Archive of Our Own

“Captain?” Izzy squeaked.

Benjamin Hornigold gestured wordlessly for Izzy to enter. He didn’t even look up; he just reached forward to pour milk from a small pitcher into his morning coffee while holding a book open with his other hand.

Izzy stepped forward, shutting the door of the captain’s quarters and the sunny day outside with it.

Ed had said there was nothing to worry about: their new captain was making his way through the new recruits—interviewing them one by one—and apparently all Ed had copped was a lecture on obedience, respect and personal hygiene. Still, Izzy had to fight the urge not to turn around and check the door hadn’t magically locked behind him.

Hornigold sipped coffee and continued reading. 

Izzy put his hands in his pockets, his fingertips finding several beads of lint and a smooth bit of sea glass Ed had casually tossed his way some months earlier—he hadn’t known where else to stash it when they’d been picked up by the Ranger. At the rustle of a page and a disinterested hum from his captain, Izzy quickly withdrew his hands and let them dangle at his sides.

“You, err... you wanted to see me, Captain?”

Hornigold cleared his throat absentmindedly and took another sip of coffee.

“Ah, Israel,” he said as though only just noticing him, though Izzy knew better. “Come in, boy.”

Izzy took another step towards the captain’s desk. It was more of a dining table, really, with Hornigold seated at the far end, backlit by cloaked windows. The table stretched long in front of him so that anyone entering had ten feet of polished dark wood between them. Izzy noted there was no chair opposite him. Guests would either have to walk around its length to a closer chair or stand awkwardly at the short end just inside the door.

“So, you like my ship?”

Izzy nodded.

“Speak up, boy.”

“Yes,” Izzy croaked. “Yes, sir.”

“We’ll have to work on that little mouse voice of yours, won’t we? Can’t have any of my men lacking in conviction. Even men barely old enough to honour that word.”

Izzy nodded again, his fingers finding a loose thread on his trousers. He’d only been aboard a week and had already seen him blood-eagle a man with the detached precision of a town butcher.

He winced as Hornigold scraped his ornate wooden armchair away from the table, sat back and twisted a ring on his finger. It was hard not to let his gaze drop to where Hornigold’s open dressing gown splayed over his lap, his cock hanging soft but heavy between his legs.

A snigger tugged at one side of Hornigold’s mouth. He crossed one leg over the other.

“Not just my ship, it seems.”

Izzy tried to find something to say, some excuse or apology or change of topic, but Hornigold held his palm up, signalling silence.

“I suppose the other boys—other young men—have filled you in about your duties and responsibilities? And what punishment to expect if you don’t pull your little mouse weight? Or if you show any signs of disloyalty to your captain.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” Hornigold grinned the way a shark might grin at a foot dangling over the side of a ship but he smoothed it over with forced concern. “Any of the other men tease you? Pick on you for being shorter? Or younger? They make fun of those pretty little lips?”

Izzy shrugged. He wondered if Ed got any questions like this.

“Any of them touch you?”

“Touch me, sir?”

“I’d have noticed if any of them were beating up on you. A black eye or bloodied knuckles are easy to spot across a deck. But I’m not talking about roughhousing.” 

Izzy tilted his head. “Sir?”

“Oh, I know all about the kinds of horseplay you lads get up to when all the lanterns are dimmed. They might be hunking big blokes brandishing their swords by day but, when the sun lays her head down over the waves, they’re no more than little boys stroking each other’s wimpy little daggers while crying softly for their mamas.”

Izzy shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“There any boy more special than the others?”

Izzy’s mind flashed with an image of Ed—long-limbed and grinning fiercely, the salt-spray tousling his long wavy hair as he scaled the rigging like he was born to sail—but Izzy kept his face blank and shook his head.

“I’m glad to hear it.” Hornigold uncrossed his legs. “Now, come here and let me get a look at you.”

Izzy felt the invisible tug of the door at his back but he forced his feet forward. 

Walking past each empty chair around the table was like passing a series of gravestones. Who knew what men had sat there and misspoken or misstepped—socially or professionally—their lives snuffed out with whatever implement was handy.

Hornigold patted one of his bulky thighs. “Here.”

Izzy frowned but did as he was told, arranging himself to sit on his captain’s knee. This was new. This was… odd.

Hornigold rested a hand on Izzy’s lower back and reached up with the other to brush a stray hair behind Izzy’s ear. 

“There you are, little mouse.” His thumb lingered on Izzy’s cheekbone. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you, lad?”

Izzy stared down at the floor but Hornigold tilted his chin up.

“You want to be a good boy for your captain?”

Izzy gave a tiny nod, suspecting there was no other correct answer.

“And little mice don’t make any sounds, do they? Not even a little squeak?”

“No, Captain.” He swallowed and tried a half-hearted smile.

Hornigold smiled back, exposing his molars.

