The sun is very high. It beats down from almost directly overhead, cutting hot ribbons between the broad swaths of canvas and casting almost no shadow whatsoever. On the back of his neck, sweat is prickling now - beginning to itch under older, drier grime and salt spray -, and what wind there is blows from behind them: driving the Walrus forward before it so that the atmosphere's breath can hardly be felt on the ship's deck. But he isn't thinking of the heat. It's almost guaranteed that no one is, either here or over there on the heavy fluyt crawling before them. There are more pressing concerns.
The sternchaser on the merchantman's ship exhales a puff. A moment later, the bang-crack report follows. From his place on the quarterdeck, Flint can clearly see where the shot plummets wide to starboard, throwing up a great pillar of sea. He fixes his glass on the ship ahead of them; the crew if reloading the gun, just visible between despondent flaps of the English flag listing from its cable.
"If they miss again, that will be the end of it. They'll follow with the white flag after," he says to the Ranger man beside him, who is tall and with fair hair bleached sun yellow. 'His Majesty', the crew - in turns delighted by and sullen about any use of the Ranger's castoff intelligence, much less the passage of the man Vane's deployed to oversee the collection of his fair cut of the result - sometimes call him.
Flint lowers the spyglass from his eye by a fraction. He looks to Thomas in the narrow space, and the waxed end of his mustached twitches. There is some flash of teeth. It's a grin meant for being hidden behind a hand, one which reaches his eyes but doesn't brighten them.
A hand that once never knew work harsh enough to build the suggestion of a callus grips the wood of salt-worn railing; an improvement over a year ago, which would have demanded both hands and a far more tense posture. He didn't even flinch when the cannon went. He doesn't remember the last time he did.
"As you say."
Mr Barlow is still not a sailor. It's probable he won't ever be. Captain Flint, however, is a consummate professional in every way, and there is no reason not to place complete trust in him. In fact, being able to do so is such a pleasing luxury that the fine taste of it offsets the bitter metal flavor of impending violence. Almost enough to be complementary. (Thomas is not grateful that it took so long to see him again. But he is grateful that James did not witness his reaction to the first time a man asked him if he was ready before a clash like this. Soulmate or not, some things are always going to be reflected on with crippling embarrassment.)
Yes, I am.
And if he wasn't - too late anyway.
Does votre majesté not carry a sword? C'est pas grave. He's a good shot, haven't you heard. (Oh, dear.)
There are men who would say that it doesn't matter much - that unflinching response, any sense of ready. But Flint lowers the glass because he knows it will take somewhere between ten and fifteen seconds longer for the frazzled merchant sailors to bring their gun to bear again and there is no point in watching for what he already knows is coming.
Instead he lifts his hand to shield his eyes from the noon sun and calls up to the musket man in the foretop. "Range, Mr Beauclerc?"
"Nearly," is the disembodied answer.
He looks to Gates, the man's broad shape at the foot of the manladder on the gun deck. He has a hand on Williamson's naked ankle above him, keeping the man from popping up early. And then, unnecessarily (no point in looking for what he already knows), he glances back to Thomas.
BANG. The sternchaser's call ripples over the water. The shot falls in close to the Walrus's flank. Crack, goes the musket above their heads and over on the fluyt, the two man gun crew scatters.
A minute's patience is rewarded not with a white flag, but the English colors being pulled down.
"Close enough," he says, satisfaction flashing in his face as he at last snaps the glass closed and tucks it into his belt. He whistles. Williamson's ankle is released and the vanguard rises from behind the rail so that as the Walrus descends on her floundering prey, the merchant crew can get a proper look at what they've narrowly avoided.
Raised eyebrows meet that glance, something implying a smile, somewhere tucked far away from awareness of the shark filled waters (on board). After what they've survived, there's no day so dismal as to not be worth celebrating. One way or another.
BANG. And Thomas does smile then, wry as the vanguard fly off like valkyries leaping from behind a stormcloud. It may only be for show with the target surrendering, but there is nothing inherently harmless in a business such as this. He's done a few of these by now (with a much less civilized crew) (funny how it's the one with girls in), and it is his habit to be among the last over the rails - fine, for an accountant. Less fine, for someone who needs to make sure no one in the captain's quarters burns or throws and papers into the sea. This ship will have valuable stock, yes. The intelligence on its location came from the Ranger, its own crew too bloody depleted to take on another hunt, and so things will be divided. Thomas will keep an eye on the numbers and negotiate the way the bounty is cut, and not be even a little apologetic about holding to absolute evenness.
Mostly, though, this is about what correspondence might be carried as mail. Trade companies as powerful as, more powerful than, Whitehall, threading spiderwebs across the ocean and beginning to sink claws in. It is imperative to know the trajectory of their prospective operations, who their key investors are, who is expecting letters and who is writing them. Even the simple act of interrupting communication can delay the progression of empire by months and years, but having foresight, knowing whose journey to sink, is better than gold.
To him it is. Fuck England, anyway.
Up and over, there will always be something of looks like he's setting up for a horse to chase foxes on whenever he's doing anything physical, whatever, such is his cross to bear. Thomas weaves through sullen merchantmen herded into lines and cackling pirates, headed to push open the door to the greatcabin without a thought for if anyone's lurking behind it ready to fire a pistol into his head. That is also somewhat of a 'whatever' at this stage.
There's a pattern to this, in the way that only something chaotic can be. Meaning, mostly, that the Captain isn't meant to be over with the first wave because there's no telling exactly whether men made docile by uneasy surrender will buck back against their captors but when they do its often here: in those moments as they're first herded into some place of convenience, prior to the penetration of the ship's lower decks and before even the first cask or crate is cracked into.
Wait. Watch. If it begins, someone needs to be ready from the margin to see the first warning signs - not in the thick of it, too close to hand to see men at the fringe growing restless.
But.
But.
He's up and over on the heel of the vanguard (on Thomas's heels), pausing there on the rail where he might oversee--
A snap of the fingers and a gesture after the tall figure weaving toward the aft cabin. "Morley," --who can be trusted not to stab a man from the Ranger in the back now that it would be convenient-- "See that our guest doesn't take any liberties."
Now to find whatever miserable bastard is in charge and see that he clearly understands the situation to hand.
