Lifeline
The Manoratha Fleet, docked for a brief time in Treneval, is celebrating after their highly lucrative take-down and subsequent liquidation of the Lancaster Cartel. While living the high life at a rented-out Social Club in the Pier District, Grayson Reed’s festivities are disrupted by the appearance of an old ‘friend’ and very much uninvited guest- Admiral Luther Denholme. The only thing stranger than the Admiral’s sudden arrival to a building full of men who very much would prefer him dead, is the fact that he came alone, unarmed… and shitfaced. It isn’t often someone catches Grayson Reed on the back foot, but this night promises to be one he will not soon forget, and sets a chain of events in motion that will shape both men’s lives, and affect the lives of thousands more.

	The staircase clattered noisily beneath the heavy, rushed footsteps of my boys and I, our overgrown claws clicking on the hardwood. I’m pretty sure I found every single poorly-nailed-down board on my swift descent, of which there were many. Normally, I might have watched my footing more carefully, especially when I had reason to expect there might be trouble- or a troublesome person- ahead. Not that I’m not a fan of making loud noises mind you, I just tend to prefer the element of surprise when I might be walking into a fight. 
But see here’s the thing. This aging, enormous, port-side Social Club was our penthouse, our place of respite for the next week at least, and I should have had no cause to sneak around in it. We’d rented the whole of it out, legal-like and all. Fully paid up-front, and I’d made sure the owners got coverage for damages in advance, since I knew my men, and there were very likely to be damages, when all was said and done. For the time being, this place was our fortress, not some public rooming house. 
Was nothing sacred? For once, I wasn’t even looking for trouble. Couldn’t I just bloody relax every now and then?
	This was the third day we’d spent here, and I’d only just woken an hour ago, so I was annoyingly sober. The fact that this was happening during the scant few hours a day I tended to be sober was absurdly unlucky. I wouldn’t have taken odds on that. 
To be honest with you, I had no idea what time of day or night it actually was; this was Treneval after all, the weather just about any time of year could be summarized with the word ‘grey’. For color, temperature, light, and overall ‘mood’. Why the Amurescans had chosen such a dreary, dismal, frequently storm-wracked port as one of their primary places of commerce and society, I could not make sense of. The simple answer was geographic location. Just like them to prioritize practicality over pleasure.
	But whatever time of day it was, I’d only just rolled out of bed (and the arms of a mink who’d gotten too drunk the day prior to do her job), and I hadn’t had a chance to chase last night’s drink with anything other than a pounding headache. It took a lot to get me in what you might call a ‘foul mood’, but I was rounding that corner.
	“How did he even get in here?” I demanded of the boar on my right, who only shook his oversized head.
	“Still haven’t figured that out.”
	“Our best guess is through the kitchen,” the rat ahead of us- I think his name was Jeffrey- said as he fished a key ring off his belt and thrust one of them into the locked door at the bottom of the staircase. The jangling made me wince and tip my ears back.
	Really needed a drink.
	“That’s where he came strolling out from, anyway,” Jeffrey continued, glancing back at us. “And a few of the boys said they propped the door out to th’back open last night, let out some of the heat after dinner.”
	“I take it no one thought to shut it afterwards, let alone lock it,” I grumbled.
	“Well,” Jeffrey paused, “what with all the women came by last night. . .”
	“Yeah, yeah,” I moved in beside him, grabbing around him for the door handle. “Out of the way. I’ll handle this.”
	“You sure, Adm’ral?” 
	I let out a ragged sigh. “I’ve handled him before. You’re absolutely certain it’s him? There are a few thousand cattle dogs in Amuresca, I’d wager. If I dragged my ass out of bed for some bum who crept in off the street to filch food-”
	“It’s him,” a man from further up the staircase whom I couldn’t see insisted, raising his voice so he’d be heard. There was quite a crowd gathered on the landing above by now. I’d had to push my way through them on the way down here.
	For some reason- through what I’m sure had been an epic scuffle I’m only sad I’d missed- they’d managed to corner the intruder in the cellar. Which was, if bleary memory served, a large, dirt-floored basement primarily used for storing old furniture, vegetables and casks. We weren’t supposed to break into any of the booze down there, but the fact that my men had forced our party-crasher inside and then locked him in with keys they somehow had access to… well, it suggested I’d be paying even more damages down the line. May as well have bought the place outright.
	“I remember him from Dokuro,” the sailor affirmed. “Hard to forget those eyes. Goddamn… demon, that one.”
	“I’m sure he gave you hell,” I muttered, pausing near the door and steeling myself. “Where’d his boys get to? They bail?” 
	I felt, rather than saw the uneasy looks that passed between my men after that question. When I turned to regard them again, the same man spoke up, “He came alone.”
	“Bullshit,” I said defiantly, “we’re in his territory. Why would he’ve-“ I stopped myself short at that.
	This was Luther Denholme we were talking about. It was actually entirely possible he’d come alone, for some reason that would make terrifying sense once he explained his reasoning to me. Some gambit I didn’t know of, some master-stroke he’d lay out before me as my world unraveled and I scrambled to catch up.
	I was not prepared to deal with this shit right now. I just wanted to go back to bed.
	I didn’t bother asking if he was armed. I just braced my shoulder against the door, gripped the handle, and called back to my men, “Stay outta this. Last thing I need is one of you all getting trigger happy and murdering a fucking Crown Admiral in an Amurescan port.”
	“We know,” Jeffrey insisted. “That’s why we locked’im up. We didn’t know what else to do. None of us want to fight our way out of these waters, Admiral.”
	“Good, because we wouldn’t make it past the bay. I’m betting he counted on that, too,” I realized aloud. Might explain why he wasn’t worried about coming alone. I twisted the nob, shouting once more, “If I start hollering, just send a few of the biggest lads in. No killin’!”
	A chorus of ‘yessirs’, and then I stepped inside, shutting the door firmly behind me with a backwards kick. Resting my hands on my hips, I didn’t immediately bother with the hilt of my saber, even though I had come armed. This was Luther. And despite what the public perception of us was, even amongst my own men… he was not in fact some sworn blood enemy of mine.
	I hardly knew what the cattle dog was to me, really. A friend? I hope he saw me that way. I think he did. I think I did.
	But given the nature of our interactions over the years, given our diametrically opposed careers, we’d been both predator and prey and everything in between to one another. The sands our relationship stood on were constantly shifting, and I actually hadn’t seen him in over a year now. A lot could change in a year. It had for me. I’d nearly lost my flagship to the Black Flag fleet this past season, and the Black Flag Admiral- one Heinrich Richard Cross was pretty tight with the Denholmes, or at least he had been with Luther’s stepfather. I knew Luther worked alongside Cross from time to time, but as to whether or not they were friends… let alone friends who might swing one another’s favor for or against someone like me…
	Impossible to say. In all our encounters, I’d never thought to ask Luther about the nature of his relationship with Cross, the old Shepherd. And maybe I should have. He was definitively our enemy- the last battle between my Manoratha and the Black Flag fleet had been bloody on both sides. I think we’d given as well as we’d got and there was no telling what condition his ships had been in afterwards, but he’d nearly sunk my girl to the bottom, and all souls aboard with her. We’d barely limped out of that one.
	I needed to know these things, is the point. It was part of my job- no, part of my obligation- to my men. I couldn’t afford to be as reckless with their lives as I was with my own.
	Shit, maybe we shouldn’t have been here at all. While my ships were technically on a legal contract right now, we had enemies a-plenty here, some of them like Cross, incredibly dangerous. 
	My spirits lifted as I began to walk down the central line of shelves, peering down each row looking for the cattle dog. Maybe that’s why he was here. Maybe this was just a friendly warning. That’d be damn decent of him. And you know what? I’d listen. To hell with our plans in Treneval, if Denholme was being courteous enough to look out for me, give me a head start away from trouble, I wasn’t about to spit in his face. It would explain why he was here alone, why he’d come himself, why he’d felt the need to slip in unseen-
	There were a few lanterns hung from the ceiling down here, but not enough to fully illuminate the place, in my opinion. Not for an underground space. Were I outside, or were there any windows or doors letting in natural light, it’d be enough for me to see by, regardless of the weather or time of day. But in between the rings of flickering orange were dead zones, usually in the corners near the end of each rows of shelves, where even a wolf’s eyes couldn’t see through the empty pitch. It was in one of these that I found him, and if not for his legs lying slumped partially in the light, I might have missed him. His eyes flashed once when I grabbed for the lantern above, tipping it towards him. Gold pin-pricks in the dark. A demon indeed.
