Hansel: Commander

“Ey, fuckface.”

Hansel looked up, looked around, and pointed to himself questioningly.

“Yeah, you.” Corven beckoned him over to the little group of sailors she was arranging into a raiding party. “You're with us.”

“You ain't my fuckin’ boss.”

“I'm the first mate. I'm everyone's goddamn boss.”

“Fuck you.”

From the barrels she was lounging on, Elitash called, “Stop bein’ an asshole, Hansel.”

He scowled and grumbled, and sulked over to the raiding party. Corven was tiny next to him, but wasted no time reaching up to slap the back of his head, and the other sailors cracked up.

“Hey! Fuck you!”

“Next time,” she threatened, pointing a finger at him, her voice low, “you do what I fucking tell you.”

He was so fucking angry he didn't even know what to do about it -- he looked over to Elitash for help, or something, and she didn't even glance up from sharpening her knife. But when he looked back to Corven, she was fixing him with this steely look that wasn't even a glare, or anything. Just those sea glass eyes boring into him.

And then he wasn't fucking angry anymore. He folded his arms and looked down at the deck sullenly and shut up.

Turned out the raid was a pretty good gig. Corven let the sailors who went on it keep what they looted. Elitash gave Hansel a knowing, smarmy look about it as he counted out his gold.

“Fucking what?” he demanded finally.

“Nothin’, kid.” She gave him a toothy grin. “Hey, y'gonna buy me somethin’ nice?”

“The fuck for?” he snapped, and then felt kind of bad about it, because Elitash was actually better to him that she had any reason to be, and he really did like her. Maybe he'd buy her something nice just because.

“What, you think Corven was gonna still take you along if you fuckin’ argued with her?” She was clearly just fucking amused by his attitude.

He shifted in his chair, staring down at the table. All right, well -- maybe if he hadn't been a dick … “Fuckin’ … She wanted me in the first place. Fuck off,” he argued anyway.

Elitash shoved herself up. “Yeah, 'cause you're a big tough boy.” She tousled his hair roughly, making him scowl and bat at her hand, then grabbed a fistful of his gold. “Keep bein’ a dickhead, see if she doesn't find a thousand other big tough boys who do just as well, huh?”

###

“Granger,” Corven yelled across the deck.

“Aye,” he bellowed back.

“The fuck are you doing?”

“Laundry, if you don't fuckin’ mind.” He gestured dramatically to the clothes he was pinning up in the rigging to dry. Like she couldn't fucking see.

“Is that your goddamn job, now?”

He paused. “Uh.”

Laughter broke out from the aft castle, and Hansel looked back to see the captain standing by Corven, leaning on the railing and covering his mouth with a dainty hand. He felt himself flush and opened his mouth to explain how the sailor who normally hung up the laundry was feeling ill, so Hansel was covering for him, but it was too much to try to get across the fucking ship through the wind.

“Fucksake, Granger,” Corven yelled over it. “Learn to fuckin’ delegate.”

Right, 'cause that was a priority with all the fucking authority he had on this ship. He scowled and muttered to himself and kept working.

###

Mishka slipped off his barstool and hit the floor like a sack of hammers.

Elitash was beside him straight away, even though she was drunk as hell too. Corven started over, probably the only one of them still somewhat resembling sober.

“Terror of the Calish Seas,” Mishka was proclaiming, holding his head. It was so late it was early; the bar was almost empty except for them. Hansel hadn't seen him this drunk before.

Eli pulled his hand away gently to check where he'd knocked his face on the way down. “Sure are, Cap'n. Gonna have a shiner in the mornin’ from fightin’ this floor, though.”

“Slit th'throat of Dread Jones's shadow,” he slurred.

“Uh-huh. Let's get you back to the ship, eh, motek?”

As she started to heft him up, he sniffed and mumbled something that sounded like, “Why'd I do that?” but from Hansel's vantage point laying half across the bar, he couldn't be sure that was it.

Corven passed by him, headed for Elitash and the captain. “I'll help him, you --.”

