
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/638449.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Master_and_Commander_-_All_Media_Types
  Relationship:
      Jack_Aubrey/Stephen_Maturin
  Character:
      Jack_Aubrey, Stephen_Maturin
  Additional Tags:
      Pre-Canon, Costume_Parties_&_Masquerades, Carnival, First_Time
  Stats:
      Published: 2012-12-10 Words: 3099
****** Carnival Night in Barcelona ******
by Mithen
Summary
     A midshipman and a student meet by chance in the streets of Barcelona
     on a night of masks and secrets.
"Gentlemen, it is nearly midnight, and we have lost sight of our sacred duty,"
declared George Black. He took a long swig from his bottle and wiped his mouth
with the back of his hand. "And that duty is...to find Midshipman Aubrey a
woman."
Cheers of approval went around the little group of sailors as they wove through
the street, dodging merry-makers. The midshipman in question tore his eyes from
a man who appeared to be eating fire, feeling his face flush. "I've had plenty
of women," Jack Aubrey growled. "I'm not a boy."
Hoots of laughter met his assertion, and George reached out to rub his cheeks
with a rough hand. "So true, young Jack, surely you've been shaving for weeks
now."
Jack knocked his hand away. "Leave off, George," he snarled.
George glowered at him, but didn't strike him back. This may have been because
despite being one of the younger midshipmen, Jack Aubrey was nearly of a height
with the older boy, with wider shoulders. Instead, George addressed the rest of
the knot of young men: "We all deserve a little fun tonight," he announced.
"And there's no better time than Carnival in Barcelona! A city full of lovely
masked wenches, a night where anything goes--" One of the other midshipmen said
something about the captain warning them not to make trouble, the fragile peace
between their countries...but George was having none of it. "How about that
one?" He pointed to a woman in a low-cut gown wearing a mask of turquoise
feathers and beads who was eyeing the group with a smile. "We could share her."
He started toward her, but his progress was cut off by an impromptu parade
carrying flaming torches and dancing on stilts. "How about it, Aubrey?"
He looked around, but Jack Aubrey was gone.
: : :
Jack continued with the parade for another few blocks. One of the masked
figures, seeing his furtive look, had cast a cloak around him to cover his
uniform and his distinctive yellow hair, laughing at his grateful look. When he
went to return it, the clown just shook his head, still laughing. Jack handed
him his bottle of wine and the clown saluted him with it and danced on.
Jack pulled the cloak more tightly around himself and moved alone into the
Barcelona crowd, hearing the lilting sounds of Spanish all around him, feeling
simultaneously totally alone and part of a strange and seething mass. In front
of him, a woman took a man by the hand and pulled him into the shadows of an
alley, her arms twining around his neck. Jack felt his blood stir: he'd wanted
a woman, yes, but not as part of some crude escapade with George Black and the
other boys. He wanted to lose himself in a woman's body, his hands in her hair
and his flesh in her flesh. He wasn't nearly as green as the other midshipman
seemed to think he was, but he didn't need to prove that to them, or to anyone.
He stopped at a stall and bought a blue beaded domino, watching the women go
by. Many appreciative glances were cast his way, but he continued to walk the
streets, his eyes scanning the crowd, a restless feeling gripping him. What was
wrong with him tonight, he wondered--just find a willing girl and enjoy the
release, you fool. And yet--
The crowd parted and a long hooded scarlet cloak gleamed in front of him. As
Jack blinked, the figure turned, and he saw a white feathered mask in the
recesses of the hood, a gleam of eyes in the shadow and just the hint of
curving lips beneath the mask, pale and unpainted but somehow sensual.
Then the mask turned away and the figure began to move through the crowd again.
Jack found himself following, watching the movement of slender crimson-clad
hips--not nearly as voluptuous as he usually preferred his girls, he reflected,
and yet there was a casual confidence to the steps that somehow drew his eye.
The wine and something more burned in him, and he moved into the shadowed alley
with animal anticipation drawing him on.
