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fellowshippers2005-11-02 10:52 am
ex-salwood.livejournal.com) wrote in fellowshippers2005-11-02 10:52 am
I Will Go Down With This Ship 1/6
Title: I Will Go Down With This Ship 1/6
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
salogel42
Pairing: Dom/Lij
Rating: PG13
Summary: This story is set in the early 1900s... Dom and Lij are on the biggest steamship ever built.
Author's Note: This is a short sharp story based on a very real event.
Disclaimer: Although the event actually happened, non of the characters are real. All made up.. totally... absolutely!
Thank you toelfellon111 for wonderful beta!
Other chapters in this series can be found here
I Will Go Down With This Ship
Chapter 1 – Southampton - Wednesday 10 April, 1912
Elijah quickly made his way along the myriad of corridors, buttoning his white jacket as he went. He ran up hidden stairwells, clearing them two steps at a time. An hour was all he had before roll-call on deck, and three hours before passengers began embarking the luxury liner. Then he would be busy - too busy to think about anything else except the needs of his allocated passengers.
Dominic’s cabin was located a long way from the crews’ quarters, but Elijah knew his way well. After being on board ship for a little over a week as part of the skeleton crew which had initially embarked at Belfast, he’d had plenty of time to acquaint himself with the sheer enormity of what was, in effect a floating city.
The ship had been anchored in the port of Southampton for several days undergoing final provisioning and staffing for her maiden voyage. It had been a relatively quiet period for Elijah, but not so for Dominic. As part of the Inspection Team, Dominic’s time had been tied up with meetings with his colleagues, and going over in minute detail any repairs needed. The ship had only been at sea, despite earlier trials, for one day. It was a task of epic proportions to make sure that all was working and would work well for the transatlantic voyage ahead.
Maiden voyages were always exciting for crew as well as for passengers. This was Elijah’s second maiden voyage, having sailed on this ship’s sister ship the Olympic, one year earlier. For Dominic, on the other hand, this was his first maiden voyage, and Elijah couldn’t help smiling at Dominic’s excitement about the whole venture that lay ahead of him.
“To sail on a ship I helped design and create is something unique, Elijah…” Dominic had whispered those words to Elijah as they lay together in bed, limbs entwined, bodies warm and sated. It was the evening before leaving Belfast for England.
“For as long as I live, nothing will ever surpass this… and you will be with me. We will experience this together, just you and I…”
***
Dominic had worked hard to be where he was now, and thoroughly deserved his position on the Inspection Team. Now aged twenty-eight, he had spent the past fourteen years of his life working for Harland and Wolff after his father, a manager for White Star Line, moved his family to Belfast in 1892, when Dominic was just eight years old.
Harland and Wolff had gone into partnership with White Star Line twenty years earlier, and were world known for the fine steamships built in their yard. However, Dominic’s father was keen that his son remained as far removed from the gruelling side of shipbuilding as he possibly could, and as his school leaving year approached, he managed to secure his son a position as apprentice draughtsman under the supervision of Gerard Davidson, one of his closest friends, and a well respected member of Harland and Wolff’s design team.
Gerard had taken the quiet young fourteen year old under his wing, and nurtured him so that he became one of the best draughtsmen the company had ever employed, and by 1908, aged just twenty-four Dominic found himself on an elite team designing a trio of luxury transatlantic liners for White Star Line.
Elijah, of course, had sailed on one of them… the first ship to leave the yard.... the Olympic, launched in 1910. But now it was Dominic’s turn to join that exclusive club of maiden voyage travellers. His turn to feel the thrill of something new, something never experienced before. This voyage would more than likely be one of many to come, but first times would always remain the most memorable times… and Dominic was sure that the journey he was about to take from Southampton to New York on RMS Titanic, the biggest luxury liner ever built, would indeed be memorable.
And Elijah would be with him.
***
“You’re heading the wrong way!”
Elijah ignored the comment of a fellow steward as he pushed his way past him. He should have left the crew quarters earlier; he was going to have so little time with Dominic. Today, if past experience was anything to go by, was going to be hectic beyond belief. How he wished he could have stayed with Dominic in his cabin overnight, but he knew that would have been impossible… eyebrows would have been raised by fellow crewmembers who would have certainly noticed his empty bunk, and suspicion would have followed. His relationship with Dominic had remained a secret for seven years, and he would never do anything to jeopardise it.
