick for England, and not even the stars or the music were enough to cheer him. He still felt his mum and dad's disappointment, even from thousands of miles away--he felt disappointment in himself, too, that his own mind, good enough for so many things, memory, learning, imagination, was yet not strong enough to overcome the desires of his flesh.
He could have gone to gaol, without his father's intervention, and the intervention of his father's well-placed friends. He could have brought shame upon himself, and upon his family, shame they would never have lived down.
But when he thought of kisses, of lying sweetly tangled together in tousled linen sheets, it didn't feel shameful, or like any sort of sin. It only felt like love. Despite all he'd been taught, how could that be wrong?
If it had been love, though, what he'd felt for Richard then, why wasn't it his lover's long, pale limbs Dominic pictured now? Why, instead, did he see the tanned, small, sturdy limbs of the ship's carpenter twined around his own, in all his most secret imaginings?
"…if you will agree," sang Mr. Boyd, in the flickering lamplight around the Mudlark's bow.
And give your consent, love, for to marry me.
Your love it would cure me from all sorrow and care
If you will agree to wed a ship's carpenter.
"'Your love it would cure me from all sorrow and care,'" Dom echoed softly into the night, but his own voice sounded small to his own ears, and not the least bit sweet.
Besides, as he recalled, that song did not end happily.
III.
Billy wasn't sure what brought him rapping at the naturalist's door at five bells in the first watch--past 10:30 pm in landsman's time. He told himself that he'd meant to check on the quality of Barks's work, or apologise for the rudeness of Hoppswell's overheard words, those days before. If that had been the case, though--or only the case--why hadn't he come sooner? The hour was late; the gentleman should have, by all rights, been asleep.
Instead, Mr. Monaghan answered the door almost at once and stood gazing a moment at Billy before inviting him, with great courtesy, into the cabin.
He'd a large, grey, hairy spider, Billy noticed, cradled in the palm of one hand, and all ten of his fingers were badly smirched with ink. "Menemurus bivattatus," he said, indicating the creature in his palm. "Hairy jumping spider. Would you like to hold him?"
Billy did his level best not to recoil. "Not for a year's pay!"
The naturalist laughed softly, then turned to deposit the spider into its wee cage, murmuring as he did so words Billy could not quite hear, though they sounded quite like endearments.
"Will they survive the voyage home?" he asked, curious. Many small enclosures filled the cabin. Dozens more, larger ones, occupied the storage hold, and Mr. Monaghan worked amongst them daily, feeding and caring for his charges. He'd trust no other with the task, Billy'd heard.
Mr. Monaghan sighed, glancing back over his shoulder. "I'll try to ensure that they do. If fortune wills it…" Another sigh. "No, most likely not. I ought to have left them where they belonged. But I've my orders, y'see, to bring what I can home. Only it's such a long way…" His eyes, turned to Billy's, were imploring, very young, very blue. He ran an inky hand back through his bright hair.
A demon inside Billy goaded him, needled him, asking him what it would feel like to lay his own rough hand against the flat planes of the naturalist's chest, how it would feel to brush the backs of his fingers against that smooth-shaven cheek. Mr. Monaghan's tongue poked out, wetting his lower lip in a sudden appearance of nervousness and it started up the old, familiar ache between Billy's legs. He wanted: wanted what he couldn't have; wanted what he daren't so much as desire.
"I ought…" Billy began. "I ought to..."
The naturalist's brows rose, questioning. He was laughing a bit at Billy, though not in a cruel way. "You haven't said why you've come. Can't leave yet. Have a glass with me?-it's my birthday," he said, by way of explanation.
Somehow Billy found himself in a chair, the one seat the small cabin contained, a glass of not-indifferent whisky in his hand, the best he'd drunk since he'd last seen Glasgow. Mr. Monaghan himself perched on the edge of the narrow bunk.
"Now, then, what shall we drink to? Not 'England,' I suppose." He laughed again--his face seemed as made for laughter as any Billy'd ever seen--and Billy, unable to help himself, joined in. "I've got it! To friendship."
