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Chapter Text

The gangplank creaks under Vic’s feet as it shifts on the uneven wood of the dock. He does not let the movement slow his progress, not hesitating for even a moment before he steps from it to the deck. These boards are steady. They move with the waves rather than his footsteps, and there are hardly any waves to speak of this deep in Barcelona’s harbor.

He breathes in and salt curls over his tongue. It tastes warm and damp, the tide filling the air with the scent of brine, sickly-sweet and old in the way a harbor always smells.

Only a few hours left till they’re to set sail. Vic is ready; the few weeks they’ve spent here, in their home port, have left him eager to return to sea. He loves Barcelona. He passes the off-seasons here, and seeing the wide flat beaches give way to distant hills at the end of every voyage always makes him feel like he’s come home, despite how little of his life he spends on land. Those beaches and hills are to his back now, the deep blue of the Mediterranean glimmering just outside the harbor’s narrowed entrance. That blue calls to him. The few swells that curl against the hull here in the shallow water are too gentle. There’s no salt spray in the air, no crashing waves, no open water.

There are more practical reasons for his impatience, with the mornings growing milder and the first chill of autumn creeping into the breeze, but he will be the first to say he misses the open ocean. The ship beneath his feet—the Isabelle—has become an extension of his body by now, the wind in her sails as familiar as the wind in his shirt, and he likes to believe they’re both more comfortable when land is a memory and nothing surrounds them but endless sea.

The hours will pass quickly, he knows, and they’ll be on their way soon enough. There’s plenty to occupy his attention in the meantime. The crew are still securing the last of their cargo, and there’s chatter everywhere, crates and tarpaulins and curls of new rope being carried across the deck, all under the watchful eye of his first mate. Jaime’s never still, and Vic sees him every few minutes in some other place. Lifting the corner of a larger crate near the mizzenmast, on the dock directing a few men to carry the last few barrels down into the cargo hold, tying down a stay, then reappearing on the dock to supervise the loading of even more barrels, which Vic presumes must have appeared out of thin air. There’s always a few on these trips, with the extra supplies that have to be packed into the hold for a longer voyage such as this.

The cargo for this specific run is bolts of fabric: Spanish linens and brocades, which necessitate extra care in storage and waterproofing. Vic steps forward to help a few of his men tie an unwieldy tarpaulin around one of the crates before it’s hauled below, and he’s brushing the dark residue from his hands when he hears footsteps behind him.

“Captain.”

Vic turns, the deck slick beneath his boots. “Yes?”

There’s a young man he doesn’t recognize halfway up his gangplank, escorted by Jaime, and Vic can tell in an instant that he doesn’t belong here. Coat too formal, boots polished and unscuffed—this is not a man accustomed to the sea.

“He approached us to request passage.”

Vic’s eyes wander up and down the man’s frame. His clothes are tailored, hair neat. Better to err on the side of caution. “This is not a passenger ship, Lord…” he pauses expectantly.

“Quinn,” the man supplies. “Lord is not my title. I’m not too good for a merchant ship, Captain. I assure you.”

“It’s not a question of whether you think yourself above sailing with us.”

“Please.”

“Mr. Quinn—there are many passenger ships scheduled to depart from Barcelona in the coming weeks. I see no need for you to demean yourself—”

“Captain.” Mr. Quinn’s voice lowers as he takes a step up the gangplank, clasping his hands in front of himself. They’re pale and slender, the hands of a gentleman. Vic can’t see a single callus on his thin fingers. “I beg you. I’m prepared to reward you for a place on the ship. Handsomely.”

Vic had intended to turn away, but something stays his feet. “Mr. Quinn—”

“Please.” He takes one more step, and his spotless boots nearly toe the deck. “Allow me to discuss it, at the least.”

“Come aboard.”

He slumps in relief, and a wrinkle eases between his eyes. “Thank you, Captain.”

Vic leaves Jaime to supervise the crew, leading Mr. Quinn across the ship and guiding him to duck beneath the quarterdeck. Vic holds the door open for him to enter his quarters. Mr. Quinn seems ill at ease on board, despite his obvious relief.

The unease in his frame only increases once he’s offered a seat at Vic’s desk. His eyes dart around the room, taking it in—the bed shoved into one corner, bolted to the wall to keep it from sliding, the trunk in another corner, the locked bookcases, the maps spread over the desk between them.

Vic waits for him to speak for a moment, then clears his throat. “You’re no sailor.” He watches the gentleman’s shoulders shift, squaring and releasing. “I can tell. Why are you here?”

“I’m seeking passage.”

“We have a predetermined path. We’re sailing—”

“Captain, I am willing to go wherever you plan to sail.”

Vic’s words die in his throat. He’s seen men desperate to escape before, taken many of them on, but a gentleman—a gentleman from a lineage he knows nothing of, moreover—gives him pause. “To Boston, Mr. Quinn. The Americas. A long way from home.”

“Barcelona is not my home. I’ve no desire to stay.”

Vic studies him. He’s an exceptionally pretty man, by all regards—features almost feminine, face unblemished—but Vic can’t place his country of origin. He could be from anywhere, his accent vaguely reminiscent of the British Isles, but faint enough that Vic presumes his family has not been there long. A generation at the most. “Having no desire to stay does not mean you wish to cross an ocean. This isn’t a short voyage. Have you boarded a ship before?”

“Yes.”

“How are your sea legs?”

Mr. Quinn’s face twists, and he looks even younger as his features change. Vic can’t imagine him sailing the Atlantic. “I’m sure I’ll gain them.”

“And if you don’t? We won’t be turning back. Not at this time of year. Any delay would push us into winter, and I will not expose my crew to changing weather.”

“I am certain. Please.” He pulls a purse from his coat, tossing it onto the desk between them, with the eased practice of a man used to carrying gold. It lands heavily. “Name your price.”

Vic’s of half a mind to turn him away, regardless of his gold. “Mr. Quinn—”

“Three times the normal cost of passage. If you will take me now.”

“Why this ship?”

“You are the fourth captain I’ve spoken to.” He swallows, fingers half extended to his purse, and meets Vic’s eyes. His gaze is clear. “I want to sail. Please allow me.”

He opens his mouth to refuse him, but he can’t. The words won’t come.

“I will be no trouble. I swear it.”

“I have one empty cabin,” Vic says, reluctantly reaching for the purse. He can’t bear to sit across from this man and deny him. “It won’t afford you the comfort of a passenger vessel. But you will have a bed and desk. Windows. I can offer you no more.”

“A bed is all I ask.”

“It’s yours.” Vic pours the purse’s contents onto the desk, pulling some of the coins towards himself. The rest he sweeps back into the purse and returns to Mr. Quinn. “If you have belongings, collect them now. We sail at noon.”

He nods, standing. Vic watches his confidence return to him as he steps for the door. “I’ll return within the hour.”

Once he’s gone, Vic covers his face with his hands for a moment, breathing in the scent of dirt and salt caked into his palms. Only for a true moment, and then he follows Mr. Quinn out onto the deck, letting the autumn sun assuage his fears.

“Will he be our passenger?” Jaime asks. They both watch the spring in Mr. Quinn’s step as he departs with purpose, weaving his way into the crowd. He looks steady on land.

Vic presumes he won’t look that way for long. “He will.”

“This is unlike you.”

“I’m aware. He’ll be no trouble, with any luck.”

Jaime’s hair is already salt–stiff, no fashion to its shortness. His clothes are perpetually wrinkled. A marked difference to the gentleman Vic’s losing sight of as he turns down the first road from the docks.

“You do have more good fortune than your fair share, I’d say.”

Vic exhales in a chuckle. “I am cautious enough to earn it. This man—Mr. Quinn—is only looking for passage. He paid in gold. He will be no danger. I’d venture to guess we won’t see him leave his cabin for most of the voyage.”

“Not a sailor?”

“Far from it.”

Jaime nods. “A lot of gold, I assume?”

“Much more than I would’ve asked from him. Three times the usual.”

“Three times?”

“He offered. Who was I to decline?”

“He was desperate enough to pay thrice over?”

Vic’s gut stirs again, but he ignores the warning. “He approached others. He seems determined to leave Barcelona.”

“Legal trouble, do you think?”

“Who’s to say?” Vic steps to the railing, looking over the docks. They’re quite busy, but no one on land gives the Isabelle a second glance. “I may forget to place his name in this voyage’s log. Nobody will have to know he sailed with us.”

“And we’re still leaving at noon? No delay for him?”

“No delay.”

“I’ll make sure the crew’s still ready.” Jaime turns to go.

“They’ll be ready. Everything has been loaded.”

Vic knows his crew nearly as well as he knows his ship. Their routines will not differ with the addition of an unexpected passenger—a seasick gentleman will hardly cause a stir. There will be no delays.

“Captain.” Jaime takes his leave regardless, and Vic stays at the railing, his crew flowing over the Isabelle like waves on the rocks.

Mr. Quinn returns with nearly an hour to spare, his only belongings a small trunk and a satchel slung over his back. Neither look remarkably fancy, both nondescript and out of place against the fine material of his clothing.

“Is that all?” Vic asks him in lieu of a greeting.

“Everything I own.”

This, like every other word from the gentleman’s mouth, sets Vic’s nerves on end. He isn’t certain he wants to know more—some things may be better left undiscovered. Too many rocks turned will only stir up trouble. “Follow me.”

He doesn’t offer to take Mr. Quinn’s bags, and he isn’t asked to do so. The spare cabin is paces from his own.

“This will be a very long voyage, will it not?”

Vic glances back over his shoulder as they walk. His new passenger is lagging behind, unsteady on his feet even though they haven’t left the docks. “You’re correct.”

“Straight through to Boston?”

“The Azores, first. Then to Boston. You’ll grow familiar with the Isabelle before we arrive.”

Vic steps beneath the quarterdeck and waits there for Mr. Quinn. There’s a roof over his head here, and he can feel that same faint chill of autumn in the shade. It’s a lovely chill, his body still sunbaked, the Isabelle warm beneath his feet—just the first hint of approaching winter, far enough away to feel hazy.

“She’s much larger than the last ship I traveled on.”

“Where did you last travel?”

There’s something evasive in the way Mr. Quinn ducks his head as he joins Vic. “Just to Barcelona.”

Vic waits, but he adds no more.

“Your cabin,” he says finally, ushering Mr. Quinn into the spare. “You may take your meals with the crew. I dine with them as well.”

“Perhaps. Once I grow used to the sea.”

It may be Vic’s imagination, or light filtering through the window’s weathered glass, but his face already looks tinged with green. “Are you ill now?”

“Not ill, no.”

“Uneasy?”

“Not much.”

Vic nods to ward off a smile. He’ll be sick as a dog before sundown. “Very well. I’ll leave you to settle in.”

“Captain?”

Vic turns his attention back to him.

“Thank you.”

He nods and makes his way back out to the deck, letting the midday sun soak into his limbs. Beneath the glow of warmth, he can still feel the chill leaching into him through the soles of his feet—the Isabelle knows the cold of the depths, and he knows just as keenly through her.

Chapter Text

Their new passenger does not show his face again until Barcelona is far behind them, barely visible—as if a mirage of heat on the horizon, like they’re sailing from far hotter places in hotter months—and the sun is beginning to set in front of them, streaking the sky just off starboard with colors that make Vic’s mouth go dry. He’s seen the same sunset over and over again for years, and it never fails to make him speechless, to make him feel small in a vast and gentle space.

Mr. Quinn seems unaware of that gentleness. He sways as he steps onto the main deck, pale skin even paler in the pink glow of the sun.

“You look unwell,” Vic says, not unkindly.

“I feel it.”

“Some dinner, perhaps? A drink?”

A muscle works in his jaw, and Vic’s eyes are drawn to the manner in which his throat bobs as he swallows, appearing queasy at the very suggestion. “I don’t believe that would be wise, Captain.”

“Not tonight,” Vic acquiesces. “But tomorrow. We can’t have you starve before you gain your sea legs.”

“And if I didn’t gain them last time?”

Vic laughs. The sound seems to startle Mr. Quinn, and he looks up sharply. “You will gain them now, I guarantee. We’ve many weeks ahead of us, and you can’t afford otherwise.”

“That’s hardly comforting.”

“Many things are comforting about the waves, Mr. Quinn, and none of those have a thing to do with your stomach. Rest tonight. You’ll be seahardy as the best of us in a matter of days.”

The Isabelle sways gently, and Vic settles into the movement, letting the sea rock him as wind fills her sails. The chill is growing as the sun sets. One look at Mr. Quinn and he almost believes the air on his skin is fooling him—the man’s forehead is beaded with sweat.

“I had hoped—” Mr. Quinn begins haltingly, then swallows. “My cabin is stifling. I had thought the fresh air might help my condition improve.”

“It may. The first day is always the worst. Mind your breathing.”

He does attempt to settle his breathing. Vic can see his shoulders hunch, then relax, then hunch again as the nausea creeps into him in time with waves hitting the ship.

“I don’t believe—”

Vic sets a hand on his arm, guiding him to sit on the stairs. “Feel the ship. Move with her, not against.”

“I feel her all too well.” His words are a gasp.

“You do,” Vic says. He can feel the same breathlessness creeping into him—sympathy, perhaps, or a memory of when he first sailed. “And you will. Don’t fight it. This will grow easier.”

“It will?”

“It must.”

Mr. Quinn’s arm is hot below his palm, his shirt damp. Vic tightens his grip once before he pulls away.

“I hope—” He swallows again. “I hope you’re right.”

“You’re not the first man I’ve seen in this state. Look.” Vic points out to the horizon and the setting sun, waiting till he’s certain Mr. Quinn has looked towards his hand before he speaks again. “Keep your eyes there, right on the horizon’s line. Follow where we’re heading. The sky won’t lead you astray. And I’ll call for wine. It helps, as well.”

“I don’t believe I care to drink.”

“You should try regardless.”

His throat bobs, and he shakes his head before pushing himself to his feet and staggering to the railing.

Vic calls for wine anyway.

The next day is much the same. Mr. Quinn recluses himself, only appearing several times for fresh air, and the sun beats down upon them enough that he can’t gain much comfort in a chill wind. He’s disheveled, a far cry from the noble Vic met the day before.

Vic finally approaches him near dusk, when the sun’s fallen below the horizon and the evening shadows are casting circles beneath his haggard eyes. “You should stay on deck with me tomorrow. It might do you some good.”

“Nothing in the world will do me good.”

“The first few days of your first voyage are difficult. They feel like that for nearly everyone.” Vic leans against the railing beside him, offering him a handkerchief to wipe his mouth. “As if you won’t survive another hour, let alone weeks of sailing.”

Mr. Quinn takes it from him with trembling fingers, and Vic—now that he’s attempting to recall—isn’t certain if he’s seen the man take a meal since he’s stepped on board.

“Have you eaten?”

“Don’t speak to me of food.”

“You have to be hungry. If you’ll come with me to the galley, I’ll have them—”

He holds up a hand, Vic’s kerchief wound tightly around his palm. “Please.”

Vic stops himself from speaking further.

“I’ve never been this ill in my life.”

“It always seems that way. Give it time, Mr. Quinn—we’ve all felt this way before.”

“Time’s one thing I don’t think I have to give. I’m going to die if this lasts much longer.”

Vic can’t keep the smile from his face. He rests his torso’s weight against the railing, staring out to sea. “You’ll be just fine, I promise.”

“I didn’t sleep. I can’t keep even water down. My head—” Mr. Quinn presses the kerchief to his mouth. His breath whistles through the fabric, shallow and miserable. “Are all your passengers this ill?”

“Most of them. Although I don’t take on passengers often. You’re a rare case.”

“A rare—” he cuts himself off, leaning over the railing. All he produces is bile.

“A rare case, yes. My last passenger was—some three-odd years ago, give or take several months. I can’t remember if it was in the spring or fall. And we weren’t going quite so far. Galway to Genoa.”

“Yet,” Mr. Quinn says, then blanches. He looks thoroughly indisposed. “Yet here I am.”

“You seemed desperate. And I wasn’t inclined to turn down what you offered me to join us.”

“Today is making me wish I’d considered other types of travel.”

“From here to the Americas, there’s nothing else.”

“But there are many European countries. I could have, have…”

“Breathe,” Vic murmurs.

“Have picked another destination.”

Vic had not planned to ask, but his intentions flee from him as he opens his mouth. “You haven’t told me why you’re traveling.”

“I’m afraid my business is my own.”

“I don’t mean to pry.”

Mr. Quinn waves a hand, then thinks better of the movement and curls over the railing again.

“Walk with me.”

“I can’t.”

“You must.” Vic pushes himself upright. “Trust me—as soon as you learn to move with her, not against her, you’ll improve. Have you ridden a horse before?”

“Many times.”

“Then you understand.”

“A horse is more easily tamed.”

“The sea is never tamed.” Vic inhales deeply, salt flooding every cell of his airway. The Isabelle sways beneath his feet. “You just become her friend.”

Mr. Quinn straightens up, pressing the handkerchief to his mouth, and takes a single step in Vic’s direction. “I don’t think I want to be,” he says, voice muffled by the cloth.

Vic takes his elbow, guiding him away from the railing. “Then you’ll make her your enemy, and you don’t want that. Come on. We’ll take a lap or two, help you grow your sea legs.”

“I don’t think—”

Vic ignores his protests. “What kind of surname is Quinn?”

Mr. Quinn is silent for a few seconds, and Vic’s not certain whether he’s fighting his rebellious gut or hesitating to respond. “Irish, originally,” he says finally. He doesn’t elaborate.

“Irish. You don’t sound it.”

“No.”

Vic doesn’t pry any deeper, but he does think he sees his legs grow steadier beneath him as they walk. A day or two more should relieve him of all symptoms.

By the dawn of the fourth morning, the deck is noticeably absent of fine young gentlemen clutching handkerchiefs.

Vic does hope that this means that Mr. Quinn is in fact sleeping, rather than tossing in his bed. He remembers his first voyage all too well, as if it had been yesterday, rather than well over a decade prior. He must have been twice as ill.

He takes this chance to catch up on things he’s been neglecting—there’s the cargo to be re-cataloged and shifted to account for the waves’ handiwork, orders to be given, and reports to be listened to. This process has grown smoother over time. His first few years as captain, he’d spent the weeks of a voyage sprinting around the ship, attempting to keep everything going, keeping men in line, poring over maps, adjusting their trajectory, and doing the thousands of tiny, mindless tasks that cropped up without fail on any trip longer than a few days. It was a thankless role, one that left him so exhausted by sundown that he collapsed into bed and slept dreamlessly each night, only to roll out from the embrace of his blankets to repeat his work all over again.

It’s different, now; he has Jaime to direct the crew, and Tony to navigate, and a host of other men he’s grown quite fond of as he’s worked with them. He can hear their chatter as he ties down a barrel in the cargo hold, albeit muted through the Isabelle’s strong timbers. It’s comfortable, familiar—he’s used to their voices, and their complaints, and knows them all well enough that he could fall easily into whatever conversation they may be having now, as easily as if he was speaking to brothers.

The one part of this voyage he finds himself less acquainted with gives him a start when he climbs back to the deck.

“Captain.”

“Mr. Quinn,” he greets, schooling his features back to neutrality. “I haven’t seen you on deck today. Are you feeling better?”

“I believe so.”

Vic wouldn’t doubt it—some color has crept back into his pale cheeks, and the sick brightness of his gaze has diminished. “I’m glad to hear it.”

“Your sailor? The man at the wheel? He said you may be down here.”

“Tony. My navigator, and a good one. When you feel like interacting with the rest of the crew, I’m happy to introduce you. Is there something you need from me, Mr. Quinn?”

“Not something, not really—I was wondering if you might accompany me around the deck again. It’s a much nicer day than yesterday.”

Vic sets down the coil of rope he’s been using. He can feel a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Our stroll yesterday did you some good, I presume.”

“A great deal of good.”

“I could spare an hour or so, yes. Have you eaten?”

“No, not yet.”

“That will be our second order of business, then, after we walk.”

“I may even be capable of keeping it down.”

Vic passes him, leading the way back up to the deck. The sun is out. Despite the color on Mr. Quinn’s face, the light illuminates harsh shadows beneath his eyes. “Have you been sleeping, as well?”

“Some.”

“It can be hard at first. Now I can’t sleep unless the sea’s rocking me.”

“It’s less the motion, and more—” He hesitates, and Vic can see him weighing each word before it leaves his lips. “I have been dreaming. It sounds foolish in the sunlight, and I’m certain the dreams will leave me once I have recovered, but they seem the product of some fever I am not plagued with.”

“It is odd what the body will do to manage the mind.”

“I hope you don’t fault me for seeking company.”

“Certainly not.” Vic slows his strides to allow Mr. Quinn to keep pace; his steps are stronger today, footing more firm, but he’s still wary in his movements. “Although you may wish to be careful. Some of my men may be tempted to put you to work if they see you integrating yourself more fully with the crew.”

A shadow of a smile crosses his face. It is not enough to dispel the bruised circles under his eyes or the gleam within them, haunted and bright and unlike any illness Vic has seen.

The dreams must be fierce.

“That is not to discourage you,” Vic says hurriedly.

“I do not find myself discouraged, Captain.”

They take a turn about the deck, and Vic only has to reach out a steadying hand once. Sunlight is doing Mr. Quinn a service—the odd gleam in his eyes has vanished by the time they’re back where they started their stroll. Vic keeps an eye on him just in case. He’s half certain that the color will fade from his face if he looks away.

“May I ask—” Mr. Quinn begins, then pauses for a heartbeat. “Why are you heading to Boston?”

“You may ask. It’s no secret; any of my men could have given you the answer. The Isabelle is a merchant ship, and a damn fine one—we have a cargo of fabrics, all bound to the Americas. Boston is my port of choice when we cross the Atlantic. All my contacts are there; all my usual buyers. It’s rare I go anywhere but.” Vic’s still watching him steadily. “If you find yourself willing to share your business, I’d enjoy hearing your reasons for joining us.”

“Should that happen, you will be the first to know.”

Vic does think he should feel some irritation, but he can’t muster it up. He just smiles and continues to walk, starting the second turn around the deck.

“Captain,” Mr. Quinn begins a moment later. “Have you—is it common to have dreams when you’re at sea?”

“No more common for me than when I’m on land. But you’ve been ill.”

“I have,” he says quietly, as if he intends to go on, but he stops there. His head cocks to the side, as if he’s listening to sounds that Vic cannot hear, but Vic focuses in as well—there’s the noise of the waves, loose and easy, curling around the Isabelle’s hull, and wind whistling sinuously through the rigging, and the clamor of his men. The sounds of the sea, noises that fade out of Vic’s awareness most days. They are simply part of the scenery.

“You have. Fever dreams are common.”

“But I have not—”

“You may not have been aware of it.”

Mr. Quinn’s face contorts momentarily, and Vic’s eyes stray to the twist of his mouth, the downturn of his eyebrows. He looks unlike himself. “I know myself well enough to determine my temperature.”

“I mean no disrespect.”

“I take none,” he says, but Vic does not believe him. “I will be pleased when my feet are back on solid ground. That’s all, Captain.”

“You will not notice the waves much longer. Or the smell of the sea, or the sound of the wind.” Vic already cannot hear it, despite the breeze in his hair. “And I don’t believe your dreams will last.”

“I do pray you’re right.”

“You will find I’m often right, Mr. Quinn.”

His mouth twists again, but Vic can’t quite decipher the meaning. “Is that the truth?”

“It is.”

“You don’t speak as if you’re of high status, like the men I knew back home. Just as if you’re confident.”

“After so long on the sea, confidence is earned.”

The twist a third time, but Vic thinks he can make out a smile in the fleeting motion. “I have nothing against earned confidence.”

A cry from across the deck, and Vic looks up to see a rope fly loose, then be drawn in again, his men moving like the flex of a trained muscle to return it to its place. Mr. Quinn watches, too, and he’s quiet beside Vic, his breathing—light and unobtrusive to most—changing the sound of the Isabelle just enough that Vic has half a mind to blame his presence for the rope’s failure. He does not voice the thought.

They’re completing a second lap, and Mr. Quinn’s footfalls nearly match his own.

“I was correct in my timeline,” Vic says. “You are earning your legs. And your stomach?”

“Almost settled.”

“Then I’ll have a meal brought to you. The remnants of breakfast, if—”

“You’ve eaten already?”

“I’ve been awake for quite some time.”

Mr. Quinn directs a glance to him, and it elicits a strange jolt in Vic’s stomach. He hopes the man’s malady is not catching. “That long? The sun is just now up.”

“The sun doesn’t affect the hours that I keep. Work is work, whether it’s dark or the sky is clear.”

“Do you sleep?”

Vic pauses a moment before answering. It may be that the man wants reassurance, the promise of an unbroken night free of dreams, or it may be that he wants some semblance of connection—he cannot tell which, and he’s hesitant to offer either. “As much as can be expected when you captain a ship.”

“I have no knowledge of that expectation.”

“I suppose you would not. This is your first voyage—your first real voyage, notwithstanding your temporary crossing—and there is much you don’t know.”

Something’s strange about the set of his shoulders, the tension of his jaw. “I am unfamiliar, yes. Just of the sea.”

“I am not judging you.”

“I’m not used to knowing the least wherever I go.”

Vic smiles. “I can tell, Mr. Quinn.”

“What do you mean?”

“You are learned. More than I am, I dare say.” Vic casts his gaze to him, and there’s no anger in his face when it’s returned. He presses on. “And confident as well. In your speech, and your mannerisms, and your purse. I do not doubt that you’re uncomfortable here. I do not doubt you have never needed the knowledge of ships before—or, for that matter, the knowledge of labor.”

Mr. Quinn’s eyes are fixed on him. The strange light from before has returned, and Vic feels pierced by it, fixed in place as the deck rolls beneath his feet. For a moment, he feels on the verge of staggering.

“I cannot tell if you’re saying these things to belittle me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. What kind of man would I be, then?”

The spell releases, and Vic regains his footing. Mr. Quinn looks away, and there’s an odd flush to his cheeks, an angle to his jaw that was not there before. Vic has seen it in maidens, but never in men.

“I would love a meal,” he says after some time. “If you would be so kind, Captain.”

“One will be brought to you. Excuse me, Mr. Quinn—there is more I must attend to, I’m afraid. I have exhausted my time for company.”

Vic takes his leave, and he does not look back at his passenger as he ducks into the galley to request a meal. He does not look back as he returns to his work in the hold, either, and his mind soon moves on to other things, other needs that draw his attention. The puzzle of Mr. Quinn is one he will have many long weeks to unravel before they reach the shelter of Boston.

He sees little of Mr. Quinn the following day. Their passenger has yet to join the crew for a meal, despite his growing steadiness on deck, and Vic can hardly think of a reason to pull him from his cabin now that he’s growing comfortable.

Around midday, clouds gather to the north. Vic keeps an eye on them as he works; some of the ropes high in the rigging have slipped from place, and a stay near the mast has frayed enough he fears leaving it for much longer risks damage to both mast and crew. As long as the rain holds off, they’ll have time to pull everything back into order.

The clouds stay put, a high wall over the edge of land. He imagines it must be raining over the Iberian Peninsula, and he can picture water pooling on glossy leaves, dripping from the canopies of the forests farther inland, a slow, maddening trickle down to the mossy roots beneath like rain running from the sails above his head. Or a fine drizzle in the streets of Málaga, roads churning to mud, shutters drawn to keep out the damp. His imagination does not have to extend to that damp; he feels it in the breeze, curling cool and glassy around his cheeks as it flows out to meet them, carried by the pressure of summer thunderheads.

The damp leaves the deck slippery beneath him. Not enough to cause a fall, but enough to make him cautious. He beckons one of his crew—Javier, he thinks (despite the several years they’ve been confined to the same ship, he still has some trouble telling the sailor apart from his brother Gabriel, since age and a few grey hairs are all distinguishing them from one another)—over, directing him to replace the frayed rope he’d just removed.

The new rope’s never been uncoiled, and it spools out in a curl when Javier cuts off a length. Vic watches him stretch it out, fibers squeaking, too dry in the wet air. It does not match the old ropes once it’s hung. The unblemished color will only last a week at most before salt and weather wear it down to blend seamlessly into the remainder of the rigging, and Vic’s sure he’ll forget it was ever replaced before then.

“Anythin’ else?”

Javier’s accent always catches Vic off guard. He pauses before he shakes his head. “Not unless anything high up in the rigging needed to be replaced. Did Vincent give the all-clear?”

Javier nods. “Sir.”

“See if your brother needs anything. If he’s nearly finished, you’re dismissed.”

He nods again and, despite his bulk, melts into the rest of the crew within moments. Vic pauses to look the ship over—the ropes are all replaced, the deck as clean as it can be given its age, those still working beginning to straighten up—before he retires to his cabin.

Tony’s navigation has kept them on a straight path. Vic, as always, compares his readings with the almanac, but, as always, he finds no cause for concern; he’s seen no more than half a degree of variance yet. Nothing that would cause them to miss Boston, or be delayed in any significant way.

He copies down a handful of coordinates before he closes Tony’s journal anyway. His own handwriting is neater, but his math less precise; he was lucky when he and Tony met. Lucky that both Tony and Jaime were willing to follow him from one job to another, and willing to defer to him as captain for the first time. Much of his success is theirs. He knows it as well as they do.

They are exactly on schedule, already close to rounding the southeast coast of Spain. It won’t be long before Morocco is visible, and hardly longer than that before they leave the Mediterranean entirely and truly begin their long crossing to Boston.

Vic returns Tony’s journal to him and does one more round of the deck. Still no sign of their passenger—Vic feels a twinge of sympathy for him. The poor man’s seasickness must have returned, coming in waves as it is wont to do.

Nothing is amiss. Vic raps his knuckles against the railing, watching the clouds still roil over Iberia, and lets the gentle pitch of the waves sink into his spine until he feels as part of the Isabelle as the wood under his hand.

Chapter Text

Passage to the Azores this time of the season is always easy. Vic has never once had trouble with it, not even the year it rained incessantly from the moment they left Barcelona till they passed the Strait of Gibraltar into open sea, some six-odd days of precipitation and Mediterranean waves. This year it is still and silent, and the Strait is smooth, and the Isabelle slips into the Atlantic like a thief at some point in the middle of the night when Vic is still asleep. He doesn’t stir at the change in waters. The Isabelle barely rocks, and he’s pleased the following morning when he emerges from his cabin to see the coast of Portugal, off behind them and growing dim as she sails on.

The vague chill of the days prior has lifted. Vic feels nothing but the sun on his skin, the slow bake of warmth across his face. He savors it while he can get it—it will be a treat in the coming weeks to have such heat.

“Straight on to the Azores?” Tony calls out as Vic passes the wheel. He’s already set the course, and Vic knows it will be straight and true.

“Without a pause,” Vic says, and he nods to Tony, giving him a smile before he does his morning rounds.

The men are in good cheer, spirits high now they’ve sailed away from rocky coasts and the threat of inland autumn rain. They greet him as he walks, and Vic favors them with moments of small talk, conversation that ultimately leads nowhere and allows him to escape without much pause. He helps loose a rope near the bow, and ducks to lift a crate, and he’s able to continue on his rounds without dousing their moods.

Another falls into step beside him. Vic does not have to look to recognize the footsteps—has it truly taken so little time for them to become known to him? “Mr. Quinn.”

“Good morning, Captain.”

“You’ve come for a meal, then? The crew will gather soon.”

“I don’t believe so. My stomach is—”

“Were you unable to eat yesterday?”

“No, sir, I did. But I do not find myself much inclined to join you all. Not until I feel more settled.”

Vic looks to him for the first time, and he’s struck by the renewed color of his cheeks. He is no less flushed now than he was when they last spoke. “You look quite well.”

“And I feel it. But—”

“I will of course have your meals brought to you if you prefer it. But the table is always open to you. On such a long voyage, it may do you well to befriend more than just myself.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

Vic waits for some other response, then clears his throat with a rough sound when he receives none. “Tell me, Mr. Quinn—if you may—do you plan to stay in Boston once we arrive?”

“Who’s to say? I may yet continue traveling, or choose to stay in place. Whatever fancy takes me.”

“Would you consider yourself a fanciful man?”

Mr. Quinn smiles. “No more so than the average man of my disposition. Although my fath—that is to say, some I have known would disagree.”

