Ah, the catchphrase of the desert. He'd heard it more than any other curse, clipped insult, or claim of cowardice. For anything and everything under the sun - mild sprain? Missing finger? Literal gutting? I'm fine. He doesn't let go of her shoulders.
“You,” he presses on the word and her arms, steadying “don't have a lick of color in your whole dadgum face, darlin'.” She might not go so far as blacking out, he's not sure yet, but he's certainly not steady enough for him to let her push him off so easily. “I'd like it if you sat. If not... I'm stayin' where I am 'til somethin' comes back- either lips or cheeks. Fair?”
@champagneprobllems ( Gem ) //> Where She Stops. . .
+ flashback
The long pull of the hall swims in front of her eyes. She blinks, and blinks again. Trying to pull it - to pull anything into focus. But it slips and slips like shoes on the soaked floor, like sharp steel right through skin.
“..H..” She tries, and fails, to say something. Though she’s not sure, exactly, what word she was aiming for. Maybe that’s why she can’t find it. Why she just stands there, breath catching, expression cycling in pieces through snatches of things that could be called angry… afraid… confused… hopeful… despairing. Desperate. She tries to look away and her head only twitches. A tremor begins to crawl up her leg. It’s after it reaches her middle, grabbing, that she remembers where she’s supposed to be. It’s creeping up around her collar, making her lift her head in search of air to breathe that she finds a small, tear-threatened version of her voice. “...Gem.”
The flat box is waiting for him on his bedside table; it hadn’t been there when he was last awake for the twins, and Rei is still asleep in bed next to him. She must have gotten up at some point without waking him, though, since the box has a small, folded card on top—With love, from me and the parasites.
Inside is a 5.56 NATO round on a keychain. Inscribed on the casing is his name, in full. Underneath, another note from Rei. I’m familiar with the superstition. Don’t get dead on me. xR
a bullet with his name on it — his laugh is a low rumble as he reads and rereads the second note. a cursory glance is spared to the monitor, grey light glowing faintly from rei’s side of the bed, as he remembers the reason he’d initially woken up. neither baby seemed to be stirring, so he clasps the chain around his neck and sidles up to rei, two and a half months of sleep deprivation doing its part as he falls back to sleep with little issue.
“With everything you’ve been through lately, of course you’re tired.”
She snorts. “Lately. Like it ever lets up,” Tech dismisses, “b'sides— 'm not tired enough t'let this slide.” She says it like it's spite that makes equipment loses integrity over time. Only the most personal of slights! the decline or failure of something she cobbled together to begin with. Her big patchwork net. Scraps and junk made into wonder. Sometimes she still can't believe how much of it she's responsible for, like a day dream branching off around her. Something completely imaginable but just too idealized to actually be real...
Tech gasps as she catches a raw edge to the seat of her thumb. “Sonofa—!” Daydreaming. There's that slight pause. The one where she's trying to figure out if it just surprised her, or what. And then it starts bleeding.
"The fucker deserved it," Poppy snarls, retrieving her knife from the fucker in question's chest. Dolce is off a short distance, inspecting her injuries—all superficial, thankfully.
He hears the scuffle only about a second before he finds it. Not enough warning, really, to stop from turning the corner, but plenty to brace him a little for what waits around it. A dropped body and two standing. A small plume of dust still hangs in the air. Bedlam looks from the closest, to the farthest, to the body.
“...Well.” The word bounces out for segue after a pause of awkward silence. He's picked an odd time to cut a shorter path through the less crowded end of the old block. “I'm no pig.” He's definitely not here to play inquisition. He's barely even around at all, on his way out — behind about a day or so, even. (Not enough for any rumors of getting himself dusted to really get caught up in the wind, but plenty to give Embalm and Embed time to stew. Maybe it'll do them good, get them to branch out.) “Don't think Twister's gonna like you movin' ghosts in behind his favorite place to set up the smithies, though.”
they’d managed to outrun the storm for days — the more superstitious of the crew seemed convinced it was hunting them. ( though whether it was related to the weather or something more sinister varied from one man to the next ). august stands beneath the main mast on the morning of the seventh day, frown etched across his face as he stares out at the fog. it was thick enough that, should he squint, he could barely make out de vlinder's bow.
