The Pirate King - 4. Chapter 4

I wiped my face with the inside of my shirt as I moved down the hall. I felt good, at least for the first few steps. Then the full weight of my proclamation hit my body.

I felt myself going down, right there in the hall. I traced my hand down the wall as my knees buckled beneath me. What was this, this sick ripping feeling passing through my stomach and bleeding into my soul, this sudden void inside my head, the way my lungs wouldn’t take air? I gasped, crouched there in the hall, somehow lower than the floor. Lower than the seabed. If this was control, I thought, I didn’t want it anymore.

But the damage was already done. I didn’t make threats that I couldn’t keep, and I didn’t say things that I didn’t mean. The Captain would never touch me again. The loss was like a sledgehammer to my soul.

I managed to drag myself into the kitchen. Cookie took one look at me and sat me down on a chair, fixing me up a hot bowl of porridge and draping a warm towel over my shoulders. I set down the bowl without touching a bite and set myself to chopping onions. I wanted something to do with my hands, and if tears came from my eyes then the onions were potent and I was not to blame.

Ah, who was I to lie? I cried, there in the kitchen. There is no shame in that. I was a man of the sea. The sea is salty, and men like me are to blame. That was what Minnie always told me when I used to cry in her kitchen over a sunset, or the death of a seal pup I had been nursing. There is no shame in tears shed at sea, by men such as me, because we are the sea and we must return something to her. She expects as much. To do anything else would be sacrilege.

You mustn't cry on land, though. The land is greedy and already steals so much that the sea has to offer. Those years I had spent on land, in the mines, I hadn’t shed a single tear. Not through all the horrors I had seen, not through all the pain they had put me through. I had guarded the sea jealously in my chest, and it drove my captors mad. A small victory, maybe, but you can survive on small victories. They can get you through.

I had no taste for victory that day. Everything was loss, and I let myself lose the sea the same way. It wasn't just the Captain; it was the whole of it, the way my plan had fallen to shreds, the fact that I needed a plan at all, the fear that I might never be who I was meant to be again. The pain I had felt for years, with dirt under my feet where there should have been water, stale air where I should have found ocean breezes. The rage at the man who made it so. Who had made me a ghost, who had killed me and foolishly believed that would be enough to keep him safe.

I had held it in for so long and it felt good to release. I was at sea again, Cookie was a friend, the pain was fresh and my soul was raw. Minnie had always taught me that a single tear in a bowl of soup was enough to bring a man to heel. If that was true, the soup we served to the men that night could have brought an army to its knees.

The men must have been surprised to see me there, released again from the captivity they believed me to be under, but they were hungry and my presence in the kitchen meant they were fed faster so no one said anything. I was silent as I ladled out their soup, Cookie in the back making sure we had enough of everything. The crying had done me good; I felt empty, drained of anything I wanted to feel. This allowed me to begin steeling myself, visualizing my plans and trying to understand what would come next. How I would live without the Captain, who didn’t love me, who would use me so easily, who now would never do so again. Cookie left me be.

There was quiet chatter through the room as the men ate, obviously hungry after pushing their ship to catch the British charter earlier. But there wasn’t the air of excitement that would usually come with a successful capture, and I watched them carefully as they spoke in hushed tones, turning talismen and crossing themselves when they thought the others weren’t looking.

When all the men were served, I grabbed a bowl for myself and moved out into the mess to take my seat.

I found Finn in the same place as at breakfast. Breakfast seemed so long ago, so much having happened in the interim. Without waiting for an invitation I settled myself next to him.

There was a pause in the conversation as the men around me took in my bulk, my quiet blankness, the exhausted turn of my shoulders. The man across from me opened his mouth, perhaps thinking of saying something. I met his eyes steadily and he lowered his gaze, if only a little. It was enough for me at that moment, and I put him from my mind. Land boys, I thought. No threat to me. Slowly, as I spooned soup into my mouth, the conversation resumed.

“I’m telling you,” Finn was saying to the small guy across from me. His eyes, in turn, were still on me, a hooded gaze that was taking in every part of my affect. “Weren’t natural. All them men, killed just like that. And before we even got there?” He drew back and shook his head, drawing the other man’s eyes from me.

“You want me to be afraid of a ghost, Finn? No such thing.”

“Then explain the ship.”

A third man chimed in. “Aye, or the flag.”

Finn leaned forward so far his shirt was in danger of falling into his soup. “Ghosts, boy. I’m telling you, t’were ghosts.”

“Naught but one, I heard.” They tensed at my voice. Perhaps I sounded different than the morning; perhaps they simply hadn’t expected me to speak. Then Finn leaned forward, eyes big, and pointed to me.

“Man knows what he’s speaking of.”

The man across from me, the small one, grinned and leaned back. “Don’t encourage him, big guy.”

“Twenty men dead, Natch. All left said they saw him, you can’t say that doesn’t strike true.” Finn turned and spat twice over his left arm, a very old and supposedly very potent guard against evil spirits. I took another bite of soup. “If it weren’t the ghost, then what could it have been?”

The small man, whose name must have been Natch, smiled again, a sharp and not at all joyful expression. “The King, I ‘spose.”

The whole table blanched. There was a second of complete and utter silence, and then they all spoke at once.

“Not funny, boy.”

“Cap hears you speakin’ like that, he’ll have you thrown off for sure.”

“The King is in the north and he’ll remain there so long as we remain here.”

“Aye, and by all the seas we will never return, I want to keep my head, thank you very much.”

Natch just shrugged. “Cap won’t care much what I say or don’t. He’s got to be thinking the same thing after the flag went up. And besides, he’s got other things on his mind.” He chinned air at my form.

I froze as all the eyes at the table turned towards me.

I very quietly put my spoon back into my soup and met Natch’s eyes. I didn’t like where this was headed, knew from this morning that there were men not happy with the way the Captain had taken to me. Or, I revised my thought, had taken me. It was a more possessive thing than a caring one, and I felt my soul keen even as my body bristled. I wasn’t in the mood to fight this fight, not now. “I’m sorry?” I asked, in the least threatening voice I could muster. Finn still pulled away from me.

“You are sleeping with the Captain, are you not?” he asked. His voice held something that I couldn’t yet identify, but I kept it close by in case it was dangerous. “Jake and Murr and Ichor saw you.”

“I was,” I told him.

“Some are saying that it was not your idea,” he continued quietly. My eyes darted up to his, surprised both at his directness and at the statement. Not my idea? Then who’s idea did that make it? The kid was leaning on his elbow and looking over at me, his eyes bright and light and hiding everything I wanted to learn. The air around us was taut with implications I didn’t think I was understanding. “They say he had you tied.”

I looked to Finn. He wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Big guy,” the lad continued. He was quiet, so quiet, and yet there was something so loud about his voice. It carried over the din of the other men. “I just need to know. Did you say yes?”

I immediately bristled, the implications crystallizing all at once. It felt like an attack on the Captain's character, after all the care he'd taken to ensure the opposite was true. Did these men know nothing of the man I loved? “You have so little faith in your Captain?” I snapped. I couldn’t keep the anger from my voice. Couldn’t keep the accusation from my eyes. I turned my gaze back to my soup and tried to stay what they wanted me, a prisoner, a nothing, but it was hard when the whole of the sea was pressing against the inside of my skin.

“No," Natch said quietly. "It's just I have so little faith in men.”

Those words dropped into my sea so quickly that I almost missed them. But I am not an idiot, not always, and the meaning slowly rippled out, expanding with the way he had said it, the quiet way he watched me. The gentle way he pretended he wasn’t just as hard as I had once been, as I had become again.

I swallowed down soup and ocean and brought my eyes up to his. His was a younger face than I’d thought at first, clear blue eyes holding things I was no longer sure I wanted to understand. I nodded to show my recognition of his words, slowly draining myself of the anger and the salty waves I had let rise unchecked. I found myself giving him the truth. “I said yes.” I kept this moment between us as well as I could, my grey eyes locking with his brown. “But now it is over.”

He watched me carefully, maybe looking for signs of me lying. Then I watched tension drain from his body, tension I hadn’t even noticed him holding. It was as if my words had reached out and pulled a small plug from his shoulders, allowing the thing he had been carrying within him to run out. His face returned to the boyish calm he had carried earlier. I don’t know that anyone else saw it; it was a subtle change in a gregarious person.

“Good.” He smiled, a bright and careful symbol fading into relief. “Ah; that’s very good.”

He explained it me later, after we’d become friends. He would have left the ship if I had told him that the Captain had taken me without consent. I’ve no room in my life for men like that, he’d said. Men who take without asking. Not anymore. All of those spaces have already been claimed.

At that time, all I knew was he was hard, and bright, and knew how to hide the things that grew inside of him until he needed them. I respected that. I reached across the table to shake his hand.

“Natch, right?”

He nodded. “Didn’t catch your name, big guy.”

I shook his hand and smiled soft.

He smiled back into my silence. “This is what’s real, boys. Flesh and blood and large as life. Larger, even.”

I let my smile fade and turned back to my soup. I wasn’t real, not truly. Not anymore.

“You’re the only ghost here, aren’t you? Coming aboard with nothing, making your way through our rank. All silent and brooding.”

One of the other men laughed. “Maybe, but at least if he attacks we’ll always be able to see him coming!”

I met Natch’s eyes for only a moment more before dropping them back to my soup. Let them have their jokes. They had no reason to know they should fear my hands.

Conversation soon turned back to the ship and the flag that had flown.

“It’s the King’s, alright.” Natch ignored Finn’s attempts to shush him. “Or some version of it.”

“Made up in blood,” one of the other men added.

Natch nodded, face very serious. “The King wouldn’t like that. Waste of precious materials he’d rather drink up.”

The man he was talking to looked like he wasn’t sure if he should believe him or not. I felt a smile tug at the corners of my mouth.

Finn, a more serious expression on his face, spoke up. “Wouldn’t much like the survivors either. Or that we left the ship standing. He’s a cruel, cruel man, the king.”

