— 𝙎𝙃𝙄𝙉𝙀.

he doesn’t want to talk about him. to kane, it feels like it’s been both a long and a short time since his death and while there was never a wound to heal (a metaphorical one, there was an actual wound, so severe it put kane out of commission for weeks and almost cost him his voice), it’s still something that brings an itch whenever the issue comes up. for abel was exactly that—an issue. one that kane thought he’s dealt with. but in the last two months, the thought of his brother has been plaguing him more than it ever had before.

he doesn’t want to talk about him and yet he laughs—then before he can think twice about it, he speaks up. “so you’re about to stroke your cock to the thought of my dead brother? charming.” he drops his cards in between them; wins the round but doesn’t really care for it. there’s a smirk on his lips to conceal the fact that he’s disappointed with himself—with his loose mouth. 

kane scratches a spot at the base of his throat, covered by his shirt at all times, other hand hovers over the cards, finger tracing the shapes. “didn’t look like me, though. you’ll have to use your imagination.” he chuckles, but it’s dry and humourless; the act has left him. goddamn abel.

“you owe me now.” kane clears his throat, nods at the cards. “can you even pay up?”

                                                      ⁎⁎⁎

Brother, then, is it? The word is neither flesh, nor blood on him; the word is just the kind of wispy, whishy-washy notion these visions thrive on. ( he had called ephraim brother, once, or at least lived it out. a word ain’t only the husk and the hollow; it’s what you do when you’re inside it, when the sound closes overhead. even if he didn’t say it, it wouldn’t matter, not here at the end. he was. they were. it was sibling blood-bind, scratched knees, nights spent in jail. it was battlefield vows, for all that there was no massacre around them, only ahead. lan had called ephraim brother, and one morning, he left. that’s the way it goes, in this world; or so men said. of men and their advice, lan knew about by now. they’re neither flesh, nor blood on them. )

The sailor breathes, slow and measured. He tries not to dwell on the rasp of it, in the coarse aftermath of the sight, the there-and-gone-again mockery of it. The presence of whatever was between Kane and his ghost wrung his windpipe like an oil-cloth. Black bile and curdled anger. An anger that had never really stilled, merely settled on all fours, tormented and waiting. He can run the game, by now. The beats and baits of it. What haunting is sorrowful, and which one is merely lonely. Kane’s branded grave was neither. Kane’s grave was open and calling his name.

It showed in how late it was to appear—how it waited for them to leave the Arctic circle, before it could even muster power, or soul, or whatever the fuck these skinless hands needed to squeeze through. It showed in how it pulled out the small bones in his neck, yanked halfway to fucking hell, because, of course. Of course there’s a brother.

That’s how these things work. He had thought the ring may be drawing them to him. Had told Iles Xu as much, somewhere in the confidences of bedroom and barter. Iles had doubted it. Well, the white-winged bastard might have some fucking point of it. Maybe the ring is just... facilitation. Maybe whatever’s dark enough in him to let him hear had been seeded there long ago.

He looks to the cards without seeing them. The deuce blurs, blends into the knight. Knaves and knives pulling at the joints. Lonan snorts up bitterness like it’s a bone lodged sideways. Iles, as always, is enthroned and enshrined on his thoughts; an entity not like a ghost, but like a hound-master. And the king of the hunt says: do not gabble it away. Do not tell him. The game, Lan, think of the long game. And the four-legged beast recoils. No, nothing so gentle. Nothing so statuary. It just says: fuck you. It’s about bloody time I told a soul.

❝I’ve gone through my share of mortal sins, Kane, and on any other day I’d even take you up on a tally. Can’t tell which one of us would draw it longer. But now? Christ. A dead brother, a traitor and a closed fist. Sounds like the oldest story they ever told. Steel through his head, then, was it? Or was it rock? Was it wood?❞

the rest, as a cock-up. he’s not wrong, and the sharp smile grows edges as she acknowledges her own amusement, acknowledges the possibility. hell knows that the events of the past four, five, ten, twenty months have been nothing but cock-up following mistake following disaster, stupid decisions and impulsive actions and the sheer selfishness of each person leading them into this final fucking mess.

he looks over at her, moves his legs, but she doesn’t bother continuing forward. she doesn’t not know him, but she recognises him, and not from some docks - it is not his face that feels familiar.

she wants to mock, or make light, wants to pull the coat of her wealth and class around her and throw it in his face. she wants to berate, grab him by the collar and shove a pistol in his ribs for the audacity, wants to scoff, ignore, hadn’t noticed a thing in the euphoria of being away from home and that cursed piece.

‘ sure. ‘ her hands tuck into trouser pockets, she tilts her head to examine him back. abrasive, shadowed, something dark lingering where the lamplight flickers in the edges of his face, a merging of the bounty hunters and treasure seekers she’d encountered, magpie and gold filchers, who you’d be best to keep your gun by your best for fear that they would take your tent whilst you slept in it.

‘ sorry about that. ‘ as though he’s made more of negative space, highlights all that pull his features out of the hidden parts of the corridor, edge of his jaw, the metal of his gun, his ring.

his ring - her ring. ‘ where’d you get the jewlery from? ‘

He’s not gonna be left looking up at someone, not unless there’s laces coming untied and coins dipping in his hand. And since the woman doesn’t seem the kind to want a quick push against the wall, Lan is up on it. Bounces straight, arms above his head. The apology is a nice fork in the road; he stops for a moment, grins at it, all pale lips. Then he moves on, eyes grazing. Mind only slightly teetering on the hook of her question. Oh, this? It was me fuckin’ gran’s. Lavinia of Hanover. Where’d the fuck ya think? God, what do they teach this people up there?

❝ Jewelry? Hardly, ma’am. I think you’ve a mind to flatter me. ❞

He rises on the toes, inches above her. A palm’s length, maybe more; his own palms cracking under the ceiling as if he’s trying to upend it. Harmless, pithless; yet a display nonetheless. The sailor stretches until all those wait hours are scrounged from his bones.

Then he’s back to stature. Still towers, still glowers; but there’s a light of something unassuming at play on his face. He almost smiles. ❝ Won it from a wardroom bloke. You know, them with the epaulets. Why? Fancy rolling one for it? ❞ Lan doesn’t expect she’ll say yes, though not because the etiquette is hard in place. No, slumming it was about right, as far as people like her went. He’s certain the woman has spat on a pair of dice at least once before, that she brawled as much as she bossed around. That’s what runs the game.

