One from the archives...
Jul. 31st, 2024 12:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tweagueWell, I can't say that this was on my bingo card for First Fics To Post After Crashing Back Into Biggles Fandom, but here we are :S Typed up from a very elderly notebook, I'd guess from about - 2012? Perhaps? I was very into Bertie + Gimlet interaction at that point, and wrote a few short and largely plotless bits and pieces which never got posted anywhere. I think I probably read 'David Blaize' and 'The Hill' at around the same time, and felt the need for some unnecessary public school fic. This is what happened.
Gen; Lorrington 'Gimlet' King and the Hon. Lord Bertie Lissie - a sort of 'how the band got together' fic. Public school setting, with (comparatively) mild levels of early-20th-century-public-school-appropriate bullying, and some mild violence. No beta, we die like Young Georgians. In which Gimlet and Bertie are thoroughly miserable, because that's literary public school in the early 20th century for you. Cross-posted to AO3 here, in case anyone prefers to do their reading there. 5000-ish words.
"You’ll never achieve anything if you continue to put all your energy into playing the fool. It may earn you the admiration of certain of the boys, and you may think that is enough. But one day you’ll find it’s too late to stop playing, and a fool is all you’ll ever be. You are in danger of becoming a caricature of yourself. Do you understand?”
The light blue eyes blinked at him again. “Oh – rather, sir. Absolutely.”
Burning Bridges
“You have a halfway decent brain, but you won’t make your Remove this half if you don’t start using it.”
There was a fly dying on the windowsill, revolving in futile circles on its back as it buzzed fitfully; Brandt’s attention kept being drawn to it, for all that he kept trying to focus on the wretched boy who stood on the threadbare rug in his study. He was a boy it was oddly difficult to focus on: his washed-out colouring, his vacant, slow-blinking eyes, his unshakeably foolish little smile, all combined to make the gaze slide away from him like oil on water. Brandt made himself hold the dull blue stare steadily, reassuringly, encouragingly.
“A house master is supposed to be a friend as well as a guide,” he went on. “You would come to me, I hope, if you were finding your studies too onerous? There’s no shame in asking for help. It’s a wise man who recognises his own limitations, and a brave man who admits them in an effort to overcome them.”
“Oh – rather,” said the boy, fervently. “Absolutely, sir. I mean, even the great Achilles asked his jolly old Mater for help when he found his armour wasn’t up to the mark.”
If there was one thing Brandt could not bear, it was affectation; and the fluting voice, with the slightest hint of a lisp, grated on his nerves. “I’m glad you remember that much from your Homer. One would hardly have expected it from your tutor’s report.”
The boy looked faintly abashed. “Sorry, sir. I never can seem to tell my datives from my duals, if you see what I mean. Pater’s promised me a tutor in the vac.”
“We can only hope that will prove sufficient.”
He paused, as the boy shuffled his feet, pushed his left hand into his pocket and hurriedly pulled it out again, and went back to idly shredding the corners of his pages of lines with an expression that conveyed almost nothing but a vague eagerness to please.
“And there’s nothing you would like to talk to me about?” he probed again. “You can always speak to me in complete confidence, man to man.”
“I’m afraid I can’t think of anything, sir,” said the boy, earnestly.
The master frowned, and let the silence drag out. He had known boys eaten up with home-sickness and fear and despair who looked him in the eye and swore blind that they were perfectly all right; he liked to imagine that after nearly twenty years at the school he had learned to recognise them regardless. But none of them had faced him with such utter vapidity.
He sighed. It was possible, he reflected, that the boy really didn’t have a thought in his head, despite his early promise. “All right, Lissie. Give me your Georgics and get back to your prep.”
The boy’s foolish smile broadened, and he proffered the sheets of crumpled and sweat-stained paper.
“You have a decent brain,” Brandt repeated, more from habit than anything else, as he took the pages of laboriously copied hexameters. “You have it in you to make the school proud. But you’ll never achieve anything if you continue to put all your energy into playing the fool. It may earn you the admiration of certain of the boys, and you may think that is enough. But one day you’ll find it’s too late to stop playing, and a fool is all you’ll ever be. You are in danger of becoming a caricature of yourself. Do you understand?”
The light blue eyes blinked at him again. “Oh – rather, sir. Absolutely.”
Brandt scowled. “All right, cut along.”
The Hon. Bertie Lissie closed the study door quietly behind him, and stood for a second with his hand still on the doorknob. There was, thankfully, no one there to see him squeeze his eyes tight closed, tight enough to make green and magenta flares explode silently behind his eyelids, until the prickle of heat in his eyes was pushed back. When he opened them again there were retreating black clouds edging his vision, but he had himself in hand again.
He pattered away down the corridor at that particular pace which was just on the cusp of running, but close enough to a walk that you wouldn’t get punished for it. He moved with the awkward looseness of one who hasn’t yet adjusted to length of limb, unsure what to do with all this extra reach, and as he clattered up the stairs to the floor inhabited by members of the Middle Fifth it was hardly evident that his feet knew every uneven tread.
Most doors stood closed as boys worked on the day’s prep., or at least concealed their illicit leisure activities behind an illusion of industry; but Cozens’ door, next but one from his own, had seemingly not quite latched, and stood a fraction of an inch open.
From within he heard a very faint, half-stifled cry.
“Fair Coz, I demand that you fete me with bunting and fanfares, for I have survived my sojourn in the dread dragon’s den – oh, I say, hope I’m not jumping into the middle of anything?”
Cozens’ head had come up with a jerk when Bertie threw the door open, and the first exuberant words had made him start nervously; but now he began to grin.
“Cissy, you ass,” he grumbled. “Didn’t your Mater ever teach you to knock?”
“She never even tried, old thing,” said Bertie, placidly. “In any case, your bally door was open. If you’re not sporting the old oak, how’s a chap supposed to know when a chap’s busy?”
“My bally door was no such thing,” Cozens retorted. “It was closed precisely so asses like you wouldn’t come music-hall comedian-ing in where you weren’t wanted.”
“Frightfully sorry and all that,” Bertie murmured, eyes skating without apparent interest over the junior boy who stood beside Cozens’ desk. The boy’s coat was on the floor, a crumpled heap, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up. He stood very still, hands held out palms upwards; and the white skin of his bare forearms was crossed and recrossed with red stripes. “House business?”
“Sort of,” said Cozens. He held a narrow leather belt in his hands, which he fiddled with as he spoke, running the length through his fingers. The other boy did not look at it, or at him; nor had he looked at Bertie, not since that first startled glance from bright blue eyes when he had burst in. Instead he looked up at the cheap framed print of a Pieta which adorned the wall, and kept his arms extended.
“Cut along,” said Cozens, abruptly. “Get out of my sight.”
The boy’s eyes slid downwards, and slowly he began to roll down his sleeves.
“Don’t take all day,” Cozens snapped. “And answer me when I address you.”
“Yes, sir,” said the boy, in a soft, still unbroken voice. “Thank you, sir.” He picked up his jacket, and pushed his arms into the sleeves, moving stiffly, warily, before slipping from the room.
“That kid’s cheek would shame the devil,” said Cozens, shutting the belt in a desk drawer and throwing himself down into one of the ancient wicker-seated chairs with which his study was furnished.
Bertie perched on the edge of the desk. “Seemed rather an insignificant sort of specimen to me, what?”
Cozens shot him a scornful look. “That’s because you haven’t the wit to see beyond the end of your dainty little nose. Oh, it’s nothing I could take to Marsh, the little beast is far too clever for that. But unless he’s stamped on pretty sharpish he’ll be completely beyond the pale within the year. He’s got absolutely no notion of his place in the great scheme of things. No respect for man nor beast. I’ve had him fagging for me all half in the hope I’d be able to knock some sense into him, but he’s stubborn as the proverbial mule. Won’t run errands, won’t queue when called, cheeks the prefects, cheeks the masters – “
“Oh, I say, surely not!”
“Oh, he’s sly about it,” said Cozens. He was pushing the chair back on its rear legs, balancing on the point of equilibrium, making the wood creak like stiff leather. “Half of them don’t ever notice it.”
“I can’t say I’ve noticed him cheeking me,” Bertie offered, helpfully.
