Archive of Our Own

Lieutenant Hodgson’s mouth keeps opening and closing all the while Hickey talks, like a stranded fish gasping for air.

“Dear god,” he says at the end of it. His voice is thin, barely above a whisper. His eyes are wide and watery. “Dear god.”

“So you see, Hickey says, “why if we’re, at this point, to have any hope at all, we’ll have to spin it out of wool off our own backs.”

He emphasises the words with one firm nod of the head and then is silent, giving space for the lieutenant to agree. Hickey’s face is grimly set, but the glance he gives Tozer out of the corner of his eye glitters victoriously. As the seconds pass and no agreement comes, however, that first spark of triumph fails to find the fuel to blaze. The glint flickers out in his eye, replaced by a wary watchfulness, the increasing tension in his expression slight but readable to one who knows him in more than passing.

Tozer can read it. Can feel the same tension in himself, his jaw cranked tighter click by miniscule click, until his molars grind together. This isn’t going well, he thinks. He tries to catch Hickey’s eye, to get some hint as to where his mind is at, but Hickey is intent on Hodgson, fixing him with the coiled concentration of a mouser listening for skittering in the bilge-damp darkness of the bowels of the ship.

The way Hickey outlines this, them getting Lieutenant Hodgson on their side was practically a done deal, a simple matter of presenting the man with thoughts he was already thinking. He’d sounded so sure of it, had Hickey, when laying it all out to Tozer. Sure that Hodgson would be amenable, that they’d be able to pluck him out of the wardroom set and slip him right into their own, no fuss or fretting. If the reality of the tins weren’t enough to sway him, uncovering the lie around Fairholme’s slaughtered sledge party would be the thing that did it, but every truth has been put out there, is hanging in the air around them as grisly as gutted rats, yet Tozer isn’t seeing any sign of Hodgson beginning to align with Hickey’s promise of him.

Hodgson’s back is bent, as though the knowledge of Fairholme’s fate presses physically down on him. By his feet slumps the bagful of meat. He’d been horrified by it, when he’d seen it.

Even if he were to come around to Hickey and his view of things, is that the sort of man they want? A man who shrinks away from a dead dog as though from the cadaver of a friend? Tozer saw Hickey’s reason in adding a bit of rank to their ranks, there’s lots could be easier with a man of their own going in and out of the command tent at will, but Hodgson is no credit to his station at the moment. His shoulders are around his ears. His eyes dart here and there, his gaze betraying his fearful skittishness no matter how well he keeps his body from trembling.

Tozer’s not known Lieutenant Hodgson to be yellow-bellied - he didn’t hesitate a second when they chased the demon bear off the ship - but present circumstance has a way of whittling men down to their core, showing their true mettle. Funny that; ask him a year ago which he’d bet on rising to occasion and grab his fate by the neck: that little shirker smart-mouth or the veteran lieutenant, and Tozer likely wouldn’t have given the answer he’d give now.

Again he wishes Hickey would look in his direction, break his fixed attention on Hodgson, let him know what’s next because if Hickey’s as mistaken as Tozer fears he’s been, if the lieutenant takes what’s been said in this tent to the Captain-

“I don’t believe you?”

Hodgson says it like a question, like he’s testing the statement out, whether it applies to him. He’s raised his head, looks Hickey in the eye. Tentative at first, but once the words are out there, once he’s heard them said, some feeling solidifies deep in his pupils.

“I don’t believe you,” he repeats, firmer now. He straightens his back, his hands in clenched fists on his thighs.

The corners of Hickey’s mouth stretch upwards. He’s somehow amused by this, but Tozer feels a bloom of anger, like the dull pain of blood vessels bursting beneath unbroken skin.

“I was there,” he says, although he’s said this already and once should be enough. “I saw it. Their heads, frozen through, all lined in a row, like-” He doesn’t know what to compare it to, what would make the horror of the scene justice. The blue-black colour that no skin should be, the grimaces of death congealed upon the features. The cuts through their necks as neat as any butcher’s, the placement side by side in neat and tidy mockery. “All in a row for us to find. I saw it,” he says. His voice rumbles in his chest, he feels the sound vibrating in the region about his heart.

“You and…” Hodgson looks at Tozer but quickly, makes eye contact only grazingly. “And Mr. Morfin, who is now dead.

Hickey looks at Tozer as well, at last, for several long and obvious seconds. His eyebrows are raised, his teeth are showing in a full, disbelieving smile. Their eyes meet, but Tozer can’t tell is the mirth is genuine or if it’s masking alarm.

“Lieutenant,” Hickey says, “I’m not sure if you mean to be implying something, but I can-”

“I’m not implying anything.”

The protest comes quickly. Hodgson not so much stepping back from whatever line of accusation he was embarking on as flinching away from it. He hasn’t raised his voice, not once.

Hickey breathes out in a huff that’s half a sigh and half a chuckle. “You should know, lieutenant, that the sergeant here brought this to you - to us - at risk of court martial.”

At this Hodgson doesn’t quite start, but he looks at Tozer properly for the first time since they all entered the tent together.

“Yes,” Hickey says solemnly. “Crozier would rather the most able gunman out of all of us-” and here he gestures at Tozer with an open-handed, expansive gesture as if welcoming him into a stage. Showy as it is, the flattery in that gesture, the little token of Hickey’s esteem, sticks itself to Tozer’s spirit like a golden pin and bolsters it with its gleam. It shouldn’t, maybe, but it does.

“Crozier would rather this man hang than tell you this truth,” Hickey says. “Now, if you don’t want to believe your captain would hide this from not only the crew at large but from his closest men, I won’t fault you for that. But.” He pokes the tip of the knife he’s been toying with throughout the conversation into the thin bedding laid out on the tent floor. “When evidence to the contrary mounts… Don’t let sentiment blind you to reality.”

“What evidence, Mr. Hickey? Thus far all you have brought me are words to take on faith alone, and the remains of-” Hodgson swallows. He gestures faintly to the sack of meat, the motion made all the more feeble when compared with the confidence in Hickey’s sure sweep of the hand the moment before. Still, he says: “The latter also accompanied by a story that would sound implausible to any ear,” with enough strength that Hickey’s chin juts defensively forward.

Truth be told, Tozer doesn’t much believe the story of poor Neptune’s broken legs and the benevolent mercy killing either, but it doesn’t make Hickey less credible on the whole. The opposite, really. You can tell when Hickey lies. He’s no good at making up falsehoods, they’re ricketty constructions, and when he tells them he puts on a whole little performance to go with that rather than prop them up just makes them wobble. You can tell when Hickey lies - which means you know when he’s truthful. Everything important he’s said so far has checked out on accounting. Whether the dog was butchered or put out of its misery doesn’t matter.

What matters is they can eat the flesh and fill their bellies, and that Hickey isn’t so sly you can’t throw your lot in with him. You know where you have him. He’s proven a trustworthy comrade, through his qualities as much as through his flaws.

“It doesn’t matter if you believe that part or not,” Hickey says in a tone of voice that suggests maybe it does matter, a little bit. “It should be enough that you believe us about the tins.”

“I’ve not said that.”

It’s a weak protest, clinging to technicality. Hickey shakes his head.

“You believe us. You do. It all adds up: the sickness, the spoiled tins… Yeah, I know about the spoilage. That you’ve noted more of it than you should’ve, that it’s been a worry in the wardroom.” Here he pauses, goes grave. “What’s rotting those tins is rotting us, too.”

Of course Hodgson believes it; he’d be a fool otherwise. They’ve all felt it. They’ve all noticed. How tired the men are, more than can be accounted for by the slow creep of scurvy. The dark moods, the stubborn aches that can’t be lifted, the moments where a man’s mind fogs over, makes him confused and forgetful. It’s not been just Morfin, even if he was the worst off. The worst by far. So bad he’d force a bullet into his skull rather than live a second more with it.

