Fic: The Simplest Gift (HH)
Mar. 23rd, 2005 10:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rosiespark.
I have just made myself all sniffly by watching the end of Retribution, hoping that it would provide inspiration for (ETA: a title for) this tiny little ficlet-thingy that I wrote the other night. It did.
Title: The Simplest Gift
Pairing: none is made explicit
Notes: It's post-Retribution but Archie is a central presence...
When he meets Hornblower again, months later on the bleak streets of Portsmouth, it is of Archie that he thinks. Hornblower is pale and strange, with his gaunt face and his threadbare clothes, and his defensive pose of normality moves Bush to angry despair. Was it for this, he asks himself, that Archie made his sacrifice?
When Horatio’s promotion to Commander is confirmed and Bush accepts the post of Lieutenant on the Hotspur, it is Archie’s words that keep running through his mind. He will think he has no-one left in the world, William, and that is when he will most need his friends.
The Hotspur has been at sea barely two weeks and Bush has lately begun to fear that he knows the answer to the question he would ask, if only he could. My friendship for him is not in doubt. But will he accept it, Archie? Will he?
***
I'll probably cross-post it to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
crumpeteers.
I have just made myself all sniffly by watching the end of Retribution, hoping that it would provide inspiration for (ETA: a title for) this tiny little ficlet-thingy that I wrote the other night. It did.
Title: The Simplest Gift
Pairing: none is made explicit
Notes: It's post-Retribution but Archie is a central presence...
When he meets Hornblower again, months later on the bleak streets of Portsmouth, it is of Archie that he thinks. Hornblower is pale and strange, with his gaunt face and his threadbare clothes, and his defensive pose of normality moves Bush to angry despair. Was it for this, he asks himself, that Archie made his sacrifice?
When Horatio’s promotion to Commander is confirmed and Bush accepts the post of Lieutenant on the Hotspur, it is Archie’s words that keep running through his mind. He will think he has no-one left in the world, William, and that is when he will most need his friends.
The Hotspur has been at sea barely two weeks and Bush has lately begun to fear that he knows the answer to the question he would ask, if only he could. My friendship for him is not in doubt. But will he accept it, Archie? Will he?
***
I'll probably cross-post it to
crumpeteers.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-23 09:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-23 10:09 pm (UTC)I wasn't entirely sure about it - it's so short, but it felt complete. And any attempt to add to it felt like padding. In fact, it was originally one sentence longer, with more detail about Horatio's miserable existence in Portsmouth which I decided to cut.
I hate the way Loyalty and Duty don't make a single reference to Archie. It's just not realistic.
That's a very Horatio sentiment in your icon. :) Is there a story behind it?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-23 10:45 pm (UTC)The hardest thing with short fic is not being afraid to keep them short. Drabbles and ficlets are often the personification of less is more and I think you did a great job here of not puttin gin too much.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-23 11:52 pm (UTC)I know it's a typo but it's making me laugh because there was a bit about Horatio's "gin-sodden shrew of a landlady" in the sentence I cut. *g*