"Friendship!" Billy raised his glass. "Though you should be drinking with the officers, lad."
"But I'm not an officer," Mr. Monaghan responded. "I'm neither fish nor fowl nor good red herring. I defy classification."
"You're a gentleman, though," Billy said.
"Am I?" Mr. Monaghan answered, and smiled his crooked grin. His eyes, looking into Billy's, appeared simultaneously amused and a little sad. "It's Dominic, by the way. My given name. Dom."
I can't call you that, Billy thought, but surprised himself by answering, "William. Billy."
"Billy," Dominic repeated, his face crinkling in delight. Billy didn't think he'd seen anything so lovely in all his life.
He lingered for as long as he would allow himself, sipping slowly at his drink, making a catalogue of the younger man's expressions, committing them to his memory, stored up for a rainy day.
When Dominic bade him goodnight, taking Billy's hand just before he opened the door, Billy held on to it a little longer than was proper, nearly closing his eyes at the feel of the cool, smooth skin against his own.
He wished he dared more, wished and wished in his very soul--but it was one time his courage failed him utterly. He'd have faced French cannons--and had done, in his life--but he could not face what he most desired.
The younger man's eyes were troubled as Billy let him go, so much so that Billy wondered if Dominic had, somehow, been offended.
IV.
It was a quirk of Captain McKellen's that, because he didn't sleep much, he assumed others didn't either. Here it was, well into the middle watch, they'd already spent an hour discussing Linneaus and now Ian seemed intent on perusing every page of Dominic's journals, exclaiming over the watercolours Dom had painted, remarking on his notations. Any other time, the praise would have been gratifying, but just now it was getting on to six bells, and Dominic was exhausted. Not helping matters was the fact that the weather had come on just as the Master predicted, making the Mudlark jump about like a cork in a stream. That, and the whisky he'd drunk with Mr. Boyd--Billy, he corrected himself, with a secret grin--weren't doing his stomach any favours.
More than anything, he'd wanted to lie in his bunk and think about Billy, even if it was only the sweet, rough press of Billy's palm against his own that Dom remembered.
"There are simply lovely!" the captain exclaimed, his heavily creased face wreathed in smiles. "I predict you'll be the toast of London for these, dear boy. Scientific London, at least." He set the journals aside suddenly, his faded blue eyes catching Dominic's. "Come here to me?"
Dom came, as he was commanded, slipping down from the bunk to face his captain. All around them, the small creatures whirred and scurried in their cages.
"Do they keep you awake?" Ian asked him, the tips of his long fingers slipping in beneath the lapel of Dominic's dressing gown, brushing the bare skin over his heart.
No, you do, Dom thought, but he only laughed a little. "I scarcely notice them. I'm oblivious, I suppose."
"I don't think that you are. Oblivious, that is." The captain's other hand curved round Dom's hip, holding him steady as the ship rocked and jounced. "I believe you notice most things." He pulled Dom closer, until he was astride the captain's knees, held tight and near, as he'd been so many times before, and if Dom heard an ugly echo of the carpenter's mate's words in his head, he paid them no mind, because it was good to be cherished, and he felt, most times, so terribly, terribly lonely.
Dominic leaned his head on Ian's shoulder, allowing himself to sink into his warmth, knowing he cared for his captain, he did, even as a mutinous part of his mind wondered what it would be like to sit this same way on Billy's lap, to feel Billy's small, strong arms around him, to hear Billy Glasgow lilt murmured in his ear instead of Ian's more-than-proper King's English.
It wasn't to be, Dominic reminded himself. It wasn't to be. Some things were never, never meant to be.
And he wished, suddenly, more than ever, that Ian would go away and let him dream.
V.
