How bout star crossed lovers trope?My two favorite scenarios being 1)neither know the other is from the opposition so we get that delicious “oh shit” moment when they realize or 2)they both know who the other is but they pretend they dont cause when they’re together they just want to ignore the bullshit conflict between their sides. Bonus points if they start as friends & slowly fall in love. I’ve been trying to find a Matt/Foggy fic with this trope for ages.Might man up and just write it myself
I sort of answered this already with “Forbidden Love”! Ugggh I know @werelibrarian wrote something with Matt and Foggy on rival sides of a gang war (Matt’s a piano player I think?), but I can’t find it. But either way you should definitely write yours!
This one, it’s the 1920s and Matt’s a piano player in a strange multicultural offshoot of the Italian mob (Karen Page (aka Paigey Seraphimo) owns the speakeasy he plays in but Wilson Fisk (aka Guglielmo Fisicaro) owns the neighbourhood) and Foggy’s the son of the head of the Irish gang, Rosalind Sharpe. It’s got rumrunners and honest cops and flappers, Pinkertons, and Edward Nelson as a scarred, mysterious police captain. It’s got mobsters from Chinatown to Harlem, dumbbell tenements, blind tigers where you can buy Jamaica ginger, my take on the Castellammarese War and on the eve of the big conflict Frank and Karen dance while Matt plays this version of Blue Skies . I’ve been percolating this universe for a few years but the story still feels as big as the entire ASoIaF universe and I am a small tired human who has to go to work in the morning.Â
This one, it’s the 1930s and Matt’s a bodyguard for Wilson Fisk and Foggy’s the lieutenant for his mother again (love writing her as a mob boss), and they are Romeo and Juliet in torturous love. I spent all of January turning this into a plan for a long fic and then the world exploded, so it’s still a stack of notes. soz.Â
i was reading about the myth of prometheus today when the phrase "new liver, same eagles" popped into my mind, so i'm keeping that in mind for the next time someone asks me how it's going
First instinct is to say no, as I’m not super into it as a trope as either the Freaky Friday comedy version or in the more serious “walk a mile in my shoes” version.
 However, what I AM currently weak for is a “older version of the character goes back in time and magically inhabits their younger self.” If properly set up, the angst and pining across a gulf of time and circumstance can be exquisite.Â
Happy birthday @theapatheticmoose! I hope you like this, because I had a lot of fun writing it.Â
The prompt was:Â Established relationship/some fluffy shenanigans. I live for these boys being happy.Â
[content warning: alcohol, hangovers, intoxicated but consensual sex.]
---
9:57 AM
Foggy awoke to a noise like a confused moose being dragged through a field of typewriters, and was disgusted to discover that it was coming from him.
Fucking hell, what had he done to himself last night?
He thought he should just be brave about waking up, but the window in the corner of the bedroom wedged a dagger under his cracked eyelids and there was another—more aggrieved than concussed this time—moose/typewriter sound.
Unsteadily, eyes still closed, he rolled out of bed, one heavy foot hitting the floor and sending a dress shoe spiralling. Then the second foot. There was a moment of panic when the head went from horizontal to vertical, and the lights behind his eyelids started to swirl ominously.
He made his way to the kitchen slowly, going hand-over-hand on the furniture, the walls, and at one low point, the floor. The sound of the water from the tap rushing into his hands sizzled like acid on his brain but the cool of it pouring down his throat was as much a relief as seeing Matt alive and breathing after thinking him dead.
He opened his eyes. Bright. Painfully bright. Had the kitchen always been so shiny? Maybe Matt had the right of it and Foggy should find the closest nuclear waste truck and give himself a facial.
But besides all the glare and the self-pity, there was a sparkle that, when he lined up enough brain cells to clack together like an executive desk toy, Foggy realized wasn’t because of the chrome of the tap or the glint off the window pane. It was on his hand.
Huh. A wedding ring.
4 AM
"You better be close," Foggy laugh-sobbed, fucking into Matt and grinding in at the deepest point of each thrust to make Matt's groans go fluttery, "cuz I've got the spins and you've come twice."
"Do not throw up on me," Matt ordered through giggles, "and I've come once." He paused. "And a half."
Foggy would have waved that nonsensical statement away, but both his hands were occupied with digging bruises into Matt's hips. They had both of them drunk New York dry of Irish whiskey, and now, the picture Matt made spread out before Foggy—his head hung low between his shoulders, his back arching and flexing like a washing line in a windstorm—had made a lot of things fall by the wayside. Clothes. Common sense. Counting.
