Work Text:
When Laurence woke for the first time in Japan, having lost some years of his life in memory, he was confused, more than anything else, by the stark white handprint that stood out against the skin of his forearm.
He did not have a soulmark. But apparently, at some point during his many missing years, he had gained one.
Laurence had never expected to have a soulmate, or at least not to meet them—he had few experiences with the phenomenon in general, and had never found the prospect uniquely appealing. The closest thing he had to an understanding of soulmate relationships, outside of popular opinion and gossip, was the marriage of his eldest brother George and his wife Elizabeth, who had met the year after Laurence had left for the Navy. He had seen them on perhaps four occasions since, and they had seemed happy, though not in a manner any more remarkable than an ordinary couple, except for the glowing white of their fingertips where George had first taken Elizabeth’s hand. It had been extraordinarily lucky that they had met, even more so that it had been socially advantageous for them to marry.
Most of the other soulmates Laurence had encountered were in the Navy–a few sailors who shared open secrets with one another, a cooper who boasted of his soulmate wife ashore, and once a ship’s surgeon who discovered he was soulmates with a third lieutenant after touching the man to treat a gunshot wound in his shoulder. The surgeon’s touch had activated their bond, but afterwards he fled, too unsettled, perhaps, by the strangeness of the moment to acknowledge his soulmate. The lieutenant had healed poorly from the wound, and had been taken by infection and fever two weeks later. His soulmark had burned red against his skin as he grew sicker and sicker, crying out for his surgeon, before going gray as his soul left his body.
So of course Laurence knew what the marks were, and what they meant–most everyone did. And he had known that there was a feeling, of sorts, that accompanied them, that seemed to intrude on one’s body and mind without warning, only he had never expected to feel that feeling for himself, and had no recollection of how he had behaved when he did. But there it was, on his arm. If he pressed, he could feel the faded presence of another soul in the back of his mind, and there were no means of denying it.
As he traced the mark with his fingertip that first morning, growing accustomed to its ever-present warmth, he wondered. A soulmark, but no wedding ring. Had he lost it? Had he remained unmarried even after discovering his soulmate?
It was possible, perhaps, that they had found a reason not to marry. Perhaps it had been inconvenient, or impossible. His soulmate could be a man–more than having known some men in the Navy who had such bonds, he knew his own preferences, and had dallied more than enough in dark corners to confirm the possibility.
But there were no memories he could reach for to fill in the blank space of who held the other half of his bond, whose existence hummed faintly in the back of his mind, who had first touched him there and laid that imprint on his arm. And so he wondered.
–
Laurence did not ask right away, upon his restoration to the comrades-in-arms–who had apparently become his friends–whether they knew of his soulmate. At first it was simply not the first thing on his mind; despite their seeming familiarity, Laurence knew nothing of these people, nor what the past versions of himself had trusted him with.
Later, it was because he feared that even were he to broach the subject, they would not tell him.
Even Temeraire, the dragon with whom he had shared so much of his lost eight years, seemed to skate over periods of time in their history, and could not fully fill in the gaps of what he had missed without clamming up and shifting subjects. There was something that all of them had decided not to tell him, something they thought he would not want to know, or could not handle knowing.
He stewed in this throughout the journey to China, and the first blurry, eventful weeks. What could it be about his soulmate that was so dreadful that no one could even speak of it? What had happened to create a blank hole in his past that no one was willing to fill?
Unanswered questions and imaginings chased him at all hours. He knew his soulmate could not be dead, for the mark had not faded to gray, but that did not rule out the hundreds of other possibilities–had he rejected his soulmate? Had they rejected him? Had there been some great betrayal, a rift between them so great it could not be repaired?
The wondering ate at him, and would not subside. At last, he could no longer bear it, and one night, after they and the Chinese army had set up camp for the night, pulled Captain Granby aside from the fire to question him. Of the aviators, Laurence had at one time been closest to Granby, and he trusted him to be at least relatively circumspect in comparison to Temeraire, who was the only other he could think he may have confided in.
Once they were safely distant from anyone who might overhear, the light from the fire dampened and the sounds of amicable chatter muffled by intervening tents, he spoke. “I understand, Captain, that there are some aspects of my past that you have endeavored to keep from me.”