Muscle tightens beneath the flush of his cheek, and his expression turns. Vic cannot look away.

“I suppose traveling on whims may be fanciful, but I’d likely do the same without responsibilities to tie me down.”

“Your voyages are not whims, Captain?”

“Not at all. I do not choose my destinations, and rarely my cargo. I am quite limited to where will earn me my next meal and the safety of a ship around me.”

“Then I must have less of a grasp on the realities of sailing than I imagined.”

Vic has no interest in upsetting him again with any allusions to his lack of knowledge. He shrugs. “I suppose it’s much like any merchant. Owning the Isabelle only gives me the means of travel, not the authority to do so wherever I wish and still make a living.”

“You must have preferences, though?”

“Of course. We all do. Jaime prefers the coasts, and Tony likes the open sea. The crew enjoys keeping close to home, which is Spain for most of us. The Mediterranean, or the Atlantic near Europe.”

“And not the Americas?”

“I enjoy the passage. It is long, however, and we’re all exhausted by the end. Which is why most of us prefer short voyages with home at our doorstep.”

Mr. Quinn nods, lapsing into silence.

“The Americas earn the most,” Vic adds. “Which is why we’re all willing to risk it whenever the cargo exists and the weather’s manageable.”

“You told me you wouldn’t be willing to make this trip any later in the year.”

“Indeed. We are on the cusp of Autumn, and—while it’s warm now, and the sailing’s easy—the sea won’t remain hospitable for long. I don’t care to try my luck by sailing into winter.”

“I was cold when I woke this morning.”

“And you’ll only grow colder. Before we reach Boston, you will likely have to sleep fully dressed.”

“Will it not only be October?”

“Nights at sea are different than nights in your home, sir. We have only wood to keep out the chill of water and wind.”

Mr. Quinn shudders. “I do not enjoy the thought of being so close to the waves, but—I do wonder what it might be like to live the way you live. I’ve rarely heard such freedom in a man’s voice.”

Vic looks at him. There’s a certain wistfulness to his expression he cannot quite parse out, and it makes him recall the jut of his chin the previous day, the flush over his cheeks. Perhaps something about the sea draws the man in, just as it pushes him away with its motions. “Freedom… I suppose so. I’m my own master in many respects.”

“I believed myself to be.”

He keeps his gaze on his passenger. “Believed?”

There’s an odd quirk to Mr. Quinn’s mouth when he speaks again. “I don’t wish to dig into my past, Captain. But I envy you that.”

“And I do not wish to pry.” The lie comes easily.

“If I may—you seem a learned man. Have you been to university?”

Vic laughs at that; he cannot help it. “No, I have not. I’ve never had the time.”

“You’re a great reader, then.”

“On slow voyages, yes. When I’m able.”

A chime rings clear in the Isabelle’s belly, and Mr. Quinn looks up sharply at the noise.

“We’re being called for lunch.”

“I shall take my leave, then.”

Vic wants to ask him again to stay and dine, wants it badly, for reasons even he does not have words for. He stays quiet for a moment, continuing his measured stroll. Mr. Quinn continues to walk, as well.

“You read as well?” Vic asks finally.

“Frequently, though I’ve been limited to what I can carry with me.”

“I have some volumes in my cabin. You would be welcome to them, if you find yourself looking for entertainment that conversation cannot provide.”

“Conversation provides me a great deal.”

When Vic looks at him again, Mr. Quinn is regarding him. He averts his eyes to his feet as he walks another few paces, clearing his throat. “I am glad to hear it.”

“I do not wish to keep you from your crew.” Mr. Quinn finally slows and halts, and Vic has to turn to meet his gaze.

“You do not keep me.”

As if to call his words into question, the chime rings out again.

Mr. Quinn smiles, inclining his head. His hair is beginning to curl, growing unruly as the salt spray coats it—Vic remembers well how that unruliness disconcerted him when he first took to the sea, how he used his knife to give himself a choppy, short cut in the initial weeks of his first voyage. It was lopsided, and it had inadvertently made his hair harder to care for over the remainder of the voyage. He’s kept it long ever since. He hopes Mr. Quinn will do the same, for his own good.

“And you’re quite certain you do not want to join us?” Vic asks again. He believes he knows the answer already.

“Certain, Captain. Although I appreciate your invitation.”

“It’s a standing one.”

Mr. Quinn smiles again.

Vic is the first to walk away, and he doesn’t expect the sensation of a hook in his chest, something coiling around his ribs to pull him backwards. He ignores it and pushes on.

The European coast disappears behind them without much fanfare, and the day following brings a gentle, dimly lit expanse of water in all directions, deep, shadowed blues and greens under the open sky. This early in the day, there’s a faint pink luminescence to the waves around them, stars winking out as the dawn rises behind them.

Unlike his crew, this is Vic’s favorite part of any voyage. He breathes better out here, loves how small he feels in comparison to the vast Atlantic; there is nothing quite like it, nothing in the world that compares, nothing on land that could possibly make him feel as wild, or reckless, or at home in the universe of the sea. Wind fills the sails, and they’re skimming over fathomless depths without a care, no anchor holding them in place. No anchor could, not out here.

Tony grins at him from the wheel, and Vic diverts his stride to speak with him.

“Captain.”

“You’re up early.”

“Javier seemed excited to rest, and I was awake anyway. I’ll be glad for breakfast.”

“I’ll make sure you get it,” Vic promises. “This is when I prefer to mind the wheel, anyway—I’ll give you an hour to eat, if you’d like to disappear for a while.”

“I wouldn’t dream of arguing with you.”

“You rarely do.”

Tony relinquishes the wheel, stepping aside to let Vic take over. “Should I bring you breakfast when I come back?”

“If you wouldn’t mind. I have enough to do today that it’ll be good to save the time.”

“Sir.”

The wheel is cool when Vic curls his fingers into its spokes, wood grain smooth against his skin. It’s no work at all to hold steady on their course, not with the waves cooperative beneath them, the wind favorable and strong.

The sun comes up quickly, and the chill of night gives way to the warmth of morning while he controls the wheel. The men on night watch leave their posts as the morning crew emerges to replace them. Vic smiles as they head for their hammocks and sleep, but his smile is not returned, and he hums thoughtfully while he adjusts their course minutely to account for the tug of the wind.

“I haven’t seen you at the wheel before.”

The voice seems to come from everywhere, and Vic starts. It’s only Mr. Quinn, and Vic begins to relax, but there’s something odd about his appearance—it takes him a moment to realize his shirt is done up improperly, wrinkled and stiff, his expression slack with exhaustion.

“Giving Tony a break.” Vic keeps one hand on the wheel. “Are you well, sir?”

“Well?”

Vic begins to speak, then clears his throat. “I do not wish to offend, but you look— have you slept?”

“I—I can’t quite tell.”

Vic frowns. “You can’t?”

“I know I did, but I feel—I must have been dreaming. That’s all.”

“Then your dreams haven’t improved after all?”

He pauses, and the wind seems to turn his poorly buttoned shirt into a ghost, swaying and buoyant on his frame. It swallows him, and Vic’s eyes trace over the lines on his forehead, the tightness of his mouth, the slump of his shoulders. He’s nearly as pale as the cloth draped over him, everywhere but the bruised circles forming below his eyes.

“No,” Mr. Quinn says, the word as soft as a whisper in Vic’s ears. “No, they have not.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.” Vic’s voice is equally as quiet, although he did not intend it to be.

“I thought they had. The few days when we were close to land, I—Captain, there must be some reason I cannot sleep at sea. Please, tell me this is no more than another seasickness. I must rest. I cannot—” he trails off as he sways in place, and Vic releases the wheel without pausing to think.

“Mr. Quinn—”

He regains his balance before Vic can touch him. “I am sorry,” he whispers. “I will… I’ll attempt to sleep again. I do not mean to trouble you.”

“You aren’t troubling me. Will you sit? I’m afraid you’ll fall if you stay on your feet for much longer.”

He shakes his head, then shakes it again, eyes closing fast, and Vic can see them darting about below their lids, like he’s still caught in the grips of a dream. His breathing comes quickly. “I must—I am sorry.”

“Mr. Quinn, I beg you—”

His words fall on deaf ears, it seems. He turns to go, his pace a slow stagger across the deck until he returns to the cabins, and Vic stares after him the whole way.

The door has scarcely closed behind him when Tony returns. He has a plate in his hand for Vic, but Vic leaves him without a word and follows Mr. Quinn back to the cabins, knocking quickly. “Are you well?”

Silence, for a moment, then a creak of the floorboards. “I only need to sleep. I’m safe.”

He doesn’t quite believe it. “I’ll check on you again this evening.”

Mr. Quinn does not reply. Vic feels, quite suddenly, as if he has eyes on him from every angle, but only Tony is looking in his direction when he glances around. The rest of the crew are busy with their own work.

He pulls his hand away from the door and retreats back to the wheel.

Tony does not question him, but Vic cannot shake the certainty that he’s being watched. He closes himself in his office for the remainder of the day, and doesn’t remember to knock on Mr. Quinn’s door before he retires, something that escapes his notice until the next morning.

“Is our passenger ill?”

Vic’s brow furrows almost painfully, and he turns from the railing. “What makes you say that, Jaime?”

“Tony saw him staggering yesterday, and he’s been—” Jaime hesitates. “Have you been told that he sleepwalks?”

“Sleepwalks?”

Jaime nods. “The crew has seen him several times, wandering the decks in his nightclothes. Timothy said he was mumbling to himself last night as he walked.”

Vic pictures the swaying figure from the previous day, thin and ghostly, the shadows under his eyes as sharp as bruised fruit. “No wonder he’s not been able to rest.”

“Sir?”

“He told me—it’s no matter. He didn’t mention that he’s been sleepwalking. Has anyone tried to wake him?”

Jaime shakes his head. His usual jovial expression has gone stiff. “No. We haven’t wanted to interact with him, not with—no.”

“He may not know.” Vic said it more to himself than to Jaime, then cleared his throat. “Try to wake him next time, will you?”

“Captain, they don’t—” Jaime goes silent. Vic can see thoughts flickering over his face, like shadows on a wall. None of them stay longer than a moment, too short for him to read. “I’m not sure it will help, and the crew would rather not speak to him unless necessary.”

Vic looks up towards the quarterdeck. Mr. Quinn is likely asleep now, still inside his cabin, and—as hard as he tries—he can’t picture anything from him that would lead Jaime to be so hesitant. “Will you tell me why?”

“He’s not,” Jaime starts, then trips over his words. “It’s his—he has a strange manner. That’s all. The crew have said they’ve never seen anyone sleepwalk like this.”

“Like this?”

“Well—he’s just wandering, but he’s mumbling strange things. None of his words make full sense, and he keeps speaking of names and places they don’t know, and his eyes are open but he sees nothing. And he’s been apologizing.”

“He joined us in secrecy. Whatever he went through before joining us must explain—”

“Captain, it sounds unnatural.”

Vic feels a laugh catch at his ribcage, hot and sharp. He doesn’t let it crawl up through his throat. “Unnatural? You’re far too superstitious for your own good, Jaime. You and the crew both. You should know better than to rely on secondary descriptions of what seems to be a dream, and nothing more.”

Jaime’s eyes dart off to the ocean. He does not look back at Vic, and Vic follows his gaze, watches the sparse clouds curling through the blue sky like smoke.

“Just try to wake him,” Vic says. “Please.”

“Sir.”

Vic pauses a moment, then sets his hand on Jaime’s shoulder before he steps away.

It is unusual to have a new body on the Isabelle, he has to admit. He feels the difference too, just as the crew must; he’s not used to having the cabin across from his occupied. Every time he leaves his room, he listens for sound across the small hallway. Every morning, he watches for an unfamiliar figure on the deck.

Jaime will be used to that difference by the time they arrive in Boston, he’s sure of it. As will he. It will simply take time, and time is one thing they have. The Atlantic gives it in abundance.

Vic watches the crew for the remainder of the day. One or two of them—Timothy, and perhaps Gabriel, if the strange look he sent in Vic’s direction is anything to go by—act off, but the rest of his men look fully normal. Nothing has changed in most of their behaviors, and he grows more reassured as the afternoon wears on.

He does not see Mr. Quinn once. It may very well be that this adds to his reassurance, his sense that the ship is still at peace, but he can’t say either way.

Near evening, the weather shifts, skies darkening to an eerie shade of gray that reminds Vic of oysters, strange notes of green tingeing the undersides of the clouds. The wind is chill. It blows wavelets against the hull, little ripples in the greater undulations of the waves, breaking like whispers on wood and tar.

He watches the white foam caps until the rain begins. Still, no sign of their passenger.

Chapter Text

Vic leaves his cabin again at dawn, pausing in the short hall between his door and Mr. Quinn’s. It’s closed tightly, no light showing beneath it, and he’s tempted to turn the latch and see if it’s locked or if he can push it open. The thought leaves as soon as it appears, and he blinks away whatever spell came over him and hurries to the main deck. It’s damp, water puddled in a few low places in the floorboards, but the rain has ceased.

Some of his men are awake. Just beginning their duties for the day, or leaving their duties behind to catch a few hours of sleep—he can differentiate them by their appearances alone, and the realization makes him frown. He has not kept a close enough eye on the assignments for this trip.

Other things have kept him occupied.

Vic flags down Jaime as he passes. Jaime’s still straightening his clothing and blinking sleep out of his eyes, but he comes willingly enough, even with the strange look on his face.

“Sir?”

“Did you try to wake him?”

“I’ve not yet spoken with the crew.”

“But you asked them to?”

His face shifts, eyes flicking away from Vic’s. “I asked,” he says. His voice is flat. “Whether they had the courage, I can’t say.”

Vic turns from him to scan the crew as they mill across the deck. Those just heading to sleep have a vacant, fatigued look about them, and he sees dark circles beneath a few eyes as they pass him by. His mind moves quickly to Mr. Quinn. The exhaustion, the bruises—but his men are still chattering, laughing even with their tired eyes, and the similarities end there.

Timothy passes, stifling a yawn, and Vic watches him closer than the rest. He’s quiet, and his eyes dart towards them, then away when they meet Vic’s.

“You should speak to Timothy when he wakes,” Vic says, gaze following him until he’s below the deck. “See if he tried to rouse him.”

Jaime nods.

It will be at least six hours before Timothy shows his face again, Vic knows, so he lets Jaime be.

There’s more than enough to do besides thinking about the worries of the crew. All of his usual tasks, and a few others with them—he discovers some of the pooling water is dripping down into the hold below the foredeck, and there’s a flurry of activity as he and several others patch the minute leak and reseal the wood, and a jib was damaged by the storm that needs to be pulled down, mended, and rehung—yet he can do nothing but think. It helps when he escapes for a brief time to copy over Tony’s notes, but even then the only thing in his mind is his proximity to Mr. Quinn’s cabin.

It occurs to him that he should leave his door propped open some night, that maybe he would overhear the mumbling Jaime spoke of, but he can’t visualize any sleepwalking that would be so disruptive as to wake him. And then his mind flies to the thin hall between their cabins, and the thought of losing the barrier of a latch distracts him enough that his hand slips, smearing ink over the page.

He blots it clean and returns Tony’s journal, then continues his usual work.

The rain did not penetrate any of their cargo, something he’s immeasurably grateful to find; the last thing he wants is to worry about finances this early into the voyage, before they’ve even hit the halfway mark. He resecures the tarpaulins over each crate he disturbed. The stiff, blackened canvas folds sharply into place, and his fingers are stained once he ties off the ropes.

Nothing is wrong, but he can’t shake the feeling of wrongness anyway. It lingers as he climbs back to the deck and the sun falls on him again, the previous day’s clouds long melted into clear sky. It gnaws at him while he does another walk around the ship, looking for anything he’s missed—surely there must be something, if his nerves are this awake—and speaks to Tony once more. The wheel is straight and sure, and their course has not changed. And yet the wrongness seeps into his stomach lining, sending acid up into his throat.

He sees Jaime intercept Timothy once he wakes. Vic does not approach, but Jaime finds his gaze across the deck and shakes his head, nearly imperceptibly, and he has his answer.

It is mid-afternoon by then, and Vic feels as if he knows his ship too well. She’s too familiar. There’s nothing left to keep his attention, and his discomfort keeps him from doing anything remotely helpful. He paces. He watches the sky, which stays clear, nothing crossing it—they’re too far for birds, even lost ones, to shade the Isabelle with their wings, and no clouds have formed. He waits for the cabin door across from his to finally swing open.

Of course, when it happens, he’s too distracted to notice until he’s turning from the railing to see Mr. Quinn only a few metres from him, appearing rather worse for wear.

Vic thinks for a moment that he may have lapsed back into seasickness, but his look has changed, and he’s not certain what’s wrong as Mr. Quinn approaches him. Seasickness, or lack of sleep, or some other illness—whatever it truly is, he’s off-balance, arms wrapped tightly around his torso and wrinkling the lines of his already mussed shirt, face pale and strained. Vic is silent until he’s close enough he could reach out for him.

“Mr. Quinn,” he says. Other words do not come, regardless of how much he would like them to form.

He meets Vic’s eyes. “Captain.”

Vic’s back is only a few inches from the railing, and he is tempted to step back until he collides with it, to give himself some measure of support other than his own knees. They feel strange beneath him. He wonders if Jaime’s worries may be contagious, or if there’s some other concern winding its way down his spine to make his body useless. “How are you?”

“Fine.”

He is anything but. Vic knows it, and he knows Mr. Quinn is equally aware, but his stare doesn’t give anything away. There’s a shadow underneath his jaw, thin in the slanted afternoon light. It shifts as he swallows, and Vic follows the motion down towards his chest, where his shirt seems to hang too loosely. He must still not be eating well.

“Will you join us for our meal tonight?” Vic asks, his words abrupt and oddly stifled as they leave his tongue, tripping off the muscle as unevenly as his footing has become. “The crew. You have kept yourself separate—it doesn’t have to remain that way.”

Mr. Quinn watches him with those light eyes, the bruises beneath them more pronounced today than usual, and his gaze steals Vic’s breath from his lungs. His stare is uniquely clear. Vic feels pinned down, stripped, set alight—if the man tells him every secret Vic’s ever kept in that moment, he will not feel shocked.

“You are the only—only man who will not dine with us.” He has to look down at the deck below his feet, has to memorize the wood grain and dirt caked into the crevices. It is the only way he can force any additional words out. “I do not want my ship to be divided. She is—”

“I am not crew.”

“I’m aware of that.” Vic makes the mistake of glancing back up. “Mr. Quinn—”

“Do you not prefer I keep my distance? You did not want me aboard in the first place. Not until I offered you a hefty prize for the crossing, and—”

“You know I don’t dislike your presence here. I have enjoyed—it’s been good to have you on board with us. Surely you can tell I’m not bothered by you.” Vic’s keenly aware he’s careening towards a line, but what that line is he cannot tell. It is simply there, as clear as the edge of his maps, as uncertain as the emptiness beyond what’s charted. “You know I would have you join us for meals.”

Mr. Quinn’s brow furrows, and Vic’s fingers twitch where they’re clasped behind his back.

“I do appreciate your invitation, Captain.”

There is a refusal behind his words. Still, Vic presses on. “Mr. Quinn, I—”

“I am comfortable in my cabin. And not so hungry tonight.”

“Are you well?”

His gaze falters.

“If you aren’t well, I could send for—”

“I’m quite well, Captain.”

“Any more dreams?”

The air stagnates between them.

“None,” Mr. Quinn says. “Not one.”

Vic is forced to nod and back away to escape that stagnation before it weighs him down. “Very well. Then your meal will be brought to you.”

He is silent until Vic takes his leave.

Vic must be uncharacteristically quiet while they dine that evening; he feels eyes on him at many points, crew watching him during lulls, hiding their glances behind tankards and nudging each other between mouthfuls. He does not attempt to speak up to appease them.

There are many reasons he’s been unwilling to take on passengers. The potential trouble with the law, or his crew, or interpersonal difficulties between himself and anyone near his status, or illness, or his liability should they run into pirates, or if a passenger should be lost, or injured, or have their things misplaced, or—so many he cannot hope to list them. He never anticipated this as a reason. Never thought that he might find himself silent at dinner because the man he did concede to give a cabin is now uninterested in mingling with the crew.

The sea is a deal rougher tonight, and Vic sees several of his men—Tony, young Timothy, and Javier—spill drink over their hands, or food onto the table. Mr. Quinn must be half sick in his cabin, and Vic expects to see him emerge for air at some point that evening. He never does.

Once the crew has scattered, Vic pulls Gabriel (the older of the brothers) aside. “Have you brought our passenger his meal?”

“Aye.” Gabriel scuffs his heel against the deck. “Left it outside his door. The man wouldn’t open it.”

“He wouldn’t open?”

“No, sir. Knocked three times, too.”

“Did he speak?”

“No, sir.”

Vic inhales, and the air stings when he holds it in his lungs, like salt crystals are digging into his flesh. “Thank you.”

Gabriel nods and rejoins his brother, and Vic is left alone—he returns to the quarterdeck, refusing to spare a glance for Jaime on his way back to the cabins. The plate Gabriel had carried still sits, untouched, outside Mr. Quinn’s door.

Vic knocks himself. The sound is hollow, and he hears nothing inside, not even an echo. He presses a hand to the center of the door a moment, then tries the latch.

It does not lift. The sound of clinking metal is too loud, and Vic pulls his fingers back quickly. He thinks the noise is followed by a short, sharp intake of breath, but all’s silent when he presses his ear to the door to listen.

“Mr. Quinn.” His voice sounds strange in the hall. “If you can hear me, will you open?”

Silence.

“Mr. Quinn. You must eat.”

“I am not hungry.”

Vic’s muscles contract and he jolts back from the door. Mr. Quinn’s voice is clear enough he must be leaning against the other side—Vic feels warmth creep over his cheeks at the thought he may have heard every movement.

“You must,” he says again once the sudden burst of tension has left him. “Boston will do you no good if you starve before we arrive.”

There is a pause, and quiet settles back over the hall. Then the latch slides.

Vic stoops to pick up the plate. He’s not certain whether he expects to see Mr. Quinn himself, or just his hand appearing through the newly opened crack, but he holds it out anyway.

The door stays just barely open. “Captain, you are kind—I know you’re concerned. You do not have to be.”

“If my concern keeps my passenger from dying on my ship, I will remain concerned.”

Mr. Quinn’s fingers curl around the edge of the door. They’re pale against the wood. Vic thinks he sees a tremble in them as they press harder, drawing the door open a hair’s breadth more, then reach out to take the plate from him. “I’ll try.”

Vic holds on until he’s sure it won’t fall, watching the tremble in his hand grow more pronounced as he lets go. “Thank you.”

Mr. Quinn begins to speak, then goes quiet, retreating back into his cabin. The door closes with a gentle rasp.

Vic stands where he is for too long, his feet refusing to carry him across the hall to his own cabin or back onto the deck. He does not want to eavesdrop, or violate Mr. Quinn’s privacy in his room, but he can’t keep himself from listening. The cabin stays silent.

He only abandons his post in the hall once the sun fully sets.

The door to his cabin opens without fanfare, no knock or word to introduce him before Jaime enters. The morning light is just visible past him before the door swings shut. “Captain, I must speak with you.”

Vic raises his head from his maps, and the sight of Jaime before him, empty handed and uncomfortable, catches him off guard. “Sit, please.” He gestures to the chair across from him, and Jaime does sit, his back as stiff as the wood beneath him. “Is something the matter?”

Jaime wrestles with his words before he speaks them. “We are—concerned. Captain. The past few nights—that is to say, we—”

“Speak freely,” Vic says. “Please.”

“It’s our passenger. His sleepwalking. Nothing has changed, sir, and last night it grew worse—I stayed up with the night watch, just to see for myself, and we saw him wandering again. Timothy tried to wake him, as you said, and he turned on him.”

“Turned on him?”

“Not in a violent way, not really, but his eyes were fully open. He thought Timothy was someone else entirely.”

“So this is still over his sleepwalking? We’ve spoken about this; you know that’s not uncommon—”

“No, Captain. What he said to Timothy…”

Vic waits for an elaboration, but it does not come. “Yes?”

“It was frightening. Something about a shipwreck, like it was some kind of prophecy—Timothy asked me this morning if he can be taken off the night watch. And the others are jumpy.”

“Dreams are not prophecy.” Vic places his fingers on the bridge of his nose, pinching to stave off a headache. Between Tony’s numbers from the night before and Jaime’s fear, he can feel one brewing, a storm behind his eyes. “Please, tell Timothy not to concern himself.”

Jaime shifts in his seat, his back remaining rod-straight. “Please, Captain. I don’t approach you lightly.”

“Jaime,” Vic says, and he resents the table between them, the rigidity of Jaime’s spine. If he was not captain, he knows he wouldn’t feel this distance. “Will you walk with me? I would prefer the air.”

The set of Jaime’s jaw eases somewhat once they’ve emerged from the cabin, and Vic presses his advantage, knocking their arms together companionably as they begin their stroll. He’s grateful for the faint, grudging smile it brings to Jaime’s face. “We’ve been friends for a long time,” he says finally. “You know I will always listen to you, don’t you? But I have a duty to everyone on board this ship, and I can’t let superstition cloud my judgement.”

“It’s not superstition. The men are whispering insanity.”

“Insanity?” Vic stops in his tracks, and Jaime has to wheel to face him. “You cannot be serious. Over a few nights of sleepwalking—”

“You have not seen him, Captain. There is something—something I can’t name about his behavior, can’t put into words, but we’ve felt it, so keenly, felt that he’s just not right—”

“Jaime, lower your voice.” Vic grasps his forearm and leads him to the bow, keeping an eye on the upper deck. It would not do for Mr. Quinn to emerge from his room to hear this. He does not want to picture the hurt that would flash across his face at such accusations. “He is our passenger, and a paying one at that. Tell me why you believe it to be insanity.”

Jaime’s gone silent, and Vic watches the tendons in his throat work as he swallows, stiff and uncomfortable under Vic’s gaze.

“Jaime,” Vic prompts, forcing his tone to soften. “Please.”

“I have seen many men talk in their sleep. Move around, even—you remember the night Javier was feverish and walked the deck. He was sleeping then, Captain. Clearly.”

“And is that not—”

“No, sir. We are not so sure Mr. Quinn remains asleep while he walks.”

“You think he’s awake?”

Jaime shifts under his gaze. “No, Captain.”

“I am afraid I don’t understand you.”

“He is neither asleep nor awake, sir, I’m convinced. It’s as if he’s somewhere else entirely.”

Vic cannot picture Mr. Quinn’s behavior in any way that discomfits him, nor the reason for the fear in Jaime’s eyes. “What would you have me do? He’s sleepwalking, Jaime. There is a perfectly rational explanation, and you know this.”

“And what if it’s more than that?”

“Then what would it be? What could it be? Do you believe he poses harm to you? To any of the others?”

Jaime doesn’t answer.

“I have spent enough time with the man that I can’t believe it,” Vic turns from Jaime to look back at the cabins, eyes lingering on the shadowed area beneath their roof. If Mr. Quinn was to emerge, Vic would see him long before he could overhear. “He is harmless, Jaime. I believe it wholeheartedly.”

“Harmless, perhaps, but he’s scaring me nonetheless.”

“How are you frightened of a man who is unconscious and threatens no violence?”

Jaime’s shoulders tense, then unhappily relax. He does not look Vic in the eyes. “I beg you, sir, do not insult me. I wouldn’t come to you if I thought our fears unreasonable.”

“I know that,” Vic says after a moment’s pause. His voice matches Jaime’s in tone, quiet and uncertain despite the voice in his chest that screams to him of Mr. Quinn’s innocence. “We are almost to Ponta Delgada, my friend. Wait it out. Perhaps the fresh air and land will disrupt his nightmares.”

“And if they do not?”

Vic has no answer that will satisfy him, so he does not speak.

“Do I have orders to remove Timothy from the night watch, at the least?”

“Granted.”

Jaime nods and takes his leave. Vic does not miss the way his eyes dart to the upper deck as he turns, and he nearly steps after him to pry for more, for any true reason behind his fear, but he can already see the blur of the Azores far in the distance when he follows the direction of Jaime’s anxious gaze. He has things to do, more pressing than the fancies of a superstitious crew.

Their night terrors will have to wait.

Chapter Text

Ponta Delgada looms up before them the following afternoon in a whirl of color and noise, the port beckoning them in like a long-lost friend as the Isabelle docks. The ships around them bustle with sailors and repairmen, carpenters and tailors to mend ripped sails and shattered timbers, men hailing their crewmates from the rigging in swarms. The dock is a jungle, and Vic inhales the stink of salt and sewage, squinting against the sun while he directs his own men to join the flurry.

This, at least, is easy. Jaime is not so thrown still that he cannot direct their men as well as Vic could, and there’s little discussion that needs to be had between them to prepare the ship for disembarkment. His crew is a well-oiled machine, and Vic hardly has to tell them a thing. They know the process as familiarly as he.

Ponta Delgada is always cause for excitement. Out of all the ports they visit, this has to be one of Vic’s very favorites; it is the halfway mark, the rest in the middle of an Atlantic voyage, and a bright, vibrant rest at that. They often stay a day longer than strictly necessary. It would only take a few hours to restock food supplies and find anything else they may need for the remainder of the journey, but Vic likes it here, likes it enough to let them linger overnight.

He beckons Jaime to him, and Jaime approaches without any trepidation. Vic breathes a sigh of relief at the cheer in his gaze. “Tell the crew they have until nightfall tomorrow to return. I believe—I would like to rest here for a while. Give everyone a chance to relax.”

Jaime nods. “Sir.”

“I will stay with him while we’re docked,” Vic murmurs.

“I pray you’re right about a night on land doing him good. The crew—I—don’t want to have the rest of the voyage marred by fear.”

“It will not be,” Vic says firmly. “It will not. Jaime—please, enjoy your time on shore. Don’t concern yourself with our passenger.”

“It’s hard to avoid concern.”

“I know.”

Jaime nods again after a brief pause.

“I’ll handle it.”

Jaime does not comment again, giving Vic a short bow and stepping away to speak with the crew. It makes unease itch at Vic’s mind. Jaime’s never been one to bow; not to anyone, least alone him.

Too much is shifting, too quickly, too dramatically. They’re nearly halfway through their voyage. Several more weeks, and everything will return to the way it was.

While the crew disperse, Vic backtracks to his cabin, then passes it, stopping in front of Mr. Quinn’s door. There’s no sound from within, no one speaking or breathing. The sound of Ponta Delgada dissolves around him, and nothing makes it past his senses but the wood grain in front of him, gray-toned in the shade cast by the roof over his head.

He raises a hand to knock.

The door swings open after Vic’s knuckles have hit the wood twice, but only slightly—Vic cannot see inside. “Captain.”

“Mr. Quinn. We are—”

“I believe I’ll stay in my cabin.”

Vic shakes his head, then presses his fingertips to the door. It does not move. “Please. I insist.”

A moment’s silence, and the door gives way another few centimeters. “I am exhausted,” Mr. Quinn whispers, and Vic believes it— he can hear it dripping from his voice. “I just want to rest.”

“And you shall,” he says quietly. “We’re in Ponta Delgada, Mr. Quinn. You can rest on land. Perhaps stability will allow you to finally sleep.”

“I do not—”

“There’s an inn only two streets over from the docks. You can eat and rest.”

The door creaks open when Vic places more pressure on it, and he finally sees Mr. Quinn, face in shadows. He’s hunched. Vic watches him draw back, and it looks for a moment as if he’s folding into himself, disappearing in front of his eyes.

“Please,” he says again, even softer. “I do not intend to leave you here alone.”

Mr. Quinn lifts his head at that, and Vic flinches back at the look in his eyes—only for a moment, then it fades, and he is not so certain it was there to begin with.

“I’m not hungry.”

Vic holds out a hand, palm up.

The last time he made such a gesture was some years before, when he did make it a habit to take passengers; a lady had sailed with them, of some suitably high rank, and Vic’s duties for that voyage had included acting as her escort. He still remembers the condescending press of her hand, the way she barely deigned to touch him. The way her hand had snapped from his the moment she was able to pull away.

Vic cannot hope to understand his passenger, but he thinks he would not receive such a reaction from him.

“Please.”

