The Flying Dutchman, 2/15
Title: The Flying Dutchman, 2/15
Rating: PG-13 (this chapter, for slash)
Wordcount: 2,360 (this chapter)
Disclaimer: Not mine, not true. Woe.
Summary: Dirk adjusts to life on board the Dutchman and discovers something he really would have preferred not knowing.
Intro post for this fic here.
“Up!”
Dirk yelped as he fell with a painful thump to the roiling deck, having been shoved straight out of his hammock. He opened his eyes and squinted, just barely able to make out Gio’s face lit up by the lantern in his hand, surrounded by the darkness of the pre-dawn light.
“Up!” Gio ordered again. “Come on, you lazy weasel. It’s already one bell into the morning watch, you’re supposed to be on deck with me!”
“Sorry,” Dirk slurred, stumbling to his feet and pulling his short jacket closer about him to try and keep warm. “Sorry, sorry - ”
“Hmph. Just shift your arse above decks,” Gio said, most of the malice passing out of his voice. “Come on, let’s go.”
Dirk followed him up through the hold, bumping into various hammocks on the way and provoking a few grumbled moans. A few minutes later he and Gio emerged out into the cold - the ship was quiet, flying minimum canvas, just drifting with the tide as the sun began to peek over the horizon, slowly turning the sky a pinkish-grey over the water. Edwin was on the quarterdeck, the officer on watch, leaning on the railing as the sun came up. He waved one hand at Dirk and Gio, but otherwise didn’t move as the two seamen walked slowly up and down the deck, yawning and stretching.
It was Dirk’s fourth day on board the Flying Dutchman, and despite himself and the memories of blood and gore from the sinking of the Feyenoord that still crept into his mind every night when he crawled into his hammock, he couldn’t help but realize that he was beginning to become accustomed to his new life. It was hard, much harder than life aboard a merchant, with longer watches, longer hours, more backbreaking work and far less chance of a reward at the end of it - but still, he was alive. He was coping, somehow. The Dutchman hadn’t seen any other ships as it wandered aimlessly across the ocean in all that time, and Dirk was profoundly grateful for that, as there was no way he was ready to hold a sword and join in a fight.
Almost every second he spent aboard ship, Dirk felt himself becoming reluctantly more and more impressed with the discipline of the pirates - of the crew, he sometimes found himself thinking. Despite their lawlessness (and the fact that someone was always drunk, and someone was always fighting and someone was always muttering curses about the captain behind his back), the ship actually ran smoothly, and was almost as orderly as the merchants Dirk had been sailing on for most of his life.
The pirates themselves were a varied and eclectic group, a mixture of teenagers running away from home and older men used to killing and sailing, like Dirk former merchant sailors or traders. Various men stood out from the rest - Wesley Sneijder was a small, barrel-chested youngster in charge of keeping up the guns, Arjen Robben and Rafael van der Vaart the two petty officers, stalking amongst the crew with obviously puffed-up opinions of themselves, though both of them worked hard among the crew when they were needed.
Robin van Persie was the other bo’sun besides Gio, below Ruud instead of Ed. There was a sort of friendly competition set up between the two informal halves of the crew, and Dirk found himself having fun against his will when he and Gio sewed Robin to his hammock his second night on board, leaving the dark-haired young man cursing violently as he hung upside-down the next morning, unable to get out or swing himself back up.
The rest of the crew were just ordinary seamen like Dirk, vaguely organized into the group which were attached to either Ed or Ruud. Dirk shared the space where his hammock hung in the hold with Gio, Ooijer, Boulahrouz, Mathijsen, Timmer, De Cler, Stekelenburg, Rafael, and De Jong, while the for’rard section of the hold hosted Robin, Arjen, Sneijder, Melchiot, De Zeeuw, Engelaar, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar (the teen always insisted on being called by his full name), Bouma, Vennegoor, and the youngest member of the crew, Afellay - a boy barely fifteen years old who had apparently been pulled out of the water barely alive a few months earlier off the coast, thrown there by Spanish marauders.
