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Despite the knowledge that his presence is desired, Thomas Jopson still feels a flicker of fear in his stomach when he stands outside Lieutenant Little’s cabin. It’s not his first time here—as a matter of fact, he’s lost count of how many times he has lurked in the shadows outside Little’s door—but it still takes a moment to gather his courage before slipping inside. There’s always a moment of doubt when he seeks out the lieutenant: what if Little no longer desires his company? What if he has decided the risk of inviting him in is simply not worth it?
The moment he opens the door, Thomas’s fears are assuaged. As soon as Little identifies the source of the sound—that it’s Jopson pushing open the door and not someone else who is going to ask him to make a decision or attend to some urgent concern—his expression softens, his heavy brow lifting and his shoulders dropping with relief. Jopson slips into the room, eerily quiet as always, and closes the door behind him. The hard wood presses against his shoulder blades as he leans back against it with his hands tucked behind his back.
Little regards him from where he is seated at his desk.
“You came.”
Thomas nods. “Did I give you any reason to doubt that I would?”
“At dinner, you looked…” Little trails off, frowning as he tries to frame his thoughts in a way that won’t offend. “Preoccupied. You missed the captain asking for wine. You never do that.”
Thomas’s lips tighten into a grimace. He did miss Captain Crozier’s subtle sign for wine, something Jopson the steward never does, but it only was because his gaze had lingered on Edward, on the deep furrow between his brows and the distant look in his eyes. Thomas knows that look: it’s a far-away expression that means the world weighs especially heavy on his shoulders today. It had worried Thomas, and as a result he had missed his captain giving him a nonverbal sign. Crozier had been forced to ask for it, making everyone aware of Jopson’s mistake.
“It was a momentary lapse,” Thomas says.
At that, Little gives him a small, amused smile, so soft that it makes Thomas’s heart trip in his chest. “I’m not your captain, you know. I’m asking you as a friend.”
Jopson returns the smile and takes a step towards Little. “I should be asking how you are feeling, lieutenant. If anyone looked tired at dinner, it was you.”
The corner of Edward’s mouth twitches downward and he runs a hand over his beard. Jopson finds himself drifting towards him quite without willing it, until he’s standing within arm’s length of the man. Little is sitting at his desk, shoulders rounded and elbows braced on his thighs, so when he looks at Jopson he’s forced to look up at him through his lashes. Jopson’s breath catches in his chest. He’s always found Edward Little devastatingly beautiful, even when they scarcely knew each other, but he’s never more beautiful than like this, with his dark eyes shining up at Jopson as if he holds the answers to all of Edward’s deepest questions.
“Jopson…” Edward sighs. He reaches out and hooks a finger under the hem of Thomas’s waistcoat and uses it to reel him in. “Come here.”
Jopson lets out an undignified grunt and stumbles a little, but the noise turns into an affectionate hum when Edward presses his face against his stomach. His thick, dark hair is surprisingly soft beneath Thomas’s fingers. At the touch of Thomas’s nails against his scalp, Edward practically melts against him. His shoulders slump as he rests his weight on Jopson, knowing he can take it. In moments like these, their easy intimacy both thrills and terrifies Thomas. To feel so safe in another man’s presence, to speak the silent language of each other’s smallest gestures and expressions—all evidence that this is far more than a shipboard convenience, closer by far than anything Thomas has shared with anyone else. For a man who once swore he would never entangle himself with another sailor, Thomas Jopson is doing a terrible job of it.
They linger there for a long moment, Jopson worrying a lock of Little’s hair through his fingers and Edward resting his forehead just beneath Tom’s solar plexus.
“Ned,” Jopson murmurs, at length. He hooks a finger between Little’s stubbled chin and guides him to look up. “What do you need?”
A shiver passes through Little at the sound of the diminutive in Jopson’s voice. What a delight it had been to discover that—that Lieutenant Edward Little goes by Ned to his close friends, and that when Thomas says it, he melts like candlewax in his palms. How strange that he would have come to know true intimacy here, in so desolate a place, after looking for it everywhere else and giving up hope that he might find it.
He’s jerked out of this more philosophical train of thought when Ned stands and uses his hold on Thomas’s waistcoat to pull him towards his bunk. It’s an awkward, fumbling dance, both of them tripping over their feet, but Ned succeeds in maneuvering Tom so his back is against the low, narrow berth.