After a pause, Mr. Quinn’s hand settles onto his own.

It feels feverish to the touch. Vic holds him steady anyway, coaxing him from his cabin to the deck, drawing him out like a coiled line—he is nearly as tense, breaths coming like the hiss of rope on wood, but he follows Vic regardless.

“We have tomorrow on land,” Vic murmurs as they reach the gangplank. “I will find a physician.”

“For what purpose? He cannot cure dreams.”

“You told me they were gone.”

Mr. Quinn’s eyes flick across the port, then back to Vic, and he follows him down to the dock. A strange shudder runs through him when his feet connect with solid ground, his body swaying for a moment longer, like the sea’s yet beneath him, before he stills.

“It must be the sea,” he whispers. The words are nearly lost in the sound of the docks around them, face paler than ever when held against Ponta Delgada’s exuberance. “I’ve never slept so poorly in my life.”

“Then maybe a night on land will cure you.” Vic is still supporting his hand—he should pull away and let his passenger find his own footing, but he does not, even when they begin to walk, even when Mr. Quinn’s strides grow steady again. He does not.

“Where is the inn?”

Vic guides him from the docks to the road, and he can hardly picture the sight they must make to the crowd around them; a ship’s captain and a shaken gentleman, each step slow and measured. “Not far. We’ll turn off two streets from here, and then it’s only a few paces more. Can you make it?”

“I believe so. I feel—” he pauses, and inhales, and Vic thinks he can see the moment that life courses back into his chest. “Maybe I never got my sea legs at all.”

Vic is inclined to agree..

“But you were never this ill, were you?”

“No, not quite.”

Mr. Quinn manages to force a laugh, albeit a short and shaky one, and some of the worry in Vic’s stomach untwists at the noise. “And you never had to beg a captain’s escort, I am sure.”

“Neither did you.” Vic looks at him.

In silhouette, the way he swallows looks harsh and pained. He keeps his gaze forward, eyes on the road ahead of them, not darting over to Vic.

“Mr. Quinn, I hope you do not believe—”

“Kellin.”

“Sir?”

Every step they’ve taken has felt stronger than the last, and yet he does not pull away. “Please, Captain. I’ve been dreaming of my father. Do not call me—my name is not his.”

Vic cannot stare at him as long as he’d like. The inn is ahead to their right, and he has to look away to round the corner—there’s a puddle, and it splashes up one leg as they go, but he pays it no mind. “Of your father? Are you, then—is he why—”

Mr. Quinn shakes his head quickly, too quickly, and his hand spasms in Vic’s. “Please, Captain,” he says again. “Don’t.”

“Mr. Qu—that is—you’re certain? I am not accustomed to calling my passengers by their given names, sir.”

He stops before they reach the door, and Vic has to stop as well to accommodate him; he will not let him fall.

“I do not want to beg you. I’ve asked, do you need more?” There’s a desperate strain to his voice, his hand bearing down harder on Vic’s, pressing it towards the road beneath them.

For just a moment, Vic’s gaze settles on the tremor of his fingers, pale and slim in comparison to his own, and the sound of the city whites out once more. Mr. Quinn—Kellin—is touching him, but he feels the door between them again—he could swear his skin is wood grain, splinters working into his palm in tiny, stabbing darts.

“Captain.”

“You do not have to beg me,” Vic says, and it leaves his tongue as a whisper, rough sandpaper against the wood of Kellin’s hand. “Not for a thing. Will you come inside, Kellin? You should eat, and sleep, and recover.”

Someone pushes the inn door open behind Vic’s back, and he feels a rush of air, warmth pouring out onto the street. It closes again, and—although they’re still in a crowd, and there’s so much noise around them he would be overtaken if he let himself hear it all—he feels alone on the road, as alone as they’d been by their cabins on the Isabelle.

“I will try.”

“That’s all I ask.” Vic finally turns and releases him, and his palm smarts when he pulls it back. He’s surprised to find it unharmed.

Kellin follows him in, and he’s only slightly unsteady as he crosses the threshold. Vic can nearly blame his sea legs for it, now they’re back on land. He wishes he could.

The inn is dark despite the fire roaring in a hearth set into the back wall. Everything’s stained with smoke, dingy and grimy, and Vic does not look back at Kellin as he pays for their lodging. He doesn’t want to see what he must think of the place, of the sandy floor under their feet, of the stink of brine and working men they’re breathing. It is only one night, and then they’ll be back to sea, and he’ll have the salt air to refresh him.

The innkeeper hands Vic two keys. “Up the stairs, last rooms on the left, mind the low ceilings. Roof cuts into ‘em. You’ll be taking dinner there?”

Vic opens his mouth.

“We’ll dine down here, if you don’t mind,” Kellin says, and he looks—more settled, Vic thinks, now he’s indoors. Calmer. Or perhaps he’s just back in his element, happier to address someone who does not outrank him. “Do you have a table?”

They’re waved over to the back corner. The fire’s pulling every drop of moisture from the air, even from across the room, and Vic’s mouth feels unbearably dry, nearly salt-parched. He has to swallow several times before he can speak. “You don’t prefer to dine upstairs? It’s quieter there.”

“I have spent too much time lately alone in my cabin.”

“You do not have to—”

“Please, Captain, don’t ask me to mingle. I am ill, not blind or deaf. I know I am not wanted on board.”

Vic leans forward in his seat. “What is it you mean? Has anyone spoken to you unkindly?”

It may simply be Vic’s imagination running away from him, but he thinks Kellin leans in as well, the fire lighting one side of his face, bringing out the flush in one cheek and making the other appear even more haggard. There’s a faint stubble over his jaw, hair mussed as if he’s spent a week in the wind, not sheltered by the walls of his cabin as Vic knows he has been. But perhaps sleepwalking is enough to create such an effect. He does not look well, but Vic doesn’t feel the sting of fear that an ill appearance might excite in him. He thinks it may be impossible to be frightened by him.

“No.”

“And yet you claim—”

At this Kellin swallows and looks away, into the fire’s glow, and Vic has to blink away the afterimages of sparks when he follows his gaze. “I don’t know what is wrong with me,” he says, the words so soft Vic has to strain to hear whatever he may say next. “But I am not insane. I cannot be insane—these are simply dreams, and I’m only feeling the exhaustion that comes from them.”

“I don’t believe you are insane.”

“Your crew—”

“I know what they’ve said, but their fears are unfounded. Have they said anything to you directly?”

Kellin shakes his head.

“You must tell me if they do. I won’t have their superstition cause any harm.”

“Captain.”

“I will not. You are a paid passenger, not some—some—”

“Captain.”

Vic quiets.

“I don’t know how to stop.”

“Stop?”

Kellin shifts in his seat, pale fingers trembling as he hooks them into his collar, tugging the fabric away from his throat. Vic is certain it must have been starched once, but it looks limp and misshapen now, pale blue filigree giving way beneath his touch. His chest heaves as if he’s gasped for breath, but there is no audible inhalation. “I attempted to lock my cabin door. And roll myself in blankets, and even fasten my clothing to my bed—nothing has stopped me from coming to my senses out on the deck, half dressed and ragged. Your crew have been frightened. I am scaring them, Captain, and I feel their fear as if it was my own.”

“I am not frightened of you.”

“You may be the only soul on this ship who is not.”

“It may be,” Vic begins, haltingly and without much certainty to give his words weight, “that you are only ill. The sea may just disagree with your constitution.”

“I don’t doubt that it disagrees with me. But this is not—I was sick to my stomach, that is all.”

Vic turns his next question over in his mind for a moment or two before he ventures to ask it. “What do you dream of?”

Kellin does inhale at that, quick and harsh. “I am not certain if I should speak these dreams out loud.”

“Tell me you do not subscribe to the same superstitions as my crew, Mr.—Kellin.” The name still feels unnatural as it crosses Vic’s tongue. “I don’t believe it of you.”

“And why should you not believe it? You have known me two weeks at most, sir. Is my character so evident that you presume to understand me?”

Vic should feel chastised, he’s sure, but the way Kellin’s watching him makes him feel anything but. He meets his gaze for several seconds before responding. “Would you prefer I do not understand you?”

Something shifts in Kellin’s expression. Something like bravery, or a flash of knowledge, flitting across his eyes. “Not my preference at all, Captain.”

“Would you like to enlighten me, then?” Vic can feel his stomach knotting up inside him, twisting tighter and tighter the longer he looks at the man across from him. He is not accustomed to this. None of his voyages have prepared him for whatever hand has grasped his insides and began to tug.

Kellin’s lips part, and whatever bravery had been in his eyes before seems to flow out through his mouth when he exhales.

Vic wants to taste it.

He can only sit with the realization for a moment before it’s lost to the chatter of patrons and the clink of their plates when the innkeeper sets them down, steam wafting up towards the ceiling, curling and sparse in the firelight. Kellin does not look away from him once.

“Thank you,” he forces himself to say, forces himself to break Kellin’s gaze, fear and something more raw warring in his gut. Now that the food’s in front of him, he’s not so sure he can eat. He’s silent again until the innkeeper leaves them be.

Kellin’s utensils sit untouched. He does not move or speak, but his reticence does nothing to quell the churning in Vic’s torso. If anything, it only grows, ripples spreading into waves that threaten to capsize him the longer he lets them spread unchecked.

“Kellin,” he begins after an extended silence, then finds he doesn’t know what to say. He presses a hand flat to the table—the wood is pockmarked under his palm, skin dragging along the tacky surface—then reaches blindly for his spoon. His fingers meet nothing but more wood. “Please. You should eat.”

Kellin finally looks away, and it brings Vic no relief. “I just want to rest.”

“You’ll rest better on a full stomach. Kellin, I—please trust me. I have not seen you eat in days.”

Kellin stays quiet, and Vic can see his jaw tightening, releasing, and again in turn, like he’s practicing the motions of chewing. “I have not been able to.”

“Will you tell me why?”

He meets Vic’s gaze again. His eyes look blank; the sick brightness is gone, but so is the life. “My stomach turns whenever I attempt it. I am,” he swallows, jaw working again, “frightened.”

“What frightens you?” Vic asks. He is conscious of the hunch of his back, how his body’s angled as if he’s ready to spring over the table, and he straightens to regain the air between them. It is dry and hot.

Kellin reaches for his spoon and dips it, just barely, into the plated stew. A sheen of grease slips over the metal, and he lets the handle clang against the side of the plate and pulls his hand away. “Every morning I wake without a moment’s refreshment,” he says, staring down at his meal. “Dreaming takes as much from me as waking. I’ve never been so exhausted. Would you not be frightened, Captain?”

Something about the title feels hollow as it leaves Kellin’s mouth. Vic does not care to hear it again. “Will you accompany me to a physician before we depart?”

“Why? Am I to be bled and sent back to my visions?”

“I only want to see you well.”

Kellin’s hand returns to his spoon. It looks as if the weight of it pains him, hand trembling as he lifts it to his mouth. The shine of grease transfers from his stew to his lips—Vic, eyes drawn by some force he does not understand and the twisting hand in his gut, cannot look away.

“I do not want a doctor,” Kellin presses a hand over his mouth as he speaks, and Vic feels as if he’s lost something of great import. “I only want to sleep.”

“Eat, then you may sleep as long as you’d like.”

“Am I beholden to you while on land, as well as sea?”

Vic’s mouth twists, and he’s not certain if it’s in humor or frustration. “I would not require you to follow me, no. But I ask it of you regardless. Is my concern not enough to sway you?”

“I would not be here if not for your concern.”

“It must mean something to you, then.”

Kellin looks up, the movement sharp.

“My concern. That is.” It becomes Vic’s turn to avert his gaze, to feel an odd warmth creeping over his skin. “You know I won’t make you eat. But—will you, nonetheless?”

Even without Vic looking directly at him, he is conscious of the way Kellin stills, then curls his fingers around his spoon and raises it once more. The movement only makes the hand in Vic’s torso twist tighter, shoving his stomach against his lungs, leaving him both breathless and pained. He’s never felt this off balance in his life, not even on his first voyage.

“Thank you,” Vic whispers.

It’s obviously forced, but Kellin chokes down close to half his meal before he pushes the plate away. “I cannot. I’m sorry, Captain.”

“Don’t apologize.” Vic’s voice is still too quiet— he can’t raise it, no matter how he tries. “You’ll feel better come morning, I’m certain.”

“It’s a pity I’m so exhausted. I would ask you to walk with me. I saw very little on our way here, but I liked what I did.”

“Tomorrow, then? If you are able.”

Kellin smiles, a real one, his first of the night. Some semblance of life has crept back into his eyes. “Will you not have to prepare for the next leg of the voyage?”

“I believe my preparations can wait.”

“Then I won’t argue with you.”

“You have not yet argued with me. Although I do believe you have come close, haven’t you?”

“I would not venture to say close.” Kellin’s still smiling; the shadows beneath his eyes appear darker in the firelight.

Vic wants to touch them, to see if his fingers would dip beneath skin into some void masquerading as a bruise.

“Preferable. I do not enjoy arguments,” he says, and stays his hand.

“And I am grateful for that. I have known many who do, and I—” Kellin pauses, tongue working around words he doesn’t seem inclined to speak.

Vic wants to touch the shadows, and to ask for those words to be given to him freely, and to do whatever he can—and more, perhaps—to dispel the nightmares clinging to him and weighing him down. There is an anchor’s chain around his torso, he swears—he can almost see the imprint of metal in the exhausted hunch of his spine, in the inward curve of his shoulders. He is sure he would feel cold steel if he reached out now.

“I’ll escort you to your room,” Vic says, aware the room’s gone quiet. The voices of other men have faded behind the crackling flames. “You should rest.”

Kellin does not answer, and Vic forces himself to stand and extend a hand—not to brush his fingers over his bruised cheeks, or to feel across his chest for the bite of metal, but to help him to his feet.

He keeps a respectable distance between them as they ascend the stairs, narrow and cramped, only letting himself think of the distance between each stair to avoid a fall and the temperature difference between his hand and Kellin’s, fire-warm and exhaustion-cold in turn. He can feel each of those, and he prefers to linger only on what he can measure, not on the writhing in his gut, eels from the Atlantic that have burrowed into him and followed him from sea to shore, as attached to him as he fears he is growing now to Kellin.

“I might have made it upstairs alone.” Kellin’s voice is too soft in the hall, and yet Vic hears it clearly. “I don’t believe I am so helpless yet.”

“You might have.” Vic does not relinquish his hand until they’ve stopped in front of their doors. Little light reaches up here, and only dusk filters through the shuttered windows near them. “But what sort of captain would I be if I left it to fate?”

“I would imagine no worse, given that I am a passenger, not crew.”

“No,” Vic says. “No, you are not crew. I have no claim over your actions.”

He hears, rather than sees, Kellin’s lips parting as he prepares to speak.

“Goodnight,” Vic adds, and turns to enter his own room.

He wakes when it is still dark, a gasp catching at his windpipe, rough enough he coughs and rolls to his side. His blankets have bunched underneath him, and they dig painfully into his ribs—the pressure and breathlessness catch him off guard, make him feel like he should be underwater to explain the symptoms.

Other than his flailings, the room is silent and still. No noise filters in from the street below, nor through the walls around him. No speech, no footsteps, no snoring men or rasping cots. He can hear his own heartbeat thumping in his ears.

He should turn over and return to sleep, but something compels him to stand, the floor chill beneath his bare feet. It barely creaks as he approaches the door, then steps through to the hallway—he feels unreal at this hour, ghostly, his shirt loose and pale in the dimness around him. The hall is as silent as his room. His door had not kept out any noise, nor protected him from movement outside. There is nothing, and yet he cannot shake the same urge that prompted him to leave his bed. It draws him towards the final door in the hall, nestled beneath the eaves, and even Vic—who has never been a tall man by any standards—has to duck his head when he presses his ear to the door to listen.

Silence within, but this silence feels stranger, somehow, than that enveloping him in the hallway. Vic places a palm flat against the door, then withdraws. This is not his ship, and the man within is not his crew. He would do well to remember it.

Sleep takes him again once he’s returned to his room and bolted the door behind him, and he dreams that someone slips beneath his door in the quiet of the early morning hours, the muted glow of the gray just prior to dawn, and stoops over his bed, reaching out a pale and slender hand to brush the hair back from his forehead. The hand is as chill as the night outside his window, and the cold pushes him onwards into another dream, one of the sea and storms and lightning in the clouds above.

He remembers little when he wakes again.

Kellin appears in front of him like a phantom when he descends the steps, and Vic—long since awake, sequestered in the same corner as the night preceding—offers him the remnants of his breakfast. He still looks exhausted, but he accepts the bread Vic hands him.

“And how are you this morning?” Vic asks. He attempts to keep his gaze from stalling too long on Kellin’s face. He would attempt it regardless, but this is not the time or place to allow any hint of his thoughts to show. “Are you hungry?”

Kellin covers his mouth with his hand, and it only trembles slightly as he prepares to speak. “Better,” he says. “Much. I believe I slept through the night—I do not remember stirring. And my appetite’s returned.”

“You look better.” Vic does not add to the comment. He looks away, watching the inn’s other patrons come and go, sparse as they are at this hour. One man slumped by the bar, head pillowed on his forearms, a young couple by the window, their dress clean but plain.

“I would likely be able to walk.”

“You’re well enough?”

Kellin nods, the movement catching the edge of Vic’s vision.

“Then I would be happy to show you around. Not for long, since I’ll be expected on board before noon, but for the time I do have.”

“Are you always so busy? I’ve not yet seen you unoccupied, except for when I’ve begged for your time.”

“Busy enough. This is not the largest ship I’ve ever worked on; I have known captains with much larger responsibilities than my own. But I am frequently occupied, yes.”

“And is it tiring?” Kellin’s eyes flick to him. They draw his attention, reel him in as the chain spool reels the anchor. “If it is, you handle it remarkably well.”

“Out of necessity.”

“I did not mean to dismiss your efforts. I hope you didn’t take my words for such—”

“No, to the contrary.” Vic cannot sit still with the pull of Kellin’s gaze. He stands and offers his hand. “Will you accompany me now, then?”

There is no hesitation. Kellin takes his hand, and—though he’s relatively steady on his feet this morning—he leans his weight heavily on Vic as he rises.

The inn door swings shut behind them, and the sounds of Ponta Delgada instantly swell. The thrum of life, speech and laughter and movement drowning out the sound of the ocean, only a few blocks shy. Kellin takes a small step forward, dropping his hand as if he’s been burned.

Vic’s stomach churns, his breakfast disagreeing with him, but he cannot fault Kellin for the choice. “The city center’s not far. Walk with me?”

“Are the Azores always so busy?” Kellin falls into step beside him, still keeping some distance between their feet. His hand’s stiff by his side, thumb curled into the fabric of his trousers. There will be no chance of accidental contact between them.

“It varies by season and city. We’re coming to the end of summer, and you’ll find fewer ships stopping here now than you would a month prior. When we return next month, it will be quite empty of all but locals. I prefer it that way.”

“Quieter?”

“Much. And the inns are cheaper.”

Kellin gives him a sideways glance. “Our rooms were costly last night?”

“Not enough to trouble me. Don’t concern yourself with price.” Vic directs him to round a corner rather than continue straight. His fingers brush Kellin’s sleeve, and he has to swallow around a burning lump that appears without warning. Has to withdraw his hand without letting himself hold fast. “There’s often a street market near the docks. You may enjoy it.”

“I’ll enjoy anything. I feel much more myself on land.”

“I wish I could suggest you stay here rather than continue on to Boston, but—”

“Whatever your objection, I concur and have several of my own.”

Vic feels a smile draw at the corners of his mouth. “I only meant to say you may find the economy of a relatively small port city not to your liking. Much like the liveliness of the city, you’ll see the cost of residing here change based on weather and visitors.”

“Would Boston not be similar?”

“Boston is a great deal larger, but I still presumed you’d continue inland. You do not seem to enjoy the ocean.”

“It is not that I dislike the ocean, only being on it.” Kellin’s watching him. His gaze is heavy. “I have always lived close to the shore.”

“What would your objections be, then?”

“I have no desire to pause halfway through my journey. Boston will be a fine destination, even if it remains temporary.”

“Halfway, yes, but—I must tell you the remainder of our voyage will be less enjoyable. There is nothing between us and the Americas, only leagues of ocean and the elements to contend with. I do hope your sea legs improve.”

Kellin shakes his head. “I will manage. Even if I sleep poorly from now till Boston.”

“You had never struggled to sleep prior to boarding?”

“No, sir. Never.”

Vic hums thoughtfully, the sound so quiet he’s sure Kellin won’t be able to hear. “Never walked in your sleep?”

Once again, he shakes his head.

“If I may speak with full honesty, I have never met another man so affected by the sea. With any luck, a day on land may disrupt the cycle. I would much prefer to see you comfortable for the rest of your time with us.”

“How long do you intend to stay in Boston once we do arrive?” he asks when Vic has hardly finished speaking, his words abrupt.

“A matter of days. We will have a small window of time in which to unload and sell our cargo, and then we’ll prepare for the return trip—to delay any of the proceedings long would risk our safety on the way back to Barcelona.”

“It’s a pity to hear, though I’m not surprised.”

Vic looks at him. His stare has not once left Vic’s face.

“I would have asked you to show me around Boston as well.”

“I—” Vic begins, then clears his throat. The lump has returned, stinging bright and sharp. “I’ll likely be able to spare a few hours. And I’ll introduce you to the people I do know there. You won’t be left entirely alone.”

“That was my original objective,” Kellin says. His voice is thoughtful. Hesitant. “I would not be against an introduction, however.”

“Whatever I can give you,” Vic murmurs. He pauses, then points Kellin down another side street. “This way.”

They exit the main road and wind through what’s little more than an alley, unpaved beneath their feet. The mud sucks at Vic’s boots as they walk. The walls are close enough that Kellin’s forced to stay close, shoulders nearly touching; he keeps his hand stiff, keeps his gaze (so long left on Vic) ahead of them. It’s as if the confined space is making them more of strangers than ever.

Vic’s relieved when they step back out into open air. The market’s ahead, color and noise springing back to life, and Kellin relaxes—he lets his arm swing free.

“You’ll likely see several of my men around here. This is a favorite destination.”

“Is it yours?”

“I enjoy it, but I don’t often go. There’s more than enough to be done on my ship while we’re docked.”

“And you still say you’re not unbearably busy.” There’s a note of something like a tease in Kellin’s voice. “You’re allowed to rest as well.”

“If I rested as often as I was allowed, you’d find the Isabelle a worse vessel for it.”

They pass into the market, and Vic catches sight of Jaime from a distance, his profile distinct. “See?”

Kellin follows his gaze. “Crew? I still have only met a few of them, and I do not know their names.”

“You should spend less time in your cabin and more with us.” With me, Vic wants to say. “Take advantage of being here. You may not pass this way again, and I think you’ll find Boston less exciting.”

Kellin exhales, audible through the noise of the crowd, and nods.

The remainder of the morning is a blur. They wander, and speak very little—Vic nearly begins a few conversations, but finds it easier to stay silent unless he’s responding to the few questions Kellin directs to him—and return to the Isabelle together before noon. Kellin immediately sequesters himself again; Vic turns his attention to the final departure proceedings. He prefers work to his thoughts.

They slip out of the shelter of Ponta Delgada’s harbor on time, waves breaking easily before their prow and foam following in their wake. The sky is clear, no clouds or fog disrupting visibility—Vic feels as if he can nearly see the Americas already.

He’s tying off a lead when the wind steals snatches of his crew’s conversation, flinging it by him.

“Did he come back?”

There’s an inaudible response, then the same voice resumes. “Don’t know why. I’d fling him off if I was captain.”

“I’d never let him on to start.”

“He’s bad luck. We all know it. Except for Cap, but—”

“Careful.” Vic thinks this new voice may be Tony’s.

“All I‘m saying’s he’s not right.”

Vic double knots the lead for good measure, then heads back to his cabin. The crew falls silent as he passes.

Only Tony has the grace to look him in the eyes.

Chapter Text

Vic is not surprised by any measure when he feels Tony behind him on the deck, even though his silent presence is unusual at this hour. He’s frequently awake at night, it’s true, but never away from the crew or the wheel—Vic knows already why he’s come, why he’s hanging back several meters with his hands shoved deep in his pockets.

“Good evening.”

Tony exhales, then takes several measured steps forward until he’s only just behind Vic’s line of sight. “Captain.”

“You would ask something of me.”

He shuffles his weight, the Isabelle’s boards slick under his feet. Vic can hear his soles slide across the grain. “Sir, I—”

“Or you’ve been tasked with asking?” Vic turns to regard him, and he immediately believes he’s correct. Tony looks as if he’d rather be anywhere else, his body angled towards the mast, shoulders hunched and hair loose around his face.

“In all honesty, Captain, I can’t tell you what I believe. But Jaime’s upset, and I don’t like—he’s not often upset. It feels wrong.”

“Does he feel he cannot approach me himself?”

The thought stings, digging into his skin like the venom of a wasp, sharp on the surface and throbbing beneath the longer Vic holds onto it. He does not understand what this voyage has done to his men, doesn’t grasp why they’re so unwilling to think as rational men.

“No, it’s not,” Tony says, wrestling with his words. “That is not what I—I only want to ask a favor of you. Something small that might, might set things to rights.”

“Then ask it.”

“Take one shift of the night watch. Just one, Captain, please. See what we’ve all seen. Then maybe you’ll—you’ll understand, or you’ll be able to explain it to us all and ease the crew’s minds.”

Vic had prepared himself for a much more difficult request, and he pauses, gathering his thoughts. A night shift alone is nothing. “Of course. Is that it? Then you can dismiss this evening’s crew—I’ll stay awake till dawn.”

“You will?”

He is not sure at what point during the past two weeks doubt wormed its way into the hearts of his men, or what action prompted them to believe he would do anything else. There’s surprise in Tony’s voice, relief, and it redoubles the wasp’s venom under his skin. He feels his hands twitch against the sudden intensity. “Tony,” he says, and his voice sounds quite unlike himself. He cannot recognize it.

“Captain?”

Vic goes silent. He does not dare ask any of the questions parading over his tongue, doesn’t dare to discover what answers Tony may have for him. “Get some sleep.”

He bows and departs.

The ship steadily quiets around Vic, and he listens to the growing absence of movement on the decks behind him as he leans against the railing. It is a still night—even the waves are balmy, barely a whisper as they brush the Isabelle’s hull, spray as light in the air as Vic’s breath. He keeps his eyes on the horizon, on the faint glow still lingering in front of them, her prow a shade cutting across the remnants of the sun. If it were not for the cloud cover above them, low and wispy and close enough Vic would not be shocked to see the mast parting it as they sail on, he knew stars would be appearing soon, reflected low in the deeps.

A gentle breeze curls around him, cups his jaw and pulls his face up to the clouds. It’s colder than the air around them.

It stirs a memory deep in his chest, something vague and dreamlike he cannot quite place—cold, and lightning, and the ghost of a touch, but it is gone as soon as the breeze slackens. The sails above him make no sound, but they move regardless; there is some shape left to them, even though the night is still.

The Isabelle sails on.

Vic does not move from the railing until his forearms are sore from the weight he’s placed on them, some time—hours, he thinks, though he has no proof other than the ache in his joints and the total absence of light on the horizon—later. He walks the deck, then, and his footsteps echo hollowly on the wood below him, the thud of his heel followed by the scrape of his toe. It repeats, over and over until he loses track, the noise fading into itself until he cannot distinguish it from the curl of the waves and the occasional rustle of canvas over his head. He’s approaching the stern for what feels like the eighteenth time when he hears a slight variation in the sound of his own feet.

He comes to a halt, staring out over the water. There is naught but silence for a long minute, and it does not take much to convince him of his imagination playing tricks on him in this early hour. He has not slept, and the deck is empty when he gives in to the urge to look over his shoulder, and he only pauses for a few seconds longer before he resumes his rounds. Thud, scrape, thud, scrape, and then the sound again—the flutter of a sail, perhaps, or a wind (a nonexistent wind, his imagination reminds him) rustling the folds of his coat. He carries on. Thud, scrape, thud, scrape, and then another scrape, milliseconds off of his own. Vic inhales slowly, then continues to walk, listening for a repetition of the strange echo.

It only takes moments before he hears it again—a scrape overlaying the thud of his own heel, and, out of habit more than anything else, his hand finds the grip of his pistol under his coat as he turns abruptly.

He can’t see a thing.

The deck’s in shadows, and the moon must be out by now, obscured by the clouds but bright enough to set shapes racing over the wood around him, eerie, shifting patterns that move and twist with Vic’s eyes until he’s dizzied. Nothing looks out of place, but a queer sensation is beginning to creep over him; he’s reminded, quite suddenly, of his hand pressed to a door in Ponta Delgada, of his chilled fingers recoiling from the wood. He can hear wind in the sails again.

The deck is far brighter than that dim, silent hallway. Vic’s stomach stirs, and his hand grows taut around his pistol, pointer finger finding the cold curve of the trigger. He takes a step back towards the stern. Just one; scrape, then thud as his heel finds the deck.

Someone exhales in his ear.

Vic whirls, a coat tail curling around his pistol like a constricting vine, trapping his hand beneath heavy fabric. He can’t struggle free, and his heart seizes as he recoils from the figure in his face, the pale features only inches from his own. The clouds above him cast shadows, contorting Vic’s vision and making everything appear wild and strange—there’s a pause before recognition sets in, and Vic’s fear settles in his chest as Kellin’s face comes into focus in front of him.

“Good god,” he pants, releasing his gun. “Where did you—”

There is no emotion in Kellin’s eyes, no spark of awareness. He stands there, half dressed, shirt unfastened and draped loose around him to bare his chest, feet bare and trousers rucked up around his calves. He sways with the ship.

Vic looses a slow breath and averts his eyes. He’s clearly asleep; he must have rolled from his bed only moments before. Vic must have simply missed him in the shifting moonlight. “Kellin, I think you should—”

Kellin wanders past him as if he isn’t there, their arms nearly brushing. Vic twists his body to avoid a collision.

The deck is empty, but it would seem that Kellin dreams otherwise—he walks like he’s in a crowded room, weaving between obstacles Vic cannot see, arms hanging loose by his sides. Vic watches silently as he stretches a hand out in front of him once he’s near the foremast, going still, shadows making his body appear to be twisting, moving in unnatural, inhuman ways despite his lack of motion. Vic blinks and he solidifies once more.

The gentle breeze dies, sails going slack above their heads, and Vic can hear a whisper in its absence. Words he cannot quite make out, gentle and breathy as the slosh of waves. He follows Kellin with a slow, measured step, laying each foot down silently—he does not want to drown out the whisper, does not want to startle his passenger awake. He knows little about sleepwalking, but Vic does know he shouldn’t frighten him.

Kellin sways as if a wind’s rocking him, but everything around them is deadly still.

Vic comes close enough to touch him, but he does not dare reach out. Kellin’s head is lowered, and Vic can hear the whisper more clearly this close, can hear half-developed words slur from his tongue. His arm is still outstretched; it trembles like a leaf. The curve of his throat is bared to the night air. Vic finds he can’t look away once his eyes alight on it, his pale skin a canvas for the scattered shadows. They writhe over him until Vic can’t distinguish where skin ends and shadow begins.

He can only make out a few fully-formed words. A name—Richard—and Dublin, and a series of numbers that he forgets as soon as he hears them. The word please, so quiet he’s not sure it was truly said. The word father.

Kellin’s arm falls. He is still. Even his trembling has ceased, and Vic begins to extend a hand to grasp his shoulder, to guide him back to bed, but the moment he reaches out Kellin starts to walk again, his steps slow, dreamy, direct. Purposeful.

Vic feels half caught up in the same dream as he follows.

The wind picks up as they walk towards the bow, and Vic’s breath catches at the chill—it drowns out anything Kellin might be whispering now, makes his undone shirt billow out around him until it appears he’s entangled in a fallen sail. He must be freezing, but his pace doesn’t falter. He wanders on, and his bare feet carry him up to the forecastle, then to the bow, where he halts, railing catching him in the stomach and impeding his forward march.

Vic pauses a few steps behind him. He may be asleep, but he looks wild, wind in his hair, staring out over the waves. Vic can scarcely breathe.

Kellin’s hands lift again, one curling around the railing, one stretched out to sea.

