I Knew That You Knew
On the way back to New York City, Englehorn finds himself vulnerable in the midst of sleep deprivation and the memory of what he just escaped from.
Notes: Englehorn/Driscoll is kinda like an overarching thing here, like somewhere along the way, they got close with each other? Idk man, don’t think about it lol. Also maybe regressor!Englehorn isn’t the most canon compliant thing of all time, I’ll admit that, but sometimes a boy wants to have fun and chew on his favorite rarepair since age 13 and make them do things. Jack is equally if not more traumatized but he’s braving it out for the guy he might have a crush on. Englehorn's also more frightened of things he normally wouldn’t be so scared of because I like to make it hurt. Dudes calling themselves mama because why not. Was expecting this to be short but alas I stood corrected to the power of my autism. Author is not entirely sure what happens on boats or their anatomy. Also wrote this all in one sitting in 5 hours so uhhh wow I clearly like this movie.
Title is from Wallows - Remember When.
Word count: 3,475.
The air hung thick in the wheelhouse, the humidity of the island seeming to follow Englehorn everywhere he went. It clung to his clothes and squeezed him tight, and he could not help to shake the feeling that somehow, he was still on that island. The chitter of bugs and roars of animals beyond his comprehension rang in his ears, finding himself looking over his shoulder to see if they had escaped his imagination.
He stared out into the moon’s reflection on the sea, though he found his mind elsewhere, or nowhere, rather. White noise filled his head, pounding on his ears as he fought to pay attention to the sea ahead of him.
He felt his eyebags weigh him down, slouched over the wheel and weakly grabbing onto the handles, absentmindedly steering when he felt as if he should. His eyes began to shut, his head falling forward before he lost his balance, the fright jerking him awake.
He gripped onto the handles tightly, feeling his palms grow damp between the wood. His heart rate quickened as he realized what he had done, what could’ve been if he hadn’t woken up.
He could’ve wrecked the boat, he could’ve gone into territory he had no business being in, he could’ve been lost. Him and everyone else on board.
Everyone would’ve hated him.
He felt his heart in his throat at the thought, being as experienced as he was, and yet letting one mistake ruin it all. Put everyone in danger.
The captain’s grip on the handles slipped through his sweat, feeling his shoulders shake under his jacket and his shirt clinging to his skin.
It was suffocating.
His shirt clung to his skin the same way on the island, sweat running down the back of his neck as he swatted at it, always mistaking it for another bug that should’ve been long dead. The stickiness in the air trapped him, fighting to break free in order to carry on with the mission, the mission of cheap entertainment that found everyone in its way expendable.
He swallowed, mind halfway out of the island and halfway into the sea. He blinked, though it only reminded him how he ached to drift off.
Looking out into the sea, the ripples in the water were near hypnotic, finding himself lost in the water’s movements. The white noise in his head deafened him, suffocating the sounds of the island, which he still wasn’t sure if they were real or not.
Letting one hand go of the wheel, he pressed his palm up to his eye, desperately trying to wipe the exhaustion away so he could carry on with his work. Yet, he found himself trembling in place, his throat tightened as he struggled to swallow.
A pit formed in his stomach, thinking back to his previous worries. What if he had failed, everything went to catastrophe, and by some stroke of luck, he was the only one alive?
How lonely it would be, steering this ship alone.
The silence made his ears ring. Maybe he was alone.
His lip quivered. He bit it. He squinted and he squeezed his eyes shut, face scrunched as a feeble attempt to squeeze this feeling out of him.
He relaxed. He looked out into the sea, with no land in sight.
He wanted his mother.
This was a rare feeling, one he only had on his worst nights, yet something he knew he was well acquainted with. Something from long ago, worn with time, yet just as warm as if it was new.
He learned to appreciate the nostalgia, yet maintain that he could never go back, and that was fine. He moved on with life well enough, he didn’t wish to turn back most nights.
Others, he yearned, back to his juvenile ways as a last ditch safety measure when the going got rough. Maybe, he believed that if he was quick enough, he could run back to his boyhood home and escape whatever frightened him.
Safe in his mother’s arms. It was all he wanted now.
But he wasn’t in Germany now.
He found himself pouting, but he hardened his expression. He looked over his shoulder, the moon casting its light onto Mr. Hayes.
He slept peacefully, one hand propping his head up as his shoulders quietly rose and fell. Englehorn hated to bother his first mate, especially when he figured he could tough everything out until morning and steer the ship until he arose. Tonight, however, he thought he could live with a potentially disgruntled partner just this once.