Cozens snorted. “Cissy, no one shows you any respect, and you wouldn’t know what to do with it if you had it. It’s different for a house captain. It’s my responsibility to try and keep the place up to scratch. And if that means keeping an especially close eye on certain bumptious fourth formers, then I won’t shirk.”
“Quite right, old thing,” Bertie agreed. “Mustn’t let the moral fibre of the dear old house go to wrack and ruin – if moral fibre can be wracked, I suppose. Still, don’t you think it would be better taking this to Committee?”
“I told you, he’s too cunning about it,” Cozens insisted. He had propped his shoes up on the desk beside Bertie’s legs, and was examining his toe-caps through narrowed lids. “He’s mine – my responsibility.”
“Oh – rather – “
Cozens’ chair thudded forward onto its four legs, and he unfolded himself to stand in front of Bertie. He was a large boy – as tall as Bertie, who had shot up like a weed during his fifteenth year but had been stooping apologetically ever since, and far broader at the shoulder – and he looked down at him with eyes grey-green as the Atlantic.
“So keep this to yourself.”
“No reason to go flapping my jaw about, old thing,” said Bertie, brightly. “All for the good of the school, what?”
“You don’t normally seem to need a reason to flap your jaw about,” Cozens muttered. “Now make yourself scarce. Have you mugged up on that Tacitus yet?”
“More or less.”
“Let me have your vocab sheet,” Cozens ordered, walking over to his bookshelves and selecting a battle-scarred copy of the historian. “No point both of us sweating over it.”
“Oh, rather. Glad to be of service.” Bertie pushed himself upright and loped towards the door.
“What did the dragon want with you, anyway?”
Bertie tossed a smile back over his shoulder. “Poor old chap thinks I’ve been wearing myself too thin playing the fool. Tried to convince me to forsake the goats and rejoin the sheep – or should that be the other way round? Div. never was my strong suit.”
Cozens laughed. “Poor old Brandt must be getting old. Anyone can see you’re a goat born and bred.”
When Bertie entered his own study, he found it was already occupied.
“I’m sorry to come in without permission,” said the boy. He stood beside the window, in the last of the grey autumn light; it damped the red-gold of his hair, dulled the brilliant blue of his eyes. “I had to speak to you at once, and I didn’t want to wait in the corridor in case he came out with you.”
Bertie closed the door, firmly, making sure the catch had clicked into place before he stepped forward. “Your name’s King, isn’t it? Fourth form?”
The boy nodded. “I wanted to ask you not to say anything about – that.”
Bertie frowned, an expression that sat oddly with his weak mouth and nondescript features. “But – look here, I don’t know the ins and outs of it, but not even a house captain ought to be beating another boy in his rooms. It’s just not done. If the prefects’ committee knew what he was doing – “
“He’s your friend, isn’t he?
For a moment, Bertie stood with his mouth open; then the foolish smile reasserted itself. “Oh, yes. Absolutely first-rate chap.”
“Then why would you want me to tell tales on him?”
Bertie blinked at him, stupidly. “Well – even a first-rate chap isn’t right all the time. I really don’t think he should be – doing what he’s doing. And I don’t think the prefects will either.”
King’s eyes rested on him. There was something curiously unsettling about them, even with the steel flash of them softened in the dim light; but Bertie stood patiently under their scrutiny, much as he had before Herr Brandt. “I prefer to fight my own battles.”
His voice was light and high, but entirely certain.
Bertie shoved his hands into his pockets, awkwardly. “I say – I don’t mean to pry, but – how often does this sort of thing happen? And it’s – it is just beatings, isn’t it?”
“I’d be grateful if you would stay out of it.”
“Rather difficult, old boy,” said Bertie, earnestly. “I’m in it up to the elbows already, which means you’re fairly up to your neck. I may not care for wading into the muck like jolly old Sir Galahad – though I don’t imagine he ever waded into muck much, it would have got that splendid white tabard filthy – but I can’t very well leave you to drown in it either.”
For a moment, the marble smoothness of King’s face was marred by a faint crease between his eyebrows. “You do talk a lot of nonsense, don’t you.”
“I’m afraid I probably do,” Bertie agreed. “Natural aptitude and years of dedicated practice. Though I’m not sure it’s quite polite of you to point it out.”
“Didn’t he tell you? I don’t have any respect for my elders.” King stepped forward, away from the window; he held his arms slightly stiff at his sides, and Bertie wondered if the soft flesh there still burned and throbbed at each brush of the cotton. He knew what that felt like. “If you want to help, then promise you’ll keep quiet about this and let me sort it out my own way.”
“I still say you should – “
“Go to Marsh, or the committee?” King said, with a sort of dispassionate contempt. “I’m no sneak. And I won’t kowtow to a creature like Cozens, no matter what he does. You may be happy to be something between a court jester and a performing seal, but I’m not.”
Then, as the silence settled, King seemed to hear his own words, and a faint tinge of colour appeared on his pale cheeks; but Bertie continued to look at him with that rather lost little smile, and his eyes were like mirrors.
“Promise you won’t get in the way,” King repeated, stubbornly, taking a pace towards him.
Somehow, it came almost as a shock to Bertie when he realised how far he had to look down to meet the other boy’s disquieting gaze. “All right.”
* * *
Cozens was quite accustomed to Bertie trailing about after him and Levett, piping up with inane remarks and tripping over his own outsized feet in his attempts to prove useful; so it took him several days before he grew annoyed with his more-than-usually-bur-like attachment, and barked at him to clear out and give him some blasted peace. Bertie rubbed at his elbow where Cozens’ shove had propelled him into the tiled wall of the changing room, and adopted an expression so woebegone that Cozens had laughed, cuffed him lightly, and gone off with Levett almost mollified.
Bertie had seen King a few times, though not a word had passed between them. He hadn’t ventured an opinion on the idiotic errands Cozens made him run, or the way he made a point of calling for a junior boy every time King passed them in the corridors, whether he had a task for him or not; but he stayed with Cozens as much as possible, brought round his prep for copying, supplied seed cake and jam for lengthy teas and talked nonsense until his throat was sore. And it must have been doing some good, for it wasn’t until the day after Cozens ordered him off that he saw King carrying himself in that careful, stiff way again.
It was a week or so later – a blustery day, with an edge of rain in the wind and the leaves whipping from the trees – that King had run up, pale and out of breath, to where the three of them were standing in the corner where the lower playing fields met the spinney, sheltered from wind and from the blank-eyed glance of the school’s windows, which they had adopted for the smoking of contraband cigarettes.
“Levett,” King panted. “I’m so glad I found you at last. Herr Brandt wants to see you in his rooms at once.”
Levett, who was as tall and broad as Cozens, had frowned in his slow way. “House business?”
“He didn’t say.” King was pale, even his lips, as if the cold had leached into him, and his breath came fast and shallow. “I’d hurry if I were you, he didn’t look in the best of moods.”
“And if I were you, I’d watch who I offered advice to,” said Cozens, shortly.
“I don’t want to get on the wrong side of the dragon, all the same,” Levett said. “I’d better push off. See you at dinner, Coz.”
He left at a jog, making his way up towards the dark bulk of the school buildings beyond their ancient wall, the only figure in sight on the swathe of rain-washed green.
“Come on, Cissy, we’d better get back before it gets worse,” Cozens muttered as he finished his cigarette and ground the butt out beneath his toe, pressing it carefully out of sight amongst the rough, scrubby grass. He cast a glance at the darkening sky, and pulled his jacket collar up against the wind. “You too, King. I want you in my rooms, I’ve got some jobs for you before dinner.”
He didn’t spare a glance for King as he walked past him; didn’t wait for Bertie to catch up. So he didn’t see the moment when King caught the older boy’s eye, a lightning-flash of blue that made Bertie’s own eyes widen for a moment in startled recognition; and he had no warning before King flung himself on him.
King was six inches the shorter and twenty pounds the lighter, but he lashed out with a vicious kick to the crook of Cozens’ right knee as he landed full weight in the dead centre of his back, and the older boy was thrown face down into the sodden turf. Even then he would probably have been able to shake the slight figure off, if the boy hadn’t jabbed one knee into the small of his back and put all his weight on it, crushing the breath from his lungs. King snaked a hand into the older boy’s dark hair, gripped, twisted, and forced his head down and his mouth into the mud.