Vic wants to see what he sees; if it were possible, he would step into Kellin’s dreams alongside him, would walk with him, not behind him, across the scarred deck. He is tired of being kept outside.

He does not move again for a few long moments. Then, still dreamily, moving as though he is floating, he swings one leg over the railing.

“Fuck,” Vic breathes. The spell breaks and he rushes forward, throwing all caution to the wind as he wraps an arm around Kellin’s chest, holds him fast, drags him back to safety.

Kellin gasps awake, his chest heaving in Vic’s grasp—Vic expects him to fight, or scream, or pull away, but he only crumples, knees giving way. Vic lets him down to the deck, his own hands trembling, holding him fast. He doesn’t trust that the throes of sleep have left him behind. He will not risk losing him to the waves.

“Are you with me?” he asks.

“I—Captain?”

He sounds confused, frightened, and Vic grits his teeth. “You’re awake?”

“I am. I—” Kellin twists his head to look at Vic, and his eyes are wild, still lacking focus, lacking awareness. Vic does not want to release him in such a state. “Captain, where—I, will you tell me what—”

“You’ve been wandering.” His breath catches at the fear that flashes over Kellin’s face. “You—”

“Wandering? Only that?”

“Sir—Kellin—” Vic begins haltingly.

Kellin grasps at him, hands winding into the front of Vic’s shirt. It feels desperate, desperate in the way Vic’s only seen from drowning men, fingers snared so tightly in Vic’s clothes that he’d never break free before being dragged down with him. It sends a frost through his chest, but he does not pull back. He doesn’t dare. He doesn’t think he’s able.

“I dreamed,” Kellin whispers. “I dreamed, Captain, that you were with me in a crowd of men. Following behind me.”

The frost quickens, takes root.

“And then you were gone. It was just men I did not know, save—save—”

“Who is Richard?”

Vic regrets the query as it leaves his lips. The fear on Kellin’s face has twisted into something deeper.

“How do you—”

Kellin’s hands wind faster in his shirt, and the seams pull almost cruelly at Vic’s neck, tighter and tighter until he can scarcely draw in breath for the pressure. He gasps, tilting his head up to search for air, and he can feel water closing in around them. Kellin’s as heavy as an anchor.

He does not relent. “Captain, where have you heard that name?”

“You spoke it.”

Kellin releases him abruptly. Vic’s arms tense around him to counteract the sudden movement.

“Is he in Dublin? Is he who you are—”

“Don’t,” Kellin whispers.

“I must know.”

He goes quiet, goes still. Vic may as well be holding a corpse.

“I’ve granted you as much privacy as I can afford.”

Kellin’s gaze drifts elsewhere, away from Vic, and that strange slackness returns to his face. Vic is half tempted to shake him, to ensure he’s still awake. “Please don’t make me speak of my past. I want nothing—”

“Kellin,” Vic breathes. “Kellin, please. Give me anything—have I placed my crew in danger, inviting you on board? Are you being followed?”

Kellin’s gaze snaps back to him. It is sharp, focused, and Vic thinks he might be able to see inside of him, that Kellin’s eyes might be peeling him apart. “Followed? Dear God, no, I am not being followed. Your crew is safe.”

Vic exhales. “Who is Richard?”

“Captain, I can’t.”

“You can tell me nothing?”

Kellin shakes his head.

Vic pulls himself from his thoughts, then, the fear of some unknown danger leaving him as quickly as it had arrived. Kellin’s still in his arms, the deck hard beneath his knees, and he’s aware of how compromising their position would appear to anyone who happened to wander above decks.

He slowly releases him. “As long as the crew is safe. That’s all I need to know. Thank you.”

Kellin does not attempt to push himself up, or even to rise to his knees—he lets his head thump back against the deck, dark hair sprawled out over the wood. His breathing is still labored, although it’s slowly calming.

Vic can’t look away from him.

“What happened before you woke me?” Kellin asks after a long pause.

“You nearly went over the side,” Vic says, watching as a shiver runs through Kellin. “Did you know? What were you dreaming when—”

“I felt the railing,” he whispers. There’s a measured pause between each word. “But I couldn’t see it.”

“And you still meant to jump?”

He nods. “I had to. It was all that would stop—”

Vic is accustomed to dealing with the everyday worries of the sea. This is beyond his scope— this is spiraling quickly. He feels the deck spin under his knees like the Isabelle has hit a whirlpool, circling something more deep and terrible than he can put a name to. “I don’t understand.”

Kellin’s eyes close again. There’s a tightness to his face, a hard line between his eyebrows, that unsettles Vic as much as his speech. “Neither do I.”

He sits back on his heels, the hard sole of his boot digging painfully into his upper thigh. “We—” he falters. To throw himself into whatever is happening here, to add these strange dreams to his list of responsibilities—but the word has been spoken, and Kellin’s gaze has returned to him. “We’ll figure this out. Whatever is happening, we’ll find a way to understand.”

“I’m exhausted,” Kellin whispers. “I just want to sleep.”

“Then sleep.” Vic pushes himself up and reaches down to grasp Kellin’s arm, pulling him to his feet. He doesn’t miss the way he sways. “Get some rest. We’ll talk in the morning.”

Defeat clouds his expression. He nods, anyway, and Vic releases his wrist to let him go.

Tony finds him before the sun fully rises. “Captain?”

There’s a world of questions in the single word, and Vic does not know how to answer any of them. He nods, blinking the dry grit of exhaustion from his eyes. “Come to relieve me?”

“Yes, but—”

“He’s sleepwalking, Tony. That’s all.”

“The crew, sir.”

“I’m aware it’s unsettling. Seeing it happen is uncomfortable, but he’s no danger. I’m more concerned for his safety than anyone else’s, the way he’s wandering without sight. He nearly fell overboard last night.”

Tony presses a hand to his temple, rubbing away a headache. Vic feels one bloom behind his eyes in sympathy. “This isn’t normal. You know that, don’t you?”

Vic stays silent.

“I’m ready to take over,” Tony says after a pause. He’s not meeting Vic’s gaze.

Vic hardly recognizes the feeling bubbling in his chest as resentment. He does need to sleep—he doesn’t want to feel this. “Very well. Come wake me if you need me.”

Tony watches him go. His eyes burn into Vic’s back until he’s out of sight. It’s a relief to close his cabin door and block out the sunrise.

Nobody disturbs him, but Vic only manages a few hours of sleep before he leaves his cabin again. He can’t shake the restlessness in his chest.

None of his crew pay any attention to him when he wanders back to the deck. Their lack of attention is more damning than their clear judgement would be—he’s certain everyone knows by now that he’s seen Mr. Quinn sleepwalk and has done nothing to satisfy them.

He throws himself back into his usual routine. Makes his rounds, directs the ship to be cleaned and maintained, checks the state of their cargo, the direction they’re sailing; everything is perfectly fine. Nothing is out of sorts besides the eyes turned from him and the agitation coursing through his veins.

He walks the deck twice more for good measure.

As he’s passing a group of men near the helm, he sees their gazes all dart past him towards the quarterdeck. He knows what he’ll see before he turns—their passenger has finally emerged, and the hostility radiating toward him is palpable.

Vic abandons his path and turns to intercept him. “Good morning.”

Kellin’s hair is wrecked. His lips are flecked with white, and Vic’s not sure if he’s simply slept poorly or if there are salt crystals collecting on his mouth. Maybe he never cleaned the sea spray from his face. “Will you speak with me? I came to find you.”

Vic dislikes the swooping sensation in his gut. It feels like he’s fallen, like gravity’s briefly exerted too tight a hold on his insides. “What would you speak with me about?”

“I don’t want to wander again,” Kellin says, and the wind steals his words from him, delivers them to Vic as no more than a whisper. Vic finds himself leaning closer to catch them. “Lock me in tonight. Please. Do not let me leave my room.”

“You aren’t my prisoner.” Vic’s gut is churning unpleasantly. If he agrees to restrain him, the crew may find their superstitions validated; he can’t let them work themselves into any more of a frenzy. He can’t let his ship remain so divided, so volatile. “Let me keep you from leaving another way. I sleep lightly, and can rest by your door. I’ll stop you if you try to leave.”

Kellin’s eyes flicker at his suggestion, between emotions that move too quickly for Vic to settle on any one of them. “Captain,” he begins.

“Do you have an issue with that?”

“Surely you do not mean—I can’t ask that of you. It would be easier to bind me or my door.”

The thought sets Vic on edge. “I will not restrain you in such a way.”

“You’re a captain.” Kellin’s hands twitch by his sides, fingers flexing, and Vic finds it easier to watch them than the minute shifts in his expression. “It can hardly be proper.”

“You think I care for propriety in that way?”

“But your title—”

“My title is earned. I’m not afraid to sleep on the floor of my own ship. If you thought it would demean me, you’re wrong.”

He is silent.

Vic returns his gaze to Kellin’s face. His eyes are fixed on him; some strange thoughtfulness echoes in them.

“I didn’t mean to speak harshly.”

“You haven’t been harsh.”

Vic inhales, and—for the first time since he crossed the ship to speak with him—he is aware of how silent the Isabelle has become, how the chatter from the crew has died away. He knows if he turns, everyone on the deck will suddenly look elsewhere.

“This is what I’m willing to do,” he says finally. “If you have no other objection, I’ll come to you before you retire.”

“None, Captain.” Despite his words, Kellin looks away.

Chapter Text

The Isabelle’s boards dig into Vic from every angle. The floor is rough beneath his side, separated from Vic by naught but the blanket he brought from his cabin, the beams surrounding the door pressing into his back. He faces Kellin’s bed, but cannot see a thing, cannot hear anything but the sound of faint, slow breathing.

Sleep has escaped him. Every rustle, every creak, has wormed into him and kept him aware; he knows he will wake if Kellin rouses, but he still can’t keep his eyes off the faint shape he knows to be the bed. It holds his attention in the dark. He’s stared for so long that the black depths of the cabin have swirled to life. The air itself is moving, shifting like heat waves in the height of summer, swimming in and out of focus as he blinks the phantoms away.

He wishes it were the height of summer. This dark does nothing to calm his nerves.

Unlike the night before, Kellin’s dreams do not wait long to close in. It is likely just past midnight when he coughs, and Vic goes stiff waiting for more—the bed creaks, then creaks again, and he can see a vague outline turning, hear the faintest groan.

The room goes still.

Vic does not dare move. He is not certain why—he could rise and approach the bed, wake Kellin before his dreams grip him fully and tear him from reality, but the air around him suddenly feels heavy. He breathes in, and it settles in his chest, a chain coiling in his lungs to weigh him down. He can feel it on his skin, wet like a fallen cloud, cold as the deep Atlantic.

Kellin groans again, louder than before, and the shadows in the room change as he sits up. Vic still feels frozen.

“Father?”

Vic is silent.

“Father, it’s not what you think—please, if you will listen—”

There’s a gasp, and Kellin coughs, slumping forward. Vic can just barely see him fold, head dropping towards the floor. He tenses, but he cannot rise.

“No.”

The cabin grows quiet again, and Vic has to strain to hear him breathe. It’s near silent at first, then rises in pitch, in tempo, until Kellin’s panting and he feels he has to recoil from him, to put a door between him and whatever’s causing such fear in his breath. He manages to twist a hand, to place his palm against the wood.

Still panting, Kellin stands, swaying in the dark.

“Kellin,” Vic whispers, finding his voice. “Are you awake?”

No response, but he stumbles forward, hand outstretched. He’s going for the door.

Vic’s arms shake as he fights the weight of the ocean on his back, shoving himself to his knees. He can’t stand, but he’s between Kellin and the door; he will not let him leave the room. He won’t.

Kellin’s whispering under his breath, interspersed with his panting. He has none of the grace of the previous night to his movements. They are harsh and fitful, his body lurching as he approaches Vic, head hanging low over his chest.

“Kellin.”

He reaches for the door.

His foot connects with Vic’s knee, and Vic can breathe again. Whatever stupor he’s been in, whatever exhaustion kept him pinned to the floor, it leaves him now—he rises, his back to the door, and places his hand on Kellin’s chest. “Wake up.”

He gasps, but it still sounds underwater.

“Wake up,” Vic says again, louder, bringing a hand up to grasp his shoulder. “You are dreaming.”

Kellin stumbles. “Father? Tell me the captain’s back, tell me—”

“No,” Vic murmurs. “It’s time to wake up.”

He jolts awake, hands flying up in front of him. One narrowly misses Vic’s jaw. “No—”

Vic hushes him. “You’re safe.”

There’s still something ragged to Kellin’s breathing. Every exhale sounds wet, and Vic is certain his cheeks would be wet if he reached out to touch them.

He wants to.

“What’s the time?” Kellin’s voice is unsteady, trembling as he attempts to straighten himself, to fix the folds of his clothing.

“Not yet one, I don’t believe.”

“I’m—I’m sorry,” Kellin whispers. He takes a step back, away from Vic, and Vic feels himself pulled forward; he can’t seem to unclench his hand. “It’s too early, I should—”

“Did you see your father?”

Vic can feel Kellin’s eyes on him, even though he cannot see them. It’s strange, how all fear has left him now that Kellin’s woken up. How he wants to stay awake, and upright, the warmth of Kellin’s shoulder ghosting over his fingertips.

“Was I speaking again?”

Vic nods, then remembers himself. “Yes. You called his name. Asked him to listen, mentioned a captain—”

A sharp inhale in the dark.

“I am not the captain you mean,” Vic murmurs. “Am I?”

“No. No, he is not you. I am,” Kellin says, then swallows. “I am grateful he is not.”

He wants nothing more than to prod for more, to keep Kellin here and coax answers from him. He should know them. He should know everything that has brought him to board his ship, everything that’s subjected his crew to fits of superstition; he should be owed as much, now that so much has transpired.

“It is late,” he says, finally, quietly. “We will talk more tomorrow, if you like.”

“Yes.”

Vic releases him, convinces his stiff fingers to open one by one, and stands facing the bed until he can hear Kellin’s settled back into it. “Sleep,” he whispers, then resumes his place by the door and prays that the same sleep overtakes him soon.

He slips from Kellin’s cabin early, before the first light of dawn, and dresses in the dark, his hands finding the familiar shapes of his coat and boots with ease. His room is easier to navigate than the unknown of the passenger cabin. The rest of the ship is just as easy, and he finds himself halfway across the desk, headed for the prow, before he can finish buttoning his shirt. His hair is still loose around his face, itching at his collar, stinging as the sea wind blows strands across his cheeks.

“Gabriel,” he greets as he passes the night watch. Gabriel looks up at him, then bows—barely an incline of the head, but still recognizable from him—and Vic slows only two paces past him and turns. “Did anything—”

“No, Captain. Only you’s been up here.”

Vic exhales, relieved. “Thank you. You’re free to go; I’ll take it from here.”

He inclines his head again and disappears. Vic’s always been awed by how quickly he can move, belying his broad shoulders and stocky frame—one moment he’s there, next he’s below decks. Javier is just as quick.

When they had just joined him on the Isabelle, nearly two years prior, Vic had jumped out of his skin the first time Gabriel appeared behind him as if from nowhere. He’s used to their light steps, now they’ve been with him for some time, but it was jarring at first.

It is quite possible, he thinks, that the rest of his crew are simply jarred by Kellin in a similar manner. If they grow used to his sleepwalking, or if Vic manages to keep him contained—he knows this is temporary, and he will not be able to keep up this routine for long, but he’ll do what he can. His lack of sleep is already clawing at his temples, beating a drum behind his right eye. The coming dawn makes his vision blur.

Behind him, footsteps.

Vic turns, and the drum in his head goes still. “Kellin?”

“I’m awake.”

He lets the gathered tension drop from his shoulders, leaving the foremast behind him and crossing the deck in a few paces. “How are you?” he asks, coming to a stop close to Kellin, but not too close—it’s an odd distance, enough air between them for a man to walk between their chests, but close enough Vic can see the faint shadows on Kellin’s cheeks, the tangled frizz of his hair.

“Tired,” Kellin says, “but—less.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“How long have you been awake?”

Vic glances at the horizon, at the gray of the late night creeping into rose at the borders of the sea. “Not long. The sun’s not yet risen. Are you not able to return to bed?”

Kellin shakes his head. It dislodges a lock of hair, sends it slipping over his cheek, curling just below his jaw. Vic feels a hand catch his heart.

“You haven’t slept long enough.”

“I heard you leave.” Kellin pauses with a frown. “Or—I felt it. You were gone when I woke. I wanted—”

“What?”

The sky is rapidly brightening, the encroaching sunrise at Vic’s back casting a blush shade over Kellin’s face. The circles under his eyes look softer, less apparent; Vic can almost picture him as the man who first stepped aboard the Isabelle weeks prior, eyes bright and face full of color.

“I should thank you.”

Vic shakes his head.

“No, I should—you woke me. I stayed in my cabin?”

“Gabriel confirmed it.”

“Then I didn’t—I didn’t frighten—did I frighten you?”

“No,” Vic whispers. He isn’t sure he’s telling the truth. “Not at all.”

The sun ghosts over the horizon, and Kellin raises a hand to shade his eyes. Vic can feel the burn of warmth on his back, the first rays fending off the night’s chill, and all he can think of is the warmth of Kellin’s shoulder in the night, the gentle give of his flesh beneath Vic’s fingers.

A matching burn ignites in his stomach, stealing his breath. “Kellin—”

He drops his hand to meet Vic’s eyes, angling his face away from the sun.

“I’ll return tonight. If it sets you at ease, I am happy to continue sleeping in front of your door. Unless you would prefer—”

“Please. I—if you are willing, I—” Kellin looks uneasy. Vic watches his shoulders curl again, and he hates the disquiet in his torso, the hard lines of his jaw. “I feel as if I’ll die without rest.”

“And I’ll ensure you get it.” Vic steps forward once, erasing some of the distance between them. He can touch him, now—if he works up the courage to lift his arm, Kellin will be within reach. He does not move.

Kellin’s manner softens. Some of the unease fades in front of Vic’s eyes. “You are—you’re a good man, Captain.”

“I told you I would fix this,” Vic responds, ignoring the burn spreading upwards to his chest. “I told you I’d help.”

Kellin’s gaze drops to Vic’s shirt. “You dressed in the dark,” he says quietly. “Your buttons—” He cuts off as the first voices of the crew reach their ears. “I apologize. Excuse me.”

He’s gone before Vic can say a word.

Vic’s left to redo his staggered buttons and stare after him. His step looks better today; he does not sway or tremble, and each movement is less hesitant than the one before.

This will work. He will ensure it works.

Kellin’s behavior may have improved somewhat, but he still doesn’t eat with the crew. Vic has food brought to his cabin, as he always does—he pretends it does not sting, watching his cabin door only open to receive meals.

Tony interrupts him after dinner, beckoning him to the railing to speak. Vic stays silent till they’re out of earshot of the crew, then looks to him. “Yes?”

“What happened last night? If I may—”

“You may. I slept in front of his door and woke him before he could leave his room. Gabriel did not see a soul all night.”

“It worked?” Tony’s eyes go wide, and it is striking how young he looks, like he’s still the man Vic met ten years prior. The thought sends a pang through Vic’s chest. “Captain, do you—what happened in his cabin? Was it the same?”

“He walked in his sleep. Nothing else. Once I woke him, he returned to bed.”

“That’s all?”

Vic nods. “That’s all.”

He doesn’t believe the words are a lie, even as they leave his mouth. He doesn’t, and yet they taste of falsehood, sharp and bitter on his tongue. He swallows to be rid of it.

“But Jaime’s—the crew have—been so frightened. Surely they aren’t frightened of nothing? Surely—”

Vic presses a hand over his eyes. The calluses on his palm catch on his brow, fingers rough on his face. “I know Jaime’s frightened. I know, but—”

“But we’re past it now? It’s over?”

“With luck, I believe so. If I wake him when he needs it—”

“Are you,” Tony says, then appears to think better of his words. “Will you need us to set up a watch outside his door so you can rest?”

Vic shakes his head. “I told him I would keep watch.”

He doesn’t want to think about the implications of Tony’s words, the look in his eyes when he dismissed his offer. He’s too close to the edge of the ship—it looms just before his feet, boots nearly hanging over, and one misstep, one admission he can’t take back, might send him toppling.

“Very well.” Tony watches him a moment longer. “Captain. May I speak candidly?”

He closes his eyes. “Speak.”

“The crew is concerned for you, as well.”

“For me?”

The sails flap above their heads, and Vic almost loses Tony’s next words.

“For you, sir. Jai—the crew, that is, have been worrying—if our passenger is dangerous, you’ve put yourself directly in harm's way.” Tony shifts from one foot to the other, hands clasped behind his back. He looks like he’s waiting for Vic to chastise him. “That you’re taking up with someone who puts us all in danger. Sir.”

“Jaime.” Vic exhales, and the same bitterness creeps back into his mouth, threatening to choke him. “Don’t. Don’t—fuck, do not call me sir. I’m half sick of it.”

“Captain?” Tony blinks at him.

Vic shakes his head. “You don’t—I’m sorry. Tell the crew they’ve nothing to worry about. Goodnight.”

He heads back for his cabin before he can say anything else; he does not need to keep laying his own concerns on the backs of his crew. This has nothing to do with Tony. Nothing at all, and everything to do with the closed door across from his own.

He pauses in front of it. Almost knocks, almost enters early, far before he strictly must. But he makes himself duck into his own cabin and breathe for a while, leaning up against the door. The Isabelle sways under his feet, comforting and familiar as she always is, and Vic lets her soothe the remaining tension from him, calm the fire in his torso that’s been burning since morning.

Even this far from the edge, he feels ready to fall.

Night creeps over the ship, shrouding her in drowsiness, and Vic waits until the light has faded from the crack beneath his door before he changes and steps across the hall to knock. The door opens instantly to him, before he’s lowered his hand.

“I set down an extra blanket for you,” Kellin says instead of greeting him as he enters. “I’m sorry—I know this can’t be comfortable.”

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

Kellin looks as if he wants to speak again, but he ducks his head. “Thank you.”

Vic just nods and pushes the door closed, latching it behind his back.

The room goes dark, and Vic takes his place on the floor. It’s softer with the second blanket—he gazes up at Kellin’s bed, at his shape in the dimness, and wonders for half a moment before he forces the thought from his mind.

He is captain, and he would do well to remember it. A gentleman passenger is the last person he should let draw his attention. Particularly a gentleman passenger plagued by nightmares. A gentleman passenger who will be gone in a matter of weeks.

He closes his eyes and waits for sleep.

Kellin wakes him again at some point in the middle of the night, stumbling over him in the dark. He’s panting again, the same heavy, sick sound that set Vic’s nerves on edge the night before—this time, he is hardly fazed. It’s nothing but a dream. Vic coaxes him from it, returns him to the safety of his bed, and turns to go. He is stopped by a hand on his wrist.

“Captain.”

Vic stops in his tracks. “Yes?”

“Are you certain you’re comfortable?”

Kellin’s hand is burning against his skin, fever-hot, fingers soft but strong. Vic feels frozen, as weighed down as he’d been the night before. Whatever anchor held him to the floor was curling back around his body, keeping him in place. Even if he wanted to, he would not be able to pull away.

He does not want to.

“I am comfortable.”

A pause in the dark. Kellin’s hand does not loosen, does not retract.

Vic closes his eyes, steels his nerves. “I’m quite comfortable. You should return to sleep. It’ll do you some good, I’m sure of it.”

Finally, wordlessly, Kellin lets him go.

Sleep does not claim Vic so easily a second time—his eyes remain on the bed across from him, listening to Kellin breathing even and slow. He would be safe to rest, now, he’s sure, but his thoughts consume him.

The floor beneath him grows harder with each passing minute.

He rolls to his back, staring up at the ceiling he’s sure exists some feet above his head. It’s coated in shadows, darkness that reaches down to him, caresses his face, lures him into closing his eyes once more. Even then, his mind runs on.

Kellin on deck, arm outstretched. The shine of dawn in his eyes. Sea spray coating the ship, leaving it treacherously slippery as he attempts to scale the railing.

Vic exhales and pushes himself back to his side, watching the dim outline of Kellin’s bed. His figure has not stirred; his breathing’s still slow, but—as Vic gathers the blankets beneath him to pillow his head—something in the room changes once more. An imperceptible shift in breathing, or a change in the waves around them, he does not know—all he does know is that his senses have come to life.

He feels a chill over his skin, a sensation like fingers up his spine. He tugs his blankets up around him.

“Captain?”

He starts. Kellin’s outline in the bed has moved—Vic thinks he’s turned to his side as well. Thinks he might be staring out in his direction. “Are you awake?”

“I believe so.”

Vic gives up on the thought of rest, sitting up, legs crossed beneath him, his back to the door. “You seem awake to me. Unless you think your dreams are contagious.”

Kellin chokes out some semblance of a laugh.

“Are you—do you need anything?” Vic asks. He’s still watching shadows in the dark, trying to piece together Kellin’s features. “Or would you prefer I leave, now you’ve been pulled from your nightmares?”

“I don’t prefer you leave. No, please—stay.”

“Of course,” Vic whispers into the stillness of the cabin. “Whatever you need.”

There’s a tone in his voice that causes his cheeks to warm, fueled by the burn in his stomach he has not yet been able to quell. He wonders if Kellin hears it too.

“I don’t want to sleep again.” Kellin’s voice is just as quiet. “I’m afraid—will you speak to me? Keep me awake?”

“What do you want to hear?”

“Anything.” Kellin pauses, then Vic hears the rustle of sheets and the weight of footsteps approaching him. “May I sit?”

Vic swallows around the dryness in his throat and moves a few inches to the left, making room for Kellin to sit beside him. “Anything?”

Their arms are nearly touching. Vic’s grateful for the cover of darkness; he can turn to look at Kellin, let his eyes wander over the lines of his face in the shadows, follow the loose hair tumbling around his throat down to his collar, can let himself linger there, imagining the warmth of his skin, the way his shirt would give if he reached out to touch—

“Tell me of yourself.”

“Myself?” It’s a blessing Vic’s voice does not stutter when he speaks. “What would you hope to learn?”

“What of your life on shore?”

“None to speak of. When I’m not at sea, I’ve a room I rent in Barcelona. I winter there, and stay there between trips.”

Kellin hums, low and soft. “Just yourself?”

“For the time being, although my men stay with me upon occasion.”

Vic’s heart is a steady thrum in his ribcage, nerves twitching with each word from Kellin’s mouth. He does not dare follow his line of questioning.

“And is that all?”

“I’m at sea more than on land. I’m fond of books, and I keep a small library in my cabin. Although I’ve told you so before. I see my crew and some trading partners on occasion when I’m wintering in Barcelona. I am not an exciting man, I’m afraid. I have no adventures I can tell to help you pass the time.”

Kellin leans back against the door beside him, drawing his knees to his chest. His elbow brushes Vic’s side. “You answer to no one but yourself and you captain your own vessel. Is that not exciting?”

“If you say it is, I will hardly disagree.”

A chuckle. “And how long have you been captain?”

“I first boarded the Isabelle some ten years ago. Eleven come December. She’s been mine for the last six.” Vic’s gaze drops to his collar again, spectre-pale around his throat.

“Then you did earn your title.”

He smiles, pulling his eyes away from Kellin with some difficulty. “Indeed. What else would you like to hear?”

“What will you do next?”

“I’ve not put much thought into the future.” Vic blinks away the shapes swirling in his vision—the dark’s playing tricks on his eyes again. “Continue sailing, without a doubt. Someday retire.”

Kellin’s hair whispers over the door as he nods. “I have tried to imagine you on land. No longer a captain—I cannot. I would not know how else to address you without your title.”

“By my name only.” Vic looks back at him, and his stomach grows tight when he meets Kellin’s eyes. “Which I will give you under one condition.”

“What would you ask?”

“For you to use it.” Vic holds his gaze, letting the burn in his torso grow and devour him. He’s certain Kellin will be able to see its glow when he opens his mouth again, feel the heat gnawing through him like a starving dog.

He inhales. “Rather than—”

“Damn my title. I want to hear—” Vic closes his mouth around the next word, keeping it trapped behind his teeth. “My name is Victor. Victor, Vic, whatever you would prefer to call me—please. That’s all I ask.”

Kellin is quiet a moment, but his eyes don’t leave Vic’s. “Why?”

Because he’s grown sick of the separation of a title, of the fear of his men. Because he misses being known as himself. Because the thought of Kellin’s voice speaking his name stokes the flames inside him—Vic wants, desperately, fervently, in a way he’s never wanted before.

“Please,” he repeats. He can’t voice his reasons.

“Then,” Kellin whispers, “Victor. You have only given me one condition, and it is no hardship. What else would you ask of me?”

Vic feels his stomach surge, as if the ship’s dropped away beneath him.

It would be altogether too easy to speak his mind now, to ask for more—Kellin is so close, their shoulders nearly brushing, and they’re in solitude, a locked door between them and the night watch. Vic could ask. He could, and yet doing so would be impossible. There would be no returning from it, no retracting his words.

“Vic?”

He tamps down the desire. “Only one thing. Share something of yourself in return. Anything, private or public—something I have not yet learned.”

“I—”

“It does not have to be,” Vic starts, a strange hesitance taking over him. “Keep your secrets. But anything you are willing to give.”

Kellin’s still watching him; his eyes gleam in the dark. “I came from Dublin,” he says after a brief pause, and it sounds as if his words are carefully measured, each syllable considered in turn. “My family lives there still.”

“That I did know. Or assume, rather.”

He makes a soft noise of questioning.

“You spoke in your sleep.”

A breath hisses between his teeth, too sharp for the cabin’s quiet. “Whatever you may have heard—”

“Barely a thing.”

Kellin goes quiet again, and Vic can hear the slow rise and fall of his chest, his fingernails scraping over the weave of his trousers. “I feel I’m at a disadvantage. I don’t know what I’ve told you unknowingly—nothing you would think poorly of me for, I hope?”

“Have you done anything that would demand my poor opinion?”

He laughs, but the sound is shaky and too quiet for Vic to believe its mirth. “I suppose that would depend on the reason for your poor opinion, and whether it’s brought on by actions, or—or nature, or any opinions I may hold myself.”

Vic regards him for several long moments, the shine of his eyes, the nearly invisible curve of his jaw.

“But I suppose if you’re willing to sit here with me, I can’t have upset you.”

“Not in the slightest.”

Kellin tips his head back against the door, and Vic feels his tongue cloy in his mouth. His hair’s a black curtain over his cheek. “A story for a story, then? If you still want to hear more?”

“Anything you are willing to voice, I am willing to hear.”

He exhales. There’s a catch at the end of his breath, and another when he draws it back in, and Vic wants to tell him to withhold whatever’s troubling him, whatever it may be. He clears his throat before Vic can speak.

“My family is of good fortune. I assume you know that much.”

Vic nods. “Yes,” he adds in a half-whisper, in case the dark hid the motion from him.

“It was all meant to be mine. I am the sole heir, and became a business partner of late, but—” Kellin swallows, the sound rough and pained. “We had an unfortunate quarter. Lost several cargoes, and our judgment was called into question, and my father—I was scrutinized. Too closely. Until I could not hide a thing.”

Vic stays silent.

“I should have been more careful. Or I should have changed my actions entirely, should have remembered myself, my station, my family,” Kellin says. “I should not have let myself touch—” He falters, then presses on. “It was leave or face my father. I could not.”

Vic knows his meaning, even before he works up the courage to rephrase the question that’s been on his mind since the first time he woke Kellin. “Is this, this touch—you spoke of Richard? Was he—”

Kellin drops his head down to his knees. Vic needs no more confirmation.

“Have you considered—” he begins, then pauses, staring out into the dark. “The sea is… some things are different. Easier. There are things my crew would not blink at that would unsettle many on land.”

He’s silent, but Vic knows he’s listening. His hand twitches against his thigh.

“You would be safe here,” Vic whispers. “If your nightmares come from this, don’t dwell on them a moment longer.”

“They are—” Kellin stops speaking there. His voice is muffled against his legs.

“Whatever they may be. You are safe.”

His next breath trembles.

Vic reaches out, the motion slow and no less shaky, and finds Kellin in the dark. He lets his fingers press against the back of his hand a moment, then withdraws. “You should rest,” he whispers. “Don’t let me keep you awake.”