A hand snaked over Izzy’s knee and up his thigh, slithering towards his groin. He flinched as fingertips brushed the flaccid bulge in his trousers and then retreated. The hand on his back gave him a friendly pat.

“You hungry, boy? I’ve got toast, coffee, a range of different spreads...” 

Hornigold licked his lips. 

Izzy followed his gaze to the plates of food on the table: black-speckled bacon; several sausages stuck to one another; two eggs, both their yolks pierced and oozing; a pile of fried mushrooms sweating in a muddy pool.

But there was fruit too. Real, actual fruit arranged in a bowl like in an oil painting. Oranges and apples and even a golden-green pear. Izzy hesitated. He had been heading to the galley when he’d been summoned and, though his appetite had instantly dried up then, his stomach now rumbled with renewed urgency.

“Tell you what. Be a good boy for me and do exactly as I tell you, and maybe I’ll peel you an orange at the end. How does that sound?”

Izzy’s eyes narrowed. He wasn’t a fucking child. Then again, when had he last had a piece of fruit?

“You got any knives on you?” Hornigold asked suddenly.

Izzy’s hands flexed as though reaching for them, betraying him.

“Good. That’s good,” Hornigold said, stroking wide circles over Izzy’s shoulder blades. “I like my crew to be prepared for anything. But we don’t need them now, do we? As a matter of fact, I don’t think we need any of this at all.” 

He began unbuttoning Izzy’s shirt. Once he got three buttons undone, he slipped a hand in to palm over Izzy’s chest. 

“No hair here yet? Don’t worry, pet, it’ll come.”

Izzy wasn’t so sure it would nor that he wanted it. He could grow a patchy beard—had been able to for a while—and there was a thick trail of hair from his belly button leading into the bushier pelt at his groin. But it was nothing like the salt and pepper carpet of hair covering every inch of Hornigold: his chin, chest, shoulders, belly, arms and legs. Izzy had seen him with his shirt off on deck several days ago and, where Izzy had a trail down his stomach, Hornigold had that same line down his spine like a cat with its hackles up. He shuddered but, for some reason, his prick pulsed.

“You cold, boy?” Hornigold mused. “Well, we’ll have to find a way to keep you warm, then, hm?”

Izzy shrugged, which was difficult to do while perched sideways on another man’s knee. Hornigold’s thigh bone was digging into his arse and he was teetering despite the hands on his chest and back, holding him in place.

“Now, take your prick out for me, there’s a good lad.”

“Captain?”

“You heard me.”

This can’t have been what Ed endured. Izzy’d seen him go in yesterday morning and come out again less than ten minutes later. And he’d have said if Hornigold had done anything to him. Ed may be all bluster in front of the other men, but they told each other everything when they were alone. 

But Izzy thought of the blue-green sea glass he would stroke fondly each night, imagining it still warm from its previous owner’s hand instead of his own. Okay, so maybe they didn’t tell each other everything.

He could run. He could run out the cabin door and down onto the deck, take Edward by the hand and they could dive over the side together. But then what? They were miles and miles from any shore. So he couldn’t run. And while there were no doubt many places aboard to hide, with no friends yet among the crew, they’d starve long before they made port again.

He unlaced his trousers and shoved a hand down. He paused, waiting for Hornigold to laugh at him, bellow that this was all a joke, a prank, a hazing. But his captain just grasped him tighter, seeming to hold his breath with Izzy’s inaction.

As Izzy pulled his prick out, Hornigold sighed tightly in appreciation.

“Silly little thing, isn’t it? May I?”

It wasn’t a question.

Hornigold fondled it first, his calloused fingertips brushing sandpaper-tickles before tapping and feeling the weight of it. He pinched the tip of Izzy’s foreskin, rubbing it between a thumb and forefinger like he was testing the thickness of a sailcloth. Then, his bearlike hand wrapped around Izzy’s stump and gave several firm tugs.

“Let’s see how big we can get it to grow, hm?”

It began gently at first, so measured and mechanical that Izzy worried he’d stay limp and be whipped or walloped for it. But, as his prick thickened inside Hornigold’s fist, he found himself instead worrying if he was reacting wrong and this was all some test of his ability to remain unaffected. Heat flooded his face and groin, and he squirmed, the toes of his boots barely grazing the floor.

“Sit still or I’ll make this painful,” Hornigold barked. 

He squeezed, first digging in the pad of his thumb and then running his thumbnail down Izzy’s length like he was scoring a fold in a piece of parchment.

Izzy blanched but he did his best not to move. He was rewarded with kinder, faster strokes, Hornigold pulling his foreskin back again and again to expose the shiny head. 

Izzy’s hands were by his sides but he wished there was something he could hold onto for balance. It would be so easy to put one arm around Hornigold’s shoulders or to even bury his face in the man’s neck with two hands clasped over his back. Instead, he gripped the back of the chair with one hand, his fingers finding purchase in the carved wood. He pushed down on his thigh with the other as though he could hold himself in place.

