Chapter 5
The infirmary on board the Siren was quiet as Henri carefully threaded a sterilized needle and placed it in Robin’s waiting hand.
Robin graced him with that familiar gentle smile before bending over Fox to begin stitching the cut across his thigh.
The Siren’s crew had come out of the battle with the Sweet Lettie relatively unscathed, and Fox was their last patient of the day.
He winced as the needle pierced his skin, but otherwise gave no reaction.
He was busy flicking through one of Henri’s penny novels.
Henri was fairly sure that Fox still couldn’t read, but this particular novel featured a few somewhat creative illustrations that he seemed amused by.
Robin closed up the wound with meticulously even stitches, his tongue tucked into the corner of his mouth in concentration.
Henri couldn’t help the way his heart softened as he watched his boyfriend work.
In the almost two years they’d known each other, he’d learned a lot from Robin.
Since Henri had been hobbled by his broken leg for so long, Robin had pressed him into service and somehow Henri had become his informal apprentice.
The infirmary door opened, and Logan ushered in four of the new recruits from the Sweet Lettie.
“These men need medical attention,” Logan said. He looked a bit frazzled, probably because he was stuck watching after the new unwilling crew members Captain Rowan and the Demon had sprung on them.
Robin’s concentration didn’t waver from his task, so Henri smiled in the recruits’ direction, hoping to put them at ease.
“Leave them to us.”
Logan simply nodded and left the recruits standing warily just past the threshold, too nervous to venture further. Robin tied off the last of the stitches and stood, wiping his hands on a clean cloth.
“We’ll see the most serious injuries first. Lighter cases can—”
“Robin!”
Robin froze as a tall young man who looked to be in his early twenties pushed through the others.
His right sleeve was bloodied and a streak of his sandy blond mop of hair was stained crimson from a gash above his ear.
He rushed to Robin. Henri jolted from his seat, but the young man got there first, enveloping Robin in a bone-crushing hug.
Henri drew up short, gaze flitting between the two as Robin just stood there, stunned, in the young man’s arms. They were close in height, the younger man just an inch or two shorter.
Their fluffy blond hair was almost mirrored, and when the young man pulled back, Henri saw that their facial features, right down to those gentle hazel eyes, were nearly identical as well.
Robin blinked slowly, seeming to come out of his initial shock. His arms came up to encircle the younger man in a fierce hug. Tears overflowed down his rounded cheeks. After a moment, the younger man pulled away and looked up into Robin’s face.
“What are you doing here?” the young man asked incredulously. “Are you a prisoner too?” Those familiar yet unfamiliar hazel eyes flicked to Henri and Fox, glaring.
“I…um…” Robin clearly didn’t know what to say. Henri couldn’t see much of his face from this angle, but it was as if Robin didn’t know whether to be elated or terrified by the young man’s presence.
The young man glared at Henri again, as if he was the reason for Robin’s distress.
Robin dashed the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand and gently disengaged from the younger man’s embrace.
“I’ll explain later. Let’s take a look at those cuts first.” There was something different about his voice, a stilted upper-class edge seeping in. “You can handle the bandaging, right?” he asked Henri.
“Right.”
Robin set to work assessing the new patients as Henri sat back down to bandage Fox’s leg.
“Brother, you think? Cousin?” Fox whispered. Henri glanced up to where Robin chatted quietly to the reluctant recruits. The young man hovered near him like a worried mother hen. That, too, was so like Robin it was uncanny.
“Dunno. He has two brothers, so maybe.” Robin didn’t like to talk about his past, and his family was included in that.
Henri knew he was from an upper-class Avardellan family, and was the middle of three sons, but that was about it.
Robin got sad if Henri ever asked about it.
After all, the judgment and expectations of his family were the reason he’d run away in the first place.
They couldn’t accept him as he was, and that had directly led him to being captured by the Deep Water Demon, and later meeting Henri.
Henri couldn’t say he wished things were different. But he loved Robin, and he wished the thought of his family didn’t pain him so.
Henri finished his task and patted Fox’s leg. “Good as new.”
“Damn, I was hoping you’d kiss it better,” Fox quipped.
“You wish.”
Fox’s gaze traveled across the room to where the young man was glaring at them again over Robin’s shoulder.
“Want me to stay just in case?” Fox asked.
“Nah, we’ve got it. Besides, I know you’re itching to tease Rowan about what happened today.”