: : :
The sun was setting as Esteban Maturin y Domanova gazed out of the window at
the city. Firelight from bonfires was already starting to flicker along the
walls, and the Carnival was approaching its height. Possibly his last Carnival
in Barcelona. Soon he would be going back to Ireland and to school there, soon
he would be Stephen Maturin once more. He sighed and tried to return to his
biology textbook, but tonight even a diagram of the musculature of a swallow's
wing failed to hold his attention for long. Faint music from the streets caught
his ears, and he found himself thinking of Carnival, and of things he had heard
his cousins whispering about: certain places of the city, and certain signs by
which a person of...certain tastes could be known.
He had never dared, before. But tonight he was facing an uncertain future, and
that uneasiness made it more difficult to ignore a side of him that he was
usually able to push aside. One night before you go back to Ireland, a part of
him whispered. One night that you can leave behind and never think of again.
One night.
An hour later, a slim figure in a scarlet cloak slipped over the wall of the
Domanova villa. A domino mask adorned with white feathers--Columba palumbus,
most likely--covered the top half of his face.
Stephen Maturin vanished into the streets of Barcelona, letting the crowd whirl
him up and carry him along, abandoning his fear.
: : :
Shadows flickered along the red cloak as Jack pursued it through the darkening
streets. He kept losing it in the crowd, then finding it again, feeling lust
jump in him anew each time he spotted the patch of scarlet color. Scarlet, he
decided to call her. His elusive Scarlet. It was maddening, to draw close and
then have his quarry slip further away again. His hands itched to close on red
cloth and pull his prey against him, hear their heartbeats up against each
other as he plundered that coy curving mouth. He was almost close enough to
reach out and touch Scarlet now, and part of him noted with surprise that they
were nearly of a height. He'd been so busy watching the movement of those red-
clad hips--his eyes fell to them again and he heard himself growl in
anticipation as he closed the distance a little more.
Scarlet ducked around a corner into a quiet alley, and Jack followed almost at
a run.
The alley was dark, with embracing couples moving in the shadows, sounds of
pleasure and satisfaction murmuring along the walls. Jack ignored them, barely
hearing them over the pounding of his own heart as he finally caught up with
his tormenting mirage in a small alcove.
He seized the crimson shoulders and spun his temptress around, pushing the
shoulders against the wall and bending to kiss the exposed throat with a groan
of delight. Hands slid under his cloak, running down his body to come down to
his hips and pull him close with--with surprising strength. And beneath Jack's
lips--
Well, he was neither so drunk nor so lust-besotted that he didn't know an
Adam's apple when he felt one.
He snapped his head up in shock and started to stammer some kind of apology,
excuse, he wasn't sure what. But when he lifted his head, the figure in the red
cloak pulled him into a kiss. It was a very assertive and unsubmissive kiss
indeed, and although Jack kept intending to break it and explain the mistake,
somehow his mouth never seemed to get around to it. In fact, his body was
moving up against the figure--the young man, there was really no denying that
particular fact any more--with a relish that should probably be mortifying,
except it wasn't. He grabbed Scarlet's hips and pulled him hard against him,
and Scarlet gasped and murmured something in Spanish that Jack couldn't
understand but sounded admiring. Fingers went to his breech buttons; the white
feathered mask gleamed at him, and under it the mobile mouth quirked and a pink
tongue touched pale lips, a frankly sensual gesture that made Jack--God help
him--groan out loud, his head swimming.
Scarlet went to his knees, looking up at Jack as he unbuttoned his breeches,
still smiling. "Sí?" he murmured, and for a moment Jack thought he was saying
"See?" as if in triumph at proof of Jack's undeniable and burgeoning turpitude.
Then he remembered where he was, and struggled to find some language, any
language. He should say "No," or whatever that was in Spanish. He should push
away this temptation and flee the alley, back to the comfortable gibes of his
compatriots.
He heard himself say "Sí," his voice faltering, and couldn't even bring himself
to regret it.
The red-hooded head bent, and Jack gasped, almost staggering; in all his
affectionate, energetic fumbles with various women he'd never encountered this.