In the cabin, no hand flies up attached to a pistol aimed at Thomas' head. He opens the door and strides inside without any hesitation, because he knows what he lacks in ability in battle he has to make up for in nerve - and he's always had nerve, in every situation, whether it was helpful or not. He is polite to the crew of the Walrus, because he's more or less polite to everyone, but not overly so; he is signed to another crew and it would not acquit him well. He doesn't wait for anyone to join him, though he hears Flint's order and knows who to expect behind him.
The door closes behind him, too quick and too quiet. Thomas doesn't turn around because there's nothing he can do about it, even if it's not Morley -
- or if it is. He takes a breath.
(There hasn't been time or privacy to relate the encounter. Flint on one end of the boat, Thomas on the other, Mr Morley asking, So you're that Barlow, are you? Of Mrs Barlow? And little urgency besides. Why remark on something so innocuous, except for the intuiting in the back of Thomas' head that might as well be paranoia?)
Door opens again, louder like being kicked, a cry and a loud noise, two tangled bodies scrape Thomas' shoulder and he steps back, an almost artful sidestep, giving Morley and the merchant sailor space so he's not caught by a stray fist or blade.
He backs up further into the view of the cabin door, one hand extended even though his gaze doesn't break from the scuffle-- Everything's fine. Another man flies in, screaming with glee, to help stick a knife into the would-be-avenger.
"Let's not break anything."
A bloody grin greets him from the floor. "You looking for some new sitting room furniture?"
Which warrants a sideways look from Mr Morley even as he untangles himself from the mess of the merchant sailor and the second Walrus man. That look seems like 'Do you think so?' or maybe 'I'm not so certain,' but the man says nothing as he hauls his reinforcement up from over the body by the arm.
"Go on. Take Collier round and see that there's no other surprises waiting for us."
"But--" A meaningful and more bald look in the Ranger man's direction.
"Go." Only Morley still has him by the arm. "And send word that the cabin's clear."
Thomas gives Reinforcement an affable nod of thanks-goodbye as he's towed and released, choosing to pretend to ignore Morley's self-imposed tension. It certainly creates a funny picture for the retreating man, but then, Mr Barlow is always very temperate - if he has a wider reputation it's of being calm enough to be boring. Opinions were split when he came aboard this rival craft; Good thing they didn't send one of the nutters vs Too bad they didn't send one of the nutters.
He steps deeper into the cabin and approaches the desk without hesitation. Fine, his unconcerned gait seems to say, keep your powder-room conversations to yourselves.
Or perhaps he's just minding his own business and getting to work, and Morley is keen on reading into everything, watching him with a scathing gaze. He steps up behind Thomas and watches, paces, sticks fingers between the slats of a bookshelf that's been halfway boarded up to prevent the contents from being launched off in choppy weather. That he wants to ask something is tangible like the salt in the air, winding his intent in on himself like a spring coiling.
Thomas pulls open a drawer and removes the whole box it it from the desk, pouring the contents out. The records all look legitimate, nothing to indicate a black Do Not Show To Customs book hiding anywhere, but the captain is a packrat. Most of this is garbage, and he'll have to dig through everything. Outside, the shuffle of many feet and raucous calls of men are easily audible, drowning out whatever could go on in here with the door closed.
"You like it?" Morley asks, staring at him from the other side of the cabin.
"Mm?" Thomas doesn't look up.
"This."
"This?"
A pause then, beady eyes watching him closely. "'nother man, your woman."
Thomas huffs a rough exhale, near a laugh. "I knew it would be something like that."
"Like what?"
"Something stupid."
Another pause. The wind-up had been lackluster in its un-creative obviousness, and so Thomas feels safe volleying back impertinence, lazily delivered. He expects this is a test, the other man poking in to gauge this-or-that. Could be that this really is the thing he's bothered by and that's all there is to it. There's no followup snipe or sudden violence, so it seems to have worked out all right for the moment. Morley scoffs and leans against the wooden bulkhead. Thomas rather wishes he would fuck off so he could read some of these personal letters; if he is agitated by something beyond the far-off implication of cuckoldry, he suspects doing anything even innocently out of the ordinary will be inspected with hyper-vigilance. It is strange, though. He knows James and Miranda had been awfully discreet, even in Nassau.
Here at the edge of the civilized world, discretion is another word entirely. It is blatant looks traded between crew and Mr Morley's beady, watching eyes on Thomas as he shifts through the desk and waits to say something further; it is twenty merchant sailors rounded onto the main deck and no one looking up when they're asked where the Captain it, and the strange certainty that something is wrong that quiet inspires; it is sending Billy Bones below with five men from the vanguard and telling them to be tender about it.
In the cabin, this breed of discretion (which would never survive in any other place) chips and Morley begins to say, "Tell me, Mr Barlow--" and in the lower decks of the fluyt, a Walrus man goes to lift the cover from the hold hatch and is saved from being shot through the grating by pure luck as the ball glances off one of the cover's wooden crossbars and thumps home in the bulkhead beyond as opposed to anything more sensitive.
Crack, says the flintlock and the splintered wood. The sound carries farther than it seems it should.
If he has a wider reputation. Beyond the one that is just: he is the Ranger's gratingly well-mannered bookkeeper, his mistress is a French girl who is pretty but collects teeth, he has a wife in Nassau's interior, either the mistress or the wife is also fucking a captain, either Vane or Flint, no one is really sure or, honestly, interested enough to confirm. Any unspoken allegations of buggery flow in wildly inventive directions.
Thomas is going to interrupt him and say something unhelpful. Instigating, even.
Crack. Mr Morley's question is swallowed away, a whale closing around the tiniest fish. Thomas snaps his head up and frowns at him sharply.
(Unknown to him, a delusional man is staring at him and thinking You did that on purpose.)
"I'm sure you could send someone less useful in here to labor over their impotent thoughts in my direction," Thomas says, calm and just a touch agitated. "I know you weren't signed for your history as a governess."
Pop, pop, go two more reports somewhere distant, and then abruptly nearer there is a loud crack of a shot reverberating across the deck just beyond the closed cabin. Mr. Morley, sluggish to bid, twists away. As the door is opened, the distinct shape of Captain Flint's voice carries in - just sound, the words obfuscated by distance and the low sway whatever's being said.
The door bangs shut.
The thump of footfalls - two men, maybe -, first moving for here then veering elsewhere to clunk overhead on the stern deck. Then a sturdier, deliberate and unhurried step. The door opens again and Flint ducks through.
