#skinned alive

The private who had called was in the crow’s nest, so Tadhg climbed the netting up, the ropes still rough under his calloused hands. He pulled himself up with decent ease but actively suppressed his need for more breath, trying to appear effortless in front of his underling.

“Aye?”

Snake Eyes handed him the telescope without comment. Tadhg raised it to his eye and squinted, blinking a few times against it before he saw the ship. Not immediately close, but drawing closer at an unnatural pace. Less subtly, the ship made its identity known with its trademark crimson sails.

Tadhg swallowed uncomfortably and lowered the spyglass.

“It could be an imposter,” Snake Eyes tried, with a nervous air.

“We cann’y afford to be wrong.”

Tadhg’s stomach was clenched in a pit of worry, but he carefully kept a calm face. 

“Get the crew ready for battle, I’ll meet with the captain.”

Snake Eyes nodded, worried, and scurried down the nets after Tadhg. 

At the bottom, Tadhg straightened his vest and clapped his hands.

“ATTENTION! A ship resemblin’ The Red Dawn has been spotted, 20 kilometers north, headed our way. Ready in case of a fight, be on standby for orders, Snake Eyes will direct.”

The crew paused for the announcement, and made nervous, uncertain eyes at one another while they slowly shifted gears. There was an air of disbelief stalling their movements, but Snake Eyes could snap them into shape.

Tadhg hurried down the narrow steps to the captain’s quarters, and he could hear word spreading down through the layers of the ship to the gun deck. 

“Captain!”

He knocks on the door vigorously, hoping to wake him from his inevitable stupor.

“Who iiiiiisssss ittttt?” Rowan called back, muffled through the door. Tadhg pulled a pin from his hat and picked the lock with practiced ease, letting himself in. Wild Red Rowan was lying in his bed, the only bed on board, smoking opium with a humorous scowl.

“I thought I told you not to do that.”

“Captain, we’ve spotted The Red Dawn headed our way.”

Rowan’s face drained and his cheer was gone in a flash. He set down his pipe, looked at it, and then started packing it full again. 

“Hoist the white flag.”

Tadhg didn’t move.

“What?”

“Surrender. Immediately. It’s our only chance.” Rowan didn’t meet his gaze, instead focusing on smoking as much of the opium as he could in short order. 

“We - we might. Still outrun them.” Tadhg’s words sounded hollow, even to him. 

“We won’t.”

“We have to fight.”

“We can’t win.”

“We don’t know that.”

“We can’t afford to lose. We have to give up, it’s the only way any of us will be spared.”

Tadhg walked back up the stairs in a daze. He reached the gun deck first, where the crew was scrambling to ready artillery. 

“Don’t - don’t. We’re surrendering.”

He didn’t say it loud enough first, when only a few people slowed and looked at him. 

“HALT! PREPARE FOR A SURRENDER! CAPTAIN’S ORDERS!”  he barked. Stunned faces of disbelief looked back at him. Some folks didn’t even stop preparations. A woman with long black hair dropped an armful of knives unceremoniously onto the floor.

“Are you having a fucking craic?” 

Tadhg stifled a nervous laugh.

“‘Fraid no’.”

Blackjack stared at him for a long moment, finally deciding he wasn’t joking.

“Fuck. Fuck!”

She kicked the heap on the floor she had dropped, scattering knives and cutlasses of various sizes around the deck. 

Tadhg walked numbly back to the main deck, where he repeated his order to a similarly mixed success. His boots weighed a thousand pounds with each step he took to the mast, kicking the trunk at its base open and pulling the heavy cream canvas from its depths. In case of emergencies. 

The crew of The Great Deceptor had never raised the white flag before.

Tadhg had been sure he’d be dead before he’d see it happen. He stared at the fabric in his hands for a moment as if it might speak to him. He hoped he might have some moment of clarity, of feeling assured of what to do. None came.

Looking past it, down to the ocean, The Red Dawn was growing closer at an overwhelming rate. It was a calm day, yet the foreign vessel cut the waves like a watersnake. Without the breeze, The Great Deceptor’s white flag hung limply from its post, as if the flag itself had given up its duty, too. Tadhg wondered idly if they’d even see it. 

A heavy hand fell on Tadhg’s shoulder as Captain Red Rowan materialized behind him, fully dressed. He seemed to consider saying something encouraging, before abandoning the idea to a morbid silence. The crew around him drifted about like ghosts, eying the raised flag as a terrible omen. 

