Page 52 of Rears & Vices

D’Arcy groaned and rocked, forth and back. “Not with me.”

Everard, mildly surprised, let him fuck his hand for a few more thrusts, then pulled away.

“Who, then?”

D’Arcy grunted at the loss. “Oh, that was a serious question? Not just possessive banter?” He raised his head and gave Everard a damp-curls, darkened-brow glare over his shoulder. “Who for? Would you not be so utterly dense?”

“What?”

“Christ, Everard.” D’Arcy had been pliable and loose in his hands; now he stiffened all over.

“Oh. Not for me?” Everard stared up. “No. Really?”

“Of course for you, sod it all.” D’Arcy sighed and used his free hand to rub at his sweat-slick face. “Ugh,” he muttered. “I’m going to lose my stand. And it was an impressive one. This was going so well.” He straightened, and let go the shelving. “There, it went. I don’t know why you must always look so disbelieving,” he said, to the wall.

“Disbelieving?” Everard managed.

“Horrified, then.” D’Arcy sidestepped away, out of reach. “And here I thought it was only that I was your lieutenant that put you off.”

“Put me… Of course it was that!” Everard protested. “There was a clear imbalance— I was your superior⁠—”

“And then you weren’t. But no,” D’Arcy went on, “it was your complete and utter distaste towards affection. Mine, my affection. Since you have accepted and disseminated your pirate’s showy commitment just fine.”

The Eton schoolboy had returned; a bad sign. Everard stood creakily, rubbing at his knees. “That isn’t real.”

“Horseshit it isn’t.” D’Arcy stooped to pick up his shirt. “If it weren’t, he wouldn’t have done it. And what is real?” he demanded. “Does your repetitive denial of my feelings negate them into nothing? Make this”—he gestured between them, a swooping shadow in the dark—“somehow illegitimate?”

Everard opened his mouth, but D’Arcy held up a hand. “Do not you dare say it’s only real when reciprocated and that you do not. I’ll take standby, Everard, but by God—not that.”

Everard winced. “You’re not... standby. Of course it is real. And…and reciprocated,” he admitted. “You realise I wouldn’t have been much use to you, just now, if it weren’t. I am terribly fond of you. I always have been.”

D’Arcy huffed. “You’ll excuse me if I don’t quite believe it.”

Everard’s chest squeezed. “I’m sorry you didn’t realise.”

D’Arcy crossed his arms over his own chest.

“Well, no,” Everard revised hastily. “That wasn’t it. I didn’t let you realise it. I didn’t make it known.”

“In fact,” D’Arcy said, “you made the opposite well known to me. Went out of your way, I’d say. Three years.”

“That’s fair.” Everard swallowed. He had no excuses that weren’t utterly caddish, selfish, cowardly. But maybe D’Arcy wanted them regardless. “It was a bit excessive. I realise that. But it wasn’t intentional.”

D’Arcy raised disbelieving eyebrows.

“Really,” Everard insisted. “I hadn’t meant to let it go so long. And they kept arriving. Each one made it more difficult to write back. Made the gap larger. Not that I didn’t welcome them! I treasured them.” He gestured to his head. “They’re here, Preston. Forever. I don’t need to carry them with me, and not only because my brain is the way it is.”

“You kept C’s letters,” D’Arcy said, almost inaudible.

Everard gestured helplessly. “He died before I was in the habit of not keeping things. Personal property. Afterward, I couldn’t rid of them, it’d be like to kill him twice. I don’t… You weren’t going to die,” he said fiercely.

“But I could have.”

Everard resolutely ignored this.

“And then you made post of your own, and that seemed right. It was vindication. I knew… I thought maybe I had held you back from promotion, those years. From your seeking it.”

D’Arcy laughed, somewhat bitterly. “Promotion in the art of war. Against this. Against us. Absolutely, that’s what I wanted.”