Two of a Kind

Short story. A boy washes up on shore and meets a pirate swordmaster.

1.2k, rated M. Warnings for implied sexual abuse and reference to past sexual assault throughout, with a focus on survivors’ solidarity.

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When the boy Jack washes ashore, he’s sixteen years old. He was eleven when he went to sea, and he can’t quite believe that there’s real sand and real land under his feet as he makes his way up to the dirt path.

Someone stops him with a blade against his throat, and he’s shivering in his wet shirt, his sodden trousers.

“Do you know where you are?” the old man asks. His voice is quiet, his gaze severe, and Jack follows the line of the blade up the old man’s strong arm, muscle obvious under the sea spray-stained once-white of his shirt, to his face. He’s fat and jowly, his lips a very pale pink, his eyes a pale brown.

“This is — This is a pirate republic,” whispers Jack. His voice is hoarse from screaming and seawater. “Please don’t kill me. I never wanted to be in the navy, anyway.”

The old man looks Jack up and down, looks at his soaked clothing, the blood spattered on his cheek, and he looks behind Jack to the shape of the ship way out on the horizon — it’s been hours, now, and the smouldering remains of the ship are sinking beneath the water.

“Fine,” says the old man, and walks away.

With no money in his pocket, no sword, no jacket, even, Jack trudges into town. People must know where he’s come from, but no one says so — no one asks about it.

Everyone else on the ship is dead. Good fucking riddance.

* * *

Jack gets what work he can. He sleeps in different places, doesn’t feel quite comfortable under any of the roofs in the boarding houses or the brothels, can’t really sleep through the night in any of them.

He doesn’t know if he’ll ever sleep again.

Not like he used to, not like he slept when he was a little boy, before he went to sea, before one of the men picked him up from the pier and had him try some whiskey for a farthing, and then —

Then he’d woken up on a vessel gone to sea, his name on a ship’s roster, and nowhere else to go.

He doesn’t sleep like he used to as a child. He doesn’t sleep through the night any more, barely likes to sleep at all if it can be avoided, and he sleeps in one-or-two hour stretches. He likes to nap on the beach, or just outside shops and store fronts, where people can see him, where everyone can see him.

The old man that had met him on the beach is called Lucky Sound, and he’s an ex-navy man too, Jack finds out in town. He was in the navy for decades until Captain Crane had boarded the vessel he was on, and Lucky Sound had killed his own captain, who he’d been boatswain under for years, then thrown down his sword and offered his services to Crane if he’d take him on, if he wouldn’t kill him.

He’s a sword master now, teaches people who grow up on the island how to use a sword, how to use a pistol, teaches them the footwork, the different weights of blades. He teaches them the skills they’ll need at sea.

He’s a quiet man, doesn’t speak much, and Jack sees him in town once or twice buying his groceries, or speaking with the mollies at the brothel. He sleeps in the brothel sometimes, and he’s a sodomite, and everyone knows, it’s no secret, but apparently he doesn’t even fuck the boys. Just sleeps with them.

Knowing that doesn’t make Jack’s hands tremble any less when he knocks on his door and says, “I, um. I wanted — Can you teach me?”

“I’ve been wanting an apprentice,” says Lucky, looking at him thoughtfully. “And you’ve been here a month, still don’t have somewhere to sleep.”

Jack restrains the urge to swallow, to loudly gulp.

“I’ll teach you,” says Lucky. “Give you room and board. You’ll help me teach — help me clean up a bit.”

“And?” presses Jack. His voice has a quaver in it.

“And what?” retorts Lucky. “I’m an old man, lad. I need a young man’s help around the place. Are you taking the job or not?”

They spend the day clearing out the room Lucky uses for storage, folding out a cot in there instead, and that’s the room Jack lies in once Lucky’s gone to bed. He’s up throughout the night in it, can’t sleep even a wink, tossing and turning. Every time his eyes close and he thinks he’s about to drop off, his whole body will twitch or jump — he thinks he hears the boards creak, that Lucky is outside the door, that the door will open.

He always liked sleeping in hammocks, because the men had a harder time climbing quietly in with him when he was in them, and when they did climb on top of him, he wouldn’t feel their whole weight — he’d be down against the cloth, but not crushed against the wooden frame of a bed.

He feels sick, his stomach rolling like the surface of stormy waters. He doesn’t sleep.

Lucky never even opens the door.

* * *

In the morning, as they share some bread and butter for breakfast, Lucky says, “You didn’t sleep, huh? Look at those bags under your eyes.”

Jack swallows this time, his throat feeling thick and dry and full of broken glass. He’s embarrassed, the sensation of Lucky’s gaze on his face fucking excruciating.

“You thought I’d come knocking on your door, huh?”

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to. We’ll drop into the blacksmith’s today, get a bolt put on that door for you. Set your mind at ease so you can sleep without the fear I’ll come creeping in on you.”

“I’m, um, I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m not trying to — I wasn’t, um…”

“Lad, lad,” says Lucky, his voice quiet, soothing him like you soothe an upset animal, or maybe a child. No one ever really talked to him like that aboard, but people used to talk to him like that when he was a boy, before he went to sea. “I’m not fucking criticising.”

He steps away from the table, tugging open the door to his own bedroom, separate from this bigger room where he teaches swordplay. There’s a bolt on the inside of the door, just like there is on the main one.

“Can’t sleep without it,” says Lucky quietly, with a rueful smile. “I got buggered to pieces when I was in the navy, when I was a boy. Up until I was twenty-five, thirty — I put on a bit more weight, a bit more muscle. No one wanted to fuck with me then. No one wants to rape a boy they think can punch his lights out. How old are you?”

“Sixteen,” says Jack.

“We’ll get you a bolt put in today,” says Lucky again.

Jack’s eyes are watering, burning with the want to cry, and he tries to hold it back, tries to swallow it down. “Thanks,” he whispers. “Thank you.”

“It’s alright, lad,” says Lucky, and pushes more butter toward him. “We’re two of a kind, you and I. Makes sense we’d have matching locks on our doors and all.”

The old man isn’t crying, but when he smiles at Jack, his eyes are shining too. Jack wipes his wet eyes clean, huffing out a low, quiet noise, and takes the butter as he’s told.