It was always the tastiest delicacy, wasn’t it, when you got rich and respected enough to afford the behaviour of your lessers, when you could coop and corrupt it for the sake of your betters. He loved it, this bluster of pants, of sleeves rolled up and ready for a knuckle fight. Plenty of birds in Europe were strutting about like that. It always made him want to laugh. Wanted to let them know, put them out of the self-aggrandizement show, the ridiculous touch of it: I grew up with women who could eat you up. Who probably should have, now that I think on it. Hurry along now. There’s a heated carriage waiting for your arse, after you’re done frolicking in the mud.  

“i’m letting you deal the cards, you should be grateful.” he’s not a crook by any means, at least not anymore—besides, kane doesn’t care for it all that much anymore. if his opponent chooses to trick him out of his money, so be it. he’s got some to spare, unlike so many. unlike lan, for instance. “can’t imagine you sharing. you don’t seem like the type.” what he means to say: i think you’re like me. and that’s why kane thinks that the seaman is worth keeping around.

he almost doesn’t see it—and still, when he does, he isn’t exactly sure what it is. the man in front of him trembles, though there isn’t any reason for it. kane fixes his eyes on him, squints, confused, trying to come up with an answer himself rather than ask for it. besides, lan beats him to it.

now he’s the one with a shiver running down his spine. his fingers still around the cards and if he weren’t paying enough attention to controlling his body, he would’ve crushed them. kane forces himself to ease up, unclenches his jaw, clears his throat. lets the smirk once again make itself at home. “why do you ask?”

the scar on his throat burns. it always does when he thinks of him and at this point kane can’t tell whether the pain is imagined or real. this place makes everything feel real. “is this what we do now? share stories?”

                                                      ⁎⁎⁎

He tries to breathe through it, blink through it; same as you would do for any insurgence of pain. Insurgence of willpower, more like—someone else’s against yours, punch for touch. But he can still feel the spirit’s fingers on his throat; the physicality of it, no phantom sickness, no phantom blues. As real as the damp, moldy touch of the cards and the doorjamb. The sailor leans forward, elbow on the bend of his knee, and lays the flush before the other.

❝ Oh, I share, alright. When it works in my favour. ❞ He puts down his own card, corks an eyebrow at Keane. Have at it. He knows, now, after some odd-two months of this, better than to interact with the manifestations. Better than to give them free rein on taking the fuckin’ piss. But still it’s a concerted effort not to grit out, shut up, not to growl, I don’t give one damn about your haunting plans. Whatever he did to you, it’s not my circus; not my bloody monkeys.

He’s gonna lose some money on this bit, he’s already making his blessed peace with that. Hardly any other way, when you’re focused on not hurling your guts out. The feeling of intrusion, that’s what really gets him after all this time; the feeling of something patient, unnatural, unwanted, cracking your skin open. With the deftness of a butter knife and the serrated edge of a bait.

how quickly things shifted. one moment on the agathe, the next on the promethean. one moment resting firmly in the them category, the next pulled into the us. and now teodoro had been assigned to a guard post, as if the past had long been left behind — and now teodoro moved within it, once more shedding title and ship for a chance. he could be an englishman again; he could be crew of the new captain. he could stand here beside another and claim the role of guard. he had done it many times before. 

( the old chant of survival had begun to change its pretty tune. he did not recognize this new song, but it carried the same haunting cry as the dead agathe captain begging them to the sea. )

to the bet then: if the mutineers were smarter than their predecessor, his companion would be proven right. but that was the heart of his following to estrada’s side — if the mutineers were smarter. if they were not, did any of this matter? they would each be dead and gone soon.

“i’ll take that bet.” he did not know enough about the new captain to deem if he was ready to take on all the title would entail; he took a chance. “of course, it depends on your definition of alive. if he dies and comes back, it counts for me.” 

                                                      ⁎⁎⁎                                                      

❝ Seen a lot of that, in your heyday? Taking the trip both ways? ❞ The tone courses unassuming behind them. Nonthreatening, too: why ruin a nice afternoon? The other man looks like he’s ready to tear into a slab of meat. Teeth long sharpened, animal calculation; predatory waiting, ticked according to season. Lonan himself, for all his bedroom tastes, was absolutely not too keen to offer his own body as punching bag. Maybe as a friendly favour, who knows? A little prelude. But not just waste it like that, on the first sod he’d been asked to guard with.

Even in the gallows’ humor, Lan can still hear the tell. On with it. Like him, the soldier had the restrained energy, barely swimming underneath skin, of someone who had seen too much bloodshed and had taken part in too little. It was bad for a man’s head, this limp-dick witnessing. Made one want to lead the show themselves. The deckhand strongly favored the approach, as far as these things went; he just didn’t want to be the dancing partner.

He screwed his eyes up at the ice-master: their ice-master. Ephraim himself, God bless the idiot, God stay his sorry hand, was somewhere at the other end of the brig. He hoped whoever guarded him was quieter; less bloodless, less jittery.

He props up on the ground, crouches straighter. ❝ Nah, mate. I think if anyone’s gonna come back alive, it’s that fox-head. Quite the piece. I wish someone else might’ve bitten it, instead of her, but then—it’s not as if I had a horse in it. The likes of her and the likes of us don’t mix. Heard Estrada bagged her, though. Gotta say, hats off to him: he’s taking it rather well, all told. I’m not that fond of any woman in my past, but I still wouldn’t wanna ram the needle through their nose, y’know? ❞ 

the benefits of being a heretic: no one will believe a word leaving those lips. runes say all he needs to, and now what used to be his shame has become a safeguard against conversations he can no longer carry with grace. 

“i could scream all i know and no one would take it for truth. to be quite frank, i would not be surprised if i screamed and not a sound was heard at all in this kind of arctic.” his words are scooped carefully from a reservoir he has rationed; would have laughed under any other circumstance at deeming lan worthy enough for what he has little to spare nowadays. 

“and if i refuse to be quiet about the captain you turned your back to? will you shoot me, darling?” 

he smiles like an invitation. 

