Title: Broken Consort
Fandom: Aubrey/Maturin books(/Master & Commander)
Rating: G
Length: ~700 words
Content notes: dealing with aftermath of torture/trauma, music, fluff, spoilers for HMS Surprise
Summary: Something about Stephen's hands, which have been much abused throughout the canon.



After what had happened in Port Mahon, Stephen hadn't been able to do anything more complex with his hands than holding a spoon for eating gruel for weeks, and deep down he was beginning to worry if this was how he would live for the rest of his days. Every night, he would examine the damage, the healing that had taken place, and hope things would improve even more by the morning. The rate at which things got better was much slower than he would have liked. He had learned the hard way that it wouldn't do to simply force his body to comply, when he had picked up a pail of water that, with healthy hands, would have been an easy job but had been much too heavy on his injuries, and so had slipped out of his fingers and back all over the floor.

Like any wounded beast, Stephen holed up in his cabin to lick his wounds. Jack rarely came down to Stephen's cabin - he had learned when to leave Stephen alone. The weeks of loneliness were eating into him though, and so he found himself in Jack's cabin one night, after dinner, enjoying Jack's company once again and listening to his conversation. Eventually, the words ran dry, but neither of them quite wanted to leave. There was something they'd not done in a long while, but Jack didn't want to propose it and Stephen wasn't sure just then if he was up to it. However that might be, they'd now exhausted ways of manoeuvering around one another and there was nothing for it.

"We can try it," Stephen said. Jack looked surprised by the non sequitur.

"A duet, I mean," he added and cleared his throat.

"Yes, yes, of course, of course," Jack replied as if he'd understood the first time.

Stephen aligned his fingers on the strings; an unfamiliar feeling after all this time. He started playing a slow arpeggio to ease himself back into it. He was acutely aware of Jack watching him, no doubt with the same worry that had plagued Stephen for the past weeks. It astonished Stephen sometimes how aware Jack was of how Stephen felt, even if he didn't speak about it. A sympathy of spirits, he surmised idly, then went back to focussing on the music. Jack struck up a melody that soared above the bass notes that Stephen placed slowly and deliberately.

Even the sound of it sat strangely in his ears. Like his fingers, it seemed to be bruised in places, with odd and unexpected shapes that hadn't been there the last time they'd played it. Still, somehow it held together, held the two of them in a communion that Stephen had been lacking for so long he'd stopped noticing how profound its absence was.

They finished the piece and looked at one another.The expression of relief on Jack's face as he lowered the violin was stronger than words could have been.

"Very nice, Doctor," he said, and Stephen nodded.

"Indeed."

"Another?"

"Yes please."

Stephen relaxed into the playing a little more the second time around. It was not perfect by any means, but it was good enough - his hands were some degree of serviceable.

Later that night saw Jack Aubrey work an ointment of Stephen's own invention into his hands. Like all doctors, Stephen made a bad patient, though he could not deny that there was something very pleasurable about his hand in Jack's, about the way Jack carefully worked the ointment into tense skin and muscle and loosened stiff joints with a firm touch.

Eventually Jack finished the job and announced that, that done, he'd turn in. As Stephen made his way back to his own cabin, a warm feeling of gratitude spread in his chest.

Even after all the adversity he had encountered and would, in all likelihood, continue to encounter; Stephen knew there were many reasons he was grateful to have met Jack and to be sailing with him wherever the Admiralty might want him to.