	“Bloody hell,” I took a step back, my nose just now catching the sharp scent of iron in the air, in addition to the stale, lingering smell of most cellars- old wood, tar from the barrels, mold. And… whiskey. Definitely whiskey. Well, at least I now knew what they’d broken into down here.
	The iron though, that was blood. Unmistakably. Fresh blood, too. Not very much, but…
	“The great Luther Denholme,” I said with as much bravado as I could, putting up an air of strength. Whatever his game here, I didn’t need him seeing how tired I was. “How in the hell did you let a couple groggy lads get the better of you?”
	I hooked a finger around the top ring of the lantern overhead, easy enough in a cellar meant for shorter species, and held it out in his direction. The man was a sight. I felt the air leave my lungs in a punched-out huff. 
	He looked like he’d aged ten years since the last time I saw him, thinner and gaunter all around, but most noticeable in his cheeks and the deep pits in the hollows of his eyes. His nose was bloody and had stained the simple white cotton shirt he wore, beneath a frayed brown coat. He had none of his finery on, no blood red coat, no cravat, not even a sword that I could see. In fact, if he was armed at all, I couldn’t tell. A knife, perhaps, hidden somewhere on his person. Maybe tucked into the side of his leather spats, or beneath the coat somewhere. I couldn’t imagine he went anywhere completely unarmed.
	But there was nothing in the cattle dog’s slumped, lifeless posture, or in the air surrounding him, that read as intimidating or dangerous. And for a man that exuded intimidation as easily as most men breathed, that was saying something. He looked ragged, hazy-eyed… almost sickly. 
In short, he looked like I felt. In fact, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was hungov-
Wait.
He tipped his head up slowly towards me, pupils sharpening marginally at the sound of my voice, but they were blown-wide in the dark, lacking the predatory edge they generally had. Luther had this intense way of looking at you, as if he was analyzing you, sizing you up, all the time. In all the years I’d known him, I’d seen him exhibit a range of emotions, but his gaze had never lost that focus.
Without a further word, I crossed the space between us and knelt down in front of him. He sniffed noisily, sucking blood back up into his nose- the work of one of my boys, no doubt. And he opened his muzzle as if to say something, but I gave him the chance and the words just… never came. Just a slow, labored exhale. Which confirmed what I’d suspected, once I breathed it in.
“LADS!” I raised my voice, as loud as I could with my throat still thick with sleep as it was. I turned my gaze back down towards the cattle dog as the door was thrust open noisily somewhere back the way I’d come, and asked far more quietly of him, “Can you walk?”
He pushed himself up, palm grabbing unsteadily for one of the wooden shelves nearby and clamping around the edge of it for purchase. I had about a split second to warn him of what he should’ve noticed already- that there wasn’t much other than gravity holding it in place- but mostly what I got out was, “Don’t-“, and then the plank gave way and flipped up, on one side. I don’t think it’d ever been nailed down, it was just a flat piece of wood resting on slats.
But it had been the only point of support he had, so with a clattering crash that I’m absolutely certain half the house must have heard, I had the extraordinarily rare privilege of watching one Luther Denholme laid low by sub-par shelving. Several glass jars of preserves rolled off and littered down around him, thankfully without breaking (glass jars and bottles are tough let me tell you, did you know you could beat someone to death with one?), and he slumped back down against the wall, nearly to the ground. But by that point I’d caught his shoulder and leaned over him both to steady him, and block him from the prying eyes of the men I’d called in.
“Pull it together,” I whispered fiercely, a few inches away from one of his ears. “C’mon, up…” I moved a paw beneath his shoulder, beginning to heft him. Thankfully, he was a smaller man than I was, and lighter now than I remembered.
What the hell, what the hell…
“Can you walk if I drag you along?” I asked him, still lowly. He blinked back a wince against the encroaching glow of the lantern, but nodded.
“Admiral,” I felt a paw settle on my shoulder, heavy and with retractable claws. I recognized the spots immediately. “Seems like you handled him,” the leopard said, sounding only marginally concerned once he took in the sight of him same as I had.
“Taarush,” I sighed. One of my trusted men… good. But there were a few others with him, Jeffrey included, and he was a new-ish hire. I didn’t know him all that well, yet. “Yeah,” I confirmed, “knocked him stupid. You lads must’ve softened him up for me, eh?” I raised my voice at that so the others heard me clearly.
There were a few nervous chuckles of assent, followed by one bold man raising his voice and asking, “So why’s the Cerberus bastard here?”
I cleared my throat, thinking quickly. “Didn’t really get to that,” I said, sounding as forcibly bored as I could manage. “Wanted to set the record straight about walking in on our territory this way, bold as brass. I don’t care who the fuck you think you are, cur.” I directed that at Luther, who still hadn’t spoken, but at least seemed to be listening to me now. He was leaning on me heavily for support, but I had my paw clamped up beneath one of his arms in a way that at least looked like he was being man-handled. “We’re here legal-like,” I continued, then louder, “ain’t that right boys?!”
A bevy of confirming shouts went up, a bit of bluster and profanity, about what I’d expected. Taarush was looking at Luther oddly, though. He’d probably smelled it by now, just as I had when I’d finally gotten in close enough. It was downright embarrassing that the men who’d forced him down here hadn’t realized what was actually going on. But then, they were all as brutally hungover as I was, if not worse.
Luther was incredibly lucky he’d come here when he had.  Last night, he’d’ve been torn apart.
“But the Admiral and I need to speak now,” I continued, “so here’s what I need from you lot.  Clear the hall up there. And one of the sitting rooms… get me somethin’ to drink while you’re at it. Us. Get us something to drink,” I corrected quickly, even though that was clearly the last thing Luther needed right now.
“Y’want us to clear out the boys upstairs in the main room?” Jeffrey asked, uncertainly. 
I knew why the request confused him. It wasn’t often I conducted business- of any kind, legit or black market- behind closed doors. I had a policy of allowing my men, regardless of their rank, to weigh in on decisions that affected the fleet, so long as they were present for said negotiations. We were Anarchists, sure… but that didn’t mean I didn’t believe in the power of a public forum. Also, having an ever-present flock of my boys around me served as a means of intimidation, protection, and was extremely off-putting to more rigid men- like say, Amurescan Pedigree Lords- who were not accustomed to people they considered low-brow lessers having any say in negotiations. For all these reasons, I rarely met alone with anyone, save the women I took to bed.
But this was different. And I couldn’t explain to them why. Many of my men would feel understandably betrayed if they knew I was sparing any concern for a pirate hunter, a man who’d frequently made our exploits less profitable, or too risky to even undertake. We’d even traded shots once or twice, although I don’t think we’d killed any of each other’s men. Yet.
“Just do it,” I commanded, stone-faced. I didn’t have the energy or the creativity to concoct a lie right now. I’d come up with something later.
	I felt the air grow colder, that palpable aura of discomfort settling in more heavily. Thankfully, no one questioned me. 
Goddamn this man. We’d been having a good month… I didn’t need morale issues right now. But I didn’t want to run the risk of someone doing something absurdly stupid while they thought they had the chance of it. Denholme had put himself in a hell of a spot, here. 
	I wasn’t used to being the one stuck with cleaning up someone else’s bad decisions. This just wasn’t me.