“Nah, you get Hansel.” Eli brushed her off, Mishka already comfortably across her shoulder. “Think he's still alive over there.” She cast him an amused, affectionate look.

“I'd --.”

“I fuckin’ got him,” Eli said. Mishka patted the side of her face idly. God, it was really cute. Hansel wished Mishka would let him carry him around like that.

Corven curled her lip, not making any effort to hide her disgust, but Elitash had already turned to go -- Mishka started stumbling his way through a particularly morbid shanty about a ghost ship, and she joined in on the second line as they went out the door, her voice carrying further than his. When it had faded, Corven turned to appraise the bar. A few of their other crewmates were passed out here and there, leaning against each other and across tables, like Hansel was at the bar. He gave her a guilty look as her eyes fell on him.

“M'kay,” he managed. “C'n makit back m'self.” His lips were numb, but he was sure he could walk just fine. Soon as he could move at all. He'd been trying to for a bit and not gotten anywhere, but he'd pull it off.

“Ugh.”

She stood on her toes to hop up onto the stool beside him. She was all small. Everyone was small next to Hansel, just about, but he must have about a foot on her.

“Y'know, yer …” He swallowed and blinked slowly. “Y'like … the same height 's my kid. Older one. S'fuckin’ tiny. I could … could jus’ pick y'up 'n walk off with ya.”

“You could fucking try.”

He frowned at her. “You don't … you don't like me,” he mumbled. One fingernail picked at the grain of the bar, and he stared at it. “Dunno why.”

“You're a fucking jackass, is why.”

Hansel made a sad sound and pressed his face into the bar. He couldn't argue with her. He knew he was a jackass, and sometimes he wished he wasn't, but he didn't know … how, maybe, because he didn't know why he was like that in the first place. He was just sad. Real fucking sad. He had never been good at making friends, and people like Corven and Mishka and Serena were right to not like him. Elitash was the crazy one.

He sniffled, and Corven gave another disdainful scoff. “Mask. Not a fan of the truth, then, Granger?”

He mumbled incoherently.

“Y'know, you pick fights with my fucking crew,” she said, “you smash shit up when you get pissed, y’don't do what you're fuckin’ told, you fuck anything that moves even when you know it's gonna cause trouble --.”

“I didn't know Elodie ‘s that other cap’n's daughter,” Hansel interjected weakly.

Corven ignored him. “You're a sore fuckin’ loser at cards, you can't even cheat, you waste all your gold on whiskey and show up for your shifts fuckin’ plastered, and my navigator, who's a fucking seer, keeps telling me you're gonna kill all of us.”

Hansel groaned miserably into the bar and wished he could just die on the spot. He knew all that. He knew he was a bad fucking crewman, and a bad fucking person in general, but hearing her lay it out was awful. Like he didn't goddamn hate himself already and spend so much time just trying to distract himself from it.

Corven lifted one of his arms up and ducked under it, hooking her arm around his waist and moving to drag and lever him up.

“C'mon, fuckface.”

He didn't make any effort to make it easier for her. “No. Fuckin’ … leave me here. T'fuckin’ die.” He sniffled. “Since y'hate me so goddamn much. 'Cause everyone does anyway. 'Cept Eli, maybe,” he mumbled.

“I don't hate you, you dumb bastard.” She scowled and pulled on him again, getting him upright-ish that time, stumbling under his weight. “I just think you're fuckin’ stupid for not doing any better.”

He slumped into her. This was kind of nice, actually. She was still saying mean shit, but she was holding him up, close against his side, and he blinked quickly a couple times because he had the abrupt urge to cry. Corven started hauling him towards the door, and he shambled along as best he could.

After a second -- after his head stopped spinning, or he just got used to it -- he mumbled, “Can't do any better. M'jus’ fuckin’ like this. Jus’ fuckin’ … stupid, dumb animal.”

She sighed and shouldered through the door, and the cool salty air washed over them.

“Fucksake, Hansel.” She'd never called him by his first name before. “That's not what I fucking said. You can be better, you just aren't fucking trying. That's what makes me so goddamn mad about you.”