Foggy blinked sweat from his eyes. "Grind against me," he suggested, manhandling Matt off his elbows and crushing him to his chest, taking his weight. Matt's back arched and Foggy dragged his hands down his stomach, fingers catching on the ridges of his straining muscles. "God, you look so nice like this. Yeah, that's it, baby, dance on my cock."
Matt laughed, but writhed against Foggy like he was working for a tip. "Christ, Foggy were you always this trashy?"
"If I wasn't, I'm gonna make it my new thing, because if it gets me this…" Foggy gritted out and fucked in hard, making Matt squeal, not that he'd ever admit it. Matt gripped Foggy by the back of the head and worked himself up and down, grinning into Foggy's jaw, moaning that it was so good, too good, he was going to die from it. Foggy groaned and kissed Matt's blissed-out smile, biting and sucking his lips and wrapping his fingers around Matt's cock, swallowing down Matt's cries as he came.
For a long time there was only the sound of Matt's huffed half-laughs, half-pants, and Foggy licked at the rivulets of sweat tracing down corded tendons as Matt melted into him, utterly spent. "What the fuck's half an orgasm, anyway?"
Matt just laughed, and a lazy, trouble-making smile spread over his face. "Wanna keep going?" he murmured. "Come on, Foggy. Use me."
"Are you sure?" Foggy asked, but his hips were snapping up almost of their own volition, putting lie to his question. Matt nodded, eager despite his exhaustion, and Foggy's hips moved again. And then again, and then he was fucking into Matt steadily,
A small, shocked noise punched out of Matt, and then another  giggle, and he shoved Foggy's hand down to his belly and pressed it there hard, Foggy could feel himself moving inside, deeper than words, deeper than breath. Â
"Oh fuck, Matt," Foggy choked, and shoved Matt down on the bed, Matt's dirty chuckle smothered by a face full of blankets. Foggy fell on Matt like a starving man, holding him by the wrists and pressing open-mouthed, whiskey-scented kisses to his jaw. "I love you," Foggy groaned, coming hard. "Baby, I fucking love you."
The aftershocks felt like they went on forever, shivers and pulses that made Matt hum happily. "Oh my god," Foggy groaned, faceplanted between Matt's shoulder blades.
"We should do that again," Matt yawned, turning over under Foggy and grinning up at the ceiling.
"Y'fucking shitting me, I can't even feel my knees," Foggy groused, pressing sloppy kisses to Matt's face and feeling more consciousness bleeding out of him with each one.
3AM
After they slipped out of the bar—and they were going to have to apologize for not saying goodbye to well, anyone—they couldn't keep their hands off each other. Matt's jacket was completely mis-buttoned and Foggy's shirt tails were hanging out the back of his trousers; both their collars were askew and stained, ties yanked open. They were both obviously hard in their pants and pawing each other, right there in front of god and all the security cameras.
The cab stopped for them anyway. So in a way it was the cabbie's own fault.
“Hey, hands above the waist or I’m driving us into the Hudson River!” The cabbie barked, glaring into the rear-view mirror.
“Drop us at 11th Avenue on your way,” Foggy retorted, licking a diamond of Matt’s belly through where he'd gotten one shirt button opened. Matt's sank one hand into Foggy’s hair and started fumbling with another button with the other.
“Come on, guys, I’m a good Catholic boy,” the cabbie pleaded, lead-footing it to almost unsafe speeds. “I don’t need this in my life.”
“I’m one too and I really do,” Matt said, backing Foggy against the cab door and crawling on top of him as best as his seatbelt allowed.
“Hey, that’s a belt, that sounded like a belt. I’m serious guys, the docks are just up ahead. I hope you can swim with your pants down.” The cabbie had a good ear, Matt had gotten Foggy’s belt open and was rooting around in his trousers with a hot and confident touch.
“Matt, oh my god…” Foggy's head thunked against glass as Matt cursed the seatbelt and bent his head towards Foggy's lap.
“Ay dios mio, we’re here! No, it’s fine, it’s free, just get out!”
2AM
Matt bit Foggy's neck and pushed him into the bar’s tiny coat room. "Yer a wicked, wicked man, Mr. Nelson," he purred against Foggy's skin. Maybe it was the bottle of Knappogue Castle Single Malt they'd murdered between them, but Foggy heard something of the old country in Matt's loose, liquored vowels.
"What're you gonna do about it, Mr. Murdock?"
"That depends. What'll you let me do?"
"This is such a bad idea, Matt," Foggy said, head smashing against the wall because Matt's fingers were on his nipples, flicking through the fabric of his shirt.