Granby shifted on his feet, eyes darting back towards where the rest of the formation’s captain sat around the fire. “Is that so?”
“Did you think I could not hear your cutting one another off in conversation, whispering to each other and stopping when I got too close? Did you think I had not noticed the aspects of the last years you have been unable to explain?”
Granby was silenced by this. He could not meet Laurence’s eyes.
“I have a right to know my own history,” Laurence said. “I need to understand–that is–”
Granby looked grievously pained. “Very well,” he said, sounding strained. He looked at sea, as though he were searching for what to say next but could not quite land on a beginning.
Laurence sighed inwardly with relief and pulled up his sleeve as far as it would easily go, revealing the beginning of his soulmark. Granby had started to form a word, but was entirely cut off by the sight of the mark, so stark and obvious against Laurence’s bared skin. “Please,” Laurence said. “Do you know who holds the other half of my bond? What has happened, that you must obscure them from me so?”
Granby was again at a loss for words, but this time it seemed less as though he was struggling to find them and more that they had been ripped away. His face was a picture of shock.
When he at last found his tongue, he asked: “You have a soulmate?”
Laurence blinked. “What?”
Granby sputtered. “Who–how? How long?”
Laurence felt irritation rising within him at the questions he obviously could not answer–the questions he had wanted Granby to be able to answer for him. “I do not know,” he said sharply.
Granby shook his head, as though shaking away confusion and surprise. “Of course not, I am sorry. But, Will–” and Laurence did his best to remind himself that this man had been–was–one of his closest friends, and that he ought to forgive the informality– “I did not know either. You never told me.”
Hope and anticipation drained from the air, leaving Laurence cold. “Then…if it is not this, what is it that you have been keeping from me?”
Granby looked askance again. Laurence felt anger rising again within him. “You all but admitted to it. Even if it is not this,” he gestured at the soulmark, “there is something, some secret, and whatever it is–however you think it may affect me–I have the right to know it.”
–
Granby brought him directly to Temeraire, after telling him of the treason, and would not let go of his arm until Laurence was safely wrapped in the protective coils of Temeraire’s body, unable–he supposed–to inflict any further suffering upon himself.
Temeraire was at first preoccupied with the soulmark. He nosed at it gently, feeling the warmth it emanated. “Oh, Laurence, how did I never know of it?” He sounded hurt, and it only compounded the feeling of a dagger twisting in Laurence’s chest.
“I do not know,” he said, despairingly. “I do not know.”
Temeraire was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, it was as close to a whisper as his loud voice could manage.
“I am sorry, Laurence, for lying to you. I ought to have found some way–some better way–to tell you–but you must know that it was not wrong, and everyone with any sense agrees that you were very brave to do it.”
“I am afraid I know so little now,” Laurence said, “of what is right, and what is wrong.”
Temeraire made a little sorrowful noise, and spoke to him softly words of comfort that Laurence could barely hear, much less accept, and so instead he simply let them wash over him, a noise to distract from the oppressive nature of his own thoughts.
He ought not to have been so insistent on knowing. The truth was a cruel thing, and the pain of it, once known, would not abate.
But that pain was not undeserved. He had a right–a duty–to know, and to own, his history. He let it sink into him and steal his sleep. His body welcomed it like an old friend, a familiar and constant companion.
Absently, he thought that even though no one had been able to tell him of his soulmate, the explanation he had gotten was likely more than enough. Who would remain devoted to a companion who had broken from honor in such a grievous way as he? Who could trust him to remain constant in love, when he would betray even the land of his birth, whom he had sworn to defend with his very life with every day of his service?
It was with this thought heavy on his mind that he at last drifted into a dark and fitful sleep.
–
The raid of Blue Crane mountain was hectic, loud, and hot. Laurence found himself buffeted between groups of Chinese aviators as they made their way through the dark tunnels, their bodies making the already tight space suffocating.
The intensity of the situation was not at all helped by the irritation that had begun to pulse through his forearm, where his soulmark lay. It had started nights before, with a light itching, an occasional pulse of unusually strong heat and light. Now it was illuminating the faces of the soldiers around him, glowing as bright as their handheld torches, brighter than he had ever seen it before–brighter, indeed, than he remembered having seen any soulmark glow.
