Character Bleed Box Set

Chapter 2: Day 1, Afternoon, and Day 2, Morning-2

“What were you thinking about,” Jason said finally, after the sixth time they didn’t have the right emotion, after Jill yelled up that they should take five minutes and give themselves a break. “That first take. When you smiled at me.”

“I’ve been smiling at you.” Colby put hands into his own hair, tugged briefly, let go hastily and smoothed strands in apology. “I don’t know what’s different.”

“Yes you do.” Jason set a hand on the railing. Watched Colby watch the motion. The guess, half-formed, nearly broke his heart; he did not want to give it shape and therefore reality. “You don’t have to tell me what’s wrong. But we aren’t getting this, and we did have it, and we need it to work.”

“I know.”

“So tell me what you were thinking about, before. I can try to make you think of it again. Or something.”

“I wasn’t.”

“What?”

“I wasn’t thinking,” Colby whispered. To the greenscreen backdrop, to the ship-set, to the universe: a secret made more intimate by revelation. “I only felt—I wanted—Will would want to be touched, of course, at that moment…”

Jason took the hand off the railing. Kept his voice even-keeled with some effort. “You don’t like being touched, do you?”

* * * *

The question hung in the air. A portent. An omen. A curse.

“I don’t mind being touched,” Colby said lightly. Anything else would break him into pieces. “I especially don’t mind when I know what to expect. In advance. If I really did mind, I’d be entirely in the wrong profession, wouldn’t I?”

“You don’t mind.” Jason’s voice remained low. Deep. Soothing. “That’s not what I asked.”

“You said I didn’t have to talk about it,” Colby said.

“s**t. You’re right. I’m sorry.” Jason pressed fingers between eyebrows, over the bridge of that nose. “Sorry. I’ll stop talking.”

Colby hesitated. Considered Jason’s tone, Jason’s apology. Jason’s insight.

He put his own hand on the ship’s railing. Right where Jason’s had been. “Shall we do this again? You and me?”

Jason looked up, startled. Artificial lighting striped gold through his hair, tiger-lines against the brown; it was lighter than it’d been at that screen test, gilded by the modern equivalent of sailing and sun.

“We can do this,” Colby said.

Jason looked at his hand, at the symbol, at the meaning. “We can.”

“You and me,” Colby said again. “Stephen and Will. Or do you prefer Captain?”

Relief, and answering fire, lit up Jason’s eyes. Sparks kindling in autumn brown. “Only if you want me to pull rank on you.”

“Don’t I outrank you? As an earl’s son?”

“You’re on my ship.” Jason grinned down at him. “Means you’re subject to my authority, doesn’t it? Master and commander, all that.”

“Master and commander, indeed.” Colby arched an eyebrow at him. “I’d like to see you try.”

With a rush of astounded pleasure, he realized that in fact he might. He might like to see that dark gaze go hot and smoky, raking over his body; he’d shiver and then laugh, because he might be able to trust Jason. He might be able to trust Jason with himself.

Jason had seen him—had seen his moment of panicked inadequacy—and had apologized for pushing. Had understood. Had seemed to, at least.

“Right,” Jason said. “Let’s do this.” And practically bounced back over to his mark: an action hero given a goal, a task, a teasing challenge.

This time Colby turned his way already wanting to smile. Because Jason, arriving at his side, felt like a smile as well. Sunshine through smoky autumn-leaf eyes. Excitement in the forests now. A fairy-story waiting to unfold.

Colby, rather to his own shock, wanted to touch. To stand with that exuberance and let it wash over him.

Jason said the line. Keeping each other alive. A bargain.

Jason’s hand lay carefully motionless right there on the railing. Jason’s eyes were heartbreakingly sympathetic.

Colby, lost in confused desires—Will’s, his own, and was there a difference, when they both wanted and hungered and feared—did not so much decide as simply yield.

He let his fingers brush Jason’s; he let himself flow like water into the space of the scene, Will’s love and passion and promise. Being here. With Stephen; with Jason. Who would stop and apologize rather than harm him.

He murmured, “Show me everything. Starting now.”

Jason drew a breath, noiseless as if struck by awe, gazing down into Colby’s face. For a second no lines arrived. “Should we start with the rigging? Do you at least know what a mast is?”

“I’ve heard it used as a metaphor.” Will wanted to c**k an eyebrow, teasing the man he loved; Colby did it. “A gentleman perhaps being…at half-mast, or more so…”

Jason made a low rumbling sound, hot and speculative; his glance stripped the coat from Colby’s shoulders, tangled hands in Colby’s hair, encompassed Colby’s body and took possession. “What gentleman was that?”

“No one you know. So that’s a sail, is it? You’ve got so many.”

This time Jason’s rumble was more entertained. “You really don’t know anything about ships, do you?”

“I would if you’d tell me.” They were standing, not scandalously close, but more so than the ordinary, perhaps. Jason’s presence filled up the world with height and heat. “How fast is she?”

“Fast.” The smile tugged at the corners of Jason’s mouth, fond and amused. “Like flying.”