E Deck seemed a mile away from A Deck, where Dominic’s cabin was located. Elijah missed the closeness and solitude that he and Dominic shared on many a night when home in Belfast. While at sea Elijah detested the fact that he had to share a room with a number of other second-class stewards. He always found that he could never sleep properly with all the comings and goings as shifts changed throughout the night.
Dominic’s cabin was peaceful and private. Although part of the Inspection Team, and therefore a very important passenger, he had not been allocated a first class stateroom; those only went to the fare paying privileged. Instead he was given one of the many first class cabins. Small, but comfortable with its plain white panelled walls, dressing table with mirror and sink, a small table with two chairs, and best of all, in Elijah’s opinion, especially after sleeping on his less than comfortable bunk, a large white painted metal bed frame with a luxurious mattress.
Dominic was sitting on his bed, pulling on a shirt when Elijah knocked on his cabin door. He slipped inside quickly before anyone saw him.
“I’m sorry, Dom. It’s bedlam out there. How much time do we have?”
Dominic picked up his pocket watch from the dresser and flipped it open. He looked at Elijah with a resigned look on his face.
“I am meeting Gerard in fifteen minutes to take breakfast,” he said as he began fumbling with his tie, accidentally un-popping his collar as he did so. “He wants the team to assemble on deck before the captain’s arrival.”
Elijah nodded as he took Dominic’s hand and spun him around. He concentrated a few moments on adjusting Dominic’s neck attire before sitting on the bed. Dominic smiled down at him as he shrugged on his waistcoat.
“Elijah…” he said as he crouched and took Elijah’s hands in his own. “Cherbourg this evening and Queenstown tomorrow, then nothing but open ocean all the way to New York. Things will smooth out a little by then… and we will be able to see a lot more of each other.”
“I know, I know… but it’s going to be so damned hard knowing we’re here together, but can’t actually be together.”
“It will not be so far removed from being home, Elijah.” Dominic tried to reassure him.
Elijah raised his eyebrows. “We have no prying eyes at home, Dom. We can be who we want to be within the confines of your walls. But here, prying eyes are everywhere.
Dominic chuckled. “You worry too much, Elijah.”
“I only worry for you, Dom.” Elijah stood up and pulled Dominic with him. “A man of your position can’t bear a scandal. As for myself, it’s of no consequence to anyone what happens to me… I am and have always been a nobody.”
Dominic frowned and took Elijah’s face in his hands. “It is of every consequence to me, Lijah. And you are not a nobody. I really detest it when you talk this way. You… you are more important to me than any of this… this grandeur, this over-opulent world that we live in. It is who I love that counts… it is who I want to spend the rest of my life with that matters. Not this... never any of this.”
Elijah nodded, he knew Dominic was right. At home, once the doors were closed on the outside world they became equals; no class structure was there to divide them. They were one and the same, friends, and lovers, and totally committed to each other. Nothing would ever take that away from them… and if anything did threaten to wreck what they had… he would fight it to the death.
“Elijah?”
Elijah blinked and then smiled at Dominic. “I’d better go. Don’t want to end up on a formal charge on the first day, do I?” He made for the door.
“Wait… Lijah.” Dominic caught Elijah’s wrist and pulled him back. “I can’t let you leave without my good morning kiss… I would never survive my day without my good morning kiss…”
Elijah grinned, and then wrapped his arms around Dominic’s neck as Dominic’s mouth covered his own. All worries and thoughts melted away as their kiss began deepening; they didn’t hear the soft knock on the cabin door.
The door suddenly opened, and with lightening speed Elijah dropped to the floor and retrieved the chamber pot from underneath Dominic’s bed.
Gerard strode into the room, completely ignoring Elijah, who had stood up quickly, covering the empty chamber pot with a linen towel.
“That will be all…” Dominic dismissed Elijah with a wave, silently cursing the fact that he had not yet had his faulty door lock attended to, but then he smiled inwardly as Elijah winked at him over Gerard’s shoulder.