“there is no need to apologize for something you have no desire to apologize for, my sweet. you have no meaning behind it and i have no use for it.” perhaps it would have been better for words to be sharp; spoken with a pleasant emptiness instead. “and what new burdens has this mutiny given you, hm? whatever will you do with the likes of me?” 

fingers trace the musket by the other’s side, accidental touches brushing thighs. eyes flicker to the shadow before him, snow meeting shade. 

“or perhaps you could simply watch me ruin myself. time is all it takes. one less job for you, no?” 

❝ Shoot you? ❞ Laughter like pellets, like the dirt kicked up by hooves when you’re walking too close to the street. When your shoes are sticking to the shit and the gravel, flicking bits of grime in their trail. It lands the same way. ❝ It’d go through you like knives through butter, you little bugger. The most well-mannered wraith I’ve ever fucking seen. ❞

There’s the clairvoyant, spotless as always: a thing so contorted, so void, it rendered itself immune to slander, to ire, to the pulleys of ego and need. You could spit on them, and it still wouldn’t stick. The silver gauze on their skin, woven not with lies, but with a pathetic cleft of self-illusion, prevents the act. Prevents the imprint.

This invincibility, farcical but still useful, had fucked with Lan’s head. Irked him something fierce, for the first month. Awoke some schoolyard, churchyard, urchin instinct in him: punch the weak ones to the pulp. But then he actually learned to have fun with it. Entertained himself, indulged himself, too: not with the flesh, but with the dark, twisted things that covered it.

Their favorite past time together? Stealing away the letters written by sailors, those scrawny, scrabbled, pitiful things that were meant to see postage, and burning them to shit. They always had a blast with it: self-admitted, self-generating, self-worshipped cruelty. The fact that those letters will never arrive, that no one will be waiting for them        .

Well. Serves them right, for expecting salvation. Serves them right, for dotting on homecomings.

She shrugs, an effortless motion full of carefully spin leivity. Then a smirk, oozing gilded confidence; an unbreakable cockiness that cannot be bought. Only bred into you, woven into every single cell of your being since birth. “Oh no matter. I’m sure there are many many ways you can pay me back when you lose.”

She answers his call––that slap over his thighs––by settling into his lap; a casual smile on flush pink lips. The highborn woman quickly makes herself comfortable, draping an arm behind his neck. But it is that blood-deep assurance that keeps the power of the conversation in her hands; or at the very least, from tipping too far into his favor. Even if she doesn’t technically have any money on this ship; even if she remembers that this snake of a man holds many of her darkest secrets; even then, she is not his pet. But oh can she pretend that she is, give him just enough power to make him feel comfortable. To make him talk. “Oh, chéri. I’ve just been busy. You know how I am; where there is excitement, there must also be me. And there’s been plenty of excitement to go around. I have been thinking of you a lot, if that helps.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean. I’m just a sociable woman, nothing calculated about me. But let us imagine if I was; how many moves would you want to be up? What could you give for it?”

It’s a luxury, pulling off a move like this one. The ruse, the rut: she must have amassed quite the bargaining chips in these last months, if she reckons she can get away with it unscathed. Makes one think: what has this woman been through, to launch herself in the devil’s jaw like that? Tits all bared and nipples rising to the call? Makes one fucking wonder.

It’s another luxury, greater still, to claim stolidity. And for all he would love to pretend he isn’t taken aback by her move, he knows he can’t carry it all the way through. Can feel his body registering the shock, the proximity: it’s not even need, so much as unawares, so much as a slip on the block and tackle. He nearly tips into laughter at the nonchalance. Oh, if it was only that: it was a nonchalance with teeth, with tongue slips. Within a minute, she plopped herself on his thigh like a scoop of cream. He backed into the wall; felt the full shape of her nudging away the gun. Her arm around his head, the snake and the charmer; the hook and the fire. Debonair, if debonair was built with meat and cleavers. He didn’t remember this about her: the death wish, the torch on her mouth. Her eyes like oil-cloth waiting for the fuse.

Lonan can almost feel the line of her ass brush his knee.

❝ Ah, Madame Leon—❞, he makes the whisper mocking, lips to ear, honey to bullshit. The word plays at nunnery and decorum. ❝ You’d make a demon blush. ❞   

His finger pushes under her chin. Up, until the bones at her nape slip over his mouth. ❝ Feeling quite bold, eh? ‘m not against it, myself. Always liked a woman with some cheek. Now, can’t say it’s much use if you don’t take it out to play. Shall we? ❞ He trawls his tongue over her neck; anticipates the shiver, anticipates she might turn to bite it off his face. All the better. When he speaks next, it’s onto a chuckle:

“Cé mhéad aghaidhe atá ort.” It sounds like an awe, a softness of admiration as she speaks.  Turns her cheek after looking to him, to look to the wall, just a glance at boundaries before a return. Presses her gaze upon him like coin, like a strong hand to the chest as some purse is tucked away beneath arms. Not quite force, just the forgings of it, a transaction between two parties seeking to appear engaged. “Of course, we’re all like that these days. Aren’t we? Swapping one face for the other, whichever is better suited to better prospects.”

There’s no one she imagines innocent of it. Just another form of barter, of trade. Capitalism at its finest. The oldest form of currency- the self. What you are willing to offer in return for something else. Had reasoned it before the island, that there is nothing she would not offer to at least try to protect the people aboard. Especially when it may not seem like it to them, when there needs be illusion. When her betrayal might distract them from the first, from the mutiny, from their rage and hurt and lashing out- might save them all from a bullet, when the mutineers need no excuse.

Inclines her head then, with the rise of a smile, tips her attention neatly to the one side, toward him. “You’ll find I’m good for it. Or would you rather not leave that to chance? Even when it’s Dowling that’ll be owed.”  Shifts to balance again, casting a glance in direction of the brig. Draws it back to him.

“Is this what you were offered for loyalty- being indoors instead of out?”

“Surely not. You seem a fine negotiator to me. Did you lose a bet? Perhaps that why you stay hungry, risking too much.”

❝ Oh-hoo, my, my. ❞ He throws his head back, the abandon of a howl. Not the ring of one, though. A mute laughter slips from the sailor instead. Not quite whatever death knell she was hoping for, all tailing round his heel. Not whatever signal she was waiting to act on. A puff of air, hardly more meat than that; a puff of smoke uncurling in the frozen brig.