The presence of his partner in the back of his mind had been growing stronger, too, with every mile closer they came to the mountain, transmitting exhaustion and desperation and pain; now it felt so expansive that he may have been suffocating more within his own mind than in the dank and stuffy tunnels.
The itch of his soul bond crawling along his arm and down his back seemed to pull him forward, guiding his steps, growing ever more intense and all consuming. Some sensation which he could not name pulsed beneath his mark, seeming to push and stretch at the skin, aching to be released. It could not be–he could only follow it. He could do little else.
At last, he reached a cell, deep within the mountain. A man–Tharkay, he must be, although Laurence could find no memory in him to corroborate this belief–lay against the wall, dark hair falling into his eyes, thin and pallid with hunger and pain. But all Laurence could see was the handprint–his own handprint–that shone out from beneath Tharkay’s tattered shirt.
The light from each of their marks seemed to double. The presence in Laurence’s mark cried out in recognition.
He approached the Tharkay and knelt. The fighting from the tunnels seemed, for just a moment, to hush to a standstill, and there was only Laurence and this unfamiliar man, who he must know, alone in this dark corner.
Laurence lifted a hand to his face, brushed the hair from his eyes. He met Laurence’s gaze with a steady recognition that belied his state of distress. For a moment Laurence could not bear it, looking in his eyes and seeing himself known and not knowing back. And then he reached out, and his fingers brushed Tharkay’s arm, grazed the white-hot skin of his mark, and the presence in the back of his mind exploded into a million forgotten moments, expanding, filling in his missing history with a new and startling clarity.
It was him.
~~~
They were certainly a sight, speaking there in the dark garden, barely recovered from their flight through the sewers. The sound of their breathing, still a little erratic, filled the night air between them, which smelled, now, slightly of piss. Laurence did his level best to ignore the stink, and found it an easy task with Tharkay before him, opening himself up to offer Laurence a small kernel of the truth that defined him.
Laurence shifted his weight and his boots squelched with sewage water. He offered Tharkay his hand. “I hope I may in safety promise to give no less than full measure of loyalty to any man who gives me his,” he said quietly. When Tharkay only stared, unreadable, at his proffered arm, he added: “I think I would be sorrier to lose you than I yet know.”
Tharkay took Laurence’s forearm in his hand; Laurence’s hand clasped around Tharkay’s.
And then there was a warmth, licking like fire at Laurence’s skin where he and Tharkay were touching. There was a brief, transcendent moment, where he felt as though they were one person–and then there were glowing handprints seared onto each of their forearms, shining so bright beneath the sleeves of their coats that they were like lanterns in the dark courtyard.
They stood in silence for a moment, staring at each other. Laurence took inventory of the way everything had suddenly shifted; the soreness in his legs from the long run had vanished, replaced with a restless intensity of energy. He felt as though he had been snatched out of the air mid-fall, or as if he had been awoken from a drunken stupor with a bucket of freezing water, euphoria and adrenaline surging through his veins. A tickling sensation sparked in the back of his brain; urging him to throw himself at Tharkay and wrap himself up in him and never let go. He settled, instead, for holding on to the other man’s arm.
It was the first time he had ever seen Tharkay looking anything other than utterly composed. Even just minutes before, when he had been splashing through watery shit, he had done it with perfect grace. Now, he looked just as dizzy as Laurence felt, his dark eyes searching Laurence’s face as though looking for an answer to a question that neither of them had asked.
“Well,” Tharkay said, mastering his harried breath. “I am set in my ways; but as you are willing to take my word, Captain, I suppose I should be churlish to refuse to offer it.”
Tharkay let go of Laurence’s arm, and the ecstasy vanished, and he was left feeling only a bit wobbly, lightheaded and weak in the knees. Tharkay stumbled back a step, as though catching himself from a fall.
He met Laurence’s eyes, and nodded, and then tried to slip off into the shadows. Laurence could track him, of course, by the handprint on his forearm, which was still steadily beaming with all of the golden glow of a lighthouse guiding ships to harbor. He let him go, his hand twitching faintly with longing for the warmth of Tharkay’s coat–his skin–beneath it.
He balled his hand into a fist, shoved it into the pocket of his coat, and retreated to his own bedroll, as he imagined Tharkay had set out to do. (And Lord, now was not the moment to be imagining Tharkay in bed; he wanted the glowing handprint to fade to an innocent white patch of skin, not to ignite like a fire and wake half his crew with its light.)