“I heard he once took a slave ship, and killed the entire crew and still sold the slaves at port.”

“He killed a sea god, you know. Drank his blood. Made him immortal.”

I ate quietly as they spun tales around me. If these men conflated the old King with the new, what was it to me? They probably thought there was only one king, had only ever been one. The illusion was carefully kept; it had to be. Power must pass quietly, or people might view the new king as weak. I took bite as another story that was a mix of the two men landed on my ears. The Pirate King is dead, I thought quietly. Long live the Pirate King.

“He slept with a hundred harlots, just to father a son.”

“Nonsense; you’re thinking of the sirens, boy.”

“They say those that lay with him are condemned, that his semen contains the souls of the innocent he’s killed.”

“Bullshit.”

“No, Finn’s right. You mustn’t drink the Pirate King’s cum.”

“As if you’d ever get the chance.”

“If I did get the chance, I’d take it.”

“To what? Sleep with the Pirate King?”

“And you wouldn’t?”

“What about the cursed semen? What if it were true?”

“Christ, lad, then I’d spit!”

Eventually they wore themselves out of gossip and campfire stories, and the men began to file from the mess to their respective evening duties. I began to gather various bowls and cups left strewn about, getting ready to help Cookie with the cleaning.

“Hey, big guy.” I didn’t answer at first. Why would I? Who would want me in this place? When the voice called again, more insistent, I looked up to find Natch leaning in the door frame. “Since we didn’t get a fight today from the ship, couple of us guys were going to head to the deck and whack at each other. You in?” He smirked. “The guys are curious about the man that keeps the Captain’s interest. Figure this is the only way they can touch you without Cap right about killing them.”

Keep the Captain’s interest. Not anymore, I thought. I looked down at the dishes in my hands. My muscles ached from my long swim and the battle I had stolen from these men; it would be foolish to go and make up the fight I had already single-handedly contained.

“Yeah,” I heard myself say. “I’ll be up in moment.”

He beamed, rapping on the doorframe. “Awesome. See you up there, Ghost.” He was gone before I processed what he’d decided to call me.

“Cap will kill any of them if they hurt you,” Cookie said from behind me. I shrugged and handed off the dishes, apologizing for not helping. He looked aghast that I would even consider such a task my duty. Even so, only when all the dishes were stacked next to the sink did I head up to the deck.

 

***

 

The sunset stretched thick and heavy across the sky as I emerged from the ship. I had never seen such a tangible sky, so close and physical. Reds bled into orange with a texture that I breathed in deeply, trying to cement them into my soul. I wanted to climb into the ropes and become one with the dripping colors, press myself up until I no longer existed as a body.

Natch caught sight of my form and broke away from the moving figures on the deck. I didn’t pay them any attention; the sky was indistinguishable from the sea, and I was the sea, and I was trying to figure out if that then made me the sky.

Natch noticed my concentration and traced it up to the highest reaches of the sails. “Ah,” he said. “You a ropes guy?”

There was irony in that statement, maybe, or at least a double entendre, but I only heard the meaning that mattered to me then. I nodded.

“We’ll get you back up there in no time.” He pulled me over to the sparring men, and I was given a wooden blade and set up against a mediocre fighter. I fought well, but not too well. If he had a good thrust I let it land; if he had a good block, I let it hold me at bay. There was no need for these men to see what I was capable of. This was temporary. I would only be with them until they dropped me off at their next stop, or decided to kill me.

If they decided to kill me, it was important they did not expect me to be what I was.

Besides, the sky was distracting. It shifted colors around me, holding my interest better than any of these men ever could.

When they tired, we all made our way back below decks. Natch slid up to me, his grin flashing as sharp as any sword.

“Impressive.”

I shrugged. It wasn’t really.

He caught me still staring up into the ropes. A sly grin crossed his face. “You want to go up?”

I nodded.

“Come on, then.”

He led up me to the base of the rigging and we climbed to the sky. Night had come to pass while we were training, the first stars beginning to show. I moved through the ropes behind Natch, only letting myself move as fast as he did, trying to make my movements look like his. He climbed well, for one not born to it. I almost could believe he was born for the sea.

But I was a child of the sea, and these men had nothing on me. I settled at his pace and my soul ached at being constrained.

He stopped halfway up and fashioned himself a sort of hammock from the ropes. I watched him, leaning comfortably a bit away against the mast. I waited for him to speak, but he was quiet watching the stars appear. I appreciated his silence and turned my own gaze to the sky, finally feeling myself begin to relax.

After a long time, he spoke. “You climb well.”

I shrugged. He had seen nothing.

“Where do you come from?”

“The sea,” I told him truthfully. He smiled at that.

We sat for a little longer in the creaking of the ship. Then he turned to me. “Where will you stay tonight.”

“The Captain’s quarters, I suppose.”

“I thought you said it was over.”

I did not allow my face to change, did not allow my body to react. “I have nowhere else to stay.”

I felt his eyes take in my body. I am neutral, I told myself. I washed him from me in the sea. I cried his salt from my soul.

“If it’s too much, we could find an extra hammock in the barracks.”

The thought of sleeping without the Captain filled me with panic. “No,” I quickly answered. Natch blinked. “No,” I repeated more slowly, more in control. I leaned back and closed my eyes.

“Damn,” Natch said quietly. I heard him chuckle. “You’ve got it bad.”

If someone had spoken to me like that three years ago, I would have taken their jaw from their face. But here, I felt powerless. And wasn’t it true? I simply scowled in the face of his words as he shook his head.

“Well,” he said, stretching. “Let’s get you back.”

 

***

 

When we reached the deck, he looked over to me. “You’ll come train with us tomorrow?”

I shrugged. I was lost on this ship. I didn’t know where I would be tomorrow, let alone what I would be doing. “If I’m still here,” I finally confirmed.

He laughed at that. “Okay. See you then, Ghost.”

I stayed up on deck a little longer, watching the last threads of red light drift into the curtain of night sky. The darkness did little to relieve the heaviness that I was feeling. Going back in felt like a terrible idea; the only thing waiting for me was the Captain’s bed, and I had no intention of returning there.

But where else could I go?

I sighed and pulled myself up. There was nothing for it. I needed to sleep, and that was where I slept. I made my way to the Captain’s chambers.

I was saved the indignity of knocking by Finn bustling from the door, leaving it ajar behind him as he rushed down the corridor. He caught sight of me and shook his head. “Cor, boy, avoid him if you can. Mood as sour as the sea in heat.”

That did not bode well for me. I nodded my understanding and made the rest of my way down the hall.

The room was ominously silent when I reached the entranceway. I slowly pushed open the door and entered.

The Captain was sitting on the edge of the bed. His shirt was askew, and the sight of his body sent my heart careening wildly. I bid it stop, but when had my heart ever listened to my commands? It was his to control, I understood that by now. His head was in his hands, wild curls springing past his fingers and covering his face. Across from his body, the remains of his dinner were slowly sliding down his wall, adorned with the shards of a bowl or cup. It all pooled together at the junction of floor and paneling. In the scattered remains, I could recognize the soup I had made.

I moved into the room. As I did the hinges on the door made a noise, or maybe it was my footfalls that betrayed me. Either way, he knew I was there and stood suddenly, spinning to see me.

He took me in, eyes wild. I let him stare at me from the distance he kept. He looked beautiful, his chest heaving in surprise and perhaps the vestiges of the anger that had caused him to throw his dinner.

“You came back.” He sounded so surprised, his voice light and breathless. My own breath hitched to hear it.

“Where else would I have gone?” I found that my voice was much more calm than I’d expected. I was safe with him; I was where I belonged. He was the sunset I had just left, and I was the sea. I found the answer to the questions I had asked there in his eyes.

“I thought…” He made a small gesture but seemed to not be able to finish the sentence. “Finn told me what you said at dinner.”

I was silent. I had said a lot at dinner, for me. I made a note to be more careful what I said around Finn.

“Then he said you left with the other men.”

“I was sparring.”

“It made it seem like. Because you didn’t want me anymore. You could have gone back with one of them, to their beds.” His eyes were so intense, his face trying to hold in such anger. To hear him say that, to hear him think I didn’t want him? It sent shock waves through my core. I wanted to kiss him so badly, then, to assure him that I would never go to another man’s bed, that he had me forever. The sensation so extreme that my hand flew to my lips to try and keep it in.

We stood like that, me touching my lips wishing my hand was his mouth, wishing I didn’t want him so badly, him staring so intently I thought I might turn directly to smoke. Good, I thought. If he breathes me in, it doesn’t count as touching.

I broke from my thoughts with a sharp breath. “Your dinner.” The path to the bathroom and the cloths that could clean the mess he had made was dangerously close to his body, but I set my eyes straight ahead and began to move my feet.

“Leave it.” He put his hand out feebly towards me. “Finn will get it in the morning.” I emerged from the wash room, damp cloth in hand. “Hey, I said -” He stopped as I dodged his touch, staring at the space that should have held us. Slowly, he sat back down on the bed to watch me clean up the mess he had made.

“If you didn’t like it, I could have made you something else.”

“No, it was.” He watched me for a moment. “It was not the soup.”

He sat there. I tried not to really look at him; I didn’t know what I would do. We were too close, too close... “You made it?” he asked.

“Yes, with Cookie.”

He returned his face to his palms. “It was not the soup.” I thought I heard him mutter, “Can I do nothing right?” but his voice was quiet and muffled by the fleshy bits of hands that should be on my body, holding me tight and making me feel unimaginable pleasure and I chose to focus on the soup and shards of pottery.

When I finished, I made my retreat across the room to the chair that sat at the desk. I waited for him to speak.

“It’s late,” came his voice. It was low and graveling and drew me towards him. I gripped the arms of the chair to help me to remain still. “Best go to sleep.”

“Yes,” I agreed. I didn’t move towards the bed.

He turned to me. He looked a little better than he had, comforted by my presence perhaps. He shouldn’t have been. And yet here I was, comforted by him, made so uncomfortable by him. I didn’t allow myself to look at him again.