They’ll all end up there, unless they leave the path they’re on. Tozer can tell Hodgson has come to the same conclusion, the only possible conclusion, can see it in his pressed thin lips and in his tense brow and in the fear burrowed into his eyes.

Still.

“All I have is your word,” Hodgson says, “and even if it were true-”

“It is,” Tozer interrupts, harsher than planned and unrepentant about it, despite the stern glance Hickey gives him. “I’ve not lied to you. About any of it.”

“Even so, what you are asking of me…” Hodgson lowers his voice to a real whisper, and the fear in his eyes flares, like a candle catching a stray strand of hair. “It is mutiny.”

All this time, none of them have said the word out loud. Perhaps Hodgson regrets doing so now, regrets shedding any last trace of plausible deniability for them, because his eyes go to Tozer’s rifle. Tozer tightens his grip on it, makes it noticeable.

Hickey sits very still. The knife is still in his hand, the point still digging into the blankets. He licks his lips slowly.

“We are… inviting you,” he says. “To live. Like Mr. Morfin didn’t, nor Lieutenant Fairholme. There’s still a chance, for us. But we have to seize it. It won’t be given us.” He has been looking at the knife while speaking, rotating the handle between his fingers. Now he looks up with a sudden jerk of the head. “No one’s coming for us. It’s just us out here, us and that creature. And the only lie that’s been told in this tent today is yours, when you said you don’t believe us.” Hickey shrugs, studied. “But go ahead. If you’re sticking with it. Maybe your captain will confirm it if you press him directly. Maybe he’ll take a break from fitting Lieutenant Jopson with his new epaulettes and make time for you.”

Tozer’s breath is stuck in his throat. He was agreeing, nodding along with Hickey while he laid out the direness of their current situation and the one glimmer of possibility that remains to them, but then his speech turned. He’s trying to call Hodgson’s bluff. Around the breath lodged in Tozer’s windpipe incredulity is rising like bile because there is no bluff to call yet. Hickey is calling it before it’s been made. Calling it, too, by dragging up a fresh humiliation. They came to challenge Hodgson, but there’s more than challenge in his words now. There’s mockery and insolence. It’s the wrong tone to take with command, and Hodgson may be the weakest link of the command chain but he is command. He won’t respond well to a rating trying to cut him down to size.

A touch of colour comes into Hodgson’s cheeks; a hint of defiance comes into his eyes. Hickey has misjudged. Tozer can see it. Prod a horse a little and he trots faster; prod him too hard and he throws you off. One thing to appeal to the lieutenant’s authority and plead for his leadership and another to suggest he has none where he currently stands. For a moment Tozer fears, and he does fear, that Hickey doesn’t get this, that he and Tozer are part of two different conversations, two different situations, where despite the words and trappings being the same, their understanding of them isn’t.

Hodgson clears his throat. “Perhaps I shall speak to the Captain,” he says, less timid though not quite confident, more petulant than assured. “Hear what version he might give.” He shifts on the stool where he sits, angling slightly towards the tent opening.

Tozer never has to find out whether that movement would have been the first in a long sequence eventually leading to his own demise, never has to find out if the tensing muscles in his left arm would have completed the motion of lifting the rifle, whether he would have put it in Hodgson’s way or taken aim, and what would have followed. He never has to find out - because Hickey, quick as a ferret and just as nimble, darts up from where he’s sat and grabs Hodgson’s legs, interrupting the action before it can be realised.

Hodgson freezes. Tozer freezes as well. Hickey has put his hands on Hodgson’s thighs, just above the knee. His fingers are splayed over the navy blue of Hodgson’s trousers, enough pressure in his grip for each fingertip to make a slight dip in the fabric. Under his right palm the handle of his knife lies trapped between him and the lieutenant. The blade points towards Hodgson as a sharp-edged diagonal, the tip hovering above the inseam.

“If you do that,” Hickey says, “then what happens to Sergeant Tozer?” His voice is pitched low in both tone and volume. Standing on his knees before Hodgson, their eyes are almost - but not quite, at a level. There’s less than an arm’s length of space between their faces, much less.

“Hm?” Hickey urges, but Hodgson gives him no reply. His hands have pulled back from where they rested on his thighs before, replaced by Hickey’s, and now they hover at chest height, drawn close to his body. His spine is rigid. He’s leaning back from Hickey, the way you might from an unknown animal that unexpectedly jumped into your lap, an animal sharp of tooth as well as claw.

Hickey, in his turn, leans in a fraction. He’s putting some of his weight onto Hodgson’s thighs, Tozer can see Hodgson having to brace against it, but he says nothing, doesn’t shake Hickey off.

“You still think,” Hickey says conversationally, as though he isn’t currently in the middle of laying hands upon his superior officer, “you stand apart from us, in this. You think Crozier’s plan includes you. Considers your well-being.” He gets a little closer, his hands sliding an inch up Hodgson’s thighs, making creases in the trouser fabric. The knife slides with them, its blade a foretroop to his fingers. “And I’m telling you: you’re wrong about that.”

Tozer’s mouth is dry. Hickey is nearly in between Hodgson’s legs now, and is he aware of it? How odd this is, how it looks to the observer? Tozer watches Hickey lower himself, no longer standing on his knees but sitting back with his behind on his heels. Lowered such, his forearms, too, make contact with Hodgson, almost to the elbow.

And all the while he talks.

“See, Crozier didn’t tell you about the tins, or about the sledge party, because if he did he'd have to own up to being wrong. And that Crozier can’t do. In his own eyes, he’s incapable of mistakes or misjudgment. He’ll let all of us go the way of Mr. Morfin before admitting to any fault. He’ll ply us with fairytales of friendly Eskimo waiting with barrels of hot soup just beyond the next hill and he’ll believe them himself. That’s how deep his stubbornness goes.”

He jabs his left pointer finger into Hodgson’s thigh for punctuation, seemingly not noticing how Hodgson twitches in response. But he must be aware. Hickey’s testing him, Tozer thinks, begins to understand. Testing Hodgson for compliance, feeling out the limits of what he’s willing to swallow. His hand when it settles back down is yet another inch further up.

“Crozier’s not the man he makes himself out to be,” Hickey says. There’s a scratch of emotion come into his voice that to Tozer’s ears sounds deeply felt. “Not by half.”

A brief pause. Hickey wets his lips, blinks. It’s quick, but Tozer catches him glancing down as he does, into Hodgson’s lap. Hodgson does, too, at the same time, and the colour deepens on his face. Their eyes flicker up to meet as if on cue and something passes between them, something Tozer can’t decipher, something that strains the atmosphere within the tent, snaps it taut. Hodgon’s lips part, he breathes in as though about to speak, but Hickey beats him to it.

“Crozier doesn’t see you as any different from the rest of us. He’s kept us all equally in the dark, you’re as below him as I am. All your loyalty to that man does is justify the lies he tells to you, and to himself.”

Hickey falls silent. His eyes are wide and honest, boring into Hodgson’s. Kneeling where he is, holding on to the lieutenant, he posture could be read as beseeching, a man begging to be heard, but the set of his jaw and implacable determination in his expression it not at all deferring or submissive.

Hodgson swallows. The heightened colour of his face has spread to his ears.

“Mr. Hickey,” he croaks.

The corner of Hickey’s mouth twitches. He looks down, this time with a clear and demonstrative motion, he dips his head to stare blatantly at Hodgson’s crotch.

You can be starved for more than food at sea, there are many depravations a man can find himself subject to when far from English shores. Just as your belly growls for a proper meal, your muscles can shiver for warmth, your heart can ache for home, your eyes can weep for want of a single green leaf to rest upon, to break up the endless monotony of waves or ice or shale. Your skin can itch under your clothes when the thought strikes of how long since a sweet and agreeable hand touched it, you can feel the absence of touch like a prickle at the sides of the neck or down your back, it can roil restlessly through your abdomen. The mouth of a food-starved man will water at things his well fed self would discard. A touch-starved man will spring up like a coiled wire when brushing against a comrade, however smelly or coarse.

