#luciuspete

With you, I could summon the gods and the stars.

OFMD Lotería

First of all, they know what to do now, which is already a great advantage: Wee John is blowing stuff up with Roach - though they promised Captain not to go too overboard with it - while Frenchie’s idly playing a song that Pete has never heard before, and he’s soon joined by the Swede, who begins singing some lyrics that everyone’s pretty sure he’s just came up with, and then Buttons, who’s having a lovely chat with Olivia - that what she was called, right? She’s the first seagull’s wife or something. Even Fang and Ivan have joined them, though they seem to just be chilling in the sun with no intention of moving a muscle - they said that before Bonnet came back to Blackbeard, they rarely had any free time. The only people unaccounted for are Captain and Blackbeard, who must’ve sneaked somewhere to fuck or something - that’s a tactic Pete and Lucius know pretty well - Oluwande and Jim who have probably done the same, and that fucker Izzy, who’s still rotting in the closet they’re keeping him in until they decide what they actually want to do with him.

At first, Pete decides to hang with John and Roach, because who doesn’t love seeing stuff blowing up? But then, when everyone suggests having a dip into the sea to have a chicken fight, which is a fight between four people, only that two of them stay on the others’ shoulders and have to push each other off - Blackbeard taught them that, though he wasn’t able to explain what chickens have to do with this whole thing - he refuses, deciding to go back under the palm trees for some shade.

 Everything’s perfect, or well, should be perfect, if only…

“Hey, love,” Pete says once he’s close enough to Lucius, who’s sitting under one of the trees and who, as soon as he hears his voice, smiles, turning his head towards him.

“Hi baby,” he greets him, scooting a bit to the side so that Pete can join him. “Had fun blowing stuff up?”

Pete is so proud of him: before, even just mentioning any kind of violence would’ve made him pass out, but now he’s gotten so used to it that he can ask him if he had fun blowing things up, and carry a whole conversation on that topic. That’s great, he’s great. Pete loves him a big deal.

“You know, the usual…” he shrugs then, because as much as likes to talk about shenanigans - or really, anything with Lucius to be honest - this isn’t why he’s there.

His gaze moves from him to the crew having fun at sea. “Do you want to join them? We were going to do a chicken fight.”

Panic flashes in Lucius’ eyes, but it last only a moment before he shakes his head - still, it doesn’t go unnoticed by Pete. “No… No, don’t worry about me. You can go join them if you want, I’m fine here.”

 This is weird, and adding this to Lucius’ behavior as of late makes everything even weirder: Pete has noticed how, when they’re all on the ship, he tends to avoid exposing himself near the railings, or any other places where he could fall outside, or that the only times he seems to get in contact with water are when he needs to wash himself.

They’ve had plenty of occasions to have fun just like they’re doing today, when they could’ve gone for a swim, or even just have one of those splashing wars that Pete adores, but Lucius has always refused to join them, not to consider the fact that once, when he decided to try it, but still remaining as close to the shore as possible - a decent compromise - he still looked like he was going to pass out at any moment, and when Roach jokingly splashed at him he panicked, beginning to scream for help and that he was drowning, which prompted them to take him to solid ground in the hopes that he wouldn’t feel like that anymore. He calmed down only once they gave him a dry change of clothes.

 He never acted like this before, which is why Pete was having a hard time trying to figure out what he should do about this at first, how he could help Lucius overcome this.

Why would he even be so wary of water now, in the first place? They’re pirates! This isn’t exactly a great conundrum.

  For a while he’s been left wondering, only for Lucius to reveal the truth to him after a particularly bad nightmare, while Pete was holding him into a tight embrace.

“Ed-- Blackbeard threw me off the ship,” he cowered, so close from crying that it broke Pete’s heart. “It was so cold, and I couldn’t… Couldn’t… There was so much water. I-I couldn’t breathe… I… F-For a moment…”

He broke down, in the end, and Pete tried his best to soothe him, assuring him that everything was alright, that he was safe, that Pete wasn’t going to let something like that happen ever again, even at the cost of him own life.

