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‘I was in Port Said at that time, too,’ says the Captain, thoughtfully. He is laid out on his bed, his cast propped up on a pillow as he peers over one of Tintin’s old photographs. He flips it round to show Tintin the shot he’s referring to, the others scattered around him on top of the covers. It shows the view of the Port taken from aboard the cruise ship, black and white and distant over the mediterranean that in his mind’s eye is so very blue.
Tintin turns back to the tall sash window that ostensibly looks out over the silent grounds, but darkness presses in against the panes and turns the glass to mirror. He finds himself trying to look past his own reflection to make out anything of the estate below. ’How funny! Three thousand miles away. I wonder if we passed each other on the docks.’
He remembers the heat of the sun on the back of his neck and the keen wonder of seeing the lands and the ports up close and then later from the air as that fierce joy rose in him as he flew over the pyramids and the ribbons of the Nile and the Suez Canal, alone in the stolen plane with the stars and the endless sand. He can still feel the chill of the desert night even now as he stands framed in front of the Captain’s tall windows.
‘Like ships that pass in the night.’
‘Thankfully not.’ With a smile, he turns back to the present and the Captain, who is neglecting the photographs to watch him instead. ‘Strangers pass each other on the street all the time, and most don’t find each other again.’
‘That’s true enough, though you seem to make a habit of running repeatedly into certain people.’ A shadow passes over the Captain’s face, his brow furrowing, and it does not take an intrepid reporter to know his mind is on the guest installed in Moulinsart’s second grandest bedroom. It was the room that had been Tintin’s, before they came to their current arrangement.
Tintin nods. ‘Yes, but that’s hardly the same,’ he says, feeling hesitant. It is still hard sometimes, even with their newfound intimacy, to put things so bluntly into words. Perhaps even more so now that they are sharing the chateau with their unexpected visitors. ‘They’re not you. They haven’t come to mean the same thing to me.’ It’s an oblique statement; it doesn’t feel like enough, but still Tintin watches the softening of the Captain’s face at his words. It has been a wonderful thing to discover. The Captain’s emotions have always been writ plainly on his face, in his voice and his actions. He was always as quick to laughter as he was to anger, and now Tintin has found that tenderness comes to him in the same easy fashion. If it were not directed at him, Tintin thinks he would find himself envious at the ease with which the Captain allows his feelings to possess him. At the apparent surety of them.
‘Come here, lad.’
Tintin obeys the gentle command, as far as to the edge of the bed where he hovers just out of reach.
‘It’s late. It might would be better if I went back to my room.’
‘This is your room. And if any other were to be yours, it should be the one that harpy has nested in.’
Tintin hums, non-commital.
‘Blast it all, Tintin,’ he says, more heated now. ‘I can’t stand having her take your place, in the room that should be yours. We must be careful once she’s gone to make the room look more in use. But until then, will you come here? If I have to endure her being the one to push me around the grounds, read to me from the morning papers and make me coffee in the mornings, then at least let me have you here while I can.’
The instinct to soothe and gentle the Captain isn’t a new one, exactly, but placing it in the changing context of their relationship has made it keener perhaps, shifted it into something new that makes it hard for Tintin to deny him anything he asks of him directly. He quickly finds himself relenting, stepping within reach and allowing himself to be pulled onto the mattress and the Captain’s lap. It still feels strange, being the one to look down from above, but the warmth and breadth of the Captain’s legs between his own is as familiar as ever as he leans in for a kiss. The press of their lips is both brief and chaste, and after he pulls back Tintin leans back in to press more quick kisses to the crease of the Captain’s brow, his cheeks, the bridge of his nose, the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, the sensitive place beneath his jaw where his beard meets the skin of his throat.
They are both tired, worn out from unwanted company and too many long evenings extending into the middle of the night to try and steal back little moments such as this. Despite his protests, Tintin can feel the flutter of the Captain’s breath against his face coming slowly, as though easing towards the deep and slow inhalations of sleep. But his hands still move on Tintin’s thighs, running over the length of his muscles, gripping and squeezing harder as though unconsciously whenever Tintin brings their mouths back together. And though his own eyes are bleary and gritted with tiredness, a lazy warmth still kindles in his stomach.
‘You have me now and soon enough they’ll be gone. Then you can have me whenever you want.’
The Captain’s grip tightens again, harder this time, and his breath comes out in a rush before he pulls Tintin down to seal their mouths again.
‘Don’t tease me, Tintin, not when I’m still saddled with this confounded cast. Just you wait until I’m out of it. You have no idea how much I miss having my full range of movement.’
‘I have some idea,’ Tintin says, smiling against his mouth, but leaning back a little anyway. ‘Hopefully we’ll also be free of our company by then. And any loitering photographers.’
‘And if not, we can head to Milan after all.’
Tintin laughs. ‘Steal away in the night?’
‘Any port in a storm,’ he says, as Tintin stifles a yawn. ‘Look here, why don’t you lie down? You’re exhausted.’
‘That sounds like a dangerous idea,’ he says, fighting back another yawn. All the more so for how tempting it is.
‘I’m confident that you’ve faced graver danger than this.’
He remembers again that flight over Egypt and the Arabian Desert into India, avoiding dogfights and passing over sandstorms only to run out of fuel and crash land into the jungle. He used to think that those were the moments that he is alive for. That he was put on this earth to look into the face of that which is bigger than himself and not to flinch.
‘A different kind of danger, perhaps,’ he says, but allows himself to be pulled down and settles on his side.
‘Part of me just wants to say “to hell with it”.’ His voice rumbles in Tintin’s ear where it’s pressed against the Captain’s chest. ‘You’ve no idea how close I was to setting those journalists straight.’
Tintin cannot pretend that he has not had similar thoughts, has not imagined some other world where it was him who was pushing the Captain’s wheelchair, being photographed to appear in society magazines for a public who would barely bat an eye, other than to comment on how happy they both looked, how doting they were, how lucky they were to have found each other. But in reality, he had merely smiled, pushing such futile considerations beneath his amusement at the Captain’s scowl and barely concealed resentment.
‘She’s been here five minutes and already they think I’m marrying her.’
Tintin can hear the frown forming although he cannot see it, and hushes him.
‘I know,’ he soothes. ‘I know.’