"Uh huh," Matt said, sucking Foggy's thumb into his mouth.
"Oh God. Come on, Matt, don't make me be the responsible one tonight, there was so much whiskey," Foggy groaned.
"I've had more than you," Matt retorted, and Foggy pushed him away, suddenly alarmed. "I want this, Foggy, I promise you. I want you so bad."
"God, you're impossible," Foggy huffed, and dragged him close again by the lapels of his suit jacket. Matt's palms hit the wall on either side of Foggy's head and his expression was the most beautiful thing Foggy had ever seen—eyes whiskey-bright and mischievous, lips red and wet, smile lustful and wicked. "You gonna kiss me then?"
Matt's mouth was on him before he was finished speaking, and Foggy sighed, feeling warmed and loved and welcomed home. He wanted this for the rest of his life.
And then Matt's hand moved firmly over Foggy's cock, and the noise Foggy made was overwhelmed and panicked. "Fuck, Matt stop—" Matt jerked back. "I don't want to—I want to stay hard for you," Foggy said, feeling his face heat. "I want to be good for you tonight."
"Jesus Mary and Joseph," Matt said, breathless, and dove in to lick at Foggy's slack mouth like it contained all the water left in the world. "Yes, please, Foggy."
11 PM
"Here, Matt, sláinte is táinte." Foggy smashed a lowball of whiskey against the twin he'd just shoved in Matt's hand. "Having fun?"
"Music's a bit loud," Matt admitted, raising his whiskey to his lips, but he was grinning, shoulders loose and surrounded by their friends.
"Drink your drink, then. It'll make everything a beautiful blur," advised Foggy, gesturing a little broadly. The selection at this bar really was superb, he had to say something nice to the owner.
Karen arched a wicked eyebrow at Foggy, and wrapped her scarlet lips around a straw poking out of a bright orange cocktail. "Is the Irish just for special occasions, Foggy? I don't think I've ever heard it come out of your mouth before."
"You'll like this one, then: Sláinte chuig na fir, agus go mairfidh na mná go deo."
"What does that mean?"
"Health to the men and may the women live forever," Matt supplied absently, rolling the now-empty lowball glass around under his nose and making sounds of appreciation that brushed up against the category of contented purring. "This is some good stuff. Is there more?"
"More Irish or more whiskey?" Brett asked, grave and amused as he always was. He waggled Matt's lowball at the bartender, and another glass magically appeared at Matt's elbow.
"Grá, dĂlseacht, cairdeas!" Foggy burst out, and clinked Karen's fancy cocktail coupe, "that's love." Then Brett's wineglass, "loyalty." Finally, he tapped Matt's lowball, making the edge ring, "and friendship."
Matt grinned widely and raised his glass. "I'll drink to that."
After Karen and Brett ambled off to do a loop of the room, Matt tried to lick the inside of the glass surreptitiously. Foggy guffawed and came back from the bar with the whole bottle. "I'm surprised, you never said your family kept any Irish."
Foggy blew a raspberry. "You think I got it from mom and dad? I had a gift card for Rosetta stone."
Matt's face split into a grin. "And it taught you how to raise toasts?"
"I can also probably flirt, a little."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah." Foggy straightened Matt's tie. "Cuisle mo chroĂ, amhrán m'anama, solas mo oĂche."
"What does that mean?"
Foggy grinned, feeling the warmth of happiness and company and whiskey. He pulled Matt close to whisper in his ear. "Pulse of my heart, song of my soul, light of my life."
5:50PM
Foggy's knuckles were white clenched around his phone, watching the seconds tick past. It was a digital clock, it was silent, but Foggy felt like it was filling the marble lobby.
"Foggy. Give me the phone," Brett tried to pry his fingers away, but Foggy just turned big, terrified eyes up at him and he gave up with a sigh. Next to him, Karen was texting furiously, also white knuckled.
"Nelson!" someone shouted, skidding along the marble floor. Everyone in the lobby looked up. "Are you named Nelson? No! Foggy, we're here," Danny panted, hands on his knees. "I've sweat through my shirt," he told Karen, who turned a bewildered expression at Brett, who shrugged back.
"We? What we? I only see you so far, and you're not that important for what's coming next," Brett told Danny.
"I know—" Danny gestured at the door to the lobby, then made two horn fingers, then drew a line down his chest like he was doing up an imaginary tie. Then he waved both hands like he was trying to dispel the nonsense he'd just signed.
"Matt's outside hiding the er—red—suit and putting on normal person clothes," Karen translated.