	Taarush stayed at my side, which I was grateful for because although Luther had lost a bit of weight and wasn’t as large a man as either of us, the cattle dog was still… dense, and hardly someone I could princess carry up a narrow, rickety staircase easily. Having two men to help support him seemed to do it, though. We made it into the main hall, which Jeffrey had obediently cleared as asked, and I took him into the nearest sitting room from there. There were quite a few of these rooms meant for smoking, entertaining smaller parties and whatnot. We’d converted most of them into bunks or, as my men so elegantly put it, ‘fuckin’ rooms’. This looked to be the former, the single table and chairs all pushed closer to the fire, heaped in blankets and discarded clothing where the men taking up residence here had passed out last night.
	I settled the cattle dog down in one of the chairs, then went about bundling up the various linens over my arm and tossing them all into a corner, away from the still-smoldering fire. It was low, but still… stupid. Sailors should have been smarter about that.
	“Bloody… children,” I grumbled, balling up someone’s shirt and tossing it off the arm of the couch I chose to drag closer to Luther with a squawk of wood on the floor. “Going to burn the damn place down.”
	Taarush had paused in the door and was saying something quietly to a man outside, before fetching a pint bottle from whoever’d gotten it and setting it down on the edge of the table for me. “Will that do, sir?” 
	I uncorked the bottle and sniffed it, confirming it was rum. I didn’t really drink much else in the mornings. “It’ll do,” I said, “but Taarush, get me a Brukicker tonic.” I glanced briefly at Luther, “A double. And two cups.”
	He nodded, shutting the door with a gentle click behind him as he cleared out. It really hadn’t been a slam or anything approaching it, but I saw Luther wince and tip his ears back all the same.
	“You look like you skipped ‘drunk’,” I informed him curtly, tipping the bottle back and swallowing, embracing the burn with a relieved sigh, “went straight to the hangover part.”
	“Feels… that way,” he confirmed, voice rough and disused.
	“How long?” I asked, drinking again.
	He moved his head slightly at that, eyes slim slits when they finally settled on me. “I don’t…” he mumbled, “…unh? What?”
	“How long’ve you been on a bender?” I asked more descriptively. “You look like shit.”
	“Oh,” he seemed to understand, finally. “I… no. Just… the night.”
	I gave him a wry smile. “How long’s that ‘night’ lasted, bud? Or’ve you lost track?”
	“I’ve been sick,” he said, eyes slipping closed for a few moments.
	“Look, if you’re gonna be sick, just try to be quiet about it,” I sighed. “My boys don’t seem to realize you stumbled in here shitfaced like some drunk off the street yet, and it’s in your best interest they don’t comprehend how vulnerable you are right now. Not all of ‘em are as good-natured as I am, and you’d be a hell of a feather in a Privateer’s cap-“
	“No,” he insisted with a little more vehemence. “Not… sick from drink. Sick. Seer’s Fever.”
	That got my attention, real fast. And it explained a lot.
	I leaned back against the tattered cushion of the cheap couch. “Oh, hell,” I breathed out softly. “Are you… through it?” Come to think of it, everything about his condition could just be the result of the physical effects of the Fever. “Are you even drunk? Wait, no, I definitely smelled whiskey on you-“
	“Drunk, too. And not… I don’t have it. Inoculated,” he pressed his knuckles to his muzzle, clearing his throat and sniffing noisily again, although I think that had more to do with his bleeding nose than any symptoms. Sympathetically (and as one who’d had his fair share of bad punches to the nose) I got up and rummaged about the room for something he could use, settling on a bar rag someone had left on the table. 
	“How long ago?” I asked, handing it over to him.
	He took it slowly, inclining his head in a half-nod of thanks before pressing it to his still bleeding nose. “Finished the course… two weeks ago,” he tipped his chin back slowly, his whole posture going lax in the chair. “You don’t seem worried,” he noted.
	“I’m not. I know how inoculations work,” I sat back down heavily. “I really ought to get me’n the boys treated. We don’t go near the Southwest seas often, but,” I paused. “Wait, is the Fever ripping its’ way through the Navy, now?”
	He shook his head slowly. “It is thankfully rare. For now.”
	I blinked. “Then, why- isn’t it a rough course, to put yourself through just because? It must be. You’re…” I gestured at him. “I mean no offense, but holy shit.”
	“I know,” he grunted. “Not a’my best, for sure.” His chin tipped further back, eyes fixed on some point on the ceiling. “It’s been… a month.”
	“Yeah, well getting fucked up on whiskey on top of all that couldn’t have helped,” I pointed out, feeling so unnatural chastising someone else for drinking to excess.
	“Wasn’t the plan, exactly.” He spoke with his eyes closed, his brow pinched as if fighting back dizziness. Or nausea. Hard to say. “Usually know what I can handle.”
	“You lost weight,” I pointed out. “Guessing you were on bedrest for a while-“
“Mnh,” he confirmed.
“Not exactly in peak physical condition, mate. What the hell were you thinking?”
	“I s’pose I wasn’t,” he admitted quietly.
	“Thinking?” My muzzle twitched, this whole scene setting me ill at ease. I didn’t like seeing him like this. “That isn’t like you.”
	He didn’t respond. At all. Only stared ahead, into the fire. And sure, he was drunk. Apparently recovering from a rough inoculation process that I’d heard could actually kill you same as the disease it was intended to protect you from, if you weren’t tough enough to endure it. He’d gotten his face kicked in by a few of my boys, dragged up and down a flight of stairs I’d gotten winded taking, and I was only a bit hungover.
	But this was Luther fucking Denholme.
	“What. The hell. Is going on?” I annunciated, reaching out and grabbing him by the lower jaw, to turn him to face me. 
“Too much,” was his simple answer.
“Why are you here?” I tried to get him to look me in the eyes. “Why are you,” I gestured vaguely at his condition, “in this… state? Why are you alone? Where’s the wolfhound?” I realized belatedly at that point that he was without his shadow. That man was essentially his minder, or his personal bodyguard, I hardly knew what to call him. But I could count- twice now- that I’d ever seen them apart.
“Johannes is… unwell,” he said, barely above a whisper. I hardly knew what that meant, but it sounded bad.
“Inoculation take poorly for him?” I guessed.
He shook his head. “He is grappling with his demons.”
“Well that’s spooky as fuck, mate,” I said, curling a lip. “What does that even mean?”
“I…” he paused like he was trying to form words in his mouth, but it took him considerable time. A quicker wit than this man, generally, you could not find. This couldn’t be all the drink. “I cannot burden him now,” he finally said. “He is with his family.” Then after another considerable pause, so quiet I barely heard it, “If I were kinder, I would leave him behind. But I need him…”
I decided to leave that one alone. Sounded like they’d had some kind of falling out or something, but that really wasn’t my business. I most certainly did not consider the wolfhound a friend or comrade or whatever (my thigh ached in remembrance of the bolt he’d put through it, the bastard could rot in hell for all I cared), and it really had no bearing on the situation at hand.
“Fine, but you’ve got other people who ought to have been looking out for you,” I reasoned. Not that I’d ever thought the cattle dog couldn’t handle his own damn self, he was worldly and clever enough to make his way in just about any port. But life can lay low the strongest of us- as was evidenced here- and if I’d had the month from hell, I know at least two dozen of my men would’ve intervened to prevent me from doing something as fool-hardy as stumbling off drunk, despondent, ill, and unsupervised into enemy territory. Maybe one or two of those, but all at once?  
He was once again staring off into space, like he was very carefully considering what I’d last said to him. “Not… really,” he said at length. But I’d forgotten what he was replying to at this point.
“What led you to my doorstep?” I asked. “Is there something, I mean,” I bit back the urge to sound snappish. “Is there something I can do for you?” I went with instead.
I couldn’t bear to be an asshole to him right now. I didn’t even want to risk hurting his feelings, truth be told. Normally I could handle a crying drunk, but the thought of seeing this man in particular weep was… it made my chest hurt just thinking about it. And he looked that bad, like he might very well be on the verge.
An impulse I can’t explain led me to cross the few feet between us, grab him by the shoulders and shuffle him bodily to sit on the couch beside me, rather than across from me in that rickety chair. I felt like I’d get more out of him this way. But right off, he mostly seemed bemused, grabbing at one of my sleeves to stabilize himself as he plopped down. Wincing for him, I quickly reached down and tugged his tail to the side; he’d nearly crushed it sitting on it. 