But he could not help the pictures that danced in his mind; Tharkay’s grace, his cool self-assuredness, the sardonic twist of his mouth, the dizzy look in his eyes as he contemplated Laurence’s handprint on his arm.
Once he was securely bedded down, Laurence allowed himself to pull up his shirtsleeves and stare at his soulmark beneath the cover of a woolen blanket. It had faded somewhat from its blazing first impression, but it still glowed softly as though with the light of a distant star. He grazed his fingers over it, tracing the edges of where Tharkay had touched him, and then closed his eyes and imagined Tharkay was still holding him there, and had never let go.
-
In the following days, they had both gone to some effort to hide the soulmarks; Tharkay had taken to wearing his coat at all hours, and Laurence had begun wrapping a cravat around the mark before donning the rest of his clothes in the hope that it may do a little to stifle the light, should it flare again.
And it had not; another part of their unspoken accord was that they were not to needle the flares or push them on. In moments where Laurence had felt the mark prickle and heat with a pale glow, when Tharkay had stood too near or spoken too low or looked at him too hard. In those moments, Tharkay seemed to feel it too, and the prickle was always followed by a shuttering of conversation, a diverted glance, or a slipping off into a distant corner.
Laurence was grateful for this. After all, he had not expected a soulmate, nor wanted one, if he had ever considered it deeply at all. Not before Temeraire, and even less so after him. He had already turned his entire existence on its head for Temeraire–how could there possibly be another person capable of compelling him to share his life so?
But there was, and now here they were again in the courtyard where they had only nights before discovered the nature of their relationship, arguing with Temeraire and Granby about which of them would undertake what was clearly Laurence’s duty and retrieve the eggs he was sent to claim for England.
“Tharkay,” Laurence said, to the man’s offer to carry out the mission himself, “this is no service you owe us; I would certainly not ask it of–I would not order even a man under oath of arms to undertake it, without he were willing.”
He recognized the double meaning that remained in his corrected sentence a moment too late, and rued the ghost of a smile that touched Tharkay’s face. They had not spoken again of the soulmarks in the days since they appeared; they had hardly spoken of them at all even then. Laurence had rather thought–assumed, perhaps–that there was nothing more to be said about it.
Except, apparently, when there was, roundabout as it may be.
“But I am willing,” Tharkay said. “Even if I were under, as you say, an oath of arms,” that sardonic twist to the corner of his mouth deepened, and he crossed his arms, hand settling on the place where his soulmark lay, “I would go, and be more likely to succeed than anyone else here.”
Laurence frowned as his mark prickled at Tharkay’s touch. He could hear Temeraire drawing in a breath, making to interrupt, and spoke before he was able. “If you would excuse us,” he said to Temeraire and Granby, “I would have a private word with Mr. Tharkay.”
The two of them looked confused, and Granby’s expression was shot through with suspicion, but neither made a move to stop them as Laurence jerked his head to the corner of the courtyard, motioning for Tharkay to follow him. He dared not touch the other man as he pulled him aside, and kept several paces ahead of him as they walked. Tharkay made no move to catch up to him.
They ended up beside the fountain again, where they had come to their accord some nights before, and although the words spoken had seemed quite clear Laurence felt as though he had no idea what they meant.
“I do not know what you mean by this, sir,” he said, low, “but I can assure you that myself and my crew are fully capable of handling this matter.”
Tharkay raised his eyebrows. “I do not doubt you capable of handling a great many things,” he said smoothly, “but you must concede that I am better suited to the task–”
Laurence could feel his mark heating with the mere closeness of Tharkay. He felt a little sickened by it, and wished only that it would not exist, or that it would not beget such difficult, necessary confrontation. Only that was a rather unkind thing to say, and it was not at all Tharkay’s fault that the marks had appeared–he was the one who had offered his hand, after all–and if anything Tharkay likely felt much worse about the whole affair than he did.
“I would not have you put yourself in danger on my account,” said Laurence instead.
“If you think my offer is a result of the revelations of our touch some nights ago, you are incorrect, Captain,” Tharkay said. “You offered me the full measure of your loyalty in exchange for my own, did you not?