❝ i don't like this. ❞ he almost doesn't want to put it to words, speaking those ridiculous theorems into existence by acknowledging something was certainly amiss. august has never been the superstitious sort, waving off the worries of other sailors as silly nothings. but he can't quite wave this away the same. the muted sounds of the sea felt much too far away – as though he had been removed from his ship and dropped at least half a league inland. the fog itself felt heavy – as though it were holding something back, but only just. ❝ we could be sailing in circles for... ❞ why does it feel like he should say years? that would be absurd... wouldn't it? ❝ for far longer than desirable. ❞ he looks to ingvi, voice low — as if whatever is out there, if anything, would be less inclined to listen in. ❝ if master van noort is to be believed, the fog engulfed us just before the bell for morning watch. some of the men are adamant the ship has been dragging in the waters, since. ❞ august walks over to the portside rail, eyes narrowing as he unsuccessfully tries to see beneath the waves, ❝ but emotions have been running high these last few days. ❞ he wants to trust the eyes of his crew but he can't seem to wrap his head around the unnaturalness of it all. this is his best attempt at a handwave of the situation.
it feels flat — as dull as the sounds of his ship, mired as they are.
august van de hoek. captain. expert navigator and tactician.
atsuyuki nakamura. quartermaster. skilled in multiple forms of close quarter combat. met august off the coast of madagascar. taught him to fight with a two pronged kaginawa.
fabian de la fuente. ship’s surgeon. deadly with a knife. met august when de vlinder crossed a spanish patrol while still privateering. it took very little convincing to get him to defect from the navy and join their crew.
cornelius smeenk. bosun. very bad at playing the panflute, very good at keeping the ship in order. met august aboard their first ship as cabin boys. kees happily follows him from merchant seaman to privateer and pirate.
ingvi vik. gunner’s mate. attack dog. met august when she snuck aboard de vlinder at sixteen, two years into his pirate career, and incapacitated two of his crewmen. the closest thing he has to a daughter.
pascal descoteaux. cook. bemoans the lack of fresh ingredients when they are long at sea, makes a mean bouillabaisse. met august at twenty, four years into his pirate career. pax had never been on a ship before de vlinder.
it’s steadfastly the aftermath of the battle. cyrus holcroft is dead. cornelius smeenk is decidedly not, with much gratitude to ingvild and her ferality for drawing holcroft’s ire.
in this calm, kees find something deeply unsettling roiling in his belly — fury. hot and overwhelming and, for the first time in their lives, directed at august. kees is alive and he is fuming. every life lost, every second of torture he and ingvi had endured in august’s stead ( and would again and again ), all of it could have been avoided years ago, if only auggie had taken holcroft’s threats to heart.
the bosun lays into the captain that night. angry and mean.
death has changed ingvi and there is a stillness and calm that had not graced her before. she stands as a statue outside of the captain's quarters, godsword on her hip, smirking faintly at kees as he stalks out. “so you'll let me kill them next time, right?” she says, dryly.
kees answers quickly, still hot from his argument, “don’t.”
she reaches out, then, softening, and catches his arm "hey. we're here. we're still here. and he has to live with the memory of what happened for the rest of his life."
kees runs a hand over his face and sighs because he knows she’s right. but he’s already woken up with the ghost of the rope around his neck and, he won’t admit it yet, not fully, but he knows deep down that he wasn’t meant to make it through that encounter. “without your gods, where would we be?” fingers tug at the neck of his shirt, “i will forgive him because i -” his lips twist and he looks away from ingvi to stare up at the sails, “- but i would be lying if i said it didn’t feel good to make him hurt a little more for a little longer, and if that makes me a terrible friend, so be it.”
"oh, if you think i am not going to use dying for him as an excuse to do literally anything, you have too high an opinion of me." she steps closer, sliding her hand down to his and squeezing it. "knowing you're going to die for your captain and actually doing it are pretty different experiences. i think we have the right to be terrible."