The free ocean miles around them, and yet, nowhere to go.

~

When The Red Dawn grew close, Tadhg could see the water ripple oddly around her flanks, and she pitched forward quicker than the wind could carry her. When they were close enough to see people on board, he realized the movement was propelled by a row of blue painted oars feathering out from low on each side. From any distance, they blended in easily with the tumultuous waters. The oars retreated into the boat smoothly as it drew up side-to-side with them, leaving no trace. Able to be hidden when docking, so no one would know their secret.

No one who would survive. 

They boarded with a ferocity, even though The Great Deceptor’s crew stood by with anxious idleness. The deck swarmed with foreign members, quickly taking flank along the ship to guard the length. Their captain came last, and Tadhg’s heart sank. Phantom White stepped onto the deck in a long leather coat, bleached white like bone. His face obscured by his signature leather mask, tucked neatly into his hat. His eyes were dark gems in their shadows, and when they reached Tadhg, it felt like they were boring holes through him. 

“I offer no struggle, only a bargain.” Rowan called. 

That got White’s attention then, and he made his slow way over to Wild. He came to a stop within conversational distance, his masked face unreadable, still silent. 

“I offer my ship and my crew in exchange for my life.”

Tadhg’s heart stopped, and he broke his best menacing face to stare at Wild Red in disbelief.

“Not a member of your crew will be harmed, and our bounty is yours. I can-”

Rowan was interrupted with a hard punch to the jaw, and Tadhg was stunned to realize it was delivered from his own fist. 

“You fish bellied fucking coward!”

His hand instinctively went to his side, drawing his cutlass and thrusting it into the air.

“ERIN GO BRAGH, FIGHT YOU DOGS!”

Chaos broke around them as the crew scrambled for arms, some forgoing them in favor of ripping at the invaders with their bare hands.

Tadhg had a fleeting moment of hope, a single thought that just maybe they had a chance, before Phantom White’s blade cut his hand into two halves with a single blow. Tadhg’s favorite sword clattered to the deck, and a leather-clad arm grabbed him about the throat, pulling his head into a crushing embrace. He frantically clawed at the arm, but his cut hand’s fingers flopped backwards unnaturally. With some wriggling he managed to tuck his chin under his grip and he bit down, his teeth sinking into the thick supple leather and catching him easily. There was a blinding hit to the back of his head, and night fell suddenly for Tadhg.

~

He woke up to darkness again, a blindfold wrapped thickly around his eyes. As he collected his thoughts, he recognized he was upright, sitting bound to a chair, probably from the captain’s quarters. His head throbbed in waves of pain, and the agony from his hand was so intense that he clenched his fist on instinct, as if to pull away from the sensation. 

His hand was bound tightly together, pinned behind his back with his other fist. His jaw ached from a knotted rag stuffed into his mouth, keeping his jaw forced open and held in with a tightly bound rag around his head. He moaned in discomfort, shaking his head to try to dislodge the makeshift device and his whole head pulsed in pain. He prodded at the gag with his tongue, but it was caught behind his teeth and he struggled to bite down. 

The bony back of a hand smashed the left side of his face, startling him into plaint submission as he searched sightlessly for his captor.

“Quite the excitement you had today, dear boy.” A rough voice spoke, low and timely.

“Mhhhhhnnnnhhhhwwhhhnnn,” Tadhg articulated back. 

A low chuckle. 

“You tried your best, but your crew was easily overwhelmed.”

Tadhg’s heart sank into his stomach. He didn't even get to go out fighting with his crew.

“They didn’t go without a fight, though. Gave me a few positions to refill, and I find myself suddenly in need of a new right hand man.”

Tadhg told him precisely how much he could go fuck himself, but all that came out was muffled sounds of anger. 

The striking hand patted his cheek.

“You do fight like a dog. I could use a mutt. Or, I could chum what’s left of your crew. I’ll give you some time to think about it. 

Tadhg swallowed with some difficulty around the rag, but sat still.

“I have to finish a few negotiations with your good ol’ cap, and we can seal it.”

Tadhg wasn’t sure what would be required to “seal it”, but he didn’t have much choice. He listened to the creak of the wood as this - new captain stalked away.

New. Because with a sinking feeling, he already knew. He would take the deal. Of course he would. He only hoped there actually were surviving members of his crew left to be saved. 