Thomas pulls the main log out from the pile of papers on the desk and wedges his thumb into it, prying it open to the different-textured stack of loose sheets that make up the manifest pinned inside. He holds it out to Flint. The cheap tin ring he wears, looted by its lonesome from a Dutch trader, winks a cheerful blue as he moves.
"Haven't found any shadow manifests yet."
But, hangs unspoken, evident in the overwhelming amount of shit out on the desk alone. Though nothing about Thomas' demeanor says he's stumbled into anything shady so far. About the cargo tally, at least. But this man has kept every shred of paper he's received since he was born, so perhaps there is one in here somewhere.
He doesn't ask what's going on. He has a mild suspicion and rather hopes he's wrong. Morley asks, "Something fucked about it?"
A sharp look cows further questions from Morley's particular corner, which is all the time he has for the Welshman. Flint flips through the manifest, juggling the loose pages - wood staves, linens, rice, two crates of fine porcelain which will be worth less than shit anywhere but Kingston, and--
With a low, irritated exhale, he tosses down the collection of papers. "He's armed them. And apparently found the right thing to say to discourage them from firing on him directly."
A stab of the finger. There are twelve lines on the open pages - twelve names, men and women between the ages of twenty two and forty; Bishop and Kerns and Howell.
"There's bound to be sentencing papers in there somewhere." Transportation is a well documented business.
Articles are not eternally binding; they, as it turns out, only reach as far as the initially signed terms, even amongst the wildest wilds of the Ranger's sociopolitical climate. Thomas Barlow never transforms into an adept sailor. Or even an adequate one, really. Opinions split in disparate directions on his qualities as a pirate (which is different than being a sailor), but no matter what else he is, he's at least profitable. Enough so that he can work just fine from the shore - a move that surprised a fair few, who had anticipated a revolving door sign with the Walrus.
(He might have - could have, perhaps even would have, if not for the sizeable piece of shrapnel that had skewered his left hand and required some back-on-the-island surgery to save its mobility. His calm silence during the procedure had made Miranda cry so furiously in sickened realization, and it snapped a fault line in his heart, broken in so many places already. I didn't want her to know, he'd whispered to James, safe in the near-dark candlelight. Because James knows enough of the real worst of the world to understand Bethlem's torture without being drawn a picture, but Miranda is too practical to have imagined it on her own.)
The future isn't set. He may well sail under Captain Flint after all. Or if he gets too precious about it, there's always Charles Vane. Thomas' young mistress is on that crew, after all.
There's no air of French mistress from the man half-lunging at him and the book he's holding. It's all half-growling, half-laughing, masculine literature snob-in-pirate's-clothing charm. James misses in his attempt, his target gracefully side-stepping, but Thomas has suspicions about him trying very hard. Even though what he's reading is truly awful.
"Her busom did then expand, annointed with shimmering wet jewels from her eyes as pure as the Lord Savior's," he recites, as serious and deeply melodic as if he were reading scripture. "And against his, for he dost-"
"This is plainly mutinous," James says, finally snagging him around the middle. Thomas lets him, though he extends his arm up and away to prevent the offending book from being swiped. There's so much new poetry and art to experience and it really is impressive how gratuitously horrible some of it is. Thomas delights in both the best and the worst.
"Mutinous? I'm hardly a member of your crew, captain." It's too difficult not to smile. They're both a little wobbly. Almost over-warm; just enough. James gives up trying to grab the book and wraps both arms around him, which is an unfair tactic, as Thomas is powerless to resist that embrace.
"Maybe not on paper," James is murmuring, so close to him.
"Maybe not." The book thuds to the floor, the sound as distantly inconsequential as the noise from downstairs, the sound of the ocean, the pressure of the past. "And maybe not at all, have you considered that?"
"No."
They've navigated so many storms. The days of careful, brittle touches, and days of desperation. Thomas likes right now the best: comfortable and easy and smiling as James presses his mouth to his, two people who are here and now and themselves. The past is a map, not an open wound.
His breath hitches, his fingers curl in red hair, he steps back to allow himself to be pressed against the old ornate vanity in the small chamber. Thomas loves the taste of him, tinged with wine or smoke or nothing at all, wonderfully human and ordinary and familiar, from salt-chapped lips to the warm inside of-
BANG.
He'd jump if he hadn't gotten so used to cannonfire; probably the same for James, who's looking up adorably peeved instead of alarmed.
Perhaps there are conflicting interpretations of that look on Flint's face.
It's a Walrus man, one of the girls, God-knows-who behind them. For one muddled heartbeat the world is nothing but owl-eyed crewman faces and grasping at straws - is there an alternate explanation? For this? Thomas with his shirt mostly off, grappling intimately with James who has one hand inside the waistband of his trousers and the other peeling away the rest of his shirt.
There's not. So,
"Room's paid for," Thomas says magnanimously, before reaching out to slam it shut in still-shocked faces. (Not the most shocked, but still. Somewhere, Charles has a headache.) "Ah, damnit, the latch is-"
His complaint is cut off by laughter, incredible and beautiful, James pulling him back towards the bed, falling onto it, dragging him with.
Yes. He does much prefer this, to all else. Here, now, and themselves.
The latch is stuck open. It is stuck closed. They'll have to climb out the window to escape the room when they're finished with it, or someone will come to the room again only they'll knock this time. What does it matter? Which makes easier sense to the world past it - collaborating behind a closed door with a man who used to crew with Charles Vane and now does his business at the edge of the sea inside of on it, or Captain Flint with his hand down the pants of the only man on the island with his nose as high in the air as his own?
The latch is fine, no matter its state and neither question has much bearing on the hour as it's James pulling Thomas into bed with his two sturdy hands and grinning mouth. And it's James who kisses him without the urgency, unconcerned because more will follow, and groans as if shot when Thomas makes the arch suggestion that the book be recovered before they get too far along and lose their place.
"I'd rather you kept me here," he can growl, false challenges without any delicacy as he finishes getting Thomas out of his shirt because they've navigated the terms of this already and because it's a more rewarding impulse than the urge to look back over his shoulder at anything else.
This - this is absolutely doing business at the edge of the sea - it is demonstrably collaborating -
(So many long months of plausible deniability flung out the window, down the stairs; everyone likes to talk about matelotage as if it really were that common, and maybe it was, in differently-colonized waters. Less so, here, but who's going to show up to drag one of them away to a hospital? Who would risk their lives over something so frivolous, when they could go back to their own vices instead?
