Lt. William Bush (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wouldntbetonit) wrote2021-01-11 08:12 pm
wouldntbetonit) wrote2021-01-11 08:12 pm
Entry tags:
Luceti Appointments
(Please date and title accordingly~)
(Please date and title accordingly~)
(Please date and title accordingly~)
(Please date and title accordingly~)
January 17th - action
He had planned on coming alone, just to pace along the deck and think. But then he'd noticed that someone else was awake and there had just been... a silent understanding for him to come along.
It felt, in a way, more real to him. The cold salt air stung his lungs, and the breeze cut at his face. He could almost think he was in England. With Archie at his side, he always felt the strangeness of this place.
William Bush made it feel like a reality; Archie made it feel like a dream.
Yet, he was aware that nothing was permanent here. William could be gone in a heartbeat. Archie could be gone in a blink.
He turned to look at Bush with that thought.]
What do you think of her?
[The young, proud husband looking to a friend for approval of his beautiful new wife. His beloved Britannia.]
action
'Till now, of course. William was hard-pressed to keep from beaming. Familiarity in an unfamiliar land.]
Lovely. She's just - [He nod a few times. Liking his choice of words from before.] lovely.
Who started?
[Because clearly the ship couldn't have been built in the time frame you'd presented earlier Horatio. That was just impossible.]
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[For a moment, Horatio Hornblower was grinning.]
Archie designed her, and we had a crew helping us build her. A shipwright... Don't ask me how he did it, but, by God, he did it.
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[William Bush laughs a little in disbelief. He walked about the deck, in Horatio's vicinity - simply because he wouldn't presume to go any further. He may not have believed Horatio about the time but he wouldn't argue it here. Not now.]
I'll be damned.
action
[He knows how remarkable it is. Horatio smiled very, very faintly over at William.]
She could do with some guns, but I doubt the Malnosso will give us those. Unless they send us back into battle.
January 21st - action
His Majesty's ShipBritannia at six bells of the last dog watch on this the twenty-first of January.[A simple note, slid under the lieutenant's door while he was out.
After that? The captain had retired to his ship to pass the time while he waited to see if his order was followed. His Journal was back at the house. He'd seen and read and heard enough.
Horatio sat at his desk in the captain's cabin as the hour approached, his hands folded together and his eyes half open while he considered everything that needed to be said and how it ought to be said.]
January 21st - action
Nor could he shake that feeling that it was for something done wrong. Bush had yet to find his uniform or his hat, so he was left wearing civilian's garb. Which made him feel even worse. If he could just don the garb he was familiar with he'd be more comfortable going to the captain's cabin he was sure.
Upon arriving Bush rapped his knuckles on the door before entering sans an invitation. Old habit.]
Sir?
action
Damn the Malnosso, I'll make them myself if we have to.
January 21st - action
Wholly unintentional, but there had been nothing to do but let it burn out and accept the consequences.]
Thank you for your attempt to find more crew for Britannia.
[The "but" hangs in the air, as yet unspoken, but lining every word and written in the dark eyes fixed on Bush.]
January 21st - action
A very poor attempt, sir.
[He wasn't demeaning himself, merely the reception it had gotten.]
action
I think a few residents here would protest.
January 21st - action
[Civilians might not always like what the Navy did, but they understood the importance of all of it.
For that much, at least, he sounded genuinely sympathetic.]
I will vouch for nine-tenths of this crew myself. [And the other tenth he did not know well enough, but would trust Archie's opinion on. The next part is said coolly, a hardness to his voice, even if it's difficult for him to come to terms with as well:] I will advise you not to suggest again that they are incapable based on their sex.
action
[It sounds more like 'are they important?']
January 21st - action
[His head is bowed, eyes down, and he nods every so often.
He doesn't even come close to an apology himself. But he isn't talking back, or disobeying his commanding officer. He'll drop the issue if Horatio wants him to. But he doesn't have to like it. William worries for a moment that Horatio will be able to see right to that and he shifts his weight from foot to foot. Just once. But it's there.]
Action | March 21
Action | March 21
'Course it hadn't ended well, so Bush doesn't simply walk to inspect Kennedy instead he runs - crossing the space of the room in few long steps. His hand dips under the unconscious man's shoulder and he tries to Very Carefully turn the man upright against the legs of a chair and he does well to check the volume of his voice as he attempts to wake the man (if he could be) with his name. He doesn't know who else is home, but he thinks of how Wellard or Hornblower would take to seeing Archie as he is and thinks better of it.
Rare moment of insight proves useful.
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Bush isn't so gentle now and shoves him upright, making sure he stays.
"Come on, Archie..." of course he has no idea what he is intending to ask of the lieutenant, and if pressed wouldn't be able to come up with anything practical. Just the kind of language he hears when folks try to converse with people unawares.
...
And it's perfectly useless, he knows now, and he damns the idiot who thought that would work in the first place.
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...Fantastic.
He clears his throat weakly. "Water."
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Like that's supposed to do anything. Bush seems to think so as he lets Archie's arms go and stands to get him a glass of water. At least here they didn't have to worry about rationing the stuff.
Right now, at least. Bush didn't trust this place as far as he could throw it.
He comes back with the glass and sits next to Archie, dumbly holding the glass in front of him to offer it up. He won't ask what happened till after he's managed to drink some of it. It was what he asked for after all.
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He sits back, half-asleep and so completely out of dignity that he barely even cares what Bush thinks or knows.
May 31st, action
That's very nice.
But there's a small figure peeking out of his bedroom (where he's been admiring the captain's dress coat with all due awe and being very, very careful not to touch it) at you where you're sitting in the parlour.
No. Scratch that. He's crept out of the bedroom and down the hallway, sort of crouching down at the end of it, as if that will make him less likely to be seen up so late.
After all, if this man is anything like Father, he'll just scold him and tell him to go back to bed.]
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Horatio. [This was weird.]
Can't you sleep?
[He sounds incredibly weary; not used to taking care of young children. Young men, yes. But there was none of the order of the navy here. He tried to remember how his mother would act with him when he was young, but that was a very long time ago.]
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[The boy is still standing near the doorway, not advancing or retreating, though he knows he'll be sent back to his room.
It's a strange difference, this boy and the lieutenant willing to detonate charges in a fort, expecting to do it alone and not survive it.]
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It's quite alright. Would you care to sit?
[And there he was speaking to him as if he were an adult again. He needed to work on that.]
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[He comes more into the room, carefully taking a seat at the end of the couch.
He looks at the thing the man is doing and he waits a moment before asking--]
Sir... what are you doing?
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It was a way to pass the time at sea. Like when one couldn't sleep. [Hoho, so clever.]
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[Who's surprised the boy had a childhood of reading? No one? Oh, good, then.]
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What kind of stories?
[Bush wants very much to gently remind the child - who should be a man - that he is not his father, despite the fact that Horatio well knows that. He didn't want to have the same things expected of him, things he couldn't do or possibly didn't want to.
The one book Bush can remember reading as a child was Norie's. He wasn't much of a reader.]
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Sometimes it's his medical books, but I don't like those too much. Can't really understand them.
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[When do you ever, Bush?]
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[Because that was what his mother and father wanted. He was too young to think he could stray from that path.]