His eyes crinkle, already beading up with something new-found. A flint reaped from the marram grass. An arrow-head, a clue. Even before he comes back to her, the panels already shifted: she bears another face, skin torn from feathers. ❝ Knocking out the auld tongue, are we? Mark me fucking impressed. ❞ Lan’s posture tilts, rest more easily on the wall. One leg at leisure, one corner of his mouth at daggers drawn. ❝ Where’d you learn to speak like that, lassie? Crop of the fucking litter. ❞

Leg it, would she? How sweet. Lonan traces her gaze like water on oil, right up to the spark of hope, brimming up all smoldered in the cauldron. Her face shuts it down quick, lid and brass. Oh, she’s transparent, this one. Sheer as linen gauze; would she tear just as easily, when you get down to it? Bit tough to read properly: where she came from or why. Yet lookit the spring of it; lookit how many tells she’s giving.  She’s here to save something, or damn herself. Aren’t all of them? ❝ Ah, you do remind me of someone. Not to say all cursed birds look the same... ❞, he cuts up a smile, hands her a slice with the juice still dripping, ❝ but they kinda do, don’t they? Not much room to improve. Not many ways to stand apart. Besides, old county gals, that’s really a whole genre. So where you from? You give me that, and I’ll come all clean to you, hat in hand. I’ll tell you what I’m so hungry for. ❞

Before her eyes, in the scant space she’s left between their bodies, he sketches a sign. Forefinger jutting out, corners meeting; the bunch between thumb and muscle folded up. She would know the sign of it, or if she wouldn’t, it’ll still fuck right proper with her head.

The words are already on him, a thought like a mouth. An intention with teeth already grown, and far too late to file them down to a nicety. He steps closer to her, a glint burning through him right to the soles. Burning through the bloody planks, too, and the whole reason why he’s supposed to be down here. At his back, he can already hear Iles cursing. Ah, let them; he’ll blame it on the homesickness, blame it on the Irish song.

❝ Why don’t you steep inside with me? Find a room without a prisoner; shouldn’t be too hard. You look like you want to mess something up. Well, I’m offering. It doesn’t only have to go one way, does it? You carry on that sweet talk, and I’ll let you fuck me instead. ❞

Even camped in the bloody brig, Ephraim will not be looking up at him. Soon as Lan comes within swinging distance he’s up, up on his feet. Eye level. Taller, even, by a hair. He meets Lonan’s stare with another. His question with another. “Laszlo and the other caulkers’ve done a fine job, down here, eh? Can hardly feel the draft.” He huffs, breath a salient fog. “Close my eyes, ‘n I could almost take it for crew quarters.” Steps in to meet him, boots planted shoulder width, as if he’s half a mind to throw that shoulder through him, through the door of the bloody fucking brig.

“Pull up a hammock, eh? Come on, then, Lan.” Jaw working as he cocks one eyebrow at the slight. “Come on.” Make yourself at home, he could say ( like he has a hundred times before a dozen years ago ), Hetty’s brewing a stiff cup. Could say, it’ll warm you right up. Though, Canning Town and his siblings feel farther off than they did last go-round. Saying their names here, as this version of themselves, would feel wrong somehow. Wrong as the thing writhing in his gut these days whenever he lays eyes on the man that darkens the doorway. Wrong as Lan’s standing between him and a door, any door.

“You used to be, if memory serves.” He finally comes full circle. Or maybe just misses the convergence, and they’re drifting wider of one another still. “If you knew me, still, you’d know It isn’t about the underdog, or the winning mutt, or who’s standing at the bloody helm. Not at the heart of it. It’s about the men, Lan. It’s about what’s left for them. For us,” because he’s not discounting his own aims; his own old home haunts he’s vying to pour the crown’s reward back into. “On the other side of this.”

                                                      ⁎⁎⁎

His hands are on his shoulders before the thought goes up. Before it springs, or surges, or whatever word people use to make themselves cosy up to the inevitable. Before he can even pretend he’ll push it down, just this time; before he can even clench the teeth of denial on it. He pushes Ephraim into the wall. It’s boyish, at first; a pup tailing a bigger one. A parry, more than an attack - a buffer, a placeholder. Smack. A cuff like a cough inside the silence.

He draws closer, presses hell to heel. Mirrors him down to the lock of his boots. Down to the tension holding him upright, even through all the lost hours between trek and gaol, through all those fused-up thoughts he was always nursing. He can tell he’s arse-deep in it, the fire, the restlessness. Down to the space he leaves between himself and the world. Down to the jitters he remembers from way back when, those signs of running low on fuel, which always called for him bundling Ephraim and calling the day off. Shoving him against some casks, against a shielded corner of some abbey, and dozing through the afternoon. Head on his shoulder, to keep him in place. Head on his shoulder, because that was the only way it’d work. God damn it. God damn it to shit. Of all the places. Of all the names he’d had to call back on, and wring them like cloths of fever-water.

He pushes him again. Flat palm, flat contact       hardly a recoil worth seizing up against. Again. It’s a sequence, now; beads on a fucking string, coins on a neckchain. Again. ❝ Come on ❞, he grits out, sneers half of wilderness, half practiced speech. Laughs somewhere in his throat until the words distort. Sounds gone to smithers, gone bloody Greek and Latin. ❝ Come on, I’ll pull up a fucking hammock, we’ll make a night of it. Come the fuck on. ❞

Again, that punch that isn’t one, that threat that sends his fingers bending backwards. He might break one. He should. It’s the only thing that can stop it, now, once whatever cork inside his head unscrews, once it flares and gives the set to. ❝ Oh, what, you’re pulling out? Come on, you kingsman, queen’s hound, you bloody fucking philosopher. You bloodied up saint. Tell me what you’re in for, really in for, tell me about the men. Yammer on about the heart of them, the heart of you and me. Climb that good old horse once more. Are you ready? Let’s go, talk up or punch up. ❞ Again, this time hard enough he feels it in his shoulder. Rattles below it, somehow, a jolt through sinew, not fiber. Force packed inside the wrist-bone, inside the joint of it. Elbow twisting like a snap around the belay; like the way the timber gives, up around the mast.