Billy had been through more storms at sea than he could count, and at the best of times they meant misery--a lack of warm meals and dry clothes, the nippers and the younger midshipmen losing their dinners over the railings. This unseasonable storm, however, seemed to have an evil life all its own: the sky and sea alike darker than slate, the waves so high at times they seemed to rise nearly to the yardarms. They'd already lost two men overboard lowering the sails, and that had been before the storm reached its current pitch. The Mudlark was a two-masted brig-sloop, not the most maneuverable of vessels at the best of times. Just now her rudder was useless, she twitched and spun in awkward semi-circles, driven before the tides.
The captain was everywhere, his booming voice raised, trying to hold his ship together, trying to put heart in the men, but what could he do? What could any of them do before the unbridled rage of nature?
Billy was not the least surprised when a call went out for the carpenters: the seams of the ship had sprung, the ocean pouring in. It came to him, suddenly, what an acquaintance of his, a shipwright in Portsmouth, called Cherokee-class ships, like the Mudlark. "Coffin-brigs," he'd named them. Too top-heavy, if overturned, they'd head straight for the bottom.
Coffin-brigs.
Billy shivered, in a way that had nothing to do with the unsummerlike cold, or the wet. If the Mudlark went down, the ship's boats would be useless in these seas.
He fell more than climbed down the ladder into the hold, somehow managing to keep hold of his chest of tools, Barks and Hoppswell on his heels. Below, in the dimness of the swaying lantern-light, things were worse than he'd feared, water pouring in, already hip-deep. The great planks in Mudlark's port side had warped and split, resembling a bitter smile.
"Tell the captain…" Billy shouted to Barks, hoping to be overheard above the rush of the sea. He couldn't fix this. He couldn't. There was no way in bloody hell. "We'll do our best. Only…" He could feel the skin of his face tighten, the seriousness in his own eyes. "Tell him to expect the worst."
Billy was thirty-one years old, too young to die. Even Hoppswell was too young to die, to drown here in the empty seas somewhere between the Hervey Islands and New Zealand. Even Chippings the Cook, oldest of them all, was too young to die here, carried down on a storm so far from home.
Billy waded closer to the hull, pressing his hands against the crack as if that could somehow hold back the flooding waters. He knew this was a time for quick thought, but he didn't know how to begin, didn't know what to do. It was hard enough merely to keep his balance and his footing.
"It's all over, isn't it?" asked a hoarse voice, quite near his ear.
Dominic, Billy thought, warmly. Poor lad, he was pale as wax, almost green with it, and as Billy watched he turned away suddenly, with something like shame, retching drily.
Billy steadied him with a hand on his shoulder, telling him, in his kindest tones, "Go back to your cabin, lad. This will soon be mended."
"Will it?" Dominic seemed to read the truth on his face. "My specimens, Billy. It would be cruel to let them drown, don't you think? Better I should give them a quick end before that can happen." He turned away again, retched again, but when he turned back, his face, though greener than ever, was resolute. "I didn't take them, only to be cruel."
Billy couldn't watch, his own work held his attention, but whilst he and Barks and Hoppswell pushed and hammered and swore, as a horde of men poured down from above to pump vainly at the rapidly rising waters, Billy knew that Dominic went from case to case to case and never faltered.
He knew exactly how it felt in that moment to have all one's labour come to nothing.
VI.
Dominic's memory of his time in the water was dim and awful. He'd clung to something--what it was he now can't even remember, only that it was buoyant and he'd locked his arms around it until they'd ached and trembled and, finally, gone numb. For an unknown length of time the storm raged, pitching him up and down, round and about, his sickness so complete and so miserable, he almost thought he'd have preferred drowning, except that something within him, some strength he'd no idea he possessed, gave him just enough will to keep on.
It was after , when the storm calmed and the sea turned to glass again, when he was carried in a current over which he had no control and his throat burned with thirst, that things became harder still. It was then he spied the tiger sharks (Galeocerdo cuvier, his brain supplied helpfully) in the clear, clear water below his feet, and shivered with the thought of those dreadful teeth rending his flesh. It was then he remembered pleading with Billy back in the hold, telling him there was surely nothing more that could be done, as the water rose nearly to their shoulders. Telling him it was time to be away, to save himself.