Hornigold’s thumb slid over his cockhead, collecting a milky bead and painting it in a narrow swirl. Izzy moaned with the sensation, his hips bucking of their own accord.

“Don’t you go getting too excited, you little shit. You get excited and I’ll stop.”

Izzy gulped and let out a ragged breath.

It wasn’t as though he didn’t know what being wanked felt like, as though he hadn’t spent the last few years since he’d discovered it rubbing himself raw, even though the opportunities were slimmer when bunking next to someone like Ed.

But Izzy’d never touched or been touched by anyone else before. All he’d known were the furtive, breathy wanks he tried to time with the sway of the hammock, biting his own knuckles until he painted a bit of old rag.

With someone else, it seemed to tingle all the way through his blood.

“Breathe,” Hornigold whispered. “You’re doing well.”

If there was any blood not currently otherwise employed, it rushed to Izzy’s cheeks and neck. He’d been staring down at the movement of his captain’s hand so intently that his vision had blurred through skin and wood down to the ocean below. But he stole a quick glance at his captain, wondering what he could do to keep earning his praise.

Hornigold’s brows were knit together but he didn’t look like he was frowning. He was just a man who seemed permanently furrowed. His eyes were sharper than an osprey and blue like the icy waters of a long winter, yet there was something new veiled behind them as he jerked Izzy’s prick up and down with the tight snap of his wrist.

Izzy was just starting to melt into the rhythm and balance of it when it stopped. Hornigold reached for a white linen napkin, wiped off his hand and then grabbed Izzy by both hips to hoist him onto his feet.

“Get undressed. I want everything off. Then turn around and rest your palms and elbows on the table.”

Without waiting for a reply, he got up and strode off to a curtained nook on the other side of the room.

This was the moment, Izzy thought. This was the moment he would run. He’d nick the rowboat. He and Ed could survive without food and fresh water until they reached one of the larger islands, so long as they rowed straight. They could take it in turns to row while the other told stories and sang songs and, in the evenings, they could curl up together in the hull and watch the stars.

But his fingers found the rest of his shirt buttons and, before long, there was a neat pile of his shirt, trousers, smalls and weapons on the nearest dining chair. 

It was colder in here now. As he leant over the head of the table, he could feel goosebumps prickle over his bare arse. He closed his eyes. Hornigold was humming to himself. More of a bumble, really: a series of deep pom pom pom s under his breath. Then there were footsteps and the slosh of water in a bowl or small basin. The humming stopped.

A few more sloshes and the gentle peal of water droplets hitting the surface, and then Izzy felt a warm washcloth wiping over his backside. There was perfumed soap too, he presumed, as he recognised the smell of castile soap, lemon peel and herbs. Why anyone would waste the good quality stuff on him, he couldn’t say.

“Bend forward now. That’s it, yes. Put the side of your face flat on the table. Good boy. Now spread your other cheeks for me.”

The washcloth cooled quickly against his skin, but Hornigold freshened it often. He was unhurried and methodical as he worked from Izzy’s shoulder blades to his ankles, paying special attention to his prick and arse. The pattern of sloshing and wringing out was soothing and soon Izzy forgot the strangeness of standing nude in his captain’s quarters, bent over a table with his hole exposed to the air.

After he was towel-dried, Hornigold’s hands wandered over him. Izzy didn’t flinch now; he just let those rough palms map him like he was an ocean to be explored. If his neck began aching and the edge of the table bit into his front, he didn’t give it too much thought. He just let his mind drift to a little rowboat, his head resting on Ed’s chest with an oar slung over his middle.

Izzy’s eyes snapped open.

Something warm and wet had swiped up between his arse cheeks like a snail or a slug or an animal’s tongue. Hornigold nudged his hand away and spread Izzy open with his own hands. He licked again, burying his nose beneath Izzy’s tailbone and then suckling at his pucker.

Izzy had never even heard of such a thing, but the wet tickle of it gave way to pleasure, Hornigold utilising flat swipes and pointy flicks and pinched suckles. Izzy’s knees buckled, and he was glad of the table to hold him up.

It made no sense to him: this austere, barbaric man kneeling behind him, lapping at a place no mouth should ever go; desecrating with suds and now tongue a place Izzy had always considered defiled.

He didn’t think it could get any stranger until his captain pressed into his hole with his tongue. His ring opened easily and Izzy was confronted by the peculiar sensation of something tenderly entering a hole that had only ever been an exit. He arched his back, welcoming it despite himself. It was like a rare hot bath or his mother stroking his hair off his forehead when he was sick. He wondered if it was something Ed would like and he felt himself harden again.

“Enough!” Hornigold admonished, pulling back. 

Izzy wasn’t sure which of them he was talking to. Unsure if he’d done something wrong, he braced himself for a beating.

“Hand me that butter,” Hornigold said as he stood. “And a knife.”