The way Hickey and Hodgson are seated, with their profiles to him, Tozer can’t himself spot the lieutenant’s cockstand, but he knows it’s there. The realisation, the absurdity of it, stuns him like a blow to the temple.

A smile dimples Hickey’s cheeks, makes crinkles around his eyes.

“Mr. Hickey,” Hodgson repeats, and Tozer can clearly hear his mortification, his confusion. As much over Hickey’s reaction as his own, Tozer must assume, because Hickey is undisturbed and unapologetic,not removing his hands.

“Please, Mr. Hickey.”

Hickey’s expression shifts, softens into something approaching tenderness. Without taking his eyes off Hodgsons’ he nods down at his right hand.

“Did I frighten you?” he says quietly, and that’s when Tozer notices how far up Hodgson’s leg the knife has travelled, how near it must be to his manhood. “I didn’t mean to.”

Not waiting for Hodgson to reply, Hickey lifts the hand with the knife, moving it out of close proximity to Hodgson’s body. He holds it up before Hodgson’s face, smiling all the while, the smile of a patient guardian explaining to a skittish child that the tail of an earwig can’t sting him, no matter how spiky it appears. There isn’t much light inside the tents, but what comes in through the slim gap at the opening catches on the blade, a silver flash when Hickey turns it about. He keeps it clean and sharp, does Hickey, expends some effort on it. Tozer knows he nicked it from the wardroom dinner set, Hickey’s mentioned it, an off-hand boast. Hodgson must recognise it now as well, the familiar handle and the improved edge.

Having shown off the knife, Hickey puts it down on the blanket by his feet, well away from Hodgson though not out of his sight. He then returns his hand to Hodgson’s thigh, right where it was, casual as you like. The tendons in the back of it flex as he gives Hodgson a little squeeze. Whether it’s meant to be comforting or possessive, Tozer can’t discern.

“There’s no shame in it,” Hickey says. “The body…” He shrugs. ‘What’s there to be done about the body?’ that shrug seems to say. Like Hodgson’s body is a fourth person in the tent, someone neither of them can be held fully responsible for.

When you slip on the ice, there is a moment before your brain registers what is happening. Your foot slides and loses its hold, your body dips to an unsustainable angle, your knees begin to buckle - but you have yet to put it together, have not yet figured out what you’re headed for. In the short second before the pain of hitting the ground and loosing your footing, all you feel is a lack of understanding and an alarming surge in your guts.

It’s like that now. Tozer sits watching Hickey paw Lieutenant Hodgson and feels the ground slip away and away.

Hickey tilts his head.

“May I see to you?” he says to Hodgson, very gently.

“I-” The look on Hodgson’s flushed face is stricken. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yeah, you do.”

Hodgson stammers something that Tozer doesn’t hear, because Hickey turns unexpectedly towards him. The smile he used on Hodgson is gone, his eyes are wry and knowing. He looks to Tozer like they’re sharing a joke, like they’re both in on a secret.

If Tozer's to put a stop to this, here's his chance. Hickey's handing him the opportunity himself by making it clear that whatever he's about to do, his doing it hinges on Tozer giving the go-ahead, whatever's to happen will only happen with all three of them involved. All Tozer needs to do is shake his head. All he needs to do is let Hickey know he doesn't get what he's asking either, and that will be the end of it.

Only he does know, of course he does. He can't pretend to himself he doesn't. There's been some talk about Hickey, about what Hickey likes to do, what sort of a man he is. Tozer's only put so much stock in them - when rumours like that spring up around a fellow it doesn't necessarily follow there's something real behind them. Often the man is simply not well liked. Hickey, who aside from shirking duty and complaining his way across the Northern Sea is also sharp-tongued and argumentative and set on keeping to his own odd ways instead of falling in with the group, didn't make many friends among the crew early on. He made himself someone to look askance at.

Although he did think about it. Just a bit. Just occasionally. Towards the end of a long, miserably cold watch, yeah, the thought might come to him. He'd wonder if there was anything to the whispering behind Hickey's back, and if so if it was a favoured habit of his or a rare exception. He'd think about what sort of things Hickey would do, if he did them, if he'd use his hands or his mouth, or if he was more likely to make use than be used. It was just idle musings. Not like he'd imagine it.

Except when he would imagine it, and those imaginings would warm him up despite the cold. Vivid images of Hickey floating up inside his mind, images of Hickey's body flushed and sweaty like it was at his flogging and contorting not in pain but from other sensations, images he's seen changed into images he'd like to see. Tozer always understood that men can be driven towards each other, be it from deprivation or some strange lusts, but he'd never quite understood how that drive could get its start. Not until this last year. Not until he and Hickey became mates, which is what they probably are.

That’s the truth of it. He knows what Hickey means to do. He wants to see it.

He nods.

Hickey nods, too, accepting Tozer’s acceptance. “Close the tent, Sergeant,” he says, before turning his attention back to Hodgson.

It’s short work, tightening the rope laced through the tent-flaps and closing them off completely to the outside. It dims the tent further, but doesn’t darken it to a point where they can’t see. Hickey’s returning smile is perfectly discernable, especially now Tozer’s gotten off the barrel he’s been sitting on and is kneeling on the ground as well. When Hickey sets his hands to Hodgson’s fly and starts undoing the buttons there, Tozer can watch without obstructions from his new position on the floor.

He can see Hodgson better as well, now that he’s closer. Before he thought Hodgson looked stricken, frightened and trapped. He sees something else, now. The way Hodgson stares at Hickey in front of him isn’t with horror. With anxiety, but not with disgust or fear. With his cheeks glowing and his chin slightly trembling - up close he doesn’t look like a man on the verge of tears. He looks like a man on the verge of wonder.

Hickey himself looks pleased with the situation he’s in, pleased and a bit eager. Tozer sits on his knees, the rocks beneath the bedding that covers the tent floor hard and uneven. His teeth are gritted and saliva pools behind them, surrounding his tongue. He hopes Hickey really is eager, that he isn’t reading eagerness into his friend only because he wants it to be there, because that thought makes the blood run thick and hot through his veins. He hopes he won’t regret this, sitting and watching and letting this come to pass, that he won’t have cause to curse himself later.

With methodical neatness, Hickey tucks Hodgson’s shirt up under his waistcoat to keep it out of the way, and makes sure his coattails hang tidily behind his back. Tozer has the thought that it’s for his benefit, that Hickey is ensuring the scene is visible to him, making of Hodgson a showcase. Hodgson is breathing in small, audible gasps. His eyes flit from Hickey’s face to his hands, and back again.

“I’ll be quick about it,” Hickey says. He slips his hand into Hodgson’s drawers and, finally, fishes him out.

Hodgson moans. He moans like some valve has loosened within his chest, the sound bursting out of him. The rigid line of his spine collapses, he curls in on himself, his arms in a cramped knot.

Hickey’s hand moves slowly up and down the shaft of Hodgson’s cock. His fingers are slim and pale, looking starkly white against Hodgson’s inflamed member. As Tozer watches, a bead of liquid bubbles from the slit at the tip. Hickey catches it with his thumb to slicken the glide of his stroking. With every stroke Hodgson’s thighs flex, his seat unsteady on the small stool beneath him.

“Lean on me, sir,” Hickey says, reaching for Hodgson’s wrist with his free hand, grabbing it. Hodgson makes no resistance as Hickey directs him to place one hand and then the other on Hickey’s shoulders, supporting himself that way. Hickey props himself up a little higher on his feet, so the lieutenant won’t have to lean so far forward that he’s doubled over.