Laurence’s soulmark beat with a great intensity on his arm. He felt flushed and rather faint. “Of course,” he said, trying to keep his gaze fixedly on Tharkay’s face and finding it to be rather the only thing in his field of vision that remained in focus. “I only wished to be certain that, ahem. The nature of our…relationship…does not interfere with our work.” His mark was soundly glowing now, and he wondered whether Tharkay’s was doing the same, only he could not tell for all the way the world was swimming before him.
Tharkay’s ghost of a smile returned, and his face was so brightened by it that Laurence thought his previous blank expression may have been one of real hurt. “Of course not, Captain,” he said. “We are at war, after all.”
“Indeed,” said Laurence. “It would not do to allow our fate to carry us away from our duties.”
“Certainly not,” Tharkay said. “You may be assured that you have my loyalty only, and no other, deeper measures of my devotion.”
Laurence nodded, relieved to hear this, and then, finally, brought his hand to the place where his soulmark beamed with light. It was warm to the touch, and tingled fervently as he brushed his fingers over it. He shuddered. “I think I will take a moment,” he said, “before I return to speak with Temeraire and Mr. Granby.”
“Of course,” said Tharkay, as he slipped off through the courtyard, and Laurence lost sight of him in the great blur of his vision.
–
In the end, it was Laurence and a selection of his crew that ended up going to retrieve the eggs. He had not been able to shake off Granby, but Tharkay had relented rather easily, seemingly cowed despite Laurence thinking that he had been the clear winner of their parlay.
They parted from Tharkay, with some frenzy and loss of life, in Istanbul. Laurence was grieved to leave him, and then grieved by that grievance, and then forced himself into pretending relief to himself, and only for himself. It seemed a useless performance, but a necessary one, for if he was to maintain the agreement of noninterference he and Tharkay had made by the fountain, he needed to be sure he would not spend the rest of his life lying awake and thinking of a man he would almost certainly never see again.
It was proving rather difficult so far.
And then Tharkay was there again, had saved him and perhaps all of Europe, and there was no more insisting upon the idea of never seeing him again. There was no banishing the ever-present belief that Tharkay had brought the ferals for him, because he felt a measure of devotion greater than the loyalty they had promised one another.
Laurence felt it, certainly, but he never met a feeling he could not deny. And after all, his suspicions of Tharkay were only suspicions–nothing in the man’s character suggested that he wished to further their actual relationship based on their soul bond.
But he didn’t stop showing up, either. Whenever Laurence was in need of him, there he was–on the Goliath, in the invasion of London, in the haze of unrelenting battle and the monthslong transportation to Australia and the journey across that treacherous continent, Tharkay followed him and upheld their first oath.
Laurence felt rather unequal to all he was offered, to the degree with which Tharkay kept his promise. Laurence had begun to realize that he was perhaps not one for keeping promises as he may have thought he was in his youth. But he tried, for Tharkay’s sake and his own, to uphold his half.
He learned with time to master the sensation that was brought on by Tharkay’s closeness, and was able to be in his presence without feeling dizzy or silly or stupid, or losing control of the light that lived beneath his soulmark. He took to wrapping a neckcloth around the mark so that even in case of a sudden loss of clothing, he was never unable to cover the pale handprint.
In all that time, no one discovered them. Laurence had mastered his body and his behavior in service of this goal. The only way Laurence failed, truly, was in his inability to master his own thoughts. He could not banish the persistent thought, which he realized to his horror could even be called desire, that Tharkay meant something deeper than he said by it all. That he loved him as ordinary soulmates might.
But of course he did not. Tharkay, at least, upheld his promises.
~~~
“Tenzing,” Laurence whispered, clutching tighter at his soulmate’s arm. The mark’s heat had dulled–or perhaps Laurence had become accustomed to it–and now it was only a pleasant, prickling warmth. “There you are.”
Tharkay shook with sudden laughter. He reached out with twisted fingers, laying his own palm across Laurence’s mark; he sunk into Laurence, closing the minute distance between them and sinking his forehead into Laurence’s shoulder, as though he could take some of the light and heat and absorb it into himself as energy to invigorate him from his exhaustion.
“Here I am,” he rasped. They stayed there, on the rough ground, in a perfectly ecstatic silence, until Laurence remembered where they were.