Not rhetorical questions, but answers for another day.)
Thomas' hands don't shake anymore, not even the one with the terrible scarring, not even while laughing and prying off James' gaudy belt. "Oh, I have no intention of letting you get away. Whether it's for-- this or that." For further psychological torture of bad poetry, or?
Or, much preferable. Thomas crowds him back and kisses him, letting him feel the way hunger has begun to tug at him, now that there's space for it. Metaphorical space. But physical space, too; they didn't get a room just to coyly read poetry.
Or, is like a habit they've formed, despite the opposite being more real. Careful months consisting of not - not looking at him, pretending not to share the direction in which Thomas' thoughts bend, to not set a hand at his elbow as the man comes up over the Walrus' side - evaporate given any exposure to Or. They become the rise of his hip to allow the heavy belt to be stripped free, and the deft work of fingers (which have been educated and trained and required to be clever and able) undoing buttons and laces.
"This?" Is something cheap women might ask, blinking and coy in some grey dockside rooms. James asks it into Thomas' mouth, grin pulling against the taste of him (warm and pleasantly sharp, the acrid ghost of burned coffee), with his hand pressing between them - grip firm.
Thomas reminds himself, sometimes, that even if they were of socially acceptable coupled genders, or if they were accepted without caveat, that they would not observably behaving so differently. His occasional expressions of affection with Miranda were somewhat scandalous, Bonny and Rackham are hardly kissing around every corner, and it's not as though he and James are the type.
He laughs, bright and breathless, manages not to punch his bicep for that coy look. "This."
Or are they not the type. They've never tried - and acting out the same, fatal charade here in this lawless world as they did in England is sometimes too much to bear. There is something viciously freeing in having slammed that door with no attempt at defense. This it not something that needs justification, and they are not in fucking England.
Trying to peel James' shirt off while horizontal is slightly clumsy work, but as always, he falls into being practiced. Familiar shifts of posture and expanses of skin, with new scars, and freckles baked differently in the sun. It's not fair that James, ginger, tans even a little better than Thomas, who does nothing but burn horribly. Absurd. Beautiful. He pushes into the hand between them. Mm. (He doesn't think of the past, but he does think it's very nice that his sexuality returned after Bethlem, eventually.) With his weight on one elbow, Thomas skims one hand up James' chest and throat, pressing his thumb over his mouth as he shifts to scrape teeth along his jaw so he can murmur near his cheekbone, low and quiet, "I feel every way with you, my love, unraveled to the barest limit and still.. given pause over.. what to do with you."
And has been prone to thinking them elsewhere, and in more inconvenient instances than flat on his back in a bought room with a cracked plaster ceiling and a door which either latches or doesn't.
(Before the trouble with Thomas' hand, say, when the Ranger's accountant had yet been operating as Charles Vane in fiat; the intrusive quality of watching Mr Barlow in the waist of some captured ship brusquely going about the business of taking the account as wreckage from the shattered foremost rigging is being cleared away from about him, and being suddenly aware that his interest has more to do with the line of Thomas hip and the flush of activity or sunburn on the back of his neck than it is to do with any show of seeing that Mr Barlow not somehow fuck them.
—Well.
There is something to be said for having Thomas here, on shore. Things like how he doesn't have to be sick with nerves when they are running down on some merchantman who's refused to strike her colors; how Miranda deserves her husband; how Thomas is maybe just marginally less likely to find himself in a position where he might be stabbed for being too fucking well bred in Nassau than on the deck of an unsecured prize. But it also means more than once being stuck on the Walrus at anchor on the harbor, snapping and surly over the ship's business keeping him there instead of finding some quiet, private place to reacquaint with Mr Barlow.)
So maybe he has an idea of what he wants as he takes Thomas' thumb into his mouth, humming some low note around it in time with the pointed squeeze of fingers. And maybe the real absurdity is anyone pretending that this is at all different or particular from every other hour of the day, when really the suggestions he makes with his tongue and the edge of teeth are as premeditated and sly and expectant as any other tactic. There's a basic self satisfaction in it; an insistence toward action. Getting the weather over on some prize isn't really so far removed from sucking Thomas' fingers into his mouth while he has the man's cock in his hand.
Perfectly logical, natural, like breathing, like ocean water during a storm. Thomas' breath catches on a quiet laugh, and he follows it by worrying a spot behind James' ear, sure to leave a mark. Tips of fingers - elegant still, despite becoming more and more work-rough - press against the soft curl of his tongue, thoughtlessly indecent. Here, he doesn't need the confining pretense of thought. If there are spiderwebs of insecurity (I used to talk so much more, I used to look so different, I used to shape my beliefs in another way), they're burned away by this simple feeling. Connection. Want. Love.
--Increasingly impatient desire. Thomas pushes up - leaving his fingers where they are only long enough to duck in and place them with his mouth, his own tongue, claiming a deep, artless kiss - to get better leverage to start shuffling two pairs of trousers off. Something downstairs happens to prompt screaming cheers from what must be the whole company, hardly noticed in this heated chamber. Thomas rakes blunt fingernails down the crest of hip to pelvis to wrap his hand around James' erection, palming him, stroking upward and shifting to hold them together, in a tangle of laces and all else. Bright heat on such delicate, silky skin, the rough edges of fabric tugged only half-away, glassy eyes caught between the sight of it and his lover's face.
That's fine; patience comes more easily alongside warmth and the press of skin, Thomas' sure hands, and the look in his face when he's looking at him. There should be some inherent contradiction in it - unmitigated want shouldn't be a thing that satisfies too. But there is so much effort in it, so much of the world rearranged in desire of it, that seeing it plain in Thomas is like tasting the thing that makes the mouth water.
So never mind whatever inconsequential thing is happening downstairs—(What brought the Walrus man to door in the first place?, he doesn't think; Christ, let that din be over something easy like a pair of tits out)—, he's engaged with the bare line of Thomas's neck and shoulder under his fingers, and the heat of him against and between them, and first returning that kiss with his own hungry mouth then setting teeth and tongue to the sensitive skin of Thomas' throat.
Maybe the mark will be pleasantly obvious. Maybe, with the Ranger presently at large, it will be difficult to attribute it to Mr Barlow's French mistress.