What stayed with Bertie afterwards was the savagery, and the silence. Not that Cozens was silent, by any means: he tried to shout, dragging his mouth clear of the choking clay, and Bertie could see the clots of mud in his nostrils, on his lips, and Bertie didn’t know if you could drown in grass but King looked as if he wanted to find out; he tried to buck the dead weight off him, tried to scrabble at what flesh he could reach. But from King there was nothing but the gust of breath through slightly parted lips, and the dull percussion as the small, hard fist landed blow after blow, and over it the moan of the wind.
He didn’t make a sound, even when Cozens’ flailing arm caught him a glancing blow across the face when he leaned down unwarily close; only adjusted his stance, and dashed away the line of slow blood with the back of his free hand before it reached his mouth. There were strands of rain-dark hair plastered to his forehead, straggling in his eyes.
“Lissie - !”
Bertie moved forward almost as if pulled; but King’s eyes snapped up, twin blue flames, and he spat, “Don’t.”
And his feet stilled; and he watched as King scrambled to his feet, kicked Cozens hard in the stomach, once, twice; watched as the other boy folded up around the blows, too winded even to cry out, and lay still.
For a moment, King seemed to sway on his feet; but his gaze was as direct as ever, demanding, clear and sharp as a shard of ice.
“You’d better help him back to school,” he said. “If anyone asks, say he lost his footing in the wet grass.”
He found himself stooping automatically, as if the suggestion had freed whatever part of him it was that had frozen him in place so long. Cozens’ eyes were squeezed tight closed, his face a frightening greyish colour, streaked with brown-green; his lip was bitten raw, as if he had tried to prevent himself crying out.
His eyelids flickered, but remained shut. Bertie glanced up, helplessly; but King was a shred of grey, flying across the rain-shifting distance, running flat-out for school.
“Can – do you think you can walk?”
He had put his hand, tentatively, gently, to Cozens’ shoulder; as he spoke it hunched, and Cozens’ face scrunched into a grimace as he forced his arms under him and pushed himself to hands and knees. The rain pattered onto the bowed line of his back for a moment, before he heaved to his feet, shaking off Bertie’s touch.
“You – bloody coward,” he rasped, arms clasped tight about his middle. “Why didn’t you – do something?”
“Here, old man, at least let me – “
“You touch me and I’ll break your neck,” Cozens managed, voice still cracking, wheezing, broken by great gasps of painful breath. “If you tell anyone about this - anyone - I’ll make your life hell.”
“I honestly wouldn’t dream of it,” said Bertie, faintly.
He trailed after Cozens as he plunged doggedly back towards the school buildings in the squally rain; each time the older boy staggered drunkenly he would put a hand to his elbow, and each time Cozens would shake him off. He crept at his heels back to House and up the creaking stairs, taking them with painful slowness.
Cozens slammed the door of his room in his face.
When Bertie put his hand to the doorknob a long second later, he noticed how badly it was shaking. He looked at his bloodlessly white fingers as if they were alien things grafted to his arm, then drew back, and returned to his own room.
King was standing at the window again, a thin shadow against the grey stone of the quad and the darker grey of the clouds. One hand rested against the leaded panes, as if he had been looking out.
“I thought we ought to get our stories straight.”
Bertie closed his hands to fists at his sides, feeling the sharp press of the nails. “I don’t need a story. You’re the one who – good God, how could you do it?”
King shrugged his thin shoulders, the gesture dim and inscrutable in the twilight. “You’re the one who stood by and let me.”
Bertie flicked on the light, a flare of yellow-white that made the other boy jump and blink against the glare. His face seemed even paler by the artificial brilliance, a livid contrast of white skin and dried black mud; there was more on his hands, his trouser cuffs, a grass-stain on one knee, all shown up in ruthless clarity. In one hand was a folded handkerchief, snowy linen marked with smudged fingers and a smear of rust.
“How could you attack him from behind like that?”
King looked puzzled. “I wouldn’t have been able to beat him any other way.”
“But it’s not – it’s just not done.”
“Neither is making a slave of a boy three years your junior and half your size, then beating him when he doesn’t respect you for it.” King’s voice was perfectly clear and reasonable; but when he brought the handkerchief up to dab at his nose again, and noticed the smears of mud on the cloth, on his hands, the caked-in clay under his nails, he looked almost surprised. “Disgusting,” he murmured, fastidiously. “I wonder what my chances are of a bath before dinner...”
His hands were shaking too.
“Look here – I can’t really fault you for fighting him,” said Bertie, taking a small step forwards. “But the way you went about it – “
“My father would say that it isn’t possible to fight dishonourably if your opponent hasn’t any honour himself.”
“What a frightfully convenient way of looking at things.”
“You chose not to stop me. I don’t think you can really occupy the moral high-ground.” He cocked his head to one side, as the chimes of the three-quarter drifted through the rain-muffled air. “I don’t have long if I’m going to make myself look presentable before dinner. I want your word that you won’t mention this to anyone. It’d spoil everything.”
“I should have thought you’d be a jolly sight more worried about who Cozens is going to tell.”
“Oh, he won’t tell anyone,” said King, smiling very slightly. “He’ll be far too ashamed of letting a skinny fourth-former get the better of him.”
“That won’t stop him taking it out of your hide.”
King shook his head, and spoke in the voice of a mathematics master explaining the ten times table. “I don’t believe so. It’s rather less fun tormenting your fag if you’ve had a taste of what he can do once he puts his mind to it. You never know what he might be planning next.” He shook the folds out of his handkerchief, and began carefully to refold it, concealing the stains from view. “In any case, I don’t much mind if he decides to fight me fairly. It’s not the beating I object to, it’s the injustice.”
Bertie sat down heavily on his bed. King’s eyes were heavy on him, sifting, evaluating. “It was the only way, you know. Well? Do I have your word?”
“I – suppose so,” he managed. “But what about Levett? Won’t he be suspicious that you sent him off to Brandt on a wild goose chase?”
“Oh, Brandt did actually want to see him,” King answered. “I’ve been taking his prep. out of the pile every morning this week. It was only a matter of time before he got hauled in.”
Bertie gaped at him. “But – what on earth for?”
“So I could get him out of the way for a legitimate reason,” King said, patiently. He had a way of making everything he said sound not just reasonable, but inevitable. Perhaps it was the utter, terrifying certainty of every word. “I’ve been hanging about Brandt’s rooms every spare moment this week, to make sure it was me who was sent off with the message. Then I just had to wait until you three went on your usual afternoon constitutional to deliver it – I knew that was the only time I could get him almost alone and away from the school. Brandt will probably be a bit cross that it took me until now to deliver a message he gave me before morning prep., but I don’t think he’ll find it too suspicious. And Levett will claim he handed his work in on time, but then he always does.” He paused, scraped a sliver of clay from beneath the nail of his little finger with his thumbnail, and regarded it minutely. “Of course, if anyone saw me taking his work out it’ll be a touch awkward, but I can always say it was a rag. As I say, I don’t mind a beating, providing it’s in a good cause.”
Bertie looked up at the younger boy. “I say, you are a cold-blooded little beast, aren’t you?”
King pushed his hands into his pockets. Even standing over Bertie he looked slight, slender-limbed, his uniform (bought with an eye to a season’s growth) bunching at his wrists and ankles, loose at the shoulders, and his face was like one of Botticelli’s pageboy angels. Not half an hour since, Bertie had seen him forcing his tormenter mouth-first into the mud. “Do I have your word?”
Bertie swallowed. He was chilled through and through. “Frankly, old thing, I’m surprised you’ll accept it after this business. I haven’t exactly been a credit to the old firm, have I?”
King looked down into his upturned face, at the limp ash-pale hair straggling down into pale blue eyes, and the foolish twist to the lips. “I’ll accept it.”
“Oh, well – word given then, and all that,” said Bertie, earnestly. “Rather. Frankly, I don’t think I’d quite dare get on the wrong side of you, if you see what I mean?”
“I’d worry about getting on the right side of Cozens again, if I were you,” King remarked.