There’s a reluctance to Kellin’s movement when he stands. He looks down at him for a moment, face blurred and pale. “As should you. Vic.”

Vic can still feel his presence once he steps away. It makes every breath harder, churns his stomach as he stretches back out on the blankets beneath him, clenches a fist around his throat. He’s not certain if drowsiness enfolds him again or if his thoughts drag out and keep him in a half-waking state, but he does know Kellin’s face looks softer than before when the dawn breaks and he rises, leaving him to sleep.

Chapter Text

Jaime has nearly finished listing off his morning tally of their supplies when he halts mid-sentence, gaze darting off over Vic’s shoulder.

Vic does not allow his hopes to rise before he turns—what he wants is unlikely, and he’s certain Jaime’s attention has been captured by something else. A breath escapes him when he follows his gaze.

“Good morning—” Kellin begins, the sentiment cut short and lacking address. His eyes are on Vic’s alone.

“Good morning, sir,” Vic returns. He cannot look away. “Will you join us?”

“If you will have me.”

It seems impossible for Vic to hold back his thoughts; only the presence of the crew keeps him quiet, stifling the words he can feel crawling up his throat, scuttling into the back of his mouth and twisting themselves under his tongue. He would speak them if they were alone— give voice to the burning in his gut, the rapid beating of his heart. He would tell him the ways in which he would have him, each more desperate and lovelorn than the rest.

“Please,” he says instead, rising from his seat to pull out the empty chair to his left. “Sit. We have room for you, if— are you hungry?”

Kellin takes a slow step forward, his eyes still on Vic. “I am.”

Vic inhales and stands stiff until Kellin’s passed him, until he’s settled and it would be strange indeed for Vic to do anything but sit as well. Jaime is silent to his right.

“Are you feeling well?” Tony asks after a moment of quiet. He’s the only man other than Vic who seems willing to look Kellin in the eye.

Kellin looks only vaguely well, but it’s a vast improvement over his countenance from the previous weeks. “Yes. Thank you.”

Jaime shifts in his seat. He seems to have abandoned his list, the set of his jaw strange as he curls his fingers around the scrap of parchment and crumples his notes against his palm. He does not look up from the table.

Vic will not push him. He holds that same silence until he’s able to produce an extra plate, his tongue thick and clumsy in his mouth whenever he lets himself look at Kellin, his mind instantly wandering to his features in the dark, the gentle softness of his face in the light of dawn.

He will not be able to keep his desire at bay. That much he knows. It’s a certainty that’s dwarfed by the vastness of what he can’t possibly know; whether his feelings are returned, or whether it would be folly to indulge in them. Whether he’ll be better off refusing that indulgence, or if he’ll regret it for the rest of his life if they arrive in Boston and he lets his feelings sink into the harbor with their anchor.

Kellin’s as quiet as Jaime throughout their meal.

Vic studies both of them in turn—Kellin’s rapidly shrinking bruises beneath his eyes, Jaime’s stiffness, their recalcitrance, the stifling absence of sound from both. He feels eyes on himself, as well, but nobody’s looking at him when he lets his vision wander. Even still, the feeling lingers, an itch crawling over his skin.

Jaime leaves abruptly once he’s cleaned his plate. He does not say a word before he goes, and Kellin’s gaze darts up from the table to watch him leave. His fingers are white around the handle of his spoon, hovering just above his picked-over meal.

“Pay him no mind,” Vic murmurs. He finishes his breakfast, and pretends he does not notice Tony’s eyes boring into him.

The crew disperses quickly. Kellin’s gone before Vic can say another word.

The sea grows rougher near sunset, thunderheads developing far out over the water. Vic gives orders to prepare the ship for approaching weather—check the cargo for loose ropes, ready the sails to be struck quickly should the wind pick up—and keeps an eye on the horizon as the crew works alongside him. The clouds aren’t encroaching yet, and don't threaten any violence, but he refuses to leave things to chance. Should the weather turn, he would rather be prepared.

Jaime watches him; his eyes flit back and forth from the ropes in his hand to Vic’s face, and there’s something odd in his expression, something hesitant and wary. Vic would be concerned any other day, but now all he feels is the press of exhaustion on his spine, the chill in the wind coursing through the rigging, the burn in his chest that has yet to be satisfied. He is only half there, and he assumes Jaime sees it. He wonders if Jaime could wager a guess at the reason for his partial absence.

Thunder breaks out over the sea, and Vic braces himself for rain.

The weather holds off another hour or so, although the clouds look swollen above them, low and dark and ready to give way to a deluge. The crew’s on edge. Quieter than usual, murmuring to each other rather than their usual clamor, the cool, wet air pressing down on them all. Vic feels their apprehension just as keenly. He will not mind leaving the deck for the relative safety of the cabins—although that safety brings its own anxieties, churns the burn in his stomach into an active flame that Vic can feel licking up his insides, hot and sharp against his heart and throat.

They finish readying the ship, and it takes Jaime only a few moments to sidle up to him. Vic’s not surprised; he doesn’t ask Jaime why he’s there, just turns to him and waits.

“Will you be joining us on the watch this evening?”

Vic cannot help glancing at the cabins. Jaime follows his gaze, and his eyes are narrowed, calculating and curious, when Vic looks back at him. “Not out here, no. I have been watching K—Mr. Quinn’s door.”

“You are friends, then?”

“Friends?” Vic parrots. “I have been keeping him from wandering the deck at night. I’m the reason you’ve been left in peace.”

Jaime’s expression flickers. “He’s not improved?”

“I would argue he has. Once he’s been roused and returned to bed, his sleepwalking stops.”

“Why did we not leave him in Ponta Delgada? If you don’t mind me—”

“Enough.” The word feels brittle in Vic’s mouth, close to snapping. “I’ve tolerated your fear long enough. He is harmless. Do you not believe me? You’re staking your honor on our passenger being evil—are you that determined to make me a fool?”

Jaime appears struck dumb.

“You—” Vic cuts himself off. No good can come from continuing down this path; he does not need to provoke his crew, nor ruin his reputation in their eyes. “Forgive me. That wasn’t needed.”

“We don’t understand why you can’t see what we see,” Jaime says finally. “There’s something evil about him, Captain. All but you believe it.”

“Then what would you have me do?” Vic asks. He looks up at Jaime, spreading his arms wide—the motion makes Jaime flinch back. Annoyance clouds Vic’s thoughts. “I don’t understand why you can’t see your lack of reason. Mr. Quinn is with us until Boston. I will keep him from frightening the night watch with his dreams. There’s nothing more to be done, and I will not stand for your continued fearmongering.”

“Captain—”

“Enough.”

Jaime gives a short, stiff bow, then turns on his heel. Vic seethes as he watches him go—Jaime is damn lucky he’s been sailing with Vic as long as he has. If it were anyone else, he would not have let him leave without a consequence for his continued insolence.

The first drops of rain settle soft and damp on his face.

Vic paces his cabin for an hour or two, walking circles in the cramped space. He thinks his boots must be wearing holes in his floor by the time it’s late enough for him to step across the hall to Kellin’s room, but he can’t make himself stop—his mind is whirling, nerves jumping between Kellin and Jaime and Tony and the rain and the night watch until he can’t untangle the knot in his chest, until he thinks his heart is so entwined in the separate threads that he’ll have to cut them all to make any sense of them.

Before he can change into more comfortable clothing and cross to the passenger cabin, a soft knock sounds on his door. He freezes, coat halfway off his shoulders; it takes him a moment to regain his sense of thought and shrug the coat back on to answer.

He’s half expecting to see Jaime, come back to finish their argument, or Tony, to beg him to see reason, and he falters with the door half open when it’s neither of them but Kellin, subdued and serious, glancing back like he’s praying he hasn’t been followed.

“Is something the matter?” Vic asks. He feels immobilized under the weight of Kellin’s gaze when it returns to him. He looks—awake, fully aware in a manner Vic hasn’t seen since he first boarded the Isabelle. “Are you well?”

“I am awake, if that’s your question.” Kellin’s hands keep moving; adjusting his shirt, fluttering against his trousers, drawing Vic’s attention.

“I—awake? That wasn’t my intent, but I am glad to hear it.”

He knows he should invite Kellin in, offer him a drink or a seat, befitting his status as a gentleman while also satisfying the desperate burn in Vic’s chest that wants to keep him near, and close, and speaking to him and him alone, but he can’t move. His grip is frozen on the door, holding it open just enough for them to speak.

Kellin’s gaze has not left his face. “Am I able—once again—to ask you for your time?”

“I was headed your way in a moment,” Vic says. He feels wild and reckless and more boy than man; he would fulfill any of Kellin’s requests, anything asked of him. “As much time as you require—as you want.”

Slowly, surely, a flush blooms over his cheeks, starting high and bright below the circles surrounding his eyes and spreading until he appears newly sunburnt. “As I—” he pauses. “You are—Captain, Vic, you are not a cruel man. You have said so yourself, and I believe it. As such—please, tell me if I am wrong, if I incorrectly assumed, that you—”

Vic’s hands are trembling. One final chance to turn away, to drag himself back from the depths, but he can’t bring himself to do anything but press on. “I cannot tell you you’re wrong,” he whispers.

He should, but he cannot.

Kellin exhales sharply. The air goes still between them, silence interrupted only by the drip and patter and rush of the rain and the waves, water everywhere. Vic thinks he can feel it in his lungs. He thinks he’ll be suffocated before he can speak again.

He manages the task anyway. “Come in?”

Kellin looks over his shoulder once more. Vic finds he does not care in that moment if they might be watched by the entire crew or by the Atlantic herself—he holds the door wider.

“Come in. Please.”

He brings the storm with him when he enters, damp and cold swirling into the cabin like a cloud, and Vic feels it settle on his skin only a fraction of a second sooner than Kellin’s hands. There’s a hesitation at first—he can see it in Kellin’s eyes, feel it in the way his hands brush, retract, then skirt over his arms—and he’s the one who has to break it, despite how roughly his stomach churns at the thought, how violently his mind protests the sanity of what he’s doing. He pushes the door shut. Slides the latch.

It’s frighteningly familiar when Kellin’s fingers wind in the front of his shirt. They’re back on the deck and Kellin’s gasping, and he’s nearly gone over the side, but—his touch is gentle now, and they’re shut in, and the waves are nearly silent with the door closed. Kellin’s upright, and he’s awake, and the look in his eyes is more frightening, more earth shattering than the revelations of his nightmares.

Vic’s used to respect, not to this raw desire that’s making his chest crack open. He gasps for air, like he’s the one who’s been pulled back from the rail, and Kellin’s mouth finds his before he can fill his lungs.

Most of his earlier hesitancy is gone. He’s sure, eager, warm against him—his hands still pause before they curl harder into his shirt, but he doesn’t pull away. He stays there. Far closer than any man has a right to be, so close Vic thinks it will ruin him.

He feels drunk, face flushed, unsteady on his feet, his body going numb anywhere Kellin isn’t pressed to him; pins and needles running through his legs, his stomach, his head. He manages a quick inhale, then Kellin’s kissing him again, harder, more insistent. The ship’s falling away under his feet. He wants to be ruined.

“You’re certain,” Kellin whispers when they break apart. It’s more plea than question. “You are.”

“Come to bed. Please.” Vic’s throat is thick with want, his words dripping with fog. He would say more, would say whatever it takes to convince him, but there’s no need. Kellin’s nodding, sharp, quick, brittle, knuckles shoving into Vic’s chest when he follows him away from the door. He hasn’t yet released Vic’s shirt, seams cutting off his circulation.

Vic rests a hand over the curl of Kellin’s fist.

The contact gives Kellin pause a moment, and he stifles a gasp as he stills, more of a choked inhale than anything. “I want—”

“Yes?”

He unfurls his hand from Vic’s shirt. The release of tension makes Vic’s chest swell as he sucks in air, and he feels somehow more lightheaded now than he did while he was breathless—he attributes it to the way Kellin splays his fingers wide across his chest, pointer finger slipping between his shirt’s buttons, grazing the skin above his heart.

His other hand is moving, coming up to cradle Vic’s jaw. It falls to rest against his neck, tracing the hollow of his throat before he reaches for the top of his collar, gentle as he undoes the first of his buttons.

Vic’s suddenly, wildly desperate to feel more than a single finger against his skin. He nods and shoves closer, hands bumping against Kellin’s—it’s a strange dance, the two of them opening his shirt in awkward tandem, but it leaves only seconds before Kellin’s able to press both hands to his bare chest, shoving undone shirt and coat aside in his haste to touch.

He is not self-conscious by any means, but he wonders how Kellin sees him in that moment; skin sun-dark and scarred by years of work, a stark contrast to the glimpses of skin he’s managed to collect in the last few days, pale and faint in the dim light. He has more light now, lamp flickering by the bed, another lantern hanging near his desk, and he’s speechless with want, with his need to see more now, his need to touch what he’s treasured in passing.

Should Kellin disembark in Boston and never look back, he’ll want to hoard every look, every touch, every feeling he can. It will have to last him for the rest of his life—it will have to be enough to satisfy him.

Kellin’s watching him, light eyes tracing every inch of his exposed skin, and Vic’s stomach lurches when he considers that he may be doing the same.

They’re in the center of his cabin. There are no walls for Vic to lean against, nothing to support him through the dizzying ache that’s burning through his chest. He lets it sweep over him. Lets the vertigo remove the strength from his legs, lets it drive him to his knees, not bothered by his coat brushing the floor or the complete lack of propriety. It is only them, and the way Kellin’s watching him is more than enough to encourage him to continue, to reach for the waistband of his trousers.

Vic bites back a curse when his fingers touch Kellin’s stomach, his skin hot and velvet-soft. He wants to see; it’s not nearly enough to imagine, not now. “Take off your shirt.”

His words are low enough in tone they don’t break the cabin’s hush. Kellin looks caught in the spell of silence—he only nods, pulling the shirt over his head and discarding it without care somewhere behind him. Vic forgets it the moment it disappears from his sight.

The lamplight flickers over him, and Vic thinks, in a passing fancy, that he looks like a statue, carved from marble, flawless. He’s surprised to feel warmth beneath his fingers when he lets himself touch, passing a hand over the curve of his stomach, the bone of his hip.

He wants to linger there forever, but he lets the tremble steer him back to his waistband. He pauses once more when his hand curls into the fabric; the quiet’s settled over him, desire and fear chasing his heart in a wild hunt around the confines of his ribcage. He can feel it ricochet in his chest, fast as flushed prey.

Kellin’s hips cant forward by a hair’s breadth. The motion’s enough to convince him to continue—Vic ignores his rapid heartbeat, loosening the trouser’s ties and guiding them down over his hips, releasing them to let gravity tug them down his thighs. He’s flushed and hard, inhaling sharply as Vic pauses there a moment, overwhelmed, overcome with want.

It’s not close to enough for Vic to keep watching him, or even to trace his lines with his fingers. He presses his mouth to his thigh, noses at the crease of his hip, breathing in his warmth, the scent of sweat and desire, the tremors that have spread down from his torso. He craves him so badly it floods his mouth.

Kellin’s hand twines into his hair. He still does not speak, but there’s a silent plea in the way he pulls, not sharp enough to hurt but enough to make Vic’s breath catch in his lungs.

He would have him tug harder. He would have him twist it free at the roots. He wants to be able to remember the sting once all other sensation’s been forgotten.

Vic lets his teeth catch at his thigh, scraping over the sparse hair, and waits for Kellin’s sharp intake of breath before he presses his lips to the base of his cock. He’s burning hot, sweat-slick, sharp and bitter against Vic’s tongue. It’s enough to make him see stars. Enough to make himself ache in his trousers, growing uncomfortably tight around him.

Kellin groans, fingers tensing in his hair. He sways in place, and Vic has the presence of mind to wonder if his knees feel just as weak, if Vic’s hand on his hip is all that’s keeping him from sinking to the floor. He only wonders it for the brief space between two breaths, then the thought flits from him and he’s closing his eyes as he lets his hunger take his body over.

His cock is heavy when Vic dips to take him in his mouth, savoring a second, more desperate groan.

The ship rolls beneath them, drawing a moan from Kellin, making him twist his hand harder in Vic’s hair. Vic feels pinned, wanted, needed, and an answering moan bubbles in his chest, muffled by the heavy press against his tongue, the salt gathering in the back of his throat. He presses closer—just once will not be enough, will do nothing to quell the need that’s been burning in his stomach for days. He wants everything he can get. Everything he’ll be allowed while they’re here, while the Isabelle holds them both.

Kellin curls over him, hands slipping down to cradle the back of his head, pulling sharply at his hair. He’s panting—Vic’s fingers flutter on his hip for a moment at the sound, tensing as his mind flashes to nightmares in the dark—but these breaths are different; needy, gasping, shaky and awestruck.

“Vic,” he whispers, and his voice trembles. “Please, my god.”

Vic’s tongue feels bruised when he presses it up, chasing wet, hot skin, pushing himself forward until the bruised sensation hits the back of his throat, until it makes him choke, head spinning with his lack of air. He needs more; he needs to feel this forever.

Kellin’s breathing shifts, speeds up, desperation clogging his lungs. He’s wavering where he stands—there’s a tremor in his thigh, muscle twitching under Vic’s hand. Vic savors it, stores the feeling of every tremble in the back of his mind. It’s another thing he needs not to forget.

He would have stayed on his knees forever, but it’s not long before Kellin’s grasping hands stiffen, before he’s gasping out a warning of his release. Vic wants this too—he would beg for it if he could speak, but he only stays in place, presses his hand against the trembling curve of his hip, ignores the stinging tightness of his trousers.

He comes with another, louder gasp, shoving one hand over his mouth to stifle himself. The other curls tighter in Vic’s hair. He wavers a moment, then his knees give way.

Vic scarcely has a moment to breathe, air stinging the roof of his mouth, before Kellin’s on him, shoving at the coat he’s still somehow wearing, pushing it off his shoulders along with his shirt. His arms are trapped behind him until the fabric falls, and he’s still blinking away sparks from the feeling of confinement when Kellin kisses him, bearing him to the floor, hand pressing into his trousers.

His touch is unfamiliar, soft and relentless, and Vic can’t catch his breath. He arches up beneath him, an ache crawling down his spine from where his back scrapes against the boards, and he’s coming before he can manage a warning.

“Vic,” Kellin whispers. His breath fans over Vic’s mouth. “Vic.”

Vic reaches up to cling to him. It’s easier to hide his face in the warmth of Kellin’s chest than to think of what they’ve just done.

“Vic,” Kellin says again. His hand slips over Vic’s back. Skims down to the waist of his trousers, shoved low over his hips, and pushes two fingers between the fabric and Vic’s skin. He stays there, holding on, until their skin cools.

Vic should send him away. “Stay,” he whispers instead. “Please.”

Kellin nods.

Chapter Text

Vic wakes to the sound of whispers, low and urgent in the dark.

His chest is freezing; the blanket must have slipped from him at some point in his sleep. He can’t feel the woven edges when he reaches out to search, hand only finding the mattress.

The whispers swell.

“Kellin—wake up,” he murmurs, pushing himself to his elbow and leaning over to light his lamp. The glare is shockingly bright in the cabin, blinding him momentarily, and he shields his face from it, white drifting in his vision when he closes his eyes.

The bed shifts beside him, and he turns to see Kellin tossing in his sleep, blanket wound tight around his waist. His skin is bare elsewhere, cold to the touch when Vic smooths his palm over his arm, squeezing his shoulder.

“Wake up.”

His panting begins, rising to a fever pitch as he twists on the mattress. The blanket falls from him and leaves him naked in the lamplight, a sheen of sweat coating his chest despite the cold. Vic can’t look away. He feels as if he should—this feels private, something intimate about his unconscious vulnerability—but Kellin’s panting chokes in his throat and the thought disappears from Vic’s mind.

Vic shakes him. “Breathe—you’re dreaming.”

Kellin chokes again. The sound is wet, and Vic’s moving to turn him on his side when he suddenly goes stiff, sitting bolt upright in bed. His eyes are open, blank, unseeing.

Water spews from his mouth.

The wave spills over his chest, ocean foam bubbling at the corners of his lips, gagging him, making him cough—Vic should move, should react, but he’s frozen. Kellin’s soaked in moments, water still flooding from his mouth, splashing onto the sheets, onto the floor.

“My God—” Vic begins, and then it’s over. Kellin draws in a breath, the flood ceasing, life returning to his eyes along with a horror so deep and abject Vic can’t ever hope to comfort it.

He doubles over, coughing, crying.

Vic can’t feel his hands when he cups Kellin’s face, lifting his face to ensure his airway’s clear. “Fuck,” he whispers, brushing a thumb over the foam coating his chin. “Kellin, oh please, tell me you’re—”

“Vic,” he chokes, and his face is wet. Vic’s not certain what is tears and what is ocean, but he kisses him anyway, salt and grit transferring to his lips, his tongue. He tastes it in the back of his throat.

“You’re well. You’re safe. What happened? How—”

He shakes his head.

Vic pulls him to his chest, arms tight around him. He’s shaking, violent tremors running through his body, and Vic doesn’t care that the cold is transferring to himself, that they’ll both be frozen if he doesn’t find them something dry to wear—he won’t let him go, not now. Not ever.

“I don’t know what I’ve done,” Kellin gasps against his skin. His mouth is hot, face achingly cold, the difference in temperature sending chills down Vic’s spine. “I don’t know what—”

“What you’ve done?”

“Why I’m being haunted. I don’t know—I didn’t mean it. I didn’t.”

Vic’s lungs fill with ice. “Haunted?”

It’s all he can do to parrot Kellin’s words back at him. Nothing he could say on his own makes sense. Nothing makes sense at all.

“I dreamed he was dragging me to the bottom of the ocean. I dreamed you—” Kellin shudders, hands curling into fists against Vic’s back, nails digging in.

“He?”

“What have I done,” Kellin whispers out, the words a moan. A plea.

The ice is spreading through every limb, every vein, making Vic’s heart beat sluggishly. “Who is he? Tell me what’s happening, please, you must— I can’t keep you safe if I don’t know.”

“Safe?” Kellin’s teeth press against his shoulder, sharp enough to catch at Vic’s breath. “Safe,” he whispers again, less a question. Vic’s skin smarts. “You can’t— how would you ever keep me safe?”

“Who is he?”

“He’s on a ship in my dreams,” Kellin whispers. The words shudder as they leave his mouth. “My father’s ship. I can’t see his face, but he’s coming—”

“No one’s coming for you.” Vic doesn’t believe his own words.

Kellin shakes his head. He’s still trembling, and it’s only growing worse—Vic has to get him warm.

“Don’t move,” he murmurs. “You’re half frozen— I’ll warm you, just a moment.”

He crumples to the mattress when Vic stands. If Vic didn’t know better, he would swear he’d just pulled him from the depths; he looks like he’s drowned, skin tinged blue in the flickering lamplight, hair a dark, wet sheet over his face.

Vic’s hands shake as he pulls the spare blanket from his closet and tugs some extra clothing from his chest. He shrugs on a shirt but leaves it undone, letting it hang loose from his shoulders, then coaxes Kellin up from the mattress to wrap the blanket around him. “Come here,” he whispers. “We’ll sleep in your cabin. You’ll become ill if I let you sleep in water.”

“He’ll come back,” Kellin gasps.

“No.”

“He’s closer and closer, oh—”

Vic’s arms tighten around him, pinning the blanket in place, cradling him close. His gaze is locked somewhere beyond Vic, his eyes dazed and uncomprehending. Vic follows his stare—there’s nothing, no movement besides a few shifting shadows against the wall, thrown by the lamplight behind them. “There’s no one here. It’s only shadows, Kell.”

He sags in Vic’s hold.

“Only shadows,” Vic whispers again. Kellin’s legs give way, and Vic sinks with him to the floor, wood rough against his bare knees. “I have you.”

The cold seems to be sinking into Vic’s organs, Arctic water flooding his lungs, his stomach, his bowels. His teeth chatter in his mouth. Clenching his jaw only makes him tremble; his shirt is nothing against this ice.

His eyes fall again on the shadows, lessened now they’re on the ground, but still swaying as the ship rocks. The lamplight should be warm, but it’s frigid as the sun in winter. Kellin exhales against his throat. It sends a sensation like fingers gliding down his chest, his skin crawling in the damp.

They stay where they are. Kellin’s hair dries pressed between them, clinging to Vic’s skin, stiff with salt.

“You’re so cold.” There’s a hush to Kellin’s words, a drowsiness that Vic does not trust. He sounds drugged, each syllable slurred, head limp where it rests against him. “He’s placed his hands on you.”

“Don’t say that.” Vic’s arms shake. He forces his frozen muscles to contract, to pull Kellin closer to his chest.

“Do you not see him?”

His eyes are so heavy. He keeps them open wide, looks for a presence, a spirit, anything that could explain away this cold, this water, but there’s naught beyond the edges of the lamplight. The rest of the room is featureless, empty. No life breathes around them. “I see no one. You are still dreaming.”

“No,” Kellin breathes.

Vic lifts a hand to Kellin’s jaw. Sea foam flecks his fingers when he pulls them back, damp and gritty, seeping into the cracks in his skin. There is no explanation for this—no earthly reason for his lover to cough up the Atlantic in their bed, for him to see something beyond Vic’s own sight, some vision that’s left them both cold and shaking on the floor.

“We must get you to shore.”

Kellin’s body twitches in his arms.

“We’re over halfway,” Vic whispers. “This will not last. You will be safe— please, tell me what you see. Is it the same man? From the ship?”

He nods, slow and ragged, each measure of the motion drawn out until Vic thinks it pains him.

“And you cannot see his face?”

“I wouldn’t recognize it if I could.” Kellin’s words are still sluggish. He sounds half dead with cold.

Vic lets his eyes close, drops his head to rest against Kellin’s hair, salt grating over his cheek. It makes his skin feel raw within moments. “Will you tell me why?”

There’s a hitch in his breathing. Vic goes tense, waiting for another rush of water, but it doesn’t come—his exhale is clear, lungs empty.

“It was my ship.”

“Your ship?” He’s nothing but an echo.

“We sent it out—we did not listen—my God, Vic, it was already so cold. I saw ice in my washbasin that morning, and we still sent it out.”

Vic presses his face into Kellin’s hair. Harder and harder, until it feels like part of him, until he’s sure they’ve become one. “Tell me,” he whispers.

“I had only just become a business partner. This was my ship, not my father’s, and I made the choice—I was the deciding vote—the Captain did not want to sail, but it was sail or lose his contract, and,” Kellin says, breath shaking. “And he sailed. And they were lost, and now I see him every day, and I can’t even remember his face.”

Vic’s throat swells.

“I can’t remember his face.” The final word’s a sob. “Every time I dream he’s there, and every night he looks more and more like you, and I’m so frightened it’ll be you, next time, and—”

“No.” He curls his fingers, feels the soft give of Kellin’s arms under his nails. Holds him until he thinks he’ll break. “No next time. What’s done is done.”

Kellin shakes his head, ragged and violent, the salt-stiff fragments of his hair cracking against Vic’s chest. He’s crumbling to pieces. It’s like Vic’s trying to hold the ocean in his arms, each tremble draining Kellin from his grip.

“What’s done is done.” He whispers it. Kellin’s cheek is hot when Vic kisses him, a feverish glow burning just out of sight. “You’re not well. I can fetch—”

“No. No. Don’t go.”

Vic lets Kellin keep him on the floor. His knees ache, then go numb, and he counts the time passing in the scattered breaths against his skin, in the warmth creeping back into Kellin’s limbs.

When dawn slinks through the edges of the window and sends shards of light over the floor, the fever has long broken. Kellin’s asleep in his arms, slumped over him, and his breathing is easy, his heart slow, lashes fluttering over his cheek.

Vic holds him until he wakes.

He floats through the day as if he’s the one dreaming. No one speaks to him, and he’s unsure of the cause until he catches a glimpse of himself in a reflection—his eyes are hollow, his face blank, dark stubble shading his jaw.

He looks like Kellin. The thought sends a jolt through his stomach, but he can’t tell if it’s sparked by lack of sleep or fear or desire or some deeper, sharper thought. He doesn’t suppose it matters, not with the evidence sitting so clearly on his face.

The numbers should match. Tony’s kept as faithful of notes as ever, his handwriting neat, every decimal in its place, but Vic’s eyes keep clouding, shifting the measurements by degrees, by miles. He can’t focus. He can’t see where they’re going, or where they’ve come from. It is only sea. Only water on the page, outside his window, in his lungs.

He doesn’t return Tony’s journal. Midmorning, he comes searching for it; Vic is hunched over his desk, the curve of his shoulders painful but the thought of straightening more so, when he enters the cabin.

“Captain?”

“Read this to me.”

Tony’s footfalls are slow as he approaches. Each step causes the wood to creak below him. “Is something the matter?”

“I can’t make our path line up. Read it to me.”

Even with Tony sounding out his measurements, Vic stares dumbly at the almanac in front of him. He sets his finger on the page. Withdraws it. He thinks for a moment his hand leaves water behind it, that he’ll find the book soaked through, but the paper’s dry when he brushes his palm over the neat rows of numbers.

“Captain, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t—” Vic quiets. His mouth tastes like salt when he swallows, and he runs his tongue over his lips, feeling a sting as they moisten.

Tony steps to the edge of his desk to look at him. Whatever he sees gives him pause; he stops before he sets his closed journal on top of the almanac, forcing Vic’s eyes to drift from the page. “May I speak?”

Vic gives a lifeless wave of his hand.

“You’re no use to any of us like this. Are you sick?”

“Not sick.”

“With respect, you look like you’re in hell.”

He manages to straighten out his back, shoulders screaming at him to stop, to let them rest. “I am not ill. I didn’t sleep.”

“Then sleep now.” Tony picks up both his journal and the almanac. “Enough of this. Do you want to frighten Jaime further?”

“I don’t want to frighten anyone—”

“Sleep.”

Tony draws the curtains and blows out the lamp burning by Vic’s bed before he leaves, the books held securely under his arm. Vic barely makes it to his bed before he falls.

He dreams of Kellin’s teeth in his chest. Ivory twisting, gnawing, tongue laving at chunks of flesh, slipping wet over exposed bone—his eyes are wild when Vic looks at him. Blood coats his face, a scrap of skin hangs from a canine, but Vic isn’t frightened.

He can’t feel more than a dull ache. No more than the twinge of a half-healed sunburn. The warmth of viscera cradles him like the waters of a gentle sea, and he’s floating; he wraps a hand around the back of Kellin’s neck and draws him in for more.

There’s a sound behind him in the dark, but neither of them turn to look. Vic does not care, even as he feels a presence approaching him, even as a second set of teeth tear into his back, grate against his spine.

It does not hurt.

It’s nearly evening when he wakes, his dream slipping from him as the light of the sunset passes over his floor. The curtains glow a gentle pink.

As loath as he is to admit it, his head is clearer now he’s rested. The ache in his back is gone, although he has to examine himself before he leaves the cabin, certain he’ll have a wound he cannot feel slashing through his back. His skin is unbroken. Any scar there is from years prior and long since healed.

He makes an appearance at dinner. He’s still quiet, and the only words he gets are passing remarks from the men nearest him, but Tony presses his almanac back into his hands before he retires. Vic thinks he manages to return his smile, but the motion feels foreign. He could have any expression passing his face and he would not know the difference.

The Isabelle has flourished in his brief absence, as he knew it would. He’s sure Jaime directed the crew as well as he could, if not better—it is becoming more difficult to speak to his men as the voyage continues. He does not want to think about it, or let himself linger on how he’s failing them, as surely as he’s failing Kellin, the only man who wants him, the man who needs him most to succeed. The Atlantic wears on forever.

Vic can’t take it. He can’t breathe, his chest caught between two desires, so alien to each other they’re like to crush him to pieces.

He’s leaning his weight on the railing, trying to quell the ache in his ribcage, when Jaime leans beside him.

“Tony said you’re unwell.”

“Tony’s wrong.”

“You’ve never been able to admit it.” Jaime lifts a hand, like he’s going to prod Vic’s arm—like they’re still friends in the same manner they used to be—then lets it fall back to the railing. “I’m sorry.”

Jaime shouldn’t be sorry. He never would have been sorry before Kellin boarded their ship, before the world started to crumple around them. They’re in the middle of the ocean, but it may as well be a cage for all the good it does. Vic’s never felt less free in his life.