Wet slickness, the very slightest graze of teeth, an ungodly tantalizing
shifting pressure that seemed to coax and demand and tease. It was so good, he
was wound up so tight and needing release, and he could hear himself saying
amazingly lewd things about that mouth and what it was doing and how good it
was. He felt a flush of embarrassment at his own coarse language--he'd never
speak that way to a lady, or even a woman--but then remembered that his Scarlet
was Spanish and could make no sense of his words. Scarlet moaned something
inarticulate but rapturous, and Jack took that as a sign he liked the sound of
Jack's voice, so he stopped worrying about it and kept talking.
Climax took him by surprise in mid-sentence, words tumbling away into a
wordless cry of satisfaction. He leaned against the brick wall, gasping with
pleasure, and heard Scarlet swallow, which would have surprised him further if
he had felt capable of anything beyond pleasure.
There was a gentle re-buttoning, and Scarlet stood, wiping his mouth. His once-
pale lips under the white mask were deliciously reddened and swollen, and
without thinking Jack leaned forward to kiss them.
But before their mouths could meet, Scarlet met his eyes and blurted out,
"But...you are English!"
: : :
The blue-beaded mask halted inches from Stephen's face, then retreated, and he
cursed himself. He had wanted so much to feel that mouth on his again...
"You...speak English?" The deep voice cracked slightly, and Stephen realized
with a jolt that the broad shoulders had hidden the man's true age, which
couldn't be much older than his own.
Only every nuance of each delightfully wicked and sinful thing you were just
saying to me, which has left me nearly incapable of rational thought. "I have
studied your tongue, señor."
The Englishman was blushing, the fair cheeks beneath the mask ruddy, but he
chuckled slightly at Stephen's words. "And I yours now, apparently." He shook
his head before Stephen could respond. "Never mind, it don't translate well,
I'm sure."
Stephen touched the brass buttons under the heavy cloak. "You are a sailor?" He
thanked heaven that after years of living in Spain his accent was
indeterminate: neither side of his family would be delighted that he was
dallying with an Englishman, of that he was sure.
Though when he thought on it, it was likely that it was the man they would
disapprove of, more than the English. But at the moment, with the animal warmth
of the man near and his own blood still stirred, neither seemed to signify.
The man bent and nuzzled his neck; a lock of his hair fell across Stephen's
lips, thick and yellow and smelling of salt sweat. "Yes. I've never been here,
never seen anything like this--I've never--" He broke off, lapping at Stephen's
Adam's apple, and Stephen felt an odd quaver in his chest that stretched his
lips upward: he'd come to Carnival seeking an experienced older lover to teach
him the ways of the flesh, and ended up with a boy as inexperienced as himself!
"But you," the sailor murmured, "You're still..." His voice trailed off, but he
pressed against Stephen and his meaning was plain enough, as was Stephen's
muffled gasp. "I don't know what to do," he said helplessly. "Could we--is
there some way I could--"
He swiveled his body in a sort of mute, confused explanation, and Stephen
realized with a shock what he was offering. The suggestion was as unexpected as
the thrill that went through him at the idea, but he shook his head, plucking
the vaguely waving hand out of the air.
"I don't believe that's possible, but if you are willing to--" He drew the hand
down toward the relevant portion of his anatomy, and the sailor's eyes widened.
"Yes, if you--ah, I would like--I mean, I wouldn't mind--" he stammered,
sounding very young once more as he fumbled at Stephen's buttons.
He was much less articulate than he had been just a moment ago, Stephen mused.
But then a warm and very large hand enveloped him completely and he gasped and
pushed against it, his knees going weak.
A strong arm around him held him up, the other still caressing. "Oh," murmured
a voice at his ear. "I like it when you make sounds like that."
Stephen bit his lip, but his pride was not strong enough to prevent another
soft sound of delight from slipping between his lips. His head lolled back
against a broad shoulder and he could feel his eyes sliding shut.