jack rolls his eyes, tenses the muscle in his jaw. this fool doesn’t deserve to be acknowledged, much less spoken too–even now, he looks at jack, with the hole in his chest that keeps bleeding, bleeding and bleeding and bleeding, leaving a trail of his every step, reminding him with every flex of muscle that it hurts, that it will never stop hurting, and all the sergeant can see blinking back at him are the eyes of a carrion bird. he wants to wrap his hand around the man’s throat, to snap his teeth and tell him to just be patient little vulture, little crow, and there will be enough fetid, rancid meat for him to feast upon until he’s sick with it. because that’s what happens, to anyone he touches, anyone he sets his damned restless and hungry eyes on–they end up hunched over, sick with too much of him, purging him from their bodies until they can get up and walk away again. 

instead he blinks at them–once, twice, three times–and he moves to step over their supine figure. they don’t even deserve the threat, the curdled grief that sits inside of his veins that has turned slowly to anger as the days have relentlessly passed on, ignorant of what has been lost, ignorant of the substance they now lack. it isn’t until the silence that has fallen is again interrupted with the two words he’s been both dreading, and simultaneously begging someone to speak to him, are uttered so casually, so cavalier, as if they were two pennies tossed into a fountain on a wish, that he whirls around, that his tongue finds purchase. 

look, ‘m sorry. 

“if you’re so sorry,” he snarls, bares his teeth. “why don’t you hand me that gun you’re so clearly fuckin’ bothered by and we’ll see just how sorry you are bastardo.” he curls his fingers into the palms of his hands–in an effort to stop himself from tearing this whole room down plank by plank, iron bar by iron bar, until they’re all being pulled in through that doorway to hell, heaven, or whatever the fuck is on the other side. “don’t you dare tell me that i have to be civil, when my heart was just ripped out of my chest, and don’t you dare, as long as i still draw breath, tell me that you’re sorry. because you’re not. not you, not estrada, not dowling. none of you are sorry.” 

                                                      ⁎⁎⁎

Through the diatribe, the sailor just chews on his lip. He lets the tin-horn soldier exhaust his own pipes, blow up and out whatever fumes he’d been brewing; he’s an inch away from leaning sideways and batting at the air, as if avoiding something physical the man spewed out, dispelling a noxious trail. He’s an inch away from chortling at the epithet. Are all of her Queen’s soldiers so chock-full of verse? Do they make them memorize their classics, then, when they’re buggering them over the capstan? One wonders.

Lan keeps his fists home. Thumb tucked in, though. Inside his boots, his toes curl and extend, ready to spring for it. The shift on these angles already weighed up against the odds: means and ends, chances and uppercuts. It’s bred inside him, bred inside all of them dock children - how to measure the punch even as you dawdle. How to paw for the crowbar even as you tarry, even as you play dead in the glare. Feel up the length and breadth of it, and then scout out the damage: he has a gun, now, he doesn’t need his fist. But nothing actually measures up to bone crunching beneath a sheaf of skin. Guns, ack, bollocks to it. Metal and nitrite can only give you a headstart. The beauty, the taste, is in working up to it. Fooling them to the contrary. A preparation above board, another one below.

From the doorpost, Lonan merely stares up, a play of eyelids and soft tissue. Then he holds up his hands. Fingers splayed, thumbs jerked towards the soldier. ❝ Boo, feisty, feisty. No fair game at all. Your heart? Ripped out? I’ll be fuckin’ blown. Well, out with it, then: where is it? ❞ Like a carriage pile up, a train derailing, his features rearrange in an accident. A hash up of lines, of edges, of things all gone proper bloody, and proper wrong. He makes a show of looking about them. ❝ ‘fraid I don’t see any, Sarge. Did whatever rip it out eat it, too? ❞

He doles him a lopsided grin. Like an honest smile, at first; so straight it’s misleading. A smile that just took a poor tumble. ❝ Got no sense of direction about ye, hm? Showing hackles with the muzzle still on. That’s some bad fucking sportsmanship. Do they not give you the run of these things, back in the country? Naples, or wherever the hell you’re from. È un vergogna, ragazzo mio. Did I get that right? ❞ The teeth dig through his lip at last. They pull it forward, stretch it until the red spreads. Then he goes slack. Rounds up one shoulder, as if to say, what am I ribbing you for? What does it matter to me? I’ve eaten grief and rage like yours at morning tea. I’ve sucked on it til it learned my name. Have at it.

He echoes it. Again, out loud: a ricochet from thought to territory.

“touchy. you’d like that, wouldn’t you.” he cants his head to the side, makes it seem like he’s considering the offer a lot longer than necessary. and maybe he is; there’s a dozen better things he could be doing right now, all probably more comfortable than this, than sitting on the goddamn floor in the dark, in conversation with a man whom he considers nothing but a bit of fun along the way. but maybe that’s what the mood calls for, some fun. dowling’s locked up, estrada’s picking up the pieces, ship’s in divide, people are dead but kane—well, kane fancies himself a break.

so he drops down, tries to get as comfortable as possible—so barely. he can already feel the cold, he’s sick of it at this point. “i don’t feel like dice. how about cards?” prepared for every occasion, he reaches for the deck tucked away on the inside of his coat. doesn’t look as weathered as some of the cards he’d seen used on board, possibly because nobody ever fancies themselves a game with kane. the only marks they carry, it’s by his own and lan’s fingers exclusively. 

he holds it out, doesn’t feel like dealing the cards this time. “i’m sure you’d have no trouble finding a way to get your money. make yourself useful.” he says, with all the nonchalance there is. “how did you even land the guard? they trust you this much? surprising.”

❝ Fuck if I would, Keane ❞, he spits out, bite damped by laughter. It’s few folk, really, who could run their trap like this one; as if he’s got an army keeping watch downstreet. He’s got fuck-all, of course      scrawnier men than Lonan could tear his face off, should they taken enough offense. And offense was never quite too dear to arrive. There’s a liberty to him, Lan took note months ago        that leeway some people have, the room to wiggle, lash out, stand down. Usually seen on the people who have both paid and punched their way out of some very tight spaces. Recent events have scrubbed it off him. By some measure, at least. It’s likely the reason he was such a hard sight to catch on the center deck, these days. But the brunt of it is still there.