“We’ve got the watch set this evening. You won’t need to do a thing until morning, if you want to sleep—”

“All I’ve done today is sleep.”

“And we want you to continue. I don’t believe Tony’s wrong. Sir.”

Vic presses his chest harder to the railing, until it seems his ribs will give way. “I’ll be perfectly fine. I slept poorly last night. I’m recovering already.”

“Regardless.” Jaime steps away from the railing, and Vic loses sight of him. The ocean looms up, giant and empty, filling his vision. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

If anyone watches him return to his cabin, they don’t interrupt him. He sees nothing but the water surrounding them, hears nothing but the wind in the sails until he’s inside, the door locked behind him, Tony and Jaime’s concerns dissolving in the shadows of his room. It’s only sunset. He should wait and keep from being seen, let Kellin come to him when he’s ready, once the ship has fallen silent and it’s safe.

He doesn’t wait.

Darkness has only begun to settle over the Isabelle when he crosses the hallway between their cabins, knocking once before he tries the latch. The door opens. Kellin’s in his chair by the window, his bed still made—Vic thinks of how he didn’t use it the night before, how the sheets are still clean. His tongue feels too large for his mouth.

“Vic?”

He sinks to his knees in lieu of a response.

Later, once they’ve left Kellin’s cabin empty and sequestered themselves in Vic’s once more—safer in the chance that someone will come searching for him in the night—Vic curls himself around Kellin’s sleeping form and presses his fingers to his mouth, feeling for any hint of excess moisture, any sign that he’ll exhale something other than air. He does not stir, and Vic’s fingers come away dry.

For a second night, it’s his turn not to sleep. Sleep evades him, hangs just out of reach like low clouds, flees from every attempt to grasp it. He tosses for a while, then stands, leaving Kellin where he lies, and crosses to the window. The night air is cool against his bare chest when he opens the glass. The cabin fills with the sound of waves, wind whistling through the gap. The air smells like rain.

There’s a strange note to the wind tonight. It strikes a chord in Vic’s ribcage, makes his stomach clench; it sounds unbearably lonely, and Vic half expects to see wreckage when he looks out to the horizon, see the remnants of Kellin’s ship. Nothing disturbs the water, and the sound of the wind does not change as they sail on.

He pulls his chair near the window and sits with his head resting on the sill, letting the howling wind coax him to rest.

He dreams of a tidal wave.

It dwarfs the Isabelle, rising higher than the Pyrenees behind them, and Vic does not watch it swell. His eyes are on Boston. The harbor is so close, safety near enough he thinks to send out a rowboat just to carry Kellin to the docks—the tidal wave may claim them, but maybe he could get far enough inland to survive.

Even in his dream, he knows his logic is flawed.

He finally turns to watch the wave that they cannot hope to escape, and in a moment the water is gone, replaced by a shadow so large and terrible it blots out the sun. He can see ink spreading across the maps in his cabin. See the world obscured in black.

A hand slips into his, soft and gentle and familiar in its shape, and he closes his eyes as the shadow crashes over them.

Kellin’s touching him when he wakes. His hands are in Vic’s hair, his body balanced over Vic’s thighs in his chair, and he pulls Vic in, kisses him, devours him; he could still be dreaming. If he is, it is a good dream. The nightmare dissolves from him.

“You were crying,” Kellin whispers when they part. “Were you awake?”

Vic shakes his head. He draws Kellin in to kiss him again—his mouth is warm, and alive, and there is no wave.

“Then you were dreaming?” he asks finally.

“I was. Again.”

Kellin brushes a thumb over his cheek. “What did you dream?”

“A shadow, and a wave, and Boston so close but out of reach.” Vic shuts his eyes and leans into Kellins’s touch. “We must reach the Americas. I would have you safe on land.”

“None of my dreams have come true,” Kellin says. His voice is hushed, carried away in the wind still hissing through the open window.

“Will we all be lost if they do?”

He sighs, stands, then presses his lips to Vic’s temple. “Come to bed?”

Vic closes the window and follows him. He settles over Kellin on the mattress, imagines that he’s as heavy as the ocean as he holds him down, fingers curling around his jaw, his wrists, his hips, not letting him go until they’re both trembling and he’s stopped seeing water whenever he closes his eyes. Kellin clings to him, after. Neither of them speak.

Chapter Text

Vic slips from bed and dresses without lighting his lamp. He can hear Kellin breathing behind him, each rise of his chest slow and gentle, and he’s half tempted to shirk his duties and rejoin him—but he must make an appearance, must keep his crew reassured that everything remains the same. The Isabelle will sail for Boston, voyage and fate unchanged.

He tastes the ocean on his lips once more, feels a chill creep over his chest.

If Kellin chooses to leave them behind in Boston and seek gentler tides in the Americas, it could prove the end of these strange shared nightmares. Vic quickly puts the thought from his mind—he refuses to let himself linger on the end of their journey, so rapidly approaching.

He’s lacing a boot, foot propped up against his desk to avoid hunching over in the dark, when the thud of footsteps on the stairs shatters the quiet. Kellin stirs, and Vic sucks in a sharp breath as a fist pounds at the door, shuddering the planks in their frame. He leaves his boot half laced and goes to intercept whoever’s approached him before Kellin can speak and betray his presence.

“What’s—” he begins, cracking the door.

“Captain.” It’s Timothy, eyes wide in his thin face, and Vic’s bewilderment grows at the sight. “Captain, Mr. Perry said to come fetch you, sir, right quick—something’s wrong, sir.”

“Wrong? What’s wrong?”

“Pardon, sir, I don’t know. I’ve only just woke up. Was up early, you see, and I meant to go join Mr. Perry before time so he could get some shut eye, and—”

Vic’s boot is still untied, and it flops on his foot when he takes a step into the hall and shoves the door shut behind him. “Never mind that. Is he injured?”

“Injured? No, sir, can’t have been. Was upright and talking like ever.”

“Tell him I’m coming then, shit.” Vic fumbles for the door’s latch. “Be right out.”

Timothy, clearly happy to be dismissed, bobs his head and shuffles to the main deck.

Kellin’s already sitting up when Vic steps back inside. The dawn illuminates his face for just a moment—his messy hair, the shine of his eyes—before Vic closes the door firmly and strides across the room to finish dressing.

“What’s going on?”

“Tony says something is wrong.” Vic finishes lacing his boot, tying it off securely before he reaches for his belt. The well-worn leather slots smoothly into place, buckle creaking as he fastens it. “Not sure what. Stay here, you hear me?”

“Should I go back to my room?”

“No. I want you here.” Vic hesitates before he reaches for his gun.

“But if—”

“I don’t care. Lock the door behind me and stay where you are.”

Kellin draws in a quick breath, pushing himself up from the mattress. Enough faint light is creeping from beneath the door that his movements are illuminated, his figure just distinguishable from the cabin’s shadows. Vic can see the lines of his limbs, the curve where his shoulder meets his throat, the bare plane of his torso, and he has to turn away to pull on his coat.

He can’t afford a distraction now, even one so welcome.

“Come back quickly?” Kellin asks. His voice is quiet, and oddly stilted, and Vic has to hold himself back from closing the distance between them.

He nods and adjusts his coat. “As soon as I can.”

The deck is silent once he leaves his cabin behind. Timothy is standing in the center of the deck, looking very unsure of himself, and Tony’s by the wheel, two fingers wrapped around one of the spokes.

“What’s the matter?”

Tony gives him a grim nod. “Captain. Wind’s gone, and—”

“You woke me for wind?”

“—and you should see this,” Tony finishes. He releases the wheel—it does not spin in his absence—and beckons Vic over to the railing.

The water surrounding them is still and flat, glassy as a mirror as far as they can see in every direction, entirely featureless. Vic has never seen the Atlantic look this way. Even when the sea’s quiet, even when the wind has died, there is movement to the water. Currents, vague waves, movement in the deep.

It’s dizzying. It starts an ache behind Vic’s right eye, one that only grows when he looks up to see their sails hanging slack and lifeless, silhouetted against a sky as featureless and dull as the water below. For a moment, he wonders if they’ve somehow been inverted in their sleep; if sky is water and water sky, and the Isabelle is hanging between the two without a wind or wave to guide her loose.

“When did you notice the wind die?” Vic asks, tearing his gaze away from the sky and looking to Tony.

“An hour ago. Maybe two. We’d been keeping speed before.”

His headache becomes a red hot poker. Then he was asleep when the wind went, curled around Kellin in his bed. “And the water fall still?”

“Not until moments ago. When the sun rose.”

He heaves in a breath. The air feels dead on his tongue without the breeze, heavy and warm and salty enough to cure his lungs. “There’s little to be done about it. The wind will resume soon enough and we’ll move on.”

“You think so?” Tony appears as unsettled as Vic feels. His hand’s tight on the railing, knuckles pale against the dark wood.

“I know so. This is a becalming, nothing more. I’ve lived through plenty. You’ve been with me for most of them, have you not?”

“Most, yes, but—” Tony casts his gaze down to the sea.

Vic goes quiet. His hand joins Tony’s on the railing, fingers tapping rapidly at the wood. This, at least, is solid beneath his touch; the ship herself is not thrown into doubt. “I know,” he says, voice soft enough he thinks Timothy won’t be able to hear. “I’m concerned as well. But there’s no purpose in courting fear. I don’t want the crew to think this is abnormal.”

“Jaime will know. Perhaps a few of the older hands.”

“Tell Jaime to do what he can to keep the crew’s spirits up.” Vic squeezes the railing once, twice, then uncurls his fingers. “In the meantime, we’ll take a day of rest. There’s nothing to be done when we can’t sail.”

“We’re excused from duties?”

“Unless the wind should begin again before tomorrow, yes.”

Tony nods.

“Although—” Vic pauses a moment. “You are quite close to Jaime. Closer than I am, now my title demands otherwise.”

“Sir?”

“Have him come speak with me at his leisure.”

His face flickers with something Vic can’t quite put a name to. “Has he earned some reprimand, Captain?”

“I would hardly involve you if that were the case. I only want to speak with him.”

Tony nods again, turning to go.

Vic places his hands back on the rail, scanning the Atlantic for some hint of a ripple as Tony’s footsteps depart. The ocean’s motionless, a dim bluish gray that makes his mind flit to Kellin’s eyes; his stomach lurches at the thought.

Becalming need not be a frightful sentence. It may only last several hours, or several days. They may be well on their way to Boston by this time tomorrow, and Vic’s intuition may have proved entirely wrong. He still cannot shake the discomfort at the sight of the water, at the gray press of the sky, at the dead, warm air encircling them.

A few more seconds of quiet, and he’s leaving the railing behind and returning to his cabin. The ship is empty as he goes, all but Timothy below the deck, and Timothy does not waylay him. He just watches Vic walk by, looking unconcerned by the unnatural stillness that holds them in one place.

He knocks when he reaches his cabin, just a light rap of his knuckles. Movement sounds inside before he can complete a third tap—the door swings open.

Kellin’s silent until Vic’s stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him. The room’s full of light now, curtain pulled back from the window above his desk, and Vic’s mouth goes a bit dry at the sight; Kellin in a shirt he must have pilfered from Vic’s chest, still wrinkled where it had been folded, standing out against his skin as starkly as his hair.

“Is everything all right?” he prompts after Vic fails to speak.

“With any luck.” Vic can’t resist him. He steps close, rubs his thumb where the shirt’s collar meets skin, stomach swooping at the quiet noise it elicits. “The wind’s died. That’s all.”

“Is that cause for concern?”

Vic wants to lie to him. “If it continues for much longer. We can’t move until the wind moves us, and there’s no way to predict when that may be.”

“So we’re delayed?”

He nods.

Kellin doesn’t immediately answer, but he raises a hand and wraps it around Vic’s forearm, holding him in place. His gaze is steady. Vic thinks he can see a hint of some deeper fear in his eyes, feel it in the way his fingers dig in, nails a sharp bite in his skin.

A strange sense of vertigo sweeps over him, and the sensation of floating returns. He’s lighter than air, the ship’s lighter than air, and they’re sure to spiral up from the flat plane around them, sure to never come back down.

“I’ll get you to Boston,” he whispers. The words are enough to send them careening down. He braces himself for the splash. “It’s only a delay.”

“You think that’s what worries me?”

Vic’s throat feels thick when he swallows. “No. But I will.”

Kellin slips his hand up the back of Vic’s arm, fingers cupping his bicep through the thick fabric of his coat. “And what of you?”

“Of me?”

“Once we reach Boston. What then?”

Vic can’t wrap his tongue around the words. The truth is no reassurance; his what then is returning to Barcelona. He knows Kellin knows it as well as he. He knows Kellin wants to hear anything but.

He leans in to kiss him instead, hand twisting in the dark cotton of his shirt, tasting salt.

“I will not ask,” Kellin whispers once they part. His eyes remain closed. “I will not. But if you decide to stay in Boston, you’ll never want for a thing again. I’ll make sure of it.”

“I know.” Vic can’t say anything else. He drops his head to Kellin’s shoulder, feels his eyelashes bend against his warmth, shoves his face as close as he can until the fabric seems to be one with his skin.

Kellin’s hand lifts to his hair.

They stand there long enough that Vic loses track of time and can only measure it in the growing ache in his neck, the stiffness developing in his back. He still does not move. A separate, deeper ache spreads through his chest—he knows the reason for it, but it’s still unexpected. It still hurts.

It isn’t until a knock sounds at his door that he straightens up. Kellin looks panicked, and Vic presses a hand to his jaw, fingers sliding into his hair. “You’re fine,” he whispers, too quiet for anyone outside the door to hear. “It will only be Jaime—stand out of sight if you don’t wish anyone to know, and I’ll go to him.”

“Vic—”

Vic kisses him, just a quick brush of lips before he straightens his coat and steps to answer the door. Kellin crowds against the wall, going silent, anxiety clouding his gaze.

Jaime’s expression is hardly less anxious when Vic unlatches his door. “You asked for me.”

Vic smiles at him, hoping to put him at ease, and steps out into the hall to join him. He feels himself relax as he pulls the door shut behind him. “I did. Will you walk with me?”

“Of course, Captain.”

Vic mulls over his words for a minute while they begin their stroll; Jaime watches him without pause. The deck is empty of everyone but them, the air heavy and inert. Nothing moves in the sky or the water.

“Are you angry with me?” Jaime asks once the silence has stretched on too long.

“I am not.” Vic glances up at the lowest spar as they walk beneath it—rope hangs loose from it, limp and lifeless. “I think perhaps I should be. But I’ve never been able to stay angry with you.”

His words coax a reluctant smile from Jaime. “I am grateful for it.”

“I have…” Vic begins, then pauses. “Since I have been keeping Mr. Quinn from walking in his sleep, have you and the crew been anxious about anything else?”

Jaime frowns. “Other than him? No, I don’t believe so. Our nights have been quiet— nothing’s been reported to me.”

“Then nothing has happened out of the ordinary?”

“No, sir.”

Vic feels a sting in the back of his throat. He coughs, turning from Jaime to hide whatever might appear from his mouth, and salt bursts over his tongue; crystals dissolving as quickly as they appear. He inhales quickly—there’s nothing in his lungs, no water crawling up from his guts, nothing but the taste of brine and the grit of sand lingering in his teeth.

“Captain?”

Jaime’s regarding him with no small amount of concern, the crease between his eyebrows defined, his cheek dented as if he’s chewing on it from the inside. Vic blinks away thoughts of being eaten.

“I am sorry, Jaime. My mind is elsewhere today. Tell me—are the crew still frightened?”

A haze of reluctance passes over Jaime’s gaze. He looks away, watching his feet as they walk. “No, sir.”

“Are you?”

There is something Jaime’s not telling him. Vic can taste it, as sure as the salt flooding his mouth.

“No, sir.”

A sigh pulls itself, unbidden, from his chest. “There were years you would have been honest with me about what’s troubling you.”

“There were years you were not captain and I could. Sir.”

Vic turns to him; Jaime will not meet his eyes. “Am I no longer your friend? Have you forgotten—my god, Jaime, I’m sick of this. Enough. You remember my name. Use it—this is not a conversation with your captain.”

Jaime does look up, then. “And will my captain hold me to the things I say in a conversation with a friend?”

“No,” Vic says, and his voice has lowered to a whisper. “No, he will not.”

He searches Vic’s face. Whatever he sees there must restore his confidence, or make him angry enough to ignore whatever consequences he’s imagined—Vic cannot be sure. “Tony and I know he’s in your room. You have not kept a thing from us.”

“And you’re angry with me for it? Or you think less of me?”

“I think he’s going to ruin you.”

Vic’s next breath trembles as it creeps down his throat. “Ruin me?”

“There is something evil about that man. I dreamed you were caught in a dark cloud—”

“You dreamed?”

“—his cloud. He was the center of a storm, and you were being thrown about, and I couldn’t reach you.”

He makes the mistake of looking out over the water. Sky and ocean blend, and he sways in place for a moment, his vision twisting, his head playing tricks. “And you think you know the meaning?”

“I don’t want to lose you.”

The air, already still, solidifies around them.

“We don’t want to lose you, Vic,” Jaime whispers. “I think it’s already happening.”

“You haven’t. You won’t. I’m right here, am I not?”

“I don’t believe you are.”

“I’ve heard nothing from you but your fear—this trip is not the evil you think it is.” The words burn like lies as Vic speaks them, each coating his tongue like bad rum. He cannot speak his own fear, of his growing surety of a different evil, the terror of the safe harbor of Boston looming ever closer. He tastes salt on the back end. “Do you think I’d ever let harm come to you? To my crew? If you do, then you don’t know me.”

“I don’t know him. I don’t know what he’s doing to you.”

Vic points back towards his cabin. His finger is unsteady—it wavers in the air, tracing shapes between Vic’s eyes and the quarterdeck. “He’s as frightened as you—”

Jaime’s gaze sharpens.

“I did not mean—”

“Frightened of what? Himself?”

“Jaime, please.”

“No. You’ve withheld this from me long enough. What is this evil? Tell me how he’s bewitched you.”

“You speak as if you believe he’s a spirit. He’s just a man. There is no evil.” Salt breaks between Vic’s teeth.

He shakes his head. “You’ve never been able to lie. Tell me.”

Vic stretches out a hand to grasp the railing, leaning his weight on something stronger than his own feet. He feels fingers down his spine again, chilled, damp, ghostly in the unseasonable warmth falling over the Isabelle.

“My god, Vic, speak. You look ill.”

“I am not—there is nothing wrong with me. There’s nothing—”

The fingers shove inside his torso, shatter his ribcage, close around his lungs. He struggles to inhale; each breath tastes of salt, of ice.

“Vic,” Jaime whispers. “Sit down before you fall.”

He shakes his head, fast, determined. His teeth grate together, jaw aching. “You don’t know a thing. There’s nothing wrong. We will make it to Boston, and this will all be over.”

“You mean when Mr. Quinn leaves us?”

Vic’s eyes slip shut. He cannot think about that inevitable end.

“Or when you leave us behind to follow him?”

“I’m going nowhere.”

“Does he know that?”

“This is my ship. She is mine. He knows better than to beg me to leave her.”

Vic can feel Kellin’s hands in his hair. He blinks, and the hands withdraw; the fingers around his lungs, however, only constrict.

“He knows I will not go.”

“Then you should end this. Now, before we lose all confidence in you.”

“Lose all confidence? Over a—an affair?”

“You cannot manage to even say the word properly. Why shouldn’t I? He is the center of this storm, and you know it, and the moment he’s gone—”

“Damn you, Jaime, don’t speak of what you can’t hope to understand.”

Silence falls, and Vic’s vision swims. Spots of ash dance before him—they disappear and solidify as he blinks, swirling from the clouds overhead to layer the deck in dimness.

“Captain,” Jaime begins, but his words sound distant.

Vic’s knees fail him.

The dimness welcomes him, the ash pillowing his fall. He’s somewhere else entirely in moments—embraced in dark and quiet, as peaceful as sleep—and the ice in his chest has vanished. He feels nothing, sees nothing. Even the Isabelle has stopped her swaying.

From behind him, a presence. Vic remembers it well; he remembers teeth in his spine, and he thinks he may smile, muscles moving in a face he cannot feel. If this is what Kellin’s dreams were like—if this is all he knew while he wandered—Vic thinks he understands why he did not wake until Vic had pulled him back. He could be climbing the railing now, could be already falling towards the glass expanse of sea, and he would be none the wiser until he’d been pulled into the depths.

This time, no teeth sink into his back. The presence only stands there, hovering over his shoulder, and Vic cannot turn to look.

“I am not afraid of you,” he says. Or he believes himself to say—he doesn’t know the difference. “You will not have him.”

No response sounds in his ears, but he hears one just the same, a wave of hopelessness sweeping over him, sinking him into the tide. He’s cradled in it, floating just below the surface, and he cannot lift his arms to swim. The dark curls in, wraps tendrils around his limbs, caresses him as a lover.

“You will not have him,” he whispers, just to spite whatever’s lurking behind him.

The shadows in his vision contract, shift, and then he feels hands on him, feels the tendrils release him. Warmth hits him once more, light filtering red through his eyelids, and he breathes again.

“Vic, Vic, wake up—” someone’s saying. There’s terror in their voice, their hands rough enough on his arms to shake him awake.

He raises a hand as he recovers feeling, blinks away cobwebs to regain his sight. “Kell—” he says, but he’s still on the deck, slumped against the railing. Jaime’s eyes are wide, face slack with fear. “Jaime? I’m sorry, I—”

“Can you see me?” Jaime asks. The terror has not left his words. “Vic, tell me you can see me.”

“I see you.”

“You spoke like him. Just like him—what has he done to you?”

Vic struggles back to his feet. Nothing around him feels the same—all color is washed out, the air is heavier than before, the clouds above them darken with each beat of his heart. The Atlantic is utterly still.

Several years ago, they had spent a fortnight in Cayenne on the heels of a late spring storm, huddled in an inn as far from the docks as they could get. Vic had been too preoccupied with the weather and the danger to the Isabelle to much care, but he’d overheard a sailor spinning tales of an inland sea, water layered only several inches deep over dense packed salt, pressed down so solidly you could cross it on foot and get nothing but your boots wet. He spoke of the sky mirrored on the water, of reflections so clear they would confuse your vision. Nobody seemed to believe him.

He wonders if they’ve been picked up by God’s hand and placed in a sea such as that. The water beneath them shows nothing but the sky—Vic cannot see into its depths. If he dove from the deck, would the water receive him, or would his body hit a pavement of salt?

He wonders if it would taste the same as the salt hardening across his tongue.

“You are still with me?”

“I am frightened, Jaime,” he whispers. These words do not feel like lies.

“We are all frightened.”

He leans his weight against the railing once more, and Jaime’s hand settles on his shoulder after a moment’s pause. “I can stand on my own.”

“The next time you can’t, I intend to catch you.”

“Should the wind return and we resume our path to Boston—would you have me leave the ship with our passenger?”

“We have not lost so much faith in you yet.”

“Yet,” Vic says. The pressure of Jaime’s hand is the only thing that feels solid and real; the railing’s like smoke under him.

Jaime is quiet.

Chapter Text

He’s in a daze when he returns to his cabin. Jaime’s gaze follows him until the door closes behind him, and—regardless of his words on the deck—Vic feels no trust in the weight of his eyes. It’s a relief to shut him out, to hide the unearthly immobility of the Atlantic, to keep them both away from Kellin.

“You look ill,” he says, standing as Vic enters. He’s still wearing the dark shirt he took from Vic's chest, though the wrinkles are working themselves out of the fabric, and nothing beneath—Vic’s eyes fall to the top of his thigh, the bare expanse of his legs.

“You look—” Vic echoes, then crosses the room in a few steps, legs slightly unsteady beneath him, to wind his hands in the front of the shirt and pull him close.

Kellin makes a noise into the kiss, confused and stilted, and presses his fingers to Vic’s mouth as they part. “You taste of salt. Are you well?”

Vic does not answer, moving his lips to Kellin’s jaw to avoid speaking, letting his racing heart slow. Kellin’s mouth must’ve tasted the same before the ocean spilled from him—he must’ve felt the salt gathering on his tongue, must’ve coughed up crystals that formed in his throat. He wonders how long it will take him to be the one to drown. Wonders if Kellin will see it happen, or if he’ll be long gone, safe in the winding streets of Boston.

“Vic,” he whispers, but does not stop him.

Vic presses him back towards the bed. His walk is uneven, and he pushes Kellin down as soon as he can, uses his chest to steady himself as he climbs onto the mattress after him, sits astride his thighs, one hand planted firmly on his ribcage, right above his heart, the other reaching for his nightstand. He needs to feel—he needs something to drive away the numbness tingling in his limbs, the daze swimming in his head. He drops a small jar onto the bed at Kellin’s side, then sheds his coat, letting it fall. It slips to the floor with a clatter of buttons.

Kellin’s hands settle on his waist. “Vic.”

He fumbles with the ties on his shirt, and Kellin’s hands move to cover his, fingers more certain than Vic’s as he untangles the mess Vic made of them.

“Are you sure you’re well?”

Vic looks down at him, and his chest aches. He thinks he can feel the ocean filling his lungs already—it’s harder to breathe with their eyes locked. He wants to taste Kellin, not salt. He wants to feel him. “I’m well.”

Kellin’s expression remains skeptical, but he nods, hands skimming down Vic’s sides to lift off his loosened shirt. The fabric obscures his vision for a moment, and he has eyes for nothing but Kellin when he reemerges, gaze stuck on his flushed cheeks, the damp hunger of his lips.

He starts to move his hands to Kellin’s shirt, then thinks better of it and drops them to the waistband of his own trousers instead. He wants to see Kellin in his clothes as long as possible—the borrowed shirt will be the last to go, once there’s nothing else to be shed.

“Vic,” Kellin says again, and his voice is soft. “You’re trembling.”

“I know.” He pushes himself up on his knees long enough to work his trousers down his thighs. He knows Kellin doesn’t miss how unsteady he is—how his legs shake, how he has to try twice to get his pants over his hips—but he doesn’t stop, doesn’t try to steady himself or explain it away. He settles back onto him once he’s naked, trousers cast somewhere out of sight.

Kellin’s hands run up his arms, move to his waist, trace wherever he trembles. “You’ll fall,” he murmurs. “Let me lay you down?”

Vic has scarcely nodded before Kellin’s wrapping his arms around him, pulling him down to kiss him and rolling them both over. Vic’s back hits the mattress, and he’s caught off guard by how still the bed feels, how gentle the sheets feel against his skin. There’s no grating salt, no hard floor under him. He may as well be floating—the ocean could be surrounding him for all he knows, could be lowering him down to sand or salt, whatever’s beneath the featureless water.

Kellin pulls away only to shed Vic’s shirt before he returns—he misses the sight desperately, even as his tongue grows wet at his newly bared skin—and his hands are unbearably soft when he leans in for another kiss, fingers cradling his jaw. “Tell me why you’re shaking?”

Vic digs his nails into Kellin’s back, skin and muscle giving in crescents, slipping under his fingers as he shifts. Kellin makes a quiet noise, equal pain and surprise.

“Vic—”

He shakes his head and reaches up to wrap his hand around the nape of Kellin’s neck, tugging him down. He guides Kellin’s mouth to the curve of his throat, presses up into him; there’s only softness there, the warmth of Kellin’s lips, the wet slide of his tongue. No teeth, no gore.

“Bite,” he whispers, and Kellin stills.

“Vic, what do you—”

“Bite. Hard. Make me bleed.” He presses harder at Kellin’s neck, tipping his head to the side—he wants to know if it will feel like it did in his dream, if the pain will be negligible, if he’ll pull away with skin between his teeth. “I need—”

Kellin pulls back from him. There’s fear in his eyes—Vic knows the gleam intimately, but has never seen it directed at him. There’s nothing else in the room that could frighten him. “You are ill, aren’t you?”

“Not ill. I’m myself.”

“What happened when you were gone?”

He doesn’t want to speak when Kellin’s so close to him, when he can feel the heat of his desire pressed to his thigh. “Had a dream,” he whispers. “That’s all. Please, Kell, I want to feel you.”

“You want me to hurt you?”

Vic touches his jaw, his temple, passes his fingertips over the stubble coating his cheeks. He’s not shaved in several days, and Vic’s stomach twists at the thought of that stubble scraping at his skin, rubbing him raw. “Dreamed you did. And I didn’t mind—the feeling didn’t bother me. I want to know.”

“You and I both know we can’t trust our dreams,” Kellin says, but the fear’s gone from his eyes. He kisses Vic again, a brief, hard drive of his lips, then returns his mouth to his throat. “I will not hurt you,” he whispers, the words soft against Vic’s skin. “But I’ll have you feel me.”

His tongue is first, a warm, damp slide, then his teeth follow; broad and blunt, only pointed where the tips of his canines scrape against him. It’s not enough, and Vic’s ready to beg when he finally bites down, not hard—not twisting, not gnawing chunks from him—but sharp, the feeling bright and hot. Vic’s stomach tightens with need.

“Kell—” he whispers, breath catching.

He passes his tongue over the marks left by his teeth, then bites again, slightly higher; this one is a risk, canines sinking into skin above where Vic’s collar would lay. He will not be able to cover it.

Vic shudders at the thought, fingers curling into Kellin’s hair, holding tight. “Fuck.”

He pulls back a moment later, and his mouth is clean—there’s no blood, no viscera, only swollen lips and flushed cheeks. “I have to have you,” he says, voice hushed. “Let me?”

“Anything.”

Kellin surges forward to kiss him again, pressing him down against the bed, hand curling around the back of Vic’s thigh. He pushes his leg up against his chest. “Anything?”

“Take me.”

His fingers are still soft, but they don’t hesitate as he pries the jar open, coating them in oil. “Breathe,” he whispers, then presses them into Vic.

Vic’s head swims again, but the dizziness comes in rushes—every push of Kellin’s hand, every twist, sends another wave rolling through him. It’s nothing like the weakness he’d felt on the deck. He feels alive, now— he’s no longer numb, no longer absent in his own mind. He’s never felt more present. “Kell,” he breathes.

Kellin’s teeth scrape at his skin again, and he moans, the sound torn from him.

“Tell me I can have you.” Kellin bites down shallowly, pulling back when Vic twitches beneath him. “Tell me.”

“Yours, come on, now.” Vic can’t speak in full sentences; his hands shake in Kellin’s hair. “Now.”

He stifles a gasp against Vic’s throat. The room goes still, and Vic’s fingers curl into his scalp, shaky and helpless, as he presses in.

Vic opens his eyes to the sight of Kellin’s open mouth, breath coming in pants, eyes wide and dark. The blue’s been overtaken by pupil, and Vic’s mind jumps between thunderstorms over the ocean, charcoal clouds crushing the ship into the sea, and the bow of his lips, the sweat beading on his jaw, the heave of his chest. He’s shaking nearly as much as Vic. There’s no space left between them, no distance Vic can keep, and he feels sick with his want.

“You,” Kellin whispers. It’s all he can manage, his forehead dropping to rest against the hollow of Vic’s throat. “God—”

He nods. Kellin’s hair sticks to his jaw, his neck, sweat gluing it in place, and it stings as he swallows.

He’s faintly aware they may not have much time. Just aware enough to dig his fingers harder into Kellin’s scalp, to pull him forward, to beg without words. It works, spurs him on, coaxes him to shove Vic down against the bed, solidly built, but old enough to creak beneath them anyway. Vic lets a groan escape him.

There’s so much care in the motion of Kellin’s hips. He’s a gentleman, even in this, and Vic gasps out a laugh at the thought and draws him in closer. He would have Kellin abandon any notions of decorum—they’re too far gone, and the ache in Vic’s stomach is too keen.

“Come on,” he whispers. “Fuck me.”

Kellin’s breath shudders against his chest, but his next thrust is harder, sharper, enough to begin to satisfy the ache. His hand grasps at Vic’s hip, draws him in to meet him, drives another gasp from both their mouths. It slips out in unison, loud against the creaking wood.

“Don’t hold back.”

“God,” Kellin whispers, but obliges.

Vic’s throat still stings where Kellin’s teeth had pressed; he savors the pain, letting himself float between it and bright, hot pleasure, his eyes closing once more. He can’t keep them open. The room sways around him, spots dance whenever he blinks, colors bloom behind his eyelids.