Edwin was by far Dirk’s favorite officer to work under, and he was glad that Gio seemed to be the first mate’s favored member of the regular crew. Quiet, almost reticent, Ed was nevertheless fierce when he was bellowing orders, efficient and commanding, sometimes more so than Van Basten - so much so that his men obeyed him absolutely, no matter what he asked for. Dirk got the impression after only a few days that they would die for him, a curious sort of loyalty and one he hadn’t expected among pirates. His clothes were simpler than either Van Basten’s or Ruud’s, just breeches, boots, a shirt which he somehow managed to keep clean, a coat pulled over his shoulders when it got cold at night. He wore a small silver cross around his neck, partially blackened from age - it looked old and worn, and sometimes Dirk caught a glimpse of Ed pulling at it absent-mindedly. He seemed to favor a sword over Ruud’s pistols, and always had a dagger or two tucked into his boots.
Ruud was his complete opposite in almost every sense. Brash and outspoken, the dark second mate was willing to shout at his men at every opportunity or strike out at them to make them work faster, cuffing Klaas or Robin whenever they were up to their tricks. It had to be said, however, Dirk thought, that he was never unfair or unkind. The only time he had seen Ruud actually beat someone was when Jan Vennegoor managed to somehow drop a small barrel of precious freshwater overboard, promptly getting several hard whacks from his livid officer. When he wasn’t giving orders, Ruud was remarkably tolerable - he kept an eye on everything going on, always, but he was content to let the ship go about its own business as long as nothing went wrong.
As strange as it seemed, Ruud and Edwin were completely inseparable. The two mates had their respective duties, of course, and were often kept running back and forth between bellowing orders at their men and hurried consultations with Van Basten, who seemed to enjoy nothing more than the simple act of ordering them about. But still, whenever or wherever Dirk was, he always seemed to come across the two of them together, talking while they leaned against the railing, overseeing the same group of men as they worked in the sails, or eating together in the mess, sitting amongst the rest of the crew but somehow distinct. They were an odd sight at times to Dirk - Ed’s cooler temperament seemed to clash with Ruud’s brazen forcefulness, and just in terms of looks they seemed at odds, a strange picture as they paced the deck in the evenings.
The exact nature of their friendship wasn’t apparent to Dirk, as they most often behaved like friends instead of superior and inferior officers. But he was soon to find out. Later that day, in the early evening, Dirk was startled to hear the captain call his name as he was coming down the mainmast with Klaas and Bouma, brushing rope fibers off of his hands onto his increasingly filthy clothes. The captain was a distant figure, unknowable but for his reputation as a bastard, so Dirk had tended to avoid him.
“Kuyt,” Van Basten called, beckoning for Dirk to approach the quarterdeck. “Go and fetch either Ed or Ruud, tell them I want to see one of them up here straightaway.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Dirk said smartly, refusing to let go of the discipline he had learned on merchants. He thought he heard Van Basten snort as he turned away, but he didn’t really care. He spent a few minutes searching the upper deck for the two officers, checking in their cabin (empty), before heading for’rard and plunging below decks.
“Sirs?” Dirk called as he clattered down the companionway, his ragged boots flapping a little at the edges. “Sirs, the captain wants one of you on the bri - ”
He stumbled to a stop as he reached the lower deck, his mouth falling open so fast he thought he might have broken his jaw.
Edwin and Ruud were there, all right, but Dirk had hardly expected them to be tangled together in such a strange - and compromising - position. Ruud was forcing Edwin’s back violently against the solid wood of the foremast, the two men’s chests and hips pressing against each other. Ed’s hands were clutching Ruud’s hair as their lips smashed roughly together again and again, breathing hard as their tongues intertwined.
Ruud’s hands jerked downwards towards Edwin’s backside, and Dirk was finally shocked into letting out a little yelp. Immediately, both men stilled, and two heads turned sharply in Dirk’s direction. Dirk shut his mouth with a snap, gulping.
“What is it?” Ruud panted, glaring at him.
“I - er - captain wants you,” Dirk burst out, flustered. “Either one of you. Sir. Didn’t say who, er, sirs. Sir.”
Ruud and Edwin looked at each other for a moment, still firmly in each other’s embrace. Then Ruud sighed and rolled his eyes, and Edwin shrugged.
