The Journey To Acre

Chapter 14

"You sure yer wanna do this?"

Cleggy, who is normally game for anything, would rather pass on this one.

Considering the surly expression he's greeted with in Sully's berth, one could hardly blame him. He's backing out the door when Sully places a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"I can do it myself," Guy argues for what seems like the fiftieth time.

"You can't and yer know it," Sully says, steering Cleggy into the room and closing the door behind him, "Your hand shakes worse than Oldham's; you bring a blade to yer face, you'll end up makin' a right dog's dinner of it."

"I don't know why yer want it shavin' off; I'd pay good money to be able to grow a beard like that," Cleggy confesses, and suddenly feels bashful. Guy's head whips round and his piercing stare has the crewman backing up against the wall. Sully laughs so loud he startles the cat.

"Aye, t'is true! Yer beard has got a fan club! Heard a few of the lads admirin' it I did!"

Cleggy cracks up and has to turn away, beset by a sudden bout of 'coughing'. Guy is appalled.

"Look, are you going to do it or not?" he demands, once he's got over the urge to tell them both to go to hell and Cleggy is shaking his head but Sully pushes him forwards.

"Come on now, do the lad a favour; I'd do it meself, but as you can tell I'm not much practiced at shaving," he strokes his beard proudly and gives his colleague a disarming grin.

Cleggy curses under his breath and reluctantly dumps his shaving kit on the table.

"Atta boy!" Sully pats him on the back with the one hand whilst surreptitiously slipping a flask of firewater into Cleggy's pocket with the other. Cleggy drops the huffy attitude instantly.

"So, err... anything in particular we're looking for here?" he asks, sweet as a spring morning.

Guy rolls his eyes.

"He wants to be smooth as a baby's bum, dontcha lad?" Sully chuckles, eyes glinting with mischief, "Ladies prefer their menfolk smooth."

Guy's jaw clenches and it's a good thing it does, because the words on the tip of his tongue are uncharitable to say the least. Cleggy can see it's about to kick off and wisely chooses this moment to go fetch water, which is a good thing because not two seconds out the door, he's completely lost to a laughing fit. Guy glowers in his general direction.

"It'll be worth it lad, when she sees yer," Sully consoles, and Guy's lips curl involuntarily into a lopsided smile because he really does hope so. He's beyond denying it at this point. His pride might have him pretending that this wasn't about her or what she might think, that he was doing it to feel normal again or some such story, but his gut says otherwise. The remembrance of a way she looked at him says otherwise. He's had her pity, her concern, her kindness of late and he's grateful because it's a vast improvement on how things have been between them... but what he wants, (and oh god, how much does he want it), is that which he almost had up on deck that night...

That moment lost...

He could almost believe...

He startles at Cleggy's return and this makes the crewman jumpy. He knows he shouldn't put a man on edge who is about to hold a blade to his throat, but then he never was one to turn on the charm when he probably should.

"Let's get it over with," he growls and shuffles to sit on the edge of the bed.

.*.

The air feels good on his skin.