“Do you…” I paused, thinking on my own drunken exploits in the past. He seemed to be on the downslide, so he’d probably been worse when he’d first arrived here. And he didn’t have a whole lot of answers for me, so…
“Do you even remember why you’re here?” I asked him, letting a long breath out slowly.
	His eyes moved to mine, almost pleading. “No,” he finally confessed.
	Blessedly, then came a knock. I didn’t bother turning, but called out, “Come in!”
	The leopard entered, albeit briefly. Taarush- always professional, only took one glance at the two of us, likely to assure for himself that I was still in no danger. He seemed unworried, and set two tin cups and a taller glass down, filled to the brim with an ochre concoction. The pungent smell was an old friend to me now, and that looked to be a freshly-mixed batch, based on the way the ingredients hadn’t begun to separate yet. I’d have to thank the cook later.
	“How are the men?” I asked him before he left.
	“Curious,” he responded simply, “but calm. All’s well, sir.”
	“Thank you, Taarush.”
	He nodded at me, then took his leave.
	“Good man,” I muttered as I stood, pouring a bit of the rum into both cups, then splitting the Brukicker tonic between them. I handed it over to Luther, who curled his nose at the scent, but otherwise took it without further question, likely familiar with it, or something like it.
	We sat in silence and forced it down, and apparently some of the man’s resolve was still there, because he downed his faster than I did mine. I clapped the cup back on the table and waited for it to kick in, the popping of the fire the only sound in the room for a time.
	“I’m flattered, by the way,” I said after a long while.
	“Hnh?” He glanced my way. It might have been a trick of the light, but it seemed like his gaze had sharpened marginally. Or maybe it was just because we’d been staring into a fire.
	“That you came to me, of all people, when you were blackout drunk,” I filled in. I flashed him a light smile. “I’m hardly a deep man, but that’s gotta mean something, right? A drunk mind… something, something… a sober heart? I don’t know,” I laughed.
	“Don’t laugh,” he said softly.
	“And why not?” I snorted. “You have a problem with my laugh?”
	“You’ve a good voice,” he said, once again with the enigmatic answers I couldn’t make sense of. “And a good laugh. It’s not that.”
	“I’m just glad I’ve got you talking,” I said. “Go on then. Explain it to me. Why can’t I laugh?”
	“Because it’s nothing to laugh off,” he answered simply. “It’s the truth. In my fugue, I came to you.”
	“You have to be the only man I know who uses words like ‘fugue’ when you’re hungover,” I said dryly.
	He glanced down at the empty cup. “This is working.”
	“You were verbose even before,” I waved a hand, “once I got you talking, anyway.”
	“Was…confused,” he confessed, whiskers twitching as he continued to stare down into his cup. “I still am.”
	“That’ll happen,” I said ruefully. “You don’t drink like this often, do you?”
	“I did more when I was young,” he murmured.
	“It’s a wonder you survived your youth, then,” I arched an eyebrow.
	“I wasn’t trying to.”
	There was that pain in my chest, again. Everything about this was worrying. 
	“Luther,” I leaned in close, forcing him to look in my direction. He seemed momentarily startled by my proximity, but didn’t flinch again when I cautiously placed a hand on his shoulder. His expression was… ‘fragile’ is the best word I can think of, and it’s still not quite right. Everything from his stooped posture, his too-narrow shoulders, the light, involuntary shivers of his muzzle and the deep circles beneath his eyes… it felt like he could crumble beneath my paw.
	“Grayson,” he said, haltingly. The fact that he’d used my name- not my surname- was the first indication I had that this was going to be bad. Very, very bad.
“It’s alright,” I eased him on with a light squeeze of his shoulder, my blunt claws sinking into the fabric of his jacket. “I’m listening.”
 “A… man came to see me,” he began, with a shuddering breath. “A man from my past. A lover of mine, from a long time ago.”
	“Alright,” I said, simply nodding. I didn’t dismiss the gravity of what he’d just put to words; those words could have seen him hanged in the Treneval square, simply because this man from his past and this lover were the same person. Years ago, I’d unearthed this secret of his and tried to use it against him. To my everlasting shame. But we’d gotten past that, and now he was trusting me with this. That was big.
	“He’s moved on,” he said hoarsely. I didn’t miss how he gripped his cup a little tighter. “I’m happy for him,” he continued, and to his credit, he earnestly sounded it. “But, despite that, he came to me… cared for me, while I recovered.”
	“Good of him,” I said.
	“Cruel,” he countered softly. “I’d come to believe- to make peace with the fact- that he’d left me behind because there were no mutual feelings between us. But, then, he does this. He comes to me, when I’m at death’s door. Cares for me. He cared this much for me, and he still didn’t want to be with me. He said he couldn’t…” he swallowed; the action so evident beneath the fur of his throat that I could almost feel it in my own. “He didn’t want to move on, until he’d made peace with me. He was asking for me to release him from my heart, from any remaining obligation he had to me. So that he could be happy in his new life, with no regrets.”
	“I’m sorry, mate,” I said with utter sincerity. “That’s fucking awful.”
	I wasn’t about to chastise him for falling in love in the first place. It wasn’t an illness I’d ever been afflicted with (thankfully), and that was by design, but I couldn’t fault those who fell victim to it. Luther was a passionate man, I’d only known him a few hours when I’d first learned that, and he was in the unenviable position of having to hide those passions for the sake of himself, his partners, and his family. It was hard enough that his predilection for men limited his opportunities, but based on what little I knew of his personal life, he’d also had lousy luck. Death, fear and misfortune had befallen those few I knew of, so hearing that he was mourning another missed chance at happiness was no surprise.
	Coupled with the inoculation, that was a double-blow that’d knock most men on their ass. But at least it was something I could understand. Maybe something we could solve.
	“You just need to chase his memory off with someone new,” I reasoned, shrugging. “You know I’ve got a few lads on my crew-“
	“Trust me, that’s the last thing I need right now,” he muttered.
	“Oh, come on,” I said. “Maybe not now, not in your current condition, and it ain’t gonna be some whirlwind romance, but it doesn’t always have to be that way, y’know. Sometimes you just need to shake the water off,” I straightened up, putting an arm up over the back of the couch and leaning closer to him. “I happen to know a few men’n particular who fancy the same sorts of leisure activities you do, and are all too eager to make poor life decisions.”
	He let out a ‘hah’ of breath that might’ve been a laugh if he were in any condition for one. “I don’t have the time, I’m afraid.”
	“You just need to sober up, get a warm bath, maybe take another week to recover. We’ll be in port all month-“
	“I sail in three days.”
	I stalled, opening my mouth to ask the obvious question. But then the pieces started to fit together on their own.
	“Oh, fuck,” I said aloud.
	Seer’s Fever was a horrible disease from the Dark Continent. It drove men mad, made them see things, thus the name. As bad as it was though, it could be relatively hard to catch. The only people who tended to get it were sailors who actually went to that accursed southern continent, and the people who had relations with them. Family, whores, whomever. You didn’t get this disease casually.
	I’d seen a few cases over the years in my fleet, but it was rare. Not one of the ones we worried about, because we didn’t traffic much in the southern seas. That was contested territory, and more importantly, an active warzone. The Amur had been fighting a losing battle to maintain control over their flagging Colonies in those unbroken lands for two decades now. They’d made an ill-fated attempt to colonize the continent the same way they’d tried to do with Carvecia, where they’d met with- and eventually lost to- rebellion. And now they were dealing with a similar situation with the natives of the Dark Continent, except they were being more… proactive about it. They’d never welcomed the Amur incursion, had fought them tooth and nail from the outset, and now the continent and all the waters surrounding it were a whirlpool of death and carnage that few escaped from. Yet in defiance of all logic, the bloody Amurescan King was clinging to the idea that they could prevail and bend the place to their will, if they only threw enough bodies at it.