Eventually, Lucius had managed to calm down and fall back asleep, but the same couldn’t be said for Pete, who was too busy trying to make order inside his head; on one hand, he knew that Lucius must’ve been banished somehow, or else they wouldn’t have found him stranded on an island when they were looking for the Revenge, though Lucius always refused to clarify what happened - for what reason, Pete had no idea. Now, however… Now he knew.

He couldn’t believe that Blackbeard would’ve done it for real; someone this cool would never do something like this, right? And yet, he had no reason not to believe what Lucius had said. Maybe it had been an accident, maybe Blackbeard didn’t really want to do it. Maybe he saw some dangerous insect make its way towards Lucius, and in swatting it away he caused him to fall; yeah, something like that.

 Well, whatever the reason was, that wasn’t the right moment to think about it, and Pete’s focus shifted again on Lucius and on the fact that, in the end, everything had turned out well, which, knowing this now, feels like nothing short of a miracle.

If something bad had happened to him, he… he didn’t know what he would’ve done, but he surely wouldn’t have been pretty.

  As he watches Lucius, now, with his gaze is trained on the rest of the crew having fun, he can’t help but to be overwhelmed by a big sense of melancholy, watching the longing in his eyes; he knows Lucius would love to join them, but if he did, he would probably panic again, just like he did all the other times he tried it. Captain said that some wounds are slow to heal, but Pete still can’t help but to wish that it would take them less time, so that Lucius can be fully happy again.

 At some point, Lucius turns towards him, an unreadable expression on his face. He seems to be studying Pete, just as Pete’s trying to study him as well, to get what’s going on inside his head, though soon they get lost in each other’s eyes, and for a moment, there’s nothing else besides the two of them.

They inch closer and closer, drawn to each other by an unstoppable force; their lips are about to touch… only for Lucius to turn his head back, gaze trained to an unspecified point in the distance.

“I know you want to join them. Don’t let me hold you back.” He turns towards Pete and flashes him a smile, an obviously forced one. “I’ll watch from here.”

It’s with extreme tenderness that Pete takes hold of Lucius’ hands, so that he can bring them closer and kiss each palm, making him swoon a bit - it’s great receiving such a positive reaction for every sweet thing he does.

“Chicken fights are nice, yes,” he says then, “but I’d rather be here with you.”

He’s not even lying: he genuinely enjoys Lucius’ company. Besides, he’s not going to abandon him when he knows that his presence brings him comfort; what kind of boyfriend would he be if he does that? A shitty one that’s for sure.

 At that, Lucius gasps. “Awww, baby!”

Before Pete can even say something, Lucius drags him closer by his shirt, and now they’re kissing, kissing and kissing again, held tight in each other’s embrace and with no intention of parting any time soon.

H is for Handies, by Amuly. 20k words, NC-17, Pete/Lucius OFMD

At just before dusk was when the light was magical for sketching. Or, so said Lucius. Pete sat with his head against Lucius’ shoulder, watching the sun set over the ocean. He wasn’t sure what all this magic lighting was that Lucius was talking about, but it sure was pretty. Didn’t understand how all the colors translated to making good sketching subjects, especially when Lucius was sketching in black and white, but Lucius was the artist. Lucius’ shoulder moved beneath Pete’s head as he worked, sketching but also writing too. Labeling, looked like: sketching the dish Roach had made tonight, and writing stuff with lines pointing to various items on the page.

“Whatchya doing?” Pete asked. He was careful not to nudge Lucius, since he didn’t want to mess up his work.

Without interrupting the scratch scratch scratch of his quill, Lucius replied: “Writing down the meal Roach cooked for us tonight.”

“I could tell that,” Pete pointed out.