"Yeah, I caught that," Foggy said. He stood and hugged Danny in relief.
"Oh, a hug! That's nice. I'm sweaty."
"Danny, get off him," Matt barked, striding into the lobby at speed. Luke was trotting along behind, fixing the back of his collar, and Jessica followed a few paces behind, looking capable but uncomfortable in actual high heels, carrying a duffle that bulged like it was packed with kevlar armour. "Foggy—are we—is it—am I too late?"
Before Foggy could say anything, a marriage bureau clerk called out to them. "Nelson Murdock wedding?"
"Here! We're here!" about eight people around Foggy shouted.
"We close in ten minutes, group. The judge can see you now if you hurry," the clerk said, smiling indulgently.
Three superheroes, a cop, and a super sleuth filed into the chambers, but Foggy, with Matt's hand on his arm, dug in his heels. "Matt, wait. Just wait a second."
All the colour drained from Matt's face. "What is it? You’re not mad because I was late, are you? There was—" he waggled a frustrated hand in a gesture that encompassed all of the crime in New York.
Foggy took in Matt's lovely, anxious, faintly bruise-mottled face and breathed out all the roiling uncertainty that had built up waiting for Matt to arrive. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pink carnation rendered in silk fabric and thread, and pinned it to Matt's lapel. "No, I’m not mad. I just wanted to look at you one last time."
Matt ran his fingers over the silk flower. "Before you make an honest man out of me?"
"Before I make a husband out of you," Foggy said, kissing Matt softly. Matt's lips curved up sweetly under the kiss.
"Hey, dickheads, the judge wants to go home sometime, you know," Jessica stuck her head out of the chambers. Her voice was snappish, but her cheeks were pink and her eyes were smiling.
"Yeah, we're coming!" Matt called, and offered Foggy his arm. "Ready?"
Foggy took it. "With you, for anything."
9:58 AM
That's how Matt found him, hunched over the kitchen sink staring at his wet hand. "I woke up and you weren't there," Matt said, his voice rough as fourteen miles of bad road. "Not a good way to start a marriage."
Foggy didn't answer. He rested his head next to the sink and gazed at Matt, naked but for Foggy's ring on his finger and Foggy's love bites everywhere else. The sight of him was as much of a balm as the cool counter.
Matt smirked and found Foggy's forehead with a cool, slightly shaky hand. “Are you hurting, sweetheart?”
“Die in a hole,” Foggy croaked at his new husband.
Chuckling painfully, Matt pulled him in, spoon-ways, and rested his head on Foggy’s shoulder. Foggy fancied he could feel Matt’s pounding head through his bones. “Can you even remember what happened last night?”
“Two Irish boys tied the knot, that’s what,” Foggy said. He burped. It tasted of whiskey.
Against his shoulder, Matt snorted. "It's no kind of good morning, because I might throw up any second now, but good morning, husband."
Foggy turned and captured Matt's mouth—cracked lips, foul breath and all. "It's a good morning now."
48 hours earlier:
“Is this your underwear on the bathroom doorknob?” Yelled from the bedroom.
“No. Wait, let me check.” The sound of the waistband being pulled away from a bare midriff. “Yes.”
Helpless laughter. “What the hell, Foggy.”
“Just leave them there, I’ll circle back later.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“I’m delicious. And nakeder than I thought I was a second ago.”
Giggling turned into ugly, unselfconscious snorting. “Oh my god, Foggy. Marry me.”
“What?”
“…What?”
Matt, framed in the door to their bedroom, eyebrows scrunched and bewildered. Foggy, standing in the living room staring at him, blinking rapidly.
"I'll call the marriage bureau?" Foggy offered.
Matt cocked his head. "I guess I'll call the bar."
"Wait, Matt, bring me the underwear, I can't talk to a city official like this."
Dearest @aliscontritum, this is a terrible birthday gift on a number of levels. One, it’s late. Two, it’s not what you asked for. But right now life is the period of time between hits of my emotional support bi pirates, so please, have too many words of an AU literally no one asked for.Â
I also would like to bring you this piece of Dread Pirate Murdock fanart, because it is beautiful.Â
[genuine content warnings: violence, blood, and discussions of 18th century slave-trading.]
[comedy content warnings: made up naming practices of the English gentry, completely inaccurate descriptions of ship anatomy, violence to hinges.]
--
Karen
After three days at sea, under a burning Caribbean sun, the Captain's useless hostage ("my guest," the Captain had said, smiling a twisted and vicious smile) deigned to step out on deck without his wig.