“Oh – no need to fuss about that,” said Bertie, with a sort of eager reassurance. “I’ll just make sure I get my remove this term, that’s all. Cozens isn’t going to make his until the summer, he’ll be working too hard for his rugby colours. It’ll be a jolly sight easier to keep out of his way if I don’t have to do his prose comp. any more, and by the time he moves to the Upper Fifth he’ll have forgotten about me.” He smiled his foolish smile. “Golly, won’t Old Brandt be tickled with me when I start making top of the form again! By Jove, yes! All down to his little chat the other week, naturally – “
King frowned. “No need for that, surely. Cozens will simmer down in a few days, I’m sure – you can tell him you didn’t dare weigh in on his behalf, he’ll believe you. I don’t imagine he really expected any great heroics on your part. There’s no need to go burning your bridges.”
Bertie looked up at the younger boy, and smiled, vacantly. “I rather think you’ve burned them for me, old thing.”
Gen; Lorrington 'Gimlet' King and the Hon. Lord Bertie Lissie - a sort of 'how the band got together' fic. Public school setting, with (comparatively) mild levels of early-20th-century-public-school-appropriate bullying, and some mild violence. No beta, we die like Young Georgians. In which Gimlet and Bertie are thoroughly miserable, because that's literary public school in the early 20th century for you. Cross-posted to AO3 here, in case anyone prefers to do their reading there. 5000-ish words.
"You’ll never achieve anything if you continue to put all your energy into playing the fool. It may earn you the admiration of certain of the boys, and you may think that is enough. But one day you’ll find it’s too late to stop playing, and a fool is all you’ll ever be. You are in danger of becoming a caricature of yourself. Do you understand?”
The light blue eyes blinked at him again. “Oh – rather, sir. Absolutely.”
Burning Bridges
“You have a halfway decent brain, but you won’t make your Remove this half if you don’t start using it.”
There was a fly dying on the windowsill, revolving in futile circles on its back as it buzzed fitfully; Brandt’s attention kept being drawn to it, for all that he kept trying to focus on the wretched boy who stood on the threadbare rug in his study. He was a boy it was oddly difficult to focus on: his washed-out colouring, his vacant, slow-blinking eyes, his unshakeably foolish little smile, all combined to make the gaze slide away from him like oil on water. Brandt made himself hold the dull blue stare steadily, reassuringly, encouragingly.
“A house master is supposed to be a friend as well as a guide,” he went on. “You would come to me, I hope, if you were finding your studies too onerous? There’s no shame in asking for help. It’s a wise man who recognises his own limitations, and a brave man who admits them in an effort to overcome them.”
“Oh – rather,” said the boy, fervently. “Absolutely, sir. I mean, even the great Achilles asked his jolly old Mater for help when he found his armour wasn’t up to the mark.”
If there was one thing Brandt could not bear, it was affectation; and the fluting voice, with the slightest hint of a lisp, grated on his nerves. “I’m glad you remember that much from your Homer. One would hardly have expected it from your tutor’s report.”
The boy looked faintly abashed. “Sorry, sir. I never can seem to tell my datives from my duals, if you see what I mean. Pater’s promised me a tutor in the vac.”
“We can only hope that will prove sufficient.”
He paused, as the boy shuffled his feet, pushed his left hand into his pocket and hurriedly pulled it out again, and went back to idly shredding the corners of his pages of lines with an expression that conveyed almost nothing but a vague eagerness to please.
“And there’s nothing you would like to talk to me about?” he probed again. “You can always speak to me in complete confidence, man to man.”
“I’m afraid I can’t think of anything, sir,” said the boy, earnestly.
The master frowned, and let the silence drag out. He had known boys eaten up with home-sickness and fear and despair who looked him in the eye and swore blind that they were perfectly all right; he liked to imagine that after nearly twenty years at the school he had learned to recognise them regardless. But none of them had faced him with such utter vapidity.
He sighed. It was possible, he reflected, that the boy really didn’t have a thought in his head, despite his early promise. “All right, Lissie. Give me your Georgics and get back to your prep.”
The boy’s foolish smile broadened, and he proffered the sheets of crumpled and sweat-stained paper.
“You have a decent brain,” Brandt repeated, more from habit than anything else, as he took the pages of laboriously copied hexameters. “You have it in you to make the school proud. But you’ll never achieve anything if you continue to put all your energy into playing the fool. It may earn you the admiration of certain of the boys, and you may think that is enough. But one day you’ll find it’s too late to stop playing, and a fool is all you’ll ever be. You are in danger of becoming a caricature of yourself. Do you understand?”
The light blue eyes blinked at him again. “Oh – rather, sir. Absolutely.”
Brandt scowled. “All right, cut along.”
The Hon. Bertie Lissie closed the study door quietly behind him, and stood for a second with his hand still on the doorknob. There was, thankfully, no one there to see him squeeze his eyes tight closed, tight enough to make green and magenta flares explode silently behind his eyelids, until the prickle of heat in his eyes was pushed back. When he opened them again there were retreating black clouds edging his vision, but he had himself in hand again.
He pattered away down the corridor at that particular pace which was just on the cusp of running, but close enough to a walk that you wouldn’t get punished for it. He moved with the awkward looseness of one who hasn’t yet adjusted to length of limb, unsure what to do with all this extra reach, and as he clattered up the stairs to the floor inhabited by members of the Middle Fifth it was hardly evident that his feet knew every uneven tread.
Most doors stood closed as boys worked on the day’s prep., or at least concealed their illicit leisure activities behind an illusion of industry; but Cozens’ door, next but one from his own, had seemingly not quite latched, and stood a fraction of an inch open.
From within he heard a very faint, half-stifled cry.
“Fair Coz, I demand that you fete me with bunting and fanfares, for I have survived my sojourn in the dread dragon’s den – oh, I say, hope I’m not jumping into the middle of anything?”
Cozens’ head had come up with a jerk when Bertie threw the door open, and the first exuberant words had made him start nervously; but now he began to grin.
“Cissy, you ass,” he grumbled. “Didn’t your Mater ever teach you to knock?”
“She never even tried, old thing,” said Bertie, placidly. “In any case, your bally door was open. If you’re not sporting the old oak, how’s a chap supposed to know when a chap’s busy?”
“My bally door was no such thing,” Cozens retorted. “It was closed precisely so asses like you wouldn’t come music-hall comedian-ing in where you weren’t wanted.”
“Frightfully sorry and all that,” Bertie murmured, eyes skating without apparent interest over the junior boy who stood beside Cozens’ desk. The boy’s coat was on the floor, a crumpled heap, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up. He stood very still, hands held out palms upwards; and the white skin of his bare forearms was crossed and recrossed with red stripes. “House business?”
“Sort of,” said Cozens. He held a narrow leather belt in his hands, which he fiddled with as he spoke, running the length through his fingers. The other boy did not look at it, or at him; nor had he looked at Bertie, not since that first startled glance from bright blue eyes when he had burst in. Instead he looked up at the cheap framed print of a Pieta which adorned the wall, and kept his arms extended.
“Cut along,” said Cozens, abruptly. “Get out of my sight.”
The boy’s eyes slid downwards, and slowly he began to roll down his sleeves.
“Don’t take all day,” Cozens snapped. “And answer me when I address you.”
“Yes, sir,” said the boy, in a soft, still unbroken voice. “Thank you, sir.” He picked up his jacket, and pushed his arms into the sleeves, moving stiffly, warily, before slipping from the room.
“That kid’s cheek would shame the devil,” said Cozens, shutting the belt in a desk drawer and throwing himself down into one of the ancient wicker-seated chairs with which his study was furnished.
Bertie perched on the edge of the desk. “Seemed rather an insignificant sort of specimen to me, what?”
Cozens shot him a scornful look. “That’s because you haven’t the wit to see beyond the end of your dainty little nose. Oh, it’s nothing I could take to Marsh, the little beast is far too clever for that. But unless he’s stamped on pretty sharpish he’ll be completely beyond the pale within the year. He’s got absolutely no notion of his place in the great scheme of things. No respect for man nor beast. I’ve had him fagging for me all half in the hope I’d be able to knock some sense into him, but he’s stubborn as the proverbial mule. Won’t run errands, won’t queue when called, cheeks the prefects, cheeks the masters – “
“Oh, I say, surely not!”
