3 An Impossible Dream #2
Why had Elizabeth allowed him to linger here, in these sweat-soaked sheets? His muscles were atrophied with lack of use and his stomach gnawed at his entrails, attempting to devour him from within. Jesus Christ. He was a fucking mess.
It must have been days, then. Hawk thought he had heard voices through his restless dreams. A woman - not Elizabeth - and a man, whispering softly over him.
“He’s just right there! Let me hold him, Mara!”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“Just one cuddle?”
“No!”
No. No, he must have hallucinated that as well. Just like he hallucinated the blue-eyed sea creature with a fishtail and the ass of an angel. What had his hallucination said to him then?
Ah yes. You are so much and everything I desire.
Hawk snorted and hit his head against the wooden headboard. His subconscious was the most pathetic place in the world.
He was going to have words with Elizabeth for pampering him like this. Elizabeth was supposed to be his partner. Hawk cursed his rum, his stomach, himself, and everything around him.
Finally, he managed to drag himself out of bed, and he stumbled downstairs to locate some food. Something to soak up the hangover should be easy enough. After all, Elizabeth Barnes didn’t run a fucking tavern for nothing.
He settled himself in a dark corner, projecting the aura of a man who was not to be fucked with, in a way that came all too naturally to him. Soon enough the mistress of the establishment plopped into the chair across from him.
“Welcome back,” Elizabeth said, pushing a cup his way. “It’s water.”
“Don’t tell anyone,” Hawk snarked and gulped down the life-giving beverage with eager, parched lips.
“So, your crew is back.”
“Fuck.”
“They thought you’d drowned yourself,” Elizabeth continued with the air of utter nonchalance. “They said they found your cabin empty and the storm windows opened.”
“Fucking...”
“Empty bottles of rum on the floor. No signs of a struggle.”
“Fucking fuck!”
“If it wasn’t for that lunatic in the courtyard, I wouldn’t have known how to explain it away myself!” she sighed.
Hawk’s eyebrow shot up towards his hairline. "The who now?"
“Some clown,” she waved in the direction of her door, “started spinning tales of ghouls aboard ships that take on the shape of the captain, and how they haunt the sailors and trick them into leaving their captains behind to lure them into a den of killer mermaids. You should have heard him!” Elizabeth laughed, her hand pressed to her heart.
“Oh god, Hawk! He... he’s... ahahahhahah...
He’s got your whole crew so riled up and fraught with guilt that you’ll have them eating out of your hand for a week, at least! ”
“And they... believed him?” Hawk’s brain hurt.
“He’s a heck of a storyteller,” Elizabeth shrugged. “The point is, whether or not they believe a ghost stole your form is irrelevant. They believe they abandoned you at port and they’re deeply ashamed.”
“Good,” Hawk cleared his throat. “Well, that’s exactly what happened, wasn’t it?”
“Aye aye, Captain.” Elizabeth rose with a smile and placed a warm hand on Hawk’s shoulder. “You should thank the kid, when you get a chance.”
“What’s his name?”
“Something Silver?” Elizabeth’s hand gestured into the air as if attempting to snatch a memory back from it. “Oh, there he is now! Mr. Silver, is it?”
“What are you doing?” Hawk hissed, in no mood to deal with any clown, including this one, who was apparently so full of lies that they fell from his lips like...
“Captain Hawk!”
...Like... Hawk swallowed. “And you are?”
“Um... Mister Silver?”
He was a very attractive clown. Hawk hadn’t expected that. And something about the color of his eyes that was just one shade too blue to have been real.
“Mister... Silver,” Hawk drawled out. “And does your mother call you Mister Silver?”
“No, my mother calls me...” The peculiar specimen cast his eyes about the tavern as if looking for something. “Fin... Finn Silver. That’s it.”
“Uh huh,” Hawk frowned. There was decidedly something off about this kid.
“Have a seat, Mr. Silver,” Hawk pointed to the chair across from him.
And stop staring at me like that, good Lord.
“I understand I owe you a debt. I hate to be in anyone’s debt, so perhaps you could come to the point and tell me exactly why you interfered in the matters of my crew this morning? ”
For a few moments, the oddling in front of Hawk remained perfectly still, his eyes appraising the captain with such scrutiny that it made him shift in his seat.
He could, of course, avail himself of the opportunity to stare back, which he did, a barely perceptible smile hidden in the corner of his mouth.
He was handsome, this Finn Silver kid. There was something soft and delicate about his features, otherworldly even, and none more so than those azure depths of his eyes.
At the same time, he also looked roguish.
And tan. So evenly tanned, from what little Hawk could see, that it was almost as if he’d never worn a shirt a day in his life (except that he was obviously wearing one at that moment).
Stop imagining him shirtless, Hawk. Jesus Fucking Christ!
At some point, in between staring at the kid’s collarbones and his mouth, Hawk realized that Silver’s lips had been moving.
“... So the Estrela would be undefended and you and your men would easily...”
“Wait. What?”
“The Estrela do Norte? The Portuguese treasure ga-” Hawk had placed his hand over Silver’s mouth and dragged him bodily into one of Elizabeth’s storage rooms.
"Have fun!" the infuriating bitch called after him as he dragged Silver away.
"Fuck you!" Hawk yelled back, slamming the door. “You shit!”
“Excuse you!” Silver propped himself up against Hawk’s chest and his hand remained there until Hawk moved the hell away from him.
“What type of ingratitude is this? I bring you news of untold treasures. I’m telling you that I can give you the route to intercept the ship that carries it. And you call me an excrement!”
“Did it ever occur to you, even for a bloody moment, that this is not something to be discussed in the middle of a tavern full of pirates?”
“But you’re a pirate.” Silver poked Hawk’s chest and Hawk’s eyes moved slowly from his extended index finger back to his face. For a moment, he contemplated breaking the kid’s finger, if only to make a point, but it was hard not to get distracted by the curves of that infuriating mouth.
“All right,” Hawk narrowed his eyes. “Go on then. Tell me the route and the schedule.”
Silver grinned infuriatingly. “No. Nope. No way. Nah-uh.”
Hawk sighed and slowly took his knife from his belt. He didn’t have time for this shit.
“Oh, holy shit! Are you going to fillet me?” Silver squealed, stepping back until he ran into the storage room wall.
He trembled as Hawk crowded into his space, pressing him back into the wall and pushing a thigh between his.
Just to stop him from moving, Hawk told himself firmly, stalwartly ignoring the sudden bulge between the young man's legs, or the way he was squirming against Hawk as he protested.
“Mara was right. This place is not how I imagined it would be!”
“Shut up, you imbecile!” Hawk pressed the blade of his knife against the kid’s windpipe. His eyes dropped to Silver’s mouth again, as the kid licked his suddenly parched lips.
It would be a shame to waste him, Hawk sighed inwardly, especially if he really did know the route of the Estrela do Norte. That's what gave him pause, he told himself. Not the young man's impossibly blue eyes. Not the answering hardness he could feel between his own thighs.
Could this week get any more strange?
“Don’t kill me,” Silver whispered, swallowing against the blade and making Hawk think about pressing other things to the expanse of his throat. “There are many ways I can be of use to you.”
Jesus Christ. Hawk's cock was already supplying a list a mile long, starting with a dozen ways he could keep that infuriating mouth from talking. None of which, of course, he could allow himself to do.
“Yeah? Well, we’ll see about that,” Hawk replied and knocked the kid out with the hilt of his blade.