Thomas’s hands curl around the rail. “Ned.”
Little sinks to his knees before him, looking up through his lashes with dark, hungry eyes. Jopson’s breath seizes in his chest.
“I need you,” Little says. His voice is rough, raw; all pretense stripped away. “You asked what I need. That’s all.”
“Ned…”
Jopson is aware that he sounds ridiculous, just repeating Little’s name like a trained parrot, but he doesn’t know quite what to say. The sight of Little on his knees for him lights a fire in the core of him, to be sure, but the heat of desire is tempered by an exhaustion that has dogged him since the moment he rose from bed this morning. It’s a bone-deep weariness, the kind that threatens to crush him like the ice around the hull if he doesn’t give into it and lie down.
Little must see the hesitation on his face, because the heat of desire in his eyes dims and he sits back on his heels.
“Jopson— Tom, I mean, are you…”
Thomas sighs. He runs a hand down his face, tucks his hair back behind his ear. He wants this, God, he does, but he’s just so tired. He doesn’t know if he can be what Ned needs him to be tonight. To be firm and commanding as Little desires requires more vigor than he can presently summon. Hating himself for being reasonable, Jopson tangles his hand in Little’s wavy locks and brushes them out of his face.
“I can’t, not tonight,” he says, regret heavy in his voice.
To his credit, Ned doesn’t let his disappointment show. Thomas studies his face, looking for any sign of hurt or pique, and comes away empty-handed. In studying Little, his obedient posture and his doe-like eyes, an idea strikes Jopson: quite without precedent, but intriguing nonetheless. He wets his lips with a flick of his tongue.
“Not unless, well,” he says, steeling himself to speak the words, “not unless you mind if I nod off a bit.”
Little blinks rapidly. Tilts his head like a dog hearing an unfamiliar sound. Opens his mouth to speak, closes it, opens it again.
“You mean, you want me to…”
Heat blooms across Thomas’s face at the implication of his own words. He nods.
“You want me to use my mouth on you while you’re asleep?” Little presses.
Jopson nods again. His chest feels tight—whether it’s from anticipation or lack of oxygen, he can’t tell. It has never occurred to him to propose this before, to ask it of Edward, but the visual of it is intoxicating: comfortable and warm in Edward’s bed, Edward on his knees before him like Thomas is some spoiled prince. An indulgence so extravagant he can’t believe Edward is earnestly considering it.
“You need it, don’t you?” Jopson presses. “You said it’s what you need.”
Little gives him a small, hesitant nod.
“Then you can have it.”
“It won’t be…” Little’s tongue flicks out to wet his lips, a familiar, nervous tic. “...strange, for you? To be asleep while I…?”
God help him, Thomas feels his entire body growing hot just thinking about it. He fights the urge to loosen the tie around his neck. “I won’t be asleep, not really,” he says, clenching his hands hard around the bedrail. “It’s only— I’m not sure I can offer much, not tonight.”
“We needn’t do anything at all,” Edward says, hastily. “Christ, Jopson, you can tell me if you don’t want it. You can rest here, I’ll let you alone—”
He moves to stand, but Jopson presses a hand to his shoulder, keeping him down.
“Stay.”
Little obeys. Jopson’s stomach turns over.
“I want this,” Thomas says firmly. “I do. I’m only making sure you know what to expect. If I— if I drift, it’s not because you’re doing poorly or failing to please me. It only means that I’m too tired to stand on my own feet right now.”
At that, the hesitance on Little’s face is replaced by that small, sly smile. “Then let’s get you off of them.”
Little and Jopson are of a height and of similar builds, and it never fails to catch Jopson off guard when Little manages to manhandle him with such ease. It’s what he does now, somehow bundling Jopson up and onto his berth and undoing both his waistcoat and the placket of his trousers before Jopson has managed to lay a hand on him. When he reaches for Ned’s clothing undo his buttons and fastenings, his hand is batted away like he’s Jacko trying to steal food from the officer’s table.
“Rest,” Ned says. “God knows you need it.”
