8. Aye Think I’m Hooked
Aye Think I’m Hooked
Everyone tells you “Don’t cry over spilled milk,” but what about ink? Can I cry over spilled ink?
In this life or the next, I was certainly not born to clean up messes.
I have spent the better part of an hour trying to clear this puddle of ink and the ensuing trail of inky paw prints from the floor of Captain Night’s cabin to no avail, peeking over my shoulder every few minutes to make sure I won’t be killed for being in his cabin.
Yet all I’ve accomplished is staining my hands and clothes with blue-black ink, the dark substance seeping into my pores and skin until I can smell nothing else.
It’s under my fingernails and drying into the grooves of my palms and knuckles, stinging against the fresh nicks and scratches along my skin.
“That can’t be good,” I say.
Sighing, I sit back on my heels and wipe a hand over my forehead to get the hair out of my face.
And freeze.
“Oh god.”
I’ve definitely smeared ink across my face, over my nose and lips and eyes. I can taste it, bitter and atrocious, spreading across my tongue until I’m gagging and spitting, my eyes watering as I sit back on my heels with a cry of frustration. This is a fucking mess. I’m a fucking mess.
“It appears as though you murdered a devilfish,” Captain Night muses from the threshold.
Sir pads past me, careful to avoid the mess—where was this caution earlier?—before parting the black curtains with his nose and hopping up onto the small bed in the back, settling in.
“The ship’s cat,” my ass.
“What’s a devilfish?” I ask, swiveling toward Captain Night.
His arms are crossed over his chest, the action flexing the muscles in his biceps. He doesn’t move, but he doesn’t have to. The power he exudes just from standing there is enough to make me shiver.
“It’s a strange creature with eight arms and a large head. Once they clamp onto you, they’re difficult to detach.”
Oh. An octopus.
He looks me over, expression carefully masked as he takes in the mess. “You’re terrible at this, aren’t you, Laszlo?”
“I am,” I say. I puff out my cheeks, turning back to the ink. “I’m sorry, I’ve tried my best—”
I snap my mouth shut when I hear him crossing to me, his steps quiet. I blink up at him as he crouches before me, hands clasped, squinting at the smeared stain on the floorboards.
“You’ve been rubbing, not blotting, haven’t you?” I say nothing, my bottom lip clamped between my teeth. “That’s what I thought.”
Wordlessly, he reaches around me for a rag, his arm brushing my shoulder as he does and setting every part of me ablaze.
Dipping the rag into the bucket of lukewarm salt water to my left, he begins blotting the stain.
It doesn’t work any miracles, but it does help lift some of the ink.
It’s a thousand times better than my work, that’s for sure.
“In truth,” he says as his hair slips over his shoulder, hiding his face from view as he stretches past me again, “there is little you can do for an ink stain that has dried.”
“Then why have me try at all?”
He pauses to tuck his hair behind his ear and peer at me, and it’s only now that I realize how close we are.
How easy it would be to reach out, run my hand through his hair and grab him by the collar and—dear god, what is wrong with me?
His shoulder grazes mine as he swivels back to the stain, gently blotting away at it, entirely unaware of the catastrophic thoughts in my head.
“It’s fun to watch you flail about.”
The footsie under the table, the song he had Tarly sing, him finding me on deck, telling me about his past, and now this. Am I just a toy? Something he can fling around and laugh at in some game of cat and mouse? Is any of this real?
He straightens and tosses the rag in the bucket. It lands effortlessly with a little plop. “It seems you’ve made a mess. There’s some soap and water in the corner. Feel free to use it for your face and hands, clean up as best you can, and head off to bed.”
“But the stain—”
Captain Night wipes his hands down his pants, turning his back to me as if the conversation is already over.
“Nothing to be done about it. Besides, I’m not so particular about my floors.”
Ducking my head in thanks, I cross to a small table at the back of the cabin. I dip my ink-stained hands into the water and watch as it tints blue, then black, darkening with each second I leave my hands submerged.
The act reminds me of when I first moved to London nearly a decade ago and dated an artist, Blake.
They were one of those philosophical sorts, with long shaggy hair and a septum piercing that made them somehow more mysterious yet easier to approach.
They taught me a lot about myself, how I had never truly opened myself up for my art or stopped to quiet the noise in my head.
