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Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelieve Import
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Published:
2020-11-05
Words:
1,484
Chapters:
1/1
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8
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1,385

Secrets Men Keep

Summary:

In a house of men there are many secrets.

Work Text:

Dues Fic: Secrets Men Keep
Author: Neichan
Fandom: Cyrus Barker Mysteries
Genre: Slash, Romance, H/C.
Summary: Secrets abound in a house of men. Especially in the House of
London's greatest enquiry agent.
Warnings: M/m.

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I'd been injured again in the line of duty. Not that it took me by
surprise at all. Injuries came with the job, the advertisement itself
had warned so. "Some danger involved in performance of duties...." I
recalled it clearly. The warning had not put me off at the time, nor
did it now, but for vastly different reasons. At the time I'd been
hired I was desperate, out of funds and out of hope, cheekbones
sharpened by hunger, ready to take a step off the bridge and into the
Thames if my last attempt at employment didn't come through.

I'd been hired of course and I'd not taken that cold and final swim.
Now, several years later I stayed for reasons other than desperation.
Loyalty being the strongest of reasons, and.. love being the next. I
shudder to use the word when speaking of another man, but I could not
debate its truth. It was more than loyalty that kept me here, more
than friendship. I couldn't deny it, not to myself, though I would
never speak of it aloud. The love had started slowly, catching me
quite by surprise when I realized what it was. How could I, once
married and a known worshipper of the fairer sex, ever feel the
tenderest of emotions for a man? I had no explanation. But it was
truth.

I was laid up in my bed on the first floor, the sheets crisp and the
blankets warm thanks to my employer's fastidious Jewish butler, Jacob
Macabee. The same scowling man who came though the door just now,
bearing a tray with my lunch upon it. I had never seen a man more
handsome than Mac, I doubted I ever would. The tray he carried bore
fresh bread, creamy butter and the scent of a heavenly broth that
could only have come from the hand of Barker's often temperamental
French chef and long time friend, Dummolard.

I would have thought it impossible in the sorry, narcotic-drugged
state I was in, but my mouth watered. Mac set the tray down on the
beside stand and made ready to seat himself at my side, an intimacy he
had taken more than once before, usually with ill grace. I seemed to
have a gift for being injured. Or perhaps for surviving injury that
would kill another. This time I'd broken an arm and sprained the
opposite wrist as well as strained my neck terribly. I was propped on
a pile of pillows and strictly forbidden any but soft foods by the
physician. As chewing proved excruciating I made no objection to these
tyrannous rules.

A shadow, blocked the door into my room, and I looked up past Mac who
was still scowling in preface to his nursemaid duties. My employer
stood in the door. His shoulders were vast, nearly touching the sides
of the frame, and his head only a few scant inches lower than the top.
He was big and powerful, in sharp contrast to my more compact
Welshman's size. Light glinted off his dark glasses, and his scarred
face was stern. He was not, in any one's book, a handsome man. He was
stern and competent, hard and honorable. And I loved him.

"Off you go," He said to Mac and that man got to his feet not showing
just how pleased he was not to be taking up the the spoon and feeding
me. They had to turn sideways to pass each other, Mac being closer to
Cyrus Barker's size than my own rather small stature. Then the Guv was
in the room and seated on the edge of my bed.

He'd fed me before, and I had fed him when he'd been terribly injured
and recovering from the Dim Mak touch last year. We had few secrets
from each other when it came to such things, I'd bathed him and he'd
bathed me, we had assisted each other with intimate tasks, there were
no women in the household to take over nursing care when one of us
were injured or in the throes of recovery. No, our secrets, or rather
his, for I felt I had none, were of a more historical nature, rather
than physical. Despite his great size and his hard calloused hands, he
was far gentler in my care than the butler. He moved me a little,
easing the pillows behind me until I was upright. And I knew I didn't
imagine the way his hands supported me, touched me.

He'd been raised in the streets of Canton after the death of his
parents. Surviving on his own from the age of eleven. It had not been
a pretty existence. And his philosophy was a combination of many
cultures and beliefs, though he called himself a Baptist and attended
the nearby Tabernacle with great regularity. He had faced many things
that a man didn't speak of, not even in the company of other men. I
had never met a stronger man than he. And yet, despite his early
introduction to evil and suffering he was not a harsh or bitter man.

At this time he picked up the spoon and stirred the broth setting free
the aroma of the soup and causing my mouth to water again. I was
recovered enough to be hungry and was eager to taste the latest
efforts of the cook. He lifted the spoon to my mouth and I sipped as
he tipped it to my lips. Oh, it was good. The flavor exploded across
my palate, rich and delicious, a beef broth fit for a king.

He fed me patiently, watching me carefully from behind his dark
lenses, spoonful by spoonful, interspersed with small bites of the
fragrant bread. I made short work of the repast, even tired as I was.
It wasn't long before he set the spoon down and wiped my chin with the
pristine white napkin. His thumb lingered on my mouth, only a moment,
but my heart felt suddenly glad.

It was no one's business what was between us, he and I. I wasn't sure
who knew that he took me to his bed on those rare occasions he had,
Mac, but that one would never say a word. Perhaps the physician who
had been his friend for so long a time. Maybe Ho, the fearsome
Chinese, who had crossly remarked on how his friend protected me,
sometimes at risk to himself. Dummolard? I couldn't say. I had thought
none of the many good policemen who were his friends knew, but I had
caught a look not long ago from his close friend Inspector Terry Poole
that had me wondering. To my relief the look had not lasted, nor had
we spoken about the questions in the man's eyes.

What could I have said? A man could be put to death for such as we had done.

"Let the food settle, lad, and then I'll help you to use the
necessaries." He said, his deep voice a quiet, soothing rumble. I
nodded more than happy to obey. My neck ached terribly, more than
either arm, even the fractured one. I'd had the arm broken by a man
wielding a thick cudgel, then, while I was still frozen in shock and
pain, he had dumped me down a steep incline, the journey of which had
wrenched my neck so hard I thought my head might detach itself from my
shoulders. Of course I had managed to take him down with me, the fight
ending when he did break his neck and I did not. The Guv had carried
me back up to the top and I am not reluctant to admit I was in some
agony during the trip.

Now on the second day of enforced inactivity I was drowsing after
being fed with the Guv sitting in the chair next to my bed opening his
favorite of book, the Holy Bible, and leafing through it's well worn
pages. I drowsed through the occasional, low voiced passages he read
to me. Marshaling my strength for the most trying of efforts to come.

He closed the book and set it aside before standing. He bent down.
"Lad, let's get you to the water closet."

It was mostly his efforts that got me there. I was helpless as a babe
in the hands of its mother. A short half hour later I was back in bed,
aching, tucked under the covers. He measured out a small dose of
morphine the doctor had left for me. Soon I floated. I might have
imagined the touch of a hand on my brow, smoothing my damp black
curls. A gentler touch I had never known. Oddly I wondered who else he
had touched this way? The widow who he saw with infrequency? His ward,
the slender young Chinese girl who watched over his dog, Harm?

His touch didn't stop, the slow stroking, not even when I heard the
door open and was aware of Mac coming in for the tray. His great hand,
huge and warm continued its soothing touch until I drifted off, my
curiosity not enough to open my eyes and see the expression on the
butler's face. Whatever else he was Mac was one of us. He would keep
our secrets.

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nei