Fic - Cracktastic epics I am never going to write, part 1: pirate Gojyo

[louiselux]

You know how you have unwritten epics of great and terrible crack humming about in your head? Yes, those. In an attempt to exorcise myself of them I decided I'm going to write snippets of each one, so this is part one in a series of probably about a squillion.

Also, if you think there are any cracktastic epics you think I should be writing, drop me a comment and I'll try and come up with a snippet for you.

This particular one has been lurking about my head for some months, since emungere forced me to discuss in some detail the concept of Hakkai sailing about on his haunted white ship of creepiness and Gojyo as a stray ne'er do well he fishes from the sea and lashes to his mast. That is not a euphemism! Sadly, I had to finish it before I got sucked in any deeper. You never know, maybe emungere will even finish it for me.

Title: Salty dog
Pairing: Gojyo/Hakkai
Warnings: not worksafe, explicit m/m, au, stuff, unbeta'd


Gojyo floated. The water was warm, lapping all around him like loving hands. It wanted him, he knew that, and that wasn't surprising. The sea was a woman, she couldn't help herself. He sighed and wished the plank wasn't so hard. If only he had a feather bed. The water was softer. Maybe he could roll off this damned bit of splintered wood and into the water. He'd be weightless, held up, caressed all over. He turned his head, sure he could hear a voice, cool and melodious like a stream of clear water. It was calling him.

"Hey, you!"

"Uhhn."

"You there."

That was a real voice. Gojyo blinked, waking. The sun was dazzling and hot, beating down on him. His throat was dry and scratchy and he ached just about everywhere. His legs and arms were weak and his muscles were shaking. There was a ship rising out of the sea above him and a man peering down.

There was something wrong with the ship. Its flanks were bone white. Black sails were furled tight against its masts.

"Whuu?" Gojyo said.

"What are you doing?"

Gojyo floated, spinning a little in the churning water. "Um. Drowning?"

"This is inconvenient."

A small boat splashed down into the water and Gojyo watched, half blinded by the sun, as it came closer. The man at the oars—the only man in it-- had green eyes like the sea in an English winter. His long dark hair was ruffled by the breeze and his skin was a pale colour, like he'd never even been touched by the sun. He hauled Gojyo over the side and landed him on the spine of the boat like Gojyo was a caught fish.

"Thanks," Gojyo said, panting and coughing.

"My name is Hakkai. You can call me that."

There was something else odd about the ship, Gojyo thought, as he was slung over Hakkai's shoulder and carried aboard. There was no one about; no grizzled deck hands, no officers, no lads in the rigging. All was silent and still.

Sea water dripped from Gojyo's hair and streamers of sea weed hung there too. He watched them swinging, watched the heels of Hakkai's glossy black boots tapping on the boards. The ship groaned around them. It was an angry sound, Gojyo thought. Like it knew Gojyo was on board and didn't like him. Ships aren't alive, he told himself, as the blood rushed to his head. The clots of weed slithered down over his shoulders and landed on the deck.

"You looked like a sea monster," Hakkai said, over his shoulder.

"Feel like one too."

"Hmm."

Hakkai took him below decks, to an empty hold. There was one bed and Hakkai slung him on it, hard, so that Gojyo had to gasp for breath and clutch his stomach. Hakkai fetched a water flask and held it to Gojyo's mouth.

"Drink," he commanded.

Gojyo was sick a little at first, then drank more, until Hakkai took it from him. He pushed some dried hard brown bread at Gojyo, and some dried meat. His eyes were murky in the dim light and his fingers were cold as he stripped Gojyo of his gun and his knives. They skimmed over the bruises on Gojyo's body.

"These are valuable weapons," Hakkai said, softly." I wonder who beat you and threw you in the water." He didn't say it like he really wanted to know, though. "Eat."

"Oh," Gojyo said, "thanks," and passed out.

He woke up feeling very strange. The world was the wrong way up for lying down. He shook his head, hard. It took him several moments to realise he was standing. No, more than standing, he was lashed upright, to the foremast. He groaned and yanked his arms, then his legs, but they were tied fast. Looking down, he saw he was lashed with a haphazard combination of thin and leather cords and what looked like a bed shirt around one ankle.

"So, you're awake, finally," a cool terse voice said.

