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“Wex!” Craven calls out for him. His voice is a higher pitch, he’s excited or surprised, Wex can’t always tell the difference. “I just had the craziest fucking dream about you. Well, you and me.”
Wex turns with an eyebrow raised. He’s used to the weird dream stories and fantasies by now. “Yeah? Can’t be better than the one where you were a king.” He loves how imaginative his captain can be; a childlike wonder that he hopes never fades.
Craven nudges a punch at his first mate's shoulder. “Actually, we lived a normal life. We had a house and a little shop where we sold flowers.” He muses like there’s no tomorrow, like he has no fears. Like he isn’t a wanted criminal. “Isn’t that insane?”
He replies with an ambiguous hum. “Is that so crazy?” Wex tucks his hair behind his ear to keep it away from the night winds blowing. He’ll probably ask Craven to cut it later. Maybe Craven will tell him he likes that it’s growing out, and then he’d let it grow longer, long enough to reach the deck when he sits down. Or, Craven will say his hair is too long and Wex will be happy to keep it cut as short as he can while still looking good.
“We’re pirates. We’re outlaws. We can’t be living some mundane life.”
Wex bites his tongue, but nods nonetheless. They’ve had this talk a dozen times before and were bound to have it half a dozen more before the year's end. There is no lovey-dovey for them, no future where they aren’t on the sea. It’s not that Craven wants to be a world-famous pirate, but he doesn’t want to be some nobody on an island in the middle of nowhere, who lives an average life. Wex doesn’t mind that, he knows that Craven is destined for a little more than that.
“Besides,” Craven puts a hand on Wex’s shoulder. He has to reach up because Wex is a whole head taller than him. “We’re basically still kids. You’re only 25, and I’ll be 24 soon.”
“It’s not like we won’t be together anyway.” Wex chimes, just to make sure Craven doesn’t push further about it. “We can do flowers in another life or something.” He doesn’t really believe in that, only when he’s being optimistic, but it feels nice to say out loud.
Wex loves Craven, this much he is eternally sure of. He would die for Craven most days. Sometimes, he wants to kill Craven with his own two hands, but only sometimes. His heart holds love for their crew, ragtag and misfit, but close-knit. Craven is the kind of guy to ask anyone who’s nice to join the crew. Most of them find Wex a little too intimidating to join, or think they pose more of a threat than Wex does. The latter group is far too naive for the sea anyway.
“Go back to bed, Ve. It’s late as hell. Be a good example.”
Craven gets on his toes to kiss Wex quickly before he pulls away and walks back off to his captain's quarters. “When everyone else gets up, make sure you come to bed.”
Wex hates when he says that. Come to bed, he hates it, implying they share a bed. Sure, they do share a bed, but it's not their bed. It’s just a bed, because Craven doesn’t want to be labeled, he doesn’t want to be in a relationship.
“Aye aye, captain.” He offers a two finger salute.
Eventually, in the late hours of the morning, Wex does find his way to a bed. He lays his head down long enough for a nap, and he sleeps long enough to have bad dreams.
Wex watches Craven fall and hit the deck hard. He hears the thud, anyone on the ship probably could have heard it. He’s not sure how he got here, just a moment ago they were in a bar with everyone else, and then suddenly they were back on the ship.
He lunges forward, hoping to catch at least Craven’s head so that he doesn’t get a concussion on top of this injury. His weight comes down uncomfortably fast into Wex’s arms and their heads knock together, and it hurts, but he doesn’t have time to worry about that.
“Ve?” Wex is nearly pleading for his attention. “Cray!” He tries to ignore the feeling of Craven’s chest against his, laborious breathing of shallow and wet intakes of air. Wex pretends like blood isn’t seeping out of his captain and coating his clothes and his hands and the deck.
Craven attempts to speak but sputters another cough, a bloody one Wex is sure.
Wex can see the man who had just brought Craven to his knees rearing up for another swing. His instinct is to shield his already vulnerable captain, taking a harsh pair of cuts to his forearm and his shoulder. He bites back a scream, but can’t hide the wince that comes with the impact.
He can’t think, and can only haphazardly move. Craven nudges his nose into the long strands of hair that frame Wex’s face. Wex wishes that he had cut it when he was thinking about it, now his captain might be suffocating in locks of blue and green hair. “Hey, hey, don’t move.” Wex reaches to his side for a gun, unloading the cylinder of his revolver into the man’s chest. He wishes he had done this sooner.
