sunburned: (Aviator)
It continues to circle around in his head. Anahuraue, the Sapa Inca herself, is standing there in all her finery, as lovely as she has been for every single day since he found himself back here. In the corner of his eye, he can see Laurence and the others. He tries hard not to think about what passed between them, but it's difficult - it's difficult not to dwell on how quiet he felt and how safe, for a handful of moments. It had helped him realise that he could change things. That certain things were not necessarily written.

He dwells on that for a moment and, before he entirely knows what he's doing, he reaches up with his good hand, fumbling with the clasp of the red cloak and letting it drop, heavy, to the floor.

"No," he says, quietly. "Not this time."
sunburned: (Not one more step)
And this is bloody intolerable. By his count, it's been fourteen nights, which means fourteen days. Fourteen weddings and fourteen chances for Anahuarque to turn to him with that particular look in her eye. Some of the nights have been easier than others - sometimes, he's risen to the occasion and others, he hasn't. For her part, Anahuarque seems genuinely kind. There's something particularly hard in the way she leans in to him, her hair loose around her shoulders, and touches his face.

His arm bothers him and he drinks a lot.

He's not sure when exactly it happens. It's as though something entirely snaps inside his head. Tonight is one of the nights when it does not go well, when he takes time to please her in other ways and then lies beside her, open-eyed, until her breathing levels and slows.

Drunk as he is, there's only one place that he can go.

He walks in without knocking.
sunburned: (Not one more step)
One moment, they're having breakfast and Granby's in the middle of lifting his coffee cup to his lips and then next moment he blinks and finds himself standing in a vast stone hall, and the ache in his shoulder is back. And there she is, crowned in wedding finery - the Sapa Inca in a dress of yellow and red, shot through with gold, her crown of silver and gold and long feathers.

And it's done. He's married to her, with barely a word to say. Of course, there wouldn't be a word to say, not when he can barely say ten words together that she'd understand.

It's late by the time he finds himself at Laurence's door, clad in shirt and breeches, his wounded arm against his chest. He knocks, leaning his forehead against the frame and thankfully, for now, that he's managed to avoid Iskierka, even though catching a glimpse of her was like a balm on something that he didn't know was burning.

"For the love of God, Laurence," he hisses. "Would you let me in?"
sunburned: (Inverted)
Where they end up is the hut that Granby shares with Laurence. Short on patience, Granby steps in, pressing Priestly back against the wall beside the door before he leans in for a hot, hard kiss.

"So, aside from keeping you quiet," he murmurs. "What else did you have in mind?"
sunburned: (a boy things happen to)
It's been a miserable few days, as things go. He's given everyone but Laurence a wide berth and, even with Laurence, he's been an unbearable scrub. It's difficult to parse what he's actually feeling. It's not that he told her - that much he can live with. He meant it when he told Laurence that it wasn't anything to be ashamed of, and it wasn't something he wished that he could changed.

He was angry, more than anything, that she'd pried it out of him, as surely as if she'd used her nails.
And he's still angry. But he misses her.

He sighs, leaning his shoulder against the wall beside her curtain. No door to knock.

"Are you in there?" he asks, voice low. No reason to interrupt everyone's evening.
sunburned: (amiable soul)
The beach was still something of a novelty. He had, from time to time, been posted near to the sea but he'd never really had time to linger on the shore. Most recently, all they'd been trying to do was escape the sand, but now he had time to sit and to take it in. Today, he was sat in the sand with a sketchbook, drawing Iskierka from memory. Between his arm and the fairness of his skin, he hasn't dared to strip off his shirt, but it's light and it's loose and it'll do.

Now if only he could do something about the bridge of his nose.
sunburned: (day dreamer)
Settling in was a slow process; they did not have many possessions between them, not yet, but it still took time to make a place their own. The hut was a comfortable one - a pair of bedrooms, a bathroom and sitting room. Granby's room was a horror of piled clothes and books already, the bed usually made but not particularly well. He usually took the precaution of pulling the door closed, if only to save Laurence's nerves.

His favourite place was the front porch, a pair of chairs drawn close to the rail with a view of the sea.
He turned to a clean page in his sketchbook and propped his bare feet up on the rail.
sunburned: (Ivory and gold)
continued from here.

"I'm thinking we should probably get out of here," says Priestly when John's reaction is definitely not one that suggests Priestly is going too far. He slides his hand further under his shirt, so it rests just above his hip, and moves in close enough that their jaws are brushing up against one another. The feel of faint stubble against faint stubble is not one he's felt since Yorick, and he's missed it more than he realized. "Take our few successes and leave this for another day. Unless you just want to duck into the caves for a little while."

It would be so easy to turn his head, to press his lips against skin, but he doesn't. He drags in a shivering breath and nods. His shirt's open, but he feels completely naked in that moment.

"What's in the caves?" he asks.
sunburned: (day dreamer)
If it doubt, he draws. It's always been the way. He first learned as a Midshipman, hanging around the covert, drawing his fllows first and then, when he got up the nerve, the dragons themselves. He must have been a sight, growing out of his coats every third day, sitting huddled into corners with a sketchpad balanced across his skinny knees. He's got passing talent as an artist (even if nobody can read the labels but him). He wishes he had his own folio, the sketches of Temeraire and Iskierka, Emily Roland and the odd one of William Laurence in a moment of relaxation.

But new pages will do, he supposes. In a pinch.

It's more awkward with only one hand, but he manages to get the pad wedged in his lap, solid enough that the lines don't wobble. He's sitting in the shade, watching Toothless bask in the sun. He'll talk to Hiccup and make notes later but, for now, he draws.
sunburned: (day dreamer)
There was so much that he had to get used to. Gradually, slowly, he was getting used to island life. Iskierka was growing at an alarming rate (and Granby was finding it difficult to shake the feeling of history repeating). They were making a home out of the hut that they shared. In the Corps, Granby was used to keeping close quarters, but this was his first time trying to make a life with someone, alongside them and in equal parts. It was a strange feeling, not entirely different from learning to do everything with one hand.

But not an unpleasant feeling, for all that.

He sat on the sand, heels dug in, and he sketched. It was difficult to keep his pad level, but he persevered. He watched Izkierka's shape against the sun.
Despite everything, it felt very much like home.
sunburned: (Centre of a turning world)
The trouble with Iskierka, and the problems with her are numerous, is that he’s not used to having so much. It’s not in his nature to waste. His mother scrimped and saved to raise him and his brothers and, when she could no longer manage, she sent him to the Corps. And he thrived, he did, but he never really lost the habit of making do.

Which brings him to shirts.

It is not too disastrous, a split seam, but it isn’t in him to throw it away. So he strips out of the shirt and, dressed in breeches and not much else, he finds needle and thread.

And Iskierka never needs to know.
sunburned: (My fast blood hurricanes)
On the very verge of it, he found himself still unsure of how on earth they'd been talked into it in the first place.

The fact was that there was intelligence to be gotten, and, of course, Laurence had refused to let anybody go in his stead which meant that, of course, Granby was along for the ride too. God only knew what trouble Laurence would manage to get himself into out of sight of both his dragon and his first Lieutenant. And they could not walk into the opium den very obviously of the British Military, which had posed another problem.

Easily rectified, as it turned out.

"Stop staring," said Granby, smudging the kohl smeared under his eye for the eighth time in as many minutes, straightening the shirt of loose, light silk. "You're supposed to be used to me, Laurence. Remember?"

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