The frigging goes on uninterrupted through it. I’ll be quick, Hickey said, but Tozer thinks he’s drawing it out, the pace he’s set isn’t one that will have Hodgson spilling soon. They are gazing into each others’ eyes; Hodgson dazed and slack-jawed, Hickey smiling genially.

They look like lovers, that way. Hickey’s left hand rests over Hodgson’s on his shoulder, his forefinger moving in tiny, calming circles over Hodgson’s knuckles.

It’s both arousing and uncomfortable. More so than seeing Hodgson’s jutting cock, than watching a mate on his knees like a doxy, it’s that unexpected tenderness that sends a jolt of shame through the arousal building up in Tozer’s body. He ought to look away. He wants to look closer. He wants to see it, the gentleness that Hickey’s brought out; he wants to watch it happen despite the embarrassment, an embarrassment he feels for himself for not turning from it as much as for the other two for engaging in it.

He means to get a better angle, that’s all he means to do. When he tries to shuffle sideways, he doesn’t mean to bump the butt of the rifle with his boot, or for it to topple over, clattering against the side of the barrel.

Hodgson whips his head around to stare at Tozer. The noise has startled him out of his daze; the spell over him is broken. Wild humiliation breaks out on his face. It’s as though Tozer has just walked in on him and Hickey together, like Hodgson forgot he’s been there all along.

He snatches the hand Hickey’s been holding away. “This isn’t-” he tries, shoving weakly at Hickey’s shoulder. He grabs Hickey’s upper arm in an attempt to stop his steady stroking. “I can’t-”

Once again there is increased distance between their bodies, Hodgson leaning back and away from Hickey. His eyes are on Tozer. His cock hasn’t softened one bit, it stands bold and leaking, and maybe that’s why his effort to get Hickey to stop seems so half-hearted, why his stuttered protest sounds so unconvincing.

Hickey still stops at the first nudge. He lets go of Hodgson’s member, placing that hand on Hodgson’s knee where it rested before that touch escalated into this. He’s frowning, but not deeply. It’s a look of mild concern, rather than displeasure.

Tozer knows he should be relieved that this seems to be stopping, that Hodgson has come to his senses and Hickey is following his lead, but he isn’t. His coat hangs heavy off his shoulders, he’s sweating under the muffler. While Hickey’s hand was on Hodgson’s cock, he didn’t notice how uncomfortably hot he had become. It’s disappointment that’s brought it all back in.

Hodgson doesn’t appear relieved either, not outwardly. “Mr. Hickey,” he begins, but whatever was meant to follow is lost, turns into a gasp of shock and pleasure both when Hickey, without warning, dives in and engulfs Hodgson’s cock with his mouth.

Immediately, Hodgson’s hesitance transforms.

“Oh-!” The sound is guttural, without any trace of composure. “Oh, god, oh, yes!”

There’s nothing reticent about him now. Hodgson is grasping at the back of Hickey’s head, finger’s tangling in his long hair. Hunching above him, his neck pushes forward, straining towards the pleasure instead of away from it. Through the gap between his elbow and waist Tozer sees just glimpses of Hickey’s lips wrapped around Hodgson’s cock, bobbing up and down. The sight is perfectly obscene, almost more so because it’s partly obscured. He shouldn’t be seeing this, and he nearly isn’t. Yet it’s happening, and he’s there, and he does see it, Hickey making a tight seal of his lips for another man’s pleasure.

Hodgson’s feet scrape against the ground, his knees trembling. He’s trying to rock into Hickey’s mouth without the proper leverage for it. They’re failing to settle into a shared rhythm - Tozer hears Hickey gag with a wet gurgle. It makes his own cock swell.

Hickey resurfaces. “Hold him steady for me, will you, Sergeant?” he says. His tone is businesslike, but his voice is thick with saliva, huskily hoarse.

Tozer hesitates before putting his hand awkwardly below Hodgson’s shoulder blade. Touching a lieutenant in that way is a magnificent transgression, and it doesn’t matter that a much greater transgression of touch is happening at the same time, it’s different when the transgression is his own.

“Not like that,” Hickey says. “Get yourself behind him.”

No reason for the impatiently raised brow. It’s not as if the request was especially clear and instructive. Tozer gives Hickey a glare, but Hickey doesn’t return it in kind, just smiles at him, inclines his head conspiratorially. Hickey shouldn’t be able to order him around, Tozer doesn’t put up with that sort of thing from men who don’t outrank him, but still he gets to his feet. He’s choosing to go along with it, he thinks. He’s not taking an order, he’s making it easier for Hickey to finish what he’s started. He’s letting Hickey take the lead because Hickey knows what he’s doing in this where Tozer doesn’t, Hickey is the experienced bugger, not him.

Once he thinks that, I’m just letting the little bugger get what he’s gagging for, he’s in some hurry to get behind Hodgson. Tozer assumes he’s to stand there and keep the man from toppling over, but Hickey hooks his hands behind Hodgson’s knees.

“Come here, sir. Give the sergeant room on the seat.”

He pulls Hodgson towards him as he speaks, and Hodgson complies without a fuss, leaving just enough room on the stool for Tozer to sit himself down, legs spread around him and his back flush against his chest. It’s a precarious configuration, Tozer mainly supported on his thighs, at least until he wraps his arms around Hodgson’s middle and scoots forward until he sits as stable as possible, and Hodgson’s the one hanging half off the stool, held up mainly by Tozer’s grip and his own legs bracing against the ground.

It’s not too heavy a burden, Tozer can manage it. They’ve all thinned out on their long trek, and Hodgson was fairly slender before that. Tozer’s not been in the habit of taking careful stock of men’s looks, but even he’s noted that Hodgson’s always cut a fine, slim figure, the kind of shape his uniform was surely designed with in mind, meant foremost to flatter. He doesn’t dislike the weight of him in his arms. Tozer squeezes a little tighter, leaving less space for Hodgson’s rib cage to expand, forcing his breath to get shallower. To have the lieutenant in a clinch like this isn’t unpleasant, not at all.

It surprises him how submissively Hodgson allows it all to happen - but then again perhaps it’s not so strange when Hickey has frigged him throughout, keeping him hard and panting, the implicit promise of getting back into the heat of his mouth glistening in his damp moustache. Not that Hodgson isn’t awkward now that he’s flanked, not that his hands don’t hover, again undecided on where to land, but he’s neither resisting nor protesting.

Maybe he’s always wanted this? To be trapped between two men under his command, a subject to their lusts. Maybe his jovial demeanour always masked such secret desires, maybe he threw the ratings furtive glances and wished one of them would have off with him and bend him over? Tozer grinds his half-hard cock against Hodgson’s arse, and thrills at the hitch in his breath.

Hickey hems pointedly. When Tozer looks at him, when he moves his attention from Hodgson to Hickey, and not before, Hickey tucks his hair behind his ears and gets back to his task.

As soon as Hickey takes Hodgson’s prick in his mouth again, Hodgson’s awkwardness disappears. The change is remarkable: he throws himself heedlessly into the pleasure, he lets it overcome him. His head lolls. Where a moment ago he didn’t know what to do with his hands at all he now clings to Tozer’s arms, clutching at them where they’re clutching him. It strikes Tozer how even though Hodgson is the one with his prick in Hickey, thrusting up into him, the control lies not with Hodgson. It isn’t Hickey being taken, that’s not the impression. Rather, it’s Hickey taking something from Hodgson. It’s not how Tozer has thought of this act, when he’s thought of it. When he’s imagined Hickey here, in positions like this, it’s not as the one in power.

Tozer has an unhindered view of Hickey and his efforts now, and it’s mesmerising. His lips stretched around Hodgson’s shaft, shining with spit and bright pink from friction. His cheeks, too, are pink, flushed from the exertion. Flushed, too, from his own enjoyment - Tozer catches movement further down, and when his gaze moves there he sees Hickey palming himself through his trousers, sees the bulge between his legs.