Thomas’s head hits the pillow. Above him are the planks that make up the deck above, and all around him is Edward: his sheets beneath him, his books beside the bed, the smell of him everywhere. His hands about Thomas’s waist, pulling at his trousers; his fingers, clever and capable, undoing his tie and waistcoat. When Jopson lays a tired, heavy hand on the back of Little’s head, Little returns the gesture with a muffled noise of satisfaction. Thomas shivers at the sound, at the knowledge that even a slight touch has Edward weak for him. He has never met a man quite like Edward—who takes so easily to instruction, who desires to be commanded far more than he seeks out command himself. Throughout his life Jopson had understood all men to be greedy and grasping, seeking convenience above all else. No one had prepared him for Edward Little, strange and anxious and unexpectedly funny, the only man who ever thought to ask the captain’s steward how his day was faring. When they are together like this, Edward is most unusual too: taking his pleasure from Thomas’s pleasure, eager to be treated as a tool or a toy for Thomas to use for his own ends.
Together they divest Thomas of most of his clothing and Edward of his jacket and waistcoat, leaving him in his shirtsleeves and braces. Thomas shuffles to the edge of the bunk and shivers when Edward ducks his head to press whiskery kisses to the inside of Thomas’s thighs. Jopson responds by tugging lightly on his hair.
“Make haste, lieutenant,” he murmurs. His words, normally so crisp, are already slurring into each other with exhaustion. “We don’t have all night, do we?”
“Yes, sir,” Ned replies, sounding breathless already.
When they had first done this, Edward bringing Thomas off with his mouth alone, Thomas had felt the cold touch of fear that this was merely a convenience for Little—that he was closing his eyes and pretending Jopson was some woman back home. It seemed the only way Edward could derive so much pleasure from the act. Yet Edward never mistook Thomas for anyone but who he was. It never fails to please him when Edward calls him sir: the double thrill that comes from the inversion of superiority and the knowledge that Edward sees Thomas as he truly is.
Sometimes, Thomas thinks, mind already hazy with exhaustion, Edward sees him more clearly than even Tom sees himself.
Edward would stay here all day if he could. All night, too, though he’d probably hurt his neck in the process. He’s a mediocre lieutenant and a worse second; he’s so riddled with doubts and fears that sometimes he struggles to rise from bed in the morning. But this? This he is good at. There is no uncertainty here, not when Jopson puts him on his knees and instructs him how to please him. Every time they’re together his directions are slightly different, and each time Little is able to adapt, to learn something new from what Jopson tells him. Sometimes Jopson wants to see Edward bring himself off in front of him, shamefully stroking his own yard under the steward’s pale-eyed, appraising stare, and sometimes he wants Ned to do this, to use his mouth to bring him to completion.
The first time Jopson had asked it of him, Edward had been so nervous that his palms had gone unpleasantly clammy and his stomach hurt. He’d never been with a man with Jopson’s anatomy before, and feared he would do something wrong and never again earn the honor of sharing Thomas’s bed. But Thomas had been patient, instructing Edward what to do in that low voice that is better suited to command than Ned’s has ever been. All the while Thomas had praised him, told him he was doing well, that he was a quick study, and Edward had grown so hard in his trousers he thought he might finish untouched for the first time since he was a teenage mid. Soon the fear of displeasing Thomas had been replaced with a pleasant lightheaded feeling that Edward has been chasing ever since.
At the feeling of Edward’s whiskers on his inner thighs, Thomas hums appreciatively. Edward relishes in this moment of intimacy, the dark hair on Thomas’s legs brushing against his cheeks and the smell of his arousal already warm and thick in the air of his small cabin.
Above him, Jopson shifts his hips on the bed. That he trusts Edward so thoroughly thrills him: Edward has proven himself so good at pleasing Thomas that he trusts Ned to service him without guidance, without instruction. He believes that Ned will be good even in the absence of correction. It’s enough to make Edward’s head feel light and his thoughts to go hazy.
Jopson cuts through the haze by pressing his heel into Edward’s side, reminding him that there is a task at hand.
“Yes, sir,” Edward says, reflexively.
Above him, Jopson laughs sleepily. “Eager, are we?”