	The inoculation, the old flame coming back into his life to make peace with him, his Second-in-Command abandoning him to spend time with his family…
	“I’d heard you were in port,” he said, as if just now remembering it. “I don’t remember how I found out… exactly where you were,” he spoke like a man stumbling through his patchy memory. “I suppose I must have wanted to… talk? To say goodbye, maybe.” He flicked his gaze over to mine, eyes wider and clearer than they’d been so far. “You’ve been a friend, Grayson. Almost unwillingly, at times, but… I don’t know what else to call what we have.”
	I swallowed, heavily. So, there it was. He’d said it. “You can call it that,” I said. “I think of you that way.”
	“Hnh,” he hummed, almost contentedly. It was the first moment of peace I’d seen wash over his features since he’d come here.
	A low growl, coming on like the distant rumble of thunder, disturbed the companionable silence that followed. It took me a few moments to realize it was coming from me, unbidden. Luther’s brows rose, concerned.
	“Fuck you, man,” I managed to get out, the growl an undertone to every word. “I knew…” I hissed, clenching a hand over the back of the couch, feeling the cheap fabric against my claws, “…I knew if you were walking into my life right now, it’d be to drop somethin’… shattering, on me. Some uncomfortable truth that’d tip me upside-down and set me reeling. That’s what you fucking do.”
	“I’m… I’m sorry?” He said, sounding like he wanted to mean the apology, but was still confused. He was so lost- had been searching for every word and trying desperately to explain himself since he got here- and it was honestly a wonder he’d followed along with our conversation as much as he had, given his condition.
	But I couldn’t help it. The anger had come, finally.
	“What do you expect me to do with this?!” I demanded, staring him in the eyes, our muzzles inches apart so that if he chose to look away from me, he’d have to make a real conscious effort to do so. “Wish you good fucking luck?!”
	“I-I don’t know,” he admitted. He wasn’t looking away, at least. He’d never been a coward. Steeling himself visibly, he reminded me, “I don’t know why I came here. I really don’t. I’m only guessing it was to wish you farewell before I left. I don’t remember where my head was at when I was drinking.”
	“What the hell happened?” I demanded, swiping my free hand through the air, out in the direction of the dark blue windows beyond, and the distant sprigs of masts silhouetted against the early dawn or late dusk, I still wasn’t sure. “How- why are you sailing out to war?!”
	He set his jaw. “It’s my duty,” he replied stoically.
	“Hang that!” I belted out. “You’re a pirate hunter, Denholme! Not some lapdog to your bloody Colonizer King. I feel,” I huffed out in sheer audacity, “like the biggest fucking fool… reminding you who you are! It would be better for me and mine if you forgot.”
	One of his eyebrows raised, and there came an inkling, a hint, of the dry snark I knew him for. “Would it, though?” he asked pointedly.
	“I mean, fine,” I confirmed, “you do poach my competition more often than you’ve been a thorn in my side specifically. We’ve brokered a few good deals over the years, too. But you have to admit, they were far more beneficial to you than me- more bloody protection rackets than anything.”
	“Well,” he closed his eyes for a moment, “you won’t need to worry about me for a while.”
	“If ever again,” I said, the growl back in my voice. Despite what some might call my ‘explosive personality’, I didn’t actually like to growl at people. It was too rough for me, too angry. Not my style. I felt like I didn’t have any control over it now, though.
	He didn’t respond to that, but he did finally look away from me. Which I took as a tacit agreement.
	“You know damn well,” I said, aghast, “that taking your fleet there is suicide. How are you letting them do this to you?! It can’t be for the Crown’s endorsement- you’ve been kicking ass these last few years. You’re bloody infamous, man… my men call you a ‘demon’. Most everyone I know in my trade is terrified of you.”
	“The flattery’s unnecessary,” he insisted, with the barest hint of a smirk. The one he usually wore like a second skin.
	“I know I’m not the only Privateer you’re on the take with,” I said, trying not to sound as petulant as I felt about it. I’d been his first, at least. I’d always have that. “Are you hard-up for some reason? Whatever this commission is paying, it can’t be worth it. Look, I just got off a job that paid absurdly well. What do you need?”
	“It isn’t about coin,” he assured me, then brought his eyes back to mine, the firelight catching in them. “Although it’s… surprisingly good of you to offer.”
	“Fuck you,” I said good-naturedly. “I’m a great guy. And yeah, it’s been a bit tumultuous, but I’d call us ‘friends’. Comrades, for sure. Right?”
	He nodded, silently. I didn’t miss the way his shoulders lifted, either. There was a lightness in his eyes, that ‘peace’ I’d seen earlier, every time we’d confirmed this simple fact. It was stunning, really, how much of an effect it seemed to have on him. Maybe give some credit to the alcohol, but still, heartbreaking to think it might’ve just been a rarity in his life. In anyone’s life.
	I had so many people I considered friends, across the world. Dozens of bosom buddies, just in this one building. People I trusted with my life. Knowing I could count the Cerberus Admiral among them was nice, but… hardly as profound as it seemed to be to him. Treneval was his port city, he had a place of residence here, it’s where his ships docked most of the time in between hunting seasons. With the wolfhound occupied elsewhere, was I really the only one he could think to come to, at his darkest moment?
	“So, if it’s not about the commission,” I pressed, “then why the hell are you letting them pull you into that maelstrom? You’ve never concerned yourself with those waters, before.”
	“It’s the legacy I inherited,” he said, voice laced with misery. “Lucius Denholme founded that Colony for the Crown. He later regretted it, told me about how he’d gotten pulled into the politics- it hardly matters why, now,” he shook his head. “Serwich is Denholme land, technically. I collect nothing from it, with the losses they suffer every year in the ongoing conflict, the place has never been profitable. Although that hasn’t stopped the Crown from taxing it.”
	“Give it up!” I said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Let the Crown inherit the responsibility. Just give up whatever claim your family has left on it. It isn’t worth it.”
	He huffed. “I tried. No one wants the burden of protecting it, the Crown is content to continue collecting their due and leave the management to my house. Which I let my Seneschal handle, and honestly, if that’s all there was to it… fine. But it’s gotten much, much worse there over the last few years. The natives are growing more and more warlike, some kind of plague is making its way through the populace-“
	“Seer’s Fever?”
	“Something else,” he sighed. “That, too. There are so many new diseases there, Grayson. I hired on one of the best Physicians willing to take the trip, I’m hoping we can do something to alleviate people’s misery. Anything.”
	“That place is a hell for canines,” I shook my head, the coins and beads in my dreads clicking against one another. “We were never meant for it. It should be left to the natives, it’s their land. Even the natural order is rejecting us.” 
	“I don’t disagree,” he muttered. He leaned, his back sliding down marginally against the mostly-flattened cushion of the old couch. I felt the scruff of his neck brush past my knuckles where they rested, and resisted the urge to reach out. It behooved anyone to remember, Amurescans weren’t nearly as open with their affections as those of us in the free world. Especially between men.
	Honestly, how they survived on so little physical contact… it boggled the mind. Just the fact that Luther and I were sitting as close as we were now, our knees occasionally knocking together, would’ve been high scandal amongst his peers. 
Just… stunningly stupid.
“So, let it go,” I repeated, emphatically. “Send aid, send your Physician, hell send firearms if you think it’ll help.”
“They need more than that right now,” he said, rubbing a hand between his eyes. “I’ve had agents there for a few years, reporting back to me- those that survive, anyway.”
“Fucking hell,” I snarled.
“I’ve even paid off a few men in your profession for intel,” he continued. “The waters are ripe for Piracy, given the chaos. There’ll always be vultures, opportunists, in situations like that… but for the right price, they tell me what they know. It’s worse than the Garrison there knows, or worse than they are choosing to report, anyway.”
“I know,” I said. “Word gets around. Some people do business with the lizardfolk, you know. Those that don’t shoot on sight.”
“Oh, I’m well aware,” he said. “They have gunpowder now. You know that some of their soldiers can fly?”
I took a long breath in and out. “Yes, I’ve heard. So, that’s not just some fanciful story about… war kites, or something?”