He inched towards the other man, unusually clumsy with his footsteps, hands out to balance himself before he continued on. He put a hand on Mr. Hayes’ shoulder, gently shaking him.
When he didn’t wake immediately, Englehorn’s throat tightened. He put his other hand on his shoulder, shaking him just a little harder, finding himself doing the same to his mother in his boyhood somewhere in the back of his mind.
“Mr. Hayes …” Englehorn whimpered out, his spit thick in his mouth and his voice unrecognizable to himself.
He caught the other man’s eyes open, blinking through his haze before focusing on the captain. His brows furrowed.
“What’s the matter?” The other man was quick to assume the worst, and Englehorn’s expression didn’t quell this tendency, with his eyes wide and eyebrows knitted together.
The captain panicked, “Nothing!”
His accent felt a lot thicker, akin to how it was before he came to New York.
Mr. Hayes looked up at the captain with brewing confusion, near suspicion, and Englehorn knew he had to take initiative and speak.
“Can you take over for me?” His voice was hushed, the only way he could keep it under control to avoid it from cracking. His first mate’s eyes softened.
“Are you alright?”
“Tired.” Englehorn was short with him, he just wanted to get out of this stuffy room. Mr. Hayes stood up wordlessly, taking the wheel with no further instruction. Englehorn just stared at him, eyes wide in near awe.
Mr. Hayes looked a lot more assured in his position. His first mate looked over at him, “Go sleep, captain. I got it.”
The captain nodded sheepishly at him before leaving the wheelhouse, the cool air hitting him as he stood on the deck. It was a sigh of relief, though brief, as the ship rocked under his feet and he felt himself slip.
On his hands and knees, he remained in this position until the boat steadied, yet he felt as if the wind got knocked out of him the second he hit the ground. His lip trembled and his eyes welled with tears, harshly wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket as he stood up.
He staggered to the stairs that led to the bottom of the ship, past the regular bedrooms. Nobody he would want to see resided in those rooms, anyway. He just wanted to be alone.
The captain entered the more forbidden area of the ship, with walls lined with cages and light arbitrarily scattered around. When not full of animals, the area had a certain tranquility to it, though it surely was no boyhood bedroom.
He carefully walked through the dark hall, towards where most of the cages resided, but he paused when he heard faint clacking.
His heart sank, his eyes widened, he found his ankles sinking into the floorboards. But he sighed.
He forgot Jack was down here, holed up in a cage in the face of no free bedrooms. Though, there really was no reason for him to be up at this hour.
The captain contemplated turning back and going to some other area of the ship, but he didn’t find it easy to leave. The playwright had become a comforting presence during their time on the island, even when he was out of his wits with fear. He surely was out of his element on that island; they don’t pay you to write plays on islands not even drawn on the map.
Englehorn walked towards the playwright’s enclosure.
He peeked around the corner, down to where he knew the other man resided, and he hesitated, though he wasn’t exactly sure as to why. He just felt his inhibitions weigh down on his shoulders, begging him to turn back.
Somehow, he continued, and he soon stood in front of the closed cage containing Jack. He wanted to give him a room, but the ship only had so many.
The playwright looked down at his typewriter, lost in whatever he was writing before he noticed Englehorn’s shadow seep through the bars of the cage. He looked up, though a bit puzzled.
“Hello?” Jack was unsure if he had been doing something wrong to warrant the captain in his quarters. His eyes adjusted, making out Englehorn’s expression. It was nothing he had seen on the captain before.
“Is everything alright?” The playwright asked.
The captain’s voice was stuck in his throat. Staring at Jack with a look of undeniable terror, he found himself intimidated. He stepped back when the other man started to express discomfort.
Englehorn opened his mouth to speak, “Ich wollte- uhm-”
He felt like he had forgotten every ounce of English he had ever learned. Jack’s expression softened, “Are you alright?”
The captain swallowed, suddenly feeling seasick, or feeling his nerves when he gazed at the other man in his stomach instead, he couldn’t tell. He wanted to talk, but through his haze, he knew Jack wouldn’t understand him.
He looked down, almost ashamed, thinking about how he could explain himself. In the English he could muster through his daze, he blurted, “Got scared.”
He wanted to hit himself. The playwright shouldn’t see how juvenile he felt.
Jack raised his brows, “Scared? Of what?”
Englehorn didn’t want to make a fool of himself any more than he did, so he didn’t reply. Jack pouted a bit.