He likes it, Hickey likes it. He likes it on his knees, he likes it in his mouth, he likes the taste of cock, he’s hard from how much he likes it. Underneath his clothes, Tozer burns hot all over.

He’s not sure how long it is before Hickey let’s Hodgson pop from between his lips and pauses to stretch his jaw. Demonstratively, for the benefit of his audience more than out of a genuine need, Tozer thinks, ungenerously. He is the right audience for it, though, and so is Hodgson. They’re both staring down at Hickey, their bodies pressing together, sharing the same fevered fascination with the sight of Hickey as he works his jaw back and forth, as his tongue undulates in little wave-like motions to generate more saliva.

His eyes catch on Tozer’s, who feels it like a jolt. The blue of Hickey’s irises is dark in the dim light within the tent; what light there is glitters deep in his pupils. Drool has run down his chin, soaked his beard. He doesn’t wipe at it.

Hickey stretches out his tongue. Not breaking eye contact with Tozer for a second, Hickey lays Hodgson’s cock on it, letting it sit there, ignoring Hodgson’s whimpers. Certainly showing off, now. Hodgson isn’t unusually large, but in Hickey’s small mouth, against his pointed little tongue, he looks massive. Tozer can’t help that it impresses him how Hickey has managed to make room for his prick with those sizable teeth crowding the space. There must be technique to it, technique Hickey has learned and honed. Is he proud of it, of what he can do? He must be, showing off this brazenly, putting on this display. When he at last lets Hodgson slide inside and begins to suck him properly, he moans loudly, and Hodgson moans with.

Tozer’s teeth dig into his own tongue. He nearly moaned, too. Just from looking. Just from the sight of what Hickey can do. He’s not the one being serviced, but the way Hickey looks at him and not Hodgson, the unbroken intensity of it, makes him feel like he’s the subject of his attentions, anyway.

“Mr. Hickey.”

Hodgson is squirming in Tozer’s hold. “Mr. Hickey!” he says, louder. His face is contorted into a grimace, he’s tensing up taut. “Mr. Hickey! Mr- Oh- Mr. Hickey, please!”

Hickey makes no sign of having heard him. He has grabbed Hodgson’s hips, latched on to him. Hodgson is begging for mercy, but Hickey’s cheeks are hollowing, he isn’t letting up but rather increasing the pace and the suction.

“Sergeant!” Hodgson speaks directly at him, pants into Tozer’s face. “Tell him I am going to- Tell him I am- Tell him-!” He’s frantic, babbling, getting so loud Tozer finds it best to put a hand over his mouth. As he does, Hodgson sobs under his palm.

His crisis is upon him. Having attempted restraint and failed, Hodgson gives in completely, rutting up into Hickey’s mouth. His head has fallen back against Tozers shoulder; his thin hair lies plastered against his sweat-soaked forehead. His buttocks are off the stool completely, he clutches Tozer’s thighs, and that’s how he spends, muffled and trembling, tears at the corners of his eyes.

Hickey takes it from him, all of it. Hodgson doesn’t see it, too deep in his own pleasure, but Tozer watches as Hickey keeps the seal tight around Hodgson’s cock, how his Adam's apple bobs when he swallows. He might have spent as well, right there, seeing Hickey drink down the mouthful of jissom, had he only had something to grind against, if Hodgson hadn’t arched up and away from him during his climax. Tozer’s heart is thrumming. His head is light, his arms are aching. His cock is pulsing, thick with blood.

Hodgson’s bliss lasts no more than a few seconds before the tension leaves his body and he slumps, becoming heavy and unwieldy in Tozer’s arms. He first relaxes back, into Tozer’s hold, but upon realising that is what he’s doing, tries to get his legs under him. The result is some brief flailing before he glides out of Tozer’s grip and lands on his arse with a thump.

He sits at Tozer’s feet. Hodgson is a tall man, long arms and long legs; he has to curl in on himself like a shrimp to keep from touching either him or Hickey, and he does. A moment ago he was in rapture, abandoning himself to it. That’s all gone. Tozer doesn’t need to see his face to know that fear and shame has descended on him. He can read it in the slope of his shoulders, in his hunched back.

In contrast, Hickey sits straight-backed on his knees. His hair is mussed. His eyes are slightly red-rimmed, a little shiny, and at the tip of his nose hangs a drop of clear snot. In his passion, Hodgson went at him hard. Or Hickey made rough use of himself for Hodgson’s benefit - Tozer can’t be sure which it is, but the obvious bulge in Hickey’s trousers makes him lean towards the latter. Hickey doesn’t seem upset about it, in any case, not shocked or rattled in the least. He appears calm, collected, despite the sloppy state of his face. Like he doesn’t at all mind where he’s at, what he’s been subjected to.

Hickey isn’t smiling, but his cheeks are slightly dimpling, so he isn’t far from it. He reaches forward, slowly, smoothing the thin wisps of Hodgson’s pale blonde hair, which lie in matted disarray. His touch is light, only his fingertips brushing the bare skin where Hodgson’s hairline has receded and exposed his scalp.

When Hickey touches him, Hodgson draws a deep, shaky breath.

“I’m no captain,” he says, quietly. Pleading.

Hickey stiffens-mid movement. He pulls his hand back to his side. “So you’ve said.” The precursor smile is gone. In its stead, a peevish row of lines have appeared on his forehead.

“Can I go?” Hodgson asks.

“Who could stop you?”

He watches Hodgson manoeuvre himself upright, and begin to tuck himself into his clothes. The space between Hickey and Tozer is narrow and neither of them are moving to give him more. Still, Hodgson manages to get his ruddy, flaccid member out of sight, straightening himself up enough to look more or less presentable. Hickey wipes at his chin with a hand, eyes on Hodgson. He doesn’t then wipe the hand on his clothes, but rubs his fingers together until the wetness absorbs into his skin.

Hodgson finishes buttoning his fly. He pauses before getting to his feet.

“I’m sorry,” he says, to Hickey.

Hickey tilts his head to the side. His jaw moves, but he says nothing, letting Hodgson wait for a reply that doesn’t come. Hodgson gets to his feet and rounds him. At the tent opening he crouches back down, starts working on the knot on the rope keeping the flap closed.

The seconds pass and Hodgson is still within the tent, still fiddling with the knot. Hickey leans past Tozer to look at him, and Tozer looks over his shoulder as well, just in time to see Hodgson wince in pain as the nail of his pointer finger bends against the hard fibre.

“I-” Hodgson clears his throat. “I think the knot- I can’t untie it.”

Hickey sighs. He looks at the floor, rubs his forehead. Picking the knife up from where he put it down, before he turned their meeting with Hodgson entirely on its head, he walks on his knees over to the tent opening. In but a moment, he has sawed through the rope, leaving it to Hodgson to unthread it from the holes in the tarp and make a gap large enough to escape through.

He does look like that’s the word for what he wants. Escape. Even so, Hodgson lingers long enough to say a limply polite, “Thank you,” to Hickey, for the help with the rope.

As he does, Hickey touches his elbow, a quick squeeze.

“Think on what we’ve said,” Hickey murmurs.

Hodgson’s nod is little more than a twitch. Before he leaves he looks at Tozer, and it almost seems as though he’s going to thank him, too, before he thinks better of it and slips out of the tent without another word.

Once he’s gone, Hickey tightens the rope, closes the gap. Not fully, doesn’t tie a new knot, but doesn’t leave the flap billowing in the wind outside. He steps into the middle of the tent, sinks down cross-legged on the floor. The knife is in his hand. He doesn’t let go of it to smooth down his hair, holds it pinched between his thumb and his palm while combing through the greasy tresses, tucking them behind his ears.

“Well,” he says. He wags his head from side to side. Wasn’t that odd? the gesture seems to say. Some people, eh? As if the development over the past fifteen minutes is only tangentially connected to him.