The sailor hitches his leg out of the way, ❝ But don’t let me talk ya’ out of a stiffy. I made guard same why I made deckhand: I keep my head down, share my rations, and when a fella serves me with a game of cards, I don’t take a fucking holiday to answer him. Come on, cards, buttons, whatever, just make it this year. ❞ His neck veers around, pops with a crick. Bollocks to it, if he has to hold one more watch by this demoted Cap’n’s door, he’s gonna punch  a hole through it and wave him out. Iles would string their guts around their neck, of course. Perhaps deservedly, but it’s hard to nod forgiveness out with your bowels in sight. So they stay put, eyes pacing. Mind and nerves moving where limbs cannot.

Over the stopgap card table, their palms spread out. When he picks up on the fact that the mogul would rather talk a blue streak than shuffle the bloody cards, he deals them out himself, spreads it all neat and clean on the edge between threshold and frame.

A hand grips his collar. Tugs, hard enough to feel like he’s gonna be out of air, but never actually getting to it        dangles him there, between physicality and whatever else exists. Dead fucking on. Lonan pushes down a wince. Immediately he tries to shake off, shivers like some dog just gone out the pond. It’s always with a wave of nausea, when the bad ones come, the ones that are never there for him. These damn earwigs have been going mad lately. They’ve usually been biting the back of his bollocks ever since this mess started, but more and more it seems like that’s not cutting it, like they want to chew him whole, awareness and senses, the pit of his bloody chest. Lay off it, wankers. I’m trying to have a decent time.

It’s the day after their return, their welcoming, the little tête-à-tête with Estrada; and there’s a wonder she’s still standing. Particularly how she saunters down to the brig, skimming past obstacle to find another in her path. 

Can’t determine whether this one will move. Especially when they seem part of the setting, more than a movable piece at all. 

“I’ll take that bet.” It’s bad luck to put money on a man, especially when it’s not a sure thing, is beyond her control in as many ways it can be. Every single mutineer and every single loyalist a threat to his life. He is dependent on all of their actions now, and the consequences of them. She’d like to tie it with a neat little bow and place it in the palm of her own hands, should anyone have to bear it, should anyone have to suffer other than the Captain himself.  There are too many people on the ship capable of violence, or quick to it from some compulsion or simple desire. A man’s life should not be presumed changeable by anyone, but, if there has to be an allowance, let it be decided by those with level heads. Not those keen to the task. That’s a big ask too; to find anyone aboard with their wits about them. Least of all her. Is providing evidence to her unbalancing right now, in fact.  Places bets on more than her father’s strength and conviction, on more than her own ability to barter, on more than stepping in front of a potential bullet.  Is placing bets on someone somewhere having given permission for her to visit him. Pretty fucking livid with the idea of it, permission. Although she can’t exactly push against that idea, when it would mean she’s done nothing much at all to earn trust. The alternative then- is placing bets on the guard not recognising her or being unfocused enough to forget what they’re supposed to do at sight of her. 

Except she spoke too soon. And they might not find her presence insignificant enough to neglect her words. “Give the proceeds to Dowling. Is this the part where I say English money is no use where we’re going?”

                                                      ⁎⁎⁎

❝ Ack, darlin’, with a face like that? This can be whatever part you’re set on. ❞

The sneer is reined in; he all but washes it down with the canteen water. Oh, he’s quite pissed they have to do it like this, in the first place; quite pissed he can’t drag the slagging on. He’d fancy claiming he’s got her, here, fancy twisting his paw on her little head. Rattle them around, just a tad, just the right amount. After all, she’s flitted over to the brig like a pearl in the wrong oyster. Walks like her pa’ owns the ship, while at the same time keeping to the walls, keeping to the dim sight of it    -  some flower of mold. Wonders, if he touched them, what would stick to his hand. Something rotten? Something rosy? Makes one mad to try.

But, ah, he’s not gone utterly mental. Not yet. The deckhand recognizes them. She’s the new Captain’s chew toy, this one.

And it’s a nasty thing, really, to be caught between the jaws of so many men. Jaws of such different sizes, too: Estrada, Montgomery, Dowling. A kinder soul than Lonan would ask her how she’s still walking straight. Lan, now, the persona that Lan has to carry on to the end of this, would only have two things to ask: fuck off, or bend over.

Until it’s a certain call, where the Captain stands on her—whether Estrada is fond, or merely took her for a bed pan—they can’t any of that shite. So Lan bares his teeth instead. Let them do, for words; he’s sure they can match him fangs for fangs, if they’re really so keen on escaping.

for once, he ventures out of the comfort zone of his quarters. wherever this unexpected surge of confidence and—feeling of safety, for a lack of better term, came from, kane isn’t sure. nevertheless, he’s taking advantage of it, even if for something as simple as a walk around the ship. to snoop, to judge the scene, see what they’re working with. 

he probably isn’t supposed to be down here, considering how he’s decided to wash his hands off this whole mutiny business; kane’s doing whatever he needs to keep his head on but that’s about where his involvement ends. he knows his way around a gun but so does half of the ship. he’s better off as a part of the audience. things are bad but not that bad—he can allow himself to remain ignorant just for a little while longer.

“ten. how’s the captain doing, huh? losing his mind, i bet.”

                                                      ⁎⁎⁎

❝ Losing a lot of things besides, damn right. ❞ He bolts out an arrow of laughter, a quickfire thing that lands by the man’s legs. The sailor scoots over, pats down the threshold. ❝ Sit here, if yer keen on a chat. As it is, Keane, I’m staring right into your crotch. Don’t you know men are touchy ‘bout these things? ❞ He says men, of course, as if he’d ever been anything but. As if he’d never take this pose before anyone, paying hand or no; would never even deign to.

Oh, true enough, the devil called Lonan Ruane might’ve had his gripes about being on his knees. Being made to kneel, even by incident, even by the spit of event. He’d had quite the battle mounted against the idea of it      -notions of right, notions of blood-pride. None which led even halfway to fuck. They got him bleeding nothing, in fact, barring a few nice tales to spin, a few good times with people far better than his brood. The kind of memories that can nurse you through old age, whatever the hell that meant. The moment old age was off the table, the moment he tucked the future into his pocket, the real sport began.

