InsaneJournal

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Fic
Title: A Little Scuffle
Author: garglingargoyle
Fandom: Sharpe
Pairing: Harper/Sharpe
Rating: Adult, NSFW
Warnings: Tiptoes around non-con briefly.
Word Count: 1220
Prompt: Harper/Sharpe, hurt/comfort— no one gets bloodied quite like the captain
A/N: For Kinkfest on IJ.



Patrick Harper would deny that what he did when his captain stumbled back into camp was leap to his feet, but there really was no other way to describe it.

“Mother of God! What happened to you?” In seconds he was at Sharpe’s side, stooping a bit to give him a shoulder to lean on, and wincing himself at Sharpe’s own intake of breath when Harper accidentally jostled him.

“It’s nothing, Pat. Just a little scuffle. Help me inside before someone who oughtn’t sees.”

Harper was fairly sure that by the time he had Sharpe safely in his tent, pretty much everyone who oughtn’t see had, but he figured Sharpe had dealt with worse and landed on his feet. He was more worried that the captain was limping back to camp bloodied rather than sauntering in smirking. While it wasn’t exactly Sharpe’s way to go looking for fights, he didn’t shy away from them either and he generally took a fair bit of pride in their outcomes.

Harper led Sharpe to his cot and watched as he eased himself onto it. “You’ll have a shiner in the morning, sir.”

Sharpe looked at him with the eye not swollen shut. “Aye.” He held his side as he lay back.

“Ribs too?”

“Aye.”

“More than one of them, was there, sir?”

Sharpe scrubbed at the uninjured side of his face with one hand. “No. Just the one.”

Harper had stood with Sharpe in enough fights to know that he was better at scrapping than most; he didn’t often let his guard down long enough to get punched in the ribs, not when he only took on one opponent.

“I’ll get a cloth so you can clean up. Shall I get someone to come look at the ribs, sir?”

Sharpe lifted his hand away from his face, stared at the blood on his fingers from a cut at his hairline. He shook his head. “Not much to do for kicked ribs.”

*

When Harper came back with the damp cloth, Sharpe had turned onto his side, facing the canvas wall of the tent. Harper stood beside the cot, and made an ineffectual swipe at the captain’s face with the cloth.

“Just leave it, Pat, would you?”

Harper folded the cloth over on itself, and pressed it into Sharpe’s hand. “Be worse the longer you wait, sir. If the blood dries.”

Sharpe lifted the cloth to his forehead, but made no further move to care for the wound.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“I told you. Scuffle. Nothing.”

“Over a lady?”

Sharpe shook his head, almost imperceptibly.

“The regiment?”

“No.”

“Nosey?”

Sharpe turned slightly and raised an eyebrow at Harper. “No.”

“Somebody made a proposition you didn’t like?”

Sharpe turned back onto his side. “Could be I made a proposition somebody didn’t like.”

Harper sighed and sat with a thump on the stool at the side of Sharpe’s cot. That again. “Haven’t I told you, sir. I’d be more than happy—”

“And I told you no. The last thing either of us needs is rumors like . . . that . . . going around.”

“You propositioning strangers that don’t take kindly to it will start more rumors than we ever could. And I, well sir, I can take care of meself in that regard.”

“Not between an officer and an enlisted man, Pat. It wouldn’t be right.”

Harper shrugged. “Have it your own way, sir.” He stood. “How are the ribs, then? Live through the night?”

Sharpe smiled smally and handed the cloth back to Harper. “Nothing broken. Just sore. Be all right in a few days.”

“Glad to hear it, sir.” Harper leaned over Sharpe and rolled him from his side onto his stomach.

Sharpe hissed. “Jesus, Pat. What are you doing?” He pressed a hand to his side as if to coax the ache away.

Harper straddled the captain, one knee on either side of his torso. “What did you ask him to do, exactly? The one who objected to the notion?”

Sharpe bucked up, trying to throw Harper off of him, but he couldn’t move the bigger man. “Get off me.”

Harper grabbed at the captain’s wrists and held them down to the cot above Sharpe’s head. “You asked him to do to you, didn’t you? Not to do to him.” Harper leaned in, nipped at Sharpe’s neck. Sharpe shuddered. “Is that why you won’t let me do for you?”

“Pat, please.”

Harper let up a bit on Sharpe’s wrists. “Please what, sir?”

“Don’t do this. We’re messing with things here that we might not be able to control.”

Harper sat back a bit. “Power, you mean. Who’s in charge, that sort of thing.”

Sharpe squirmed around as best he could with Harper still astride him. “That sort of thing.”

Harper chewed at his lip for a moment. “Do you think that you can command a man who’s had his cock up your bum?”

Sharpe colored. “Aye. That man. Aye.”

Harper grinned at the color on Sharpe’s cheeks. “And I know that I could be commanded by a man who’s had my cock up his bum. You’ll be just as much my captain in the morning as you were yesterday. It don’t make no difference to me.”

“The men—”

“Will think it’s the other way around. If they think anything at all.”

Sharpe nodded. “They have to respect you too, Pat.”

“Oh. They will, sir. They will. Now lie down.”

Sharpe settled back onto the cot, and Harper got up long enough to pull off his pants and the captain’s. When he climbed back onto the cot, he pressed into Sharpe, just enough to let his weight be felt but careful not to put too much pressure on tender ribs. He ran his fingers along Sharpe’s crease, snaked the other hand around to fondle a nipple through coarse cotton. When he pressed a finger to Sharpe’s entrance, he heard an echo of the hiss that Harper associated with pain. “You’ve done this before?”

“Aye. Been a bit.”

Harper nodded as he worked one finger in. “You’ll tell me if I’m hurting you?”

“Christ! Just get on with it.”

Harper grinned to himself. “Yes, sir.”

He felt something in Sharpe ease as he slid in; it was that moment that Harper would have labeled the captain’s release, not the one minutes later when he shuddered under him and sighed a sigh that was more than half moan. Harper allowed himself a few seconds before he rolled off of Sharpe and lay, perched, on his side next to the smaller man. He couldn’t remember a time he’d seen his captain look so peaceful. Even in sleep he usually looked like he was calculating and sorting, thinking about all of the things that might happen in the next ten minutes and how he would react to each possibility. Now, even with a swollen eye and a nasty gash marring his face, he looked like he wasn’t thinking about anything; he looked at rest.

When Sharpe’s breathing became slow and deep, Harper inched off of the cot, slipped back into his pants, and pulled the rough blanket over Sharpe. He was just about to duck out of the tent when Sharpe stirred. “Thanks, Pat.”

Harper nodded. “My pleasure, sir.”