“Hey.” He spoke so softly. “Come to bed.” I would have sworn that he was begging but for the firmness in his voice. My body began to respond; I wanted to submit to him, wanted to give him everything that he wanted. I pressed myself against the chair and shook my head.

“Sailor.” Sailor still, I thought a little unkindly. That’s a step up from prisoner at least. My frustration helped me to resist his insistent tone. “Come to bed.”

Not the bed, I thought, panicked. The bed was his. If I went to bed, I would be lost to him. “I think I’ll sleep here tonight.” I heard him stand; he was coming over to me. My entire body tensed, I hadn't realized my body could tense further than it had, and yet...

“I thought,” he murmured as he drew closer, “you said you would do whatever I asked.”

“I did.” My eyes slowly raised to his. Dark curls blocked most of his gaze, and I thanked the gods of the sea and whatever other gods there might be for that, because I don’t think I could have resisted the look of need that he was giving me otherwise. As it stood, his gaze blocked and my need only half killing me with each breath, I was able to tell him, “But I also told you that I would never let you hurt me.”

When I said that, something flashed over his face. Surprise? Anger? Regret? It was over too quickly for me to see it in full, but it was strong enough within him to cause him to draw back. There was a long stretch of time where perhaps each of us was waiting on the other to act. Then, he slowly collapsed, his muscles releasing the taut construction that had always graced his physique. It was as if he was becoming undone, all the strings that pulled him together becoming unknotted one by one.

“Okay,” he said, in a voice so reserved I wasn’t even sure he’d said anything until he repeated it. “Okay.” He moved back towards the bed.

“You’ll need to tie me up.” He froze, his entire body turning to ice. It wasn’t like the tension had returned, he just froze as he was.

I don’t know why I said it, except that my whole body was tense and I was still so angry, and this would bring him closer to me and would also hurt him like he had hurt me. I could have taken pity on him, I suppose, could have let him just go to bed, but I still remembered the way I had felt earlier that day, the way he had told me so casually that he would use me. I needed to protect myself, I lied. I needed to be firm, needed to prove I still had some control. My mind conveniently forgot how much control had hurt me. “I’m still a prisoner.”

“I’ll find rope,” he voiced after a pause so long I thought he must have thawed. He hadn’t. He moved through the room, popsicle limbs swinging on loose ropes, unhinged and uncomfortable to see, so I just stopped looking. Turning my gaze away didn’t make the pit in my stomach any smaller. Making it so I couldn’t see his body didn’t make my soul ache any less. And when he reached my side and knotted me to my chair, I made sure I didn’t look at his hands so close to mine.

He stood, inspecting his work. Or maybe inspecting me. I finally looked up to his face, and saw that he had his hands in his hair, drawing his brows smooth with the force of his frustration. “Are you comfortable?” he asked.

“More than I would be in your bed,” I answered, unkindly. But not untruthfully.

His hands moved to cover his eyes. “Fuck,” I saw him mouth. No sound emerged from his throat. Then, he retreated to his bed, where despite my attempts to not look at him I watched him curl into a small ball and pull the covers over his chin.

If he fell asleep that night, it wasn’t before me.

 

***

 

We were awoken the next morning by a knock on the door. Finn had brought breakfast, and the day’s briefings. I watched the Captain rise from his bed, his hair gloriously ruffled, his pants disheveled. Sometime in the night he had shed his shirt. His bare chest caught the morning light through the window of his room, golden and warm.

The sight proved too much for me. I untied myself and moved past the duo in the doorway as quickly as I could, taking pains not to touch my body to the Captain’s smaller one.

“Sailor!” I heard him call after me as hurried off towards the kitchen. “SAILOR!”

But I was gone.

Cookie welcomed me into his kitchen and we prepared breakfast. The work settled my hands, anchored my soul to the convictions I had set. When the men came I sat with Natch and Finn, then went up to the deck and found work coiling ropes and cleaning the decks. Wicky wouldn’t allow me to touch anything else, and I was fine with that. This place wasn’t worth trying to get a foothold into, I figured. I would be gone before any of that mattered, in one way or another.

Lunch was more of the same. I moved down before the others, helped Cookie prepare, then served the rest of the men as they came down from the deck and up from below. The chatter was the same. I sat down next to Finn. He turned to me, face twisted and turned to worry.

“The Captain,” he started to say, his voice low. Then all noise stopped.

I didn’t need to turn around to know what happened; the drop of temperature told me enough. The feeling of eyes on my shoulder, icy and hot at the same time.

Silently, I stood and returned to the kitchen. It was my job to serve the men; he was one of the men. The room watched me make my way, then watched the Captain slowly follow me. I could track him by the pockets of silence he drew around him. When he reached the window, I turned.

He looked magnificent, as always. I didn’t let myself get distracted by his bare chest, or by his soft lips. What were those things to me? I stared instead into his eyes, daring him to see him this time, to actually see me. I loved him, and he would not use that for his pleasure. I wrote that on my face and dared him to read it.

When he met my eyes back with eyes so broken, so torn, filled with things held just at the cusp of spilling into mine, it was I who dropped my gaze.

I moved through the kitchen, finding what was needed. Was he here to torture me, to try and wear me down? He had never come to the mess before, had never asked me to serve him like this. I would, of course. I would serve him however he wanted, my body told me, even as my brain screamed that this was another of his cruelties, that he had come to try and get me to crawl back to him.

He held out a bowl.

My hands took it from him, gently, carefully. My ladle filled it with soup. I could feel his eyes on me the whole time, watching me, waiting for something. I wouldn’t give it to him. I had borne greater torture than this and come out the other side intact. Whatever he held in his eyes, I didn’t fucking need it.

He put his hands out to receive the bowl...

Which I put down on the counter inches from his hand. “Your soup,” I told him. Then I raised my eyes to his and finished my gesture with a very soft and very hard, “sir.”

If I had been watching his hands, I would have seen them turn white as he clenched them into fists. If I had been watching his face, I would have seen it fall, just a moment, before he was able to catch it. But I wasn’t. I was studiously watching the air just over his shoulder, ignoring his presence before me. I was busy lying to both of us and pretending that he had become nothing to me.

It was not a very convincing lie.

He reached out and took the bowl. He waited just a moment more, then he turned and made his way from the silent room.

It was a small miracle in and of itself that I was able to wait until he was out of the door before collapsing behind the counter, the weight of everything he created inside of me sucking me down and pulling me in.

“Oh, all the stars in the sky.” Cookie was beside me in an instant. “My boy, what have you done.”

What had I done? I buried my face in my hands and listened to the gossip erupting in the vacuum the captain had left in his wake.

“I saw the marks on your neck,” Cookie was continuing, “but I didn’t really think.” I could hear him shifting before me. “Have you fallen for him?”

I didn’t respond.

“For all the -” He took my hands from my face. “Boy, you listen to me. This can’t continue.”

“I know,” I told him.

“It’s dangerous.”

“I know,” I told him again.

“No, boy.” Cookie was practically vibrating. “You don’t. All due respect to you, but you truly don’t.”

I looked up into his little pinched face as he took a deep breath. “The captain is nameless.”

I think I scared him when I set my head back against the counter and laughed, the irony of fate driving itself through my gut like a knife.

 

***

 

Cookie got me calmed down eventually. He sent me out into the mess, a fresh bowl of soup in my own hands, and told me to “go find yourself a nice named boy who isn’t destined to kill you.”

It hadn’t seemed worth it to explain to Cookie that I wasn’t that person anymore. That I was now nameless too. He seemed invested in me being the person he wanted and besides, I hadn’t had much luck lately of convincing others that I was not the person they had created in their heads.

“Holy shit,” Natch greeted me with. I put my bowl on the table and ignored him.

“I’m sorry,” Finn said, leaning over to me. “I was going to warn you.”

“I thought you said it was over,” Natch continued.

“It is.” I tried to take a bite of my soup but found that it tasted like dust in my mouth. I couldn’t let him get to me like this, not when we were stuck on the same ship. I rolled the soup about in my mouth, feelings mounting.

“That,” he said, pointing to the direction that the Captain had gone, “is not over.”

I slammed my spoon on the table and stared him down. He stared back, unconcerned with the hard lines my body was suddenly making. Natch, I remembered too late, was not afraid of ghosts. Well, I thought dangerously, he had seemed worried about the king.

We stayed that way, anger stewing through me like a storm.

I could deal with storms. I could pick them apart, learn which bits of them were real and which of them were bluster. Where it was safe to sail. And this, this was bluster. I wasn’t mad at Natch. I was mad at the Captain, mad at the way I felt him pulling at me still even after he'd left. I was furious at the pain I felt, swirling around inside my gut.

I moved my soup out of the way and put my head down on the table. Natch carefully reached out and put his hand on top of mine.

“It is nothing,” I told them.

“That isn’t true,” Natch told me quietly. “What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter.” I didn't bother to lift my head, speaking to the table. “It’s over now.”

“Yeah.” He patted my hand with his. “Of course it is.”

Finn joined him, patting me on the back. “My boy, it’s best just to tell him. He might even be able to help.”

These men had no right to question me. I stood and gathered my still-full dishes, feeling my bulk pull together harshly. I wasn’t hungry anyway. “There is nothing that can help this.”

As I made my way into the kitchen, I heard Finn mutter, “Oh all bless, this is bad.”

 

***

 

After lunch, it was back to the decks and more of the same work.

It used to be that this was all I needed to be happy. It used to be that I could exist on nothing but salt spray and hard tack, with the occasional battle thrown in for variety.

Yet here I was. Empty. Aching. Thinking of him.

Back down for dinner I went. We prepared a different soup this time, Cookie and I. He joked with me and we chopped and prepped but I wasn’t in the mood. The food was served. The Captain came in, stopping conversation, and I served him. I had never stopped serving him. I wondered if he knew that in the moments I spent filling his bowl. We did not touch or exchange words. I placed the bowl just before him, as before, and he picked it up and left.

“He’s tormenting me,” I told Cookie. He frowned and shook his head as I watched the Captain’s perfect body leave.