From the rigging, men whistled and hooted at the hostage's naked head, the fine gold hair that looked like soft cornsilk. The hostage—she had heard that he was the eldest son of an Earl, back in England, so if her memory served her, that made him The Honourable Lord something or other.
Karen's life in London had been a colourless wash of a chambermaid's drudgery, day after day of not speaking out of turn, of not demanding more than her station was allowed, of not stabbing her employer with his own letter opener when he backed her up against the drawing room fireplace and lifted her skirt. Well. Not more than once. She'd left London not long after that, a fistful of that employer's silverware tied up in her bodice. But she still remembered how to address a Earl's son.Â
The Honourable Lord whots-his-face blushed at the catcalling and waved his hand to the men as if to accept the mockery with grudging good humour: "yes yes, you're too kind," and joined Karen at the railing of the quarterdeck.
"Milord," Karen tugged at her wide-brimmed hat.
"Quartermaster," the fancy twit replied, nodding back. "Please, call me Foggy. The captain?"
Karen nods up at the rigging, and the Captain's guest lifted a hand to shade his eyes, squinting up into the web of ropes that to a non-sailor, must have looked like a chaotic tangle.
"Where?"
Karen put her head close to his lordship's, and bid him sight along her arm as she pointed. "There."
Men on land and on sea whispered about the captain of the ship called the Hell's Kitchen, who could see in the dark, who fought like a wraith, and who flew a black flag with a design of a skull with horns above a pair of crossed staves. That same man was now standing upon the foretop-gallant yard, one hand wrapped around the t'gallant stay and leaning out over oblivion, sightlessly scanning the horizon.
The black of his boots and the buff of his breeches were virtually invisible amongst the tan of the ropes and the bundled white sails and the dark wood of the masts and the yards, but even at this great distance, the crimson of the scarf that he wore wrapped over his face like a mask was easily spotted against the sky, as was the golden skin of his bare torso.
The well-born hostage at her side shook his head and snorted genteely. "Does the Captain not own a shirt?"
Karen actually had to think before answering.
***
Matt
Not any of God's wonders—not the sky, the storms, nor the horizon itself—could hide ships from Captain Matt Murdock, not when he climbed far from the noise and stench of his crew. Up here, it was peace and freedom and clarity, and a bracing wind that made the tails of his mask snap out behind him like whips. Up here,  the vastness of the sea opened before him like a clean bedsheet drifting down onto the largest bed in the world and could hide nothing from him.
That's how he had found the ship taking the Earl of Berwick's eldest son from the colony of New York back to England. The sword at Matt's hip—his father's— and the skill of his crew was how he took it easily. That same crew, treasure-dazzled, followed the little Lord Berwick around like they wanted to strip the gold braid on his coat and melt it down. Â
"My father will pay my ransom," Lord Berwick had said. His voice trembled and so did the links of the shackles he'd been clapped in, but he stood amongst his captors with a straight spine and a high chin, and Matt felt his mouth curl involuntarily.
"Good. You can write to him when we drop anchor in Nassau."
"Nassau?"
"Fine place," Matt said, taking a seat behind his desk and skimming his dagger over the equator of an apple. "You can do anything your black heart desires there."
"I'm not a criminal."
Matt popped a slice of apple in his mouth. "In Nassau, nothing is legal. Therefore nothing is illegal." He held out a slice, balanced on the tip of his knife. "Isn't that right, lads?"
The crew chuckled darkly, the sound coming from all corners.
Lord Berwick's fingers closed on the apple slice and brought it to his mouth. Matt heard the crunch of it in his teeth, but otherwise he gave no answer.
***
Foggy
"Sail!" The cry drifted down from the t'gallant yard, and immediately, Captain Murdock dropped his cane, and  hopped onto the gunwale, leaning out over the water. Foggy picked up the cane and marvelled at the superhuman power of this man, who should have been laid low by his blindness, but instead was spoken about in miraculous tales: how he could hear whether a ship was laden with gold or not, could taste an oncoming storm, could smell an enemy's intention to strike high with his sword or low.
The ship's quartermaster and the bosun were at the captain's side in a heartbeat, both with spyglasses held to their eyes, and then they swore in unison. The captain, hearing their curses, cackled with a hysterical edge. "Raise the black!"
"Mr. Gunner," Foggy tapped the bulging arm of a nearby sailor, one who Foggy had espied running a team of men through a cannon-firing drill with his booming voice.
"It looks like a raiding ship. The Kingpin is the only ship that makes the captain laugh like that."
"It’s flying the black. Pirates attack their own kind?"