They smeared paint with their hands and limbs, expressing themself through their emotions, movement, and colors, and I walked in on them painting one night when they hadn’t heard their phone ringing.
I’d offered to leave, but they asked me to join instead with that devilish grin.
And I did. They helped me out of my shirt and socks, and I dipped my hands and arms into the buckets of paint, laughing and screaming as I threw myself at the canvas.
And when it was done and Blake was satisfied with our work, they’d pushed me back into the canvas and kissed me, both of us doused in paint.
“What emotion is this?” I’d asked.
“Lust. Longing. Happiness.”
Now I clear my throat, rocking back on my heels as I scrub my hands.
It had taken me weeks to get the paint off.
It caught in my hair, under my nails. Down there.
As I stand in front of this makeshift sink, I wonder where that younger, more carefree Laszlo went, when he became so terrified of trying new things, of letting go and falling in love.
But then I taste his name, feel that pressing betrayal rising in my throat like bile on my tongue and force it down, refocusing on my hands.
Julian did this to me. Or rather, I let him do this to me, break me apart, tear me to shreds, and force me to pick up the scraps after he ruined everything.
I grab a bar of soap left off to the side and rub it between my fingers.
The scent is overwhelmingly familiar, and I pause, considering it.
Making sure Captain Night isn’t watching, I bring it to my nose and inhale.
It smells like sugar and oatmeal. It’s a part of his scent, just a piece of him I smelled on his coat, but it’s almost mouthwateringly sweet.
I relax a little as I work away at my hands, and then my face.
When I’m scrubbed raw and it’s clear nothing more will come of it, I pat my hands and face dry and turn to go.
But he’s untucking his shirt from his pants, admiring the view from his windows, entirely unaware of what the action does to me. The moonlight casts him in a single spotlight, and though I know I should leave, I don’t want to. I want to stay in this moment forever.
“Best be heading off to bed,” he says, his voice softer than before, as if he can sense me watching him.
I clear my throat. “Y-yes, Captain.”
It takes everything in me to move, and I cross around his desk, hurrying toward the door. “Laszlo?” Hand gripping the knob, I peer back at him. He’s still angled away when he says, “Sleep well.”
Frowning, I cross the threshold and close the door behind me.
But sleep does not come easily. I toss and turn, and it feels like I’m burning up from the inside out, my clothes clinging to my sweat-slick skin. What I thought were nerves is something else, because my stomach is not happy.
The sway of the sea was a bit sickening while standing, but the back and forth of the hammock only worsens the growing knot in my stomach. Back and forth and back and forth it goes, and try as I might, the feeling won’t go away.
I make myself as small as possible, scrunching up into a ball, knees pulled to my chest, trying to fight the roiling in my gut, but it only grows as the night stretches on. I don’t know how much longer I can push this off, but it doesn’t take long for acid to burble up.
The day crew is sleeping soundly as I scramble past them, fist pressed to my mouth as I try to keep the vomit at bay.
Some of the night crew chuckle as I run up the stairs and to the railing just in time, vomiting up last night’s stew over the side of the ship.
Gripping the railing and sliding down until I’m crouched, I wipe a shaky hand over my mouth.
Waves crash against the side of the ship, the wood creaking and groaning beneath me. How do people become accustomed to this? How do you spend your days teetering about on a wooden vessel in the middle of the sea?
Just the thought sends another wave of nausea through me, and I moan in protest, curling my fingers around the railing as if that will keep the sickness at bay.
My eyes go to the water, to the roaring waves.
There is an engulfing darkness just beyond the ship, surrounding us, and I have no way of knowing what lurks beneath the surface, what’s waiting for us in those dark depths.
“Overactive imagination there, Laszlo,” I say.
It’s nearly pitch-dark except for the silver light of the moon peeking out from between clouds and shining across the expanse of water.
I try to focus on it, try to zero in on the crevices and shadows across its surface, but it’s no use.
I’m up and retching over the railing once more, groaning as I stumble back and plop down on my knees.
“I’m not made for the sea,” I murmur, pressing my forehead against the wood.
“It gets easier,” a familiar voice says. A hand touches my neck, cool against my feverish skin, gentler than should even be possible. “You’d think you’d be accustomed to it, seeing as you’ve been hiding on board for some time, but it takes some longer to adjust.”