He couldn't remember whether or not Billy'd listened, and the thought of Billy drowned, those bright green eyes dulled for all time, came near to breaking Dominic's heart. He almost knew, in another age, another place, where such things were allowed, that he would have loved the ship's carpenter.
Dominic remembered, too, clinging to Ian's arms, shouting at him that a captain going down with his ship was only so much foolishness, screaming over the howl of the wind. Ian had held his arms in return, looking at him with such fondness, and such concern, clasping Dom close to his heart, despite what the men might think.
"I am sorry that it ends this way," Ian told him-or at least Dom thought so. With all the noise and confusion, it was hard to tell. He only knew they were in the boats soon after, trying to keep their seats as if riding wild horses.
And then they weren't in the boats any longer. At least, he wasn't.
There had been the water for a long time, and then there had been coral, a veritable fence of branch coral that sliced stinging cuts into his fingers and toes and knees as he climbed it, but after that he was on dry land, still and safe on dry land, sand powdery and hot against his cheek, his chest, his thighs. Despite the stillness, everything seemed to sway, as if the sea, though it has lost him, was reluctant to let him go.
Dominic felt drained of energy, utterly drained, and still more than a bit sick. He knew he should rise from this hot beach and seek a proper rest in the shade before the sun made him sicker still.
And he would, he would do so, in a little while.
In a little, little while, he'd do everything he needed.
Only, just for now, let him lie here.
VII.
Billy woke at dawn, the way he was accustomed to do, and made his way down to the sea, splashing his face with the clean salt water. For breakfast his drink was the milk of a green coconut, drilled with his pocketknife, which had miraculously made it to shore with him--a far finer drink than the so-called "Scots coffee" of charred ship's biscuit steeped in hot water of which he'd partaken most mornings of his adult life, and though he missed breaking his fast on hot porridge, he did not mind the fresh, ripe coconut meat and bananas that took its place.
He thought of his shipmates, and hoped they'd made it to some equally kind land after the boats overturned. He thanked the cooper whose cask he'd clung to all the long way here-somehow, in his heart, he'd never for a moment feared that he would drown. Despite his despair in the Mudlark's hold, despite the losses of his younger life, the deaths of his parents when he was only a boy, Billy was an optimistic man by nature. Given the chance, he'd hope for the best and rarely look for the worst.
He wasn't precisely sure how long he'd been at sea before reaching land, but this was the second sunrise he'd seen here, on this island. By the growing light, Billy could make out a tangle of spars and rigging, caught up on the coral reef he'd crossed to make his way ashore. Perhaps there'd be something he could salvage-the rope would be useful, and likely the sawn boards. More than that, if he'd managed to make it here to land, and bits of the Mudlark as well, perhaps he wasn't the only survivor, it might chance some other fortunate soul would come ashore, as he had done.
Perhaps--and here Billy laughed to himself--if he was very lucky indeed, his fellow survivor would be Hoppswell.
"Christ forbid," Billy said aloud, the loudness of his own voice shocking not only him, but a dozen birds in the nearby trees. They launched themselves, shrieking , toward the sky; likely they'd never heard a human voice before that day.
Billy determined that he would spend the morning walking the perimeter of the shore, seeking for flotsam and jetsam, seeking, most of all, for company in this deserted place. It wasn't a large island, so far as Billy could tell-he turned a slow circle, taking in the dense jungle behind him, the slim dark come of volcano, without a single breath of smoke or steam, at the island's heart-a morning's ramble ought to see him back to his starting place.
Billy set out slowly, letting the early stiffness ease from his bones, strolling down by the water where the sand was moist and firm. He was a bit bruised and battered (the sharp coral, especially, had not been kind to his skin) but not really hurt at all, and for that he was thankful. To find himself in these circumstances uninjured, in the prime of his life, sharp-witted and with his skill intact--those things were a boon; his lot might have been far worse.
If not for the solitude. That troubled him most. Billy was a friendly man, he enjoyed the companionship of others, and while he was happy enough in his own company, no man, even the sourest hermit in the world, is meant to live altogether alone.