He sniffled again. Sometimes he got all weepy when he was drunk, but sometimes he cried when he was angry, too, and he was angry a lot. He tripped and Corven caught him, dropping her stance and grounding herself to bear his weight -- and that was the thing that made him burst into tears, for some reason, and start apologizing for being useless and stupid.

“Ah, shit,” she said, looking around. “Fuck. Don't do that. I mean, fuck.”

She carefully disengaged from him, letting him down gently, and gave him a hesitant pat on the shoulder.

Then she disappeared.

Hansel crawled over to the side of the street to throw up in the gutter, thinking disorganized thoughts about how he'd fucked everything up, how he liked Corven and her sharp angles and sharp tongue, and she thought he was stupid, and she was right, and he didn't deserve to be on the Blade's crew, and they should sail off without him, and he should just stay huddled in this gutter ‘til he fucking died --

And about the time he was reduced to just shivering and sniffling, blank-faced and acid-mouthed, Corven showed back up with a sleepy-looking and irate Serena who knelt in front of him and pressed her hand to his forehead. He felt the emotions slip out of him, and his shivers subsided.

“Hansel,” Serena said firmly. “Let us get you back to your quarters. Sleep it off. Everything is fine. Corven didn't mean to upset you so badly.”

Behind her, out of focus, he could just make out Corven shifting awkwardly, and muttering, “Sorry.”

“Do you understand?” Serena asked.

He nodded vaguely, and then his feelings piled back into him with a hard shudder -- but he choked in a breath and … felt better. Serena ducked under one arm and Corven under the other, and they walked him home.

Serena went back to bed as the sun was coming up, and Corven took him down to his quarters, where it was dark, and dumped him onto his bed. He scrambled to grab her arm when she turned away.

“Don't go,” he asked. “Don't -- don't leave me alone.”

She shook him off. “I'm not your fucking mother, Granger.”

She said it a little softly, though, or maybe it was his imagination and the booze and wishful thinking. After she closed the door behind her, he keeled over in bed and let out a small whimper in the small empty room.

###

Eli threw her back out running the swabbies through combat drills, and was stuck in bed for a half day. It should’ve been longer, and they all knew it. Serena frowned over her, but couldn’t soothe the strained muscles, and found re-aligning her spine difficult.

For once, Hansel was the one carrying Eli around, and she bitched about it, and he tried real hard to not be upset. He tried to joke around with her, instead, but he kept noticing the gray in her hair. He kept thinking she could just … die. Any time. She was older than him, and maybe had more orc blood, and she was -- old. She was just getting old. She still insisted on sitting on the deck and watching him take over with the swabbies, and she kept yelling instructions, anyway. When she stopped, Hansel glanced over to see the captain kneeling beside her, looking faintly concerned.

After Hansel was done, he trotted over, breathing hard and sweating. The captain spared him a look he couldn’t read and shifted away from him, slightly.

“You know,” he was saying, “we could do with a dedicated boatswain, so that I wouldn't have to keep track of everything.”

“You *are* fuckin’ shit at math.” Elitash gave him a pained grin.

“Needlessly cruel, and also untrue,” he said solemnly.

“Ain’t like you can replace me,” she grumbled.

Up on the aft castle, someone blew a raspberry, and they looked up to see Hunter with her legs dangling between the pickets, sharpening a knife and eavesdropping. She nodded at Hansel. “The hell are you talkin’ about, Elitash? You’ve been grooming Hansel to replace you since day one.”

“Hey, now,” she objected, but weakly.

###

“Commander!” Corven bellowed from the enemy ship.

“Aye!” he snarled back.

“If you don’t fucking --.”

He anticipated what she was going to say and yelled for his second unit to charge across the gangplanks and rigging, overwhelming the navy vessel’s men, pitching them overboard and recovering their own wounded. He signalled to Hunter and her gunners let loose a volley of cannon fire, and the ship was soon scuttled.