Craven doesn’t listen, he never really does. With arms heavy as lead he still strains to reach up, around Wex’s shoulders. He holds on for dear life, or the poor life he’s got left in him. “Remember that dream I had..?”
“Now’s not really the time for that, Ve.” Wex wants to tell him to shut up, that he needs to save his air and his energy or else worse might come, but he knows, and he’s not letting his captain go out being yelled at. He starts wishing he had done less scolding over all.
“The flower shop one.” Craven continues. He speaks soft and low, not by choice but because he’s coughing up blood and losing strength and his head is pounding. “It actually seemed kinda nice…”
Wex’s lips press into a firm line. His eyes don’t stray from the man in front of him who did this to his captain. He doesn’t bother to think about his own blood pooling out of twin cuts, flowing into Craven’s blood in a puddle beneath them on the deck of their ship. “We can still do that, Ve. We should do that.” He isn’t sure if Craven can hear him, he’s sure that Craven can’t feel him.
Craven’s head rolls to the side and rests against a warm cheek. He feels heavier; Wex knows he can’t support any of his own weight anymore. The crackling, wet sounds from Craven taking shaky breaths stops, his chest stops heaving, he stops coughing. Wex is grateful it’s over, no matter how bad he’ll feel about it later. He pushes Craven off his chest and rests him against the mast. The worst of it is over, he hopes.
Wex stands and walks to the man shot six times at point-blank range. He swings a leg across his lap, both knees on the deck, and barely cracks a grin when he feels the man move if only an inch beneath him. Wex takes the blades from the man's hands. He takes one of those captain-killing wrists in his hand and holds it down flat against the deck before driving the blade though his palm and then repeats on the other end, a horizontal crucifixion at best.
He hurts, all of him hurts from his arm to his shoulder to his head and his heart. He’s seething with rage, and he’s more than happy to take it out right here and now. Wex balls a fist, and brings it down against the man’s temple, reveling in the faint crack he can hear. His knuckles make contact with his jaw, dislocating it, or breaking it, he doesn’t care.
Wex wears no expression for the execution, only beating down until someone comes and pries him off the man. They grab him around the chest, arms hooked under his own, lifting him away. With some space between them, Wex admires his work. The man is covered in blood, purple and red in every inch of skin that sees the light of day, and his dark clothes have since soaked up most of what pooled out from the shots but not what came from his fists.
He’s no longer sure what blood is his or Craven’s or the man whom he beat to death. Wex doesn’t care. He is proud of his work and he would be happy to do it all over again.
Someone tells him to go, get out of here before the Marines show up and deal with the cause of the commotion. He doesn’t run, he can’t. His legs don’t move because… because…
A hand presses into the spot between his shoulders and Wex feels his heart beating loud enough that he’s sure whoever it is can hear it too. It’s Borsalino, because of course it is, towering over him. “Have a good nap?” He asks in the same inquisitive tone as usual.
Wex sits up. He realizes that he’s sitting, hunched over a desk that is not his own. His lungs don’t allow him to speak. He scans the desk, nothing of importance, and scans the wall in front of him, posters and maps and nothing that screams at him either.
“Did it sound like I was having a good nap?” He’s finally able to ask as he uncrosses his arms and pushes himself out of the chair. Wex runs a hand through his hair, pushing back the since grown out strands that are always falling over his face. He’ll probably ask Borsalino to trim it later. Maybe Borsalino will tell him it doesn’t matter as an excuse to not do it, but Wex will take it that he likes the length his hair is at and doesn’t know how to admit it.
Borsalino takes a seat on the desk rather than in the chair, and crosses his arms across his chest. “Not really,” he says with a smile. He takes the coat he wears more like a cape off of his shoulders and drapes it over the back of the unoccupied chair. “But wasn’t it nice of me to ask?”
Wex takes a deep breath and holds it for a moment before exhaling with a laugh. “Yeah, you’re a real sweet guy.” He replies sarcastically as he steps to the side, standing in front of the man dressed in shades of yellow and green.
He’s glad he chooses not to sleep in a room with other people anymore, because if anyone else heard his sounds of a nightmare, he isn’t sure if he’d be able to stop himself from ensuring they can’t bring it up again.