	He laughed mirthlessly at that. “No. Though I wouldn’t put that past them. No, there are creatures there- intelligent or beasts, I’m not sure- who can fly, for limited times of the day. And they’ve recently been engaging in this tactic of dropping cauldrons of boiling pitch, sometimes with gunpowder charges, on ships’ sails.”
	“Mother of-“ I nearly bit my tongue. “What the hell are you thinking, man?!”
	He shrugged, helplessly. “The Crown will not send any additional vessels to protect Serwich, or the shipping lanes. They don’t have the firepower to defend their supply lines, and I’m talking even just essential voyages. I’ve shut down most exports, which isn’t making the Crown happy, but it’s all I could do to stem the bleeding. Grayson, they are trapped,” he emphasized. “The people there- most of them are just workers and their families, a lot of them were sent as part of a sentence for minor crimes-“
	“They turned Serwich into a bloody Prison Colony?”
	“It isn’t some posh city,” he explained, voice growing more and more strained with a desperate edge. “They built the Fort first off for the Pedigrees, then let the settlement spring up around it, but they’ve never spent any ‘unnecessary’ resources to reinforce where most of the populace lives. I have little to no control over how the Colony is run, unless I am there asserting my authority. The Pedigree there do as they please and their primary interest is getting as much lumber out of the rainforest, and as much silver out of the mines as possible. Bringing in new labor is less costly than protecting the workforce they already have. The terrain is impossible to tame, the natives can appear and disappear into it like ghosts, hell, they can fly over barriers.”
	“I get it,” I held up a hand. “You want to whip the place into shape, to protect the people there. But Luther,” I leaned in, “can you? I mean no offense to you whatsoever, and I’m sure the fools running things there right now are utter bastards, but are you sure you can do any better than they have? Running a Fleet and running a Colony are two completely different skill sets.”
	“I know I can’t,” he said quietly.
	“Then… what-” I sputtered.
	“Serwich is lost,” he said, with dead certainty. “They’ve just not realized it yet. There’s an alliance of tribes, an army massing, amongst the Cathazra- the natives. One of their tribal chieftains, an ‘Elekk’, they call themselves. A war leader. They’re pushing back, into the east coast. Two colonies have fallen to them already. Serwich will be the third.”
	I was starting to hate the fact that I’d sobered him up. He still looked and sounded like hell, only now he was making sense.
	“Even with my fleet there, we… are just so severely disadvantaged,” he sighed softly. “My Captains are confident, because we have the Fort, and we still hold the bay. They discount the natural advantage the terrain gives the natives and refuse to realize how entrenched they are, because they don’t recognize their forms of architecture and style of war, yet. But they will soon. They believe if worst comes to worst, we’ll be able to fall back and rely on our superior firepower.”
	“And will you?” I asked.
	“If we abandon ninety percent of our populace?” He narrowed his eyes. “Sure. We could hole up in the Fort. For a while, anyway. What we need is a larger force. I cannot make the numbers work the way they are. I’ve been pleading with the Crown for over a year now. If they want me to protect their assets, I need assistance to do so. But every time I’ve tried, it’s the same answer. Nothing additional can be spared.”	
	  “They’re stretched thin,” I said. “Tryin’ to hold onto half the world will do that to you.” Something occurred to me, then. “What about Cross?” I asked. “Piracy’s rampant down there, like you said. And I’d thought your fleets were working together a lot, of late. Couldn’t he spend a season down there with you?”
	“Well he might have been able to,” he cleared his throat, “if someone hadn’t shot his ships full of holes. They’re in dry dock, you know. Might not be worth salvaging, at this point. He is livid, by the way.”
	“Man came after me,” I pointed out. “I wasn’t about to let him sink me without a fight.”
	“I don’t blame you,” he assured me. “Your scuffles with Cross have nothing to do with me, and honestly, I’m not sure he would’ve helped me, anyway. He hates politics even more than I do, he’s no friend of the Crown, and I don’t think he would’ve wanted to put his fleet on the line to protect their assets.”
	“Wait- is this maybe why you’re here?” I asked outright, turning to look down at him. He was normally shorter than me, but slumped as he was now, it was much more pronounced.
	He blinked up at me, still sleepy-eyed and ragged. It was so hard not to put a hand between his ears and at least smooth back the fur. “What?” He asked simply.
	“You don’t think you might’ve come to me for help?” I said pointedly. “I’m another man you know with a fleet-“
	“I don’t want anyone else pulled down into this nightmare with me,” he insisted, immediately. “I wouldn’t ask that of you.”
	“I don’t expect you would,” I assured him, “but you’ve got to put yourself in the mindset of a depressed drunk-“
	“I’m not ‘depressed’,” he insisted.
	“Oh, not in the least,” I drawled out, rolling my eyes. “You just got wasted-“
	“You do that constantly, regardless of your mood.”
	“But you don’t,” I stabbed a finger into his chest. “And you didn’t let me finish. You got wasted, stumbled out into the night looking for some kinda lifeline, with your usual stalwart wolfhound gone missin’ and all… found your way to my doorstep, broke into my place-“
	“My memory’s not all there,” he coughed, “but I’m pretty sure the door was open.”
	“You coulda’ knocked.”
	“I… think I was trying to find you, specifically,” he said, sounding more certain by the moment. “Bypass your men. I’m a lot stealthier in my mind, when I’m drunk.”
	“You’re lucky you’re not dead,” I said. “I was on the third floor. You never would’ve made it all the way to me without running afoul of my boys.”
	“Mmh,” he dragged a breath through his nose. “Not alone, either. You were bedding a… mink, last night?”
	“No, actually,” I said irritably. “I mean, yes. She was there. But we never really got that far- it doesn’t matter. Look. You find your way to me, blackout drunk, you practically cry on my shoulder about a lost love-“
	“I did not,” he insisted.
	“Fine, you were a big damn man about it,” I bit back my frustration. Amurescan men. Good fucking GOD. “You just went through a rough battle with one of the world’s worst illnesses. You had to make peace with an old flame, your… Second-in-Command, your fucking shadow, can’t support you right now, I’m guessing your family can’t be with you either-“
	“Delilah is angry with me,” he said quietly. “She doesn’t want me to go.”
	“Smart woman,” I growled out. “You should listen to your wife, Luther.”
	“I don’t have a choice,” he said, voice hoarse. “Someone has to protect those people.”
	“You are going off to war,” I emphasized, “against a group of people you hardly understand- and I know you, man- that has to terrify you. You can’t out-maneuver an enemy whose moves you can’t predict.”
	“No,” he agreed shakily, “I can’t.”
	“You’re depressed,” I said. “Scared. It’s alright to admit that, no-stop,” I reached forward with my free hand and grabbed his opposite shoulder, turning him towards me forcibly before he could look away again. “STOP … with this false bravado bullshit. You think I can’t see through it? You think I don’t know how it feels to put up a front to my boys, when we’re in deep?”
	“You don’t hide who you are,” he said, his words almost a challenge, like he dearly wanted me to confirm for him that he was right. Was he envious of me? “You’re the freest man I know,” he said, his voice coming from his gut.
	“You think I don’t get barked at and challenged by my boys?” I laughed. “You think I don’t have to put up a strong façade, sometimes?”
	“No, I…” he trailed off. “You have your own demands with your fleet, I’m sure.”
	I couldn’t help it. The sentiment had always been there I think, it just chose this moment to boil out.
	“You could’ve been one of us,” I said.
	His eyes widened.
	“You should have,” I put more force into the words, “been one of us. Luther. You still could. You and I? We’d be fearsome together.”
	I saw it the moment he tried to shift away from the point, the forced smile, the huff of breath. “As proposals go, you could stand to work on yours-“
	“Who you are,” I growled out, “everything you are… we would have accepted you. Valued you for the things that matter, for your mind, your skills. Everything else? Everything that’s made your life a living hell amongst your countrymen, your… blood, your past, your choice of bed partners… none of that would matter in my fleet. You want to be free?” I dragged my arm from where it was looped over the back of the couch, settling a paw on his back, pulling him in closer. “It is literally yours for the taking. You just have to let go of all this,” I gestured out the window.
