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Fic - Hanging Barabbas
Dec. 17th, 2020 11:06 pm.
Title: Hanging Barabbas
Fandom: Sharpe (TV)
Relationship: Sharpe/Harper
Rating: Teen and up; nothing explicit, canon levels of violence
One-shot, 1169 words
Summary: A name from the past trips Sharpe's defences.
Notes: Based on this clip from Sharpe's Peril. Also posted at AO3.
~ ~ ~
Sharpe moves towards Corporal Hakeswill. It’s time, he’ll take no more delay, but for some reason Harper is now standing between him and the sorry bastard.
“Out the way, Pat.”
But Pat doesn’t move, just looks at him, and Sharpe stares back at him in confusion as the world seems to freeze around him.
He’s trying to do the right thing for Teresa’s memory, putting down a man who doesn’t deserve to live and Pat, unbelievably, is protecting the bastard. He’d genuinely thought, though their lives are so different now, that after all these years Harper was his man through and through, and now he’s doing this. That hurts.
In truth, he can’t remember much about what’s brought them to this confrontation, if confrontation it is. All he knows is that when he heard Dragomirov call the prisoner Hakeswill, his mind shattered, filled with fears, tears, Teresa, a swirling mass of pain blinding him and bleeding him till he couldn’t think. He only remembers moving forwards, punching, kicking, pushing at the pain with only one thought in his mind - to kill it before it killed him.
Another second and he’ll have the rope round the bastard’s neck. Finish him. Finish the pain.
Finish it all.
He realises he’s got his sword in his hand and as he lifts it slightly an image of it pressed against Tredinnick’s throat flashes through his mind.
He looks at Harper and, for a moment, he doesn’t know what to do.
~ ~ ~
Sure the colonel’s got himself in a right mood over this one so he has, proving that Harper was right not to tell him Barabbas’ full name. Though how he didn’t see those broad high cheekbones are the dead spit of his late unlamented father’s is for God alone to know.
Pat watches Sharpe’s eyes - always the eyes, that’s where you’ll see the move first - willing Sharpe to calm down before it’s too late. For a man with violence so ready at his fingertips, the colonel doesn’t often attack without good reason, but Pat can see right now reason is out the window with the sidhe. His French lady or no, Richard never did get over losing Miss Teresa that way.
He’s still got that sword in his hand, and the rope in the other, and if he even attempts to do what he says he will, it’ll be the end of him for sure. At best he’ll lose his pension and his battle honours, live out his days a drunk in the gutter. Pat’s seen it before. At the worst the Major will clap him in chains and hang him in the morning and none to say him nay. Then likely they’ll all die on this barren plain for want of a proper leader.
Pat has but an instant to think how to settle this.
The easy way would be to overpower the man, and he can do that right enough - those few years of easy living after Waterloo have long since sweated off under the baking Indian sun - but not with all these people around them. The princess, Dragomirov, Tredinnick, they’re all watching, frozen in their separate places, while Wormwood and his crew of pox-ridden dirty shites are looking suspiciously pleased at the holy show Sharpe is making of himself.
So no, that’s not the way, Pat will do nothing to undermine Sharpe’s authority with this ragtag rabble they’ve picked up, not when it’s the only thing the colonel has left in his life, and not when Pat knows it’s the only thing keeping them all alive.
Or he could maybe try to talk him out of it, it wouldn’t be the first time, but the man can be bloody unpredictable, so he can. Stubborn as a donkey, loyal as an Irishman, he’s as hard as Wellesley himself half the time and soft as shit the rest, and who’s to say which way he’ll go this time.
Pat’s only loved one person like Sharpe loved Teresa, and though he hasn’t lost that person like Sharpe lost Teresa, he knows this pain goes too deep for reasoning. One wrong word from Pat in this moment and they’ll both be on a path there’ll be no coming back from.
He spoke only truth when he told Sharpe that, given the word, he’d follow him through the gates of hell, but he hadn’t planned on those gates leading them to King George’s bloody gallows for murder.
