Silly romance short. A quartermaster is driven mad by the carpenter’s nephew.
1.3k, short and sweet! Rated M, adapted from a TweetFic. Light-hearted age gap with pirates.
John is eternally at odds with the young nephew of the ship’s carpenter, a loud and sharp-tongued lad with too much attitude and too much confidence to boot, who keeps appearing at his bunk come evening time. Threatening to beat him does little to deter him, and if anything seems to encourage him.
He was a bricklayer before he joined the crew, and his uncle had vouched for him — Hart’s work is sound, he works very closely with his uncle, and he doesn’t hesitate to scale the rigging or the tall masts even when there’s a high wind or storm threatening.
Six days into his first voyage he spots where the sail is caught when they’re trying to batten the hatches before a real torrent hits, and he moves up the ropes so fast they can barely see him to cut the sail free. This is a good thing, of course — he’s fast and confident, he’s not scared of doing the work, doesn’t hesitate in a crisis, yes, yes, all good things.
Only Hart hates to be told how to do something by anybody other than his Uncle Peter, talks back something awful, and it drives John fucking spare.
He knows it’s on him for being so strict — he was a navyman before he was a pirate, and everyone laughs a little at how he likes things done properly, how fucking stern he is about things being done the right way, but Hart? Hart pushes the envelope something fucking ridiculous — he barks out “sir, yes, sir!”s whenever John gives him an order, copies his mannerisms behind his back, puts things high up, out of John’s reach.
There’s no uniform on a vessel like theirs, but John despises to see shirts and jackets in poor repair — it makes them look like poor pirates when they’re raiding or trading, makes them look inexpert. Hart will tear a button off his breech front as John approaches just so that he’ll stop and have a go about it.
For Christ’s sake, the lad feeds seabirds, encourages the big cunts to follow the ship where she sails, as if they need it.
The first time John dips into the little private half-cabin he’s got, separated from the master gunner’s with a sheet of canvas, he jumps a fucking mile and grabs Hart out of his bunk by his shirt.
The boy laughs, says, “You weren’t using it!” and laughs again when John smacks him upside the head.
He’s six and twenty, far too old for this sort of carry on, but he looks younger, and it doesn’t seem to deter him that John is a score and a half his senior — in the weeks after John finds the little cunt awaiting him in his bunk two or three nights of seven before being expelled to sleep in his own hammock.
“I expect he wants you to bugger him,” says Captain Arquette disinterestedly when John complains to him over supper.
“I can’t bugger him.”
“Why?” asks Luc, not looking up from his book as he idly pages through it. “Your cock broken?”
“I think Hobson might have something to say about it.”
Luc glances up from the page, frowning. “He really is Hart’s uncle, you know. It’s hardly some euphemism.”
“That’s not the point,” groans John, falling back in his seat. “How would you feel if I buggered your nephew?”
“My actual nephew, or my…?”
“Luc.”
Luc shrugs and looks back to the page. “Sounds like he’s all but begging for it.”
“He’s a boy.”
“He’s older than many of the crew.”
“If you want him buggered so badly, why don’t you do it?”
“I never went in for buggery,” says Luc. “I pay extra in brothels so they’ll just let me sleep.”
* * *
That night, John catches Hart in his bunk when the master gunner is still above deck, grabs him like he always does but instead of throwing him into the corridor he pins him over the nightstand, and Hart cackles like a hyena no matter that John’s weight is bearing down on his back.
“You want me to fuck you?” John demands. He’s half-hard at the thought, his cheeks blushing something fierce.
“If you like,” says Hart.
“What do you mean, if I like?”
“Means what it says, sir. If you’d like to, do so.”
John smacks him hard on the arse and Hart grunts, his thighs falling apart.
“Seems to me you’re angling for a beating,” growls John, to which Hart replies, “I’d not complain. A beating well serves a man at times. I can savour a good beating.”
“But that’s not what you wanted either?”
“If you’d like to, I’d happily take it.”
John grabs Hart and pulls him around so that they’re face to face, Hart pinned back against the nightstand. He’s somewhat taller than John is, is folded up like a handkerchief underneath him, but he’s undeterred by the fact. His eyes sparkle with mischief.
“The fuck do you want, lad?” John demands.
“Nothing much, sir,” says he, and earns a slap.
It’s only to the side of his thigh but it makes him jump, his cheeks flushed, leaning in closer. His lips are parted hungrily.
“Tell me,” orders John.
“I’d like my beating now, sir,” says Hart in breathless tones, leaning closer. “I’d like to kiss you first, mind.”
John thinks on it a moment before he allows it, kisses Hart before he undoes both their trousers and bends him over again.
It’s —
Nice.
“How’d you come to be a pirate?” Hart asks afterward, laid on top of John’s chest, blanketing him fully. It becomes a habit of his until it’s less a habit and more a fact of life, asking questions like this come the evening — about John’s navy career, the ship, his duties. He sleepily mumbles about his own, but it’s always muffled between John’s tits.
That’s nice too.
* * *
It’s years later that John retires his duties to take a house in Jersey and Hart comes with him. Luc had taken his own retirement on the same stretch of land some years before, as had Frankel Hobson, and Hart insists on it, insists on helping out, helping them mind the land, stay on top of things.
John had insisted that Hart not come if he didn’t like, and the response was of course that he did, indeed, like.
It’s a new-built house, just a small cottage, but the bed is broad and comfortable, and when John had suggested they keep chickens, Hart had seemed mystified at the thought.
“Always was grateful for you,” Hart murmurs, leaning back into John’s hold where they’re sprawled in bed together. “Never thought it’d come to this.”
“To this?” repeats John, his nose pressed nuzzling against Hart’s strong shoulder.
“Being, well. Being in love.”
It makes John’s cheeks hot for him to say it, even now, and he stands up on his tiptoes to kiss the back of the lad’s neck. “You’re a sentimental creature,” he murmurs. “You act even older than I am.”
“If you like,” says Hart, and twists in his arms until he can bend down to kiss him on the mouth. “Funny what led to it, though.”
“What, you being of a sort to be inspirited by a flurry of blows?”
“No, me being afeared of hammocks.”
John stares at him. “Say again?”
“Couldn’t never manage it,” says John, shrugging his shoulders. “And I hated to make my bed on the floor. Tried the surgeon before I tried you.”
“You little prick,” says John, and smacks his arse through the blankets.
John laughs, turns fully in the bed and clambers on top of him: his cheeks are glowing red for the embarrassment, and he splays his hands on John’s chest.
“Are you very angry, Jack?”
“Incensed,” says John, without heat. “Beyond fury.”
“Oh, good,” says Hart, beaming, and falls over his lap with his arse in the air.
John, laughing, does — as he ever does — as he is silently bid, and raises his hand for the blow.
FIN.
Want more silly, sexy pirates? Try:
https://johannestevans.medium.com/gerald-poole-and-the-pirates-part-i-bcf6016a2d47
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