“Someday perhaps we’ll be able to. The ancients had designs for it, you know. Autogyros, wings, propulsion…”

“And you’d leap right into the air.” Jason reached out. Kept the motion obvious, waiting for Colby’s infinitesimal nod. Then smoothed back Will’s windblown hair. “Because you’re not afraid. Not of anything.”

“Some things,” Colby said, because that was true for both the people he currently was, “yes. But not of you, Stephen. Never of you.”

Jason drew a breath, not for a line, because he did not have a line, because—

Leo, in character as Lieutenant Edward Harper, cleared his throat. “Sir?”

Jason’s gaze remained locked with Colby’s, that radiant leaf-brown so very intent.

“Sir,” Leo said again, more emphasis, which was not in the script. “The supply list? For the surgeon’s chest?”

Jason swung that way, and growled, “I don’t have the damned supply list, because he hasn’t sent it over—”

“Yes, that would be why I’m here,” Leo said dryly. “He has. And it won’t fit in that space allowance, either.”

Jason muttered a curse having to do with Admiralty-appointed surgeons, their arrogance, and an ancestry involving goats. “Will—Easterly—”

No first names. No nicknames. Too much private connection laid bare.

“I’ll go—disembark?—well before you need me to,” Colby promised. “But if you’d not mind, I’d like to stay for a bit. Out of the way, of course.”

He could see Jason—Stephen—weighing that decision. The bustle and scurry of last-minute preparations. The presence of a titled viscount among the crew. The comprehension of the need for flight, for breaking free, for a few stolen hours.

“I won’t have much time to spare for you,” Jason said.

“I understand that. Is there anything you could use? Anything you or the crew need, that the Stonebrook purse could supply?”

“I don’t like to ask you for that.”

“More rum would be nice,” Leo put in.

“You’re not asking,” Colby said. “I’m offering. I have the money. Use it. Use my name if you need any lines of credit. Any political influence I have. It’s yours.”

“I can’t let you do that. Your father—”

“I can’t come with you and I can’t fight beside you,” Colby said, and Will argued. “If this is the only way I can help, then let me help. Please.”

A muscle ticked in Jason’s jaw, but his eyes softened, holding Colby’s; no one else existed, no shouted orders or rattling crates mattered, for that instant. “Any chance of relatively fresh fruit? Or at least the juices of lemons or limes?”

“Give me something to write on and someone to deliver a note or two, and I’ll attempt to work a miracle on your behalf?”

“You already have,” Jason murmured, leaning closer, so close; and Leo-as-Edward noticed, as he was meant to, and cleared his throat. Jason straightened up. Shouted across the deck, “O’Brian!”

“Not a nautical term, I expect,” Colby said, leaning back against the railing, elbows on sleek wood.

“Midshipman. Reliable. Use him for whatever you need. O’Brian,” Jason added, as Timothy Hayes, in the character of sixteen-year-old Sean O’Brian, dashed up to his captain and threw a panting salute, “your job for the next two hours is to take care of Viscount Easterly. Get him whatever he needs. And find him someplace to sit that’s comfortable and out of the sun. He’s been ill.”

Colby glared at him for that. Jason smirked.

“Yes, sir?” Tim said, in a tone of teenage curiosity mingled with hero-worship. Sean had first served on a far uglier ship, under a vicious disciplinarian of a commander, and would walk on water if his new captain requested it.

“Hello,” Colby said. “I know utterly nothing about ships. Is it at all possible to climb up to that lookout point? It would be a splendid view.”

“Not for you,” Jason said. “Put one foot on my rigging and I’ll practice flogging techniques on you. I’ve seen you out of breath after climbing half a staircase.”

“Sir,” Tim hissed desperately in Leo’s direction, “the captain can’t flog an earl’s son.”

“Don’t worry about it, O’Brian,” Leo whispered back. “Just make sure Easterly doesn’t get so much as a splinter while you’re watching him, or…” He made a vaguely menacing gesture with both hands.

Tim, as Sean, gulped.

“Now look what you’ve done,” Colby said to all of them. “Honestly, I’m perfectly well. And—O’Brian, is it?—could you find me some paper and a pen? And then deliver some messages for me? I’ll pay you, of course. Whatever you think would be appropriate.”

Tim, with a midshipman’s horror at this lack of comprehension of nautical discipline and structure, managed, “Yes, sir…I think I’m not supposed to leave you alone, sir…”

“You’re not,” Jason said. “Will—oh, Easterly, dammit—” They were still in public. “I’ve got a gun drill to run. Use my cabin if you need a writing-desk. I’ve got paper.”

Tim made a small horrified sound regarding this lèse-majesté.

“Go on,” Colby said, and smiled at Jason, under studio lights, on a recreated ship’s deck, with simulated wind ruffling his hair. Jason was towering and authoritative, a captain with a command; Jason’s eyes were the eyes of a man gazing at the person he loved. “I’ll be in your cabin. I may need to borrow another midshipman or two for errands. I can just send them with this purse, and they may keep whatever’s left, if they’d like.”