The Lord and The Lieutenant (Black Sails, M)

[groundcontrol]

I know I said I didn’t want to spoil the show because I want everyone to watch it and experience it in its majesty the way I did, but you know what? Fuck it. Please enjoy my favorite lord and lieutenant who love each other (canonically!), who kiss each other (canonically!), and who are just two queer little lovebirds (canonically!). I couldn’t hold my love for them in any longer. Also, I just need Lieutenant James McGraw to sneeze. 

 

If you’ve seen Black Sails, this occurs when Thomas and James are friends, but before the Dinner and the Kiss. So Thomas is pining (and let’s be honest, James is too but we don’t know that bc POV). If you haven’t seen Black Sails, just read this now (and watch it later)...

   

Though they had worked much later into the night before, Lieutenant McGraw was flagging, Thomas could tell. Though he himself had at least two more hours of good work in him (after all, some of his best ideas came to him in the evenings), the lieutenant most certainly did not, and, because the lieutenant would never give up on something willingly, Thomas knew he would have to put a stop to this madness before the man fell asleep at his desk.

    James had come in that day with a hoarse voice that was painful for Thomas to listen to, a fact which the lieutenant claimed was due to all the time he had spent yelling at his men.  Thomas was inclined to believe him, particularly because he knew he had spent the morning and early afternoon at the docks overseeing a refitting of the HMS Gloucester. But as the afternoon went on, the lieutenant took to clearing his throat with increasing frequency, and sipping from his cup of water much more than he normally would, even beckoning the servants to refill it thrice. And then of course, was the fact that James had sneezed a couple more times and with a good deal more force than could be explained away by stray dust in the study.

    James sneezed again, covering it with his handkerchief, which he had taken to keeping fisted in his left hand for easy access as he worked (a thing he likely thought Thomas hadn’t noticed, but Thomas had an eye for detail as good as any naval man). He wiped his nose and sniffled a bit, the sound audibly wet, before he lowered his handkerchief and returned steadfastly to his writing. Thomas had seen enough.

“You’re catching a cold,” he said simply.

James looked up from his notes and fixed Thomas with the look he so often did, the look that said You are being ridiculous, My Lord. It would have been more effective if his eyes were not watery and underlined by fatigue. “I’ll be fine.”

“Yes you will be,” Thomas said, “but you are sounding increasingly less fine at the moment.” And it was true, for the lieutenant’s speech, normally crisp and clear, was beginning to be dulled by congestion. Thomas tapped the excess ink from his quill and placed it back in its holder. “Come, I think we’ve done enough work today.”

James snapped his papers together, straightening them, before another sneeze overtook him. I should go back to my rooms,” he said, giving a hoarse cough at the end of his words and sounding thoroughly and definitely ill.

“In that draughty old boarding house?” Thomas shook his head. He had never been, but Miranda had assured him of the Spartan nature of James’s residence and his too-sparing use of coal for heat, and so Thomas could not abide by sending him there with the beginnings of a dreadful headcold. “Nonsense, James, come sit by the fire with me.”

    A strange look passed over the lieutenant’s face, as it sometimes did when Thomas showed him a particular kindness or allowed him to transgress some stiff old rule of propriety, and for a moment Thomas thought James would decline again. But then his shoulders relaxed marginally, and he gave a small smile, the little twist of the lips that sent a flutter of warmth coursing down Thomas’s spine.

    “If you insist, My Lord,” James said, and oh God, how Thomas ached to tell the man how absolutely and utterly mad it drove him to hear his title, which James had once used so formally, drip now with such teasing from his lips. Yes, they were well and truly friends now, but Thomas wondered if James ever felt the same warmth, the same desire toward him. At times like these, it seemed almost impossible to consider that he wouldn’t.

    Thomas sent for the servants to get a fire going in the drawing room, and in the meantime organized the papers and books on his own desk into piles. He never kept his desk quite as neat as James kept his, but he always tidied it up in the end. While he did so, James hovered at the wall, perusing the spines of the books on the library shelves and sniffling quietly. Thomas resisted the urge to roll his eyes in fond exasperation.

    When the fire was lit and had had enough time to begin to truly warm the room, Thomas lead James to the drawing room and took a seat at the sofa closest to the fire. He waited for James to join him, but found the man almost slinking off to one of the chairs in the corner of the room.

“Where are you going?”

James paused and cast Thomas that Look again, eyebrows raised. “To sit?”

Thomas clucked his tongue. “The fire will hardly reach you all the way over there.” He patted the cushions beside him. “Come, sit here on the sofa with me.”

James shook his head. “I wouldn’t want you to catch—“

“Have no fear, James, I don’t think your aversion to worldly comfort is catching.”

James laughed softly and rolled his eyes. “Very well then.” He took a seat beside Thomas, close enough that Thomas could have reached out and took his hand. The proximity, as it always did, unknotted something deep within Thomas; if he could, he would sit here on a sofa for an eternity and speak of everything and nothing at all with James, and he was sure it would be enough.

