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Pintel had been two weeks out when the ship he served on—the inappropriately named Swift Princess—landed in Sparrow's sights. The Black Pearl had come in fast, with the sun and wind at her advantage, and not an ounce of gunpowder was lit before her Captain had seized the old Princess.
Shadowed by his brooding first mate, Sparrow had strolled along the deck like a peacock, and raised the call for a few more men to join his crew. Fourteen days of working for dismal pay had been more than enough of a taste of honest work for Pintel. He jumped at the opportunity. He'd have done anything, really, to get off that wallowing tub of a merchant ship. Returning to pirating with the promise of gold held more appeal than crawling to port on half-rations with a Captain sore over being looted. At least, it had seemed so at the time.
A month had passed since he signed the articles, and he had yet to become accustomed to this strange new ship. Different, the Pearl was, with her fearsome black sails and her crazy young Captain. When Pintel worked the rigging, he sometimes wondered why he'd been fool enough to join the crew. Sparrow grinned like the devil himself when he stood the helm and the winds blew wild, and his first mate was downright terrifying.
Belowdecks, everything was dark and familiar, the cramped quarters little different than any other ship, and filled with the stink of bilge and bodies that a man learned to ignore if he planned to keep with a sailoring life.
Pintel came down from his turn at the watch well past midnight, welcomed into that familiar gloom. The lamps had long since been doused, and only a bit of moonlight filtered in. The light was pale and weak, yet it was enough for him to see by as he made his way through the hammocks to a pile of spare sails.
Ragetti was already asleep there, nestled in the black canvas, his long limbs cast at strange angles. As Pintel unstrapped his weapons and wrapped them in his coat, he eyed Ragetti's slumbering form. The kid's chest rose and fell at a steady pace beneath a shirt that had probably been bright scarlet once upon a time. Ragetti was skin and bones—likely always had been—the sort of man who never quite outgrew being all elbows. He still looked a bit the lanky youth, with his tangled hair and generous mouth.
Pintel settled down into the space beside Ragetti, a small hollow seemingly left there just for him, and pillowed his head on his wool-bundled steel.
"S'that you, Pintel?"
Pintel whispered a rough, "Keep quiet." Then, after a moment, uttered a soft grunt of assent.
Ragetti murmured something, shifted a bit closer, and fell swiftly to dreaming again. He looked innocent in his slumber, his long face slack and unguarded in the deep shadows of the Pearl's belly.
Pintel had never planned to look out for anyone save himself, but here he was, sharing a bunk with a one-eyed wretch so skinny he could hardly keep himself warm. It ate at Pintel's gut the way the kid had latched on to him—worried him, and pissed him off, and pleased him all at once. He strangled a sigh and screwed his eyes shut, willing sleep to come quickly. That stubborn bitch Mab eluded him. She stayed just beyond his grasp, and left him wide-eyed with a head full of half-formed thoughts in the strange hours before dawn.
Pintel could feel Ragetti's breath tickling the hairs on his arm, slow and even, a soft, whispering rhythm that blended with the rest of sounds in the forecastle. Night was never quiet on a ship, not with the sounds of the ocean, the creak of timbers, and all the assorted noises made by sleeping men. It was peaceful in its own way, but failed to lull him to sleep.
He laced his fingers behind his head and stared into the darkness. Funny how if left without a task a man's mind turned around and around. Pintel's filled with crude thoughts he couldn't shake no matter how he wished them away. They circled his brain like sharks—hungry shadows that refused to scatter.
It was at times like this, when the memory of a woman's touch had grown faint, a man got certain thoughts, and the body that lay warm next to him grew more inviting by the minute....
Ragetti had told Pintel he'd taken to the sea young, and Pintel guessed the kid found out the hard way that it could be dangerous to be smooth-faced and slim on a shipful of men. He might've even been pretty once, like his shirt, or pretty enough. Maybe even lost that eye because he hadn't quite learned to shut his mouth and spread his legs.
With a snarl, Pintel turned on his side away from Ragetti. Rape was tallied more than once on the long list of Pintel's sins, but the Pearl's rules on that account had been clear: No violence of any manner towards your fellow man... Beyond that, and oh, how he hated to admit it, he almost maybe liked the kid.
"Can't sleep?" he heard Ragetti ask. The question crept towards him hushed and hesitant, washing warm against the back of his neck. "Pintel?"
"Shut up, and go back to sleep," Pintel hissed. He flopped onto his back again, and folded his arms over his chest.
He caught the gleam of Ragetti's good eye as the man continued to watch him. "If you don't stop staring at me," Pintel growled, "I'll pluck that other eye from your socket and swallow it down."
"'M sorry, Pintel," Ragetti mumbled, turning his face deeper into the black sails that served as their bed. His spindly fingers curled around themselves as he tucked them close to his chest.
Pintel felt a nerve throb in his forehead. Ragetti was like a dog sometimes; going belly down in the dirt when kicked in the ribs instead of showing teeth. It drove him crazy, even crazier than when the kid thought he had smarts and talked back. "You don't need to apologize all the time," he muttered, and silently wished he were back on that ugly whale of a merchant ship.