The sting of James' teeth makes other parts of him jolt, and Thomas tips his head back to let him make whatever mess of it he wants - Mr Barlow's French mistress is on a ship on the sea somewhere far away from his throat, and besides, her little shark fangs never find his skin in the first place. He hopes James feels an ache in the back of his teeth in perfect satisfaction against the frustration of every time they've had to pull away, tug up collars, be so very careful.
What's the point of being an anarchist outlaw if you're still being strangled to death by propriety. (What's the point of stealing and liberating and disrupting if you aren't doing it to fight back.)
The arch of his spine, the exhale from his lungs; Please. Fingernails (at his side, from the hand not on his dick) (Thomas has manners) rake against him. Leave every mark. There's no pain or attraction to suffering; only reality, and excess, and actually tasting the damn thing.
Unless James is actually going to draw blood and turn both these threads into surprise horror, Thomas is going to properly sit up and drag his trousers and all else off. Manhandling him where he wants him (briefly thinking how different sweat and heat smell when it's from lust than fear, how something can be so different) and only offering a brief detour to set teeth against the inside of his thigh, then his mouth is on his cock. Not as practiced as he once was, but still. If James meant the other way 'round he can lodge (hah) a formal complaint somewhere.
There is, for whatever record is being kept of this moment—so none; as this matters only in this room and between them, and to no one else in the whole fucking world, which would irritate if it weren't something so firmly possessed or they were expected to leave this room still pretending otherwise—some brief sound of protest. Because actually, yes. He had meant--
"Christ."
Which is half frustrated laugh, fingers shifting in pale hair, and half the lines of muscle and sinew which sharpen toward the heat of Thomas' mouth. Because it's good regardless. Because for all that this is an uninterrupted line drawing straight back to steps outside of Parliament, and for all the careful touches and arrangement of hands and laces and pale scars since, it's still true that they both fallen free from the habit of asking for what they want.
That might rankle too if the thing mattered more than person. But Thomas can do whatever the fuck he pleases with his mouth and it'd still be right.
Thomas makes a low-toned noise, self-satisfied, and just a hint of No, just me. And they are asking, anyway, aren't they. Learning to read each other's minds now that they've learned new languages inside of them, learning to read everything outside of them, too. Every stuttered gasp and clench of muscle and flush of skin. Or maybe-- it's that asking is too painful, because asking implies the answer might be no, and even the possibility between them is something to be disdained.
There's no answer to that, because there's no question, because Thomas' entire reality is James hard and overheated in his mouth, pressing his tongue to the underside and moving his head, moving a little slower than he'd like but quicker than would be reasonable for 'appropriately regaining bearings' or 'teasing'. He wants this, the push at the back of his throat, the fullness of his own breathing, the way he presses down on his lover's hips to hold him and not just hold him down. When he pulls back he presses his head just-so and encourages Jame to pull his hair, push him where he wants. Not much of a respite, only long enough to do that and send a look up at him, crystal-clear blue eyes as bright as they've ever been with desire so stark and deep. A teasing threat of teeth at the base of him, one hand moving between his legs to touch lower, kissing back up his cock to suck him down again.
The heat in that look travels the whole length of him, lodging like a full blunt shape behind his ribs and briefly disorienting him from anything that isn't Thomas' hair between his fingers, or the weight of him against his thigh, or his mouth and how intentional he is. For a moment, propped up on one slanting elbow to look, there is some urge to keep his hand light just to feel how Thomas drives himself without any prompting. But it's an impulse there and gone, thought in the same beat this his grip tightens and he presses into Thomas' mouth - up against the welcome set of fingers.
The line that neck and shoulder draws as Thomas takes him in is such a keen shape. He could map that; measure its trajectory and curve and put it down on paper--
(Speaking of gratuitously horrible writing.)
"Fuck." Which is partly just noise, hissed out. "Look at you."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
The sternchaser on the merchantman's ship exhales a puff. A moment later, the bang-crack report follows. From his place on the quarterdeck, Flint can clearly see where the shot plummets wide to starboard, throwing up a great pillar of sea. He fixes his glass on the ship ahead of them; the crew if reloading the gun, just visible between despondent flaps of the English flag listing from its cable.
"If they miss again, that will be the end of it. They'll follow with the white flag after," he says to the Ranger man beside him, who is tall and with fair hair bleached sun yellow. 'His Majesty', the crew - in turns delighted by and sullen about any use of the Ranger's castoff intelligence, much less the passage of the man Vane's deployed to oversee the collection of his fair cut of the result - sometimes call him.
Flint lowers the spyglass from his eye by a fraction. He looks to Thomas in the narrow space, and the waxed end of his mustached twitches. There is some flash of teeth. It's a grin meant for being hidden behind a hand, one which reaches his eyes but doesn't brighten them.
'Ready?'
no subject
"As you say."
Mr Barlow is still not a sailor. It's probable he won't ever be. Captain Flint, however, is a consummate professional in every way, and there is no reason not to place complete trust in him. In fact, being able to do so is such a pleasing luxury that the fine taste of it offsets the bitter metal flavor of impending violence. Almost enough to be complementary. (Thomas is not grateful that it took so long to see him again. But he is grateful that James did not witness his reaction to the first time a man asked him if he was ready before a clash like this. Soulmate or not, some things are always going to be reflected on with crippling embarrassment.)
Yes, I am.
And if he wasn't - too late anyway.
Does votre majesté not carry a sword? C'est pas grave. He's a good shot, haven't you heard. (Oh, dear.)
no subject
Instead he lifts his hand to shield his eyes from the noon sun and calls up to the musket man in the foretop. "Range, Mr Beauclerc?"
"Nearly," is the disembodied answer.
He looks to Gates, the man's broad shape at the foot of the manladder on the gun deck. He has a hand on Williamson's naked ankle above him, keeping the man from popping up early. And then, unnecessarily (no point in looking for what he already knows), he glances back to Thomas.
BANG. The sternchaser's call ripples over the water. The shot falls in close to the Walrus's flank. Crack, goes the musket above their heads and over on the fluyt, the two man gun crew scatters.
A minute's patience is rewarded not with a white flag, but the English colors being pulled down.