“We must go,” he said, not wanting to push Tharkay off of him, not wanting to give up even a portion of his touch. But Tharkay nodded into his shoulder, and so he did, moving Tharkay gently to the side and lifting both of them to their feet, supporting Tharkay with an arm beneath his shoulder, and they limped together out into the tunnels.
–
Their escape from the mountain was, after that moment, a blur in Laurence’s memory. He and Tharkay, being both of them injured, were separated as soon as they returned to camp and seen to by different surgeons.
Several hours later, Laurence had come to his senses somewhat, and sat with Granby outside his tent, glass in hand. Tharkay was still being treated; his injuries had been compounded by months of ill-treatment, and no one had as of yet been allowed to see him. Laurence knew that his pain was easing, though, from the echo of Tharkay’s presence that lived in his mind. He wished desperately to be near to him, to speak to him, but was so unsure what he would say, even if he could.
How could he face Tharkay, having failed him so terribly? Having allowed him to suffer so at the hand of an enemy, when Tharkay had always protected him, even from himself?
It seemed to Laurence that he had disappointed his oath to Tharkay in every way. Having failed to curtail his devotion, he could at least have acted in a way that would demonstrate loyalty, as Tharkay so often had, and still he had done no such thing.
He stroked a thumb over the rim of his glass and sipped at his brandy, disquieted.
Granby had been looking sidelong at him ever since the surgeon had released him. At last, Laurence sighed, and nodded for Granby to speak.
“You and Tharkay?” Granby burst out with the words he had been clearly holding in for quite some time. “How did I not know? How did you not tell me?”
“We had not told anyone, John,” Laurence sighed. “It is… we came to an accord, when we first discovered it. The nature of our relationship was not to interfere with our work. We are at war, after all, and each of us has our own duties.”
“Good Lord,” said Granby.
Laurence gave him a look that was not a glare, but was very close. “We are loyal to one another. Anything more would be…distracting.”
Granby snorted with laughter.
“And so,” Laurence soldiered on. “We elected to stay our separate courses.”
“Oh, of course,” Granby said. “And that has worked terribly well for you, hasn’t it?”
Laurence was silent. He took a long drink.
Granby shifted, and passed his drink from one hand to the other. He spoke again, more softly. “I don’t know why I didn’t realize it sooner. The way he followed you… the way you spoke about him. How long has it been, since you knew?”
“We activated our bond accidentally, one night in Istanbul.”
“Istanbul,” he said, thoughtfully, and took a drink. “Lord, Will. That’s a terribly long time to wait.”
“John…”
“I mean it! I understand your–your accord, I do, it’s a terribly you sort of solution, but it cannot last–”
“Even if there was another way for us,” Laurence said sharply, “it could not be. I made him an oath; I would not break it more than I already have.”
“Oh,” said Granby. “Oh.” He looked at Laurence again, scrutinizing him, meeting his eyes, and finding something there.
“Do you think he would not want it?” Granby asked. “Or do you think you do not deserve it enough to try?”
–
Laurence sat in Temeraire’s palm, petting one of his smooth talons. “I am sorry, my dear, that I did not tell you before. I had convinced myself that nothing would come of it if I could keep it a secret.”
Temeraire nosed curiously at Laurence’s soulmark, which had not stopped glowing since he and Tharkay had touched again for the first time. “Oh, I cannot be angry at it, Laurence,” Temeraire said. “Not when it has brought you back to me, and I was so afraid I had all but lost you as you are.”
Laurence leaned into Temeraire’s snout. There had been a long and emotional conversation before this, with Laurence and Temeraire both making many apologies. Laurence had wept, and Temeraire certainly would have, if dragons could do such a thing. Once the emotion had subsided and they sat in the soft comfort that followed the intensity of being reunited, Temeraire had started to nose curiously at the shimmering mark on Laurence’s arm.
Temeraire had known of the existence of soulmates; he had met a number of pairs, but he had always regarded it with the same sort of casual inattention and lack of care as he had marriage. It was, to him, a human affair, largely irrelevant because Laurence would never be participating in it anyhow.
“I promise” Laurence said, “that it will change nothing from before–Tharkay and I came to an agreement, years ago, that it would not interfere with our lives, and I have no doubt he wishes to hold to that agreement, as I do.”