“Was it the island?”
Englehorn looked up, shocked, as if he had been caught in the midst of a scandal. Jack’s face didn’t change when they met eyes.
“It’s okay, I was scared, too.” The playwright reassured. The captain felt the slightest bit calmer at the statement, inching his way towards the cage. He peered in, noticing the light caught in Jack’s hair and how it dimly reflected off the typewriter.
The captain ran his fingers down the bars of the cage, looking at the loose straw on the floor rather than the playwright.
The feeling akin to an animal in a zoo, gawked at by passersby, had dissipated as Jack watched Englehorn. He was a new kind of quiet, no longer hardened by his seasoned sailor demeanor or that squinted, seemingly annoyed expression as he stared into the sun’s reflection on the sea. A juvenile kind of quiet, when children are already struggling in the social realm their parents perfected, shoved into a spotlight and faltering under it. Retracted within themselves, hoping that if they no longer speak or look at the people around them, they won’t be noticed.
“Would you like to come in?” Jack felt a sort of pity on the captain in this state, watching the other man finally look up at him again. Stray lights were caught in his eyes, blue highlights glinting through the bars of the playwright’s makeshift bedroom, confused.
As the ship swayed, Englehorn fumbled to keep his footing, like a deer learning how to walk in a forest’s unsteady and damp terrain. He grabbed one of the bars with one hand, quick and nimble, unlike the rest of him.
Jack held his typewriter, almost instinctively, losing sight of the captain to prioritize what others would describe as his money machine. He’d rather keep that around than lose it among everything else lost on the island.
As the ship steadied, Jack looked back up at the captain, whose eyes were wide in alarm. Lips parted slightly, looking like an animal basked in headlights on a dark backroad. He closed his mouth, he swallowed, and he looked up and around instead of at the man in front of him.
He mumbled, but Jack didn’t bother to ask him to elaborate, “You alright?”
Englehorn met his eyes again before nodding, though his demeanor was still akin to an animal with raised hackles and bristled fur.
“Sit with me, you’ll be more stable.” The playwright insisted this time.
Englehorn furrowed his brows, though his eyes remained wide, as if he was unsure if Jack was holding out a reward for him, yet prepared to pull it away once the captain reached out.
He remained standing until another wave hit, larger this time. He used his other hand to grab onto another bar, legs apart to sturdy himself until the seas calmed again. A startled, yet stifled, whimper was heard among the creaking of the ship, and Jack’s patience was wearing thin.
As the wave passed, he insisted again, “I’d like it if you’d sit with me, captain.”
The formality was something he should’ve abandoned long ago, when the two were more familiar with each other or too focused on more dire things than formalities. However, he felt like someone coaxing a frightened stray closer, the title putting up a facade of distance between the two.
Perhaps, Englehorn would feel safer then, if he held onto some sort of inhibition like he was with the bars. A feeling of detachment was more attractive than the opposite, where feelings of kindness could drive one away from the other. He’d rather not know if kindness was a potential, rather than present and free to be taken.
The captain hesitated, then he slowly pushed the cage door open, brows furrowed and expression returning to his regular, hardened sea captain visage. Only for a moment, however, as he stepped into the enclosure and shut the door behind him.
He looked around, shoulders stiffened, eyes wide once more before he looked down at the playwright.
Jack smiled softly, shifting to his left to make room for the captain on his cot. His eyes were kind, rather unassuming, though they did not catch the light as well as Englehorn’s.
“Sit, please.” Jack said softly, watching Englehorn inch his way to the spot beside the playwright on the cot.
The captain sat, though stiff and as far from the other man as he could manage, looking down at the floor instead. Never had a floor been so interesting until now, tracing the gaps in the floorboards with his eyes.
“So,” Jack said, “why’d you come down here?”
Englehorn shrugged. He found himself wanting to go to Jack at every turn on the island, but he didn’t allow it.
Maybe it was catching up to him now.
“Are you scared of something else?” The playwright asked. The captain looked over at him, then over at the typewriter.
The playwright seemed to read him clearly, “You can say you’re scared, it’s not a bad thing.”
Englehorn looked at his lap, voice stifled to hide how thick his accent had become, “Not for me.”
Jack leaned forward to try and meet the captain’s eyes, “Not for you?”
“I’m brave.” Englehorn was trying to reassure himself more than anything. Jack sighed.
“No one’s brave all the time,” the playwright said, “and I think you were brave enough already.”
The captain shook his head, fumbling his words as he tried to find them all, “I’m brave all- all the time.”
