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Finny came back in the dead of winter, and it was as though spring herself had returned. The sun came out for the first time in weeks just to welcome him. It was his first leave since he had enlisted in the Royal Navy, and Finny was already a midshipman with, as rumor had it, a very promising career in front of him. The town had been braced for weeks to embrace him, his name on every tongue. Gene, thinking of it all, was sick to his stomach.
It was as though there were some cold, black knot twisted up inside him. He had missed Finny like a lung when he had left two years ago, shocked and pleased and promising to come home as soon as he could. Gene believed him, even now, because there was no guile in Finny, no cruelty, not like there was in Gene, who still thought of that golden summer three years ago with shame enough to burn him from the inside out. He still missed Finny now, truth be told. Gene had never stopped; he didn’t think he knew how. It was strange, though, to think of how the service would have changed him. Gene imagined him rougher: brawnier, yes, and more golden, but also cruder. What use would he have now for Gene, who lacked both his strength and his dexterity? Gene couldn’t bear to think of it, and so, on the day of Finny’s promised return, he fled.
Not, of course, that he went very far. He hadn’t intended to run away forever, or even for more than a few hours, but the feeling he got was the same as the one that—Gene imagined—he would have when he finally left for good: free and yet awful somehow. Gene went down to the cliffs on the outskirts of town, to the wild and dangerous edge that had been forbidden to them as children. Finny, he thought, wouldn’t come down here. The place was still too full of memories for the both of them, but Gene had always had a gift for torturing himself. Gene hadn’t brought anything to occupy his time, so he lay on his side and thought about the ocean. What would it be like to sail the world, to live at the mercy of the seas, as Phineas did?
“You could just ask me, you know,” Finny’s voice broke through his thoughts, and Gene cursed himself for having Finny’s voice in the back of his head even after two years. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the sound of the waves on the rocks.
“Are you ignoring me? Gene?” Gene froze, opened his eyes, and slowly turned around. Finny was there, standing over him with his back to the sun. His golden hair and skin were backlit by the sun; and he glowed like a Greek god. Gene had to turn his eyes away, or else, he felt, he would burn alive.
“No,” he conceded, but kept his gaze fixed on the ocean.
“I was looking for you, you know,” Finny told him as he lowered himself down to sit beside Gene. He said it as though it was the most natural thing in the universe, that he should want to see Gene, even if Gene was out here. Gene bit his tongue to hold back the tide of comebacks, and Finny elbowed him. “Don’t be so sour, Gene.”
“Easy for you to say,” Gene muttered. Next to him he could hear Finny sigh, and then felt an arm around his shoulders. His first instinct was to shrug it off, but it kindled a fierce warmth deep in his chest.
“I did miss you, you know. No one on the crew was half as clever as you.”
“I’m shocked,” Gene said, and Finny laughed. He had a bright, booming laugh that only added fuel to the fire inside Gene, and it was too easy to forget that he had been angry and bitter before Finny had appeared at his side.
“There you go,” Finny murmured, and pulled Gene into his side.
-
Gene would never get used to making small talk with Finny’s parents. Before the accident he had been a knobby-kneed, awkward adolescent, but after, with the memory of Finny’s father saying, “We’re so glad that Phineas has a friend like you at such a difficult time in his life,” Gene was practically struck mute in their presence. It was a miracle that Finny survived the fall, and a miracle that he was able to enlist afterwards. Finny was a miraculous creature altogether, and Gene had no idea what he had done to deserve him, so he figured that awkward dinners with his parents were a small price to pay.
Mercifully, Finny was glad to spend the entire dinner regaling them with tales of his adventures on the high seas: the storm in the middle of the Atlantic that nearly drowned half their crew; the magnificent whales, one of which Finny swore he saw fighting a Kraken; a game of cards that nearly turned into a mutiny, which Finny insisted he had not been involved with at all; and, of course, the pirates. Gene sat, breathless, on the edge of his seat as Finny described the pirate ship he had seen in the West Indies.
“A black flag,” Finny told them, “just like in the stories, except instead of a skull and crossbones there was a skeleton stabbing a heart with a spear and he had a cup in his other hand. Gave me the chills, I tell you. But, you know, from a distance it looked like an ordinary ship. We didn’t know until we got too close. And even then they looked like ordinary men.” Finny shrugged and grinned furtively at Gene. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but you hear stories about them and you forget they’re just sailors gone rotten.”
His father burst into laughter and shook his head. “Never change, son.” Gene watched Finny’s smile spread across his face until something twisted in his stomach and he had to look away. His plate was almost empty, but Gene busied himself with pushing the scraps around and hoped that the conversation would leave him behind.