This wasn’t a success. They’ve not secured Hodgson, don’t have him and all his high ranking trappings to mount as a figurehead at the fore of their conspiracy. If anything, they’ve made him a liability. For all his stuttering and cowering, Hodgson showed more backbone than Tozer expected from the man. He didn’t stand up to them with courage and he folded to Hickey’s advances after nought but a nudge, but he never changed his tune. Tozer knows he should be alarmed, that he should be shaking new plans out of Hickey, that they need to guard against whatever follows this, but it’s hard to think about it soberly when he’s still hard, when his heart is still pounding in his chest.

Is this it? After what’s just happened, the enormity of it, nothing changes? They both simply go about their day? Hickey certainly acts like it. Like it’s an everyday occurance for him, sucking cock and drinking semen. His flush has receded, his cheeks don’t glow so pink anymore. The way he’s sitting, the way his trousers fold up over his crotch, Tozer can’t tell if he has gone soft in the time since Hodgson spent down his throat.

The mixture of bafflement and discomfort must be visible on his face, because when Hickey looks up at him, what he sees prompts him to lay a hand on Tozer’s knee.

“The lieutenant won’t tell anyone,” he says. “About any part of this. He can’t do it without hurting himself.”

This is how it started with Hodgson, with Hickey’s hand on his knee. Hickey must realise it, too. Mustn’t he? Tozer doesn’t know him to be thoughtless; if anything, he thinks a little too much, walks around full of all sorts of conclusions, many of them accurate and the rest good guesses. He’ll be aware of it. He’ll have done it on purpose.

And then what? What’s Tozer supposed to do with that? Hickey’s hand is small and firm, cupped with the thumb curved over the kneecap. The warmth of his touch is seeping slowly through the two layers of worn wool between him and Tozer’s skin.

The truth of it is: Tozer knows exactly what he wants to do. He’s seen that hand in action. He wants, with giddy intensity, to see it again, this time from a better, more personal vantage point. Why shouldn’t he, then? When Hickey’s already shown what he’s willing to do, revealed his true, sordid nature, and done it with an ease which is in itself so suggestive it borders on a challenge. The blood is rushing in his ears. At the thought of Hickey wanting Tozer to want him, placing himself at his feet as an invitation, his arousal heightens nearly to the point of vertigo.

He grabs Hickey’s hand and puts it to his crotch.

Hickey follows, rolls up on his knees to make sure he reaches where Tozer’s leading him, enters Tozer’s personal space and makes no racket about it. Tozer doesn’t have time to savour Hickey’s pliancy, because as soon as Hickey’s hand meets his cock, he grabs it through his trousers, kneads it with brazen expertise.

Tozer groans - before he can consider holding it back it’s already escaped him. Hickey chuckles through his nose and the mirth in it could have made Tozer defensive, but it doesn’t because it’s a good sound, a sound that lets him know that he was right. That Hickey wanted this. That he hasn’t misjudged. That his boldness won’t meet with rejection.

Never ceasing to rub Tozer’s prick, Hickey clambers to his feet. He doesn’t straighten once he's up, but leans in, so close Tozer feels his breath on his nose, and then closer still, until there’s no distance between them at all and Hickey is kissing him, putting his lips to Tozer’s open mouth, slipping his tongue between them.

The tongue right at the start is a bit much, and he’s not as deft with it as he is with his hand. A bit too quick, a bit too sloppily wet, doesn’t care as much to find Tozer’s tongue and meet it as jabbing into his mouth like he’s staking a claim. Given how well he did for Hodgson when that tongue was set to work on another part of the body, it’s surprising. Not disappointing, though, not really. That’s more like Hickey as Tozer knows him. Impatient, cocksure, not as clever as he believes himself to be. It’s not the cheeky little seducer wrapping lieutenants around his saucy fingers; it’s just, well. It’s Hickey. For better or worse.

He kisses back, and does it decisively, not willing to let Hickey set the tone for how they’ll do this. Hickey doesn’t blithely accept it; his tongue squirms, gets unpleasantly far in. Their teeth clack, they both get rougher with it, and Tozer finds he doesn’t mind, that it makes him buck up into Hickey’s palm between his legs. Hickey tastes sour. It takes Tozer a while to realise his swallowing Hodgson’s spend earlier might have something to do with it, and the thought is revolting, yet it makes something deep in his stomach somersault. Part of it is the tawdriness, the filth, the morbid appeal. But there’s something else, too.

Hickey never kissed Hodgson. No matter how tender he got with him. It feels, in its way, like a compliment. He takes it as flattery. He shouldn’t, maybe, but he does.

His eyes are closed. Hickey’s tongue may be impertinent, but his lips are soft and unexpectedly supple, and the sensation of his whiskers isn’t an unpleasant sensation. It’s quite nice, actually. Tozer wouldn’t have guessed it, necessarily. Not that it wouldn’t just be something to put up with, when kissing Hickey, but actively part of making it good.

He could spend like this, grinding into Hickey’s hand, gasping into his mouth. When Hickey tugs at his hair, yanks his head back and stops kissing him to suck harshly at a point right below his ear, he almost, almost does.

Something hard pokes at the back of his head. The knife handle, he realises, Hickey’s still holding it. Hickey’s nose brushes against his ear, and the tip of it is startlingly cool.

“Have you ever buggered someone, Solomon?” he whispers.

Reflexively, Tozer scoffs. “‘Course not.”

“This’ll be a first, then.”

Hickey puts the knife between his teeth while he takes off his jacket, folds it and tosses it to the side, carefully enough that it lands in a reasonably tidy heap. It looks incredibly stupid. Like a boy playing pirate, he looks, with his prim necktie and lopsided collar. Then he starts unbuttoning his fly, and that impression falls completely away.

“You’re talking shite,” Tozer says. There’s a wet spot on Hickey’s drawers it’s hard to look away from, and he knows he doesn’t have the right unbothered drawl in his voice.

“You want something done about that, yeah?” Hickey’s taken the knife from his mouth. He nods to Tozer’s lap. “Well, I want something done about this.”

He takes his prick out, hard and weeping, gives it a few tugs. It’s fatter than Tozer would have expected, a plump and ruddy thing, not an obvious match for his lithe figure, and not immediately attractive.

Hickey pulling at it, though. That’s something of an attraction. His fingers are nimble around his cock, it’s well at home in their grip. He clearly takes himself in hand without worrying if it pollutes the self. He works at himself lazily, with half-lidded eyes. Tozer watches his head tip back, his hips roll, his tongue darting between his lips. Frigging himself shamelessly, his jaw slack as he breathes through his open mouth. He looks lost in it, abandoned to pleasure - until Tozer looks him in the eye and catches the devious glint there.

“Think you’ll make a bugger out of me, do you?” Tozer says.

Hickey grins. “Come on,” he says, and pulls his trousers all the way down his thighs. “Best be quick about it.”

He turns round, gets down on his knees. After placing the knife next to him on the bedding, he rucks up his shirt, bares his arse, then lifts a hand to his face. Tozer hears him retch. When his hand next appears two fingers are smeared with thick, frothy saliva. Without fanfare, he pulls one buttock aside and sticks those slickened fingers into the crease, smearing the wetness over what Tozer understands must be his fundament. The fingers sink in. He’s preparing himself, opening himself for Tozer.

Tozer sits there, equally taken aback and entranced by the vulgarity of Hickey fingering his arsehole before his eyes, until Hickey bends over on all fours, apparently satisfied with his own efforts. He looks at Tozer over his shoulder. Frowns.

It snaps Tozer out of his trance. “I know how it’s done,” he growls, putting a little more bite into it, trying to work himself up to feeling as dominant as he’ll need to be, as Hickey surely expects of him. He gets out of his coat and muffler, unbuttons his trousers with steady hands, and if not steady then at the very least not shaking overmuch.