“Oh, he’s sly about it,” said Cozens. He was pushing the chair back on its rear legs, balancing on the point of equilibrium, making the wood creak like stiff leather. “Half of them don’t ever notice it.”
“I can’t say I’ve noticed him cheeking me,” Bertie offered, helpfully.
Cozens snorted. “Cissy, no one shows you any respect, and you wouldn’t know what to do with it if you had it. It’s different for a house captain. It’s my responsibility to try and keep the place up to scratch. And if that means keeping an especially close eye on certain bumptious fourth formers, then I won’t shirk.”
“Quite right, old thing,” Bertie agreed. “Mustn’t let the moral fibre of the dear old house go to wrack and ruin – if moral fibre can be wracked, I suppose. Still, don’t you think it would be better taking this to Committee?”
“I told you, he’s too cunning about it,” Cozens insisted. He had propped his shoes up on the desk beside Bertie’s legs, and was examining his toe-caps through narrowed lids. “He’s mine – my responsibility.”
“Oh – rather – “
Cozens’ chair thudded forward onto its four legs, and he unfolded himself to stand in front of Bertie. He was a large boy – as tall as Bertie, who had shot up like a weed during his fifteenth year but had been stooping apologetically ever since, and far broader at the shoulder – and he looked down at him with eyes grey-green as the Atlantic.
“So keep this to yourself.”
“No reason to go flapping my jaw about, old thing,” said Bertie, brightly. “All for the good of the school, what?”
“You don’t normally seem to need a reason to flap your jaw about,” Cozens muttered. “Now make yourself scarce. Have you mugged up on that Tacitus yet?”
“More or less.”
“Let me have your vocab sheet,” Cozens ordered, walking over to his bookshelves and selecting a battle-scarred copy of the historian. “No point both of us sweating over it.”
“Oh, rather. Glad to be of service.” Bertie pushed himself upright and loped towards the door.
“What did the dragon want with you, anyway?”
Bertie tossed a smile back over his shoulder. “Poor old chap thinks I’ve been wearing myself too thin playing the fool. Tried to convince me to forsake the goats and rejoin the sheep – or should that be the other way round? Div. never was my strong suit.”
Cozens laughed. “Poor old Brandt must be getting old. Anyone can see you’re a goat born and bred.”
When Bertie entered his own study, he found it was already occupied.
“I’m sorry to come in without permission,” said the boy. He stood beside the window, in the last of the grey autumn light; it damped the red-gold of his hair, dulled the brilliant blue of his eyes. “I had to speak to you at once, and I didn’t want to wait in the corridor in case he came out with you.”
Bertie closed the door, firmly, making sure the catch had clicked into place before he stepped forward. “Your name’s King, isn’t it? Fourth form?”
The boy nodded. “I wanted to ask you not to say anything about – that.”
Bertie frowned, an expression that sat oddly with his weak mouth and nondescript features. “But – look here, I don’t know the ins and outs of it, but not even a house captain ought to be beating another boy in his rooms. It’s just not done. If the prefects’ committee knew what he was doing – “
“He’s your friend, isn’t he?
For a moment, Bertie stood with his mouth open; then the foolish smile reasserted itself. “Oh, yes. Absolutely first-rate chap.”
“Then why would you want me to tell tales on him?”
Bertie blinked at him, stupidly. “Well – even a first-rate chap isn’t right all the time. I really don’t think he should be – doing what he’s doing. And I don’t think the prefects will either.”
King’s eyes rested on him. There was something curiously unsettling about them, even with the steel flash of them softened in the dim light; but Bertie stood patiently under their scrutiny, much as he had before Herr Brandt. “I prefer to fight my own battles.”
His voice was light and high, but entirely certain.
Bertie shoved his hands into his pockets, awkwardly. “I say – I don’t mean to pry, but – how often does this sort of thing happen? And it’s – it is just beatings, isn’t it?”
“I’d be grateful if you would stay out of it.”
“Rather difficult, old boy,” said Bertie, earnestly. “I’m in it up to the elbows already, which means you’re fairly up to your neck. I may not care for wading into the muck like jolly old Sir Galahad – though I don’t imagine he ever waded into muck much, it would have got that splendid white tabard filthy – but I can’t very well leave you to drown in it either.”
For a moment, the marble smoothness of King’s face was marred by a faint crease between his eyebrows. “You do talk a lot of nonsense, don’t you.”
“I’m afraid I probably do,” Bertie agreed. “Natural aptitude and years of dedicated practice. Though I’m not sure it’s quite polite of you to point it out.”
“Didn’t he tell you? I don’t have any respect for my elders.” King stepped forward, away from the window; he held his arms slightly stiff at his sides, and Bertie wondered if the soft flesh there still burned and throbbed at each brush of the cotton. He knew what that felt like. “If you want to help, then promise you’ll keep quiet about this and let me sort it out my own way.”
“I still say you should – “
“Go to Marsh, or the committee?” King said, with a sort of dispassionate contempt. “I’m no sneak. And I won’t kowtow to a creature like Cozens, no matter what he does. You may be happy to be something between a court jester and a performing seal, but I’m not.”
Then, as the silence settled, King seemed to hear his own words, and a faint tinge of colour appeared on his pale cheeks; but Bertie continued to look at him with that rather lost little smile, and his eyes were like mirrors.
“Promise you won’t get in the way,” King repeated, stubbornly, taking a pace towards him.
Somehow, it came almost as a shock to Bertie when he realised how far he had to look down to meet the other boy’s disquieting gaze. “All right.”
* * *
Cozens was quite accustomed to Bertie trailing about after him and Levett, piping up with inane remarks and tripping over his own outsized feet in his attempts to prove useful; so it took him several days before he grew annoyed with his more-than-usually-bur-like attachment, and barked at him to clear out and give him some blasted peace. Bertie rubbed at his elbow where Cozens’ shove had propelled him into the tiled wall of the changing room, and adopted an expression so woebegone that Cozens had laughed, cuffed him lightly, and gone off with Levett almost mollified.
Bertie had seen King a few times, though not a word had passed between them. He hadn’t ventured an opinion on the idiotic errands Cozens made him run, or the way he made a point of calling for a junior boy every time King passed them in the corridors, whether he had a task for him or not; but he stayed with Cozens as much as possible, brought round his prep for copying, supplied seed cake and jam for lengthy teas and talked nonsense until his throat was sore. And it must have been doing some good, for it wasn’t until the day after Cozens ordered him off that he saw King carrying himself in that careful, stiff way again.
It was a week or so later – a blustery day, with an edge of rain in the wind and the leaves whipping from the trees – that King had run up, pale and out of breath, to where the three of them were standing in the corner where the lower playing fields met the spinney, sheltered from wind and from the blank-eyed glance of the school’s windows, which they had adopted for the smoking of contraband cigarettes.
“Levett,” King panted. “I’m so glad I found you at last. Herr Brandt wants to see you in his rooms at once.”
Levett, who was as tall and broad as Cozens, had frowned in his slow way. “House business?”
“He didn’t say.” King was pale, even his lips, as if the cold had leached into him, and his breath came fast and shallow. “I’d hurry if I were you, he didn’t look in the best of moods.”
“And if I were you, I’d watch who I offered advice to,” said Cozens, shortly.
“I don’t want to get on the wrong side of the dragon, all the same,” Levett said. “I’d better push off. See you at dinner, Coz.”
He left at a jog, making his way up towards the dark bulk of the school buildings beyond their ancient wall, the only figure in sight on the swathe of rain-washed green.
“Come on, Cissy, we’d better get back before it gets worse,” Cozens muttered as he finished his cigarette and ground the butt out beneath his toe, pressing it carefully out of sight amongst the rough, scrubby grass. He cast a glance at the darkening sky, and pulled his jacket collar up against the wind. “You too, King. I want you in my rooms, I’ve got some jobs for you before dinner.”
He didn’t spare a glance for King as he walked past him; didn’t wait for Bertie to catch up. So he didn’t see the moment when King caught the older boy’s eye, a lightning-flash of blue that made Bertie’s own eyes widen for a moment in startled recognition; and he had no warning before King flung himself on him.
