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"Oh–hello, Frenchie, here you are!–Lucius? Roach? Heavens, is everyone–Ed, ah, we might have to reconsider our, um—arghh! Black Pete!"
"Hi, Captain." Black Pete waved a languid hand at the door. Lucius continued drawing. Roach continued on with whatever it was Roach did when he wasn’t doing something with knives.
Frenchie, after a moment’s careful consideration, continued luting. Cos it wasn’t like anyone else was around to provide the mood music, was it?
"No need for pleasantries!" the Captain flustered, his own hand immediately rigid over his eyes. "What are you doing on my chaise!"
Blackbeard’s head popped up behind Captain’s shoulder. "Oooh yeah, what are you doing on his–oh." He looked disappointedly from Black Pete to Lucius, who was still drawing, then to Frenchie, who put down the lute and put on a Helpful, But Hopefully Not Too Helpful face. "Oh is that all?"
"Still mad at you," Lucius singsonged without looking up.
"Mmm, still Blackbeard," Blackbeard singsonged back, so it was a shame he’d already eyebrowed Frenchie into putting the lute down, wasn’t it. Ah well. Frenchie picked out a sad little harmonic chord that said it anyway.
"Point is," Blackbeard continued, "the captain has a face like he caught you blowing your boyfriend here. Giving him a handie at least."
"Well, Captain’s very innocent, isn’t he."
"Am not," said Captain, sounding very indignant for someone who didn’t even have to try to hide sneaking a peak at Pete through his fingers. "I’ll have you know I’m very experienced in the arts. Why, just last week on a raid I personally selected an original–"
"The carnal arts, Captain," said Roach.
Captain sputtered. Blackbeard petted his arm and then put his hand in front of Captain’s face to serve as an extra barrier.
"Not used to seeing people in a state of undress, is he," Lucius continued as if he’d never been interrupted. "And whose fault is that?"
"Threw you overboard once, can do it again."
"Ed!" Captain squeaked, then coughed. "Lucius, he doesn’t mean it. As you know, we’ve been over this. The Revenge is now officially a no-throwing-people-overboard environment." He glowered at Ed gooily, even from behind the two hands; everyone on the inside of the room rolled their eyes and ignored him, and everyone outside of the room was Blackbeard so actually, he could do whatever he liked.
"Thanks, Captain, but it’s okay. Pete’s gonna throw him overboard for me after we’re done here, aren’t you, babe."
"Sure am, babe," Black Pete said. Frenchie noticed he was now sweating profusely.
"Black Pete can do anything but that," Captain corrected, still from behind his and Blackbeard’s hands. "What does for Edward does for us all."
Roach’s eyebrows shot up. "Flattered," he said hastily, "but you’re really not my type, Captain. For myself, I’m happy with one rule for him and another for the rest of us. No offence, Captain. Nor you, Captain Blackbeard, sir," he said, his eyebrows actually vanishing into his hair as he looked at Blackbeard. "Of course, if you want to extend the same offer–"
"Ed extends no offers," Captain shouted, red-faced. "Frenchie! Are you still here?"
"Still ‘ere, Captain." Frenchie plucked out a nice bit of elevator music to tide them through the moment. Good to be useful. "What can I do you for?"
"I was hoping you might—er—oh, never mind. Not appropriate to share with the entirety of the crew, which I wasn’t expecting to find in my quarters." He glowered again. Less gooily this time, being as how Captain only included Blackbeard as part of the crew when it suited him and apparently now wasn’t one of those times.
Frenchie shrugged. "If you say so, Captain." He strummed the lute a bit more and leaned in to check on progress. "That’s coming out pretty good, Lucius."
Blackbeard’s head popped up again. "Can’t believe it’s just dick pics." He strained to see. "Stede, you sure you don’t wanna see this? S’good as fuck, really captured the, uh, what’s that part called between the—"
"Yes, thank you. I mean no, thank you. I’ll take your word for it, perfectly sure," said Captain, pink-cheeked.
"Just dick pics?" Black Pete demanded. "Babe, are you losing your touch?"
"Just drawing what I see, babe, you’re fucking mouth-watering," said Lucius, and tossed a black look over his shoulder. "Blackbeard’s just making a little joke, isn’t he."