“In theory,” Hickey says, cheerily.

“I know how it’s done.”

Although he doesn’t, really. He knows how to fuck, sure, he’s no greenhorn when it comes to cunt. He knows how to give a good poking, how to make it last. But he’s never buggered anyone before. He doesn’t doubt there are ways to make it good - Hickey seems eager as anything to get his arsehole stuffed - but he doesn’t know them. He’s always thought it must hurt, taking something up a hole not made for it.

Tozer’s got his cock out. Hickey’s buttocks are criss-crossed with scars, raised welts that haven’t all completely lost the glossy shine of newly healed-over wounds. He’s curving his back, pushing that tightly muscled arse out in invitation, offering it up to Tozer. Unlike the last time Tozer saw it, at his lashing, this time he bared it willingly. Tozer doesn’t want to reward that with pain. He wants Hickey to feel good. He wants him to like it.

He reaches back and pulls one of his buttocks aside again, opening line of sight to his arsehole. A wrinkly pucker, glistening wetly, surrounded by a scattering of scraggly hairs. He’s not a very hairy man, is Hickey. Not like Tozer, whose thighs and arse are furred over. Hickey’s grows pale and thin, and it makes him look more naked when undressed than other men do. It makes his fundament seem especially vulnerable. Tozer’s prick is a hefty handful. Sticking it in there without making it hurt seems impossible.

“Solomon.”

But that doesn’t matter. He wants to fuck Hickey so he’s going to do it, he’s going to give it to him good and hard, the poking of a lifetime, he’s going to-

“Solomon.”

He puts one hand on Hickey’s hip to steady himself, spits in his other and smears his prick with it. He positions the head at Hickey’s arsehole, feels the tight muscle meet him. He pushes.

He slips through.

Breaching Hickey goes so much easier than Tozer expected it to. He doesn’t have to batter at the opening, force his way in, Hickey doesn’t have to grit his teeth and suffer the intrusion. When he pushes in, Hickey pushes out, he knows how to make himself stretch and admit Tozer inside. When Tozer enters him, he moans. There’s nothing but pleasure in that moan.

Tozer moans, too. Hickey is hot around him, and when Hickey says: “Don’t move,” it takes all the self control he has to follow that direction.

“Hold still, now,” Hickey says. Tozer does, he holds still while Hickey slowly moves his arse back and threads himself over Tozer, inch by inch. He pants through his open mouth, watching his prick be gradually engulfed, enchanted by the sight, overwhelmed by the feeling. Right now, he’s sure he’s never felt anything so lovely as the tight clinch of Hickey’s arse around him, not at any point.

Hickey stops with an inch and a half of Tozer’s cock still outside. “This far,” he says. “No deeper. Hear that?” ‘

Tozer nods, before remembering Hickey can’t see it. “Yeah,” he says hoarsely. “Yeah.”

Braced on one elbow, Hickey starts frigging himself at a leisurely beat.

“Move,” he orders, and Tozer obeys without thinking.

It’s been so long since he felt good in his body. All the little pains and aches and discomforts he’s carried with him for months are pushed into the background as pleasure takes over. The mild headache that sits behind his ears, the stinging itch of the opened wound on his hand, the pain in his lower back. They all fade. Not even the constant, low-level hunger can stand up to it. It isn’t hard to move, to fuck into Hickey, his sluggish muscles which he’s had to force into action for the past half of the year now want nothing more than to spring into action, willing and able.

Hickey moves with him, meets his thrusts. “Yeah,” he breathes. “Like that. Like that.” The tiny, nasal squeaks he makes every time Tozer drives into him have no right to be so appealing. “Bit harder, now. Yeah.”

Tozer goes a bit harder, a bit faster, too. Taking care not to go deeper than Hickey instructed. He squeezes Hickey’s narrow hips, runs his hands over the warm skin there, then over the uneven skin of his buttocks, enjoying the feeling of both. He lets his hands roam, finds his way under Hickey’s clothes and relishes in having his fill of touching, just touching, after so long without. When Tozer strokes the insides of his thighs Hickey moans, frigging himself faster.

He wishes Hickey was naked. Then when Tozer bent over Hickey’s heaving back he would feel him against his chest, when he gasped into Hickey’s shoulder he would taste his sweat and not the bland, woolly fabric of his waistcoat. He wraps his arms around Hickey, wishes he’d feel his ropy, slender body without any barrier between them. He’s so much smaller than Tozer is, but he’s trim with muscle all over. His belly is flat and hard and so is his chest. Tozer gropes at both, and it excites him despite there not being much to fondle. He can’t feel Hickey’s nipples, but he imagines them pert.

The closer he embraces Hickey, the closer he comes to spending. His stones are pulling taut. The muscles in his abdomen are, too, and in his thighs, his buttocks, his entire pelvis. The muscle of his heart is pumping harder and harder, sending the blood coursing through his body, rushing in his veins.

He’s losing the rhythm of his thrusts, chasing his climax. So close, now. So very, very close.

Suddenly, Hickey winces below him.

“Nn.” He grunts. “Watch it-!” His hand flies to Tozer’s hip, pushes him back and away.

Tozer starts at this as well. He stills, comes back somewhat from the brink of spending, and realises he’s been bearing down on Hickey with his full weight, squashing him. While doing so, he has jabbed too deep into his arse, enough to cause discomfort.

“Sorry,” he says, and means it. Did he hurt Hickey? If so he didn’t intend to, doesn’t want his pleasure that way. Taking it at someone else’s cost has never really been what stirs him

“Well, don’t stop,” Hickey says. He smacks Tozer on the flank. “Just watch it. You’re close, yeah?” When he turns his head to the side, Tozer sees the dimples in his cheek.

“Yeah,” Tozer breathes. “Sorry.”

“Just fuck me, Solomon.” Hickey says. “When I want you to be sorry, you’ll know,” he says, and as he does he clenches his arse.

If Tozer was thinking of pulling out, of using his hand to take him the last bit of the way for Hickey’s sake, if he felt like guilty at all - all those thoughts disappear. He feels too good. To be inside Hickey feels far too good to think of anything at all, to not let his body act on its own instinct and thrust as it wants to. Hickey’s hand stays at Tozer’s hip, his nails digging sharply into him if he threatens to plunge too far. The sting reminds him how much is too much. Every time Tozer pulls out Hickey clenches around him so that the tightness is increasingly intense, so that his insides are a constant ripple around Tozer’s cock.

He clutches Hickey in his arms. Holds his body to him, like he would a lover. He buries his face in Hickey’s neck, his nose fills with the sourish scent of his sweat, of dirty wool, with the fatty smell of unwashed hair, so thick he can almost taste it.

“Cornelius,” he groans. “Cornelius, Cornelius-” until he can’t form words anymore, until his mouth hangs open and he spends in Hickeys’ arse, spends hard and shamelessly, pouring himself into him.

He doesn’t get to bask in it very long. He hasn’t even softened yet when Hickey jabs an elbow into his side.

“Get off me,” he says, squirming. “Solomon.”

All Tozer wants is to take a nap. Preferably right here, on top of Hickey, clinging to his warm little body, soaking in the contentment. To be truly content he’d need for Hickey to be calm, however, to lie reasonably still and let himself be comfortably clung to, and Hickey is interested in no such thing. His elbow connects with Tozer’s ribs a second time, quite painfully. Reluctantly Tozer heaves himself off him, sits up.

At least this spares him from having to feel guilty for having fucked him too selfishly. Hickey’s attitude makes it easy to put it aside. He’s not surprised to see Hickey’s cockstand is at full mast yet when Hickey rolls over on his back.

What does surprise him is the lack of admonishment on his face. There’s not a trace of annoyance in his expression. Instead, Hickey is grinning. His eyes glitter victoriously.

“You do know how it’s done,” he says.