“What were you goddamn waiting for?” Corven snapped, back onboard.

“Your orders, ma’am.”

She snorted.

When they reached Skyport and celebrated, she and Mishka hit up their favorite bar, while steadfast Siobhan stayed with Elitash to see to the Blade’s hull, and Hunter and Serena whisked themselves off on their own. Hansel’d set off to visit the Sanctuary in the morning, and meet up with the crew later on, but for now he tagged awkwardly along with Corven and the captain. Still felt he didn’t belong, only earned a place among the officers when Eli or Hunter was around. But they didn’t tell him to fuck off, so he didn’t. Stayed quiet, though.

Was a lot easier to stay quiet, these days. Wasn’t so fucking angry all the time. Kept himself busy, and kept an eye on himself, like Eli’d taught him. Corven wasn’t by any stretch warming up, because she was icy as her eyes, but she’d thawed a mite, maybe.

Hansel watched her and the captain play cards, just seeing who could cheat better, and snorted into his beer when they invited him.

“Can’t cheat for shit,” he said.

“Who’s cheating?” the captain asked, innocent.

“Cool down those wild accusations, there, Granger,” Corven told him.

The rest of the officers joined them in time, and Hansel got drunk with Hunter. Eli turned in early, and he started to wobble after her, all concerned, but Serena waved him off and went along. Hunter hung off him, giggling, giddy, whispering about how she was gonna marry Serena. He forgot all about everything else and whispered along with her, not much thinking about how the captain and first mate could hear everything they said. When he finally saw the amused look Mishka was giving them, he felt himself blush and hid his face. Fucking height of stealth, Hansel Granger. Hunter giggled more. He carried her home princess style while she made loud, wild claims about all the girls she’d slept with just to embarrass him worse.

After dumping her into her hammock, he toddled back up to the deck to sit and enjoy the fresh air and the buzz. Corven startled him by dropping down beside him and offering him a bottle. He took it, giving her a confused look.

“Nice work today, Commander,” she said, stretching her legs out, relaxing. “You keep doing like I tell you, maybe you won’t be a fucking disaster after all.”

It sounded like half an insult, but the way she said it was all compliment. He thought she might be fucking *joking* with him. The fuck.

###

“Sea captains,” Corven said, “have long been endowed with the power to wed willing parties. If they can cross the seas and unite ports, there’s no reason to think they don’t have the ability to unite two people who are plenty connected enough already. First mates don’t typically have the honor, but they can in such cases as their captain is the one gettin’ wed.”

She tried real hard to not smile when Hansel and Mishka were married, but she didn’t do a great job. Elitash hooted from the rail she was leaning on, and Hunter wolf whistled at the kiss, and Serena chided them both gently for causing a big fuss. It was a quiet little ceremony. Just them. The officers. A little family, like.

Corven seemed embarrassed when Hansel grabbed her in a hug, but she hugged him back anyhow, for just a second before shoving him away with a grumble and a scoff. Then she went in for a tentative hug with Mishka, which he looked duly surprised by.

When the family was broken, and Mishka was gone, Hansel thought he’d got all his tears out on Elitash, and then he thought he’d got them all out on Serena. He managed to not cry on Hunter, at least, when her and Sera shuffled him off to an inn to lay in bed, feeling cored and dried out. Serena paced around, anxious -- stayed with him for a while, trying to soothe him, but he just felt fucking empty. The first time Kheman came to check on him, all he could do was stare out at the wall and blink a bit, and nod when Kheman left him a glass of water.

They all felt bad for him. It was all their livelihoods, but it was his … everything. Elitash had loved Mishka, he knew, but she was a mountain orc -- she’d grown up too close to Alabaster to not think, deep in her gut, that most elves were bastards. She acted like she’d known it was coming. Maybe she was just a fucking cynic. Maybe she was just covering up how fucking sad she was, for his sake.

Corven wasn’t. When she came up to the room, she was drunk and angry. Hansel still felt removed from himself, and just sort of stared at her blankly as she shoved at his shoulder, trying to make him react. Trying to make him answer her.