I sat with Natch and Finn to eat. Some of the other men had begun to show hostility towards me, their eyes dark and piercing, or perhaps not landing anywhere near me at all. That was fine. The sooner I left this place, the better. In the evening I made my way back up to the deck and trained with Natch and the others; I fought as if I were asleep. These men could not claim my interest. At night the man who could tied me up and I pretended it wasn’t killing me.

The days passed like that. I cooked, I trained, I tried to ignore how the Captain pulled at the parts of me that should have never been allowed to move. Natch and I become very close, often retreating in the evenings to the upper levels of the riggings. He seemed to sense that I needed space from the rest of the ship, a place to get away from it all. We’d push ourselves up against the sky and, when it didn’t break, let ourselves rest, wrapped in rough cords as makeshift hammocks. He climbed almost as quickly as I did, much faster than any of these other land boys. I told him that the second night we went up, my sign of thanks. He laughed and thanked me back by trying to shove me from the air.

The third day I went up to the docks, the Captain came up too.

I thought, for some stupid reason, that we’d made some unspoken agreement to not be in the same place at the same time. I certainly avoided places where he might be like the plague; he seemed to do the same to me, skirting the training club after hours and keeping off the deck, or at least the portions I was working, when he knew I was working. But that day I looked up to find him ducking from the doorway, blinking, his black cloak thrown carelessly over his shoulders doing nothing to cover the skin of his chest.

I froze, my body arrested by the sight of him. I hadn’t seen him like this, caught by the sun and the wind and the sea, dressed as a Captain should be, since the first day my eyes had frozen on him, since the first day my body had demanded him with such intensity I had been propelled onto this ship. He was stunning, his hair spinning around his face and refracting the sun, absorbing the sun. He was a prism and a black hole all at once, and I felt myself unable to escape his influence.

A hand landed on my elbow and I jumped. I looked down into the eyes of Hams, the old tar in charge of my work. “Lad,” he told me sincerely. “You’re staring.”

I scowled and turned away, suddenly conscious of the way the rope hung limp in my hands. Through the day I redoubled my efforts, taking care to make every knot perfect and every coil precise, but between my jobs I stole glances and kept watch across the ship. The Captain moved through the ranks, patting a man here and laughing with another there, never coming anywhere close to me. I was glad for that, I supposed. He wandered through my thoughts all day, inescapable in my mind even when he was not not present in my field of view.

Every time he touched another man, even in camaraderie, I flinched. Every time I heard his laughter and it was not for me, my soul curled up a little tighter.

At one point, I turned a corner and there he was. I was holding four lengthy ropes, weighed down by the immensity of them. Their weight had finally managed to press him from my mind. To see him then was all the worse; it was a slap in the face, a cold blast I was no longer steeled for. At some point his shirt had become further askew, revealing part of his shoulder and collarbone to the relentless sparkle of the sun. Under its influence he was a brilliant force, and I reeled, breath catching in my throat, sweat freezing over my skin as goosebumps crawled with the memory of his touch.

He took me in, sweaty and held down with ropes that were not his. I watched his eyes flick over every part of me and wanted him to like what he saw, even though I was so angry I could have called a thousand storms and ripped them apart with my own hands. I saw his hands clench so tight they turned white and wanted to cry out for forgiveness, even though I didn’t know what I was supposed to be forgiven for.

Then the Captain dropped his eyes and stepped back. His lips pressed together in an emotion I did not recognize, or perhaps did not want to understand. He gestured for me to move where he had been standing, the space now large enough to pass without touching his body. I walked past him and pretended that his gravity did not weigh more than all the ropes in the world combined, trying not to imagine his eyes on my back as I moved across the deck.

That night, after training (one man commented in my hearing that the Captain had been too distracted by me during his rounds today, and I threw him so hard for doubting his commander that he refused to spar me again. I had to let the next man throw me so it wouldn’t look like I had any consistency) and after my time in the ropes with Natch (“Do you want to talk about what happened today?” he asked me. I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about and climbed ten feet above him so he could not ask me again), I returned to the Captain’s quarters to find an array of clothes laid out.

“You are working,” the Captain told me.

I stood in the doorway, unsure of how to continue. Of course I was working. What would the Captain have me do? And what did clothes have to do with it?

“I thought. It seems that perhaps, your clothes would need to be changed.” He waved a hand at my form. “You’ve been sweating, I mean. And, you know.”

I looked around me at the rows of shirts and breeches, then looked askance at him.

He frowned, taking in the shirts himself. “I didn’t know your size.”

I continued to look at him.

He threw his hands into the air and disappeared into the washroom. By the time he emerged, I had all the clothing stacked in a single pile and had settled myself, still clad in my original clothes, in his desk chair.

I didn’t need his false kindness. I didn’t need him to try and get me from my clothes. I sat, stubborn and angry, waiting for the ropes he would use not in the way we both craved.

He stopped, taking in the careful pile and the even more careful way I didn’t look him in the eyes. Then he softly made his way over to me and wrapped ropes around my arms and legs. I was sweaty; he was right. I must have smelled badly, and I hoped that would keep him from wanting me, from making a move that would break the walls I had built up around my need for him. He hesitated as he walked behind me to get to my second hand, his head hovering over mind for just a beat too long. I felt my body pulling towards his, my neck stretching even as I fought to pull myself forward.

But he came and knelt beside me, wrapping the rough rope over my wrist. He took longer than he ever had before. I watched his hands tremble, laying more rope than was strictly necessary. I let my eyes follow his hands, telling myself I was just curious about his intentions, that I didn’t want to watch his hand shake to be so close to me.

When he had laid almost four inches of rope over my wrist, he finally finished the knot. He stared at it for a moment, as if considering his next move, then he gently rested his fingers over the rope.

I drew in my breath and he flinched, but his fingers remained. To have his hand so close to my skin, only the rope keeping us from contact, it was torture. I knew what it would feel like to have those fingers against my arm, against my shoulder, my neck, my chest. I wondered if he was imagining the same things, staring down at the rough brown cords that separated our bodies.

“Captain,” I said, unable to take it anymore. My voice sounded hoarse and quiet in the face of everything else that hung in the air.

He didn’t move.

“Captain,” I said again, my breath rushing from my lungs. They weren’t working right, my lungs. Nothing was working right. I didn’t know what I would do if he didn’t move soon. I wanted him so bad, to have him so damn close...

He yanked his hand back like my voice had burned him. His head never came up, his eyes never looking to mine. Instead, he sat back on the ground and rested his face on his knees. I didn’t look at him, or at least I tried not to, but his pain drew me and I found myself watching him, wondering if I could salvage the pieces he had left.

I could, I thought. I didn’t know if he would be able to on his own. I tried to not care, I tried so hard.

He sat like that for so long I thought fish might begin to nest in his wreck, his skeleton becoming part of the new ocean floor. But he drew breath again, a sharp and welcome sound, drawing himself back up. In his motion he refused to look at me, keeping his head turned from my form.

I watched him move back to the bed, watched his tight pants slide over the curve of his ass, his loose shirt barely containing his powerful shoulders. It was hot in the room, and the window was open to let in the breeze causing the shirt to ripple over his body, hiding and revealing his skin and muscles differently as nature decreed.

I was nature, I thought. I was the sea. I could decree.

I took a deep breath and held it, trying to control my thoughts.

He stopped at the bed, and I saw him hesitate. But the room was hot, and he needed to sleep comfortably the same as I did. His hands moved to the bottom of his shirt, playing with the billowing fabric. Then he turned the motion into a decisive one and pulled the ends from his pants, crossing his arms to remove the shirt from his back.

When he slipped it over his head, revealing those shoulders, that back, his muscled waist, all of it bare and perfect I must have made a noise because he froze, his arms extended above his body, trapped there in the fabric of his shirt. He lowered his them slowly, his head making the tiniest of moves towards me. I knew he must be looking back at me, eyes cast over those rippling shoulders in the dim of the room. My torso was pulled forward, my breath arrested in my lungs. Only the smallest bit of oxygen was able to pass my lips, sliding into the thick air pulled so thin, so tight by the sight of him standing there half naked, from the sound of his breathing, from the feel of his eyes. The air was too tight, I realized terrified. At any moment it was going to snap, snap and take me down.

But the Captain didn’t let that happen. He sighed, a quiet sound that tremored through the room and through my body raising goosebumps. His arms raised again, his shirt sliding back over his head, perfect shoulders and spine and back and waist disappearing under white fabric. Then he turned, opening his mouth as if he were going to speak to me.

I turned my head quickly and refused to look at him. It was too much, at that time, to see his face. I didn’t know what I would do, wasn’t in control of my body, my breath. I couldn’t face him, not right then.

I heard him lie back down on the bed, the slats beneath him squeaking. When I dared to look up, he had settled with his back to me, hair splashed across his pillow. My heart beat faster as I traced the curves of his body with my eyes, the rise and fall of his back, the way his shirt had slipped up to reveal just a sliver of skin above his waist.

Somehow, this was worse.

I needed to move. I knew he wasn’t asleep yet; I knew his breaths better than I knew my own, could tell when he was excited, relaxed, could pinpoint the moment when he dropped into deep slumber. He was a light sleeper, and moving at all would often awaken him, but I had learned in the last two nights to time any nighttime wanderings or shifts I might have to cause him minimal disturbance. But tonight, I couldn’t wait. Where I was sitting was killing me; I couldn’t sleep like this, not while I could be watching him. How could I close my eyes when he was right there? I could barely get my body to blink, let alone fall asleep.

My hands were already free, had been since I my heart first started careening. I needed my hands, needed some control from him. Now I reached down and unfastened my feet, finding myself free and able to move.