So that leaves the hardest way, the only way: man to man, open his heart and show Sharpe the truth.
~ ~ ~
The compassion in Pat’s eyes shakes Sharpe to the core as he stands close and looks at him so calm, so sure, and speaks softly, as if for Sharpe’s ears alone:
“Can’t let you do it, Richard.”
After all these years it still gives him a charge, a feeling of coming home, to be called Richard by this man, rather than Sir, but he has to do this, he must.
Teresa needs him to avenge her. Since Lucille and her gentler influence left him last year, he’s felt himself turning back into the only man who ever tamed La Aguja, and he wants vengeance. For her life. For their daughter.
But before he’s even done telling Harper to stand aside, Pat is speaking again.
“You’ll have to put me down first.”
That pulls him up short and the jangling pain in his mind finally stops. He feels anchored by the steady voice of the man who was his sergeant and is his friend, and he looks into Pat’s eyes and realises that Harper isn’t, he never was, protecting Barabbas from Sharpe.
He’s protecting Sharpe from himself.
Protecting him from at best dishonour and the Duke’s everlasting contempt, and at worst from being hung for murder, and this time for real.
After all the years and miles they’ve been through together, and the years they’ve spent apart, it’s like a warm fire in a cold field to know that Pat is still willing, determined even, to stand at his shoulder in time of need.
He looks around but none will meet his eye save Harper. He stares again at Patrick and the man nods slightly, reinforcing the message.
Sharpe closes his eyes for a moment, putting Teresa away from him yet again, saying goodbye to her though it crushes his heart to do it.
He uses the excuse of thrusting the rope into Harper’s arms to move closer to the big man’s warmth and strength, just for a second, and breathe in his certainty.
Then he turns and walks away.
~ ~ ~
Clasping the rope as it smacks him in the chest and face, Harper watches Sharpe - Richard - as he turns, and he breathes out slowly. Sharpe has always been the very definition of dangerous, he never did learn to be a gentleman, and by a long way this is not the first time Pat has saved him from himself.
He just thanks the holy mother he’s still got the touch.
~ ~ ~
Title: Hanging Barabbas
Fandom: Sharpe (TV)
Relationship: Sharpe/Harper
Rating: Teen and up; nothing explicit, canon levels of violence
One-shot, 1169 words
Summary: A name from the past trips Sharpe's defences.
Notes: Based on this clip from Sharpe's Peril. Also posted at AO3.
~ ~ ~
Sharpe moves towards Corporal Hakeswill. It’s time, he’ll take no more delay, but for some reason Harper is now standing between him and the sorry bastard.
“Out the way, Pat.”
But Pat doesn’t move, just looks at him, and Sharpe stares back at him in confusion as the world seems to freeze around him.
He’s trying to do the right thing for Teresa’s memory, putting down a man who doesn’t deserve to live and Pat, unbelievably, is protecting the bastard. He’d genuinely thought, though their lives are so different now, that after all these years Harper was his man through and through, and now he’s doing this. That hurts.
In truth, he can’t remember much about what’s brought them to this confrontation, if confrontation it is. All he knows is that when he heard Dragomirov call the prisoner Hakeswill, his mind shattered, filled with fears, tears, Teresa, a swirling mass of pain blinding him and bleeding him till he couldn’t think. He only remembers moving forwards, punching, kicking, pushing at the pain with only one thought in his mind - to kill it before it killed him.
Another second and he’ll have the rope round the bastard’s neck. Finish him. Finish the pain.
Finish it all.
He realises he’s got his sword in his hand and as he lifts it slightly an image of it pressed against Tredinnick’s throat flashes through his mind.
He looks at Harper and, for a moment, he doesn’t know what to do.
~ ~ ~
Sure the colonel’s got himself in a right mood over this one so he has, proving that Harper was right not to tell him Barabbas’ full name. Though how he didn’t see those broad high cheekbones are the dead spit of his late unlamented father’s is for God alone to know.