“Kell.”

He groans, nails curling into Vic’s thigh.

Each press of his hips seems to drive air from his lungs, and Vic can’t breathe. The ache in his stomach has become all compassing, has replaced every other sensation, fire building inside him until his skin feels too tight, feels like a touch will burst it open. “Kell,” he gasps again, and it’s too much; he can’t stop the wave within him, can’t keep it from sweeping over him until the color dancing behind his eyes is all he can see.

Kellin’s whispering something to him, low and urgent, but he’s coming before he can decipher the words.

His head only clears once Kellin stills, as well, and he still hears whispers. His hands go slack in Kellin’s hair. “Kell?”

A chill sweeps over him; the sweat on his skin goes cold, and he feels sand in his throat when he swallows. Kellin’s arms are locked around him, hands pressing tighter and closer until Vic knows they must be leaving brands behind them, knows he’ll be burned once he pulls away. His breath trembles slow over Vic’s throat.

“Ke—”

Kellin hushes him.

The whispers intensify, and Vic turns his face to the door. He thinks he sees a shadow, for a heartbeat’s span, but there’s nothing there. Whispers only, creeping, dreadful, fell, curling around Vic’s limbs like shackles. Kellin feels impossibly heavy on his chest.

He’s pinned down. He’s drowning. There’s no air in his lungs, and faintness takes him—the bed beneath him rolls, a slow, sick wave—the whispers roar in his ear, water cresting and breaking—and there’s a quiet sound, a sick dog whining, and he thinks it may be Kellin, thinks he may be crying, that the rain falling on his skin may be blood.

The shadow looms over them both. Vic cannot close his eyes. He watches, rapt, as it reaches for them, as its hand stretches for Kellin, and he cannot speak, but some sound must escape him anyway. He feels the shadow’s attention move to him.

He feels an unbearable cold, a wash of loneliness so dark and deep it weighs on him as heavily as the world itself; every ocean poured over him would not drag him so low, would not crush him so thoroughly. The sensation of fingers down his spine, once more, and his eyes slip closed— when they open, though he can still feel Kellin’s frozen body pressed to his, he’s elsewhere.

He’s standing in the center of his ship, his back to the mast, and the sky is dark. The air around him rumbles, tension building in the anticipation of thunder, of lightning flashes across the sea, white hot and so near he can taste it, burning over his tongue and down into his lungs. The storm has not yet broken. It hangs heavy over his head, gravid with rain.

There is no one else on the deck— but no, he can see a flicker at the edges of his vision, the flutter of a pale shirt in the dark. Lightning rends the night into day, illuminates a lone figure—feet planted on the railing, balancing miraculously on the edge of safety, hair whipping in the gusting wind—brightens the world with unnatural clarity as the figure falls.

Above him, the rigging bursts into flames.

Vic can feel heat pouring over his back, smoke and embers swirling to coat him in stinging ash, but the pain sparking over his skin is nothing to the pit of agony that opens in his chest. He stumbles forward—his feet catch at the sheets, they cling soft to his legs, and yet the deck’s wood is rough under his heels—and grasps the railing, and then he’s falling, tumbling into endlessness, a cry tearing from his lips as his vision fails.

He comes back to himself to the sound of frantic knocking, a fist pounding at his door. He inhales with a giant gasp, and it’s as if he hasn’t breathed in hours. His chest aches, and Kellin’s still immobile on top of him, hands curled into his hair, panting quietly into his shoulder.

The shadow was gone, if it was ever there at all. Vic’s not certain of anything anymore.

“Captain? Captain, are you there?”

“Kell,” he whispers. His voice is a rasp.

The pounding grows louder. Kellin shudders, shifting against his chest, and Vic feels like he’s swimming as he tries to rouse him; his movements are too slow, the air too thick.

“Captain!”

Kellin groans, too harsh, too loud for the confines of the cabin. The pounding slows.

“Kell,” he breathes again. His hand finally creeps up from the mattress to prod at Kellin’s arm, a stilted attempt to shake him. “Kellin, please—”

His chest expands as forcefully as Vic’s.

The air releases him, and Vic can move— he pushes himself from his prone position, arm curling around Kellin to hold him tight, and the knocking resumes again. He can’t look towards the door. Kellin’s lips are blue, his eyes half closed. Vic shakes him again. “Kell, wake up. Wake up.”

“Awake,” he whispers. “Someone’s at the door.”

Vic doesn’t care. He kisses him, his own mouth cold and clumsy, and Kellin comes to life against him.

“Captain?”

“Stay,” Vic whispers, and he extricates himself with no small amount of effort. He wraps a blanket around Kellin’s shoulders, presses one more kiss to his mouth, then reaches for his trousers. “Coming. Coming, for God’s sake.”

The knocking ceases.

He shrugs on a shirt and pulls open the door, the small of his back aching. “What?”

Daylight pours into the cabin. Vic starts, and suddenly the room is brightly lit—the air feels like air once more, and sunlight streams through the window, not just the door. Kellin shades his eyes, back pressed to the wall.

Tony stares past Vic for a moment, then his gaze leaves Kellin. “Captain. It’s nearly noon—are you well?”

“Noon? What day is it?”

“Day? Are you well?”

“I’m well, I—” Vic pushes out into the hallway and shuts the door behind him. He does not want to think of how long he’s been in a stupor. “What’s the matter?”

“You’re needed. There’s—” Tony pauses. His words seem to fail him. “Come see.”

Wordlessly, still off-balance, Vic accompanies him.

The crew’s assembled, clustered in small groups near the stern. All of them are whispering— all of them go silent as he passes. Their eyes follow him.

Tony stops at the railing, and Vic prays he’ll see waves, that their luck will be changing. Instead, he is greeted by a graveyard.

It’s as if a mathematician had taken a compass to the Atlantic and pressed one point into the center of the ship; in a perfect circle around the boat, extending out some eighty meters in every direction, the water is carpeted with dead things. Fish, their scaled bodies sodden and swollen with rot, the limp feathers of unlucky seabirds, the long, curled tentacles of some deep sea monster—floating together, unbearably still, the stench hitting him like a roundhouse kick to the chest.

Past the circle, the ocean is still glassy.

“Tony,” Vic says, and his voice is faint.

“Tell us there’s an explanation.” Tony whispers it. “There must be.”

Vic turns from the destruction. His crew watches him, and he sees hope in a few of their faces; the majority of them look expectantly at him. Timothy’s pinching his nose between his fingers, and several others look vaguely ill, but none of them appear as frightened as he feels. They, still, believe he’ll have the answers. That their captain will keep them safe. That they’ll glide into Boston in a matter of days, and this will become naught but a late-night tale they’ll share in bars for the rest of their lives.

Jaime’s face is blank.

“Get—” Vic begins, then stops. He has nothing to say.

The crew stays silent.

“Stay below the deck,” he says finally. “Keep a roof above your head. I’ll keep watch.”

“Captain,” Tony says.

“You as well.” Vic turns back to him, and he’s choked—Tony’s still looking at him with nothing but trust in his eyes. He, at least, does not think Vic’s been lost. “Please.”

“We’ll set up a watch, Captain.”

“No. You will stay safe.”

“Safe?” The word bursts from Jaime, seemingly against his will.

Fear flashes across Tony’s face. Vic looks from him to Jaime, and he can’t muster up the energy to be angry. “Mr. Preciado, I’ll have you stay and speak with me. The rest of you are dismissed. Go where you will, so long as you’re indoors.”

Tony begins to step away.

“You stay as well,” Vic whispers.

The rest of the crew disperse, slower than Vic would like, and he stays quiet until the last of them have disappeared beneath the deck. There’s so much tension in the air he thinks he’ll choke on it; Jaime looks apprehensive, stiff as he approaches. Tony is frozen in place.

“Captain, he didn’t mean it—” Tony begins.

Vic holds up a hand. He quiets at once.

Jaime does not speak.

“Listen to me,” Vic says after a moment, his voice quiet. His thoughts still feel scattered. “Please. All you’re doing is frightening the crew—frightening them, and making them doubt me. Is that your intention?”

“Captain,” Tony tries again.

“No, sir.”

“You know as well as I that there is no precedent for this—this situation we’ve found ourselves in. I have no answers. I have no guidance. All I can do is try to protect my crew. To protect you. All I ask in return is your respect. Or, if you have none left to give me, your pretense. I cannot deal with hatred from within as well as around us.”

“If I respected you less, I would not be here.”

Vic shakes his head. The motion hurts; his body’s sore, skin still stinging from the heat of his dream. “Please, Jaime. Boston is not far—I don’t ask it for long.”

“You agree with me then? That something is wrong, and unbearably so? That he is—”

“Jaime,” Vic whispers. “Something is wrong, yes. We only need to get him to shore. It will all end then, I’m sure of it.”

Jaime points at his throat, finger wavering over the place Vic can feel a bruise blooming in the shape of Kellin’s teeth. “And if he’s our death before then? If—”

“Every day of my life, I wish I had not been promoted over you.”

This shocks Jaime into silence. The scent of rot is swelling around them, quiet, slopping hisses rising from the water as corpses disintegrate from the pressure of their own decay.

“I wish—” Vic cannot speak. He turns back to the water, to the death surrounding them, and begs the ocean for a sign, for some promise the wind will resume and speed them on their way, for the first glimpse of land in the distance.

“What do you mean?” Tony asks.

Vic’s throat is swollen shut. He leans his weight against the railing, and thinks of falling through it, of tumbling to the still waters below.

Footsteps approach him, then Jaime’s elbows are resting on the railing as well. He stares down at the carnage below them. “Yet you were.”

A splash as one of the larger carcasses bursts, disturbing the unending tranquility of the sea.

“We’re a matter of miles from shore,” Vic says. His voice is raw with salt. “Only miles.”

Jaime’s quiet for too long. “Why do you wish it?”

“You should follow the crew.”

“Vic?”

He shakes his head. Bows it until his forehead’s nearly touching the railing, wood grain swimming in and out of focus. “Go. Both of you. I’ll call for you when there is some change.”

An indeterminate amount of time passes. When he looks up once more, he’s alone.

Vic stands in the center of the ship, his back to the mast, and—although there’s no apprehension in the air, no dark clouds crowding down above him—he feels he’s dreamed this. There’s no fire in the rigging, but the warmth of flames still pour down his back. He’s dripping with sweat. He has been since he was first left to himself.

The deck is empty.

He can no longer distinguish salt from rot. Both permeate the air; he breathes them both, feels them swim into his lungs and coat the roof of his mouth with a thick, sticking fog. Every swallow tastes like death. This must be what it’s like to drown—what it would have felt if Kellin had succumbed to the water. He would have tasted just like this.

Vic presses the back of his hand against his mouth. His skin is worse than the air.

Far off, at the edges of his vision, a shadow passes over the horizon.

Chapter Text

By nightfall, the shadow’s fast approaching. A sullen, low thunderhead, oppressively silent, heat rolling beneath it and swarming him. This is the heat of mid-summer in the tropics—heavy, syrupy, parching.

The sky darkens before the cloud reaches the Isabelle, but Vic knows when it smothers them. The stars go black, one by one, and there’s no more light to be seen. The glow of his lantern illuminates only his hand when he raises it. The water reflects nothing—the water holds only death.

On the return journey, he will risk losing precious days to avoid this place.

The return journey.

The words are sharp on his tongue when he whispers them. Kellin will be safe in Boston, by then—far from the whims of the ocean, far from the nightmares haunting him—and Vic’s crew will be mollified, and life will have bloomed again on the Isabelle. His duties will return to their original simplicity. The world will shrink to the scope of his vision, to the lines on his maps, to the table where they gather for meals.

He will never feel teeth in his skin—never feel a soft hand in his hair.

Much like Kellin, he will not ask for more than this voyage. He will not. Kellin would not be safe, and his crew would never understand. It is best to end here, after several haunting, depraved, blissful weeks, before things can escalate further.

His heart betrays his mind with a hopeful, desperate lurch as footsteps sound behind him.

“Vic?”

He turns. In the faint light of his lantern he can see Kellin’s dressed, and his hair is tied back and as neat as one can manage at sea, and some rope deep in Vic’s heart slips its mooring. “It’s late. You shouldn’t be outside.”

“There’s a stench. I cannot sleep. I thought, perhaps, you would—” he falters.

“Keep your eyes on me until you return to my cabin.” Vic does not care that this horror points directly to the man standing across from him. He would hide him from it—he would protect him from the tide of death surrounding them. “Please.”

“What is the source?”

“Do not look over the side. It’s best you go back to bed.”

Kellin’s gaze remains on him, eyes gleaming in the lantern’s glow. “Then come to bed.”

Vic allows himself to entertain the thought, for a fleeting moment, of asking him to stay. If they could find a way to shake this haunting, to keep him safe, truly safe, if the walls of Vic’s cabin could lock out these shadows—even then, perhaps it would be selfish.

He wishes desperately he could be that selfish.

“Not tonight,” he says, wrenching his attention back to the horizon, refusing to look down. If he does not look down, does not breathe in too deeply, everything could be almost normal.

“Why not? Where are your crew?”

“Inside, where you should be as well.”

Kellin approaches him—Vic doesn’t turn to look, but he feels the movement in his bones—and stops shy a few steps from him, a hard, aching hitch in his breath. He must have seen.

“Kell, go back to bed.”

“What have I done?”

Vic turns to him, envelops him in his arms, presses Kellin’s face to his shoulder—the bridge of his nose digs into Vic’s skin, mouth dragging damp over his shirt, sticking to the fabric. Vic wonders if his shirt tastes like salt.

“What have I done,” he says again, but Vic can hardly hear him. The words are cottony, slow, dull. There is no question to them—he knows.

Below them, the tide of rot continues, a miasma of death surrounding them on every side.

Kellin does not return to their cabin. He sleeps against the mast, head hanging crooked between his shoulder and the wood, and his hair moves every time he exhales. It’s the only movement on the ship as far as Vic can see. His eye keeps straying to the flutters, to the rise and fall of Kellin’s chest. Everything else around them is still.

The night lasts for hours. Vic thinks the dawn should have broken some time ago, but the minutes have flown together into a measureless expanse. It could still be close to midnight, or the sun could be creeping up to the horizon now. He would not know either way—the clouds are hanging heavy, dark and featureless, a second ocean above his head.

He’s watching the carpet of dead fish slowly disintegrate, innards pink and shining in his lantern’s glow, when Kellin finally stirs.

“What time is it?”

“I don’t know.” Vic turns to him. He raises a hand to shield his eyes from the lantern, and it looks like he’s hiding from a blow—unease stirs, sick and quiet, in Vic’s stomach. “Did you dream?”

He lowers his hand. Shakes his head.

“Good.”

“I’m hungry,” Kellin murmurs. “How is it still night?”

“I don’t know.”

Vic thinks that will be his answer for most questions Kellin might ask him. He can feel the deck—not swaying as it should be, but frozen in place—under his boots, and the sick ache in his stomach, and the constraining fabric of his coat, but nothing else seems real. A few sensations shouldn’t be enough to tether him, but they’re all he has.

Kellin breathes out and pushes himself to his feet. He winces as he straightens out his neck, fingers flying up to rub at an ache Vic can’t see, and sways once he stands, like the Isabelle is still moving. “Where is everyone?”

“I don’t know.”

This is only partially true. Vic knows they’ll likely still be asleep, the stagnant water keeping them unconscious, holding them down like a layer of heavy quilts, but he can’t picture the crew in their bunks. He can’t bring any images to his mind. There’s nothing but the darkness around them, nothing but the faint whiteness of Kellin’s shirt, partially hidden under his jacket—one of Vic’s, most likely, too large on his shoulders. It drapes off him, loose and lifeless as the sails.

Vic forgets to breathe shallowly, and the sickly, fishy sweetness of rot floods his mouth. He chokes on it, turns from Kellin to gasp, searching for fresh air, but there’s nothing. It’s all still, thick, murky, swamp-like in his throat. He feels it thicken in his lungs.

“Vic,” Kellin whispers. He sounds more exhausted than alarmed.

“I’m fine.”

He doesn’t argue, just closes the space between them, presses a soft hand to the small of Vic’s back. His shirt is wet when it touches his skin, but Kellin doesn’t shy away.

“Vic.”

He shakes his head, reaching out as if to brace himself on the railing, but there’s nothing there—he’s in the center of the deck, and it’s still too dark to see more than a vague whisper of the bowsprit as it juts up against the horizon. The movement makes a wave of vertigo swell in his head.

“Vic.”

He finally pivots to look at Kellin, and there’s a glow in his eyes that makes Vic’s fingers clench hard around the metal handle of the lantern. He sets it on the deck, joints aching, then stands, curling his hand in and out of a fist, over and over again, until Kellin’s fingers press into his. The glow has not faded—it’s fever bright, and Vic thinks of animals, of the shine of a predator’s eyes in the dark, of teeth in his chest.

“You look frightened.”

“I’m not,” Vic says, but, like everything else he’s been asked, he doesn’t know if his answer is true. What he’s feeling is not fear, he doesn’t think, but the copper tang in his mouth, the sharp ache of tension in his arms, reminds him of what fear might feel like. His heartbeat is too slow for terror. The stir in his stomach is anything but. “I’m not frightened, Kell.”

There’s a low swell of thunder, the first Vic’s heard since the clouds crushed over them, and he chokes on another breath filled with decay.

“Will it rain?”

Vic prays so. Rain might bring wind, might stir the waves, might wash away the stink of death and push them away from this living hell. “I don’t know,” he says again, and his voice trembles.

Kellin’s hand slips beneath his shirt. They inhale in unison as his fingers find skin, sticky and hot. Vic’s back prickles under his touch, a chill sweeping over him despite the muggy warmth.

His stomach stirs again, hot, slick, wormlike inside him.

The lantern flickers as if it might go out.

“Do you think what we’ve been dreaming will come true?” Vic asks. He’s looking at Kellin, but his eyes move past him—Kellin’s face is a flat blur, one his gaze cannot focus on, one that feels beyond his touch, even when he moves closer, even when the deck creaks under his feet.

Another swell of thunder, another shared inhale, and Vic lets his eyes close. He feels air moving against his face, but he doesn’t have more than the span of a heartbeat to hope for wind before Kellin’s mouth is pressed to his. The taste of sleep is heavier than the taste of salt, and it wakes something in Vic’s chest—some tired desire, a memory he doesn’t have, of sunlight through curtains, sheets that smell of sex rather than salt, a familiar body that molds into his.

He tamps it down. Lets Kellin kiss him senseless, until he’s grasping at his shoulders and feeling nothing beneath his fingertips no matter how hard he tries to feel, until his thoughts are a muted hum, until the rot in the air is distant and easily ignored. Kellin’s body is familiar, but not the familiarity he aches for—he can’t feel properly. He can’t press to him, entwine, become one; there are no sheets, no sunlight, just heavy, fear-filled dark.

Some sound must escape him, because Kellin pulls back, his hands sliding over Vic’s face. He’s numb. The touch is so muted, so far away.

“Am I here?” Vic whispers. “Are we dreaming?”

Kellin shakes his head. Pushes his nails into Vic’s jaw, hard, hard, until a burst of pain breaks through the nothingness. Vic gasps, the sound ragged in his throat, and watches Kellin’s hand withdraw, fingers capped in red. His jaw is wet when he raises his own hand to touch.

“You’re here.”

Vic does not know how, but he’s pressing Kellin to the mast moments later. This kiss is hungry, and all he can see is the dark around them, and the wildness of Kellin’s eyes, just like the dream where he devoured him—if his dreams will come true, he thinks they may start there, tonight, with Kellin tearing him to pieces on the deck.

Just like his dream, he is not frightened.

They slip to the deck together, and Kellin’s touch is soft, for a moment, hands sliding under Vic’s shirt. “I want,” he begins, then pauses, eyes darting away from Vic’s face, head tilting like he’s listening.

Vic goes quiet. There’s nothing—no wind, no thunder, no noise. The world around them is silent.

“He’s watching,” Kellin whispers.

“He?”

Kellin inclines his head. Vic turns to look, and there’s nothing but darkness. It’s as if a shade’s been drawn between them and the lantern, hazy curtains blocking the light. He blinks, and the curtains roll back—he can see the moment they uncover the lantern, light flashing as the shadow moves.

He stays perfectly still. His breath curdles on his tongue, his lungs seize, tension creeping over him and immobilizing his body. He’s not certain if he even feels his heart beat, not until Kellin’s fingers curl hard into his back and force his chest to expand.

“He’s gone.”

Vic feels no different. There’s no weight lifted from him. He does not want to move—he feels like prey, a small animal cowering in the brush, just waiting for a hand to reach out, for the curtains to draw back over the lantern, for someone to see him and drag him out from his shelter.

“He’s gone,” Kellin says again, setting a hand on the side of Vic’s face, applying pressure until Vic has to look away from the lantern, still burning bright and steady.

“I’ll get you to Boston. I swear I’ll bring you there. I must.”

Kellin’s expression shifts, disquiet twisting the side of his mouth, stiffening the skin on his jaw.

“Kell,” Vic whispers. “I will.”

“To what end?”

Vic forgets the shadows. Forgets the brush around him, forgets he’s holding still to keep the leaves from rustling—he surges forward, presses his forehead to Kellin’s, their skin hot and damp where it touches, breathes in as he exhales, fills his lungs with old air. “Any. I’ll keep my promise.”

“I don’t want it anymore.” Kellin’s eyes are closed. “I can’t. Boston—how am I supposed to want this ship to land? How am I meant to—”

“Don’t.”

“I said I wouldn’t ask you to stay with me.” Kellin’s words sting when Vic breathes them in. “Please don’t make me.”

“Don’t,” he whispers again.

Even with the darkness blanketing them, Vic can see a sharp pain flash through Kellin’s eyes as he blinks them open. “Vic.”

Vic kisses him, hard, his mouth as desperate as the tone of Kellin’s voice—maybe he’ll keep the question hidden. Maybe he won’t have to answer, and the moment will be over, and Kellin will never know Vic would’ve refused him, despite the clamoring ache in his stomach that begs him to say yes.

Kellin tries to speak again, and Vic chases him, a hand wrapping around the back of his neck, mouth pressed tight to his. He’s not certain when, but there’s a moment where Kellin gives in, abandoning his words, and another moment where everything shifts—where his teeth sink into Vic’s bottom lip, where his hand fastens hard around Vic’s wrist, where his knee slots between Vic’s thighs and he tastes blood when he gasps.

Then they’re down on the deck, and Kellin rolls them over, his nails raking down Vic’s rib cage–bolts of heat over his skin–his weight pinning him down. Vic doesn’t know if this is Kellin, or some spectre of the evil that’s settling over them, over the ship—if maybe the shadow’s returned, and the glow in Kellin’s gaze is something unholy—but he submits to it either way, arches into the pain, doesn’t care if he’s seeing colors or if those spots of light in his vision are eyes surrounding them, filled with the same glow. The deck is splintered under his back, and it’s the only thing he’s got left to anchor him. He’d be drifting otherwise.

Kellin doesn’t speak again, even when he presses Vic harder against the rough planks and breaks away to breathe. His hair’s falling loose from its tie, hanging around his face. His mouth is open, tongue a dark shape just past his lips, shining and wet.

Vic thinks maybe he will ask again if they can go to bed. He thinks he may even abandon his self-assigned post and go with him, but there’s no hint of that request in his eyes. Instead, he pushes his hips forward, hard, steady, driving the air from Vic’s lungs.

“Kellin,” Vic whispers when he’s able to make a sound that isn’t pure need. “Kell, we’re—”

On deck, uncovered, being watched. His desire kindles shame in his chest, but it doesn’t lessen. The burn of shame only heightens his want, and he feels his stomach twist, tighter and sharper. He doesn’t have enough control of his faculties to keep himself still; his body moves without him, responding in kind to the press of Kellin’s hips.

Kellin’s hand catches at the back of his thigh, pushing it up against his chest. Vic can feel him better, this way, hard and hot through the layers of fabric separating them. He groans, and his head falls back, and the sails are swimming above him—they fly back into place momentarily whenever he blinks, then spin into orbit again, continuing a slow, slow circle around the mast. And again, and again. He thinks minutes are passing, but he’s losing track.

The heat in his stomach is reaching a boiling point.

He’s not certain which revolution around the mast they’re on when it happens, but he blinks in time to see a shadow attach itself to the sails, slipping down over them like water melting into cloth, a slow, seeping progression of darkness. He’s too far gone to claw himself back from the edge—his fingers dig into Kellin’s back as he comes, his trousers rough and dry against his cock, his eyes closing.

Kellin goes still against him moments later, his face shoved against Vic’s shoulder.

The sails are the color of charcoal when Vic looks again. He breathes in, and the smell of decay has returned to the air—he had forgotten how violent the stench was, sharp enough to make tears spring to his eyes.

“Kell,” he whispers. His hand finds Kellin’s fingers, curls into them, feels the give of skin and the sharpness of untrimmed nails.

“Stay.”

Vic’s gaze has not moved from the sails above them. He does not dare look down, doesn’t trust he’ll stay quiet if he looks at Kellin.

“Stay,” he says again. The word burns Vic’s skin. “Please. Stay with me.”

Thunder prickles the blank expanse of clouds, and Vic blinks as the first scattered raindrops disappear in the sails. Only a few touch his face, pebbling on his forehead, mixing with the sweat at his hairline—the rain is cool, clean, the first bit of freshness he’s felt in what seems like eons.

He brushes his fingers over Kellin’s shirt, collar drooping in the heat, and slips them up under his jaw, pulls his head back. “Look.”

There’s a blank, dazed look in his eyes when they open, just enough lantern light reflecting from them that Vic can see he’s staring at nothing. Vic points up with one hand, his palm ghostly against the dark of the sails.

“Look.”

Right as rain begins to fall in earnest, scattering across the deck like pebbles in the tide, the shadow swallows them whole. The lantern goes out—the dying flame hisses—the wind fills out the sails so violently the ship lists, and Vic’s back collides with the mast. It aches to pull his hands away from Kellin, but he stands, reaches for the nearest stay, feels it vibrate under his hand as he slackens the line. It doesn’t seem like enough. Not for far too long, but the tension thrumming through him, conveyed through his body from the mast to the deck, relaxes as the sails go loose.

Rain gusts sideways, soaks his hair, blows it across his face in stinging, whiplike strands. He inhales it as he breathes. It smarts as it hits his hands, his forearms, anything not covered by clothing. Each rope he touches is wetter than the one before, and his fingers cramp with the effort of holding tight to sodden fibers.

Another pair of hands join his. Kellin has struggled to his feet, and his side’s hot where it’s pressed to Vic’s; he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but Vic doesn’t have to fight the sails alone.

He loves him. The rope slips through his palms, burning the surface of his skin, and he loves him.

There’s a bang as a door flies open, slamming against the deck. Voices fill the empty spaces left by the storm, slot between the gaps in thunder and wind, until Vic’s world is an endless onslaught of noise. He can’t smell rot anymore. He can’t see a thing when he looks over the railing, but he’s sure they’ve left the circle of death behind them, lost to the waves, this new, fierce wind carrying them towards Boston at the fastest rate yet.

He grins, and the sideways rain slams against his teeth.

“Captain!”

The call is faint, and he twists to try and make it out, shoulder colliding with Kellin’s. A lightning flash illuminates the foredeck for the span of a breath, and he sees a struggle, sees a rope flying loose, then it’s dark; he ties down the rope in his hands and pries Kellin loose from the sudden tension.

“Stay here,” he says, not even slightly sure he’s been heard, and fumbles through the black to find his way.

The deck is a battleground. Cries swell and fade as he trusts his feet to carry him in the right direction. Someone slams into him, and he can’t see who, but neither of them fall so he carries on without a pause, his side smarting.

“Captain!”

The cry is closer, now, and he extends his hands, eyes narrowed until they’re nearly closed to keep the rain out, blinking back the water rolling down his face. Shapes loom up from the black as lightning flashes, then disappear, and he only knows he’s reached the source when he stumbles over the men calling for him.

The foremast is straining, sails threatening to splinter it off near the base. He can feel the stress in the tautness of the ropes, the fear in his crew’s voices—he thinks it’s Jaime who shoves a rope into his hands, who yells in his ear to loosen it, to help them stop the mast from coming down, but he can’t be sure. It all dissolves into a mass of tension, of terror, until all he can focus on is the single rope in his grasp.

It won’t loosen. He tries to add slack, but it’s caught on something out of sight, and the mast groans like dying cattle, loud and low. He hears the first splinter break loose, the first shards of wood hitting the deck.

“Get back—” he starts, but the rope’s torn from his hands before the remainder of his warning can leave his throat.

The Isabelle shudders. There’s another groan, louder than the first, and the mast gives way, crashing down against the bowsprit in a jumble of shattering wood and tangled rope. Vic’s chest frosts over.

“Jaime,” he whispers, looking wildly for him—but then he’s there at Vic’s side, his face, briefly illuminated as the storm peaks, slack with fear.

The mast shakes where it lies, slipping against the railing with a growl of wood on wood. It hovers there a moment, then tips overboard.

Someone screams. A cutting blow sweeps Vic off his feet and drags him towards the center of the ship, and all he can think is that the shadow’s returned, that it’s come back as a monster, slavering jaws wrapped tight over his ankle, but—as he scrabbles for purchase on the deck, fingers scraping ineffectively against the wood, wet splinters jamming themself beneath his fingernails in sharp bursts of pain—he sees the curl of a rope around his foot.

“Cut,” he tries, voice lost to the deck under his face.

There’s a grating scrape against the side of the ship as the foremast drags itself, and him, out towards the open ocean. He cries out as his back slams into something on the deck, hard and unyielding, and the rope tightens cruelly around his ankle, but then he feels hands on his arms, sees a flash of a knife in the dark, and the rope snaps loose.

Jaime drags him to his feet. He yells something, but the wind whips it away, and Vic can only shake his head, hands trembling as he pushes his sodden hair from his eyes.

He curls a fist around Vic’s shirt and pulls him in. “Man overboard!”

Vic’s mouth uselessly forms itself around a few words that never come. The chill of fear has crept back into his chest, ice crystallizing on his ribs, making every breath hurt.

“Man—” Jaime gives up and tugs him towards the railing. “The mast took Timothy with it.”

The rain seems to grow infinitely worse in the moments it takes them to cross the ship. The foremast is still moored in place, ropes taut where they’ve caught around the mainmast and snapped the railing, and the deck is pitched at an angle; Vic can feel it tilt further under his feet the closer he gets to the edge, wood grinding. The Isabelle shakes, the weight of the fallen mast and the strength of the wind contradicting each other, stalling her in place.

Vic can’t see a thing through the rain. “You’re certain?” he calls into Jaime’s ear.

Jaime nods.

“Lower a boat.”

“The storm—”

“Goddamn the storm, Jaime, I’m going after him.”

“Vic.”

Vic ignores him, skids down the sloping deck to the railing, starts fighting to release a rowboat from its ties. He has it lowered halfway to the water before arms wrap around him from behind and he loses his balance with the added weight. There’s no time to recover, no time to grab the rail. He falls, lands heavily, halfway on the deck and halfway on the body behind him.

“Don’t,” Kellin gasps in his ear. He winds his arms tight around Vic’s chest. “Don’t you dare.”

It pains Vic more than the fall to do it, but he reaches up to curl his fingers under Kellin’s hands, prying himself from his grasp. “I must—”

“No.” Kellin claws him back, reels him in, and Vic’s as helpless as a fish on a line. He can’t pull away.

“Kell, it’s Timothy, it’s my crew—”

“No.”

The Isabelle shudders, and Vic watches from his place on the deck as the fallen mast is caught by the current, as it swings sharply towards them, as it crushes the partially lowered rowboat. The boards splinter, scattered cracks like gunshots cutting through the roar of wind and waves. His mouth goes dry.

“No,” Kellin whispers again. He holds Vic tighter. “I dreamed this. I dreamed. Stay on the ship.”

Then Jaime is crouching beside them, and taking Vic’s hand, and there’s a pain in his eyes Vic’s never seen before. It makes him ill. “We have to cut it loose.”

Vic shakes his head. He pulls his hand free from Jaime’s grasp and tries to struggle upright, but Kellin clings harder.