“What about you, Gene?” Finny’s voice broke through his reverie. Of course, Gene thought, he could never count on Finny leaving him behind. He raised his eyes to meet Finny’s.
“What have you been doing since I left?”
Gene considered snapping at him; he had a life outside of Finny, after all, there was no need to phrase the question like that. But Finny was guileless, and Gene knew it. He didn’t have it in his heart to take his black moods out on Finny, especially after the fall.
“I’ve been handling the accounts at my father’s shop.”
“A good head for numbers,” Finny’s mother added. “If only you had been able to teach Finny.”
“It wasn’t for lack of trying,” Gene said, and she laughed. Finny kicked Gene under the table but when Gene turned to him he was smiling.
“I was a hopeless pupil,” he admitted.
“You were,” Gene told him, voice soft.
They continued to talk after that, but Finny’s mother cleared the table as they did so, and then his father rose to go sit by the fire and Gene knew he should take his leave. He thanked Finny’s mother, who hugged him and told him he was always welcome, and Finny’s father waved a hand at him in affectionate dismissal. Finny showed him to the door, but stopped abruptly. His mouth opened and closed wordlessly, and Gene frowned. He had always been able to read Finny’s expressions, but now his face as indecipherable.
“I’ll see you home,” Finny blurted. Gene gave him a strange look. It was a cold night, yes, and dark in the way only winter nights could be, but theirs was a small town and Gene had spent his whole life there. He certainly didn’t need an escort home. He wanted one, though. Gene thought of Finny pressed up against him, a long lean brand of warmth, and nodded.
They walked the first few minutes in silence, almost close enough to touch. Gene couldn’t bring himself to look at Finny; he knew his cheeks were flushed with more than just the cold. Then he heard Finny’s footsteps cease, and turned to see what had happened.
Finny was standing in the street, looking at him with a strange, gentle expression. The strange twisting sensation returned to Gene’s stomach. He knew, of course, what it was, but could not bear to name it. If he did, Gene knew that all of this would slip away from him. Something must have changed in his face at that thought, because Finny’s expression grew concerned and he returned to Gene’s side. He slipped and arm around Gene’s shoulders and Gene sunk into his warmth.
“I was just wondering,” Finny started, and his voice was strange and soft for Finny, who always spoke with confidence and ease, “why you never went to university. You’re so smart. You could do basically anything.” He pulled Gene in closer as he said this, and his thumb rubbed circles against the ridge of Gene’s shoulder.
Gene let out a shaky breath. “You know I couldn’t afford it.” He tried to shy away, but Finny’s grip was firm. “Besides, it was never what I really wanted. I would have been miserable there.”
“You wanted to do the accounts for your father?” Finny asked.
“Don’t be obtuse,” Gene snapped. “Sorry. It’s just, you know what I’m talking about.”
“Sailing the seven seas? I remember. I guess I thought you’d moved on while I was gone.” There was no malice in his voice, just a sort of melancholy.
“Of course not,’ Gene huffed. “You know I can’t let things go.”
“Why didn’t you enlist with me?”
“We both know the answer to that, Finny. I’d last two seconds.”
“Longer than that, with me looking out for you.”
“There’d be no guarantee we’d be together.”
Finny sighed. “I know. What about a merchant ship?”
Gene snuck a glance that Finny caught and held. “It wouldn’t be quite the same. Besides, I couldn’t leave my parents here alone. They’re getting older and need the help.”
“But you still want to sail.”
“More than ever, hearing your stories.”
“I wish you could come with me.”
All of Gene’s responses died on his tongue. Finny was still looking at him, his head tilted, and Gene realized in a thunderous moment exactly what was about to happen. He leaned up to meet Finny’s mouth and saw, out of the corner of his eye, his mother’s face appear in the window. He hadn’t even noticed that they had reached his home. Finny’s breath was warm on his lips, and his fingers encircled Gene’s wrist. Something bright and wonderful uncurled in Gene’s chest.
At the last minute, though, he bent his head. “My mother, in the window,” he stammered. Finny looked wounded, still.
“Of course,” he said, and walked Gene to the door.
“Finny,” Gene said, desperate not to let it end like this. “I want nothing more than to come with you.”
“Now?”
“Always.” Gene didn’t know if Finny would take that for the confession it was. Before he could find out, he stammered a goodnight and retreated inside.