“Why,” Temeraire said, indignant, “does he not want you?”
Laurence had rather expected Temeraire to be relieved by this. “No, my dear,” he said, struggling for an adequate response, “it is only–we both have our work, and of course I share my life with you before any other–”
Temeraire scoffed. “As though Tharkay is not mine also!”
“But,” Laurence said, “I had thought–that is, you were always so displeased, before, with the thought of my marrying–”
Temeraire snorted. “It is Tharkay,” he said, as though that explained his position perfectly. “I would not at all be displeased for you to marry him; he has returned you to yourself, and he is very good about looking after you in any event. And of course,” he added, almost as an afterthought, “if you married him it would mean that Arkady could not have him, which would be most amenable.”
Laurence coughed. “Temeraire,” he said gently. “I admit it was I who brought the marriage comparison, so I cannot fault you for it–but I cannot actually marry Tharkay–not under the law, in any case.”
“Oh, who cares for the law anyhow?” Temeraire said flippantly, not looking for an answer. “I understood your meaning well enough. If you and Tharkay are meant to be companions, I see no reason why you ought not to be.”
“It is only,” Laurence said, looking to the side, “our agreement–our promise. I certainly have failed to curtail my own feelings, but I cannot say whether Tharkay has done the same. I cannot say, in truth, whether he does… want me.” He finished uncomfortably, recalling Temeraire’s earlier question.
“I cannot imagine why he would not,” Temeraire said, sounding irritated. “And, after all, it has been so long. How can you be certain that you understood his meaning quite correctly, or that it has not changed, after all this time, if you have not spoken of it since?”
Laurence adjusted his position in Temeraire’s palm, refusing to meet Temeraire’s looming blue eye.
“I do not wish,” Temeraire added, his voice uncommonly soft and vulnerable, “for you to deny yourself happiness on my account.”
Guilt twinged in Laurence’s stomach. He recognized it for manipulation; for all Temeraire’s intelligence, he was terribly blatant in his conversational tactics, and yet Laurence held no hope of resisting. He met Temeraire’s gaze, which was sad and pleading, and then he relented.
He stroked Temeraire’s snout, then leaned in and rested his weight against it. “I will speak with Tharkay on the matter,” he promised, and tried not to sound as if he was dreading it.
–
The following morning, Laurence was at last allowed into Tharkay’s tent to visit. Tharkay lay on the cot, looking much improved even from only the day before, now that he had been cleaned up, his wounds bandaged, and his tattered clothes replaced. His soulmark, like Laurence’s, still glowed.
It visibly brightened upon Laurence’s entrance, and Laurence could sense his own mark doing the same. Laurence crossed the ground and knelt at Tharkay’s side, holding himself back–with some difficulty–from reaching out and touching Tharkay.
They sat in silence for some time. Laurence knew not what to say, so he said nothing, instead allowing himself–for the first time–to really consider their bond, the presence of Tharkay’s feelings that he could sense within his own body. It was in this way that he knew that Tharkay, too, knew not how to begin to speak to him.
At last, Laurence knew he must at least attempt to keep his promise to Temeraire. “I am sorry,” he said, endeavoring to keep his voice even. “I must confess to you that I–I have not kept our promise as I should. My feelings towards you have indeed stretched beyond–far beyond–loyalty, for quite some time.”
Tharkay reached out to Laurence, with some difficulty. Laurence, setting aside his surprise, met Tharkay’s hand with his own, and held it tenderly.
“I know,” Tharkay said.
“You know?”
“Will,” Tharkay said, his voice still raspy but stronger than it had been in the cave, “I can feel your presence in my mind and body, as you can feel mine. Of course I know.”
“Ah,” said Laurence, his heart suddenly dropping. How could he have failed to realize that all of his efforts towards concealment had all along meant nothing? “I do apologize, then, that you have had to endure it all these years, when you do not return it–and that I failed to show even my barest loyalty, in the way you have shown me yours–”
“Will,” Tharkay interrupted him, a hint of annoyance creeping into his voice. “I had thought, when I said that I feel your presence as you feel mine that you would comprehend the implications, but I see I was mistaken.”
Laurence stopped short, blinking as he tried to wrap his mind around it. “You mean… but I feel no devotion through the bond.”