Cage scoffed. "The Kingpin's men aren't of a kind with anyone on this crew. Those bastards are their own breed of demon."
"Gun crews at the ready," Murdock bellowed. "Prepare to engage."
"Best get back to your cabin," Cage said, before striding away, shouting orders to his crew.
The window in Foggy's quarters faced the aft of the ship, and he couldn't see anything but the smoke of cannons drifting on the wind. A particularly vicious strike rocked the ship on its keel and tumbled him across the room, and when he shook the lights from his vision he was staring at his previously locked door, dangling askew in the doorway from the bolt.
Well, he thought. If there was no protection to be had in here, why stay? He shucked his coat and inched out of the room till he was boxed in the square of sunlight afforded by the hatch to the deck. Below him, he heard the guns firing, and above him, he heard the running tread of feet and clatters of metal, like armloads of swords and pistols and grenades being gathered.
All at once, all sound was vanquished, and the sudden silence was infinitely more frightening.
The ship creaked, and groaned, and then Foggy heard a slow, cautious tread go over his head. Then another, and another. They'd been boarded. He backed away from the light of the sky and pressed against the bulkhead, whispering a prayer.
Up on the deck, there was a strange sound. It was a low whistle, like a bird in mourning. Foggy's throat clicked, for it set his heart to panicking.
The square of light over the stairs distorted, and a boot fell heavily onto the first step. Foggy crossed himself, and as if in answer, above him, Captain Murdock gave a yell, echoed closely by the roar of a crew enraged.
"Hellions!" Murdock shouted, and there was already sword clashes overhead. "Kill 'em all!"
Foggy stayed where he was, crouched, listening, and would have been content to listen, had one of the Kingpin's men not tumbled backwards down the stairs, shirt and chest sliced with a sash of red. He staggered to his feet in a dizzy circle, rubbing his face, and when he opened his eyes, he was looking right at Foggy.
"Hello there," the raider said. "Don't you look…valuable."
Heart pounding, Foggy raised his hands and found his mouth babbling, pleading for his life. Letting the words encircle the raider like a bewildering mist as he got his silk-slippered foot underneath him, readying.
***
Karen
"We were lucky. Only seven wounded," Karen reported, as she followed her Captain to his quarters. "Dr. Temple is not unhopeful for any of them."
"And the dead?" Captain Murdock wiped blood from his neck and grimaced at the wet shirt that was sticking to him.
"None."
He clicked his tongue in surprise. "Damage to the ship?"
Karen listed a butchers' bill of blasted bulkheads, shredded rigging and torn sails, and ended with "…and Lord Berwick's door was blown off its hinges."
The captain froze. "He was unprotected?"
"He was."
"Did he acquit himself well?" The captain asked. It was a good question, and Karen bit her lips. The Hell's Kitchen had ferried the odd passenger before, and if they'd seen a battle, Karen usually found them weeping or gibbering or with soiled breeches. What she'd seen had been a far sight more alarming than any of that.
Captain Murdock shrugged into a fresh shirt and haphazardly shoved the front under his belt. He didn't bother to do up the collar. Â "What? Was he cut down? Did none dead mean only the crew?"
"No, no, Berwick's fine," she coughed. "It's just that—"
"That what?"
"He killed a man—"
The Captain slapped the desk. "Ha! Ha! I knew he had some guts—"
"—with his teeth."
His hand stopped mid-air. "Beg pardon?"
"He tore out a man's throat. With his teeth." She'd found Lord Berwick on his back next to a gulletless corpse. He'd worn a cravat of sticky blood, spitting and retching but still sound of mind and trembling only a little.
"Who—" Another good question. When she'd turned over his lordship's attacker with her foot, she'd expected some new recruit, like as not to know which end of the sword was the pointy end, not a hardened seaman.
"It was either Anatoly or Vladimir. There wasn't enough face left to be sure."
The Captain's eyebrows shot up. "Bugger me."
"Rather."
He stood and shrugged into his coat. "I believe I might owe the man a drink," he said, swaggering out.
"Do up your shirt!" Karen yelled after him.
"You're not the captain here!" he yelled back, letting the door slam.
***
Foggy
"Hold still," the bosun's enormous mate growled, swiping at Foggy's jaw with a rag soaked from a bottle of rum.
"It's not me that's moving, it's the ship," Foggy said. "Ouch! You have a rough touch, Mr. Castle."
The bosun's mate was bleeding from the nose, and from various cuts that dribbled vertical lines of blood down his face. It made him look like a skull sketched in red. "The doctor's physicking men more in need of it than you, milord" he snapped, rubbing like he was aiming to scrub away skin.