Izzy had started reaching but his hand froze in place. A knife? Why a knife?

“Hurry the fuck up, boy. I won’t suffer dawdling.”

Izzy couldn’t see the butter dish with his head at this angle but he remembered roughly where it was. He groped around the tabletop until his fingers found it. He slid it back towards his hip and felt Hornigold take it. The knife he could see, resting inert but eager right in front of his eyes. It was blunt-tipped, the end wide and rounded, but the edge looked sharp nonetheless. Izzy watched as Hornigold picked it up, the pearl-handled base glinting purple-green like an abalone shell.

“Hold still if you don’t want to bleed.”

Izzy screwed up his eyes and braced every muscle, waiting for pain in the form of a scratch or a slash or a stab. But instead there was a new kind of wetness lathered over his hole, oily and slick—slightly grabbier than soap or saliva.

The butter.

He could feel the knife too, the sharp edges threatening to slice him where his arse cheeks were pressing back in despite Hornigold holding them open. But the metal was already warming with his body heat and he found that this too he could quickly get used to.

Hornigold swapped to his fingers next—fuck knows what he did with the knife. He stroked a path up and down with a fingertip and then around in lazy circles.

“Round and round and round it goes,” he murmured, “where it stops, nobody knows.”

And, with that, he pushed a finger in. Izzy clamped down in surprise but he forced himself to relax and take it.

“That’s it, little mouse. Let me into your house.”

Hornigold thrust shallowly for a moment and then twisted upward. He pressed deeper, the rings on his other knuckles grazing Izzy’s skin.

“Your little mouse hole is so hungry. Let’s feed it some cheese.”

He pulled his finger out to apply more butter and then pushed it in again. He repeated this several times, the china butter dish clinking each time. Izzy cringed, thinking of the grease getting under the old man’s fingernails.

“Mmm… you’re just like freshly baked bread. You think you’re tough and crusty but, on the inside, you’re warm and doughy and you melt for my knife.”

One finger was joined by a second, curling upward and then scissoring open to slide against his inner walls. Two soon became three: Hornigold’s fingertips stabbing together to make one bulky point. He twisted his fingers and crept in further the same way a man might squeeze a foot into a tight leather boot.

Izzy yelped and flinched away.

“Easy, boy,” Hornigold chided. “There’s a fourth to go, yet.”

A desperate sob sounded in Izzy’s throat. He hadn’t meant it to sound so whiny but he couldn’t find the words to plead with the man. Horigold gave a long, disappointed sigh far worse than any physical discomfort.

“And to think, I was so generous earlier, kissing that sweet little arse.” Hornigold clicked his tongue several times in quick succession. “And you liked it, didn’t you? You liked me licking you? So I think you can do this small thing for me. It really is such a small thing. It’s the least you can do.”

“Yes, sir,” Izzy whispered, bracing some muscles while trying to relax others as Hornigold worked him open.

Eventually, Hornigold slid his fist back out. It had only been a short way in, not even to the third knuckles, and yet withdrawing out felt like he was pulling out his entire arm from the shoulder.

Hornigold cleared his throat again and shuffled a few items.

“I need you to hold really still for me now. You move around too much and you’ll hurt us both,  you understand? You draw even a fucking drop of blood from me and I’ll cut your prick and your bollocks off, and I won’t do it cleanly.”

Izzy grounded his feet and took a deep breath.

The handle-end of the knife slid through his hole. Izzy could feel scratchy linen brushing his skin too; Hornigold must have wrapped the blade with the napkin. The metal was, of course, far less malleable than fingers despite being only as thick as one. It slid unbending and unyielding like it was punching a channel through the centre of him.

Izzy cried out weakly, cowering. He wished he was safe in his hammock, his arms cuddled around his chest, Edward snoring gently in the next hammock over.

“Easy, boy, or I’ll put it the other way in.”

A tear rolled down Izzy’s cheek and he tried to sniff it back in without moving or clenching.

“You’re alright, little mouse. This bit’s nearly over.”

Another tear fell. He rolled his face into his forearm; he wasn’t about to let his captain see him cry.

“Look at how it just disappears into you. Such a hungry little hole. Such a greedy boy.”

The rowboat… the stars… Ed. The rowboat… the stars… Ed.

“Shh. You did so well for me. So well.”

Izzy wiped the tears away with the back of his hand and raised his head. He hadn’t even noticed the knife slide back out. How long had it been in? 

Hornigold was already shuffling around behind him again, china and metal clinking, and water swirling. 

Izzy clenched his cheeks together, noticing an absence there that he’d never felt before. Not that he missed being filled; he just knew now what it was to feel empty.

“Do you like butter? Of course you do, all you boys like the taste of butter. Rich and salty and velvety. The way it coats your tongue and lines your throat. The way it fills up a hungry tummy. From the look of you, I bet you haven’t had a nice, big helping of butter in years, am I right?”