Elijah quickly closed the door behind him, and drew in a deep breath; his heart was racing. That was close… too damned close for comfort. He looked up and down the long corridor; a first-class steward approached him. Before the steward could say anything, Elijah placed the chamber pot in his hands
“I believe you know what to do with this,” he said. Then he scarpered.
*
It was a sight to behold; the crew of the Titanic stood to attention as the captain boarded, and every so often a peremptory blast from Titanic's siren warned all within miles that it was, indeed, sailing day.
Dominic took his place next to Gerard and the other members of the Inspection Team. The captain took his time stopping here and there to talk to certain members of the crew, asking those whose lifeboats were selected for that morning’s drill to step forward.
Dominic squinted at the long rows of white and blue uniformed men, trying to pick Elijah out from the ranks. He spotted him, it wasn’t too difficult. Elijah was shorter than average, and the sunlight reflecting off his thick-lensed spectacles gave his position away.
Dominic wished he could wave, but that would have been a foolish gesture. He didn’t know when he would see Elijah again. Sometime that evening he expected. Dignitaries from all fields of life would embark over the next two hours, and Dominic knew he would be constantly embroiled in small talk and pleasantries with many elitist passengers who would be feigning interest, for their only purpose being on the ship was to be seen.
Gerard rested a hand on Dominic’s shoulder. “Beautiful, isn’t she?”
Dominic nodded.
“And the Britannic, in two years time, will surpass even Titanic.” Gerard grinned as his eyes swept over the ship he had helped design. “Whatever problems or mistakes we have made here, and I suspect there will be one or two minor ones, will be corrected for Britannic. They will be the finest liners in the world, Dominic. I have a feeling that everyone will always remember this fleet.”
Dominic nodded again, his eyes still fixed firmly on Elijah.
“Pity Rosalin did not want to sail. She could have seen for herself the fruits of your labour.”
Dominic blinked hard at that name, but his composure did not waver. He continued to stare at Elijah.
“Women!” Gerard laughed out loud. “They have no mind for technical matters. But the Britannic would be the perfect honeymoon vessel for you both, don’t you think?”
Dominic did not answer.
Author:
salogel42Pairing: Dom/Lij
Rating: PG13
Summary: This story is set in the early 1900s... Dom and Lij are on the biggest steamship ever built.
Author's Note: This is a short sharp story based on a very real event.
Disclaimer: Although the event actually happened, non of the characters are real. All made up.. totally... absolutely!
Thank you to
elfellon111 for wonderful beta!Other chapters in this series can be found here
I Will Go Down With This Ship
Chapter 1 – Southampton - Wednesday 10 April, 1912
Elijah quickly made his way along the myriad of corridors, buttoning his white jacket as he went. He ran up hidden stairwells, clearing them two steps at a time. An hour was all he had before roll-call on deck, and three hours before passengers began embarking the luxury liner. Then he would be busy - too busy to think about anything else except the needs of his allocated passengers.
Dominic’s cabin was located a long way from the crews’ quarters, but Elijah knew his way well. After being on board ship for a little over a week as part of the skeleton crew which had initially embarked at Belfast, he’d had plenty of time to acquaint himself with the sheer enormity of what was, in effect a floating city.
The ship had been anchored in the port of Southampton for several days undergoing final provisioning and staffing for her maiden voyage. It had been a relatively quiet period for Elijah, but not so for Dominic. As part of the Inspection Team, Dominic’s time had been tied up with meetings with his colleagues, and going over in minute detail any repairs needed. The ship had only been at sea, despite earlier trials, for one day. It was a task of epic proportions to make sure that all was working and would work well for the transatlantic voyage ahead.
Maiden voyages were always exciting for crew as well as for passengers. This was Elijah’s second maiden voyage, having sailed on this ship’s sister ship the Olympic, one year earlier. For Dominic, on the other hand, this was his first maiden voyage, and Elijah couldn’t help smiling at Dominic’s excitement about the whole venture that lay ahead of him.
“To sail on a ship I helped design and create is something unique, Elijah…” Dominic had whispered those words to Elijah as they lay together in bed, limbs entwined, bodies warm and sated. It was the evening before leaving Belfast for England.