Ragetti didn't answer, and Pintel found the silence—such as it was—unsettling. A minute passed, and he got the strange notion he lay next to a dead man. After a handful more, the feeling persisted, hanging around like a curse. He told himself it was foolish, but it just grew and grew until the damn thing was the weight of a cannonball pressing down on his chest. When he couldn't take it anymore, Pintel reached out in the darkness and found Ragetti's sleeve. He gave the rough cotton a sharp tug, desperate for some sort of reaction.
Slim fingers closed around his wrist, clutching with surprising strength. "Something wrong?"
"Forget it," Pintel replied, shaking the kid's hand loose. "It was nothin', just—" He fell silent as Ragetti found his arm again and gave it a squeeze.
"S'alright."
Weren't supposed to be this way, Ragetti being kind to him right now. The fingers that pressed under Pintel's wrist slid into his palm, brushing against the calluses that marked the heel of his hand. Quick as a rat stealing bread, Ragetti's fingers slipped away again, leaving Pintel wondering if he imagined the brief touch.
"S'alright," Ragetti repeated, "if you're lonely."
Pintel held his tongue and the denial poised there. Ragetti twisted away, the faded shirt he wore pulling tight against his back. It was an invitation, silent and subtle, but one offered willingly. Still, Pintel hesitated. He chewed on the inside of his cheek, and after a long, long moment, he rested a hand on the sharp angle of Ragetti's hip.
He stroked a thumb against the bone jutting above the rough linen of Ragetti's trousers, and a tremor ran through the kid's body. Heat surged in Pintel's groin, as he slipped his hand beneath Ragetti's shirt. His fingers crept past the ripple of the kid's ribs, and although he found the firmness of a sailor's muscles instead of a wench's soft tits, Pintel gave Ragetti's chest a rough squeeze.
The kid sucked in a sharp breath and his long legs stretched out, bare heels rasping against canvas. Pintel put his face to the nape of Ragetti's neck and nosed aside the tangled blonde curls. He rubbed his lips against Ragetti's skin as he explored the deep hollow of the kid's collarbone with callused fingertips.
Ragetti twisted when rough fingers swept along his neck, and Pintel had the sense to respect the nervous sound that caught in the kid's throat. He returned to palming the smooth skin of Ragetti's chest. Ragetti arched his back, pressing his ass against the erection trapped hot and hard in the crook of Pintel's thigh. With nimble fingers the kid undid his own trousers to pull them down past his knees.
There was no turning back now, and Pintel groaned as he rolled onto his back. His heart thudded in his chest, pumping lustful humors through his body and making his breath quick and rough. He made hasty work of his breeches, and he bit his lip as he wet his cock with his spit.
Pintel slid a heavy hand between Ragetti's legs and pushed them apart. Long and lean, they opened easily for him. Above the knee, Ragetti's tan melted away to china white skin, soft as silk. Pintel ran his hand over the gentle curves, thumb kneading into the muscle hidden beneath. Up further, where the sun had again left its mark, the shift of bones moved beneath Ragetti's skin. He could count the notches in Ragetti's spine as the kid curved to take him in. Pintel thought for a moment he'd like to know each one of them by touch, wondered how his fingers would fit between them if he cradled the kid close.
Pintel didn't have time to be disturbed by that moment of tenderness; he sunk into Ragetti's body and instinct took over. Ragetti was skin and bones to look at, but he was soft and warm on the inside. Pintel wrapped a strong arm around the kid and took rough hold of his prick, it was as skinny and long as the rest of him, and Pintel stroked it as if it were an extension of himself.
After no more than a minute, heat dribbled onto his knuckles, and Ragetti squirmed against him. Pintel bared his teeth in a smile. "Yeah," he breathed, putting his come-slicked hand on Ragetti's thigh and squeezing. Ragetti had loosened up good now, and the easy push and thrust into the kid's willing flesh took Pintel faster than he expected. He spent himself, his face pressed flush against Ragetti's shoulderblade, groans muffled by that ragged pink shirt.
*
Quite some time later
Pintel pulled his face away from Ragetti's back. Dawn crept in, and bright light as sharp as knives stabbed through the bars of the small hole in the wall. The light painted searing lines across the stone floor.
He looked towards the window, to where the thick walls of the Fort muffled the sounds of the ocean.
On the morrow, they'd said. That would be the day.
Pintel took a deep breath, and wondered if it would be in the morning or after the midday heat. He eased his head back down onto the straw, and, as he pressed his forehead against the familiar curve of Ragetti's shoulder, he felt something heavy stir in the pit of his stomach. The scrawny bastard curled up against him was too light to earn a snap of the neck when he reached the end of his rope; he'd choke and squirm and it'd be all sorts of gruesome.
Pintel curled his lip in annoyance. He couldn't just kill Ragetti quick and painless like he deserved. Pintel wouldn't say he was honest to God fond of the kid, just too accustomed to his chatter to sit next to his dead body all day, that's all.
But, he did admit, there was no way he could let Ragetti face the hangman either. Not after they'd both waited so long to be more than just bones lashed together and feel alive again. Pintel swore beneath his breath. He'd never been good at planning things, mostly just good at taking orders and ducking his head so's not to get killed, but this time, he'd think of something.
If your ship's going down, and there are sharks in the water, it's still sink or swim.
Pintel squinted his eyes shut tight, curled his arm around Ragetti, and focused on the muted sounds of the sea.