Sharpe, Harper/Sharpe, hurt/comfort
The cut across his ribs isn't deep, not even much of a bother, only awkward.
“You’re bleeding like a stuck pig, sir,” Patrick says, and his broad hand pushes Richard’s shoulder down.
“It’s nothing, Pat. Leave off.” Richard shifts, reaches for his shirt. There is another one hanging beside his cot, a proper white affair, the kind an officer ought to wear. Richard knows better than to ask where it came from. Cooper’s proper light in the fingers, light enough that he probably ought to be flogged, but Richard’s proud instead. And grateful. He needs that shirt for tomorrow night, a chance to show a respectable face and a clean shirt in front of Wellesley.
“There’s not enough spare linen to keep that poor shirt white.” Patrick puts pressure on the cloth that covers the gash. “Lie still and let it scab properly, or I’ll have to make a mention of it to Miss Theresa.”
Richard glares. His nostrils flare, too, but he stops trying to sit up. “She’s got enough on her plate.” So much. He misses her, but he misses her without wispy longing—she is apart from him for reasons he understands, reasons he loves. He wonders where she is tonight, what barn or tent covers her.
“And sure she does, sir.” Patrick lifts one edge of the cloth, and now that everything is still, the blood seeps only slowly. “She’d appreciate if you’d let me look after you then, too.” He shifts on the cot; the wood and canvas creak a little, but not enough to be heard over the sounds of celebration outside. As he moves, the hand that pinned Richard’s shoulder down trails down over his chest, settles on his other side, below his ribs, rests where the line of his hipbone cuts down, hollows under the fabric of Richard’s trousers.
“Pat—” Whatever complaint he had was lost in the pop of buttons and the way his hip is held down. He reaches, and Patrick pushes his hand away. He thinks better of it and puts Richard’s hand where his own had been holding the cloth to the wound. Richard pushes against his own flesh, and now both of Patrick’s hands pinion his hips, push him into the cot and hold him there with easy pressure.
“Maybe you’d lie still with good reason,” Pat says, and he doesn’t wait for Richard to agree before he closes his mouth over Richard’s prick, leans down until the whole of him is enveloped in warm, wet heat.
Richard has to fight the urge to arch, to rock up harder into Patrick’s mouth. He wants to dig his fingers into Patrick’s hair, hold him there, but he’s learned that lesson once, and Patrick is the one holding him down now. His thick fingers rasp rough on Richard’s skin, flexing softly in time with his laving tongue. Richard pushes down harder on the cloth, on his cut, so that he can do something, but he can get away with nothing: Patrick reaches, slaps his hand away and scrapes his teeth up the shaft, warning.
Richard hisses, feels it dissolve into a quiet groan under the softness of Patrick’s cheek, the firm seal of his lips. He cannot arch and he cannot reach, so he lifts his leg, hooks it around Patrick’s waist where he kneels between Richard’s legs, and that coaxes a thoughtful sound from Patrick’s throat. Richard muffles a louder groan and Patrick knows to hold him down harder, to keep him from shifting, from arching and clutching as he spends.
When he stills, Patrick leans and spits, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand where Richard’s blood still stains it. He grins as Richard relaxes into the cot.
“Isn’t that better, sir?” He takes another look beneath the cloth, and he looks as satisfied with that as Richard feels.
“Shut up, Harper.” He exhales, and he keeps the crook of his knee snug around Patrick’s waist.