Little responds by tucking his face in the crux of Jopson’s thighs and licking at the briny wetness already gathered there. He’s rewarded with a shiver and a groan from Thomas, encouragement enough to continue. Even in the absence of instruction, Edward knows how Thomas likes it: firm and unrelenting, a steady flow of sensations from lips and tongue. Despite his exhaustion, Jopson manages to stroke his hand over Little’s hair—like Ned is his loyal dog, God, why does that arouse him so—and look down at him with half-lidded eyes. That cool-eyed stare that haunts Little in his dreams, frighteningly sharp even when tempered by exhaustion and arousal.
“That’s it,” Thomas murmurs, dropping his head back onto Ned’s pillow. “Just so, good lad.”
Thomas’s pleasure is evident in the slickness between his legs and the shifting of his hips on the sheets. Edward shuffles closer, knees throbbing against the rough wooden planks, and redoubles his efforts, eager to bring Thomas to his peak or lull him to sleep, whichever he happens to need most. He nearly whimpers at the sensation of Tom pulsing against his tongue. Proof of his arousal, proof that Ned is doing right by him. The knowledge settles over him like a comforting blanket: he’s doing well. All around him the world starts to slip away, nothing carrying any meaning except the man in his bed and the task at hand. Ned savors these moments, when Thomas’s firm hand and gentle reprimands shave off the hard edges of the world and make it safe for Edward to drop the many burdens he carries.
If they had more time he would linger here for hours, lavishing the same attention to the rest of Thomas’s body, from the sensitive line of his neck down to his flat stomach, all the way to the hard knobs of his knees and the small bones of his ankles. He would carry on until Thomas either reaches his end or falls fast asleep in the safety of Edward’s bed. But they don’t have time—there’s never enough time—and they can hardly risk someone walking by Little’s cabin and overhearing the slick, filthy noises they make together. Edward can’t afford to wander off into hypotheticals; he has to focus. Be good for Thomas. Do as he is instructed.
Ned glances up and is rewarded by the sight of Thomas with his eyes closed, a faint smile on the corners of his mouth, drifting as he said he might. Pride thrills through him, bright and hot, shivering with the knowledge that he’s lulled Thomas nearly to sleep.
Thomas isn’t asleep. Not really. He’s floating, just like he said he would, swimming idly in the indefinite margin between sleep and awareness. His mind drifts into lovely places, places warmer than this; to what he imagines Edward’s family home in England is like, a sturdy stone house set amongst a grove of trees, a big bed in a bright room with tall windows where they can lay alongside each other and not knock elbows or knees. There they could be together in peace. Little could sprawl beneath him on the bed and Jopson could admire every inch of his pale skin and curl of his dark hair in the light of the morning sun. Or, his subconscious suggests, perhaps they are in a home of their own making, a cozy flat on a busy London street where the clack of horses’ hooves and the shout of their neighbors drowns out the sound of their lovemaking. A tidy little room with a bed is just big enough to fit them both but still small enough that they have to sleep tangled up in each other every night. Matching waistcoats in the wardrobe, two sets of boots by the door. Wherever they are, they are warm, and they are together.
A broken moan rouses Jopson back to something like consciousness. Edward probably thinks he’s being quiet but he’s not: the sound of his mouth working at Thomas is interspersed with noises of his own pleasure, hitched breaths and muffled groans and his knees shuffling against the floorboards to get closer still. Thomas is just awake enough to recognize when Ned asks permission to go further. Two fingers teasing at his entrance, not entering him, not until Thomas murmurs a sleepy yes, go on. His mouth opens slightly when he feels Edward press inside, the satisfying fullness of his fingers devastating when combined with the hot-wet-soft of Ned’s tongue on him. He’s never liked this much, not when he does it to himself, but with Ned it’s different in some unnamable way. A fusing of their bodies, no longer Edward Little and Thomas Jopson as separate entities but merging together into Ned-and-Tom, something new and precious, a union better than their constituent parts. He aches for this kind of closeness in a way he never has before, wanting to scrub away the line that separates them into two separate men. He throbs on Edward’s fingers and shifts restlessly on the thin mattress.
Without his willing it, Thomas’s hips jerk against Edward’s face, seeking more stimulation. Ned muffles a curse against the crease of his hip.
“Tom, Tom, fuck. Are you awake?”
When Thomas makes an affirmative noise, Edward shuffles awkwardly on his knees and rests his head on Thomas’s thigh. His breath is hot and humid against his skin.