It was now that he was so close to Thomas that he could see the minute shivers that traversed the lieutenant’s frame. Of course, James would say nothing of his discomfort, so Thomas spoke. “I’ll have the servants fetch you a blanket.”

Immediately, James shook his head. “Thomas, that’s hardly nece—“ But a sneeze silenced the remainder of his protestation, followed by another and another, and he wiped his nose on his sodden handkerchief, snuffling heavily in the aftermath.

“And another handkerchief, I should think. In the meantime, take mine.”

James cleared his throat and took the handkerchief Thomas offered. At first, Thomas was surprised at his willingness, but such a reaction was explained by the desperate sneeze which the lieutenant endeavored to smother. He pinched his nose between the folds and sniffled again. “I will launder it and return it as soon—“

“James, just focus on feeling better first, hmm?”

    James peered up at him, his watery eyes achingly vulnerable, as if he could not believe that Thomas would take such an interest in his wellbeing. He looked as though he might have said something, but what Thomas would never know, for it was then the servants returned with the handkerchief and blanket. 

    With only the briefest of dark looks cast at Thomas, James took the blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders, sighing quietly at the warmth. Thomas’s heart burst with the desire to press a kiss to the lieutenant’s cheek, to hold him close and pull the blanket around them both, but he settled for nudging James’s knee with his own. 

    “Now, isn’t that better?”

    James nodded, pulling the blanket tighter and coughing softly. He didn’t seem much in the mood for any more conversation, doubtless due to his sore throat, but Thomas did not object. Even in silence, Thomas enjoyed James’s presence much more than that of anyone else. The night before, Thomas had left the book he was reading on the table beside the sofa, and now he retrieved it, leafing through to the page at which he had left off.

Thomas read for a little while like this, the drawing room silent but for the crackle of the fire and sniffles and coughs from James. After completing a chapter, Thomas looked up and noticed James staring dully into the fire, eyes unfocused and mouth slightly ajar to let him breathe. “Would you like a book to read, James?” he asked him.

The words caused James to jump slightly as they shook him from his stupor. He winced. By this point, his voice was almost gone. “No, I…”

“Headache?” Thomas said sympathetically.

James nodded and pinched the bridge of his nose, sniffling. 

“Close your eyes, then.” Thomas gestured to the book he still had open in his lap. “I could read aloud, if you’d like.” 

James sneezed again, and it sounded like it grated harshly against his throat. Thomas chanced to place his hand on James’s back for comfort and, gratified by the man’s lack of resistance, rubbed a few warm circles upon it. “God bless you,” he murmured quietly, intimately.

“That would be nice,” James said softly after he had lowered his handkerchief. He cleared his throat. “I’m sure it’ll put me to sleep, though.”

“Why, lieutenant, are you calling me boring?”

“Many things can be said of you,” James said, his usual smile tired but cheeky nonetheless, “but boring? Never.” He sneezed again, then coughed immediately into his handkerchief, the sound hoarse and wet and painful. The rings beneath his eyes were so dark now, making him look so exhausted that Thomas ached.

“You’re sounding very ill now.” Thomas’s hand was still on the lieutenant’s back and he moved it to his shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze before letting go. “It wouldn’t be a bad thing at all if you fell asleep. Relax, James. I’ll read to you.”

    Rather hesitantly at first and at only at Thomas’s coaxing, James leaned back into the sofa cushions, his head settled against the backrest. But when Thomas began to read to him, he shut his eyes as the tension melted quickly from his body. Thomas smiled to himself, even as he kept reading. The lieutenant would be asleep in no time at all.

    A little while later Thomas was in a dreamlike state himself, lulled by the rhythmic cadence of reading aloud, when he felt a warm weight settle on his shoulder. He looked over to find James had slumped over so that his cheek rested against the nape of Thomas’s neck, snoring softly from his congestion. The sight of the proud and high-strung lieutenant now comfortable enough to sleep against him, even if not strictly intentionally, filled Thomas with a bubbling warmth more pleasing and potent than any champagne could deliver. This feeling, of James pressed close and safe against him, was the feeling Thomas had craved since first he saw the lieutenant on the steps of Whitehall. Thomas would take care not to shift an atom of this perfect picture as he drank it in and committed it to memory. 

Emboldened by sheer delight, Thomas craned his neck to plant a ghost-light kiss on the lieutenant’s forehead, who didn’t so much as stir an inch. “Rest, James,” he whispered. “I’ll be here when you wake.” 

 

[starpollen]

I don’t know the fandom but this is just so sweet!! 🥰 I hope there will be more… 🙏🏻 

[groundcontrol]

On 11/24/2021 at 10:02 PM, starpollen said:

I don’t know the fandom but this is just so sweet!! 🥰 I hope there will be more… 🙏🏻 

Aw thank you so much for reading!! And there will definitely be more. I intend to write as many fics with these two as I have brain power, bc I love them so much. I already have one outlined