King was six inches the shorter and twenty pounds the lighter, but he lashed out with a vicious kick to the crook of Cozens’ right knee as he landed full weight in the dead centre of his back, and the older boy was thrown face down into the sodden turf. Even then he would probably have been able to shake the slight figure off, if the boy hadn’t jabbed one knee into the small of his back and put all his weight on it, crushing the breath from his lungs. King snaked a hand into the older boy’s dark hair, gripped, twisted, and forced his head down and his mouth into the mud.
What stayed with Bertie afterwards was the savagery, and the silence. Not that Cozens was silent, by any means: he tried to shout, dragging his mouth clear of the choking clay, and Bertie could see the clots of mud in his nostrils, on his lips, and Bertie didn’t know if you could drown in grass but King looked as if he wanted to find out; he tried to buck the dead weight off him, tried to scrabble at what flesh he could reach. But from King there was nothing but the gust of breath through slightly parted lips, and the dull percussion as the small, hard fist landed blow after blow, and over it the moan of the wind.
He didn’t make a sound, even when Cozens’ flailing arm caught him a glancing blow across the face when he leaned down unwarily close; only adjusted his stance, and dashed away the line of slow blood with the back of his free hand before it reached his mouth. There were strands of rain-dark hair plastered to his forehead, straggling in his eyes.
“Lissie - !”
Bertie moved forward almost as if pulled; but King’s eyes snapped up, twin blue flames, and he spat, “Don’t.”
And his feet stilled; and he watched as King scrambled to his feet, kicked Cozens hard in the stomach, once, twice; watched as the other boy folded up around the blows, too winded even to cry out, and lay still.
For a moment, King seemed to sway on his feet; but his gaze was as direct as ever, demanding, clear and sharp as a shard of ice.
“You’d better help him back to school,” he said. “If anyone asks, say he lost his footing in the wet grass.”
He found himself stooping automatically, as if the suggestion had freed whatever part of him it was that had frozen him in place so long. Cozens’ eyes were squeezed tight closed, his face a frightening greyish colour, streaked with brown-green; his lip was bitten raw, as if he had tried to prevent himself crying out.
His eyelids flickered, but remained shut. Bertie glanced up, helplessly; but King was a shred of grey, flying across the rain-shifting distance, running flat-out for school.
“Can – do you think you can walk?”
He had put his hand, tentatively, gently, to Cozens’ shoulder; as he spoke it hunched, and Cozens’ face scrunched into a grimace as he forced his arms under him and pushed himself to hands and knees. The rain pattered onto the bowed line of his back for a moment, before he heaved to his feet, shaking off Bertie’s touch.
“You – bloody coward,” he rasped, arms clasped tight about his middle. “Why didn’t you – do something?”
“Here, old man, at least let me – “
“You touch me and I’ll break your neck,” Cozens managed, voice still cracking, wheezing, broken by great gasps of painful breath. “If you tell anyone about this - anyone - I’ll make your life hell.”
“I honestly wouldn’t dream of it,” said Bertie, faintly.
He trailed after Cozens as he plunged doggedly back towards the school buildings in the squally rain; each time the older boy staggered drunkenly he would put a hand to his elbow, and each time Cozens would shake him off. He crept at his heels back to House and up the creaking stairs, taking them with painful slowness.
Cozens slammed the door of his room in his face.
When Bertie put his hand to the doorknob a long second later, he noticed how badly it was shaking. He looked at his bloodlessly white fingers as if they were alien things grafted to his arm, then drew back, and returned to his own room.
King was standing at the window again, a thin shadow against the grey stone of the quad and the darker grey of the clouds. One hand rested against the leaded panes, as if he had been looking out.
“I thought we ought to get our stories straight.”
Bertie closed his hands to fists at his sides, feeling the sharp press of the nails. “I don’t need a story. You’re the one who – good God, how could you do it?”
King shrugged his thin shoulders, the gesture dim and inscrutable in the twilight. “You’re the one who stood by and let me.”
Bertie flicked on the light, a flare of yellow-white that made the other boy jump and blink against the glare. His face seemed even paler by the artificial brilliance, a livid contrast of white skin and dried black mud; there was more on his hands, his trouser cuffs, a grass-stain on one knee, all shown up in ruthless clarity. In one hand was a folded handkerchief, snowy linen marked with smudged fingers and a smear of rust.
“How could you attack him from behind like that?”
King looked puzzled. “I wouldn’t have been able to beat him any other way.”
“But it’s not – it’s just not done.”
“Neither is making a slave of a boy three years your junior and half your size, then beating him when he doesn’t respect you for it.” King’s voice was perfectly clear and reasonable; but when he brought the handkerchief up to dab at his nose again, and noticed the smears of mud on the cloth, on his hands, the caked-in clay under his nails, he looked almost surprised. “Disgusting,” he murmured, fastidiously. “I wonder what my chances are of a bath before dinner...”
His hands were shaking too.
“Look here – I can’t really fault you for fighting him,” said Bertie, taking a small step forwards. “But the way you went about it – “
“My father would say that it isn’t possible to fight dishonourably if your opponent hasn’t any honour himself.”
“What a frightfully convenient way of looking at things.”
“You chose not to stop me. I don’t think you can really occupy the moral high-ground.” He cocked his head to one side, as the chimes of the three-quarter drifted through the rain-muffled air. “I don’t have long if I’m going to make myself look presentable before dinner. I want your word that you won’t mention this to anyone. It’d spoil everything.”
“I should have thought you’d be a jolly sight more worried about who Cozens is going to tell.”
“Oh, he won’t tell anyone,” said King, smiling very slightly. “He’ll be far too ashamed of letting a skinny fourth-former get the better of him.”
“That won’t stop him taking it out of your hide.”
King shook his head, and spoke in the voice of a mathematics master explaining the ten times table. “I don’t believe so. It’s rather less fun tormenting your fag if you’ve had a taste of what he can do once he puts his mind to it. You never know what he might be planning next.” He shook the folds out of his handkerchief, and began carefully to refold it, concealing the stains from view. “In any case, I don’t much mind if he decides to fight me fairly. It’s not the beating I object to, it’s the injustice.”
Bertie sat down heavily on his bed. King’s eyes were heavy on him, sifting, evaluating. “It was the only way, you know. Well? Do I have your word?”
“I – suppose so,” he managed. “But what about Levett? Won’t he be suspicious that you sent him off to Brandt on a wild goose chase?”
“Oh, Brandt did actually want to see him,” King answered. “I’ve been taking his prep. out of the pile every morning this week. It was only a matter of time before he got hauled in.”
Bertie gaped at him. “But – what on earth for?”
“So I could get him out of the way for a legitimate reason,” King said, patiently. He had a way of making everything he said sound not just reasonable, but inevitable. Perhaps it was the utter, terrifying certainty of every word. “I’ve been hanging about Brandt’s rooms every spare moment this week, to make sure it was me who was sent off with the message. Then I just had to wait until you three went on your usual afternoon constitutional to deliver it – I knew that was the only time I could get him almost alone and away from the school. Brandt will probably be a bit cross that it took me until now to deliver a message he gave me before morning prep., but I don’t think he’ll find it too suspicious. And Levett will claim he handed his work in on time, but then he always does.” He paused, scraped a sliver of clay from beneath the nail of his little finger with his thumbnail, and regarded it minutely. “Of course, if anyone saw me taking his work out it’ll be a touch awkward, but I can always say it was a rag. As I say, I don’t mind a beating, providing it’s in a good cause.”
Bertie looked up at the younger boy. “I say, you are a cold-blooded little beast, aren’t you?”
King pushed his hands into his pockets. Even standing over Bertie he looked slight, slender-limbed, his uniform (bought with an eye to a season’s growth) bunching at his wrists and ankles, loose at the shoulders, and his face was like one of Botticelli’s pageboy angels. Not half an hour since, Bertie had seen him forcing his tormenter mouth-first into the mud. “Do I have your word?”
Bertie swallowed. He was chilled through and through. “Frankly, old thing, I’m surprised you’ll accept it after this business. I haven’t exactly been a credit to the old firm, have I?”