Now, Percival the gravedigger had kept no qualms about getting on his knees. And if Lan the sailor’s got them, and puts it on, it’s only because it’s what’s customary in these places. The Queen’s hovering shadow, and all that: hearth, honour, glory to the land. You’re supposed to broadside some fella’s prick with one hand writing home. One hand crossing fingers, swearing nevermores, all that shite. It’s bad manners to show you’d ever enjoy it.

He points down again, knuckles rapping into the wood-frame. ❝ Well, don’t keep a soldier waiting, eh? Must’ve been ages since we last rolled a dice. Quit dallying      I’ll even give you the first round. Where else would I get my ten guineas? ❞

“so marcus has his men sleeping in piles on the floor like dogs? what a… novel strategy.” he doesn’t blame– lonan– percival– baird for not recognising him through his approaching steps, nor as he comes to a half-crouch before the man. it only makes sense: the movement wouldn’t exactly be familiar to him, casimir rarely the one to kneel between the two of them, but then– so much of their lives these days hinges on rarities. for example: this rare step into baird’s personal orbit. not a part of the ship he frequents, often, the brig or the man’s breathing space. but this mutiny has everyone crossing new lines.

( there are few he hadn’t crossed with percy, once. before fate and fools bid him retreat. what a shame, that. and even worse: what a waste. )

“however, monsieur baird, i must protest…” he says, pronouncing the name with the most french flair he can, dragging out the -rrrdd until it becomes obnoxious, till the word is a candied, sordid thing, a web of spun caramel parading as a crown. a rat parading as a man. it is an effort, in that moment, not to smirk. to keep his face clean, calm, empty, as he always does around lonan. as he always is around him, these days. “laid out like that, if someone were to open the door too fast– well, your very neck would snap in two. as a medical professional, i can’t recommend it.” he falls the last inch of the kneel, so that he has one knee on the ground, his palms folded to rest on the other one. says, low: “sit up.”

                                                              ⁎⁎⁎

There’s quite a lot to be said about remembering. Points which other men than he, men with far more time and far less Toussaint on their hands, have gone and made. The hammer fist on memory, the cheap hook it manages to land: how it hurts, or doesn’t, and why no option feels half-decent to hell       the eithers all rotten down. How memory is a thing you didn’t hurl out quick enough. How it moves you back two squares, three squares, ten.

He hasn’t yet counted how many squares this doctor set him behind. It’s some pain in the bollocks to appraise, that. Would require Toussaint to have been a man, a right fucking man, and come to face him on it. The moment he boarded. No, a second after: the moment he boarded and learned where the knives are. Because a reckoning like theirs should’ve been carried on the side of a blade. Or the tip of one. He isn’t picky, where he gets stabbed or how. Only the why of it matters. Only the why of it ever did.

Memory, for him, had always been about as useful as you can draw heat from it. When it grows tepid, you throw it; by the time it’s already cold, you’ve long washed life and limb of its weight. There never was a bend in the road, a point where this principle, this, ah, fucking ethos, Toussaint would squeak, had failed him.

Except this memory is still warm. Not just warm, but torching up, the flare climbing the wrong way up the wall. And it’s the other’s hands, not his, that were quick to be shot of it. Three months. Three fucking months. Lonan bristles, blisters. The poxy heat of it. Makes him want to tear his throat out; half thinks he might, if there wasn’t the odd chance this sod would sew himself back together. Had seen it happen. Is, in fact, watching it happen right now.

I thought I bloody broke ya. I thought, there it is, my chance to leave a mark upon a fine thing. A  little polished glass, all terribly useful, terribly clear before I came in. Well? Where the hell is it?

The eyes narrow, sockets drawing tight. He’s got the skin around them prickling with what it takes to keep it even, keep it at least as leveled as Toussaint. ❝ Must ya’, now? On my word. ❞ The drawl, the stalemate. The stale taste it leaves on the tongue. He’ll need a month’s ale to wash it out, this cowardice. This slight. Ah, no, it does him one better: he’ll need the blood.

The sailor screws up their face. Straining, as if their eyes were fighting against the glare. You want nonchalance? I’ll give you a God damn mudslide.

❝ Doctor’s orders, then? ❞ He laughs, barks. Neither. His tone doesn’t go high enough to carry it, not proper, but in the dredge of it one can hear the snarl. The Casimir he once knew would pick up the sound. The butcher can claim he’s short a name all he wants; claim Percival is, was, a cold nothing. But he can’t claim his ears have lost it, the instinct to react. The way he was attuned to it, and Percy’s moods, monstrous dispositions. How many evenings did he have to fuck it out of him? On how many dinners, how many nights at the hospital, did Casimir Toussaint have to be on the lookout for that very same snarl?

His throat grows fists. ❝ You prissy little cunt. You cocksure, Daddy’s payroll, Daddy’s rescue ticket fucking coward. ❞

so she tries to. there’s nothing more infuriating than being told what to do - especially when its the shivers down her spine and nothing more rational - intution has been a failed game for the past months and she’s not about to listen to her gut when it seems as though all reason and mentality has fled.

but here he is, in the corridor, stretched out, obeying marc’s mockery of guards. she wants to grab that mockery of the man she once knew by his ears and shake his head until his eyes fall open, but she’s changed as well. what she can fault, though, is the stupidity of the number of guns in hands that don’t know how to use them, and placing them in such inconvient locations like this.

‘ i’d bet you something out of my jewlery box for equal value, for even estrada isn’t so much a fool to kill off the captain. i think their steward would actually break down the armoury door if that ever happened. ‘ she smiles down at him, sharp toothed, but now that he is here in front of her she cannot make herself move.

the music grows louder and the hum in her bones grows deeper and - jewelry box. ‘ who are you? ‘

                                                           ⁎⁎⁎

❝ The way I was thinkin’ it’ll play ❞, they start, voice scraping on, ❝ is that some gobshite will try to free Dowling, wrench him out like a cull through the backdoors. And then that gingernut with the musket will fire. The rest, as they say, is a cock-up. ❞ The sailor cranes to her, limbs reshuffling out of repose. Their body bunches against the wall, and their knee is pulled up to chest, makes a bench-rest for their chin. What follows is a once over: his moment of taking stock. A minced look, leveled and small. Something more parts than piecemeal.