— • —
it’s noon the next day and august is still sequestered in his cabin but kees refuses to be the one to check on him. suyu has the shift and brief orders from the captain to retain command through the night, so when kees approaches him, he dismisses the bosun's worry.
by the dinner bell, kees' guilt has begun to eat away at him ten-fold, but every time ingvi looks at him, he pretends he doesn’t notice. by midnight, when the door hasn’t even cracked and kees doesn’t want to sleep even if he could, he wanders out of his quarters to sit outside of the cabin. his guilt has been fighting his anger all day, and he finds this little acquiescence assuages some of his inner turmoil.
atsuyuki prods kees with his foot the next morning, pointedly looking at the captain's quarters, "mister smeenk, if you wouldn't mind checking on the captain this fine morning?"
kees clambers to his feet, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he glances between suyu and ingvi. the quartermaster excuses himself for the bridge with a slight bow of his head.
ingvi gives an uncertain, "how badly did you chew him out?" as they stare at the doors only for kees to shrug. “he deserved it.” but he doesn’t sound as sure as he had the night in question.
"i don't doubt it, but this is the longest i've ever seen you two not speak."
he scoffs. he's sure there's been time they've gone without speaking. then again, he's never brought a fight to his friend, so maybe not. “he’s probably just angry at the truth being laid out,” kees knows he’s lying to himself. “d’you think pax has brought up any food?”
"... i'm sure he's tried, if anything. i'll ask." after another beat she heads off to the galley.
it feels like ages when it's barely been minutes as kees' impatience overcomes him, finally drawing him to knock. after a moment of silence he knocks louder only to have august shout for him to go away. his worry shifts, then, because he’s got a sneaking suspicion he knows what he’ll find when he opens the door. when ingvi returns, he asks her to have pax bring up a strong pot of coffee to which she just gives a sharp nod and returns belowdecks.
it's been two days but the smell of alcohol has gone stale without an open window to circulate the air. guilt clashes with the anger in his chest as kees enters the room, sharply closing the door behind him to catch august’s attention.
“did you not hear me? go away,” the captain slurs. he is sat hunched over his desk, bottle of rum drained, rolling on its side with the sway of the ship.
“auggie…”
“don't - don't auggie me, kees. just -” and here his voice breaks, “just leave me be.”
rather than listen, kees crosses the room to kneel at his captain’s side, looking up at him with a sadness in his gaze. “what have you done, mijn hart,” a whisper, “forgive me my anger.”
tears spring to august's eye and he turns to hide his shame from the bosun. “i lost you, kees. i lost you both -”
“and yet we are still here. with you. you won't be rid of us so easily.”
ingvi's knock comes quicker than expected and august looks up, brow pinching with annoyance. kees watches auggie a moment longer before pushing to his feet, bidding aug to look at him and pressing a kiss to his forehead before calling out for ingvi to enter.
as the door creaks open, kees crosses to the back of the cabin, propping open the windows for the sea breeze. ingvi enters silently and eases the door shut behind her. she carries the coffee to the desk, pours it into one of the three mugs pax had provided on the tray and sets it in front of august. instead of pouring one for herself, she glances around, wordlessly setting to put things back in order.
august grimaces at the strong smell, sliding the mug further from him until kees tuts, taking a seat opposite. “drink up, mate.”
“ik ben geen k-kind.”
“and when you can admit as much without slurring, perhaps we’ll believe you.” kees crosses his arms, expectant, and after a long moment of trying to wait it out, august finally relents and sips at the coffee, grimacing again. after another moment, kees quietly asks, “is this… because of me?”
august sips the coffee again, unwilling to meet kees’ gaze and instead watching ingvi tidy up. embarrassment colours his cheeks upon realising the mess he’d made but he shakes his head. “nee. or, not because you shouted.” he pauses, eyes falling shut as he leans back in his chair. “i was wrong, i should not have allowed my feud with cyrus to bleed into our lives as much as i had – shouldn’t have underestimated his ire.” a shrug, and his words come out choked, but he looks to kees and then ingvi, now, “i nearly lost you both, we did lose you, ingvi, brief as it was. and if your gods were not with us?” a tear slides down his cheek and he does not brush it away. “i am a disgrace of a captain. a continued lapse of judgement proves as much.”
she does not need the reminder she died; she has woken every night so far with the memory of the chill, of her blood coating her skin. it is not something she will soon move past. "why do you concern yourself so with wondering what would have happened without my gods' interference?" she doesn't mean the words to be as sharp as they come out. "they were with me. they are with me." fingers brush the gold mark still shimmering high on her forehead. "disgrace or not, you are still the captain we choose to follow. if the gods can make the mistake of letting me die in the first place, you can allow yourself mistakes as well. finish your coffee."
an anger not quite as hot as when he fought cyrus bursts through him in an instant and he stands, chucking his mug at the far wall. hands fall to his desk and he sneers at both his best friend and his surrogate daughter, “why do you insist on following a man who selfishly chose a game of cat and mouse over the people he cares for most? all because he thought so highly of himself, he could have never imagined that which has come to fall?”
kees stands then, too. albeit lazily. scorn bleeding into his tone, “our blood is on your hands - i said as much the other night. is that what you’d like to hear? sober up, kapitein van de hoek. dat is een bevel, ja?”