	His gaze hadn’t left mine, but his irises were shaking. His whole body was shaking, I realized. It was subtle, barely a shiver. Like someone with a bow drawn taut, straining.
	“It pains me to watch you suffer,” I stated openly. “Your Crown does not deserve your loyalty. You are too good a man to be thrown onto the pyre of their pointless war. Leave all of this. Get out now while you can, before you die for them.”
	He opened his mouth, and I cut him off. “Your family will be fine,” I insisted. “Hell, we can relocate them if you want. Carvecia. Mataa. Anywhere. They are about to lose you, anyway. And do you really think the men in power won’t still hate you, if you give all you have to defend this territory, and fail?”
	“It doesn’t matter what my countrymen think of me,” he said quietly.
	“I’m glad you feel that way,” I said, not believing him, “because if they knew who you really were? The man you truly are, the man I know, they would loathe you. And you know it. You live in fear of the people you protect, man. People call me insane sometimes, but your life? Your life is the craziest con game I’ve ever heard of. And for what? How have they earned your fealty? What has your country ever done for you?”
	He was silent for a long, long time.
	“It doesn’t matter,” he said at long last, “if my country loves me. I’m accustomed to unrequited love.”
	My breath stopped. I couldn’t find the words to tell him how achingly sad he was making me. No one made me feel things like this. God damn him.
	“I’m a protector,” he said softly. “It’s all I’ve… ever wanted to be. The only thing that makes me feel whole. I don’t need them to recognize it. Or even you. I just want to make the seas safe. Free. It’s the only place of respite I’ve ever found.”	
	“For what it’s worth,” I choked out the words. “Thank you. I know that matters very little, coming from someone like me-“
	“It does matter,” he assured me.
	“There are some unbelievable monsters out there,” I said breathlessly. “In my trade. Knowing you’re out there, it… honestly does comfort me. I understand what you’re fighting for.”
	He nodded, slowly. “I hope you’ll forgive me, then,” he murmured. “The people in Serwich need help. I’m going to do all I can.”
	“You’re going to die there,” I said between my teeth.
	“Maybe,” he agreed, smiling bitterly. “But I have to try. I have to. No one else is coming to their aid.” He lifted his muzzle some, then breathed out a quiet, “Oh.”
	“What?” I asked, trying to swallow around the pain in my throat.
	“Your eyes are blue,” he said. “I just noticed.”
	“Bastard,” I breathed out, staccato. “We’ve known each other how long now?”
	“I… try not to linger long when I stare at other men,” he admitted. “Especially with those who… know.” He glanced aside at that. “I-I don’t want to unnerve anyone. Assumptions are easily made, tempers can flare. I have to be careful.”
	I felt my brows knit, anger rising again. “You can stare at me all you like, mate. I don’t fucking care. I can’t imagine how exhausting that shit must be. Please, please don’t worry about that, with me. I’m fine. Nothing about being around you ‘unnerves’ me.” I lifted my eyebrows, conscious of how angry I might look right now. “I… I want to… damnit,” I gave a ‘tch’ around my back teeth, “I know I said I don’t mind you looking at me, but would you just… please stop looking so sad...”
	He shut his jaw self-consciously, uncertainty moving over his features. “I-I’m sorry. How am I-“
	“Why did you come to me?” I insisted, even while knowing he still had no answers. “You won’t let me help you.” 
	“That isn’t your responsibility,” he assured me.
	“It ought to be someone’s,” I ground out, my paw on his back tightening somewhat in his jacket, the other gripping his shoulder a little tighter. “I… shit. I just want to…”
	He continued to look up at me, lost. I had nothing for him. No answers, nothing I could offer. Except…
	A frustrated growl tore its way out of my muzzle, and throwing caution to the wind, I pulled him the few remaining sacred inches we’d kept up this whole while, like a barrier. His head fell in between my shoulder and jaw, our hips pressed together, his side against my side. His whole body went stiff, but before he could push back, I used the arm I’d had behind him to loop around his waist, pulling him more firmly into the embrace. He was weak right now, but he still could have fought back if he’d really wanted to. And for a moment, I thought he would. I felt him poised to push back, to disentangle us-
	But then he just… gave way. All at once, he began to uncoil. His shoulders loosened, his body went heavy against mine, his muzzle bent into the crook of my neck, and the finale- he let his breath out in a long, slow sigh. I felt it all the way down my chest.
	I moved my arm a bit, slipping it up beneath the hem of his already bunched coat, so my hand was splayed more comfortably around his hip. I could feel the heat of his pelt beneath the thin cotton. For some reason, right now, that was immensely reassuring. I’d had more than one of my men bleed out in my arms, like this. A warm body- regardless whether they were a friend, a lover, or something in between- was always a comfort.
	“Is this alright?” I asked, most certainly too late.
	The only noise I got out of him was a quiet, “Mmhh,” that sounded… accepting? My guess was confirmed a moment later when he nodded shallowly, and leaned against me with what must have been his full weight. I shifted a leg and vaguely readjusted my arm to get comfortable, but otherwise made it clear I wasn’t going anywhere.
	I did my absolute best to just hold him like that for a while without fidgeting, or saying anything. I didn’t want to push my luck. But I’m just not good at sitting still, and my hands tend to start moving first, before the rest of me. I settled with gingerly moving my fingers in semi-circular motions against his shoulder at first, then slowly shifting my paw up through the scruff of his neck. I had been fighting the urge to smooth out the unruly, damp fur there since he’d arrived. I set to it slowly, easing into the idea of anything beyond the embrace with careful measure- because even being held seemed to be an adjustment for him.
	“Your fur is a nightmare,” I muttered, noting how much coarser it was than my own. “I’ve often thought you must not take good care of it, but… it’s just like this, isn’t it?”
	“Luckily, I’m not so hung up on my vanity as you are,” he muttered against my collarbone.
	I gave a belly laugh at that. “Bullshit,” I countered. “I might preen over my fur, but I’ve seen you without a shirt on. We just prioritize different things.”
	“Fair,” he agreed, his tone gone tranquil and lethargic. I briefly entertained the possibility that he was coming down from a lot of booze and what must have been a truly exhausting night- he might actually just be falling asleep. I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d do if he passed out here, let alone in my arms, but I quickly decided waking him wouldn’t be an option. I’d just have to move him elsewhere in the house and keep him from the men until he’d slept it off…
	He dragged in a breath through his nose, then let it out slowly. “Your shirt,” he murmured.
	“Hm?”
	“It smells like you,” he observed.
	“Well it’s mine, so it ought to,” I huffed.
	“You’ve a tendency to smell like whatever you’re drinking,” he said, “or smoking. Or that oil you put in your dreads… or whatever woman you’re currently seeing. It makes your scent hard to pin down.”
	“Not intentional,” I shrugged, then smiled a bit. “Sounds like it bothers you, though.”
	“I’m a dog, Grayson,” he cracked his eyes open for a half a second, before shutting them again. “You’re canine, you should understand. I commit people to memory that way. Some scents you can associate with people, but yours are… hectic. Always changing. It’s hard to pin-point your own, beneath it all.”
	“I understand,” I assured him, tapping my own nose. “I guess I’m just not as hung up on it as you are. Also, if I want a whiff of someone, I have no issue just sticking my snout all up in their business. I guess you’re rarely this… close with people, huh?”
	“Very few,” he said quietly. Then, a moment later, his voice tentatively curious, “Is this normal for you?”
	“With other men?” I guessed.
	“With… people other than those you bed down with,” he said carefully.
	“You mean friends?” I clarified. “Yeah. I’d say so. I mean, I don’t go embracing strangers, unless I’m drunk. And that usually doesn’t go well. But with my closest men, this wouldn’t be all that unusual. If they needed it. If it felt warranted. Is it helping?”
	A beat of silence. Then, a simple, “Yes.”
	“Good. I’m glad,” I said, content to leave it at that. There really wasn’t any need to complicate this. Obviously, physical affection between two men could have other context for someone like Luther, but that wasn’t… this, and I saw no reason to compare or connect one to the other. I moved the hand on his hip to rub at his lower back, comfortingly. And for the first time, he pressed in closer against me, of his own will.