-
Gene saw Finny constantly after that, but they were never alone. Every time he thought he could steal Finny away another childhood friend or neighbor came to see him. Gene didn’t have the heart to pry Finny away from his well-wishers; he genuinely enjoyed seeing them. Still, he had caught Finny staring at him with a hungry look he had never worn before, and Gene’s patience wore thin.
On the last day of Finny’s leave they made it down to the cliffs. As soon as they were beyond any prying eyes Finny caught him around the waist and swept him up into a kiss. Gene parted his lips and sighed into Finny’s mouth, twined his arms around his neck and pressed closer. It felt so natural to feel Finny against him from chest to thigh, his hands clutching at Gene’s hips, his tongue in Gene’s mouth. It felt like the culmination of something that had been building for their entire lives.
“Is that what they taught you in the navy?” Gene asked after they broke apart.
“No,” Finny told him, “no, there wasn’t anyone. I’m not—Gene, there’s just you.”
“Oh.” Gene had no idea how to respond to that, so he buried his face in Finny’s neck.
“I wish I could take you with me.”
“We’ve covered this.”
“I still think you would be better off trying to find a place on a merchant ship. You’ve certainly got the mind for it.”
Gene sighed. Finny was like this; give him and inch and he’d take a mile. Gene never should have admitted to wanting to leave, to still yearning for the sea. “I told you, it wouldn’t do any good. We’d never see each other at all.”
“But you’d be on board a ship. You always said that was what you wanted,” Finny pressed.
“Don’t make me say it,” Gene warned.
“Say what?” Finny asked, but Gene could hear the smug smile in his voice.
“Ass,” Gene whispered into his neck, and then pulled back to look Finny in the eyes. “If you are,” Gene paused, uncertain, “if this is serious to you—“
“Of course it is,” Finny interrupted. “I know you think me careless, Gene, but I wouldn’t be. Not about this.”
“Right.” Gene fought to swallow around the sudden lump in his throat. “I’ve been thinking. I’m going to try to find passage to the West Indies. There’s more opportunity there, for me, more ships, more likelihood of you coming my way, right?”
“Yes,” Finny said, slowly. “What kind of ships, Gene?”
“All kinds,” Gene said, waving his hand. “I’m sure an enterprising young man could start up his own shipping operation.”
“I know you too well, Gene. Tell me what you’re really talking about.”
“You’ve read me wrong this time, Finny,” Gene told him. “It’s getting dark. We should head back before someone comes to find us.”
Finny caught Gene by his wrist as he turned to leave, and pulled him into another kiss. “I’m sorry,” he said when they pulled apart. “I don’t doubt you. I’ll find you in the Indies, wherever you are, but do try to settle in a major port.”
Gene laughed and linked their fingers. “I’ll do what I can.”
-
He did. His parents were devastated to see him go but his mother told him they had been expecting him to leave for years. His father was pleased with his ambition, and helped him to find passage to the New World. Gene was not an optimist by nature, but as he stood on the deck of the Queen Anne’s Lace and gazed across the expanse of the Caribbean, he believed that everything had fallen into place. Already he was enjoying the balmy sea air, so different from the cruel winds of the English coast. Finny would find him; he had promised. They would build a life together here, with the sea.
On the horizon there appeared the masts and sail of another ship. It flew no country’s flag, and Gene wondered if it was another merchant ship, heading back to Europe. The ship bore down towards them, and the deckhands began to mutter amongst themselves. “Pirates,” Gene heard, and the men began to fetch guns and swords. Gene couldn’t quite believe it, until the ship was within firing range and suddenly flew a flag: the skull and crossbones, just like he’d always heard.
Gene fled below deck. It was not his proudest moment, but he had no training with a firearm and would only get underfoot, he reasoned. He hid himself away in a corner until the sounds of battle died down. When it had been silent for long enough to worry him, he began to creep towards the stairs. Before he made it more than halfway up, however, the door opened and a grizzled man Gene didn’t recognize appeared. He bounded down the stairs, caught Gene by the front of his shirt, and hauled him up to the deck.
That was how Gene became a pirate.
-
It took time for him to adjust, of course, long swathes of time where all he could see were the ruins of his dreams, but Gene eventually discovered that he had a certain knack for piracy. He would never have Finny’s easy physicality or his affability, but Gene developed excellent aim and found within himself an amoral shrewdness that lent itself to success. He took no pleasure in the pain of others, unlike some of his crewmates, but he had no compunction about robbing Spanish treasure ships, either. Why, he reasoned, should the Spanish enjoy all of the gold; they had stolen it too, after all.