Pat watches Sharpe’s eyes - always the eyes, that’s where you’ll see the move first - willing Sharpe to calm down before it’s too late. For a man with violence so ready at his fingertips, the colonel doesn’t often attack without good reason, but Pat can see right now reason is out the window with the sidhe. His French lady or no, Richard never did get over losing Miss Teresa that way.
He’s still got that sword in his hand, and the rope in the other, and if he even attempts to do what he says he will, it’ll be the end of him for sure. At best he’ll lose his pension and his battle honours, live out his days a drunk in the gutter. Pat’s seen it before. At the worst the Major will clap him in chains and hang him in the morning and none to say him nay. Then likely they’ll all die on this barren plain for want of a proper leader.
Pat has but an instant to think how to settle this.
The easy way would be to overpower the man, and he can do that right enough - those few years of easy living after Waterloo have long since sweated off under the baking Indian sun - but not with all these people around them. The princess, Dragomirov, Tredinnick, they’re all watching, frozen in their separate places, while Wormwood and his crew of pox-ridden dirty shites are looking suspiciously pleased at the holy show Sharpe is making of himself.
So no, that’s not the way, Pat will do nothing to undermine Sharpe’s authority with this ragtag rabble they’ve picked up, not when it’s the only thing the colonel has left in his life, and not when Pat knows it’s the only thing keeping them all alive.
Or he could maybe try to talk him out of it, it wouldn’t be the first time, but the man can be bloody unpredictable, so he can. Stubborn as a donkey, loyal as an Irishman, he’s as hard as Wellesley himself half the time and soft as shit the rest, and who’s to say which way he’ll go this time.
Pat’s only loved one person like Sharpe loved Teresa, and though he hasn’t lost that person like Sharpe lost Teresa, he knows this pain goes too deep for reasoning. One wrong word from Pat in this moment and they’ll both be on a path there’ll be no coming back from.
He spoke only truth when he told Sharpe that, given the word, he’d follow him through the gates of hell, but he hadn’t planned on those gates leading them to King George’s bloody gallows for murder.
So that leaves the hardest way, the only way: man to man, open his heart and show Sharpe the truth.
~ ~ ~
The compassion in Pat’s eyes shakes Sharpe to the core as he stands close and looks at him so calm, so sure, and speaks softly, as if for Sharpe’s ears alone:
“Can’t let you do it, Richard.”
After all these years it still gives him a charge, a feeling of coming home, to be called Richard by this man, rather than Sir, but he has to do this, he must.
Teresa needs him to avenge her. Since Lucille and her gentler influence left him last year, he’s felt himself turning back into the only man who ever tamed La Aguja, and he wants vengeance. For her life. For their daughter.
But before he’s even done telling Harper to stand aside, Pat is speaking again.
“You’ll have to put me down first.”
That pulls him up short and the jangling pain in his mind finally stops. He feels anchored by the steady voice of the man who was his sergeant and is his friend, and he looks into Pat’s eyes and realises that Harper isn’t, he never was, protecting Barabbas from Sharpe.
He’s protecting Sharpe from himself.
Protecting him from at best dishonour and the Duke’s everlasting contempt, and at worst from being hung for murder, and this time for real.
After all the years and miles they’ve been through together, and the years they’ve spent apart, it’s like a warm fire in a cold field to know that Pat is still willing, determined even, to stand at his shoulder in time of need.
He looks around but none will meet his eye save Harper. He stares again at Patrick and the man nods slightly, reinforcing the message.
Sharpe closes his eyes for a moment, putting Teresa away from him yet again, saying goodbye to her though it crushes his heart to do it.
He uses the excuse of thrusting the rope into Harper’s arms to move closer to the big man’s warmth and strength, just for a second, and breathe in his certainty.
Then he turns and walks away.
~ ~ ~
Clasping the rope as it smacks him in the chest and face, Harper watches Sharpe - Richard - as he turns, and he breathes out slowly. Sharpe has always been the very definition of dangerous, he never did learn to be a gentleman, and by a long way this is not the first time Pat has saved him from himself.
He just thanks the holy mother he’s still got the touch.
~ ~ ~
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