"Little’s not the word I’d use," Blackbeard murmured, now on tippy toes, his hand decidedly wavering over Captain’s face.
"Ed!" Captain shout-whispered, not sounding totally happy about it, and now he was totally peeking. Blushily peeking. But with a not-gonna-fuck-you-tonight sort of vibe about him anyway.
Finally! thought Frenchie, feeling quite proud of him, really, and leaned back to strum a little strum about it.
Well, obviously it wasn’t just Black Pete’s drawing that was lost in the purge, the whole sketchbook went overboard so the whole collection was lost. But the models were more or less all still here or at least here again, and actually Frenchie agreed it was only reasonable that—
"Augh!" Captain shrieked the next time he went looking for a quiet place in his cabin to schtup Blackbeard or whatever and found the other constituent parts of the crew there instead. "Lucius! This again!"
"This again," Lucius agreed, and raised his pen to his subject in acknowledgement. "Morning, Captain."
"Oluwande," Captain said in deeply acrimonious tones, once again clasping a hand over his eyes in the doorway, "—and yes good morning, Lucius—Olu! this is not the type of behaviour I expected from you!"
"Yes, well, er, me either, Captain, if I’m being honest—"
"You need to spend a little more time getting to know your first mate," Jim suggested from their position on the floor behind Olu, arms looped around his neck, their voice doing that deep dark silky thing that made Frenchie consider—well that was enough of that, wasn’t it, particularly with the Swede also making that face from his staging corner— "he’s got all sorts of tricks up his sleeve. Hmm." Jim eyed Oluwande’s thoroughly sleeveless arm. "Or not, as the case may be."
Heh. That was funny. Frenchie snickered. So did Jim.
Captain didn’t. Captain whirled where he was still standing in the doorway, slapping a second hand over his eyes just in case. "A little bit of warning would be nice!"
Lucius frowned a question at Frenchie, who shrugged back and said, "What’s that, Captain?"
"I came here to—" the back of Captain’s neck went purple; Frenchie and Lucius exchanged pitying glances, "consult—a book—about—the appropriate course of action when you’re having a personal dispute with—actually, I don’t need to divulge such affairs, I’m your—"
"Captain," Lucius supplied at the same time as Oluwande said the same thing with urgency, Captain, just as Captain said it himself in equally desperate tones, which presented another opportunity for a thoughtful musical reaction. Unfortunately Frenchie’s lute had been scuppered during a raid and the harpsichord was on the other side of the cabin so everyone had to make do with just a vocal trill down the approximate melodic minor.
"Frenchie?" said Captain as Frenchie hit the bottom of the scale. "You didn’t think to pass along a warning?"
"Er. Sorry, Captain, what was I supposed to warn you about?" Captain had been present for Black Pete’s drawing session, after all, surely that was warning enough. Frenchie looked to Lucius, who held up his hands in question, then at Jim and Oluwande. Oh. His mouth slid into an understanding twist. "No couples, was it? Sorry, Captain. Oluwande was feeling a bit insecure about—"
"That’s enough of that," Oluwande interrupted with an uncomfortable laugh, "no need to say anything else, Frenchie," and he shifted on the chaise in a way that made everything much more awkward for everyone except Jim, apparently, who purred like something with knives in their feet.
"Where is Captain Blackbeard?" inquired the Swede from his staging corner.
The back of Captain’s neck went redder, his voice stiffer. "Edward has opted to spend some time on deck. As he is perfectly entitled to do. We are thoroughly independent, self-sufficient, separately qualified independent co-captains capable of making independent decisions," his voice was getting primmer by the word, "we are both equally trained and qualified at captaining a pirate ship. We aren’t attached at the hip."
"Phew," said Lucius, obviously disappointed. "No Blackbeard."
"I see," said the Swede. He eyed Olu on the chaise and Jim behind him. "Should I have attached someone to my hip prior to my sitting?"
"Want to come in for a bit?" Frenchie offered in the direction of the door. It might be nice for them to spend a bit of time with Captain on his own. "Have a bit of a natter? Talk it through?"
Captain threw his hands in the air, sounding a bit high strung. "I thought I was coming for a sit down and a bit of quiet time, actually, but my rooms appear to be occupied!"
"Don’t let us stop you," said Frenchie.