"Close enough," he says, satisfaction flashing in his face as he at last snaps the glass closed and tucks it into his belt. He whistles. Williamson's ankle is released and the vanguard rises from behind the rail so that as the Walrus descends on her floundering prey, the merchant crew can get a proper look at what they've narrowly avoided.
no subject
BANG. And Thomas does smile then, wry as the vanguard fly off like valkyries leaping from behind a stormcloud. It may only be for show with the target surrendering, but there is nothing inherently harmless in a business such as this. He's done a few of these by now (with a much less civilized crew) (funny how it's the one with girls in), and it is his habit to be among the last over the rails - fine, for an accountant. Less fine, for someone who needs to make sure no one in the captain's quarters burns or throws and papers into the sea. This ship will have valuable stock, yes. The intelligence on its location came from the Ranger, its own crew too bloody depleted to take on another hunt, and so things will be divided. Thomas will keep an eye on the numbers and negotiate the way the bounty is cut, and not be even a little apologetic about holding to absolute evenness.
Mostly, though, this is about what correspondence might be carried as mail. Trade companies as powerful as, more powerful than, Whitehall, threading spiderwebs across the ocean and beginning to sink claws in. It is imperative to know the trajectory of their prospective operations, who their key investors are, who is expecting letters and who is writing them. Even the simple act of interrupting communication can delay the progression of empire by months and years, but having foresight, knowing whose journey to sink, is better than gold.
To him it is. Fuck England, anyway.
Up and over, there will always be something of looks like he's setting up for a horse to chase foxes on whenever he's doing anything physical, whatever, such is his cross to bear. Thomas weaves through sullen merchantmen herded into lines and cackling pirates, headed to push open the door to the greatcabin without a thought for if anyone's lurking behind it ready to fire a pistol into his head. That is also somewhat of a 'whatever' at this stage.
no subject
Wait. Watch. If it begins, someone needs to be ready from the margin to see the first warning signs - not in the thick of it, too close to hand to see men at the fringe growing restless.
But.
But.
He's up and over on the heel of the vanguard (on Thomas's heels), pausing there on the rail where he might oversee--
A snap of the fingers and a gesture after the tall figure weaving toward the aft cabin. "Morley," --who can be trusted not to stab a man from the Ranger in the back now that it would be convenient-- "See that our guest doesn't take any liberties."
Now to find whatever miserable bastard is in charge and see that he clearly understands the situation to hand.
no subject
The door closes behind him, too quick and too quiet. Thomas doesn't turn around because there's nothing he can do about it, even if it's not Morley -
- or if it is. He takes a breath.
(There hasn't been time or privacy to relate the encounter. Flint on one end of the boat, Thomas on the other, Mr Morley asking, So you're that Barlow, are you? Of Mrs Barlow? And little urgency besides. Why remark on something so innocuous, except for the intuiting in the back of Thomas' head that might as well be paranoia?)
Door opens again, louder like being kicked, a cry and a loud noise, two tangled bodies scrape Thomas' shoulder and he steps back, an almost artful sidestep, giving Morley and the merchant sailor space so he's not caught by a stray fist or blade.
He backs up further into the view of the cabin door, one hand extended even though his gaze doesn't break from the scuffle-- Everything's fine. Another man flies in, screaming with glee, to help stick a knife into the would-be-avenger.
"Let's not break anything."
A bloody grin greets him from the floor. "You looking for some new sitting room furniture?"
"You're getting paid off the same ledgers, sir."
no subject
"Go on. Take Collier round and see that there's no other surprises waiting for us."
"But--" A meaningful and more bald look in the Ranger man's direction.
"Go." Only Morley still has him by the arm. "And send word that the cabin's clear."
He looses him then.
no subject
He steps deeper into the cabin and approaches the desk without hesitation. Fine, his unconcerned gait seems to say, keep your powder-room conversations to yourselves.
Or perhaps he's just minding his own business and getting to work, and Morley is keen on reading into everything, watching him with a scathing gaze. He steps up behind Thomas and watches, paces, sticks fingers between the slats of a bookshelf that's been halfway boarded up to prevent the contents from being launched off in choppy weather. That he wants to ask something is tangible like the salt in the air, winding his intent in on himself like a spring coiling.
Thomas pulls open a drawer and removes the whole box it it from the desk, pouring the contents out. The records all look legitimate, nothing to indicate a black Do Not Show To Customs book hiding anywhere, but the captain is a packrat. Most of this is garbage, and he'll have to dig through everything. Outside, the shuffle of many feet and raucous calls of men are easily audible, drowning out whatever could go on in here with the door closed.
"You like it?" Morley asks, staring at him from the other side of the cabin.
"Mm?" Thomas doesn't look up.
"This."
"This?"
A pause then, beady eyes watching him closely. "'nother man, your woman."
Thomas huffs a rough exhale, near a laugh. "I knew it would be something like that."
"Like what?"
"Something stupid."
Another pause. The wind-up had been lackluster in its un-creative obviousness, and so Thomas feels safe volleying back impertinence, lazily delivered. He expects this is a test, the other man poking in to gauge this-or-that. Could be that this really is the thing he's bothered by and that's all there is to it. There's no followup snipe or sudden violence, so it seems to have worked out all right for the moment. Morley scoffs and leans against the wooden bulkhead. Thomas rather wishes he would fuck off so he could read some of these personal letters; if he is agitated by something beyond the far-off implication of cuckoldry, he suspects doing anything even innocently out of the ordinary will be inspected with hyper-vigilance. It is strange, though. He knows James and Miranda had been awfully discreet, even in Nassau.
no subject
In the cabin, this breed of discretion (which would never survive in any other place) chips and Morley begins to say, "Tell me, Mr Barlow--" and in the lower decks of the fluyt, a Walrus man goes to lift the cover from the hold hatch and is saved from being shot through the grating by pure luck as the ball glances off one of the cover's wooden crossbars and thumps home in the bulkhead beyond as opposed to anything more sensitive.
Crack, says the flintlock and the splintered wood. The sound carries farther than it seems it should.
no subject
Thomas is going to interrupt him and say something unhelpful. Instigating, even.
Crack. Mr Morley's question is swallowed away, a whale closing around the tiniest fish. Thomas snaps his head up and frowns at him sharply.
(Unknown to him, a delusional man is staring at him and thinking You did that on purpose.)
"I'm sure you could send someone less useful in here to labor over their impotent thoughts in my direction," Thomas says, calm and just a touch agitated. "I know you weren't signed for your history as a governess."
no subject
The door bangs shut.
The thump of footfalls - two men, maybe -, first moving for here then veering elsewhere to clunk overhead on the stern deck. Then a sturdier, deliberate and unhurried step. The door opens again and Flint ducks through.