“Vic, it’ll take us all with it.”

“Timothy.”

“Please. Please, Vic, give the order.”

He scrabbles for purchase on the deck, boards slick under his feet, but he goes nowhere. The ship groans, a deep, wounded bellow. He hears more wood splinter.

“I can’t. I can’t do it, fuck, let me up.”

“I’m sorry,” Jaime whispers, then pushes himself to his feet and disappears in the swirling rain. He’s barking orders Vic can’t make out.

“Kellin, let me go.”

The deck shakes with footsteps thundering over the boards. The ship shudders again, then, with a report like the crack of a whip, the mast breaks free. Vic’s head slams hard against the wood, Kellin letting out a pained gasp under him—he’s turned nearly upside down for a moment as the weight holding them at a slant disappears, both of them sliding down the deck till Vic’s shoulder connects with the main mast. Then they’re rocking back the other way, and it’s all he can do to keep them both in one place, wrapping his hand in the ropes coiled around the base of the mast, holding tight to Kellin with the other. He’s crying; the tears slip down his face and mingle with the driving rain.

“I need you to stay here.” Kellin’s voice is unbearably soft, lips pressed to his ear. “Don’t leave this ship, no matter what. Promise me.”

“He could still be—”

“Promise me.”

Vic abandons his attempts to stand and turns in Kellin’s hold, pressing a stinging kiss to his mouth for just long enough that his grip relaxes, that his arms slacken around Vic’s torso. The moment he feels a give, he’s shoving himself up; Kellin has no time to cling to him, and he’s standing, blinking water from his eyes and staring into the dark.

From the center of the deck, he can see nothing. The rain’s horizontal, slashing at his cheek, pricking like needles wherever it hits his skin. He stumbles forward a few paces, raising a hand to shield his eyes, passing by two of his men running in the opposite direction. He can’t tell who they are. Their faces are lost to the storm.

Fingers twist in his shirt, but Kellin doesn’t pull him down to the deck this time. “Vic, did you hear me?”

“I—” Vic goes silent as his skin crawls, a strange itch cobwebbing over his arms, every hair on his body standing at end. Some instinct makes him duck, then the world around him goes white; the deck’s starkly illuminated, lightning dissecting the sky into shards of black night and swollen thunderhead. He stays crouched as it dies out. There’s a strange smell in the air.

Thunder envelops them. Vic claps his hands over his ears to block out the impossibly loud shudder; it’s so sharp he can’t think, can’t do anything but cower and close his eyes and wait for it to end.

When he opens them again, a shower of sparks fall past his face.

The rigging above him—what hasn’t been torn down and dragged into the water—is in flames. The improbability of it, the unfairness, wells in his throat like tears. Kellin’s hands freeze to his back as the fire spreads.

“Vic—”

“No,” he whispers. He can’t hear his own voice, but he can feel his mouth shape the word, feel an ache in his throat like he’d screamed it. “No, no, not this.”

He turns from the fire. The roaring flames light up the deck, and he locks eyes with Jaime; he’s standing a few feet from Vic, knife held loosely in one hand, and Vic knows he was the one to cut the mast free. Grief blinds him for a heartbeat, and he shakes his head, pointing back at the burning mast.

Jaime just watches him.

The storm swells, but the fire burns hotter than ever in defiance of the rain. The world comes to Vic in pieces—Jaime’s face, sparks blinking out as they hit the deck, a few brave men sending buckets over the railing, Tony sprinting past him to join them.

He can’t feel Kellin’s hands on his back anymore, and there’s nobody behind him when he turns. He keeps turning, searching the chaos for a familiar face, for the flash of Kellin’s clothing in the dark, only to come up empty. He sees Javier and Tony with a bucket between them, water sloshing over the sides. He sees the bottom of the sail catch fire, embers smouldering as black ash creeps across the soaked canvas. He sees Jaime, still standing in one place, his gaze directed over Vic’s shoulder.

Vic turns, follows his line of sight, and catches a glimpse of a figure at the opposite railing, struggling to lower one of the remaining boats. Kellin’s working at one of the knots holding it fast with both hands, the rope congealing in the rain, and he doesn’t understand—there’s nowhere to go, no place a rowboat would carry him safely in this storm.

“Let him go.”

Vic starts as Jaime’s hand closes on his arm.

“Let him. This is his fault, and it needs to end. Now. Before we lose—” Jaime goes silent. There’s something broken in his voice. “It’s him or us, Vic.”

He knows, deep in his soul, Jaime’s right. The moment Kellin leaves the ship, death will follow with him. But he shakes his head.

“You swore to me you’d put us first.”

Kellin climbs over the railing. He looks directly at Vic, and he’s visible for a moment longer before the pulleys twist with a screech of scarcely used metal and the rowboat sinks towards the waves, then he’s gone.

“Jaime,” Vic whispers.

“Let him go.”

He tears his eyes from the space where Kellin had been only moments ago and looks back at Jaime. His first mate, his oldest friend—he should listen, he knows. He should let this be the end of it.

The pulleys go silent. Kellin’s reached the waves. It may only be coincidence, but the rain seems to slow, growing gentle against his face, soothing the sting. One of the fires burning low on the rigging puffs out in a burst of smoke.

He can’t do it. He can feel Kellin’s kiss, as warm as the flames at his back. He sees him when he blinks, leaning over him, all skin and hair and bruised blue eyes. The ship feels empty without him. There’s nothing left.

“Jaime.” Vic reaches up to push his hand away. “It’s not far to Boston.”

Jaime watches him, a question heavy in his eyes. He doesn’t speak before Vic takes a step back from him.

“Not far. Promise me you’ll make it.”

“Vic?”

Before Vic’s courage can fail him, he runs for the railing. He can just see the rowboat a few metres from the Isabelle, beleaguered in the waves, and he doesn’t give Jaime the chance to catch up with him before he’s placing his foot on the railing and pushing himself up, up and over, hands catching nothing as he falls.

The glow of the fire disappears behind him. He has just enough time to wonder if he’s dreaming, if the fire and the storm and his fall are nothing but a remnant of his nightmares, before he hits the water.

The shock of cold makes his lungs freeze. His skin is burning, jagged shards of pain cutting through his clothes as they fill with water, hands growing numb as he claws his way towards what he thinks is the surface—he can’t see a thing, the burning sensation doubling as salt works its way into his eyes. He kicks, boots heavy and waterlogged, and prays the spots of color growing in his vision are light from burning sails, and then he’s breaking the surface and drawing in a single, desperate breath before a wave hits him and he goes under once more.

When Vic makes it back to the air, the rowboat isn't far—he can see its dim shape in the water, a matter of feet from him, prow tipping skyward with every new wave. He coughs and struggles on, the water swallowing him again, and again, and then his searching hands find the gunwale and he’s pulling himself up, arms shaking, until he feels the blessed warmth of fingers curling around his wrists and dragging him into the boat.

There’s water underneath him, pooling in the floorboards and swirling around his shoulders. It sloshes in his ear as he pants, and it’s a moment before he registers a voice, pure devastation twining through the words.

“No,” Kellin whispers, and his hands frame Vic’s face, brush water from his cheeks, push his sodden hair from his eyes. “No, no, you were meant to stay, you had to stay.”

“Kell.” It’s all he has the breath to manage.

Kellin’s crouched over him, knees shoved up against the center thwart. His clothes are nearly as wet as Vic’s. The sea spray and rain has not left him untouched. “No,” he says again, and his fist comes down on Vic’s chest, just heavy enough to force a cough. “Goddamn you, why would you follow.”

Vic’s head falls back into the water swilling over the floor.

“I was so close,” Kellin whispers. “So close to saving you, Vic, why would you follow me?”

His arms are numb under him when he sits up, clumsy and frozen. Kellin’s face is streaked with tears, lines of salt down his face, curving under his chin. Vic reaches for him in the firelight, presses his hand to his cheek—then it’s suddenly dark, and there’s nothing but the raging storm and the violence of the waves.

“Look,” he chokes. He turns Kellin’s face blindly in the direction of the Isabelle, showing him the empty space, the black night. The flames are gone. “Look. It’s over. It’s done.”

“You’re going to die out here.”

Vic clambers over the thwart to kiss him, bracing himself on the bow as another wave hits them. Kellin’s hands flail before he takes them, presses one to the gunwale and the other to the mast, holds them in place until the pitching slows.

“Maybe,” he whispers. “Or maybe I’ll row us to Boston. Maybe—”

“Vic, I dreamed it. You dove off after me, and it all went dark—”

“So did I.”

Kellin’s eyes open, his lashes scraping Vic’s cheek.

Vic presses on, his fingers trembling with cold where they’re pressed to Kellin’s jaw. “I didn’t know I was going to follow you until you were gone, but, goddamn, Kell, I will follow you fucking anywhere—Boston, this boat, the bottom of the Atlantic. Don’t you dare cry for me.”

Another sob racks him anyway. The rowboat crashes through a swell.

“Whatever happens,” he whispers. His throat feels frozen—the words stick to his tongue like icy metal.

“This is all my fault.”

“I don’t care.”

Kellin’s head drops to his shoulder, and Vic holds him, bracing them both against the waves slamming into the hull.

“I don’t care,” he says again. His hand creeps for one of the oars, unused in the bottom of the boat. It might be finished—they might be doomed—but he’s damned if he’ll take it lying down. “I love you, Kell. I may get us to Boston yet.”

He shakes his head. The movement tugs at Vic’s dripping shirt, drags the fabric across his skin. “He’s here.”

Vic drops the oar, wood clattering off the floorboards. He reaches for the knife in his belt, instead, but his hand comes up empty—he doesn’t know when he lost it, but he has nothing to defend them. Nothing to keep the shadow from taking Kellin from him. Vic holds him tighter.

Around them, the ocean goes flat. He can hear the storm raging, but it’s as if a ceiling’s been spread over them, as if walls have been erected around the rowboat. The rain stops. He draws in the first dry breath he’s taken since the storm began.

Kellin’s hands curl fast in his shirt.

Over Kellin’s shoulder, right off the side of the boat, Vic sees a shadow like a wisp of cloud descended from the storm, darker than the surrounding water. It hovers there, just out of reach, and he knows—knows it’s come back for the final time, that there’s no way out of this but down.

A piece of Vic’s chest comes loose and tells him, in a voice that’s not his own, what to do.

“All right,” he whispers. Kellin shudders against him, but he doesn’t look down. He keeps his eyes on the shadow. “You listen to me. He’s done enough. No more, after—no more.”

The shadow does not move, but, at the edge of the stillness, the water starts to churn, coiling in widening circles, a dark hole opening in the surface of the sea. The storm’s noise gives way to a roar he’s only heard once before but could never forget—the lonely, endless cry of the depths, of water spiraling to the ocean floor. He doesn’t have to look to know what’s ahead of them as the rowboat is caught in a new current, as it begins to move without oars, slipping closer to the newly formed whirlpool’s oblivion. He won’t let the boat reach the edge.

Vic reaches behind him to take Kellin’s hands, unwinding them from his shirt. He doesn’t want to let go. A fierce, selfish desire takes him, begs him to stay in the boat, to fight the current and get them both away safely, but this voice is his own and he cannot listen to it. He won’t. “Kell,” he murmurs. “Love. Let’s be finished with this. It’s time.”

“Not ready,” Kellin gasps. His mouth’s pressed hot to Vic’s chest. “Not yet.”

Vic moves his hands back to the ship, curling his stiff fingers for him—one around the bow, one around the oar he’d dropped—then tips his face up. He kisses him, slow and soft, like they have all the time in the world, like they’re not drifting towards the end. Like he doesn’t know what comes next.

“I love you,” he whispers, mouth still pressed to Kellin’s. “Promise me something, Kell?”

He nods. His face is wet.

“When the sun comes up, chase it to Boston.”

Kellin is still for a second too long before he releases the ship to reach for him. By the time he moves, Vic has already pushed himself to his feet and stepped over the side. He stares the shadow down until the water closes over his head, and he thinks—in the moment he starts swimming into the current’s pull—that he hears a cry, terrified and agonized, but he doesn’t know if it comes from Kellin or from the voice in his chest.

The ocean is relentless. Even underwater, he hears the whirlpool’s roar, and he can’t make it to the surface to breathe. Not that it matters, now—he holds his breath, desperate to keep air in his lungs just long enough to make it to the churning water. Lights flash in his vision as he swims. His chest screams for relief.

Then he’s somewhere else entirely, and the ache in his chest is secondary, and his sight clears. There are ropes under his hands, shaking and snapping, and the roar of the whirlpool has shifted into the sound of crumpling timbers and rushing water, and he’s staring down at the deck of an unfamiliar ship as it sinks below the waves.

His arms are not his own; the hands in front of his eyes are broader, the forearms scarred, the skin paler. The clothes he’s wearing are a finer sort, silk sleeves pushed up around his elbows. But he can feel the ropes anyway. He can feel the rigging under his feet starting to give way as the bow takes on water.

He stops himself before he takes a breath, even though the wind’s dry and cold as it blows past his face.

Something slips into his mind with him. He knows this presence—he’s felt it before, dark and angry as it hovers over the Isabelle—but it’s different, now, and all he feels is grief. It’s as if this unfamiliar ship is his own, and he’s going down with her, and he’s not ready to lose her.

Vic closes his eyes, and the chill of the Atlantic nudges up against his eyelids. With the ship out of sight, the shadow is closer than ever. It curls around his spine, puts roots into his lungs, sprouts up his throat as he loses air.

The shadow prompts him to open his eyes once more.

He’s underwater, and light sparkles far above his head. Everywhere else it’s dark, crushing, cold; his feet are caught in the rigging, and he sinks with the ship, and the light slowly goes out.

Vic can’t tell anymore whether he’s himself or the shadow. Even when he closes his eyes, he can feel ropes around his ankles—he can feel grief for this ship, for this life, that was never his to mourn. He thinks of his crew, all lost to the dark. He thinks of the men who sent them there, and the misery twists in his guts like a knife. He wants to draw it out and wield it.

He’s still sinking, held fast in the wreckage, face turned up as he falls. The pressure around him grows, and the knife cuts deeper into his stomach; the pain jolts him, or the shadow’s hold slips, and his eyes open—truly open—and there’s a bloom of light in the black, and he sees a shape above him, the curve of a hull, the frantic, uncoordinated churn of an oar.

Vic draws a mouthful of water into his lungs as he reaches for it. The water burns like fire as it floods his trachea, coals igniting in his ribcage, and his own ship flashes back into his head. He sees the mast in flames. Sees Kellin fighting to undo the knots keeping the rowboat in place before he takes it over the side.

His chest contracts and he coughs up water only to inhale it again.

He pulls free of the ropes holding him, if they were ever really there, and they swirl down into the dark. With the last lingering bits of his energy, he kicks his feet, presses his hands out into the dark water, claws his way forward. The rowboat falls behind him. Kellin won’t make it to the whirlpool before he does, and the rush of relief the thought gives him lets him kick once, twice more.

Leave him alone, he tries to say, but his throat’s too cold to make a sound. Let him go.

The shadow in Vic’s head disappears as his fingers find the edge of the rushing current. Right before it pulls him down towards the ocean floor, he’s fully himself again, and his last thought before his mind goes dark is of Kellin.

Chapter Text

The first sensation Vic identifies is warmth. There’s a heat burning over his cheeks, a glow seeping through the dark, and he registers it slowly, watching the glow expand, turning his world the gentle pink of a sunset. His eyes are closed, he thinks, but he has no energy to move. The glow lingers. Water laps at his jaw, gentle waves that feel like fingers curling over his skin.

He hears a seagull, its cry shrill, and the fog in his head fades. Gulls, and waves, and wind rustling canvas, and water sloshing over wood—all faint, but growing louder as his senses wake—and the sound of hitching breath. Someone’s crying.

It takes more effort than anything he’s ever done, but he opens his eyes.

Sunlight fills his vision, and he immediately coughs, curling in on himself as water spills from his mouth. It burns, and he remembers it burning worse on its way in, remembers cold and pain and a deep, frozen anger that belonged to someone else. He presses his hand to his chest and pushes down to expel more water from his lungs.

There are floorboards under him, gently curving, covered in an inch of water that shivers as he coughs. He remembers these, too; he’d dragged himself into this boat, had caught his breath here, had told Kellin—

Vic’s lungs scream in protest as he breathes in for the first time and sets his hands on the bottom of the rowboat. His fingers are wrinkled, skin waterlogged and pale. He can feel the wood grain of the floorboards, the heat of the sun, the pain in his chest. It’s his. His. There’s no one but him in his head, and he’s breathing, and, when he raises his head, the ocean stretches out away from him—endless, gentle, glittering in countless facets under the cloudless sky.

He coughs once more, his throat raw.

There’s a quiet sound from behind him, another noise like a hitching breath, or a sob, and Vic pushes himself to his knees. It hurts. Everything in his body aches, begging him to lie back down, but he steadies himself on the yard and turns, knees grating on the damp wood beneath him. His clothes are stiff with salt wherever they’re not still sodden enough to cling.

Kellin’s huddled by the mast, knees drawn up to his chest, his face swollen. Every breath he draws in catches, and he’s breathing rapidly—his eyes are wide, red-rimmed, frightened.

He’s staring at Vic like he’s seen a ghost.

Vic tries to speak, but his words don’t come. A ragged cough rips its way from his chest, and he stops, bracing himself so he doesn’t slump over. “K—” he tries, then coughs again.

Kellin’s hand curls around an oar, his knuckles white.

“Kell,” he gasps, finally. His voice is unrecognizable, shattered as his tongue forms his name. “Love.”

His chest heaves. “You’re not—you’re gone, you’re gone, don’t—I can’t.”

“No.” Water bubbles up in his throat as he stifles another cough and moves one knee forward, slowly, aching with the need to pull Kellin into his arms. “Kell—”

Kellin shakes his head, breath hiccoughing. He flinches away as Vic shifts closer, tears slipping down his cheeks, raising the oar just above the floorboards before he lets it fall with a defeated rattle. “You’ve taken everything,” he whispers. “Everything. Don’t show me this.”

Vic stops before he comes too close. His hands are trembling. “It’s me. It’s me, Kell. He didn’t take me.”

Emotions war over Kellin’s face. He’s the most beautiful thing Vic’s ever seen, fear and heartbreak drawing lines between his eyebrows, tugging at the edges of his mouth.

“He didn’t.” Vic reaches out, fingers hovering over Kellin’s, silently begging him not to pull away again. “He didn’t. I’m here.”

A tremor runs through Kellin’s hand. His fingers twitch around the oar, spasms like the death throes of a spider.

“You’re not dreaming,” Vic whispers.

He finally lets go of the oar, and it settles in the boat as he turns his wrist and reaches up, achingly slow, to ghost his fingertips over Vic’s palm. It’s only the lightest touch, but Vic can feel the space between them shatter—before he can blink Kellin’s wrapped around him, the rowboat dipping under them, arms encircling him so tightly it feels like the pressure of the ocean compressing his chest.

“You were dead.” Kellin’s words are choked, his fingers curling into Vic’s back.

Vic closes his eyes, and his world glows again. He can feel Kellin shaking, and his lungs expanding as he breathes, and the heat of the sun baking his skin, and it’s nearly impossible to remember the frozen depths of the Atlantic or the shadow’s presence in his mind. He’s already forgetting the way it felt to inhale water instead of air, and the tumbling current tugging at his hands.

He nods, turning his head until the glow’s diluted through Kellin’s hair.

“It should never have been you, Vic, why would you—”

Vic kisses him and the rowboat lurches under their knees. It sends a jolt of fear through his gut—strange, that the ocean should inspire fear—but he quickly settles himself, presses closer to Kellin, tries to breathe him in as deeply as he can manage. “Surely you know why,” he whispers, his voice smoothing out as it hits Kellin’s throat, warm skin tempering the ragged edge to his words.

“Vic.”

“He let me go.” Vic knows it. His mind is blank as he tries to remember the hours between drowning and waking in the boat, but he knows.

“I found you floating, and you were so still, and—”

“He let go.” He presses his fingers into Kellin’s hair, the tackiness of salt slowing his progress.

The sky around them stays blue. There’s not a cloud to be seen, and nowhere for a shadow to hide, the sail full and white in the sun. It’s directly above them; Vic can’t gain his bearings, no landmarks or astronomical signs to give him any sense of direction. He wishes he had Tony’s journal, and the thought sends a pang through his chest. He wraps Kellin tighter in his arms.

Some of the stiffness in Kellin’s body bleeds out, but he still sounds strangled when he inhales. “It’s my fault. Everything is my fault. Your ship, your crew—”

Vic hushes him.

“I didn’t want this.”

“I know.” Vic traces patterns over Kellin’s back, fingers drawing out shapes on the stiff fabric of his shirt. It’s vaguely familiar, but he’s not sure if it came from his wardrobe or Kellin’s. That uncertainty makes his stomach feel as warm as the sun. He feels the remnants of the ocean’s chill leave him. “I know.”

“I’m more sorry than I can say.” The words are small and miserable. “Is it too late? Maybe we could still catch them, if Boston’s not too far, and you could still rejoin your ship—”

Vic cuts him off with another kiss. He can taste salt in Kellin’s mouth, but he thinks, this time, the tang comes just from tears. “Kell,” he murmurs. “My love—my heart. She’s not mine anymore. I’ve made my choice.”

“And what choice was that, if you lost everything?”

“Not everything.” Vic rests his hand flat on Kellin’s back, right over his heart. “Not everything. I would make it again.”

“Vic.”

He presses his lips to Kellin’s temple, hair sticking to his skin as he pulls away. “Look up,” he whispers.

Kellin follows his gaze, eyes still red-rimmed, and raises his face to the sky. The sun is just beginning to curve down from its place at the zenith. It’s the barest change in angle, but it’s enough—Vic knows he can reach for the oars and follow the sun’s trajectory, that he’ll get six or seven hours of rowing in before it sets and he loses his ability to navigate. If his limited memory of their position before they were becalmed is to be trusted, they’ll see the coast by nightfall and won’t need to rely on anything but the land for direction. He turns Kellin’s face towards the sun, watching as his eyes slip halfway shut in its glare, tracing his jaw with a thumb.

“I promised I’d get you to Boston. Hand me the oars?”

“You’re in no shape to row.”

Vic reaches for them anyway, ignoring the way his hands shake when he draws the oars back to position them in the rowlocks. Kellin’s fingers wrap around his.

“Vic, did you hear me?”

He smiles and leans forward to kiss Kellin again, the boat shifting with their weight, his arms aching as he dips the oars into the water for the first of many strokes. Rowing and swimming feel too similar, and the ocean chill settles over his forearms—he can almost feel the current swirling around him. “I heard you. Watch the sun for me?”

Kellin makes a questioning noise, but he looks back over his shoulder.

“We’ll follow it.” Vic digs the oars in deeper, sending a white spray of salty foam into the air, and keeps his eyes on Kellin as he rows them to land.

It’s early morning when they limp into Boston harbor. Vic’s seeing white, floating lights in his vision and cramps racking his body, but he guides them in regardless, letting his joints scream until the hull bumps against the posts of the nearest dock.

Kellin hasn’t slept, and he’s reaching for the dock to help pull them in before Vic can. He fumbles with the knot. Vic blinks the sparks away and ties it for him, mooring the rowboat to the dock, his fingers fuzzy with exhaustion.

“Told you,” he whispers.

Kellin reaches for him, holding tight to him for only a moment. It’s as long as they both dare. The sky’s still dim, but not dark enough to fully cover them—Vic refuses to have made it this far only for a passerby to see them.

He stands, legs shaking, and holds a hand down to lift Kellin to his feet. “Careful,” he says, voice soft, steadying him. “One foot up first—like that—lean forward.”

Vic follows Kellin onto the dock. The damp wood may as well be solid ground under his feet; he exhales sharply, the sensation of water swirling around him finally disappearing for good. Nobody’s around. It’s only them and the shaded silhouettes of much larger ships tied nearby, and Vic tears his eyes from those, turning back to Kellin.

Kellin’s standing still.

“I don’t have much with me,” Vic says quietly. “Only what was in my belt. Enough to cover lodging for a few nights, but no more.”

“Your crew must be here. Vic, you don’t have to—this doesn’t have to be your choice.”

Vic shakes his head. His arms feel too heavy for his body, spine crumbling as he tries to stay upright. “If you think I’ll change my mind now, you don’t know me.”

His mouth curls faintly. Vic wants to coil around him.

Footsteps sound from far down the dock, and Vic reaches for Kellin’s arm, guiding him back behind the shadow of a prow. “Best to stay out of sight.”

“Vic,” Kellin whispers. “Your ship.”

“She’s no longer mine.”

Kellin presses a hand to Vic’s cheek, fingers cold. Presses harder until Vic has to turn his head. “Look across the way,” he murmurs, and there’s something unbearably sad in his voice, as if he’s still expecting, after everything, for Vic to disappear.

Vic knows what he’ll see before he looks. Even now, after so many dreams, so many shadows, leaving her behind, it’s like looking in a mirror—the familiar lines of her prow, her hull, her masts. Her missing foremast is a deep wound in the rigging, showing black night behind her sails like gore. He exhales. “So they made it, too.”

“What do you—what will you do?” Kellin’s hand drops from his face as he speaks, fingers just brushing his collar before his touch disappears. Vic misses it immediately.

“If they’ll let us on board, we can get our things.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t come.”

Vic listens for a moment for the footsteps, but they’re long faded. He turns from the ship and pulls Kellin in, kissing him in the deep shadow. “We can get our things,” he repeats, “and leave the water. Stay in Boston, if you prefer, or find somewhere else to—”

Kellin kisses him again.

“I meant it when I said I would follow you,” Vic whispers.

More footsteps sound, and he presses his finger to Kellin’s lips, backing him deeper into the shadows. He doesn’t recognize the man that passes them. He doesn’t look in their direction once.

“Gone,” he says after the man’s out of sight. His vision’s adjusted to the shadows, now, and he stares at Kellin for a moment—his tangled hair, the flush of sunburn on his cheeks and temples and the bridge of his nose, the flipped collar of his shirt. He reaches out to smooth it down, and pulls his fingers through a knot in Kellin’s hair for good measure. “Just one more time on board. Then I’m yours.”

Kellin gives him another faint, exhausted smile, one that just barely shifts his mouth. There’s an odd look in his eyes, and Vic doesn’t understand it until he speaks again. “I have been trying not to offer. But I could go with you instead.”

“You mean sail with me?”

He nods.

“You don’t want that, Kell.” Vic’s fingers tug through another knot, then push his hair back from his face to expose more of his sunburnt skin. “You’re not a sailor. I won’t ask that of you.”

“But your ship—”

“Will be left in the hands of excellent, capable men I would trust with my life.”

A seagull calls, and Vic lifts his head to glance out at the Boston harbor. The water shimmers a dusky rose, a glow beginning to creep up on the horizon, the first tinges of dawn spreading over the Atlantic. Thousands of miles from where they’re standing now, the sun’s already burning over Vic’s apartment in Barcelona and sending light through curtains he’ll never see again.

He doesn’t mind the thought as much as he should. He’ll have to trust the key to Jaime—from one captain to another.

“You really mean it, don’t you.” It’s not a question, even though the words are phrased as one. “You’ll stay.”

Vic’s gaze moves back to him, and he can’t look away once it does. “I’ve always meant it. You are—” he falls short. “If it were possible, I would have asked for your hand the moment I followed you from the ship.”

Kellin’s next breath is short and sharp.

“Of course I’ll stay,” Vic whispers. He risks reaching out, dawn just bright enough he can see the look on Kellin’s face when his fingers touch his jaw, catching on new stubble he hasn’t had the chance to shave. It feels familiar. His skin feels like home.

More footsteps echo down the docks. Vic reluctantly pulls away, and they both step deeper into the diminishing shadows. These are fast, almost frantic in the way they echo off the surrounding ships, and he’s raising an arm to shield Kellin before he sees a figure run past them, then stop and scan the harbor, turning in circles.

Vic would recognize him anywhere. He looks back at Kellin one more time, then steps out of the shade. His own footfall is quieter, more halting, his legs unsteady beneath him. Kellin makes a small noise behind him.

Either, or both, are still loud enough to draw attention. Jaime turns, and takes a step closer, and Vic sees his chest heave—he mouths something, and then his arms are tight around Vic and he’s laughing, or some sound that passes for laughing, short and choked.

“You goddamn idiot,” Jaime whispers. “I saw the rowboat—you fool. I looked for you all night. We all thought—”

Vic shakes his head. He holds Jaime just as close, relief sinking into his bones. “We made it. It’s over.”

There are tears in Jaime’s eyes when he pulls back, hands resting on Vic’s shoulders, looking him over. “You look terrible. Did you row the whole way here?”

“The wind helped.”

“My God, Vic. We thought we’d lost you, when you dove off the edge and the flames went out—we thought you were gone.”

Vic manages a weary smile. “I had hoped you’d reach Boston first.”

“Yesterday morning.” Jaime’s still looking at him, disbelief coloring his features. “You sound terrible, too. Swallowed some water?”

“Some.”

Kellin makes another stifled noise behind them, and Jaime’s eyes dart towards him. “You both made it.”

Vic nods.

Jaime exhales and pulls him back into another embrace. “Not as stupid as you might have been, then. Tony will be so glad to see you.”

He’s going to miss them. It’s been a decade of knowing them, of sharing a home and a livelihood with them, and he doesn’t want to let that go—but he can feel Kellin behind him, even without looking for him. He’s ready to loosen his grasp. “I’ll be glad to see him.”

Jaime’s arms tighten once more before he lets go, turning to face Kellin. “Whatever might have happened—is it truly over?”

“Yes,” Kellin says. His voice is quiet, and Vic can hear guilt swollen in his throat. “For good.”

“Then—” Jaime hesitates a moment. “It’s nearly morning. Tony wants to leave today—will you be coming back to Spain with the captain?”

“Jaime.”

Whatever he hears in Vic’s voice makes him falter. Jaime pauses and goes quiet, eyes searching his face.

“You know I’m not going home.”

Jaime closes his eyes, but there’s no surprise in the way his jaw tightens. “I’d hoped otherwise. I thought it was over.”

“Over,” Vic echoes. “But, I think—I don’t believe I have any reason to sail back to Europe.”

“The Isabelle needs our captain, Vic.”

“She has one.”

“Don’t say that.”

Vic’s breath is tight in his chest. His hand falls on the metal ring of keys still attached to his belt, and he detaches it, weighs it in his hand. Keys to his cabin, to the hold, to his apartment back in Barcelona; they all feel impossibly heavy. His life in one place. “She’s yours. And she’ll be all the better for it.”

“Vic.”

He presses the ring of keys into Jaime’s hand. “Treat her well for me. Please.” He knows he doesn’t have to ask, that Jaime will be a better captain than he ever was—that Jaime will never let his priorities falter or change—but he can’t relinquish his title without asking. “You’ve earned her.”

“I thought—after—you would rather have given her to anyone but me. I told Tony he should act captain.” Jaime turns his wrist, keys scraping as they slide down the ring. “I thought you’d gone to your death. And the last thing I’d done was defy you.”

“You’ve earned her,” Vic says again.

Jaime finally lets his fingers close around the ring. He nods once, then meets Vic’s eyes, a new determination burning in his gaze. “Don’t leave before you tell the crew.”

“I’ll say my goodbyes. And pack, if you’ll give me leave.”

“She’s as much your ship as mine,” Jaime murmurs. He watches Vic a moment longer, then leads the way towards the Isabelle. “Still. Always.”

“For now,” Vic murmurs back.

The gangplank is lowered ahead of them. Vic reaches back for Kellin’s hand, taking it—even in the growing daylight, even with Jaime’s eyes on them—and pulling him to his side.

“You’ll be safe,” he whispers. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”

Kellin nods. “I’ve not felt him since you went overboard. But I’d come with you anyway. Even if I did.”

“Just one more time. That’s all I ask.” Vic watches him, the pink glow of dawn deepening the sunburn on his cheeks, illuminating the curling, tangled hair around his face, making his eyes stand out more than ever. He takes the first step onto the gangplank. “Then I’ll follow you anywhere you’d want to go.”

A smile breaks across his face, like sunlight on the Atlantic, and he follows Vic onto the Isabelle without stopping to look back.