“For as long as I live, nothing will ever surpass this… and you will be with me. We will experience this together, just you and I…”
***
Dominic had worked hard to be where he was now, and thoroughly deserved his position on the Inspection Team. Now aged twenty-eight, he had spent the past fourteen years of his life working for Harland and Wolff after his father, a manager for White Star Line, moved his family to Belfast in 1892, when Dominic was just eight years old.
Harland and Wolff had gone into partnership with White Star Line twenty years earlier, and were world known for the fine steamships built in their yard. However, Dominic’s father was keen that his son remained as far removed from the gruelling side of shipbuilding as he possibly could, and as his school leaving year approached, he managed to secure his son a position as apprentice draughtsman under the supervision of Gerard Davidson, one of his closest friends, and a well respected member of Harland and Wolff’s design team.
Gerard had taken the quiet young fourteen year old under his wing, and nurtured him so that he became one of the best draughtsmen the company had ever employed, and by 1908, aged just twenty-four Dominic found himself on an elite team designing a trio of luxury transatlantic liners for White Star Line.
Elijah, of course, had sailed on one of them… the first ship to leave the yard.... the Olympic, launched in 1910. But now it was Dominic’s turn to join that exclusive club of maiden voyage travellers. His turn to feel the thrill of something new, something never experienced before. This voyage would more than likely be one of many to come, but first times would always remain the most memorable times… and Dominic was sure that the journey he was about to take from Southampton to New York on RMS Titanic, the biggest luxury liner ever built, would indeed be memorable.
And Elijah would be with him.
***
“You’re heading the wrong way!”
Elijah ignored the comment of a fellow steward as he pushed his way past him. He should have left the crew quarters earlier; he was going to have so little time with Dominic. Today, if past experience was anything to go by, was going to be hectic beyond belief. How he wished he could have stayed with Dominic in his cabin overnight, but he knew that would have been impossible… eyebrows would have been raised by fellow crewmembers who would have certainly noticed his empty bunk, and suspicion would have followed. His relationship with Dominic had remained a secret for seven years, and he would never do anything to jeopardise it.
E Deck seemed a mile away from A Deck, where Dominic’s cabin was located. Elijah missed the closeness and solitude that he and Dominic shared on many a night when home in Belfast. While at sea Elijah detested the fact that he had to share a room with a number of other second-class stewards. He always found that he could never sleep properly with all the comings and goings as shifts changed throughout the night.
Dominic’s cabin was peaceful and private. Although part of the Inspection Team, and therefore a very important passenger, he had not been allocated a first class stateroom; those only went to the fare paying privileged. Instead he was given one of the many first class cabins. Small, but comfortable with its plain white panelled walls, dressing table with mirror and sink, a small table with two chairs, and best of all, in Elijah’s opinion, especially after sleeping on his less than comfortable bunk, a large white painted metal bed frame with a luxurious mattress.
Dominic was sitting on his bed, pulling on a shirt when Elijah knocked on his cabin door. He slipped inside quickly before anyone saw him.
“I’m sorry, Dom. It’s bedlam out there. How much time do we have?”
Dominic picked up his pocket watch from the dresser and flipped it open. He looked at Elijah with a resigned look on his face.
“I am meeting Gerard in fifteen minutes to take breakfast,” he said as he began fumbling with his tie, accidentally un-popping his collar as he did so. “He wants the team to assemble on deck before the captain’s arrival.”
Elijah nodded as he took Dominic’s hand and spun him around. He concentrated a few moments on adjusting Dominic’s neck attire before sitting on the bed. Dominic smiled down at him as he shrugged on his waistcoat.
“Elijah…” he said as he crouched and took Elijah’s hands in his own. “Cherbourg this evening and Queenstown tomorrow, then nothing but open ocean all the way to New York. Things will smooth out a little by then… and we will be able to see a lot more of each other.”
“I know, I know… but it’s going to be so damned hard knowing we’re here together, but can’t actually be together.”
“It will not be so far removed from being home, Elijah.” Dominic tried to reassure him.