She wanted to know why. She was so furious she was crying, and he’d never seen Corven cry before -- not once, not in all their years on the sea together, not from anger and not from sadness, not even from pain. He wasn’t actually sure which one it was, now. All of them, maybe.

He choked out what Mishka had told him, finally. How he didn’t even fucking know the why. How he didn’t know what he’d done wrong, but it was his fault, it was all his fault, and he was so fucking sorry he’d done this to Mishka and to all of them. He didn’t move from his curled up position on the bed, except to curl up tighter. He was so fucking *ashamed*.

Corven hit the floor then, crying harder, wrapping around her knees and scraping a hand through her short hair. “You fucking idiot,” she said. “You fucking -- you couldn’t’ve -- you couldn’t’ve just fucking left, told him you’d fuck off, and he didn’t have to leave all of us --.”

It felt unfair, and it felt like he deserved it at the same time. Elitash came up, seeming alarmed -- had probably realized she’d lost track of Corven, and was trying to so hard to keep them all from falling apart. She tried to pull Corven up, but got fought off, and couldn’t manhandle folk the way she had once.

“Hansel, I --.” Her voice broke. She hated to ask anything of him, ever, but especially right now. “I need a hand, motek. I’m sorry,” she said softly. “Help me with Cori, eh? Just take a second.”

“Don’t fucking call me …”

Corven didn’t get it all out. She was done being pissed off, and done crying angry tears, and when Hansel clawed his way upright and dragged her up by the arms, she was done fighting, too. He didn’t know what to do with her except shuffle her into the bed, too, and she rolled over and curled up about like he’d been, still sniffling. Eli thanked him, and squeezed his shoulder, and went back to the bar to mind the rest of their ruin.

After a little while -- he thought it was only a little while, but it was hard to be sure when all he did was stare at the wall -- Corven croaked out, “I shouldn’t’ve said that. I didn’t mean it.” She paused, and he could hear her -- back to his back -- sniffling and wiping her nose with a handkerchief. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

###

It took some time to find a ship they could afford -- some stints on other vessels, which they all fucking hated, and some land banditry, which they hated about as fucking much. Then, finally, they had their own ship again.

It was a fucking piece of shit, and they all knew it. The Albatross was theirs, though.

Eli’s back was only getting worse. Even when she had plenty of downtime -- it just wasn’t getting any better. It wasn’t even staying the fucking same. Hansel felt like he was watching her die, and she kept grinning and punching him in the arm, and she fucking insisted she could take up the Master at Arms mantle until they had a fucking fight about it.

Except it wasn’t a fight. Eli couldn’t fight with him anymore. It was just an argument, and it was one she already knew she’d lost, going into it.

Hunter asked him, “You gonna be the captain?”

“The fuck would I be the captain for?”

She shrugged. She didn’t say Mishka’s name. None of them did. Hansel shifted and shrugged, and he and Elitash and Corven and Serena looked among themselves -- his sisters had all been with Mishka longer, but he’d taken on a little more than just Master at Arms duties, under Mishka. They’d all covered each other, when they could -- Mishka was a navigator, as well as Serena, and Hansel was a cook, as well as Kheman, and Corven shouldered some of the bosun work. Some stations were easy -- of course Hunter would continue being the Master Gunner. Of course Serena was uniquely qualified to navigate.

But none of them wanted to touch the captaincy.

Hansel felt that fucking shame, again, because they kept looking to him, and he knew it was becase of who he’d been -- he’d been the captain’s husband, hadn’t he? He’d been the most trusted man on the ship, hadn’t he? Their old crew -- dispersed to the waves, now, finding work on other vessels -- had already all been willing to follow him into any storm with little more than a trident at his side. He was the fucking commander, wasn’t he?

But he was fucking afraid, and he was quiet. He looked away when they talked about it. He couldn’t, but not in the way Elitash couldn’t -- no, he just fucking wouldn’t. Serena patted his shoulder. She was so fucking worried about him -- maybe because now she and Hunter were married, the two of them were the only ones who knew what it might be like to lose a spouse.