"Where's the cargo manifest?"
no subject
"Haven't found any shadow manifests yet."
But, hangs unspoken, evident in the overwhelming amount of shit out on the desk alone. Though nothing about Thomas' demeanor says he's stumbled into anything shady so far. About the cargo tally, at least. But this man has kept every shred of paper he's received since he was born, so perhaps there is one in here somewhere.
He doesn't ask what's going on. He has a mild suspicion and rather hopes he's wrong. Morley asks, "Something fucked about it?"
no subject
With a low, irritated exhale, he tosses down the collection of papers. "He's armed them. And apparently found the right thing to say to discourage them from firing on him directly."
A stab of the finger. There are twelve lines on the open pages - twelve names, men and women between the ages of twenty two and forty; Bishop and Kerns and Howell.
"There's bound to be sentencing papers in there somewhere." Transportation is a well documented business.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
i don't remember where i was going with the german stuff sorry
(no subject)
(no subject)
17xx | currently, without consequence
(He might have - could have, perhaps even would have, if not for the sizeable piece of shrapnel that had skewered his left hand and required some back-on-the-island surgery to save its mobility. His calm silence during the procedure had made Miranda cry so furiously in sickened realization, and it snapped a fault line in his heart, broken in so many places already. I didn't want her to know, he'd whispered to James, safe in the near-dark candlelight. Because James knows enough of the real worst of the world to understand Bethlem's torture without being drawn a picture, but Miranda is too practical to have imagined it on her own.)
The future isn't set. He may well sail under Captain Flint after all. Or if he gets too precious about it, there's always Charles Vane. Thomas' young mistress is on that crew, after all.
There's no air of French mistress from the man half-lunging at him and the book he's holding. It's all half-growling, half-laughing, masculine literature snob-in-pirate's-clothing charm. James misses in his attempt, his target gracefully side-stepping, but Thomas has suspicions about him trying very hard. Even though what he's reading is truly awful.
"Her busom did then expand, annointed with shimmering wet jewels from her eyes as pure as the Lord Savior's," he recites, as serious and deeply melodic as if he were reading scripture. "And against his, for he dost-"
"This is plainly mutinous," James says, finally snagging him around the middle. Thomas lets him, though he extends his arm up and away to prevent the offending book from being swiped. There's so much new poetry and art to experience and it really is impressive how gratuitously horrible some of it is. Thomas delights in both the best and the worst.
"Mutinous? I'm hardly a member of your crew, captain." It's too difficult not to smile. They're both a little wobbly. Almost over-warm; just enough. James gives up trying to grab the book and wraps both arms around him, which is an unfair tactic, as Thomas is powerless to resist that embrace.
"Maybe not on paper," James is murmuring, so close to him.
"Maybe not." The book thuds to the floor, the sound as distantly inconsequential as the noise from downstairs, the sound of the ocean, the pressure of the past. "And maybe not at all, have you considered that?"
"No."
They've navigated so many storms. The days of careful, brittle touches, and days of desperation. Thomas likes right now the best: comfortable and easy and smiling as James presses his mouth to his, two people who are here and now and themselves. The past is a map, not an open wound.
His breath hitches, his fingers curl in red hair, he steps back to allow himself to be pressed against the old ornate vanity in the small chamber. Thomas loves the taste of him, tinged with wine or smoke or nothing at all, wonderfully human and ordinary and familiar, from salt-chapped lips to the warm inside of-
BANG.
He'd jump if he hadn't gotten so used to cannonfire; probably the same for James, who's looking up adorably peeved instead of alarmed.
Perhaps there are conflicting interpretations of that look on Flint's face.
It's a Walrus man, one of the girls, God-knows-who behind them. For one muddled heartbeat the world is nothing but owl-eyed crewman faces and grasping at straws - is there an alternate explanation? For this? Thomas with his shirt mostly off, grappling intimately with James who has one hand inside the waistband of his trousers and the other peeling away the rest of his shirt.
There's not. So,
"Room's paid for," Thomas says magnanimously, before reaching out to slam it shut in still-shocked faces. (Not the most shocked, but still. Somewhere, Charles has a headache.) "Ah, damnit, the latch is-"
His complaint is cut off by laughter, incredible and beautiful, James pulling him back towards the bed, falling onto it, dragging him with.
Yes. He does much prefer this, to all else. Here, now, and themselves.
no subject
The latch is fine, no matter its state and neither question has much bearing on the hour as it's James pulling Thomas into bed with his two sturdy hands and grinning mouth. And it's James who kisses him without the urgency, unconcerned because more will follow, and groans as if shot when Thomas makes the arch suggestion that the book be recovered before they get too far along and lose their place.
"I'd rather you kept me here," he can growl, false challenges without any delicacy as he finishes getting Thomas out of his shirt because they've navigated the terms of this already and because it's a more rewarding impulse than the urge to look back over his shoulder at anything else.
(Somewhere, Hal Gates is suddenly very tired.)
oh it's a scene now shorturl.at/aehiV
(So many long months of plausible deniability flung out the window, down the stairs; everyone likes to talk about matelotage as if it really were that common, and maybe it was, in differently-colonized waters. Less so, here, but who's going to show up to drag one of them away to a hospital? Who would risk their lives over something so frivolous, when they could go back to their own vices instead?
Not rhetorical questions, but answers for another day.)
Thomas' hands don't shake anymore, not even the one with the terrible scarring, not even while laughing and prying off James' gaudy belt. "Oh, I have no intention of letting you get away. Whether it's for-- this or that." For further psychological torture of bad poetry, or?
Or, much preferable. Thomas crowds him back and kisses him, letting him feel the way hunger has begun to tug at him, now that there's space for it. Metaphorical space. But physical space, too; they didn't get a room just to coyly read poetry.
bee with gun.emote
"This?" Is something cheap women might ask, blinking and coy in some grey dockside rooms. James asks it into Thomas' mouth, grin pulling against the taste of him (warm and pleasantly sharp, the acrid ghost of burned coffee), with his hand pressing between them - grip firm.
huehue
He laughs, bright and breathless, manages not to punch his bicep for that coy look. "This."
Or are they not the type. They've never tried - and acting out the same, fatal charade here in this lawless world as they did in England is sometimes too much to bear. There is something viciously freeing in having slammed that door with no attempt at defense. This it not something that needs justification, and they are not in fucking England.