Tharkay slid his hand delicately up Laurence’s arm, running his fingers over the mark. Laurence shivered with the pleasant heat that ran down his spine, as though he was sitting by a hearth. “Is it not warm?” Tharkay asked.
It was. It always was, since the day it had first glowed, white hot on his arm, throughout all of the long years after. Even when it sat, white against his skin but unnoticeable beneath his clothes, it radiated soft warmth throughout his body, like sunlight washing over him.
“But it has always been warm,” Laurence said, almost incredulous. “Even when…”
Tharkay gave him a wry smile, and did not have to say anything for Laurence to understand what he meant.
Laurence was silent for a long moment. Then he laughed, despite himself. “I must be a terrible fool,” he said.
“That, I knew even before our bond,” Tharkay said. He began to push himself upright, to bring his face closer to Laurence’s.
Laurence pushed him back down. “Do not sit up,” he said, “you are hardly well enough for it. And do not say you are, as I can sense your exhaustion as if it were my own memory when I touch you.”
“I am only glad that you have your memory,” Tharkay said blandly, letting himself be pushed. “You are quite welcome for that.”
Laurence smiled. “Will you allow me to repay you for the service?”
“What sort of payment is it?” Tharkay asked.
Laurence leaned closer to Tharkay, and stretched himself out on the cot, careful not to disturb any of Tharkay’s many wounds as he pulled their bodies close together. The sensation that came with such broad touch was exultant, and much improved by the safety of the tent and Laurence’s new awareness of the meaning of the overwhelming warmth that swelled within his soul.
It was as though the two of them slipped into a shared awareness, and became–not one person, but an inextricable set of people. Tharkay’s tiredness and pain slipped through Laurence and passed away into the ether, and he thought back to the cave, where it had felt as though mere proximity to Tharkay had invigorated his limbs, and realized the effect had not only been imagined. The pain from the wound at the back of his neck grew dull and vanished, filling instead with heat, like that which came from his mark, but now spread throughout his entire body.
“They should have let you come in much sooner,” Tharkay said. “I certainly would have made them, if I had known your presence alone could so greatly ease my pain.” He twisted his face towards Laurence’s and kissed his neck, and Laurence felt as though he had been absorbed into the sun. He breathed out in shocked and delighted surprise, pressed himself closer into Tharkay’s side, pressed their mouths together, and then both men were utterly lost to the world.
– – –
Their arrangement indeed changed after that, although Laurence was surprised by how little difference he felt. They laid together when they could, and touched more casually, but everything else–what they did for one another–remained exactly as it had been.
Their relationship remained private, more out of natural inclination than necessity. A number of the aviators knew, of course–anyone who had been present at Blue Crane mountain–and Laurence could not keep the secret from his mother, once the war ended.
But it was not something that wanted speaking of, often, even between the two of them. So it went that they did not often speak of it, not even when Laurence settled at Tharkay’s estate, nor when it started to appear that the arrangement had become permanent.
Several months into that arrangement, Jane stopped in to visit the both of them. They dined together, then sat in the library, more than a little drunk, and quite content, by the time the conversation turned to romance.
“I am very glad to see the two of you settled in together at last,” Jane said, around her glass of port. “It was dreadful, watching you follow each other across the earth all those years, and knowing you were too great of fools to do anything about it.”
Laurence spluttered and coughed. Tharkay patted him on the shoulder.
“You–you…” Laurence looked at Jane, trying to discern her meaning. “You knew? For how long?”
“Oh, Tharkay told me–back during the French invasion, before he went to fetch you from prison, and all.”
Laurence jerked his head around to stare at Tharkay. Tharkay refused to meet his eyes, instead staring down at his glass. “She pressed me for an explanation,” Tharkay said. “And I will admit I was somewhat insensible with worry.”
“He was dreadful,” said Jane. “I have never seen him so discomposed, before or since. It was disturbing.”
“Ah,” said Laurence, unable to contain the flicker of pleased light that flashed from his mark at the revelation. He leaned closer to Tharkay, and their arms pressed together. The warmth of Tharkay’s love (and drunkenness) rushed through him, and he could not but rue the version of himself who had wished, even for a moment, that he had not taken Tharkay’s arm that night in the garden. For, of all the oaths he had taken in his life, this was certainly among the best that he had kept.