He looked up through strands of his salt crusted hair and saw Hakkai watching him. The man looked bizarre; tight black breeches and boots polished like they'd never been worn before, black shirt and neckcloth, heavy black coat even in this heat. He stood, cool and still against the bone white ship. Two skulls lay in one corner and as Gojyo watched, they rolled with the swell of the sea. He swallowed.

"Uh, hey," he said. "Untie me?"

"Are you a mercenary?" Hakkai stood with his hands loose at his sides and an expression of such keen interest in his sharp eyes that Gojyo flushed.

"No," Gojyo said. "You can trust me."

"As could whoever gave you those bruises," Hakkai said.

"Yeah, well." Gojyo laughed and leaned his head back against the warm sun-soaked wood of the mast. This could be bad trouble. "I got into a little spot of trouble. Wasn't my fault."

"Your defence is lacking in conviction."

"That's just what the judge said to me a while ago."

He'd been an officer once, was just a stinking stowaway now. Hakkai stepped closer, his neat frock coat swinging. Even the buttons were black – clusters of jet, carved into skulls. More skulls. He had a knife in his right hand, a big one. It had a curved blade and its edge collected light and flung it in Gojyo's eyes as he lifted it.

"What do you want?" Hakkai said.

"You're the one who tied me up. I'd like to be let free."

Hakkai shook his head. "Why are you here?"

"I don't know. Because you saved my life?"

Hakkai narrowed his eyes. "I don't think so."

"Hey, floating on a plank isn't exactly how I usually travel."

"But you must be here for a reason," Hakkai said, although it was like he was saying it to himself more than Gojyo. It was hard not to notice that Hakkai didn't look entirely sane. He kept looking at Gojyo like Gojyo had fallen out of the sky and asked him to a dance.

"I'm not. How could I be?"

Hakkai looked at him silently. Gojyo couldn't help noticing how his eyes would drift downwards to fix on Gojyo's chest or the tight cut of his breeches. He swallowed again and tensed, watching the knife.

"No one finds my ship by chance," Hakkai said. "Therefore, it must be fate." He paced around Gojyo slowly. Gojyo could sense those wide green eyes on him like a beam of light. "I would like to know why."

"Why would no one find this ship?" Gojyo said.

The sun was going in, eaten away by a sea mist. The air grew chilly on his skin and he shivered. Hakkai's boots tapped smartly as he walked, slowly circling him, watching him. There was a thigh bone over by the fo'csle. Hakkai had a clear and perfect profile, like a Venetian countess in a painting.

"My ship keeps me safe," Hakkai said.

Gojyo frowned deeply. "It does?"

"Oh yes, it knows me, you see."

The ship groaned again as she rolled, long and low, like she was answering. Gojyo shut his mouth, because abruptly he didn't want to know any more.

Everyone knew the stories. Gojyo had been hearing them since he was knee high to his brother, and his brother had loved to spin yarns about lost ships with no crew, apart from the Devil himself. They were just stories to scare a boy and maiden aunts. All the same, he shivered again and wondered if it could be true. The air was almost icy now and, this close, Hakkai's eyes looked fathomless, like the deepest trenches. He couldn't make himself shut up.

"Are you… a ghost?" Gojyo asked.

Hakkai was suddenly very near, hot breath all over Gojyo's neck at the back. That didn't feel ethereal at all.

"Of course not," he said, in a level voice, and the faint laugh that followed shivered over Gojyo's skin like caress. "I'd have to be dead for that. How could I talk and walk if I was dead?"

Gojyo nodded, wishing he felt more reassured. "Are you going to untie me?"

"No. You're my prisoner." Hakkai came to stand in front of him. He raised the knife and laid it against Gojyo's chest, the tip laid flat against the dip of skin in the middle of his chest. "I can do what I like with my prisoners," he said.

"What—What are you going to do?" Gojyo asked, because it was better to find out now. He eyed the knife and Hakkai's cold pretty eyes and thought about how his gaze lingered over Gojyo's body. He'd had this sort of attention before, from men who'd thought they could have him.

"Whatever I choose," Hakkai said, levelly. He smiled, and Gojyo's stomach clenched again.

The knife tip angled in a tiny amount and Hakkai drew the blade so that it sliced through Gojyo's shirt.

"You don't have to tie me up," Gojyo said, swallowing down the sharp clench of fear in his stomach. "For that."

Hakkai ignored him. He cut through the cotton cleanly and the two halves fell open and hung at his sides, exposing him all the way to the waistband of his breeches. Hakkai ran his fingers over the bruise on Gojyo's left side, gentle as the wing of a dove. Gojyo couldn't help but gasp, feeling the touch as a sharp shock.