“I’ll go,” Edwin said calmly, slipping out of Ruud’s grasp. “See what the old fool wants this time…”
“Hurry back,” Ruud half-growled as Edwin made his way casually past Dirk, nudging the shocked seaman as he started climbing up the companionway. Dirk staggered against the rope railing, looking back and forth between the two mates. Ruud had turned away and was inspecting the nearest cannon as though he hadn’t a care in the world, but after a few seconds he paused and looked up at Dirk, frowning.
“What are you looking at?” he said fiercely. “Get to your work.”
“Ah - aye aye, sir,” Dirk stammered, jumping. A moment later he was haring up the companionway to the deck, emerging panting into the fresh air only to be confronted with the sight of Edwin standing on the quarterdeck talking to Van Basten, which just made him skid to a halt again.
He blushed and turned away, hurrying for’rard - but that just made him think of Edwin’s back against the foremast, which really didn’t help. He spun about, furious with himself and life in general, and nearly crashed into Gio, who blinked at him in confusion as they both careened on the deck for a moment.
“What on earth’s the matter with you?” Gio said, grasping Dirk’s forearms and looking him hard in the face. “Christ, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Dirk?”
“I might as well have,” Dirk stammered, his eyes flicking between Gio and the figures of Edwin and Marco on the quarterdeck. “I. Er. Well.”
Gio frowned and followed his gaze, squinting up at the two officers. A moment later Ruud came up the companionway nearest the quarterdeck - Gio looked askance at Dirk when he felt him flinch, but then his expression cleared and his eyes widened.
“Oh,” he said, and then, to Dirk’s chagrin, he grinned widely. “That. Sorry, I should have warned you - but honestly, you’d have found out sooner or later somehow.”
“So - so - it happens a lot? They’re not just - ill, or something?”
“Good lord, no,” Gio said, laughing as though the whole thing really wasn’t a problem at all, which made Dirk blink. “They’ve been at it for months. Ever since I came on board, anyway, and that was nearly a year ago.”
“You mean they actually - they bugger each other?” Dirk whispered frantically.
Gio giggled. “Oh, yes. They've done it everywhere - and I mean everywhere, we walk in on them often enough. I think they'd do it in the crow's nest if they could!”
Dirk could feel his blush spreading into the roots of his hair. “But - but it's a sin!”
“Come off it,” Gio scoffed, leaning back casually against the railing, “one would think you were just out of the canals.”
He leaned his head forward, jerking it to beckon Dirk closer. Dirk shuffled forward a foot, his hands sullenly in his pockets. He was not happy with this situation, not at all.
“Listen,” Gio said, quieter. “This is the open ocean, Dirk. This is a bloody pirate ship, for Christ's sakes. We're desperate men just after money and enough food to make the next port. We don't get see our families for weeks or months on end - ”
“You've got a family?” Dirk cut in, blinking, feeling a pang deep in his chest at the thought of Gertrude sitting at home in Katwijk, perhaps just hearing of the disappearance of the Feyenoord.
Gio shrugged slowly, looking down at the deck. “Of course. A wife and child. And,” he continued, leaning conspiratorially closer still, “so do Edwin and Ruud. They're both married. They have sons and daughters on the mainland. What happens here, on board...”
He leaned back again, his intense look fading away into something more nonchalant. “What happens here, in the end, means nothing on land. Here, we - they - can do whatever we want. We can kill men. They can love each other and not give a damn whether any stupid landlubbers call them sodomites.”
Giovanni tilted his head as Dirk stood silently, staring out over the water, his hands still in his pockets. “Do you understand what I'm saying?”
“Edwin wears a cross,” Dirk mumbled, thinking back on the small silver symbol he had seen swinging that morning around the first mate’s neck. “I don’t - ”
A minute or so passed in silence. Then Dirk blinked and sighed.
“No, I don’t understand. But - ” he lifted his shoulders helplessly “ - I suppose I'll have to sooner or later. It's not like I can get off anytime soon.”
Gio threw back his head and laughed. “True,” he chuckled, clapping Dirk on the arm. “Very true!”
His merriment was infectious. Dirk couldn't help but grin.
TBC
Chapter One here.