“I want you to use me,” Ned says. His voice is shaky and rough. “Please. Use my mouth, I want you to, I need it.”
Christ alive. Arousal sparks through every nerve in Thomas’s body, from the crown of his head to the tips of his fingers.
“Are you certain?”
Sleep still clings at the edges of Thomas’s consciousness, making his words slurred and rounded. Ned nods with his forehead pressed against the jut of Tom’s hipbone. He presses a messy, damp kiss there, his mouth slick with Thomas’s arousal.
“Yes, yes. I need it. Please.”
Jopson nods and drops his head back against Edward’s pillow. When he curls his hand in Edward’s hair and guides him back down, he is rewarded by a sigh, like Edward needed this even more than Thomas. He rocks himself against Little’s mouth and thrills in the broken moan he earns in response. Edward seems to be falling apart faster than him. That combined with the fullness of Edward’s fingers and the unrelenting press of his mouth, all hot and wet and soft, threatens to undo Thomas entirely. Their respective pleasure becomes a feedback loop, Tom tightening on Ned’s fingers and Ned moaning and Tom grinding his hips against Ned’s mouth in response. The spiral winds tighter and tighter until something snaps deep in his core. His climax bowls him over: he pulls Ned’s hair so hard that the man beneath him whimpers in pain, muffled by Thomas’s thighs closing around his head. Thomas pants through it, breathing harsh and fast because if he doesn’t breathe through it he’ll moan so loud it wakes the whole ship.
Edward stays where he is even as Thomas comes down, still licking at him like a ship’s cat at a bowl of cream. It’s nice like this, Thomas thinks muzzily; the devastating peak of his pleasure softens into slow, rolling waves, drawn out by Ned’s eager ministrations. When his ears stop feeling like they’re full of cotton he becomes aware of the sound of fabric rustling and fastenings being undone, and he props himself up on his elbows just in time to watch Ned shove a hand down the front of his trousers and groan at the feeling of his own hand.
Jopson knows better than to offer assistance. Edward likes this, likes being made to bring himself off instead of Thomas deigning to help him. All he has to do is lie back and watch Ned with a lazy, sated look on his face, enjoying the redness on Edward’s cheeks spread up to his ears and down to his chest when he realizes Tom is watching him. Appraising him. Jopson has a passing thought that this is what Edward might be thinking about when he catches Thomas watching him across the captain’s cabin—it would certainly explain why he ducks his head and his ears go red whenever he realizes Thomas is looking at him. Soon Ned is muffling his own broken noises of pleasure in the inside of Tom’s leg as he spills into his fist and his half-undone trousers. He rests his forehead on the side of Jopson’s knee and sucks down deep lungfuls of air as he endeavors to catch his breath.
“Oh, Christ,” he groans weakly.
Thomas laughs softly.
Running his fingers through Edward’s hair, Jopson brushes the untidy curls out of his face. Edward’s lips and beard are still damp with him; the sight of it hits Tom like a punch to the stomach. He’ll be thinking about this for days to come. At dinner as he circles the table and pours water he’ll be thinking about Edward on his knees with Thomas’s own arousal glistening on his lips. With affection spreading deep and warm through every part of him, Thomas curls his fingers in Edward’s collar and tugs.
“Come up,” he murmurs, pulling harder. “Come on.”
Edward heaves himself up onto the berth with all the grace of a bear freshly awoken from hibernation. Only at the last moment does he remember to kick off his boots before collapsing with his full weight on Thomas. He smells like sex and sweat and sea salt.
“Did you fall asleep?”
Edward murmurs the question into the space between Jopson’s neck and his jaw.
“Almost,” Jopson replies, eyes slipping shut. “You made it rather difficult, you know.”
A muttered, insincere apology from Edward, then: “Did you dream?”
Exhaustion slips over him all at once, and he feels himself pulled back to that distant shore, where they have a home of their own and the safety to live by each other’s sides. It leaves him feeling warmer than he has in years. His voice is all sleepy affection when he finally replies.
“I did,” Thomas murmurs. “I dreamt of you.”
Ned hums into Tom’s skin, low and pleased.
“You’ll have to tell me about it when you wake up.”