Llyr and the Pirates - Day 18
Day 18: Forced to Hunt/Sing/Perform
For @amonthofwhump‘s Water Whump May, where I write a part of this story every day according to the prompt. I think Hugh and Gawain are constantly trying to one-up each other because whenever one bastard does a bad thing, the other one does something worse and I can’t stop them helppp.
Tag list: @spiffythespook, @castielamigos-whump-side-blog, @insanitywishes, @whumpingonarainyday
Content warnings: noncon kiss(ish? she’s just doing cpr so that’s why), threats of death
no editing we die like fools.
Even as he went still, as he let out a breath, as his eyes rolled into the back of his head…
The singing never stopped.
He woke to lips pressing against his own, stale breath forced down his throat, and hands repeatedly pounding down on his chest. He couldn’t breathe right under the weight and he tried to bat the hands off, choking and coughing on wet breaths.
“Stah… stop it, gotta- gotta breathe…” he slurred, pushing weakly against hands that immediately let go, to his relief.
“Finally! I was starting to think you died for good. Captain woulda been fuckin’ pissed,” a female voice said, and he looked up to see a woman kneeling above him. She was part of Gawain’s crew, no doubt, but he didn’t know why she was there, or why he was there for that matter.
Where had he been before this? Gawain tied him to the front of the ship, he remembered that much. Then… he’d broken free, hadn’t he? He’d broken free and swam away with those other people: the ones who looked like they had tails and held him down under the water until he couldn’t stay conscious any longer.
Who were they? Why were they there? Nobody dared go for a swim that far out in the ocean, for fear of what vicious creatures lived there below the surface. Were these people some of those vicious creatures?
He banished the thought from his head. He’d been so incoherent by that time that some of his memory had to be imagined or exaggerated. Though that still didn’t explain how in the world he survived. Ray turned back to the woman still leaning over him.
“How did y-you-” he started, but a coughing fit overtook him. Water and spit dripped from the corner of his mouth when he spoke again, weakly. “How’d you find me?”
“You were floating in the water right over here. How could I not find you?” she chuckled, grabbing at his arm. “Now get up. Captain wants you back safe and sound, and it’s not like I brought anyone else to carry you back.” True to her word, there really was nobody else around the small cove he’d ended up in. How he’d ended up there, he had no idea, but the ship was nowhere in sight. She leaned down to pull Ray more firmly, hoisting him to his unsteady feet before he could protest further. It was only then that the full extent of the situation struck him.
They were isolated. He didn’t know where he was going, but he knew which direction the lady was walking. If he kept going on his own, he was bound to find the ship eventually. And Llyr was still there; what was happening to him now that Ray had run off?
He curled his hand into a fist before he even knew what he was doing, and launched a punch at her temple from behind. She crumpled to the ground with a shout, and she was out cold. Well. That worked out, he supposed. The adrenaline was still coursing through Ray’s veins as he continued on trembling legs, walking across rocky sand with larger chunks that dug into his feet, already sore from the night before.
The sun, rising higher in the sky, heated everything around him and forced him to sweat out water he didn’t think his body even had in its dehydrated state. But eventually, after not all too long, he made it back to the ship where there were plenty more sailors milling around.
Most seemed to be patrolling the edges of the beach, and he pressed back up against the rocky cliff, the shade it provided just enough to hide him from plain sight. Ray continued along there, watching everyone warily, and finally made it to the point where he was aligned with the back entrance point of the ship. The ground there was littered with splintered wood, along with the rocks.
There was one more person he could see, milling around in a barely visible room, but they soon disappeared up a set of stairs and he took his chance. Ray slunk into the ship, all carefully silent footfalls and owlish wide eyes, looking around in the relative darkness to find any sign of where they’d kept Llyr. Each room he checked was devoid of other people, and he grew tense with the fear that Gawain had already woken him and hurt him even more for no reason before Ray had the chance to save him.
Then there was a cold point of metal at the small of his back, a hand on his shoulder, and he couldn’t think.
“Don’t move,” a voice said, and he recognized it. “Hugh? Oh thank god, it’s you I-” “I said don’t move!” he hissed, pressing the blade in hard enough to draw blood. Ray went stiff and turned back around to face forward. He kept his breathing steady. He wouldn’t let his heart race, and he wouldn’t let himself panic. This was a misunderstanding, or- or something, he didn’t fucking know right now.
“...what’s up?” Ray asked, throat tightening around the words, forcing them out higher than he’d intended.
“You ran,” Hugh stated simply.
“I was gonna help you, and we were gonna get out before anyone else woke up. No harm done. You know...”
“Do you know how much trouble you got me in?” he snapped, jerking Ray’s shoulder back and forcing his body against the blade. “You wanna know what happened after you set such a great fucking example?!”
“I’m-” he tried to speak, but Hugh was dead set on saying what he had planned. Knowing him, he’d been rehearsing the coming speech in his head since whatever incident had occurred.
“The little fucking thief ran off,” he growled, “and I’m taking the blame for his disappearance. First you, then him, and the captain’s gonna have my head soon if I don’t fix this shit. He’s got plans for you, ya know.”
Llyr had run. That was all that mattered. He’d gotten out of there, away from Gawain and Hugh, and he was safer wherever he was now.
“Good for him. Let him go, Hugh, and we’ll get out of here ourselves.”
“Get out of here? You’re making that sound like a good thing, Ray. I think we’ll be just fine here. Captain’s the first sensible guy I’ve met in years, really.”
“I’m your captain, Hugh: not that freak. We’re leaving and finding wherever the rest of the crew sailed off to, and that’s final.”
“I don’t take orders from you anymore, Raymond!” Hugh all but shouted in his ear. “I’m tired of you and your happy, peaceful little rules! If I gotta join up with some law abiding folks to have some decent fun, then goddammit that’s what I’m gonna do!”
Ray was silent for a moment, and the words hung in the air like an awful stench. Perhaps he should have seen that coming.
“Listen up. You and I are gonna take a nice walk down the beach and find that boy, and when we do, we’re gonna bring him right back here. If you refuse to help,” he paused, trailing the blade up his back with a feather light touch, “I’ll end you right here, right now.”
“Wait, don’t, I- won’t Gawain kill you, then? If you- if you kill me?”
“He’ll kill me anyway if I don’t find Llyr, and the stupid brat would never come with me if I didn’t have help. Now are you helping, or am I gonna have to explain why I got blood all over these new, clean clothes before he spills mine as well?”
Ray breathed out a wavering sigh and closed his eyes.
“...okay. I’ll help.”
Next part