"You seemed to enjoy when I talked to you before, my scarlet one," the low
English voice breathed in his ear. "Do you want me to keep talking?" Torn by
delight, Stephen managed a nod, and a chuckle brushed his earlobe. "My masked
tempter, my sinful white-feathered angel with the gorgeous prick." Stephen felt
a complicated mix of hilarity and lust at the mix of the poetic and the crude,
but the lust was definitely winning out. "I can't possibly make you feel as
good as you did me--" At the moment Stephen fervently doubted that, but was in
no position to argue, "--with your clever, lovely mouth, my own dear incubus.
An incubus with a pert arse, you are."
It didn't take long; the strong calloused hand was tormentingly good, and the
words in his ear urged him on. Any effort to remain clinically detached, to
categorize and label his physical reactions, was stymied by the sheer physical
presence of the man caressing him and murmuring in his ear. He shuddered as
spasms wracked his body, relaxing back into the embrace of the man holding him,
and felt a strange sense of unreality, of dawning surprise. Not at the
pleasure: he had expected it to feel good.
He had not, however, expected it to feel right.
The Englishman kissed his ear, then his cheek, and Stephen waited for the wave
of disgust and self-loathing to wash over him now that his carnal needs were
met. But instead he turned his head into the kiss and felt only something that
he suspected was close to happiness. Even the necessary acts of cleaning and
tidying his blissfully-quiescent privates did not arouse repulsion.
It was very odd, he reflected as he buttoned his breeches, and allowed himself
to be gathered up by fistfuls of cloak and kissed soundly once more.
: : :
"The night is over," murmured Scarlet, the white-feathered mask turning to gaze
up at the graying sky.
Jack ignored him, nuzzling his neck, caressing the sinews with his lips. They
had slaked their lust with each other a second time, and then a third; each
time Jack had wondered if his lover would extricate himself and move on to
another, and each time he had not.
Each time Jack had been relieved.
"You must get back to your fellows, and I to home," said the voice in its soft
Spanish accent (Spanish? It seemed different from other Spanish voices. But
perhaps Scarlet was from the mountains).
"I don't want to," muttered Jack.
"Nor do I, heart. But Carnival is over and we must return to reality." Long,
slender fingers touched his cheek. "Believe me that I regret it as deeply as
you do, but you know this--" a quick kiss, feather-light, "--can never work.
You have your life and I mine, and we must live them. But--thank you. For
everything." The red-robed figure stepped away from Jack, the narrow mouth
nearly-smiling, though the lower lip twitched slightly. "Fare well, my sailor."
"Wait!" Jack put a hand to his own mask. "Don't I get to see who you really
are?"
The almost-smile deepened, although Scarlet shook his head. "My dear, do you
think you haven't?"
Then he turned and hurried from the alley, through the gathering gray morn.
Jack didn't move until the red cloak disappeared entirely from view.
: : :
They sailed from Barcelona that afternoon, with good tide and a fair wind. The
other middies teased Jack mercilessly about slipping off, asking for ribald
details of his evening. Jack largely ignored them, focusing on his duties, on
the rough ropes beneath his hands and the scent of the sea. But as the wind
filled the sails and the ship came to life beneath them, he gazed back at
Barcelona for so long that even his friends nudged him. "You're a complete
mooncalf today, Aubrey," one said with an almost-concerned laugh. "What exactly
was your paramour like?"
Jack Aubrey closed his eyes, feeling the sea wind in his hair like deft
fingers.
"Perfect," he said, and let the wind carry the word away.
: : :
Three months later, Stephen Maturin boarded a ship to Dublin. If he had been
more withdrawn since Carnival, none worried about it; if he had seemed more at
peace, none noted it.
For a while, he slipped down to Dublin Port to watch the ships come in, to look
at blond sailors with wide shoulders. But he saw none with a sensual mouth or
hands that could give pleasure, so eventually he stopped. It was just one
night, after all. It was best to try to put it out of his mind, so he did. And
he largely succeeded.
But now and then he found himself gazing out to sea, as if watching for a
distant and longed-for sail.
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