He tensed at the sound of me standing. I looked over to him, suddenly realizing what I had done. I was free, and he was right there. I could go over to him, I thought. I could lay down beside him, gather him in my arms and pull him close to me, I could press my hands against his back and press my lips to his, or draw his fingers to my waist, or draw my lips to his waist and press them to his…

I grabbed the chair and dragged it bodily across the room, not caring how much noise it made. I wanted to throw it, I wanted to punch the walls, I wanted to let the Captain fuck me and I had promised myself and him that I would not ever let him do that again, not ever let him use me like that. I tossed the chair into the fair corner with such velocity that it spun, toppling over on its side and clattering to the ground. I watched it fall, infuriated that even this chair would not do what I wanted. I wanted to rip it to pieces. I wanted to throw it from the window, except that it did not deserve the sea.

I took a deep breath, crouching down and putting my head in my hands. This was not productive. This was nothing, this was a distraction. I tried to breath through all the things gathering in my lungs and found I almost succeeded. I accepted this as a victory and tried again.

In time I had calmed down enough. The chair was where I had left it, toppled in the corner. As I righted it quietly, I dared to glance over towards the Captain.

His still form froze my veins. He had curled up so tight his face now rested in his knees again, a mirror of the position he had taken at my side. I swallowed to see him there, my hand tight against the handle of the chair. I wondered for a moment if maybe I should apologize for my outburst. It felt like I should, felt like I had done something wrong, but I couldn’t find a way to voice what I was feeling, to lend words to the moment brewing in my gut so I just stayed silent, turning the chair into the corner and settling in for the night.

 

***

 

When the Captain came for breakfast that morning, there was a murmur through the crew. He didn’t look like he’d slept at all, shadows haunting his eyes and a bow to his shoulders that I had never seen. I knew he carried the weight of whatever had happened the night before, that he had sucked the heaviness from the air and taken it all on himself to spare me. The crew only knew that he was bent under something he hadn’t been before.

I hadn’t left the kitchen yet, waiting for him. I knew he would look bad, but I wasn’t prepared for this. The breath left my lungs as I looked at what I had wrought. Behind me, Cookie cursed under his breath.

I took my time filling his bowl, taking in every part of him that I could. He didn’t look at me, instead staring off somewhere into nowhere. I wondered what he was thinking about, if he was thinking about anything. He looked so tired I thought he might be asleep.

“You sleep at all last night?” I asked him quietly. For a moment his gaze snapped up to me angrily, and I blinked at the flash of pure ire in his eyes. Then they softened and he shook his head.

I’m sorry, I thought. But those words had never left my mouth easily, and I wasn’t sure that it had been my fault. I remembered that he was still afraid from the King’s flag, and that he had a life outside of me. I was not his world, not like he was mine. I placed the bowl down before him.

“Hold on,” I said. I rattled through the cabinets for a moment, looking for something. Sure enough, Cookie kept a jar of candied ginger just like Minnie did, right behind the dried cayenne.

I grabbed a few and ignored the dirty look Cookie gave me. I knew that this was his personal stash for hangovers, but I didn’t really give a shit. The Captain had been waiting patiently as I searched, or maybe he was just too tired to move. I walked back to the counter and put the candied ginger down next to his bowl.

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t think of anything to say. The ginger wasn’t going to give him his sleep back, or make him feel better after a night up. But it was a gesture of kindness, and I thought, hoped, that maybe that would be enough.

He looked up at me, meeting my eyes. I tried to tell him everything I wanted him to know then, there in my gaze. I don’t know if he understood, but he nodded, reaching over to pick up the ginger from the counter.

Late in the movement, I remembered that my hand still lay right next to the pieces. His trajectory was taking him dangerously to my skin. I snatched my hand back, hiding it behind the counter and away from his touch.

He froze, staring at the space where my hand had been. Then he nodded again, much more slowly this time, grabbed the ginger and left.

I hurried out of the kitchen and into the doorway to watch him make his way down the hall. He looked as though he was heading back to his room, his pace slow and his gait unsteady. I watched him as long as I could, then ducked back into the mess.

I was suddenly aware of how many eyes were on me. Their Captain was off - only I could be to blame. There were a few whispers, and a few comments that were not pretending to be whispers. I ignored them all. I turned my shoulder into the combined gaze of the ship and made my way over to Finn.

I sat down beside him noiselessly. Natch shot me a look, which I ignored. “He didn’t sleep last night,” I told Finn. “Will you go and take care of him for me?”

“I’m his steward, not his babysitter,” he muttered. He was obviously frustrated by something, perhaps the fact that he hadn’t finished his own breakfast. I reached out and took the bowl from him, removing any chance at distractions. He stuttered at the sudden intrusion and found himself staring into my very clear and very cold eyes.

“Finn.” I heard my voice turn dangerous and watched everyone around me respond, their spines straightening and their heads turning to listen. I let the ocean rise within me, let it lend its eternity to my command. “Go.”

He stared at me, but I knew I didn’t have to say much more than that. He was a sailor, and I was the sea, and he would obey when I spoke. “Aye,” he finally said. I handed him back his bowl and he hurried from the room.

I collapsed back into myself as he left, letting the sea return to my soul from my eyes and voice. I could call it when I needed it; these men did not need to know I could exist as a storm, when they were used to seeing me as a prisoner.

Across from me, Natch leaned back and crossed his arms. I didn’t meet his eyes as I returned to the kitchen to grab myself my breakfast.

 

***

 

That night at training I lashed out and landed a vicious hit on a boy named Ichor, a big black lad that claimed to be a son of the gods. He wasn’t, or if he was, it wasn’t any god I felt fear from. I had been so sure that he was going to block the attack that I was already planning my next move in my mind, ready to take the jar in my arm and move it through my body.

Instead, I felt my arm extend, the wood blade making a nasty noise as it hit his flesh. He leapt back, holding his injured arm. “Easy, Ghost.” They’d all picked up the nickname that Natch had given me, saying it was because I moved so quietly and talked so little. The irony of my size and the perceived lack of stealth it gave me was not lost on them. The true irony of a nickname that mirrored my arch of fate was not lost on me. “Need all my limbs. Not exactly on the King’s medical, here.”

I drew back, frustrated. Ichor was one of the most vocal proponents of the ‘evil King’ stories, the campfire tales that had him drinking blood and killing children for black magic and the like. He conflated the old King with the new, which was no fault of his really, but he seemed to pick the worst of both to cultivate some sort of demon-god version of the man that made me deeply uncomfortable. “Didn’t think you’d ever have much positive to say about the King, lad.”

He blinked at me. “No. I mean. The old King.”

That stopped me in my tracks. “The old king?” I repeated, dropping my guard slightly. I hadn’t expected him to know this.

“Yeah.” He stood down, excited to share his insider knowledge. People were beginning to gather. Pirates can always sense when gossip is about to begin. “Isn’t exactly common knowledge, I suppose but. I’ll let you know a bit of a pirate secret.” He leaned in. “The throne has changed hands.”

I tilted my head to imitate his lean. I wanted him to continue. I needed to know how much information had trickled down the ranks.

He saw my lean and did not disappoint. “Aye, Ghost. You’re not supposed to know it, but it has.”

“You don’t exactly throw a party when you overthrow a Pirate King,” chimed in a bystander.

“Signals weakness. People might try their own luck,” added another.

They knew much more than I had expected. I blinked out into the gathered crowd, genuinely surprised. “So, how do you know?”

Ichor smiled, proud and boastful. “New flag, new policies. Taxes, medical, ratios -”

One of the other men interrupted him, much less puffed up. “Honestly, it’s kind of hard to miss.”

“Used to be only a tax of 10% on your take.”

“And you got comprehensive healthcare.”

“Aye, you could bill your care to the King and he would pay for it. Witch doctors, healers, modern medicine, he honored it all.”

“I heard a man had a peg leg put in with jewels.” There were groans and jeers at this, causing the speaker to double down. “Jewels, boys, as big as eggs! And the King just asked that the man provide his own gems, and that he receive one of them when the man died.”

“Were there ten of them?”

“What’s that to do with anything?”

“Ten percent, man. It’s everything to do with everything.”

“But that doesn’t happen anymore?” I interrupted. Somehow, practice had stopped completely, each and every man trying to get a word into the conversation about the King. It always seemed to happen like that whenever a good conversation started up. This is why they haven’t become great fighters, I thought. Would rather stand around and gossip.

“That’s right, boy.”

“Why do you think we left?”

“We left because we tried to kill the King.”

“Hush, not so loud!”

“It’s just the truth!”

“Doesn’t mean we have to advertise it.”

“Not like he’ll come down here, with Cap the way he is.”

“Cap wouldn’t have had to do that, either, if the King hadn’t gone off the rails!”

“Don’t be spoutin’ things you don’t understand, boy.”

“Well, what else would you call askin’ 50% and giving nothin’ back!”

That proclamation caused the entire congregation to dissolve into arguments. I blocked them out, folding away what I had learned. Cap the way he is, I thought. Did they mean nameless?

A hand at my elbow made me jump. I looked down and found the smiling eyes of Natch. We wordlessly made our way to the rigging and climbed into the sky, where only the stars bickered and gossiped.

“Is that true? What they said about the King?”

“Aye.” He shifted in the ropes. “I wasn’t there, though.”

“You weren’t?” The surprised me; the crew always talked like they had done everything all together.

“Nope. They picked me up about two years back. That went down six months before I got on board.”

“And they let you on? Just like that?” That was uncommon; pirate ships were secretive at best and impenetrable cliques at worst.

He shifted again. “Didn’t have any other place to go.” We sat there, swinging and silent, until I couldn’t keep my questions under my skin.

“They said, ‘Cap the way he is’.”

“Aye,” said Natch.

I looked at him, waiting. Eventually he sighed. “Cap’s nameless, Ghost.”

I nodded. I knew this. Natch didn’t seem willing to continue, so I prompted him. “And that keeps the King away?”

“Yeah.” He crossed his arms. “There’s this prophecy.”

I nodded again. “I know it.”

“You do?” He looked over, surprised for a moment, then leaned back into his supports. “Of course you do.”

I frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, just.” He shook his head. “I just forget to not be surprised by you, is all.”