Corven had no fucking sympathy for him. She was tired and harried, but she took it, finally, grimly. Elitash said she would manage it, but she was … slowing. She wasn’t as sharp as she once was. And Corven had only become more serrated by what had happened to them. (Who had happened to them.) She snapped and snarled, and Hansel followed her lead. The both of them picked up Elitash’s slack, without saying anything, without drawing attention to it. Hansel tried real fucking hard to do all he could for her, to make it up to her.

Most of the time, he was pretty sure she still fucking hated him. Or hated him all over again. Most of the time, he figured he deserved it. He’d find her on the bridge, alone in her chair, staring blankly at the maps, and she wouldn’t notice him. She was just so fucking tired, and silent unless she was shouting at the crew, like she only had two ways to be, anymore -- on and off. Captain and unconscious. He’d bring her tea, and when he found her asleep, a couple times, he’d cover her with a blanket.

“You need to get some sleep, ma’am,” he told her. He couldn’t call her captain. He’d never intended to have any other captain after Mishka.

“Aye.” She sounded half-dead. “Well. I’ll sleep when I’m dead, Commander.”

Her quarters were right next to his. She opted to let Serena and Hunter have the captain’s suite, being that there were two of them -- maybe, Hansel supposed, because she just didn’t want it. He could hear her roving around in the night, how even once she relented and closed herself away, she wasn’t sleeping. He just wanted to -- fucking go in there and hold her down, make her sleep. She’d shank him, though, he figured.

Ended up, she came to him instead, when he was having his own bad, sleepless night, tapping on the door and coming in even when he growled for her to fuck off. She made him look at her. Maybe she didn’t make him do anything. He didn’t say no.

###

Corven grit her teeth, and wrapped her hand around the back of his neck. "Fuck, Hansel. Fuck." Her voice cracked.

"No," he mumbled. "No -- no, no. Don't. Fuck. Don't. I'll --." He wanted to say *I'll do myself instead* but he was too much of a coward. "Fuck, please don't cry."

"I'm not fucking crying," she lied, squeezing her eyes closed. "I'm just -- fucking sorry."

"No, I --."

"Shut the fuck up, Granger. This isn't about you." She sniffled and took a deep breath. "Supposed to be the fucking captain. Shouldn't've let this happen to all of you." More quietly, she said, "Never would've gone down like this if Mishka'd been here."

They had no way of knowing that, but it felt true. Hansel wanted to tell her it wasn't -- try to make her feel better -- but in a few moments, she would be dead, and it wouldn't matter how she felt.

"Fuck," he whispered.

"God, fucking affirmative, Commander."

Her attempt at flippancy only made it worse. He was breaking. Elitash had told him what to do, had made him believe she was even all right with it. She was going to join Ilneval's great war, to be young and strong and gleefully bloodthirsty again, and she only felt sorry for him that he wasn't coming with her.

Corven didn't want to die, and he didn't want to kill her.

"Please don't make me do this," he begged softly.

Just as broken, she said, "Fuck, Hansel, don't make me do it myself." She grabbed his collar and pulled him down to kiss him, tasting bitter and coppery. She licked her chapped lips. "C'mon. Motherfucker." Her voice shook, but there was still anger in it. "Come on. I'll fuckin' fight you if that makes it easier."

"No, I don't want --."

"None of us are fucking getting what we want." She reached for his axe, just like Elitash had, fingers wobbly from the hunger, and pulled it up to rest the dull, bloody blade against her throat. "Fuck you. Come on."

He couldn't. He couldn't move, and she stared him down fiercely, but she couldn't either.

"Hansel," she said, like a threat, and stopped, because there was nothing to threaten him with. There was nothing left at all.

"Cori, I'm so fucking weak."

"Don't fucking call me Cori." None of the venom it usually carried. "And I told you this isn't fucking about you. You don't get to fucking make my death be about you."

"I can't."

"You don't have a fucking choice, Commander."