Izzy remained frozen in place, unsure of what to do without an order.

“I asked you a question.”

“No, sir. I mean, yes, sir. Yes, I haven’t.”

“Would you like a taste?”

Izzy nodded slowly, still looking straight ahead and unsure what exactly was being asked of him.

“Turn around and look at me when I’m talking to you... There you are. Now, kneel before your captain.”

It was obvious to Izzy what he was meant to do now that was on his knees, facing the man, nose to nose with a cock slathered in butter. This at least Izzy had heard of. Well, the cock-sucking, not the butter. He lowered his jaw.

“Suck it clean, mouse.”

Izzy had seen his fair share of cocks, though not quite this close. There was always some old fuck or young twat slinging theirs out and waving it around for a dare or a prank or a piss over the side. 

He’d seen Ed’s a few times too when they’d swam or bathed; it was long and elegant like the rest of him. He’d even seen it hard once, glancing across at the wrong time (or perhaps right time) to witness Ed jerking it in the dead of night. The men on the last ship they’d been on tended to wank themselves all quiet-like either under a blanket or with a hand down their smalls. But that night, in the next hammock over, Ed had his fully out, his cock standing hard and tall like an obelisk. Izzy had closed his eyes, not wanting to get caught watching while wishing he had the guts to join him. But he’d just lain there stupidly, the canvas soft against his skin, the ocean rocking him in its bosom, as he listened intently until his friend bit down a final wail and splattered his bare chest.

Hornigold’s wasn’t elegant and this wasn’t a prank. His cock was stocky like the rest of him: thick like a bicep, and short and stubby like a big toe. Not that Izzy’s was any bigger. However, as Izzy craned his neck forward to take it into his mouth, he decided maybe Hornigold’s was plenty big after all.

“Open wider, pet.” 

Hornigold clutched Izzy’s hair, guiding him. Izzy put his hands out to steady himself on his captain’s hips but Hornigold batted his hands away.

“Hands on your thighs; you should only need your mouth for this. Mhmm, that’s it. Close your mouth around it. Now suck. A little harder. Harder. That’s it, boy. And don’t be afraid to use your tongue.”

Izzy twirled his tongue around the invading cock, flicking it with the tip of his tongue and then rolling his tongue around it like he was savouring a berry. All he could taste was butter, so it was hard to know what the man tasted like beyond salty and oily and musky. He knew he’d be tasting nothing but butter for days to come. Maybe even water would taste brackish and creamy until he washed his mouth out with soap.

“Relax your throat now. Good boy.”

The fingers clutching his hair gripped his skull and forced him closer. It may have been a short cock but was long enough to scrape the back of his throat as it plunged downwards. Izzy tried to swallow down a cough, but swallowing just bounced it against the walls of his oesophagus. He spluttered and tears stung the corners of his eyes, but he squared his shoulders and focused on breathing through his nose.

He’d been close enough to smell Hornigold earlier when he’d sat on his knee. He’d tried then not to visibly wrinkle his nose at the mixture of stale cigar smoke, sweat and bacon grease. But the man’s body smell was more potent here. It was the kind of stink Izzy would expect to find amongst the casks and crates in a hold: woody, musty and unpleasantly organic. He should have hated it, but he nosed into his pubic hair and breathed in long and hard.

Hornigold moaned. Izzy shrunk back from the deep rumble of it. He wondered if this was what jungle cats sounded like.

Hornigold’s grip had eased and he stroked through Izzy’s hair, his nails raking over Izzy’s scalp. Then he growled again and began fucking Izzy’s face hard.

There was no experimenting with licking and sucking now. All Izzy could do was let his shoulders and throat go limp, lolling like a ragdoll as his captain used him. He was just a piece of driftwood, tossed by violent waves, sucked up and dumped down over and over. But maybe, if he could just keep breathing, he’d eventually wash up safe on some distant shore.

Without warning, Hornigold pushed him off, shoving him to the ground as he staggered backwards panting.

“You’ve done this before,” he croaked.

“N-no,” Izzy whimpered. And added “Captain” a little too late.

“You know, I can tell when a boy is lying to me.”

Izzy remained where he was, sprawled diagonally on the floor. He longed to lift his face from the floor, to flex his fingers, to stretch out his back—even just to swallow a mouthful of thick saliva—but he waited.

“You really haven’t, have you?”

Izzy kept his focus on the table leg by his head and shrugged. 

“A natural, then.” Hornigold chuckled. “All the better. That means you’re still daisy-fresh for the plucking.”

Izzy felt like he’d already been plucked and prodded and probed by this man. But he knew what else must surely be coming.

“Stand up.”

As he stood, Hornigold closed in on him, stalking into his space and pressing him back until his backside met the table’s edge.

“Stick out your tongue.”