He rolled the memory over in his mind like the last sip of whiskey in his mouth. His Captain, stoned and stumbling, unwilling to lift a finger towards their survival. A little more “all for one” than “one for all”. Back in the day Wild Red Rowan slaughtered vikings and freed their slaves. Freed then, with nowhere to go, Tadhg had joined his crew with an unwavering loyalty. 

A loyalty that had brought him up through the ranks fast. 

A loyalty that may very well have just cost the entire ship their lives. 

He hung his aching head. 

Less rhino horn could ruin better men than his temperamental leader. But Tadhg was devoted, and it regularly earned him a place in the Captain’s bed just long enough to be used for what he was good for. He felt heavy with shame to think on those nights now, and where it had landed him. 

He dozed off in the chair somehow, this knowledge only gleaned when he was startled awake with a hand squeezing his sore jaw. 

“Enough beauty rest. Your captain has agreed to a most generous offer.”

Tadhg raised his blind, heavy head, and the hand released him. 

“As for you… you’ll serve on my ship. Ten year’s debt. Many of your kin here have accepted. What say you?”

Tadhg gnawed on the gag and finally nodded. His heart sank with his submission, knowing the little freedom he’d been given had been sold away again so easily. 

Tugging at the back of his head, strands of hair rip free with the rope binding. The wrap around his eyes loosens and falls, and he blinks harshly against the oil lamps illuminating the room. As they adjusted, he struggled to understand what he saw.

Phantom White, sitting on the edge of Red’s bed. His white coat splattered with blood and gore, some still shining wet in the light. In place of his white mask was a crude red mass, the edges secured with sinew around his head. Out of the gruesome mess, Tadhg recognized a human face. The scar on his nose… no. No.

His captain’s face, the flayed skin stretched into a gruesome mask. 

Bile rose in his throat, only kept down by the gag. The lips were swollen and split, stretched brutally around the new captain’s own mouth, the hollow eye sockets grimly forced open around dark eyes underneath. What he could see of the face beneath was painted in blood that had begun to tacky in the cool salt air. 

He screamed in his gag then, like a rabbit in the jaws of a wolf. Screamed with a terror that dripped down his leg. The twisted mask of Rowan’s face bulged around the ties securing it around Phantom White’s head. The bloody fileting knife still was held in one hand, viscera caked down to the end of the handle and smeared in his palms. Tadhg rocked backwards in his chair as hard as he could, barely gaining another inch away from the monster before him. 

“You don’t think I wear it as fine as him? He might still like it back, though he has grown quiet since.”

Phantom drew an orange from his pocket and raised his blade, splitting the fruit in two with a practiced flick. He opened his mouth - both mouths - wide enough to sink his teeth into the flesh, the smell of sugar cutting through the stench of blood as the juice dripped down both chins. 

Tadhg sobbed and wretched dryly, thankful of his empty stomach.

“You’ll do what the fuck I say, when I say it.”

Tadhg nodded again, heart hammering. He could not cease the tears of sheer terror tracking down his cheeks and soaking into his gag.

White drew closer, drawing whimpers and sobs from Tadhg as the bound man struggled in vain to pull away from the advancing captain. 

His peeling face loomed close to his and Tadhg closed his eyes, anticipating teeth to tear his own in shreds. \

The knife dug into his cheek and he shrieked as it carved down, the acid of the orange stinging like salt in the wound. It split through the wrap around his mouth and withdrew, the sides falling away from his face and releasing his gag. 

He opened his eyes wide and saw him staring back, deep set eyes under his fleshy disguise. Phantom’s bloody hand covered his mouth before he could spit out the knot over his tongue.

“We have a deal. The only thing I want to hear out of your fucking mouth is “Yes, Captain.” Are we clear?”

Tadhg nodded, trembling. Paralyzed under his grip. 

The hand released and he spat out the last of the gag, struggling down a swallow to clear his throat.

“You’re mine now.”

Phantom’s face loomed closer and pressed the limp, bloody lips of a corpse’s face against his. An invading tongue pressed against his lips, coaxing his own mouth open to accept the kiss. 

Numbed by shock, Tadhg accepted, and a warm tongue pushed into his mouth, tasting of blood and oranges. The kiss deepened, and then pulled back, a string of red spit breaking between their mouths as they parted.