meretricula | fic: tinker tailor soldier sailor (temeraire)

title: tinker tailor soldier sailor
fandom: temeraire
pairing: tharkay/laurence (mostly gen)
rating: g
word count: 2000
summary: Laurence broods too much, but it's okay: Tharkay has a plan.
notes: for

t_lyrical, since she asked for it (so long ago that she had forgotten it until I reminded her) and I swore I'd get it done eventually. normally I would make you read this over and make it better, Tanya, but I can't make you beta your own present so you get it in its present form! (feel free to make constructive suggestions. XD)

Tharkay's first impression of William Laurence was not a favorable one. Everything about him screamed of old money and good breeding, from his posture to his well-polished boots, and Tharkay, well accustomed to the foibles of the British upper class, lowered his expectations accordingly. The Chinese jacket, a strange choice of garment for a British soldier, admittedly gave him pause, but in the end Tharkay dismissed it as a mere affectation. As soon as Laurence opened his mouth, Tharkay felt his assumptions justified: the man was stiff with honor, but the definition of honor that Tharkay had encountered previously in England, whereby a man might be obliged to treat those he considered his peers fairly but could cheat anyone unlike himself with an easy conscience, had never seemed to Tharkay likely to produce a good man or a sensible one.

Some little time spent in Laurence's company, however, did make clear two startling facts: firstly, that he actually believed in the codes and creeds most of the British aristocracy simply mouthed, and secondly, that he loved his dragon. The former, Tharkay could accept without much of a struggle; foolish people believed in a great variety of foolish things. But it was difficult to reconcile his conception of Laurence with his obvious, unconditional and unflagging devotion to Temeraire.

As hard as this was to understand, Tharkay was not a fool, nor so stubborn that he would ignore facts before his eyes to preserve his peace of mind. And, having acknowledged Laurence's love for Temeraire, Tharkay had also to observe that Temeraire certainly loved him. So did his crew: from John Granby all the way down to little Emily Roland, they were steadfast to a man. There was something about William Laurence that inspired loyalty; that much Tharkay could see.

He did not care for it. Having come to terms with the sad dearth of good men in the world, he was not best pleased to have one set in front of him, a shining exemplar in a bottle-green Chinese silk coat. Furthermore, it was easy enough to see that Laurence was not precisely best pleased with Tharkay himself, and even when face-to-face with a man who deserved none of it, Tharkay found to his chagrin that a life-long habit of antagonism was nearly impossible to give up. What few gestures of goodwill he could manage were misinterpreted, viewed through the lens of suspicion Tharkay himself had established.

It was Sara all over again, Tharkay thought, caught between despair and black amusement. He had not yet decided whether he was grateful to her or bitterly angry; to discover a truly good woman, discover even that he could truly love her, and then discover that he could never have her, had been a harsh lesson indeed. But it was hardly Sara's fault, and she had perhaps saved him from drowning in his own cynicism. Perhaps Will Laurence would do the same.

Tharkay tried not to think that he had been happier, or at least safer, protected by the armor of his disenchantment. At the very least, he would not have been so continually exasperated by Laurence's apparent determination to crucify himself like an idiot over his failure to conform to the wishes and expectations of lesser men. "This is outside of enough," he announced, more to himself than anyone else who might hear, the deck being empty for the supper-hour.

"Beg pardon, Mister Tharkay?" Little Emily Roland, not quite so little any more, had been lurking in the shadows, tidying up before dinner; Tharkay hadn't seen her.

"Nothing, Roland," he said shortly.

"Is it about Captain Laurence?" she asked. "Because Mama told me to listen to you, if he should start to go off in one of his fits again. Only I'm sure I don't know what his fits are, and I didn't wish to ask Mama."

"They are whatever he is doing right now," Iskierka said, raising her head from the deck where it had been resting in feigned slumber. Her eyes glowed in the encroaching darkness. "Behaving like a spoilt child and upsetting my Granby," she added, oblivious to any irony in her statement.

"Laurence is not behaving like a child!" Temeraire protested, and Tharkay jumped. He truly had thought the dragons asleep, and himself alone. "He is only very sad, and I do not know how to make him happy again."

"I do not care at all if your stupid Laurence is sad," Iskierka sniffed, "but he is making my Granby sad as well, so you should make him stop."

"I just told you I don't know how," Temeraire snapped. "And you should not call my Laurence stupid, when you only have Granby because I gave him to you – "

"Enough," Tharkay interposed.

"Tharkay, can you make Laurence happy again?" Temeraire asked anxiously. "I do so wish for him to be happy, but I do not understand what he wants, if it is not gold or capital or mathematics."

"You make Laurence happy," Tharkay said, feeling old and wretchedly world-weary. "Temeraire, you do, I promise you."

"He is certainly not happy now," Iskierka said spitefully. "Or else he would not spend all his time in his cabin and making my poor Granby worry."

"Your poor Granby worries because you will not learn to obey! And also – "

"Temeraire," Tharkay said, before he could continue telling Iskierka what exactly he thought of her. "Sometimes people need to be unhappy for a little while. It is not anyone's fault, and I know that it is difficult to watch someone you" - love, he thought, say it, you coward – "care about be sad, but it is not always possible to fix the things that make them so." He thought of Sara again, and the horrendous irony that she hadn't cared about the color of his skin, but she had about the way he worshiped: an invisible divide, but still impossible to cross.