As the morning went on and the sun rose, sending sweat coursing down Billy's brow and back and chest, he found himself praying, half aloud, "Let there be someone. Ah, please, let there be anyone!"
When Billy came across the survivor at last, close on to noon, his sun-dazzled eyes missed him entirely. He might have walked on by and been none the wiser if he hadn't all but tripped over the prone form on the sand.
He scrambled on hands and knees, aware in an instant that it hadn't been a log or wrack of seaweed he'd stumbled on, but another human being. The need to touch this other lost soul nearly overwhelmed him, and yet he scarcely dared, terrified that if he touched and found the man dead he might go more than a bit daft in his already sun-addled head.
When at last Billy gathered his nerve and did reach out a hand, feeling the too-rapid thump of o living heart, he snatched his fingers away again as if they'd been scorched. It was only then he registered the bright hair, the profile of snub nose and angular, slightly crooked jaw pressed into the sand.
Dominic, his own Dominic, though he'd no right in the world to call him so.
No right and every right, it came to him suddenly, though he could not have said, in that moment, why such a thing should seem so absolutely true.
Billy touched again, his wits about him now, shaking Dom's shoulder gently but firmly. "Dominic. Dominic, lad, you need to rise now. You'll make yourself ill lying out in the sun."
Billy'd expected nothing, not the least response, but to his surprise Dominic pushed himself upward, arms trembling mightily with the effort, first to his knees, and from there to his feet, swaying like a palm tree in the wind until Billy put his own arms round his waist, holding tightly, more tightly, even, than was perhaps strictly necessary.
"That's it, lad," he murmured in Dominic's ear. "Only a little way, into the shade, and I'll make a bonny bed for us, you and me, under the trees."
Dominic's eyes flashed at him, red and swollen though they were, with salt water and with the sun. They'd reached the first line of the palms by then, the edge of the jungle. Dom straightened a little, seeming to find some last reserve of strength, holding Billy close, as Billy held him.
"This was meant," Dominic rasped, in his sore remnant of a voice, speaking into Billy's ear, as Billy had spoken into his own. Billy's arms shifted around Dom's middle, until what his hold offered was not merely physical support, but something else entirely.
There was no question, then, of right or wrong, of gentleman and carpenter. There was only Billy and Dom. together. Embracing one another a long, long while, on the shore between the living jungle and the endless sea.
TBC?
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Date: 2010-06-20 09:20 am (UTC)I enjoyed this so much. It was so engaging, and a wonderful mixture of the two stories.
Your writing is brilliant!
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Date: 2010-06-24 06:09 am (UTC)I'm so glad you liked it, and I should have a new installment up in the next few days.
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Date: 2010-06-20 12:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-24 06:06 am (UTC)It makes me happy that you liked it.:)
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Date: 2010-06-20 04:07 pm (UTC)Oh yes, I'd like very much to read more of this lovely story
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Date: 2010-06-24 06:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-21 12:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-24 05:53 am (UTC)I've wanted to tell this story since the time of the original Lost--though once I started, the tale itself surprised me a bit. Apparently my mind has a mind of its own.*g*
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Date: 2010-06-24 06:02 am (UTC)I have that same problem with epics. I love them, but I tend to suffer badly from "just one more chapter" syndrome, and the next thing I know day is breaking and I'm yawning.
I have to let you know that I'm avidly following your "Like Water" verse. Hoping for more soon?
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Date: 2010-06-24 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-21 05:05 pm (UTC)What a clever idea to go back to Lost and tell the tale of the men who were there before the current-day Billy and Dom.
There were some heart-wrenchingly beautiful lines in here, and I fervently hope you continue on with this story.
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Date: 2010-06-23 07:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-24 05:48 am (UTC)It was fun to write a gentleman naturalist Dom--particularly the bit where he offers Billy the hairy jumping spider. Honestly, who wouldn't want to hold one of those?
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Date: 2010-06-24 03:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-07-05 09:46 pm (UTC)