Trying to peel James' shirt off while horizontal is slightly clumsy work, but as always, he falls into being practiced. Familiar shifts of posture and expanses of skin, with new scars, and freckles baked differently in the sun. It's not fair that James, ginger, tans even a little better than Thomas, who does nothing but burn horribly. Absurd. Beautiful. He pushes into the hand between them. Mm. (He doesn't think of the past, but he does think it's very nice that his sexuality returned after Bethlem, eventually.) With his weight on one elbow, Thomas skims one hand up James' chest and throat, pressing his thumb over his mouth as he shifts to scrape teeth along his jaw so he can murmur near his cheekbone, low and quiet, "I feel every way with you, my love, unraveled to the barest limit and still.. given pause over.. what to do with you."
no subject
And has been prone to thinking them elsewhere, and in more inconvenient instances than flat on his back in a bought room with a cracked plaster ceiling and a door which either latches or doesn't.
(Before the trouble with Thomas' hand, say, when the Ranger's accountant had yet been operating as Charles Vane in fiat; the intrusive quality of watching Mr Barlow in the waist of some captured ship brusquely going about the business of taking the account as wreckage from the shattered foremost rigging is being cleared away from about him, and being suddenly aware that his interest has more to do with the line of Thomas hip and the flush of activity or sunburn on the back of his neck than it is to do with any show of seeing that Mr Barlow not somehow fuck them.
—Well.
There is something to be said for having Thomas here, on shore. Things like how he doesn't have to be sick with nerves when they are running down on some merchantman who's refused to strike her colors; how Miranda deserves her husband; how Thomas is maybe just marginally less likely to find himself in a position where he might be stabbed for being too fucking well bred in Nassau than on the deck of an unsecured prize. But it also means more than once being stuck on the Walrus at anchor on the harbor, snapping and surly over the ship's business keeping him there instead of finding some quiet, private place to reacquaint with Mr Barlow.)
So maybe he has an idea of what he wants as he takes Thomas' thumb into his mouth, humming some low note around it in time with the pointed squeeze of fingers. And maybe the real absurdity is anyone pretending that this is at all different or particular from every other hour of the day, when really the suggestions he makes with his tongue and the edge of teeth are as premeditated and sly and expectant as any other tactic. There's a basic self satisfaction in it; an insistence toward action. Getting the weather over on some prize isn't really so far removed from sucking Thomas' fingers into his mouth while he has the man's cock in his hand.
no subject
--Increasingly impatient desire. Thomas pushes up - leaving his fingers where they are only long enough to duck in and place them with his mouth, his own tongue, claiming a deep, artless kiss - to get better leverage to start shuffling two pairs of trousers off. Something downstairs happens to prompt screaming cheers from what must be the whole company, hardly noticed in this heated chamber. Thomas rakes blunt fingernails down the crest of hip to pelvis to wrap his hand around James' erection, palming him, stroking upward and shifting to hold them together, in a tangle of laces and all else. Bright heat on such delicate, silky skin, the rough edges of fabric tugged only half-away, glassy eyes caught between the sight of it and his lover's face.
It's a good idea, just give him a minute.
no subject
So never mind whatever inconsequential thing is happening downstairs—(What brought the Walrus man to door in the first place?, he doesn't think; Christ, let that din be over something easy like a pair of tits out)—, he's engaged with the bare line of Thomas's neck and shoulder under his fingers, and the heat of him against and between them, and first returning that kiss with his own hungry mouth then setting teeth and tongue to the sensitive skin of Thomas' throat.
Maybe the mark will be pleasantly obvious. Maybe, with the Ranger presently at large, it will be difficult to attribute it to Mr Barlow's French mistress.
no subject
What's the point of being an anarchist outlaw if you're still being strangled to death by propriety. (What's the point of stealing and liberating and disrupting if you aren't doing it to fight back.)
The arch of his spine, the exhale from his lungs; Please. Fingernails (at his side, from the hand not on his dick) (Thomas has manners) rake against him. Leave every mark. There's no pain or attraction to suffering; only reality, and excess, and actually tasting the damn thing.
Unless James is actually going to draw blood and turn both these threads into surprise horror, Thomas is going to properly sit up and drag his trousers and all else off. Manhandling him where he wants him (briefly thinking how different sweat and heat smell when it's from lust than fear, how something can be so different) and only offering a brief detour to set teeth against the inside of his thigh, then his mouth is on his cock. Not as practiced as he once was, but still. If James meant the other way 'round he can lodge (hah) a formal complaint somewhere.
no subject
"Christ."
Which is half frustrated laugh, fingers shifting in pale hair, and half the lines of muscle and sinew which sharpen toward the heat of Thomas' mouth. Because it's good regardless. Because for all that this is an uninterrupted line drawing straight back to steps outside of Parliament, and for all the careful touches and arrangement of hands and laces and pale scars since, it's still true that they both fallen free from the habit of asking for what they want.
That might rankle too if the thing mattered more than person. But Thomas can do whatever the fuck he pleases with his mouth and it'd still be right.
no subject
Thomas makes a low-toned noise, self-satisfied, and just a hint of No, just me. And they are asking, anyway, aren't they. Learning to read each other's minds now that they've learned new languages inside of them, learning to read everything outside of them, too. Every stuttered gasp and clench of muscle and flush of skin. Or maybe-- it's that asking is too painful, because asking implies the answer might be no, and even the possibility between them is something to be disdained.
There's no answer to that, because there's no question, because Thomas' entire reality is James hard and overheated in his mouth, pressing his tongue to the underside and moving his head, moving a little slower than he'd like but quicker than would be reasonable for 'appropriately regaining bearings' or 'teasing'. He wants this, the push at the back of his throat, the fullness of his own breathing, the way he presses down on his lover's hips to hold him and not just hold him down. When he pulls back he presses his head just-so and encourages Jame to pull his hair, push him where he wants. Not much of a respite, only long enough to do that and send a look up at him, crystal-clear blue eyes as bright as they've ever been with desire so stark and deep. A teasing threat of teeth at the base of him, one hand moving between his legs to touch lower, kissing back up his cock to suck him down again.
no subject
The line that neck and shoulder draws as Thomas takes him in is such a keen shape. He could map that; measure its trajectory and curve and put it down on paper--
(Speaking of gratuitously horrible writing.)
"Fuck." Which is partly just noise, hissed out. "Look at you."
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
is.qq
pp
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)