He was also quite skilled at not dying, and as members of the crew died or deserted all around him Gene found himself being given increasingly more power and responsibility. By his second year with the pirates Gene was first mate. The promotion came with a significantly larger cut of any haul, and as he walked down the streets of Port Royal, flush with gold and gems, Gene wondered if his father would be proud. There was a voice in the back of his head that told him to leave now, that this wasn’t the life for him, too dangerous, too lawless. Gene buried it every time. He liked the way he lived. He saw no reason to remain landlocked as he had been for so much of his life, he enjoyed having no one to answer to but his captain, and the spoils were nothing to scoff at. He did miss Finny, but he couldn’t allow himself to dwell on that. If he did, he would sink back into the malaise of the first weeks after his capture. If anything, Gene thought, he was lucky not to have run into Finny, since it probably would have been on the high seas, and then Finny would have been obliged to kill or arrest him. Gene would have no chance to explain himself.
These were the thoughts that occupied him so thoroughly that Gene did not hear his name being called until it was right in his ear and there was a hand on his shoulder. Gene whirled, ready to defend himself out of pure reflex.
Finny. It was Finny. Finny had found him, two years later, just as he’d promised. Before he could get a word out Gene said, “Come with me. I’ve got a room in the city. We can talk there.” And other things, he didn’t add.
Finny followed him wordlessly to the inn, up the stairs, into the room. It wasn’t until Gene closed the door that he exploded with, “Where have you been for the past two years? I looked everywhere for you!”
Gene sat down on the bed and gestured for Finny to join him. Finny sat close enough that the full length of their thighs were touching, and suddenly Gene wanted to be doing anything but explaining himself. He cupped Finny’s cheek and turned him to face him, kissed him slow and sultry, and whispered, “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too,” Finny whispered back, and pressed him into the bed.
-
Later, when the sweat was drying on their naked skin, Finny turned to Gene. “I still want to know where you’ve been. That was,” Finny exhaled sharply, “incredible, but I still want to know.”
“We never made it to port,” Gene started. He wished he could leave it there and get all of Finny’s sympathy and none of his judgment, but it wasn’t much of an explanation and he knew it. “We were attacked by pirates. They took most of the crew prisoner, me included.”
“And then?” Finny prompted, poking Gene in the ribs.
“And that’s it. They don’t just let you go, you know, you have to serve as a crewmember. It turns out I’m not too shabby a pirate.”
“I knew it,” Finny crowed, “I knew that was your plan.”
“I didn’t plan this!” Gene protested. “I was kidnapped!”
“Still, I was right.”
“Sort of.”
Finny rested his head on Gene’s shoulder, suddenly too quiet and serious for Gene’s liking. “I’m probably supposed to arrest you.”
“Yeah, probably. But they’ll hang me if you do, and then we’d never see each other again.”
“Don’t blaspheme.”
“Pirates don’t go to heaven.”
“Don’t say that,” Finny hissed, and Gene kissed the top of his head in contrition.
“You should be the one to come with me, this time. You’d be a valuable addition to the crew. We run a good ship, as civilized as you can hope for pirates to be. The captain is getting older, wants to retire. It’ll be my ship soon enough.”
“You’re first mate?” Finny brought his head up with a snap.
“Told you I’d have my own ship one day,” Gene said with a smile. “I mean it, you know. We’re not bad people, we’re not even sailors gone rotten. We don’t kill too many people. The Spanish don’t deserve all the gold anyway, you know that. They steal it all from the natives and then let the nobles hoard it. Please, Phineas, you know it’s the only way.”
“I know,” Finny muttered. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“Do you enjoy being in the navy or on a ship, really?”
“Shut up, I’m thinking.”
“Oh god, wake me up when you’re done.” Gene rolled onto his side and curved into Finny. Finny’s arm slipped around his waist, and Gene was pretty sure he had his answer.
-
Finny took to piracy even faster than Gene had; he had a gift for spotting privateers before the rest of the crew, and everyone loved him. Gene rather thought he’d become captain instead of him. When he brought the subject up with Finny, Finny insisted he didn’t want to step on Gene’s toes. “You always wanted your own ship,” he insisted.
“I have what I want,” Gene told him. “I have you, and I have the sea.”
Finny laughed and called him a sop. Gene let him, but it was true. With this man beside him, and the Caribbean spread out around them, a great shimmering jewel, he was invincible. From the deck there came a cry; a galleon had been spotted off the port side. Finny leapt up and offered a hand to Gene. “Shall we?”
“We shall,” Gene said, and followed him up.