“All the time?”
“For everyone else.”
The playwright nodded. He looked at his typewriter before looking at the captain again, “You don’t need to be brave for me all the time.”
Englehorn’s lip quivered. The playwright was reminding him too much of his mother. The ache he felt in the wheelhouse was even more apparent now, and it was hurting.
His brows knitted together and his eyes welled with tears, “But- I’m always brave-”
His voice wavered as he clutched the fabric of his pants, hanging his head to avoid looking at the other man.
Before he could react, the playwright had shifted closer to him, his hands on his shoulders as he quietly spoke, “Hey, now, you’re okay, you’re alright.”
Englehorn hastily wiped his tears, albeit a bit clumsily, aching to sob. He sniffled, his throat stretching thin and feeling his vocal chords straining not to whimper.
Suddenly, the ship hit another wave, harshly rocking the two men and having them bump into each other. A yelp escaped Englehorn then, scrambling to grab onto the playwright’s jacket and bury his face into his shoulder.
“M-Mama!” The captain cried out without a second thought, and not allowing himself to regain his composure and realize what he said. The playwright, with one hand on the captain’s back and the other on one of his shoulders, registered the name he was called and furrowed his brows.
Before he could think further, he felt Englehorn shake beneath his hands, quietly sobbing into the other man’s jacket. Jack’s eyes softened as he moved his hand from the captain’s back to the hair that peeked out from under his cap, gently scratching at it.
“You’re alright, it’s just a wave.” He’d be lying if he said the wave didn’t frighten him either, or that he wasn’t scared at all, but he felt that only one person should be scared in this cage. Evidently, it couldn’t be him this time.
The captain gripped onto the other man’s jacket, trembling, but trying to stifle his sobs. He peeked out to look at the typewriter again, wanting something to focus on instead of the waves outside. His head rose a bit to get a better look, rubbing the tears out of his eyes and looking at the paper.
The playwright took notice of Englehorn’s curiosity and cracked a smile. Wordlessly, he lifted the exposed part of the paper up with one hand, trying to make out the words in the dark.
“I’ll tell ya, it’s hard sleeping on this boat when it rocks so much. I’ve been writing this instead.” The playwright explained, his words soft on Englehorn’s ears. He loosened up as he sunk further into the playwright’s shoulder.
“How about we move a little, so you can watch me write?” Jack proposed, gently pushing Englehorn up to get his arm under him. As both hands rested on the table in front of him, he let the captain rest his head on his shoulder again, not protesting when he wrapped his hands around the playwright’s arm and shifted into a less awkward position.
Jack smiled down at the captain before he read over what he wrote earlier, looking around the enclosure before he resumed typing. The clacking was strangely hypnotic to Englehorn, a steady rhythm occasionally broken by the other man pausing to think. He let his eyes close, shifting so he could lay as much as he could with the little amount of space given.
Ding!
The noise made him jolt up, eyes snapped back open as he looked at the machine.
Jack looked down at him, his concern palpable, before he chuckled.
“Oh, is the bell too loud?” Jack felt bad frightening the captain, but it was just a little comical.
Inhibitions all lost, Englehorn nodded, whimpering out a quiet, “Scary …”
The playwright sighed, “Alright, I won’t scare you anymore.”
He pushed the carriage to the side before looking down at the captain, reaching over to scratch at the hair exposed under his cap again to settle him down. Englehorn leaned into Jack’s hand, a small smile pulling at the corners of his lips. When Jack stopped, the captain looked up, eyes catching the light again and giving a juvenile sparkle.
“Read?”
The playwright smiled, “You want me to read what I wrote?”
Englehorn nodded.
Jack leaned over to lift the paper up again, squinting to make out the letters as best he could, “Now, I don’t know how good this is, or if it’s making it to the stage, but…”
His voice trailed off, not wanting to bother the captain with something so mundane, so he cleared his throat and read. It was mostly stage directions and descriptions of settings, he hadn’t thought much about characters or dialogue yet.
Jack realized what he wrote must have been rather boring, because he was interrupted by a low growl. He looked down at Englehorn, seeing him asleep against his shoulder, quietly snoring as he was losing his grip on the playwright’s arms, his hands slowly inching down the fabric of his jacket.
The playwright couldn’t help but smile, making out the captain’s calm expression under the little amount of light that crept into the enclosure.
He placed one hand over one of the captain’s, leaning in and hoping he would hear it somehow, “Mama’s got ya, don’t you worry.”