"Or you could stop us?" Oluwande offered. "We’d be more than happy to go if–"
"Don’t move one inch, the light is perfect." Lucius ground out.
"No, go on, please take your time!" Stede said in tones Frenchie had most recently heard just before a party boat caught fire on the waves.
Maybe it was a good thing he didn’t have his lute after all. "The desk chair’s still free," he said.
"What are you doing here again anyway?" Captain demanded, a bit peevish. "Weren’t you at the last—sitting?"
"Yes, Captain. But strictly for the ambience, you understand."
Captain’s mouth hung open. Captain had a very expressive manner of standing and even when you couldn’t see his face because he’d covered it with his own hand like a man protecting his virtue, it was easy to tell what his face was doing. He was quite obviously gaping at the bulkhead in front of him. "And the," his voice dropped to approximately a single decibel, "needlework I asked you for?"
"Well, to be perfectly honest, that’s more John’s scene than mine. Takes a more refined eye to embroider a lady’s gown, I usually hit my limit at darning." Frenchie indicated the pile of neatly folded clothes and additional stray socks beside him, although Captain’s back might not be so adept at reading Frenchie’s nod as Frenchie was at reading his back. "Told Lucius to let me know when he had a sitting scheduled, easier to get to darning when they’ve already got their togs off, innit." Particularly when there were two bloody people and two bloody sets of clothes, he thought, and shook his head affectionately.
"Lots of things easier when you’ve got your clothes off," Jim agreed with that same face, same purr, same total lack of interest in Captain’s presence or sudden, surprising lack therefore, all directed at Frenchie, and well all right, Frenchie didn’t mind if he—
"All right mate, reckon you’ve probably got the hang of it by now, haven’t you?" Lucius said, and plumped up the pillows Frenchie was all propped up on. "Try not to shift around too much, ignore any heckling from the next fella—that goes for you too, Iggy, no heckling Frenchie—"
"I didn’t ask to be here."
"Yes, sure, Blackbeard told you to pick up his affairs." Lucius rolled his eyes. "And yet, here you still are."
"Kindly fuck off, Mr. Spriggs," Izzy growled and arranged the privacy washcloth more assiduously. "Just get on with it."
"Allllllllllllllllllright Iggy. Lastly, any visits from the captain or Captain Blackbeard or both, try not to think about it too closely, it’s your chaise just as much as theirs and whatever depraved makeup sex they might be having on it later…"
"Would it be makeup sex if they haven’t technically–" Frenchie asked.
"Well, whatever it is, you don’t need to think about it because I toooootally disinfected it between Wee John and you being here today, just in case."
"You’re the boss," Frenchie said cheerfully, choosing to ignore the rather interesting hissing spitting noise that came from Izzy’s corner. "How’d you want me?" He demonstrated. "Like so? Or," he shifted another way, something that displayed his spanking new lute in rather lurid fashion. "How’s this?"
"However you feel most comfortable." Lucius cheerfully dipped his quill in the company ink and opened his sketchbook. "I like my candids candid, or what’s the point? So you just prop yourself up how you like and I’ll … interpret."
"Aye," said Buttons from the other staging corner. Livvy was standing atop his head, which Frenchie thought was nice, since she didn’t usually care to come below deck. Buttons continued. "You’ll want things as natural as natural gets in a sketch."
"I’ve always said so." Lucius grinned at Frenchie. "You sure your leg won’t get tired like that? Might take a while for me to get all those lovely angles."
Frenchie was in fact counting on it. John had quite enjoyed his own visit from the captains and recounted it in some detail after. That said, "Huh," said Frenchie, and tipped his head towards the sounds filtering in from the deck. "Sounds like they’ve made up."
"Sounds like, doesn’t it," Lucius agreed.
"Oh my god," Izzy said, eyes rolling.
"Quite the enthusiastic reconciliation," said Buttons, and then they all four shared a look. A commiserating, intrigued, resignedly horrified sort of look.
Anyway, regardless of what this suggested about the likelihood of them barging in any time soon, one or both captains’ interruption of Lucius’s sketches had become a little ritual and Frenchie saw no reason it shouldn’t continue.
In a samey, mostly one-note world, life was not without its perks here on the Revenge. Frenchie put an arm behind his head and settled in for the long-haul.