"I didn't say I didn't like it," Foggy grunted, eyes shutting. Castle's hand froze. Foggy snorted. "Never visit Whitechapel, Mr. Castle, you'd be eaten alive."
"Yes, my lord, I'll remember that." This time, no growling, just an odd shyness from a man so imposing. Foggy shook his head. He felt like he was leaking— like a bottle that was unstoppered and cracked, spilling words and fluids and confessions with every movement. Â
"Lord Berwick," the captain called, approaching them. He stopped short, his nostrils flaring. "You smell of blood, my lord."
"Well spotted, Captain. I'm rather untidy at the moment." Foggy's voice was strained.
"He's drenched nose to navel," Castle said, and he sounded nearly approving. The captain dismissed him with an irritated wave.
"Are you well, my Lord?"
"I think I still have some of that fellow in my teeth," Foggy said, and the Captain's throat bobbed. Â
"You should not have left your quarters," he said, low and severe.
"I know."
"You could have been killed."
"I know."
"And what would have happened then—"
Foggy placed a quieting hand on the captain's arm. "Sir, all is well—"
"No, Foggy—" the Captain took his hand from his arm and gripped it, urgent and fierce. Foggy felt the sudden weight of Castle's intrigued attention. "What would I have done if you had been—"
"Matt," Foggy whispered, quiet as a knife emerging from the folds of his clothing. "I'm fine."
***
Matt
"What's this?"
"45 pieces of eight," Matt's scowling sailing master said.
Matt tossed the bag up and caught it. It clinked beautifully. "Sounds about right. Why are you making me hold it?"
Jessica blew out an irritated breath. "It's what you promised us would be the share for Lord Berwick."
Matt tried to remember that even though he could have anyone on the ship flogged, doing so just because they didn't get to the fucking point was a fool's impulse. "Yes, and?"
"Captain, the crew doesn't want to ransom his lordship," Karen explained. "So they're paying you your share, so that they can keep him."
Matt nearly threw the gold overboard in pique. "What do you want to do with him? And from whence, I might add, these sudden scruples over my fair share of anything?"
No one spoke, but each of Matt's ragged crew shifted guiltily and elected one another to speak in a language of shoving at their fellows' shoulders. Matt's quartermaster sighed again. "They think he'd be good in the vanguard."
Now Matt nearly did send the gold down to Davy Jones' locker, but this time it was an honest fumble. "You want to make him a raider?"
"You could ask Anatoly if you aren't convinced, Captain," one crewman said.
"It was Vladimir," insisted another, smacking the first one roughly.
"Captain, we just want him on the crew."
Matt pinched the bridge of his nose. "You're all mad. He's a noble. He's never done a day's work in his life, and you would trust him with your lives, and more importantly with securing your take of prizes?
"Please?" Matt's cook, a tiny woman named Elena who had once fended off three raiders with a cleaver in one hand and a paring knife in the other, wheedled. Scattered echoes of the same sounded off amongst the gathered crew, like children asking for sweets.
Matt rolled his eyes, thankful for the mask, and flipped the bag back at his quartermaster. "Buy him some proper boots and a pistol, next time we're in Nassau."
The chorus of "thank you Captain" shouldn't have made him smile. He turned away quickly.
***
Matt knocked on Foggy's door that evening, noting the scent of iron filings and sheep fat—new hinges had been freshly attached and greased.
"Yes?"
Matt pushed into the small cabin. "Lord Berwick, I'm —what's going on here?" He smelled blood and enough sweat and filth for at least five men.
"The crew thought that I was deserving of an—ow, Brett!—memento of my first battle. They didn't—ow, fuck—quite accept that I would have happily hidden in my cabin had the door not been—Christ Jesus!—blown off." A huff of laughter and a pained hiss. "I quite literally could not say no."
Matt crossed his arms, fingers itching to touch. "And what would your father say?"
"Fuck his da," Brett muttered, tapping at his needle without pause. "Fucking slavertrader. We should find his fucking ships and put every soul not in chains to the the fucking sword."
Matt blinked. It was a good plan, but not one he thought he'd hear coming out of any mouth but his own. "There was a certain quantity of rum, last night," Foggy confessed. "I may have aired a confession or two."
"Brett, finish up another time," Matt ordered. "Everyone else please fuck off." When the last departing crewman politely shut the door behind her, Matt took the seat that Brett had just vacated. The scent of blood was strong here, and Matt bent to kiss a clean patch of Foggy's arm, on the soft skin of his bicep above the developing tattoo. "Does it hurt?"