So maybe Tozer felt the slightest bit guilty, after all, because the praise does relieve him to hear. Does please him, too. Even if Hickey didn’t get to spend with Tozer’s cock up his arse, he liked it while it lasted. He enjoyed himself, it was good for him. It was good for him to make it good for Tozer.

“Should I…?” He makes a gesture towards Hickey’s cock. It’s only fair if he has a hand in making it good for Hickey in return.

Hickey nods. Tozer assumes he’s to frig Hickey and makes to reach for him, but Hickey instead gets up on his knees and turns his backside to Tozer once again.

“With your fingers,” he says. He’s breathless, he wants it badly. When Tozer gets up behind him and slips his hand between Hickey’s arsecheeks, he rocks back to meet him, eager as anything.

His hole is loose and lovely; his insides are soft as butter. If he hadn’t spent himself so completely mere minutes ago, Tozer might get hard again just from this, from how Hickey opens to his two fingers, from feeling how fucked out and messy he is. Messy with Tozer’s semen. It leaks out of him as Tozer fingers him, runs down the back of his hand to the cuff of his sleeve, staining it. He’ll have to wipe that off quickly so it doesn’t dry, they don’t have water to spare for washing. He could do it now, maybe should. He’s not in the habit of carelessly dirtying his uniform, but Hickey is so clearly in ecstasy, his hole pulsing, his legs trembling, his breath a constant low wine. Tozer will let him hear about it later, after he’s made Hickey spend. Then he’ll chew him out for not having the courtesy to wipe himself, at least a little, before telling a man to stick his fingers up his passage.

For now, though, for now he’ll watch Hickey with his trousers pooling around his knees, feel him shudder and twitch when Tozer crooks his fingers just so. He’ll watch as the shudders intensify until his body seizes up, until his hips stutter and he spends in thick ropes into his own hand. He’ll feel him clench around Tozer’s fingers so hard it almost hurts, so hard it makes Tozer wish he’d had the self control to make Hickey spend before he did, so he could have felt what those pulsing contractions would have felt like around his prick.

When Hickey spends, he spends with Tozer’s fingers in his arsehole, Tozer’s arm around his waist, and Tozer’s mouth sucking a mark on his neck.

As soon as Hickey’s out the other side of his crisis, he detaches himself from Tozer, gets out of his embrace and clambers to his feet. He stands there, more or less steadily, looking down on Tozer. His neckerchief is crooked, and there are bruises forming on his hips.

“Here,” he whispers. “Take this.”

He places two fingers over Tozer’s lips. They’re wet with his semen.

Tozer’s not prepared for it. For the audacity, the brashness of it. He’s still catching his breath, coming down from the thrill of watching Hickey spend, not to mention that the daze from his own climax still hangs over him, making him slow and drowsy and satisfied. He’s not prepared for Hickey to just do this, just shove jissom at him and order him to taste.

He’s not prepared for how it stirs up lingering traces of arousal, either.

Hickey lets his fingers rest there, on his lips; he doesn’t try to wedge between them or prise Tozer’s jaw open. He just waits. He’s smiling, his eyes are crinkled and his gaze is warm. With his dry hand he strokes Tozer’s hair, a soft caress that winds through his dirty curls and untangles them, that traces over his scalp without any scratch of nails. He traces the shell of Tozer’s ear, lingers at the earlobe, then follows the line of his jaw until Hickey is cupping his cheek.

Tozer’s not in the habit of calling men beautiful, and he’s not about to start. But the way Hickey looks then, with the hearty afterglow from fucking and pure, shining joy lighting him up from within, Tozer can’t think of another word to describe him.

He parts his lips. Let’s Hickey in.

It doesn’t taste good. Salty and bitter, at the same time, and once in Hickey’s carelessness with his fingers, he presses down on Tozer’s tongue as the pad of his fore- and pointer finger strokes over it. It sort of tickles, too, in a strange and indistinct way, and that odd stimulation of his tongue makes his mouth water, a purely mechanical response. Tozer stands it for a few seconds, at most, before swatting Hickey away.

“Come off it,” he grumbles. He shouldn’t have let Hickey do that to him, and now that he has he shouldn’t be regretting making it stop, shouldn’t feel the absence so acutely when Hickey takes the hand cupping his cheek from him.

Hickey wipes himself between his arse cheeks with a corner of what Tozer must assume isn’t the blanket he himself sleeps under, and pulls his drawers and trousers up, gets his fleshy little cock back under wraps. He picks his jacket up off the floor and puts it on, picks up the knife, as well. All with the same unbothered ease he showed after Hodgson, a nonchalance before what he and Tozer have just shared that Tozer can’t match, not internally, though he tries to mimic it.

“Did you plan on that?” he asks, straightening his uniform jacket, noticing with some dismay that the semen stain on the sleeve has started to crust. “What you did to Lieutenant Hodgson.”

“Not really.” Hickey’s inspecting the knife. He tests the edge against a nail. “But plans change. We have to be ready for that, going forward. Adjust accordingly.”

“Next time you decide to adjust I’d appreciate a warning,” Tozer says. Hickey looks at him, brows raised, and he can’t possibly be as flippant about this as he makes himself out to be; the mildly amused surprise on his face can’t be genuine. “I don’t, as a rule, do…” He searches for the right word for it, comes up with nothing better than: “This.”

“Yeah.” Hickey just smiles. “That was obvious.”

The cheek of it. Unbearably annoying. “Gave you a good turn, though,” Tozer says gruffly, winding the muffler around his neck. He ties it a little too tight. He should do it over.

“Good enough.”

Tozer scoffs. “More than good enough, I’d think,” and Hickey laughs at that.

“All right,” he says. His tone turns slippery and fawning. “My arse has never had better prick than your mighty trunk, Sergeant, honour bright. Hollowed me right out, you did. I’ll walk crooked for weeks, spare me some pity when they have me hauling later.”

Tozer blushes, embarrassingly enough. He can feel the heat of it in his cheeks. “Shut up.”

He’s about to put his coat back on, bundle himself and his wounded pride up in it, but Hickey takes a quick step towards him, closing the distance between them. He grabs Tozer’s head between his hands, the knife handle between his palm and Tozer’s cheek, and kisses him hard on the mouth.

He’s still not a good kisser. But he kisses hungrily, kisses with his tongue and teeth both, makes little noises deep in his throat when Tozer grabs him about the waist and pulls him to him, gives him tit for tat. They kiss for a long, unchaste minute. When they break apart, Hickey’s lips are swollen and red.

"I'll tell you one thing, though," he says. "You've a longer yard than I'd counted on."

Never in his life will Tozer admit out loud how gratified he is, hearing it. Satisfaction curls up in his belly, makes a home in his chest. Not even mainly for the fact he measures up in inches, but for the reason of Hickey as good as admitting he's imagined Tozer like Tozer's imagined him.

How long for? When he made himself a nuisance on watch, was he hoping it'd catch Tozer's attention? Was he bidding for it, trying to catch his eye? Did he always hope to have a taste of his prick one day? Is that why he started hanging 'round the marines, frigging himself to sleep thinking of Tozer, what he'd like Tozer to do to him? Did he plan this, here, today? Or did he jump at an opportunity presenting itself, an opportunity hotly longed for?

Whichever it is, it's a stimulating thought. He kisses Hickey again, groans when Hickey sucks on his tongue, nips at his lip. He hopes this all might mean he'll have Hickey again. He knows he wants that, as bad as he's ever wanted.

Hickey gives him one last kiss, and extracts himself from Tozer’s hold, ruffles his hair a little before stepping out of his reach.

“We should eat,” he says, “before this spoils.” He picks up the bag of what once was Neptune, grins with twinkling eyes at Tozer. He motions with the knife, here, now. ”Come on, Solomon. Let’s get some meat in you.”

As if on command, Tozer’s mouth waters.