Izzy obeyed. Hornigold tipped his head down as if to kiss him but instead closed his lips around Izzy’s tongue, sucking it like Izzy had just sucked him. The old man planted his hands on the table and pressed his naked prick against Izzy’s, rubbing them together with another rumbling groan. Sucking became kissing as their lips met and tongues slid together, Izzy unsure which of their mouths they occupied from one moment to the next.

He shut his eyes. This was yet another thing he’d never tried: kissing. It didn’t feel anything like he’d imagined whenever he’d indulged himself by staring at Ed’s lips as he spoke. Now Ed could never be his first kiss, even if he ever did work up the guts to kiss him.

Hornigold pulled back again and smacked his lips. He reached down casually like a man who just happened upon a pretty wildflower and picked up the butter dish. There was a small well in the top of the stick of butter and an oily yellow puddle gathering at the centre. He gouged a deeper hollow with three fingers, scooping up a lump, and smeared it over his length.

“Turn around and bend over.”

Again, Izzy obeyed, placing his hands down on the table.

This was what had been coming all along. He’d expected it ever since the old fuck had patted his knee. Part of him hoped for a knock at the door or the boom-crack of a sudden storm or even an explosion as half the room crunched inward from unheralded canonfire. Another part of him just wanted to get on with it.

Hornigold trailed a nose up Izzy’s spine, inhaling like an angry bull. 

“Fuck, you smell like daisies too, sweet boy.”

Just do it already, Izzy thought. Do it and get it over with.

From behind him, Hornigold grabbed him by one hip while he lined his cockhead up with Izzy’s hole. The pressure was soft, almost spongey—just polite little taps like the knock at the door Izzy knew would never come.

Do it. Fucking do it, you old fuck.

The shuffle of feet replanting. Another cool breath prickling over his back. Fingertips flexing and digging into his hip. 

The cockhead swiped back and forth over his hole.

For fuck’s sake, just fucking stick it in and—

Before he could finish the thought, Hornigold thrust forward and pressure gave way to both pleasure and pain. Izzy gasped like a man stabbed in the kidney.

“That’s just the head,” Hornigold said, panting already. “You want more? I’ll fucking bet you do.”

He pressed forward again, sliding further inside as pulled Izzy back by the hips. He kept to this depth for a while, moving slowly while neither gaining much more ground nor really retreating. Even just like this, it was too much, too big, too fast. How could something as soft to the touch as a prick feel harder than a knife handle?

“Quit your snivelling. Bite the inside of your cheek if you have to. I don’t need your blubbering interrupting my time.”

How the fuck could Izzy have felt like he’d been left wanting earlier? He realised he should have appreciated that empty feeling while he’d had it—much like the times he’d realised he’d taken breathing for granted when he’d had a blocked nose.

The next full thrust smacked him hard against the table. His hands slid out from under him and he crashed to his elbows and chest, just managing to stop himself from smashing his chin into the tabletop.

“Mm… that’s home,” Hornigold marvelled with a satisfied grunt. “All the way home.”

He paused to run a hand up and down Izzy’s spine and around the slight curve of his arse, giving it a squeeze.

Izzy’d never felt so far from home. This was home now, this ship; there was nothing else to go back to…

He frowned, waiting for it to start up again. Not moving was worse. The tenuous pleasure stopped with it and he was left feeling filled up and hollowed out; impaled and immobilised.

Both hands cupped his arse now, feeling out the shape of it and then pulling his cheeks wide apart.

“Just look at you. So greedy for me. Your arse swallowing my cock.” Another growl. “You were dying of hunger before me, weren’t you boy?” Another squeeze. “I bet you loved the taste of my meat. Sucking all that butter off and slobbering over the flesh.”

“Please,” Izzy whimpered.

Nails dug into his skin.

“You fucking are hungry for it, aren’t you? My ravenous mouse.”

“Please,” he said again, unsure if Hornigold could hear him. 

Hornigold thrust in again, finally, and Izzy wailed with relief as quietly as he could. 

He tried to give his body over to the rhythm of it but the old man was erratic: pounding in slow and deep one moment and then with sudden bursts of shallow ruts the next. Izzy braced against the table and gritted his teeth.

“Shh… don’t clench or it’ll hurt more. Here, let me help you.”

Hornigold’s hand wrapped around his prick and jerked it in time.

“Does that feel good?”

Izzy moaned.

“You feel that, how you’re fattening back up again for me?”

Precum gathered at Izzy’s tip and Hornigold dragged it down his length.

“Oozing for your captain.”

Izzy moaned again, his body rolling with the motion of being fucked and stroked. The sensation of being stretched out and punched into still burned and the edge of the table was branding a horizontal line across his middle, but he focused in on the pleasure: the slick slide, the tingling friction, the feeling of being suspended and held by warm hands and a warm body.

“That’s it, open yourself up for me.”

There was something else too down there… another strange pleasure. A sort of gentle thumping. He realised it was Hornigold’s balls slapping him with each thrust. Those hairy pendulous balls hitting in just the right spot to feel good.