I gave him a hard look for that, but he didn’t seem to notice, continuing to explain instead. “If you know the prophecy, you should understand why, so long as Cap remains nameless, the King will leave us alone.”

“The nameless one will kill the Pirate King,” I sighed. I hated that fucking prophecy. For the moment, I put my own feelings aside and forged ahead. “The current king believes it so deeply that he won’t even come close to one who is nameless?”

Natch shrugged. “Been working for us so far.”

We lay there, watching the stars come out above us. I thought about what Natch had told me. To become willingly nameless, to give up so much of yourself just to protect yourself from a man. I imagined it, going from named to nameless. I had done it. I had done it violently, without choice. My name had been ripped from my lungs by the sea, and although I trusted it’s reasons, it had still hurt. “It’s terrible,” I told the sky quietly, “to live without a name.”

“Not just a name,” Natch responded, although I hadn’t been talking to him, and I wasn’t sure I was talking about the Captain. “He can’t have anything that names him at all. No tattoos, no objects that he can hold onto.” He looked over at me. “No lovers.”

I shifted, uncomfortable with the sudden sideways accusation.

“It’s why a lot of the men don’t like you, you know. They’re afraid you could name him.”

I looked away across the endless sea. As if he cared enough about me for that. Natch continued, ignoring my sudden change in demeanor.

“He has to live as any man could, as a replaceable. In a way that he could be switched out, and it wouldn’t matter. That’s how it was explained to me, at least.”

That explanation of namelessness had never made sense to me, but I held my tongue. “He must be very afraid of this man,” I said instead, “to give up all of that.”

Beside me, I heard the ropes creak as Natch shifted. “You must not have met our King.”

 

***

 

“I need a new place to sleep,” I told Cookie on my fourth morning as I slid in through the window. I hadn’t slept the night before, staring instead at the still form of the Captain on the bed. He had slept so fitfully, waking me each time I closed my eyes, his whimpers like daggers to my heart. It had taken everything I had to keep myself from leaping up and comforting him, to lie beside him and take him in my arms.

He doesn’t care about you, I reminded myself. He is only scared of the King, and needs some form of comfort. He will take you if you offer it, because you are there. Then I called myself weak as my hands almost reduced the arms of the chair to sawdust.

Cookie didn’t say anything at first, so shocked was he at seeing my large body appear from the outside rather than the doorway. But the Captain had still been sleeping when I had left, and I hadn’t wanted to leave the door unlocked on my way out. “This had seemed simpler,” I explained.

“Scaling the outside of the ship seemed simpler.”

I shrugged. I could pick locks, but it took time and I had wanted the exercise.

Cookie sighed. “You’d best get used to the arrangements. Cap says that you’re to sleep in his room, and that’s law ‘round here.” And he set me to mincing garlic for that lunch’s stew. I stewed myself, angry at still being controlled.

“Don’t work yourself to the bone, boy. The lads’ll be late.”

I frowned up at Cookie, looking for an explanation. Being late for food was not something that usually happened on this ship.

He just shrugged. “It’s a meetin’ day.”

Ah. A ships meeting, usually weekly or bi-weekly. They would be next door, then, discussing goals and routes, grievances and matters of the ship. Matters like what to do with me.

Despite Cookie’s words, I doubled my chopping speed.

By the time the men filtered back into the mess hall, I had already finished prepping everything for breakfast and lunch, and had already started cleaning tools around the slightly bemused and concerned Cookie.

I already knew it wouldn’t be good news for me. None of the sailors would look me in the eye; something must have happened. I ladled out their soup and tried to keep myself looking unaffected. I was doing a decent job of it until the Captain stepped forward, already in his cloak for a day on the deck.

“Your face.” I couldn’t keep the concern from my voice, and found myself reaching reflexively towards the diagonal cut that slid across his previously immaculate chin. My stomach dropped to see him injured. I wanted to gather him up and keep him safe, to kill anyone who had touched him with steel, who had even dared to let that thought pass unhindered through their mind.

He stopped my hand’s motion by pressing his bowl to it. I was thankful for that, amazed at my slip up. I had almost touched him; imagine it. But he seemed not to care, his body language nothing like the day before, or even hours before in the morning. “Breakfast, sailor.” He also wouldn’t look at me, but this was not the same shameful avoidance the other men had - this was cold. “Make it fast.”

I took the bowl and filled it. The room watched us as I put the bowl on the counter, as our ritual demanded. He snatched it up and whipped from the room, cloak ends snapping from the force of his movements.

I took a bowl of my own. My hands were shaking; I willed them to be still. In the time that the Captain had been coming to get his food from me, he had not ceased to have a terrible and immediate effect on me, but somehow this time had been worse. He had not even seen me, it had seemed. Not even registered my presence. Was I invisible to him? Was I truly the dead being I had always believed myself to be?

I sat down with Finn and Natch.

“I’m sorry about your fate, boy,” Finn told me.

“My fate?” I parroted. And what was my fate, exactly? Was it to linger as a ghost after already being killed? Or was Finn referring to the part of my fate where I found my way here, only to realize it was a diversion from the only way to get to where I needed to be? That the man I loved could have been killed the same way I was? Or that the man I loved didn’t love me back? I searched the faces of the men before me for a clue, exhausted and pissed as fuck at fate.

“We took a vote,” Natch explained, uncharacteristically quiet.

“Ah.” So that was it. They had decided; the Captain had no more use of me. “Am I to die, then?”

“What?” Both men’s heads snapped up. Finn looked genuinely shocked that I would say such a thing. “No, boy. Christ.”

“Though half the ship did demand it.”

“They demanded marooning on a deserted isle. That isn’t death, it’s just -” Finn shrugged.

“Wicky’s half the ship,” I stated.

“Aye,” Natch confirmed, although I had needed none. He was still so quiet.

“We voted for you to stay. You can fight, and sail.”

Natch leaned back and crossed his arms. “Not a popular opinion.”

“And the Captain?”

Silence. I didn’t bother to try to meet their eyes, staring down at my porridge. “What did the Captain vote.”

“Ghost…” Natch sounded uncomfortable, or sad, or maybe both, but Finn rescued him.

“Marooned,” he told me. “But he’s to pick the island.”

The Captain would have me back on land. At that thought, all reason rushed from my body. I almost ran to the kitchen then and leapt then into the sea, swam for it, rather than let this man have control over me, let him hurt me in this way. I let him hurt me again, I thought. The coldness over the porridge suddenly made much more sense. He wants me off his ship, he wants me gone and over with, he never wanted me to begin with except perhaps my hands on his, my lips for his own, but what of my soul, what was my soul supposed to do without his, my breath was dying but Finn’s hand landed on my shoulder and somehow air entered my world again. I gasped.

“Lad,” he said softly. “It was the best he could do in the face of it.”

Face, I thought. I remembered the cut on the Captain’s. Now there was a place I could direct my pain, my growing rage, a way to make myself productive. I liked productivity. It helped me move forward. “Who hurt him?”

“There was a disagreement,” Finn said quietly. “Some members thought that you were making him too soft.”

“Human,” Natch said, and he meant named. “You make him too human, and that is dangerous for all of us.”

“It’s a reasonable reaction to fear.”

“It is not,” I told them. Natch reached out to me, but I pulled away. “Tell me who hurt him.”

“Don’t do anything rash,” he murmured, but I was the sea at full moon, I was a monsoon that had been held too long, how many other ways could I find to say that I was everything crashing into the world and grinding it into sand and oblivion and rash was only a word that applied to actions that had consequences. Mine didn’t have consequences - mine had results.

But Wicky saved me. How strange, to say that. He certainly didn’t mean to, and in fact probably meant to humiliate me, but he forced me to cool down a bit by striding into the hall and announcing that a ship had been sighted and he needed everyone up on deck. “Except you,” he’d snarled, and I’d had to stay put in the kitchen, taking out my anger on dirt and vegetables.

The vessel turned out to be another pirate ship, seeking parlay with the Captain specifically. He headed over to their deck and spoke at length with their captain, disappearing below into quarters for privacy. The intimacy of the visit, being alone with each other in private spaces, meant they must have known each other. Otherwise fear of attack would have kept them above decks. Should I have been a Captain to keep his interest? I felt myself think. Should I have been a king, made him fear me as well?

The thought was unkind and I felt bad immediately after it slipped through my brain.

I thought about ghosting to discover what they were speaking of, but there was no guarantee how long the ships would spend in proximity, and I didn’t want to end up naked and marooned on a pirate ship.

I’d made that mistake before.

The Captain didn’t come to lunch. I told myself it had to do with the meeting he had just had, and nothing to do with the morning’s events. I returned to the decks and attacked my duties with a fervor that actually scared Hams. He ran out of tasks before the day was done and sent me back to Cookie, who refused to give me any knives and instead made me clean out the bins for rotted food.

I didn’t wait to see if the Captain came to dinner. As soon as I had all the crew served, I made my way up to the decks and hid away in the riggings.

Natch caught sight of me as the training group made their way to their usual spot. I sighed and made a land sailor’s descent, making it look like it took effort. There was more grumbling than usual as I landed my feet, but I paid it no attention as I grabbed practice knives and squared up. I was looking forward to pushing my muscles into becoming mush, even if it would take hours against these mediocre fighters. At least it was something. At least I could have some violence, some vague form of results.

My third partner that evening was Ichor. I was only half paying attention, my eyes on the bow of the ship trying to decide where we were going, where they might dump me off like refuse, when I felt a very real cut land on my arm.

I yanked back, surprised. There should be no knives at practice; the rules of sparring were all but sacred. Ichor palmed the small blade he’d used the land the strike. “You’re not so special, big boy,” he hissed.

Ichor was one of Wicky’s men and had made no secret about it. “You want me dead,” I said evenly. I settled into a defensive stance and watched him, waiting to see what he would do next. I hoped he would strike again; I hoped he would give me a reason to kill him. Anger coursed through me, the sea threatening to rise as it had been all day, and I was sick of holding it back.