King looked down into his upturned face, at the limp ash-pale hair straggling down into pale blue eyes, and the foolish twist to the lips. “I’ll accept it.”
“Oh, well – word given then, and all that,” said Bertie, earnestly. “Rather. Frankly, I don’t think I’d quite dare get on the wrong side of you, if you see what I mean?”
“I’d worry about getting on the right side of Cozens again, if I were you,” King remarked.
“Oh – no need to fuss about that,” said Bertie, with a sort of eager reassurance. “I’ll just make sure I get my remove this term, that’s all. Cozens isn’t going to make his until the summer, he’ll be working too hard for his rugby colours. It’ll be a jolly sight easier to keep out of his way if I don’t have to do his prose comp. any more, and by the time he moves to the Upper Fifth he’ll have forgotten about me.” He smiled his foolish smile. “Golly, won’t Old Brandt be tickled with me when I start making top of the form again! By Jove, yes! All down to his little chat the other week, naturally – “
King frowned. “No need for that, surely. Cozens will simmer down in a few days, I’m sure – you can tell him you didn’t dare weigh in on his behalf, he’ll believe you. I don’t imagine he really expected any great heroics on your part. There’s no need to go burning your bridges.”
Bertie looked up at the younger boy, and smiled, vacantly. “I rather think you’ve burned them for me, old thing.”
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Date: 2024-07-31 05:08 pm (UTC)And yes, definite David Blaize vibes. Also by total coincidence I was reading Biggles Goes to School on the bus this morning and then read this and now they're kind of blurred together in my head, young Gimlet and young Biggles would have been a terrifying combination...
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Date: 2024-07-31 08:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-01 05:07 pm (UTC)King pushed his hands into his pockets. Even standing over Bertie he looked slight, slender-limbed, his uniform (bought with an eye to a season’s growth) bunching at his wrists and ankles, loose at the shoulders, and his face was like one of Botticelli’s pageboy angels. Not half an hour since, Bertie had seen him forcing his tormenter mouth-first into the mud. “Do I have your word?”
Absolutely adored this description of him, it's SO perfect. Really cannot wait if you do decide to dust off any other old fic, and of course write anything new!!
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Date: 2024-08-01 08:32 pm (UTC)Oh god tiny!Biggles and tiny!Gimlet at school together would have been HORRENDOUS
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Date: 2024-08-01 08:41 pm (UTC)Ha, I'll see what I've got! As I've said before though, I think a lot of it was drifting heavily in a personal-fanon sort of direction, I'm not sure how it'll play to an audience that isn't just me. The AU timeline that
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Date: 2024-08-01 08:46 pm (UTC)I love Bertie as a boy who wants to do the right thing and is trapped by the persona he's using to defend himself from the horrible environment that is the British public school system.
Yep, that does indeed sum it up - he had to select the least worst way of being miserable in this horrible place for a few years, and this is where he's ended up. Poor lamb :S I sort of feel tempted to try for a sequel some time, where he and Gimlet work out that they do, in fact, quite like each other, which is fortunate because they're apparently welded together by circumstances now. Possibly involving Gimlet turning up at Bertie's study and demanding to fag for him because he's got to fag for *someone* and at least Bertie is better than any of the alternatives. And Bertie is just. Horrified at the very idea.
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Date: 2024-08-01 08:51 pm (UTC)And I've actually got an Algy/EvS WIP set in 1920s Weimar Berlin that's been gathering dust for some time, although I can't honestly say it contains anything that actually resembles a plot...
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Date: 2024-08-01 08:58 pm (UTC)Oh my gosh, you should finish it! Let's flood the fandom with queer Berlin rarepair :D :D :D
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Date: 2024-08-01 09:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-03 08:19 am (UTC)He was a boy it was oddly difficult to focus on: his washed-out colouring, his vacant, slow-blinking eyes, his unshakeably foolish little smile, all combined to make the gaze slide away from him like oil on water.
Omg, Bertie, already having learnt at a young age how to fade away and not be noticed, because I don’t think good things happen in his life when the people in it notice him :(
“You have it in you to make the school proud. But you’ll never achieve anything if you continue to put all your energy into playing the fool. It may earn you the admiration of certain of the boys, and you may think that is enough. But one day you’ll find it’s too late to stop playing, and a fool is all you’ll ever be. You are in danger of becoming a caricature of yourself. Do you understand?”
This is so cutting from Brandt, even if he doesn’t realise that Bertie isn’t playing the fool, or at least that he isn’t doing it for admiration. On my first read through I didn’t understand why they affected Bertie (other than perhaps a general distress at having criticism directed at him), but then by the end, if you replace the idea of playing the fool with perhaps what Bertie sees of himself - a weak, directionless and friendless boy - it’s probably like hearing all the self-talk that comes out late at night when he can’t sleep directed at him in the flesh, from someone he can’t escape. I really love how you set up the story, from the gradual uncovering of the scene in Brandt’s office, to the kind of boy Bertie is at the moment, to the kind of boy he actually is (and wishes he could be).
He moved with the awkward looseness of one who hasn’t yet adjusted to length of limb, unsure what to do with all this extra reach, and as he clattered up the stairs to the floor inhabited by members of the Middle Fifth it was hardly evident that his feet knew every uneven tread.
Adorably lanky and awkward Bertie! <3 just growing into his final form, and having no idea what to do with himself or his potential <3 (Also, in Biggles Fails to Return, which I read for the first time last night, and which seems to be a heart-warming list of obscure but delightful things that Bertie is good at, describes him as “fit” and that just makes me unreasonably happy)
“Cissy, you ass,” he grumbled. “Didn’t your Mater ever teach you to knock?”
“She never even tried, old thing,” said Bertie, placidly.
1. Bertie looks like a fool to the world only because he uses it as his cover to do the things he wants to do but doesn’t dare otherwise do.
2. I am CLEARLY a sucker for a Backstory because I love this detail here indicating his home life is anything but nurturing. There’s been a lot of thoughtful discussion of Bertie in various comments recently and there’s a general consensus that he’s not a leader, he’s conflict-avoidant, and someone (I think Sholio) pointed out it didn’t seem like he was ever used to having his emotional needs met. If he’s a Lord (and only child?), and skilled at tennis, motorboat racing, race car driving, golf, guitar, besides being well-connected in Society (and active in it), as well as being a devil with a Spitfire and a wizard with a gun, and a decorated officer at that, why doesn’t he have the personality to match? I think that comes from being told and/or being made to feel, from childhood, that who you are is fundamentally not acceptable/not enough/not loveable. And keenly perceiving those differences between you and the others around you and the standard you’re expected to meet, except that no matter what you do and how much you achieve, you’re made to feel like it will never breach the gap, because the problem is you. And I don’t even mean that that’s indicative of an abusive or violent childhood; it might be that Bertie was just such a different soul to his parents/everyone around him that they had no way to connect, so they all just muddled along as best they could. But going back to this line in your fic - just hinting that either Bertie’s mother wasn’t around, or never bothered enough with him to teach him the basics of life - and he accepts it with such matter of factness; that’s so perfectly and subtly heartbreaking.
“Cissy, no one shows you any respect, and you wouldn’t know what to do with it if you had it.
:( That’s rude, and true, and to some extent seems to follow Bertie through life :(
Bertie frowned, an expression that sat oddly with his weak mouth and nondescript features.
The whole exchange between Gimlet and Bertie was so tense and perfect; Bertie becoming more and more uncomfortably aware that he can’t be both things the same time - a person who knows right from wrong, and would take action to demonstrate that; and someone who’s been deflecting and avoiding confrontation and unpleasantness his whole life so he doesn’t even know where to begin to dealing with the problem. And I haven’t met Gimlet yet in the books (except there’s a brief bit about him that I’ve gotten up to in one of the Australian radio play adaptations, where Biggles & Team firmly agree that Gimlet & Team are the only ones they’d want/allow to assist) but his fierce, calculated determination contrasts so well with Bertie.
“Rather difficult, old boy,” said Bertie, earnestly. “I’m in it up to the elbows already, which means you’re fairly up to your neck. I may not care for wading into the muck like jolly old Sir Galahad – though I don’t imagine he ever waded into muck much, it would have got that splendid white tabard filthy – but I can’t very well leave you to drown in it either.”