Elijah raised his eyebrows. “We have no prying eyes at home, Dom. We can be who we want to be within the confines of your walls. But here, prying eyes are everywhere.
Dominic chuckled. “You worry too much, Elijah.”
“I only worry for you, Dom.” Elijah stood up and pulled Dominic with him. “A man of your position can’t bear a scandal. As for myself, it’s of no consequence to anyone what happens to me… I am and have always been a nobody.”
Dominic frowned and took Elijah’s face in his hands. “It is of every consequence to me, Lijah. And you are not a nobody. I really detest it when you talk this way. You… you are more important to me than any of this… this grandeur, this over-opulent world that we live in. It is who I love that counts… it is who I want to spend the rest of my life with that matters. Not this... never any of this.”
Elijah nodded, he knew Dominic was right. At home, once the doors were closed on the outside world they became equals; no class structure was there to divide them. They were one and the same, friends, and lovers, and totally committed to each other. Nothing would ever take that away from them… and if anything did threaten to wreck what they had… he would fight it to the death.
“Elijah?”
Elijah blinked and then smiled at Dominic. “I’d better go. Don’t want to end up on a formal charge on the first day, do I?” He made for the door.
“Wait… Lijah.” Dominic caught Elijah’s wrist and pulled him back. “I can’t let you leave without my good morning kiss… I would never survive my day without my good morning kiss…”
Elijah grinned, and then wrapped his arms around Dominic’s neck as Dominic’s mouth covered his own. All worries and thoughts melted away as their kiss began deepening; they didn’t hear the soft knock on the cabin door.
The door suddenly opened, and with lightening speed Elijah dropped to the floor and retrieved the chamber pot from underneath Dominic’s bed.
Gerard strode into the room, completely ignoring Elijah, who had stood up quickly, covering the empty chamber pot with a linen towel.
“That will be all…” Dominic dismissed Elijah with a wave, silently cursing the fact that he had not yet had his faulty door lock attended to, but then he smiled inwardly as Elijah winked at him over Gerard’s shoulder.
Elijah quickly closed the door behind him, and drew in a deep breath; his heart was racing. That was close… too damned close for comfort. He looked up and down the long corridor; a first-class steward approached him. Before the steward could say anything, Elijah placed the chamber pot in his hands
“I believe you know what to do with this,” he said. Then he scarpered.
*
It was a sight to behold; the crew of the Titanic stood to attention as the captain boarded, and every so often a peremptory blast from Titanic's siren warned all within miles that it was, indeed, sailing day.
Dominic took his place next to Gerard and the other members of the Inspection Team. The captain took his time stopping here and there to talk to certain members of the crew, asking those whose lifeboats were selected for that morning’s drill to step forward.
Dominic squinted at the long rows of white and blue uniformed men, trying to pick Elijah out from the ranks. He spotted him, it wasn’t too difficult. Elijah was shorter than average, and the sunlight reflecting off his thick-lensed spectacles gave his position away.
Dominic wished he could wave, but that would have been a foolish gesture. He didn’t know when he would see Elijah again. Sometime that evening he expected. Dignitaries from all fields of life would embark over the next two hours, and Dominic knew he would be constantly embroiled in small talk and pleasantries with many elitist passengers who would be feigning interest, for their only purpose being on the ship was to be seen.
Gerard rested a hand on Dominic’s shoulder. “Beautiful, isn’t she?”
Dominic nodded.
“And the Britannic, in two years time, will surpass even Titanic.” Gerard grinned as his eyes swept over the ship he had helped design. “Whatever problems or mistakes we have made here, and I suspect there will be one or two minor ones, will be corrected for Britannic. They will be the finest liners in the world, Dominic. I have a feeling that everyone will always remember this fleet.”
Dominic nodded again, his eyes still fixed firmly on Elijah.
“Pity Rosalin did not want to sail. She could have seen for herself the fruits of your labour.”
Dominic blinked hard at that name, but his composure did not waver. He continued to stare at Elijah.
“Women!” Gerard laughed out loud. “They have no mind for technical matters. But the Britannic would be the perfect honeymoon vessel for you both, don’t you think?”
Dominic did not answer.