	“If you can’t protect them…” I said, feeling his body stiffen expectantly. But I had to get this out. “Then, you should get them the hell out of there.”
	Silence. Which meant he’d already considered that.
	“I know it’s something you’ve run scenarios for in your head,” I said, resting my chin on top of his head, “if even I’ve landed on it as a possible solution.”
	“An evacuation,” he said quietly. “It would be… unheard of. Moving an entire population at once like that.”
	“Could you do it?” I asked.
	He shifted slightly, breathing in and out deeply, once. I could practically smell him burning lamp oil, running the possibilities over in his mind. “Not as it stands,” he finally said. “Even with the vessels they have on hand in the Serwich Bay- and I’m working with out-of-date information here, mind you- we just don’t have the capacity. Not if I want the warships to be fully operational. I’d have people crammed to the gills on the gun decks, we’d be running lower in the water, there’d be morale issues, obviously…”
	“Unhappy men are better than dead men,” I pointed out.
	“None of this even addresses how I’d get my Command Staff to agree to an evacuation,” he continued, “let alone the Pedigree Landlords of Serwich. That’s… a dozen, at least… very ‘well-bred’ men with a lot of their resources invested in that land. Imagine the conversation where I attempt to explain to them why we have to abandon the Colony. Cede it willingly back to the natives? I’m going to show up on their shores with four brimming warships, and a flock of seasoned Navy men, including five Captains who’ve been cutting their teeth on Pirates for the last five years. The Lords are going to expect results. My Captains are going to expect results. They refuse to accept how hopeless our situation is, there. If I come to their aid, only to tell them the plan is to surrender their investments and shell the place out-“
	“Wait, five?” I was counting on my fingers. I was fairly certain I knew all of his Captains.
	“Johannes is technically a Captain,” he filled in. “Since the Crown appointed me an Admiral, officially. I was only an acting Admiral, before.”
	“So, you’ll have him on your side, at least,” I pointed out. Then paused. “Or will you? What happened between you two?”
	He made a quiet noise of discomfort. “It’s not… entirely my story to tell,” he said weakly, “but he’s not… not handling the idea of returning to the Dark Continent as well as-“
	“Don’t say ‘as well as I am’,” I said, horrified at the mere notion.
	“Mmhh… well…”
	“That man is a rock,” I gasped. “At least, the few times I met him he was. I didn’t even know he’d been there, before. What the hell happened to him there?”
	“That’s the thing, he doesn’t like to talk about it,” he said darkly. “I’ve gotten bits and pieces. It’s the only subject I’ve ever seen shake him so badly. He very nearly begged me not to bring him along. But he’s a Templar, and Lucius left him with the care of the Cerberus fleet. He’d be turning his back on every duty he holds sacred if he refuses this mission, and he still considered it. Whatever his experiences there when they founded the Colony, they… damaged him. The Physician calls it ‘Soldier’s Fatigue’.”
	“I’ve heard of that,” I said softly. I felt, rather than saw, the way his ears had begun to quake as we spoke. I moved the paw I’d been uselessly trying smooth back his bristly nape with, and cupped his ear, rubbing it between my thumb and forefinger.
	He groaned, almost sounding irritated. “That feels better than it has any right to,” he muttered. 
	“I’m good with my hands,” I shrugged.
	“How is it you just… do… these things?” He asked almost in wonderment, “So casually?”
	I shook my head, chuckling. “What d’you mean?”
	“You cross every boundary- I haven’t even done things like this with most of my lovers,” he protested, while simultaneously tipping his other ear. I didn’t miss the gesture.
	Smirking, I switched to the other. “It’s no skin off my back,” I pointed out. “And I know this sort of thing helps me when I’m down.”
	“Yes, but with women I’d wager,” he said, voice slightly muffled by my shirt.
	“Mate, sometimes it ain’t about feelin’ randy,” I said. “Sometimes you just want someone to reach out. And you don’t need to be fuckin’ to reach back.”
	I saw his eyes open to slim slits, his features slowly going lax, like my words had plummeted him deep into thought. Before he could get lost in it, I said, “I’ll help you.”
	“Hnh?” He rumbled.
	I gave a long sigh, closing my eyes and carefully considering my words before finally landing on, “I want to help your people.”
	He opened his mouth, and I cut him off, “Not your bloody Pedigree curs- your people. The people livin’ in that Colony; none of this is their fault. And I know that’s why you’re risking your ass, too. There’s what- a few thousand souls there?”
	“Roughly 3,400, last I heard,” he said, voice coarse around the edges. “Grayson, I can’t ask this of you-“
	“You’re not gonna ask,” I informed him, taking on an authoritative tone, “you’re gonna demand. A’least, that’s the story I’m telling my men. You pulled my ass out of the fire a few times now, I’d be hanging from a noose on at least one occasion if not for you.”
	“We had an arrangement then,” he insisted.
	“Just shut the fuck up, man,” I growled again, but there was no malice in it. “Listen. I’m not helping you hold down your bloody Colony. I’m not killing lizardfolk to make your King richer.”
	“Then what-“
	“Evacuate the populace,” I said. “You know it’s the only option. We’ve been going back and forth here for too long- I can tell what it is you want to do. I know you well enough by now. It’s the only way you stop the bleeding, put this nightmare behind you. Otherwise you’ll be fighting for this hell-hole ‘til the day you die, which… could be sooner than we’d both like.”
	“Every Pedigree Lord will be against me,” he said, with certainty.
	“That’s what you’ll need the extra firepower for,” I asserted. “Look, you can’t always reason your way through things with people- especially if they’re arguing in bad faith. That’s the point in the conversation when I pull a fucking pistol; sometimes it’s just how you have to handle things. The Lords there don’t have the might to push back against you, if they did they’d’ve used it on the lizards by now. I know dealing with your Captains’ll be tricky, but you’ll have your man Johannes, right?”
	He nodded, seeming more and more settled by the moment. “Yes. He’d agree to this. I’m certain of it.”
	“And you’ll have me,” I jerked a thumb back towards myself. “Just set the wheels in motion. I’ll come calling when you need me.”
	“That could take time,” he said, considering.
	“I’ve got business here to handle, anyway,” I assured him. “And if I’m taking the Fleet to war, I need to get my big girl ready for it. And the men…”
	“Shit,” he swore, “I’m so sorry. I’m…” he looked torn, “…I really don’t want to turn you down. You’ve no idea what this would mean to me-“
	“Trust me, I do,” I muttered.
	“-but is this going to throw your Fleet into chaos?” He asked. “It’s going to be hard enough selling my Captains on the idea of hiring on Privateers, your men would need to behave. If you’re going to be making landfall in my Colony, even briefly-“
	“Mate,” I said, “I guarantee you my men are more loyal than most of yours. They can be a bit wild, but a job’s a job. Speaking of, I’m tripling my rate for this nonsense. Bloody… flying, flaming oil buckets? Fuck.”
	“Whatever you need,” he said, his voice quiet, but laced with the most sincere gratitude I think I’d ever heard in my life. When I turned to look down at him, I nearly gagged.
	“Ugh,” I shoved him away at last, playfully. “Stop that.”
	He smiled slowly. And it was fragile like before, but earnest. “Grayson,” he said, my first name still sounding so unnatural coming from this man who’d always been so formal with me, in the past. But I guess now, this was how we were. “Thank you,” he said, gripping one of my hands and squeezing it tightly.
	Slowly, I let the irritation slip away from my features; to be honest, I’d been faking it. Luther might have been resistant to the sorts of affection I found second nature, things as simple as embracing your fellows when they were torn down, making friends easily, talking about the things ailing you… but I was similarly unused to the things that he could bestow so easily. Gratitude. Loyalty. Respect.
	I guess we’d both have to expand our horizons a little.
	Smiling rakishly, I clapped my other hand on his back. “You’re welcome. And you can thank me again in the Southern Seas. Every fucking day, until this is over.”
	He gave a tired, crooked grin, “I’ll do that.”