For a moment, the marble smoothness of King’s face was marred by a faint crease between his eyebrows. “You do talk a lot of nonsense, don’t you.”
“I’m afraid I probably do,” Bertie agreed. “Natural aptitude and years of dedicated practice. Though I’m not sure it’s quite polite of you to point it out.”
I loved this, so much! Bertie starting to forge ahead with what he knows he should do, but he’s so uncertain that he starts waffling instead to dilute the tension, and then he picks back up with determination, and Gimlet, who evidently has a soul made of steel, is so baffled by him. And Bertie agreeing that he talks a lot of nonsense! He knows it’s both a sword and a shield - maybe all that he has - and is so placid about being called out on it.
Bertie rubbed at his elbow where Cozens’ shove had propelled him into the tiled wall of the changing room, and adopted an expression so woebegone that Cozens had laughed, cuffed him lightly, and gone off with Levett almost mollified.
:(
ut he stayed with Cozens as much as possible, brought round his prep for copying, supplied seed cake and jam for lengthy teas and talked nonsense until his throat was sore. And it must have been doing some good, for it wasn’t until the day after Cozens ordered him off that he saw King carrying himself in that careful, stiff way again.
And there’s Bertie, being willing to give all of himself in the only way he knows how, to look out for someone else, knowing that it will never be acknowledged, even if it happens to be noticed. He’s just doing it because it matters to him to be kind, and he’s aware of his own shortcomings, but won’t let them stop him from doing whatever he can :(
“You – bloody coward,” he rasped, arms clasped tight about his middle. “Why didn’t you – do something?”
I think the tragedy of this is in both the irony of Cozens, the greatest and most despicable of cowards - only picking on those weaker than himself - calling Bertie a coward, where all Bertie did was not intervene; and being able to plainly imagine Bertie accepting that label for himself and adding it to the list of things he lies awake worrying over.
His hands were shaking too.
I think despite his strong sense of self, Gimlet is shaken by it all too - the pent up weeks and months of being bullied and helpless; the feeling of both being alone and needing to tackle this alone; the adrenaline of the fight. And I think (even if he doesn’t consciously recognise it), he does see someone he can rely on in Bertie.
Bertie swallowed. He was chilled through and through. “Frankly, old thing, I’m surprised you’ll accept it after this business. I haven’t exactly been a credit to the old firm, have I?”
King looked down into his upturned face, at the limp ash-pale hair straggling down into pale blue eyes, and the foolish twist to the lips. “I’ll accept it.”
<33333 And this, maybe the first time that someone has looked properly at Bertie and made any kind of overture that indicates they actually do respect and value him, despite how Bertie sees and portrays himself, and I love this between them! <333
He smiled his foolish smile. “Golly, won’t Old Brandt be tickled with me when I start making top of the form again! By Jove, yes! All down to his little chat the other week, naturally – “
Oh Bertie :( When the only thing that really stands between him and greatness is his own view of himself. I don’t know how he fell in with Cozens, but I imagine it was Cozens and Levett beating him daily as much younger students, until one day Cozens realised that it was a lot more useful to crib off Bertie than to beat him, and Bertie, to his eternal shame and relief, eagerly accepted that new path in his life.
Bertie looked up at the younger boy, and smiled, vacantly. “I rather think you’ve burned them for me, old thing.”
<333 Not because of the row that might happen over Gimlet and Bertie and Cozens and what happened that day, but because Bertie has been shown that he can be different, and that he wants to be, and that someone believes that he’s worthy of something <333
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Date: 2024-08-03 09:17 pm (UTC)You have absolutely nailed, like, every point I was trying to hit in this story, it is incredibly lovely to have such attentive readers :D :D :D
On my first read through I didn’t understand why they affected Bertie (other than perhaps a general distress at having criticism directed at him), but then by the end, if you replace the idea of playing the fool with perhaps what Bertie sees of himself - a weak, directionless and friendless boy - it’s probably like hearing all the self-talk that comes out late at night when he can’t sleep directed at him in the flesh, from someone he can’t escape.
YES. Very much so. I really enjoyed getting to play in the narrative with Bertie at the beginning of the story, where the narrative doesn't understand him any more than the other characters do, and taking him through the various exchanges with Gimlet that show more of himself than he's shown to anyone for - years, probably. He's absolutely been aware of what terrible people he's wasting his time with, he absolutely sees the truth in Brandt's words and he's thought it himself, every time he's messed up an exam or got in trouble for playing the fool in class because it's so vitally important that no one sees him as too clever or too goody-goody - but he hasn't been able to see a way out, because he's not the kind of boy that can just force his way through in his own way.
I am CLEARLY a sucker for a Backstory because I love this detail here indicating his home life is anything but nurturing
Yes, definitely. I don't have very firm ideas about Bertie's home life yet - or Gimlet's, for that matter - but I am absolutely certain that it was Not Great for either of them. I think my initial assumption was just that Bertie's mother wasn't there - possibly she had died when he was very young, and boys like Cozens had never been interested enough in Bertie to bother finding that out (or remembering it if they knew). But it's equally possible that she was just off doing other things, or busy with other interests, possibly in other countries. I have strong vibes of 'brought up by governesses' from Bertie. Possibly brought up by several governesses, and every time he got attached to one they got given notice and there was nothing he could do about it.
I haven’t met Gimlet yet in the books...but his fierce, calculated determination contrasts so well with Bertie.
Gimlet is - interesting, in the books. I enjoy his books - they're written when WEJ was pretty much at the top of his game, so they're generally pretty pacey and exciting; but they never seem to hit the highs of the Biggles books, and for me in large part it's because the team dynamic never quite clicks. Gimlet himself I find pretty interesting, but he's quite a difficult character to mix into Biggles fandom - I think the Gimlet books were aimed slightly older than Biggles, and being Commandos - and being initially written within WWII - means they're considerably more violent and for a modern reader at times quite morally questionable. The first Gimlet book features a scene where Gimlet runs a train carrying ammunition into a troop transport, which - yes, it was war, yes, it's pretty much what the commandos were for, but that's still hundreds of regular soldiers which you probably just massacred there, Lorrington old man. It's not something Biggles would do, let's say. Gimlet has the same 'pronouncedly Oxford' mannerisms as Bertie, and the same interest in fast cars, fox hounds and high explosives; but his silly assery really comes out most when he's doing *inconceivably dangerous* things, which makes him look distinctly unstable, and it's not underpinned by the same basic kindness and decency as Bertie. He has a moral code, but it's a rather Old Testament one. He and Bertie are canonically good friends, and I find their dynamic enjoyable - but it's also more than a little disturbing, which is what ended up coming across here. I suspect Bertie might feel both that Gimlet is a much stronger character than him and want to latch onto him, but also that there's something somewhat broken about him that makes him feel responsible for him too.
maybe the first time that someone has looked properly at Bertie and made any kind of overture that indicates they actually do respect and value him.
YES that's exactly it. Whatever else Gimlet may be, he is an *excellent* judge of character, and he can absolutely see that Bertie is much more than he's ever allowed himself to be seen to be at this bloody school. Pretty much from the start he demands more from Bertie than anyone else does - demands that he takes the moral stance, even though it's against his 'friends'. And he's certain that Bertie will back him up when it comes down to it - because he actually takes the time to *look* at Bertie, when everyone else is willing to take him at face value. Ugh I love them.
because Bertie has been shown that he can be different, and that he wants to be, and that someone believes that he’s worthy of something
YES YES YES double plus good.
(Tangent: 'Fails to Return' is, I think, my favourite Bertie book I've read so far, even including his first appearances in 'Spitfire Parade' which are pretty Peak Bertie in themselves. I love how WEJ allows Bertie to be so much more obviously competent when he's going undercover and speaking another language - it really underlines how much of his conspicuous silly-assery in his everyday life is a persona that he adopts because he finds it comfortable and useful, but isn't really *him*. Also, he plays the guitar <3 with all the twiddly bits <3 <3)
Thank you so much again for the amazing comment - I feel like I haven't done it justice in my reply! Keep up the Bertie love, the fandom needs more of it.