“Just want you off my boat.” He took the time to spit. Arrogant, I thought. Arrogant and foolish and soon to be nothing but empty flesh. “Be glad,” he told me, his voice low and close. It pressed against me like dock slime, stagnant and clinging to my flesh, “that you’re under Cap’s protection. Else you’d be -”

He didn’t get to finish his statement, because I already had him on the ground. He scrambled for his blade but it was no use, I had him pinned firmly against the wood of the deck. I pulled the blade out for him, ran it against his skin.

I could have killed him, then. Would have in any other circumstance. But as much as I wanted to, as much as my body shivered to press the blade into his soft spots and twist, or pull, to spill his blood and make him watch me do it, I knew that would be the end. If I killed this man, this sailor who worked on this ship, the Captain’s ship, I would never, ever, have a chance to be with the Captain again.

And I couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t do that. Even if the chance I had was so slight it was nothing, even if all I had was a dream, to kill it with this man, over this nobody, that would be the same as killing me.

So I didn’t press the blade past his shivering, fearful skin, as much as I dreamed of it, as much as I let myself imagine my body finishing the motion. I held him there, letting him feel my want and how close I came, and only when he shook beneath me did I make myself back off. It was hard to get my body to listen, but I found a compromise, letting my anger become a blade and slipped that into his ribs in lieu of the physical one that I held back in my fist. It was not as satisfying, but it was a result, a victory, and I took it in my teeth and held it tight.

But I wanted him to understand exactly what had happened here before I let him go. He needed to know where we stood. “I don’t need anyone’s protection,” I explained to him. I kept my voice low, quiet, occupying only the space between our bodies. When I had taken him down all practice had stopped, and there was now a ring of men around us, watching to see what would happen. But I wanted this to be between us. He whimpered as I twisted his hand in my hold. “I am the sea incarnate; there is nothing that can hurt me. I could have taken this ship a thousand times over, killed each and every one of you in your sleep. Make no mistake; I could have killed you all awake, could have pulled your souls from your bodies and left you nothing but the shells you deserve to be. I could have had you whenever I wanted; it is by my lack of interest only that you are still alive. You are boring; you bore me. You are nothing. I have no need for protection.” I sat up as I slid his knife into my belt, my interest already sliding from his frame. I watched the people around us, unwilling to interfere. “You, on the other hand.”

I pushed off of him and stood. He stayed where he was, a whimpering sack on the deck, become the nothing I had taught him that he was. He ignored the hand that I extended towards him, calm and cold. The others around us began to whisper.

I used my foot to nudge him. “Stand up, man. They’re watching.”

He rolled over and stared at my hand outstretched towards him. He knew it wasn’t any kind of peace offering, but he also knew that he didn’t have a choice. In time, he reached up and took it. I yanked him to his feet, pulling him close enough that I could whisper into his ear.

“Be glad you have the Captain’s protection,” I hissed. As I pushed him away I saw his face crease with fear. I felt nothing towards this man, this coward who had attacked me during training. He was nothing, already fading from my focus. “Or,” I finished, loosening my grip as I turned away. “Try harder next time.”

He pushed away from me, and I let him go. The crowd parted to let him move back, putting as much space between him and I as he could without fully retreating. I picked up the practice knife I had dropped when I had taken his blade, twirling it so it sat properly in my hands for the first time in these men’s gaze. I saw faces shift as they recognized my show of skill, slight as it was.

My eyes skimmed the gathered faces. I tried to make eye contact with as many as I could; most would not meet my gaze. “Anyone else?” I asked quietly. When there was no response, I let the storm that was inside of me rip out of my chest, let myself scream for the first time in months. “Anyone fucking else?”

No one moved.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.” I stalked over to Natch, who had been watching the entire thing with a mixture of amusement and carefully hidden fear, tucked in the looseness of his limbs and the casual smile he so precisely held on his face.

I didn’t want Natch to fear me. He was one of the few men on the ship who had no reason to fear me. He and the Captain and Cookie, and perhaps Finn. I scowled to see him hold himself so carefully at my approach, fingers unhindered in case he needed to go for a knife.

I handed him Ichor’s. “Your fingers are looking for this.”

Natch said nothing, but took the knife from my hand.

But the sea demanded more, pounded against my chest relentlessly. “Spar with me.”

“What? Hell no.”

“Then make one of the others. I want to fucking fight.” I scanned the crowd behind us. Nobodies, I thought. Useless. “Who’s your best fighter?”

“Ghost.” He looked like he wanted to laugh. “No one is going to fight you after that.”

I stood there and waited. The sea crashed against my chest. I could taste the salt in my mouth.

He sighed. “You have to promise not to hurt them.”

I pointed to my arm, showed him the red line that Ichor had drawn. “Tell them not to hurt me.”

Natch winced.

“It’s sparring, Natch. I know how far to go and when to stop.” I walked away back to my spot, throwing over my shoulder for those around him to hear, “You’d do well to teach your men the same.”

After a brief conference, in which there was much hand waving and harsh whispers and pointed glances, the put me against a man they called Thron. He was the one technically in charge of these practice sessions. I had never sparred him before because he was considered above my skill level.

In the first two moves, I threw him to the ground.

“Get up,” I told him. His lack of skill frustrated me; I wanted him to be better. “Your stance was too tight, and you carry your weight too high. Try it again.”

“Who the fuck are you to -”

I walked away before he finished the sentence. I was in no mood for this shit. If he wouldn’t fight me, someone else would.

That day I fought every man that came to training, and some more than once. The ones that listened to me lasted longer. The ones that didn’t, didn’t. Around me, the men half-heartedly sparred and pretended to concentrate on their bouts, but all eyes were on me as I systematically wiped the floor with every single fighter they had available.

It wasn’t enough.

“Again,” I told Thron the fourth time I took him down. He had sucked up his ego and come back, settling his weight when he did. It made him almost a contender. “And watch your fucking footwork.”

“Ghost,” he said panting, “I’m done. We’re all done. How are you not done?”

I looked around me at the worn out men. I was not done - my muscles did not hurt as much as they could, as much as I needed them to. I felt frustration grow within me and did the only thing I could think of. I looked up at the rope above me, and leapt. When my hand caught I finally climbed like I was meant to.

I heard the gasp go up behind me as I shot up into the air. I didn’t give a shit. I was done holding back, done pretending to be harmless for the sake of their feelings. Let them see what I could do. Let them understand who they were dealing with. I climbed until all I could feel was the press of the sky against my skin.

Natch made it up a few minutes later, panting from trying to keep up with my pace. “What the fuck, Ghost,” he asked.

I had nothing to say to that. I wasn’t in the mood to play guess who I used to be, look at what I can do.

“You’ve been holding back on me.”

“Are you surprised,” I snapped.

He was taken aback. I think he expected my anger to be sated by the movements I had forced it to go through. But I had not forced my body to do anything; this had been the first time in a long time I had been what I was meant to be.

“No,” he said softly, “I’m not.”

I grumbled and settled back into the ropes. He let me be for a bit.

“Are you afraid of me, Natch?”

I don’t know if my question surprised him; he didn’t change his face if it did. “I don’t know,” he answered, and I could hear the honesty in his voice. “I don’t know what you are.”

A ghost, I thought. A son of the sea. The ocean itself. “Another of the Captain’s whores,” I heard myself say, my voice bitter and petty, “ready to be thrown aside.”

Natch raised an eyebrow at that. “You know that isn’t true.”

I didn’t. I had no response.

He sat quietly for a moment. “You know,” he finally said. “When I first got to the ship, I thought that Cap had brought me on as a whore.”

“What?” I turned to him, surprised. He wasn’t looking at me, just staring up into the sky. This felt careful, somehow. It was pushing me from my own closely held anger. “Why?”

He looked so peaceful swinging there, the wind tugging at his hair, or maybe his hair tugging at the wind. He had his eyes closed. A ghost of a smile graced his lips. “Probably because he bought me from a whore house.”

“Natch,” I said. I looked him over, took in his young face, his graceful body. Bought, I thought. Not found at. Bought from. And two years ago… “How old are you?”

“Eighteen, I think.”

I tried to keep myself neutral, mirroring his body language. He didn’t need my sympathy; he’d gotten out alive, after all. “Sixteen is too young.”

He smiled. “That’s what the Captain said too.”

“But he never…”

“No, no, he never laid a finger on me. Just bought me and brought me back to the ship. ‘You’re too young for this type of work, come kill people instead,’ or some other such nonsense.” He shrugged. “I tried to tell him I’d been doing it for ages, but that didn’t seem to make him feel better.” He looked over at me then, eyes wandering my face. I didn’t know what he was looking for, so I just let him look. “He never would. He doesn’t use people like that.”

He used me, I thought. But that was different, so different that this, and I kept my frustration from my tongue. “Can I ask how you ended up there?”

The smile that had been on his lips twisted. “Got dumped. Grew up a bit too much for my dear old Captain.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, said so plainly in the air. I watched his words curl around the stars like smoke, watched them dissipate before I’d come up with any sort of coherent reaction. He had gone through something I couldn’t imagine. I had nothing to offer him, not in the form of words.

But actions. Results. I could give him that.

“What was his name,” I heard myself ask. Don’t do this, I thought. Don’t promise the boy something that you can’t deliver. You’re already stretched thin as it is, already off the plan you’ve made for yourself. But the sea inside of me demanded, and the question had already passed from my lips.

He looked like he wouldn’t tell me for a moment. “Yarrick,” he said, the name sounding like dust coming from his lips. “Captain Yarrick.”

Yarrick. “I knew a Yarrick,” I said. Natch went very still. “Spent some time in his cells.” His gaze snapped to me, then. Yarrick was a bounty boy, shuttling prisoners to and from colonies for better cash. He prefered guys that scored big, major pirates or murderers, rapists, the like. I could feel Natch sizing me up, and could also hear his relief that I hadn’t done work with the man.

“Who paid your bounty?”

“The crown.”

“For what?”

I thought about lying, but what was the point? This boy had just given me his honesty; he deserved as much back. “Piracy.”