“Fucking take it.”

God, and all that hair on the man. He was beastlike. The way all that body hair seamlessly blended with the hair at his groin as though his entire body was covered in fine pubic hair. What would it be like to lick it… to catalogue it with his mouth… to discover different textures against the pad of his tongue or the side of his face?

Izzy felt a traitorous urge to make his captain slide out so he could twist around and run his hands over him, to nuzzle along his furry shoulders and bury his face in his neck. Maybe he’d even tell Izzy he was a good mouse again. A good boy. His favourite boy. Maybe he’d hold him. Maybe they’d hold each other.

The stroking was better than when he’d perched on the man’s knee. It was a test earlier. An inspection. Now, it was like he’d passed the test and was being shown all the best ways to enjoy it: Hornigold working him fast and firm like he was jerking his own cock; then wringing him out slowly like he was trying to milk him dry. 

And fucking him, god, really fucking him. Building pressure together like they were both meant to enjoy this. So what if he was being used; he was found pleasing enough to his captain that his captain was pleasuring him back.

“Empires rise and fall over the conducting of these wands, you understand, boy?” 

Izzy shook his head, too lost in his own fervour.

“You will. Fleets of ships get deployed and torn apart and sink to the briny depths. But you can’t let it rule you. You have to rule it. And, pet…”

Something in Hornigold’s voice made Izzy lift his head and turn to look back over his shoulder. Hornigold narrowed his eyes.

“...I rule you.”

Izzy tried to hold his stare—to nod in agreement or squint back with quiet defiance—but he faltered and dropped his gaze.

He looked forward again and closed his eyes, willing images of Ed. Ed’s shapely calves. That unconscious peek of his waist whenever he reached above him and his shirt slid up. His lower back when he’d bend over. The swallowed grunts he’d make when he thought he was the last one awake, his hammock rocking with the frantic rhythm of it.

Ed’s cock in him. Ed wanking his prick. Ed ruling him. The two of them owning each other.

Hornigold grasped Izzy’s shoulder while he adjusted his tilt, and suddenly his cock was hitting some deep part that made Izzy light up with fire. Red lights danced over his closed eyelids like embers from a kicked campfire. A groan of ecstasy wrenched itself out of him.

“All clamped up like a clam but we finally found your little pearl, did we?”

Izzy was shuddering. Each ram into him was more than he could bear and yet he wanted to be frozen in this moment forever. Doused and burned alive by it. And then his entire body was convulsing. There was no Hornigold, no room around him, no vision—just the flames devouring him and shooting white fire through his prick.

A hand clamped over his mouth as he sobbed and moaned through it, the sound distant and strangled. He sounded like he was fucking dying. Maybe he was.

As strong hands kept him from slumping over or falling down, he wondered who would clean up the streaked mess he’d just made below the table. He would, probably. On hands and knees lapping it up with his tongue.

At least it would all be over soon.

But he realised Hornigold hadn’t climaxed with him. The old man was still hunched over him—his stumpy thumbs digging into either side of Izzy’s spine and fingertips digging into his sides—as he humped him like a dog. The old man was panting like a dog too, sweat dripping cold from his forehead onto Izzy’s back.

“Don’t worry, pet, we won’t draw this out. You just stay—” Hornigold faltered, sucking in a shallow breath, “—nice and loose for me.”

Izzy rested his head on his forearm again. All the pleasure of friction and grind had been sucked out of him and spilled over the floor. The movement felt dry, Hornigold’s cock grating inside him like an old wooden door swollen from summer storms scraping the floor as it banged and jammed.

At the same time, it was easier now: there was no urgency left in him. Hornigold had him pinned so firmly, there was no need to support his own body weight. He could just remain half-draped over the tabletop, his legs floppy and unneeded. 

Izzy drifted, letting the heaving waves of shipwreck take him where they willed while he gave up clinging to driftwood.

A hand grasped his flaccid prick and his focus was dragged back into the room.

“Your little dickie bird has flown off, hm?”

Izzy scrunched up his eyes and hugged his head, trying to make himself smaller. He could usually wank himself stupid and need to go again immediately. What was wrong with him? This was worse than bollocksing up a raid or slipping over on a wet deck or calling your captain ‘dad’.

“We’ll work on this,” Hornigold heaved, struggling to get the words out. “But for today… just bite down.”

Izzy sank his teeth into his lip. He tried to send his mind elsewhere but, this time, it wouldn’t go. 

Ed could never see him like this. Ed could never know.

“I knew you were the one,” Hornigold panted. “I’ve seen you looking. Little glances down when I wear my robe. Pink in your cheeks when you look at me. Don’t pretend this isn’t what you wanted.”

He slid one hand up to Izzy’s shoulder, clutching it so he could pull Izzy down onto his cock as he fucked him harder. He felt so hot against Izzy’s skin, the sweat sluicing off him doing nothing to cool Izzy down.