"Like fire," Foggy said.
"What's it of?" Foggy's hesitation was embarrassed. "Foggy, what did my stinking crewman put on your body?"
"A pair of shark's jaws."
Matt felt his brow pucker, and then he threw his head back and laughed.
He felt as much as heard Foggy chuckle, and then a soft hand took Matt by the back of the neck, and Foggy pulled their foreheads together. "We did it," Matt sighed, kissing Foggy's lips.
"You did it, Matt. You saved me. I would have slit my own throat than sit at my father's side for the rest of my life, tallying the souls he means to buy and sell and devising ways for him to enlarge his accounts."
"Foggy, that would not have helped anyone, not even those he would sell into slavery."
"No, but there is a way we can help. I have ignored my part in the problem for long enough." Foggy reached under his hammock and skidded a book onto the table top. "The Earl sent this to me. It's a ledger of his ships, his routes, his kidnappers on the African coast. It's also every other slave-trading family he's had dealing with, and they'll all keep ledgers like this."
Matt felt his jaw unhinge, and Foggy dove at him, plundering Matt's open mouth ecstatically. "Take me with you," he said, breaking off with a gasp, "and we could burn his business to the ground."
***
It was another twelve days to Nassau.
A woman was standing on the veranda of a tavern, set in the shade of trees but as near to the shore as could be without being washed by the tide. To Matt, she was the smell of lilacs, beer, polished leather belts and an ever present set of clinking keys.
"Miss Natchios," Matt greeted her, and followed her to her office.
"I've been watching your ship unload all morning."
"The hunting was good." Give her nothing, he reminded himself.
"I saw sugar and swords and rum and silk, yes. What I didn't see was the Scottish lord you all but begged to be allowed to capture."
Matt pursed his lips, a rueful, unapologetic motion. "We were boarded and Lord Berwick was cut down, most tragically." He edged over a bag of coins. "Would your share of his ransom—had he lived—put a smile on your pretty face?"
A knife point slammed into the table, a hair's breadth away from Matt's hand. "No, but your thumb, strung on a ribbon around my neck, certain would."
Matt withdrew his hand. "…jeez, okay."
Elektra's palm landed heavily on the gold and she started rifling through it. "So who's the bonny lad lurking in my doorway with eyes for no one but you?" she asked.
Matt gestured, and a man walked over. His steps were heavy in worn leather boots, and his clothing was the rough grate of flannel and linen. Not a cool swish of silk to be heard at all. "This is my newest man. Stole him from the same ship as that wittering Berwick nob, though this one made it through battle just fine." He smiled up at Foggy, who ran an affection knuckle along Matt’s cheek.Â
“What?” Foggy said, when Matt’s eyebrows shot up. “I thought nothing was legal here, and therefore nothing was illegal.”
Elektra cleared her throat, and Matt's newest crewman tugged at his cap. "Your servant Foggy Nelson, madam," he said, in drawing-room tones. Matt grimaced internally.
"Polite," Elektra remarked, dry as sand.
"It's a virtue," Matt parried. She snorted.
"Ugh, whatever. I've a tip for you, if you have an interest in spice-carriers. It should be easily hunted—"
"No, I—" Elektra's startled silence at his interruption was a dangerous, cutting thing. "We want to make our presence known in the middle passage routes."
"We?"
Matt smirked, and felt Foggy's fingers brush the back of his coat supportively. "We."
"You want to vex English slave ships?" She leaned back in her chair, humming to herself as she moved men and goods and debts and credits around in her head. Then she smiled. Matt could hear her bared teeth. "Good."
Of all of the things that make me miserable right now, the fact that I read a noir AU that is better than anything I can currently write should not be so high on the list.
“Hurrah @pluckyredhead​ you made it to the end of the work week! So...”
Wait I love how in Foggy's perspective it was like one line but in Matt's it's like flowery and "and then god sucker punched me and I wept from the yearning"
Lol, you’re not wrong. I don’t know if I should plead “well if i wrote the same scene focus from each of them it’d be boring” or “Matt’s brain doesn’t half run away with him if he’s unsupervised” or “in my defence, Foggy gets to be flowery in chapters 4-6 of the original” but I feel like should be pleading something.Â
I’m generally not unhappy with that section but I know I haven’t earned it yet because I haven’t written the bits that lead him to it (discovering Foggy in Rouen, the whole Alfie and Wat thing, his epic sulk on the bowsprit). Hazards of posting fragments.Â