“an order?” august scoffs. “misschien had je moeten…” but he trails off before he can finish his sentence shame flooding him as he dared allow the thought to take shape. kees pales, more than able to hazard a guess at the unspoken word.
“fuck you, august,” he spits, turning on his heel and stalking out of the cabin. the door slams behind him and august sinks back into his chair, face in his hands.
“het spijt me,” he mutters, hands then falling into his lap. shaking, penitent, he reaches for the pot of coffee, “i am not myself, ingvi. please relay to mister nakamura that he has the command until we reach england.” as, clearly, he cannot be trusted to speak to his crew.
she doesn't leave straight away, her own anger spiking at his. but it is no longer the hot, bright flash that it used to be, instead burning through her veins like lava, like ice. she stalks up to the desk and leans over it, hands braced slightly wider than her shoulders, bringing her face very close to his. voice a low snarl, "when I joined this crew, you told me I would die on this ship, same as any other man in the crew. that was an eventuality i accepted. dying hurt, and i remember every second of it, and i would do it again for you. because you, august van de hoek, saw me. you understood me in a way no one, no one else in my life ever has. that is why i follow you. failures, mistakes, and all. and i will not have you acting like it is foolishness on my part to do so." she straightens, still viciously cold. "i am your attack dog. do not muzzle me again."
august tries to play at being himself, at being sober and unflinching. but his eyes keep darting up at ingvi and he can’t steady his hand enough to pour the bitter drink into a second mug. “you have my word,” a whisper as she stalks away.
it is only a few long strides to the door, but it is enough to calm her anger. she pauses at the door. "give him time to calm down, but you have to go to him to apologize. do not wait too long. the longer you leave his heart broken, the harder it will be to mend it."
blurry gaze trains on her at mention of kees. “his… heart?” as if he doesn’t know why she would mention it. she merely gives him a long, pointed look, then leaves in search of suyu.
— • —
they’re a day from where they will make port and a full day past his words to kees. august suspects they may not have been travelling at full sail for the majority of it, but he isn’t about to question his quartermaster’s command. he has sobered, weathered the worst headache he’s ever had, and had ingvi’s parting words repeat on him ad nauseum in every space between his breath. and yet he waffles.
the bell tolls for the shift change and, for the first time since he’d secluded himself, august opens his cabin door, hands folded behind his back until he spots kees. “master smeenk, a word, if you will.”
there is a moment - a tense one - where kees considers insubordination. august can see it in the way he rolls his shoulder, tilts his head, but the crew is watching. so he obliges.
the door snaps shut behind him but he doesn’t move further into the room, arms crossed, he is closed off. august stands in front of his desk, lips twisting with all the words he’s planned on saying but seem to refuse to spill.
a long moment of silence stretches before kees pipes up with, “if that’ll be all, kapitein van de hoek?”
“kees…”
“no.”
august propels himself several steps closer, “kees, het spijt me, alsjeblieft. i never… you’re right to hate me. that wasn’t me, that was…”
kees rolls his eyes. “a drunk mind speaks a sober heart,” his reply is quiet and he turns, as if to leave.
august finishes crossing the room, reaching for kees, his hand coming to rest on his arm. “cornelius, please. ik heb je nodig, you know i do. i… i always have and always will.”
kees scoffs, but he doesn’t pull away. “you haven’t needed me in years.”
“that is wholly untrue.” and august shifts, hand moving to brush kees’ cheek. “i am sorry - for not heeding your advice years ago, for underestimating cyrus, for failing the crew and for failing you most of all. i am sorry for my words and for my shortcomings. and i am sorry cyrus dared use you as a pawn against me. het spijt me, and if you never forgive me it will be too soon. i l- hmm…”
kees meets his eye, arms falling to his side, “say it.”
“i love you, cornelius.”
“je bent een idioot, august.”
auggie laughs softly leaning down to rest his forehead against kees’, sighing deeply. “het spijt me.”