"It is only, Laurence has been sad for such a long time," Temeraire said, quietly.

"I know," Tharkay replied.

"Then, can we not try to cheer him up?" Emily asked, to Tharkay's startlement; he had forgotten she was there. He was growing careless: if she had been a Frenchman or any form of wild fauna, he thought wryly, he might have been dead. "I do wish Mama were here," she added fretfully. "Mama would know exactly what to do."

Tharkay sighed, but a newfound sense of resolution was beginning to buoy his spirits. "Well then," he said, "I suppose we must." He looked at his unlikely band of co-conspirators, and began to plan.

*

The next day Laurence emerged on deck as usual, surrounded by his insufferable air of British nobility and gloom. For perhaps the first time, however, Tharkay was grateful for Laurence's inattention: it enabled him to enlist Granby's assistance before the other captain descended into the bottle, and the dragons were concealing their anticipation very poorly.

"May Iskierka and I go swimming, Laurence?" Temeraire asked hopefully. "Roland says she will come with us if you say she may."

"Roland and the other cadets may accompany you this morning, but they must spend the afternoon with their mathematics," Laurence said firmly. He stroked Temeraire's nose with abstracted affection and added, "I hope you will enjoy yourself, my dear."

"Oh," Temeraire said. "You will not come?"

"No, not now. Later, perhaps," he amended when Temeraire drooped in disappointment so visibly that not even Laurence could fail to notice.

Getting both Temeraire and Iskierka into the water without capsizing the ship was a production that consumed a good half-turn of the glass, after which Laurence withdrew to a secluded corner in order to indulge in what Tharkay assumed would be a good, long, self-flagellating sulk. Laurence, Tharkay decided, was behaving like a child, and he need have no qualms about treating him as such. "Is there any particular reason you feel the need to avoid any activity which might somehow be remotely enjoyable?" he asked, seemingly idly.

"I do not feel like swimming, thank you, Tharkay," Laurence replied. Lesser men than Tharkay might have frozen at the cold politeness of his tone. Tharkay was not intimidated: he was incensed.

"Anyone would think you the most persecuted man alive, Laurence," he said evenly. "I find this remarkable in light of the fact that you have not only twice avoided execution but have been granted your dragon's continued company, which I had been led to believe was the dearest wish of your heart. If Temeraire's affection is not enough to counterweigh the loss of your frankly bigoted nation, then I must say you do not deserve it in the first place, but as I doubt he could be induced to choose another handler at this late stage it would behoove you to learn to pretend it were. You are a grown man. Behave like one, and cease this absurd moping at once."

"It is none of your business whether I am happy or pretend to be," Laurence said, after a long moment spent gaping like a fish. "And I would thank you not to interfere in my relationship with Temeraire; I assure you he is perfectly fine. Also, I do not mope."

"I was actually hoping you might say that," Tharkay remarked. "Now I need have no qualms in doing this." He gripped both of Laurence's arms behind his back and began dragging him over to the railing. Laurence began struggling in earnest, but his shocked pause had lost him too much time: Tharkay successfully wrangled him to the edge of the deck, and without further ado tossed him overboard.

Tharkay leaned over the railing and watched with interest as Laurence resurfaced, spluttering. "What - you - WHY - "

"Temeraire wanted to go swimming with you," Tharkay called cheerfully. He eyed Laurence's outraged expression for a moment, then sighed, shook his head, and removed his boots and jacket before diving in after him. "At least you cannot accuse me of leaving you to drown," he added, and shook his dripping hair out of his eyes while Laurence trod water and stared.

"That was utterly uncalled-for," Laurence said at last.

"I wouldn't have done it if you had listened to me in the first place," Tharkay said. "At least now I have your attention." Laurence glared at him silently. Tharkay resigned himself to the final loss of all his dignity, and made an attempt at honesty. "Laurence, would you - please - " he added, the word like sandpaper on his tongue, "at least consider how your actions affect the other people on this boat? You are out of temper and prone to brooding of late. You are making Temeraire miserable, and so he is anxious and fidgety and short-tempered with Iskierka, who is liable to set the sails on fire and kill us all. You are making Granby miserable, so he drinks, which upsets Iskierka, leading, I might repeat, to our inevitable fiery demise. You are making me miserable. Please. I do not pretend to understand whatever you have lost or think you have lost in exile, but I know that it cannot be equal in worth to what you have retained."

"It is not a boat," Laurence said.

"What?" Tharkay considered himself a quick-witted man, and rarely bewildered; his life had often depended on it. In the case of William Laurence, however, his acuity frequently failed him.

"The Allegiance is a ship, not a boat. And you may as well call me Will," he added; "anyone who can put me in my place so thoroughly has certainly earned the right. Thank you for your candor, Tharkay. I will... I will try to oblige you."

Before Tharkay could attempt to regather the wits scattered by Laurence's sudden, brilliant smile, a shadow fell across them, and Temeraire scooped them both up, one in each set of talons. "Laurence!" the dragon scolded. "I would have come to fetch you at once if you had shouted so I would know you had fallen overboard! Shall I put you back on the ship?"

"No, my dear," Laurence said, and patted the base of one of the razor-sharp claws forming his cage. "I think I would like to swim with you, after all."

Tharkay, despite the realization that he would now be forced to spend the morning swimming in a nearly full suit of clothes, settled back into Temeraire's palm with the warm satisfied glow of a job well-done.