“It’s the recipe,” Lucius explained. He moved his shoulder gently under Pete’s cheek. “You liked it so much, I figure I’d try and remember it, for future reference.”

Pete thought about that for a second. It never occurred to him to write down things he needed to remember, mostly because he couldn’t read or write. He just repeated things in his head until he remembered them (or forgot them). Sometimes he came up with little rhymes or tricks to remember really important stuff. Like, Lucius’ birthday was December thirtieth, which Pete remembered because it was one day short of New Year’s Eve, because with Lucius you needed a whole extra day to celebrate. Or, red sky at night, sailor’s delight, red sky in morning, sailor take warning, which was about storms coming in from the east. Or, for the directions, North East South West, he remembered because it was Never Eat Sour Watermelon. Which was kind of funny because he kind of liked sour watermelon, but anyway, it helped him remember his directions.

But Lucius: Lucius could just write it all down. He didn’t have to keep it all in his head. Of course, he had to keep all those letters and words in his head, so he could read them, but apparently that was easier than keeping everything else in his head. Less stuff to remember, somehow?

“Pete?”

Pete blinked out of his reverie. Lucius hadn’t stopped scribbling, but his attention was split now. Pete shook his head.

“Thanks. That’s nice.”

“Something on your mind?”

“Just, writing.” When Lucius hummed but said nothing, Pete figured he was waiting for him to say more. So he tried to articulate himself better, like Lucius was always encouraging him to: “How handy it is. Like, for remembering stuff.”

“You thinking about learning?” Lucius said, real casual-like.

And Pete knew he was being casual because he didn’t want to hurt Pete’s feelings. Make Pete feel inadequate, or stupid, just because he couldn’t read. Most the guys on the ship couldn’t read—hell, Pete was pretty sure Blackbeard couldn’t read. Didn’t need to: too busy being a total badass.

But, maybe it’d be nice, sometime.

And it was something to do with Lucius. A project they could work on together.

“Maybe…” Pete drawled. He nudged his shoulder into Lucius’. “But only if I get to bang the teacher. I kinda got a crush on him.”

Lucius beamed, turning away from his scribbling at last.

“You really want to learn? Or is this just like a roleplaying thing; like, you wanna sneak off somewhere and I tell you what a naughty schoolboy you are, and punish you for your sloppy lettering?”

“Why’s my lettering going to be sloppy?!” Pete complained. “Maybe I’m your star student and you want to reward me properly.”

Lucius snorted. “Uhhhh sure, babe. You’re number one in the class. …out of one.”

“Anyway, maybe I really want to learn?” Pete scratched his eyebrow. “I mean, give it a try, at least. If it sucks I can just quit. I got you for reading anything I need, after all.”

Lucius still seemed skeptical, or maybe hesitant. Pete realized he might be asking for something Lucius didn’t want to do at all. Teaching Pete to read was probably going to be tortuous, after all: maybe Lucius would rather not.

“You don’t gotta!” Pete rushed on, once the thought occurred to him. “I mean, it might not be any fun for you. Teaching me letters and junk.”

“No, no! That’s not it at all. I just… it could be hard work. Do you know any letters?”

Pete shook his head. “I mean, I know how to make an ‘X’?”

Lucius sucked at his teeth. Pete winced.

“Hey, no, forget about it. It was a stupid idea, anyway. You’re the reader, I don’t gotta be one, too. That’s just redundant, after all. Inefficient.”

But Lucius smiled at him and leaned in to give him a sweet little peck on his cheek.

“Hush, you silly man. Of course I’ll teach you. If you really want to.”

Pete shrugged. “Hey, if I end up wanting to chuck inkwells at your head, we’ll just quit and fuck off somewhere to bone.”

“Sounds like a win-win.” Lucius tapped his wooden finger against his lips, legs crossed and kicking as he thought. “You know, that gives me an idea on how to make this fun.”

Pete wiggled a little in excitement. Well, that had to bode well for his reading lessons.

ofmd + my favorite love poems