So this is her from up close, then; this is how she cleans up, when the rigging is pushed out of sight. There are no finishing touches: no would-be apprentice with a mop of wiry hair, no drawing charcoal, no apple-polishing. She is swaddled in nothing but the brig’s lantern. It swings over their heads, exposes the lack of his sleep, the lack of her purpose. Not a flattering light, either. Sheep tallow, rather than beeswax, and giving a traitorous shine      in tune with the times.

I have your sins on my hand, bone-eater. Didn’t mean to, but there it is. Let us see where they take us. I’ve dug far more graves in than you could ever dig them out.

He sweeps his other leg out of the way. Gives her free passage through the corridor, should she wish to make a run for it. ❝ Name’s Lonan Baird, ma’am. We actually crossed once before, down our first port of call. Some northern place t’ could freeze your bollocks off. You had me lift a box. A damn behemoth. Though that’s no memory to keep, unless yer the one doing the back-breaking. ❞ A flit of tongue, going up and out to wet their upper lip. The sailor tucks it in the pad of his mouth, laves on a grin. ❝ Let’s just say I cursed you for a few days, and then I was off it. But then, what are curses in this place, amn’t I right? ❞

It’s blasphemous, to talk of a man’s life so flippantly. Malachy Dowling was a good man––is a good man––;Noemié had known that the moment she stepped on board. He had listened to her tale and the words uttered by her companions. More than listen, he took them to heart and transformed them into action. He was going to turn this ship around. And what had Marcus Estrada done for her, for them? Them being the only seven people on board who matter. 

But she is nothing if adaptable. On land, she had charmed her way to whatever and whoever she desired. It will be no different now. Besides, she has never been a holy woman. What’s more blasphemy added to a lifetime of sin?

“Ten says he will but only by a week or so. You underestimate the history between him and Estrada. If he was going to kill him quickly, he would have shot Dowling between the eyes the moment he got on board.”

❝ Ah, bird     where’d I even get the ten? Five, now, that was a stretch, and that’s cause I’m a brave one. Ten? That’d be just pushing it. ❞ The sailor slaps a hand over his thighs. A spring of frustration, the dock lurkers’s pent-up energy: that’s what the likes of her respond to, that’s the beck and call. The other arm eases around the rifle.

He knows her: auld Colette, mam’ of the year. Last he saw her, she’d been playing straitlaced hostess down in Marseilles. It was a good act, on both their parts; but her tell came sooner. When the night slagged, the hostess would curl in a corner, and right like bloody clockwork, the darling moll would awaken. The gin and gospel. He remember her not with the planner in tow, doing rounds, chirping orders. He remembers her not as the overseer, making sure all’s set to ninepence, and not even as the pay that got his bread and bed. No, what stands to order now is this mot’s lips on a bottleneck, and how she would only put it down to talk his ear off. Her fingers smudged with powder, the drug caking on. How’d she get it all out, with that manicured hand? Must’ve stayed under nails for days. That’s the way of it, deeds unclean, deeds that turn you.

Easy on the snuff box, Mistress Leon, I’ll be fucking damned. Can’t have ye dying with just me in the room. Then, to himself, to the audience that always lurked over shoulder, in these houses where nobody has lived and entire lineages have died: Cut the yapping, lass. You’re short a pay. He doesn’t even recall the job he did for her. Well, quite the liberty to put it like that. Whatever answers he found on the shipyards, whatever he’d beaten out and in, never landed in Mme. Leon’s lap. It had to do with competitors, the naval business, the booming trade. Scouting out private owners whose vessels were sound enough, and brains empty enough to make the Arctic. Sure enough, what he unearthed went where it always did: ███████.

❝ Was waiting for you to find me, Madame. Was, I’ll be honest now, in this hour of our grievances, rather hurt it took you so long. Ack, the world we live in. ❞ He drags out the sigh, head shaking for three heartbeats. Doesn’t lift his eyes from her hands. 

There is a question, a patent, really, and it goes around itself like the chain in the windlass. It snaps, skips, snags the trawl. It makes you lose not only the bait, but also a finger or two, and Lonan likes their hands full of a catch. Full, yes, and unscathed.

The question is: how did I get here?

He doesn’t ask it. Not in his character, not on his tongue; that pith of flesh is primed to prod at other things, usually, better things. He didn’t ask it on the docks, when he watched the very unthinkable writhe itself into a steady form; skin like oil, scales like water. Gas and petrol playing in between the gills. No, he didn’t ask it in Belgravia, when he got pushed against an alleywall and had a pistol stuck in his mouth. Pursed his on the revolver, laughed with his eyes. Said, muted but still not gutted: what, are we playing? Had you meant to pull, I couldn’t suck it off first. Tipping the velvet with a handgun? That’s not murder; that’s Saturday’s best. Men don’t touch the men they’re gonna kill. No, not if they’re strangers. So cut the act. Name it.

They named it. Called their price. Lonan said, why, of course. It’ll be a grand laugh.

Some ten, twelve years later, and the laugh keeps burning up the throat. Today, apparently, is the day he has to guard what was once his best, best mate. Today he has to guard a fragment, a slice; it was still only a slice, right enough, but it was a slice he’d held rather closely. Wrapped palms around it, and all      held until they bled. Ah, shite. Twelve years, was it? Twelve, and he doesn’t ask it. Twelve, and he doesn’t know. How did I get here?

How did we, Ephraim?

Who cares? Who’s got any clue and still lives to turn it over? If it was any easier, it’d be too late. He has no time for lectures. And he won’t put this question on Ephraim’s back, who’s carried both their weights so often before it honestly gave him the shivers. What he does is crouch down to face level. Blinks widely, wildly, pupils spaced to capital letters. Capital words, too, capital crimes and ropes already swinging. They’ve been in the backdrop of the noose before, been at the forefront of it, too. Just never quite on such uneven gallows.

He sucks in a breath, scatters it through his teeth. Feels the sting of it somewhere low, like the air is still biting all the way down there, even in the caulked up brig. Lonan’s chin juts out. Looks over the icemaster, over and out, over and into.

❝ Ever for the underdog, aren’t you, lov’? The fuckin’ head on ya’. ❞