"They shouldn't have hurt you like this," Hakkai said.

Gojyo yanked against his bindings and growled, to make his point about what men should and shouldn't do to him. Hakkai made an absent little sound and walked around behind him. Something cold and delicate, which could only be the knife tip, trailed down his spine from neck to base, then along each arm, and then the remains of his shirt were plucked gently off him. He heard Hakkai sigh very softly, as if satisfied. A hand ran down his spine, following the knife, and it rested on the base of his spine. Somewhere below deck, something huge and heavy thumped to the floor.

"My ship doesn't like you," Hakkai said in his ear, very close so that Gojyo jumped. "Yes. I don't think you should go below decks again. Men go down there and don't come out."

"Hey, uh. Untie me now and I'll just leave you in peace, right? I'll leave, you won't have to see me again. China's that way, isn't it?"

Hakkai moved his hand so that it curled around Gojyo's hip. The wool of his coat was heavy and cool, beaded with damp. He slipped his fingertips under Gojyo's belt, quite casually as if he did so every day. Gojyo felt a little flare of something in his guts that wasn't fear at all.

"I don't want you to leave," Hakkai said, sounding very rational.

He took his hand away and came to face Gojyo. He took his knife and passed it over Gojyo's leather belt. It fell apart like it was made of cheese.

"Aw, my good belt."

"I'll buy you another," Hakkai said, quietly. There were two high spots of red on his cheeks now. He laid the knife blade flat against Gojyo's thigh and leaned in close. The touch of his body, thigh to thigh and chest to chest, was a shock. Hakkai pressed his cheek to Gojyo's and bent his head as if to take in the scent of his neck. His lips brushed Gojyo's collarbone. His free hand splayed over Gojyo's stomach, stroking. Then it slid lower, still stroking, clever and knowing.

Jesus Christ, Gojyo silently prayed, as he got hard. "D'you do this to all the people you drag out of the sea?" he said.

Hakkai said, face still buried in Gojyo's neck. "No. At least, I don't know. You're the only one I've saved."

He stepped back and ran a finger down the ridge in the front of Gojyo's trousers, pressing hard.

"These need to come off," he said, stroking down Gojyo's leg like it was just... normal.

"You shouldn't," Gojyo said.

"Why?"

"Because." You're mad.. "That's knife's dangerous."

"Oh. I'd never hurt you with it," Hakkai said. He smiled. "Very much."

"Don't you care I'm a man?"

"Do you?"

He met Gojyo's eyes as he sliced down through each leg, shredding them. The blade was icy against his skin, making his shiver out of all control as the remains of his breeches fell away. Gojyo's stockings and shoes had gone long before, even before the captain of the tea clipper had thrown him overboard.

"That's better," Hakkai murmured, and he dropped the knife straight down, so that its blade tip thunked into the wood. It stood quivering, its black handle worked with silver. The hem of Hakkai's coat brushed against Gojyo's thigh and he smoothed a hand down over Gojyo's stomach to grasp his cock. Gojyo moaned and strained against his bonds. He was as hard as he'd been in his life.

"God damn you. Stop."

"No. You're mine," Hakkai said, leaning close. His words were so soft and his breath tickled Gojyo's ear and he ran his clever cool fingers up and down Gojyo's cock, down over his balls, creeping between his thighs, as if exploring every curve of him. "I can do as I choose."

Gojyo shoved against him, rolling his hips. "Not if I'm tied up."

Hakkai pulled back to look at him. His lips were wet and red and his breath was shorter than it had been. He leaned in again and pushed his tongue into Gojyo's mouth, rough and hungry, one hand cupping Gojyo's jaw, his fingertips making cool points on Gojyo's cheek. Gojyo opened his lips, let Hakkai kiss him and suck on his tongue and touch him until he was shaking. Gojyo leaned back, pulling free.

"Untie me," he said, his voice rough.

Something in the ship thumped then, so violently that Gojyo felt it through his bare feet. Mist curled around them, binding them together, Gojyo's bare skin against Hakkai's black clothes. Up above them the sun was a pale grey disk, but he could feel its warmth struggling to break through once more. Hakkai broke away, letting him go.

"I'll be back," and he strode away, coat swirling behind him.

Gojyo groaned through gritted teeth, part fear and part frustration. He bent his head and set out thinking of a way to get free of his bonds.