Fox grinned and sprang up from the cot as if his injuries were non-existent.
“Damn right.”
When Fox left, Henri approached the group of recruits.
“What can I do?”
Robin looked up from where he was stitching a laceration on a man’s arm, and glanced around at the other recruits.
“Most of it is superficial, but could you clean up David’s head?”
“David?” By the name, and the way the young man scowled, Henri suspected he knew who it was.
“Oh, right.” A pretty blush spread to Robin’s ears. “This is David, my younger brother. David, this is my…” He cleared his throat. “This is Henri.”
Not his partner. Not his boyfriend. Just Henri.
Henri knew well enough how Robin’s family was, but still, his heart sank down to his stomach. He loved Robin, and Robin loved him. But Robin came from another world, and deep down, Henri had always been afraid he’d realize this life wasn’t for him, and they would have to part ways.
He swallowed down his melancholy and smiled at David, sticking out his hand to shake.
“Welcome aboard, David. It’s nice to meet you.”
David’s gaze flicked down to Henri’s hand, then back up to his face. He crossed his arms. Henri swallowed the lump in his throat, reminding himself that it was not Robin’s eyes that were looking at him so distrustfully, but a stranger’s.
“I’ll wait for you,” David said to Robin, inching closer to his brother’s side. “You’re a doctor.”
Robin huffed, but he was back to stitching, and hadn’t seen David snub Henri’s offered hand.
“I trained him myself, Davy. He’s perfectly capable of cleaning you up.”
“I’ll wait,” David insisted, taking a step back like Henri would hurt him. The round-voweled Avardellan accent that Henri found so soothing and endearing from Robin’s mouth was quickly becoming grating from David.
“I’m finished here anyway.” Robin placed the final stitch and quickly wrapped a bandage around the man’s arm. He looked up, and Henri couldn’t help but melt a little under his gaze.
“Could you take the others back up to Logan?”
Henri nodded and gathered the other three men. Maybe once Robin got a chance to speak to his brother alone, he would smooth things over.
He found Logan on deck directing the movement of supplies between the ships. Henri left the recruits with him, then returned below before Logan could put him to work hauling shit back and forth.
Once he made it below deck, Henri’s steps slowed. What were the two brothers talking about without him there? Was Robin explaining the situation? Would he tell David about his relationship with Henri?
Or was David convincing Robin to return to the family fold?
Anxiety clenched Henri’s guts, and he rushed to the infirmary.
“…leaving?”
Henri stopped short just outside the open infirmary door, out of sight of the two brothers within.
It was David that had spoken, his voice more haughty than Robin’s.
Henri knew he shouldn’t listen in on their conversation.
He should either leave or make his presence known, but he was frozen to the spot.
“Hold still,” Robin sighed, not answering whatever question his brother had asked. There was silence for a moment before David spoke again.
“Why are you on this ship, Robin?”
“Why are you?” There was a familiar wryness in Robin’s tone that Henri recognized as him being stubborn.
“I was commissioned to paint a portrait of the new governor of Kefrye, if you must know,” David grumbled, obviously put out by his brother’s avoidance.
“You’ve graduated from the academy, then?” Henri could almost see a smile of pride spreading across Robin’s face.
“You’d know as much if you were home.”
Silence again.
Robin broke it first this time.
“I’m proud of you, you know.” His voice was gentle as always. “The Art Academy is no joke. And you even traveled all that way to paint the governor? My baby brother Davy is all grown up.”
“Yeah well, I’m no doctor or heir,” David mumbled. “And people don’t call me that anymore, not since you left.”
“Father and Mother must be proud,” Robin countered.
“Not as proud as they are of you and Philip.” There was a long pause in which David seemed to be collecting himself. When he spoke again, he sounded hesitant. “W-where have you been all this time?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Well say something,” David hissed. “You’ve been missing for three years! We all thought you were dead!”
“I’ve been…Well I left, and my ship was captured and…”
“And they’re forcing you to work for them,” David finished for him. “Who was that guy? Your jailor or something?”
“N-no, that’s not…”
Robin was floundering. Why was he unable to tell his brother the truth of the situation? Regardless of how they’d come into each other’s lives, Robin had chosen to stay even after the Demon released him from his contract. He’d chosen Henri. So why couldn’t he bring himself to tell David the truth?