“Don’t think I don’t know that you think about me when you touch that shy little prick once all the other hammocks go still.”

Izzy baulked. Surely he’d never thought about him. Hell, he’d not gone a day not thinking about Ed since they’d first met. 

But his mind flashed with fantasies of bulk pushing down on him; broad hands with stubby fingers digging into his hips; a hairy chest moving against his; a rough, humid breath in his ear telling him to spread wider. Surely that wasn’t Hornigold in his recent imaginings. They were just some disembodied amalgamation his brain had either pieced together or made up from scratch. Except that, now that he thought about it, all those fantasies had only started in the days since boarding the Ranger…

Maybe Hornigold was right and he had asked for this somehow. Maybe there was something in the way he looked at his captain or the way he deferred to him completely when the man gave orders. Maybe he’d unconsciously wanted it so badly that Hornigold could tell just by looking at him.

Hornigold bucked with renewed vigour like an old horse rallying as it rounded the last bend. He no longer spoke, just huffed and heaved like a draught horse past its prime, glistening with sweat, struggling to keep up with the pace its master set. And yet Hornigold was both horse and master, which Izzy guessed made him the road.

Izzy felt something then, not pity exactly, but something that made him wish he could look around the room for whether there was a velvet-covered bed they could slip into at the end of this. Crimson-coloured or deep purple. But Izzy would never be enough to be chosen as a bedfellow; he was just the cobblestones beneath the old man’s hooves. 

He could feel the slap of Hornigold’s thighs stinging the backs of his. His arms and chest ached, and his arse throbbed. He was being utterly used like he was nothing more than a fist or a hole—and what do holes care about except being filled? His prick gave a valiant pulse. A long, raspy moan wrenched itself out of him.

At the sound of it, Hornigold was suddenly grunting and groaning through the final throes. His body shook and stuttered, thrusting with short bursts and clinging to Izzy like a drowning man. And then he was flooding Izzy’s insides with welcome lubricant, smearing it through him as he slowed but didn’t stop.

Izzy dug his fingernails into the table, trying to stay still and upright and loose, when all he wanted to do was clench his ass and grasp his prick and writhe back against his captain.

Finally, Hornigold collapsed forward, slumping his weight over Izzy’s back: the two of them splayed flat over the tabletop.

“I know, pet. I know,” he soothed distantly but he didn’t move.

Izzy breathed fast and shallow, unable to expand his chest with what felt like hot, damp sandbags stacked up on his shoulders and spine. The table edge was a searing line across his middle now and his feet felt like he was standing on spines or quills.

Hornigold coughed and hauled himself up, their skin sticking as he peeled himself away. Silver lights swam in Izzy’s vision. He blinked and then Hornigold was holding him, lowering him down somewhere soft.

There were only snatches of sensations now: the tink and slosh of the basin; the warm washcloth over his skin; the coarse comfort of his clothes being pulled on. Then there was cold metal being pressed against his lips, and the bitter, earthy taste of black coffee.

“Drink, little mouse.”

Izzy swallowed. He reached out to take the cup with both hands but he coughed and the cup withdrew.

“Shh… you need to drink it, not breathe it, pet. Try again.”

Izzy swallowed more slowly and deliberately, letting the coffee ebb against his bottom lip while he breathed through his nose. A hand brushed through his hair. He could almost feel the velvet…

Hornigold hauled him to his feet. Izzy was still swaying but the coffee had perked him up and put a buzz in his limbs. He looked up into his captain’s eyes, waiting for something. Permission, maybe. Hornigold seemed to be waiting too. Izzy leaned forward, letting his weight pitch over his toes. He closed his eyes and pursed his lips.

A breath of air swept past him. He waited, hoping…

Finally, he opened his eyes. Hornigold was seated in his armchair, flipping through his book back to wherever he’d left off.

“You may go now, Israel,” he said, his eyes skimming along a line of text.

Izzy hesitated but no words came to him. He turned slowly on the spot and began the long walk down the length of the table, trying to puzzle out why he felt disappointed.

There was no way he could kiss Ed now. Ed would smell it on him: the salt of butter-grease and sweat; the cigar breath soaked into his hair; the acrid musk staining the backs of his thighs that no washcloth could simply wipe off. All it would take was one look and Ed would know he’d been tainted by another. He was a base thing now. And, worst of all, he’d enjoyed it. 

Maybe this was better.

Still, he longed for cleansing daylight and the spray of salt water and firm rope beneath his fingers. He placed a hand on the door, willing himself not to fling it open and run to the nearest hidey-hole.

“Oh, and Israel…?”

Izzy was halfway out the door, one foot already in the sunshine. He turned back. 

An orange arced through the air towards him—he caught it. Hornigold dropped his gaze back to his book, his lip curling cruelly.

“Remember, above all else is loyalty to your captain.”