He blinked at me. First in surprise, that I hadn’t mentioned this before, and that they’d found me on a merchant ship; then I watched as the implications set in. I knew he’d be doing the math in his head; no petty pirate would be picked up by Yarrick. I shrugged away his gaze. “He lied to the authorities about who I was. I pissed him off plenty good while I was on his ship, I guess.”

That was true. He’d probably saved my life, although he’d never known it and never would. He told them he’d picked me up in the east, back when the eastern pirates were the most vicious. Who cared about northern pirates, when the north was only populated with ghosts and then the King’s Fleets? He got a bigger bounty, and I got to stay undetected. If word had gotten back to the sea that a northerner had been sent to the mines…

“You.” Now Natch was sitting up. “I remember you.”

I was suddenly very uncomfortable with the way Natch’s gaze bored into my body. I frowned at him. “I don’t remember you.”

“You had longer hair back then, and less scars. I thought it was you, when you ordered Finn like that, and when you fought down there.” He sucked in his breath. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

I didn’t say anything. This had become something I hadn’t expected.

“It was you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I did, but I didn’t want to bring it up.

“Three and a half years ago, on Yarrick’s ship. There was an escape.” His eyes were huge. “It’s fucking legendary, we talked about it for fucking year.”

“I didn’t.”

“You’re a legend, Ghost. Even to kids that weren’t there.”

“I didn’t do anything,” I said truthfully.

“You got Sneg out.”

“Sneg,” I told him, “got themself out.”

“But you were there.”

I shrugged. I had been, and I had made a mistake, and I had gotten sent to the mines. It was not a good memory.

“It was you.”

“So what if it was.”

“Fuck, Ghost.” He collapsed back into the ropes. “I can’t believe this.” He was making me uncomfortable with how much of a deal this had become. “You were like a fairy tale for us.”

“I really didn’t do anything. I fucked up; Sneg almost got caught because of me.”

“Not the way Sneg tells it.”

I looked over to him. “You know Sneg?” I missed that funny kid; they’d had real promise. They were going to be on my fast list of people I wanted on my ship when I got one.

He looked away. “No. I mean. I used to. You know.”

I frowned and settled back into my makeshift hammock. I didn’t know, and I was frustrated by the whole thing. I hadn’t set out to become some sort of folk hero for abused kids, I’d just not wanted to get sold to the crown. I told Natch that, and he kind of shrugged it off as the way these things go.

I supposed, as my legends go, this one wasn’t really that bad. It was strange to be confronted by one so real. This was not supposed to be a part of my life anymore.

“Sneg,” he finally asked. “They doing okay?”

“Aye.” I told him. “They are.” He smiled.

I looked at him sitting there, his eyes tracking the last of our voices spreading through the night breezes. I tried to imagine him three years younger, a world less free, and I couldn’t do it. Tried to place him in those cells with me and found that it was impossible. Natch belonged here, his hair tugging back at the wind, his hands in the ropes.

He was strong, I thought. A child from the sea, if not a son of the sea. The ocean would care for him, if I gave him the chance. I still had something to offer him, I reminded myself. An easier offer, now, that we both shared the same enemy.

“I have plans to kill him,” I stated plainly.

It was a fact of my life, one that I could share with little emotion. He turned to me, surprised, and I caught and held his gaze. “After I kill the man who killed me, I’m going to go find Yarrick and kill him.” I looked over to Natch’s suddenly stiff form. The anger that had flowed through me earlier still pulsed; it had never left me, would never leave me. It was the heartbeat that drove my life, always just under the surface. I let it’s rhythm set my conversation, let Natch hear it’s quiet drive. “I can hold off on that, if you’d like. Leave him for you.”

I watched questions go to war on his face. He held them all in, pulled them back into his chest with the solemnity of years of practice, settling himself back to a graceful neutral. He was good at controlling his emotions, Natch was. Good at hiding things until he needed them. “No, Ghost. You’ve a better chance at reaching him, I think.”

I nodded at that. Natch knew me, I thought. Better than anyone on this ship, perhaps. But I had one last thing to offer. “I could always come back and get you,” I said quietly.

He turned to me, surprised again.

“It won’t be any trouble. The wind will take me where I ask.”

He frowned at that. “You make it sound like you’d have your own ship.”

I shrugged and turned back to the night sky.

He looked over to me. “You can’t seriously believe that you can just become a captain, like that.”

“I’m already much, much more.”

He stared me down, taking me in. I let him see me, all of me. The me that should be, the me that had been killed and rose from my watery grave, the me that had survived two and half years on land under the hands of brutal men and vicious work. I let the sea rise up within me, let it fill me until the beat of it was my entire being, my eardrums echoing with blood and whalesongs and the endless, relentless pounding of the tides, eternal and unforgiving.

“Gods all,” he finally breathed. “Who are you?”

“A ghost,” I told him, looking away and casting my gaze to the stars. “Nothing but a ghost.”

 

***

 

We stayed up there longer than we usually did, past the night watch bell, past the velvet splash of the sky spilling over the whole of the world. Eventually, Natch shifted.

“We should head down.”

“I think I’m going to spend the night up here.” It would do good to clear my head, to spend time so close to the stars; I had missed their company, in the depths of the mines.

Natch frowned. “But the Captain -”

“Does not care where I sleep.” The words came out sharper than I meant, and I sighed to get the rest of my frustration from my lungs. My next words were only tired, a resignation of the facts. “He does not care for me at all.”

Natch sat up. “How can you say that? After all that he’s done for you, everything that he’s risked…”

“All that he’s done? He’d have me on land, Natch.” I heard the rawness in my voice, the pain so close to the surface and I closed my mouth tightly, crossing my hands over my chest in an attempt to get any other words in my heart to stay.

“It was the best he could do,” he said quietly.

I scoffed and turned away.

“You would rather stay? Do you really want to be with him?”

“Yes! Of course!” I had pulled myself up to glare at him for his insolent questions; now I settled back against the ropes. “I would do anything to stay at his side.”

“Okay, okay. It’s just.” Natch mumbled the next bit, so I wasn’t sure I heard. “You don’t act like it.”

“Excuse me.”

“Sorry, Ghost.” Natch backed off for only a moment before doubling down. “It’s just that you’ve been the one spurning him, seems like.”

I sat up fast, glaring at the small boy before me. But what was I to him? Natch wasn’t afraid of ghosts. He shrugged off my anger and settled back against the ropes, arms crossed against my eyes.

“I have done nothing that wasn’t warranted,” I snapped at him. “He used me, he doesn’t care about me past the noises I make and the control he can show. I won’t let him hurt me again.”

“What?” Natch reacted to that much more strongly than I’d expected. Maybe it’d been the pain leaking out of my voice, splashing its way over him. I’d wanted to keep this in, I reminded myself. Natch had enough on his plate. When I didn’t respond to his reaction, he prodded me. “What is that supposed to mean?”

I didn’t want to admit to the unreasonable thoughts that ran through my head, didn’t want to share the parts of me that swirled angrily and painfully over themselves within my gut. But Natch was here, and it would be good to get this out. “He used me, Natch.”

“What?”

“I said,” I repeated a little louder, “the Captain used me.”

Natch stared at me for a long moment, then leaned forward. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

And I did, the whole story spilling from my mouth. Wicky, his words to me and his animosity. The Captain, how he had already chosen to not be with me. The way he had suddenly changed, the reasons he had given behind it. His commands to be loud, using my body to punish Wicky. How much that had hurt. How much it hurt, still, to think of him wanting only my skin and hands and not me. How I had ended it, telling him he was never to touch me again.

When I finished the story, I looked morosely over to Natch and found him staring back at me, his mouth open slightly.

“Yeah,” I said. “And now he comes to meals, and to the deck, to torment me with what I can not have, even after -”

“You,” he interrupted, “fucking idiot.”

I stared at him, my jaw dropping. “Excuse me?”

But he ignored me. “He found a way to be with you, needed you that badly that he put his entire fucking crew in danger, and this is how you thank him?”

“What the fuck -”

But Natch was not letting me speak. “What he did with you that first night, that was outside of acting as the Captain. And he knew it. And Wicky knew it. And that should have been the end of it. Wicky is here to keep him in line, you know. Make sure we all stay safe, make sure he stays nameless. But he didn’t end it, did he? He did it again, did it loud and proud and that’s what you’re pissed about? He could have given up everything for you. Possibly the protection of being nameless, Ghost. For you. And he doesn’t care, didn’t care so much. That’s why he wanted Wicky to hear it, bet you a thousand kills. Not any power thing, not punishment. Proof of his decision to stand by you.”

For you, Natch had said. By you. I looked away.

“Which,” he continued, “the crew hates. So now he’s almost cost himself his ship, had to fight himself a crew member just to prove he hadn’t gone soft for you after you broke him so bad - ”

A pit was opening in my stomach, sucking in all the anger I felt at the Captain and replacing it with a guilt so heavy I thought I might crash through the ropes.

“- and in the meantime he’s been coming into the mess, asking your forgiveness, and you’ve been such a dick -”

“Forgiveness? Forgiveness? That was supposed to be forgiveness, coming to my place of safety and tormenting me with his, his,” I stopped and buried my head in my hands. Of course it was. It always had been, and I’d always known it.

“I gave my word,” I told Natch from behind my palms. “I can’t undo this.”

“You have to.”

“I can’t forgive him.” I was working through all of this in my head, trying to figure out what all this new information meant. “He still used me.”

Natch watched me a long time before speaking again. “I think,” he told me, starting his descent, “that you will find that untrue.” He paused. “I know him well. Better than you, and don’t try to say that isn’t true. I’ve never seen him like this, so torn. You can’t be mad at him for keeping his crew safe, for being a good captain. Or for wanting you, despite all of that.”

He was gone before I could come up with any more rebuttals.

I sighed and settled into the ropes. There was no reason to go down, not before the conversation with Natch, and not after.

Fuck everything.

There was nothing to do about it now. Tonight, I chose which ropes contained me. Above my head, the stars sang, and I let the ocean rock me to sleep.