Rapture [Ver. II] •SNEAK PEEKS INSIDE•

CAPITULUS VI | THE DEPTHS' MAW

"How's it healing?"

Finn blinked up at the captain, the door shutting loudly behind Faline and Mack. The dinner plates clacked quietly as he gathered them. "Oh—fine, I think. Sore, but that's normal, right?"

Captain North ran a considering gaze across his nape, before stepping up behind him.

The small hairs at the back of his neck stood straight as the captain's hand swept his hair up to look closer at the tattoo.

The faintest, faintest sensation of the captain's steady breaths whispered against the new ink, his skin prickling in response.

Captain North hummed in consideration, tightening his hold on the brassy locks at Finn's nape to get a better look at the wound. The dinnerware clattered in his arms.

"Where did you get this," he muttered, seemingly to himself.

Finn felt it wasn't a question meant to be answered. Instead, he asked, after a heart's beat of silence, "Where did you get yours?"

The captain was quiet, deliberately tugging the other's hair down to cover the ink again. Finn's nerves shuddered.

"Find Lee, have him treat it daily to keep it clean until it heals. One thing we don't need right now is an infection."

Finn nodded, he guessed, somewhat downed by the lack of answer. The captain of this ship remained such a mystery to him, and he wanted to uncover it all. Every secret.

Those heavy boots thudded against the cabin floor, farther and farther from him.

He caught his eyes tracking the captain's hip, where he knew the matching tattoo lay hidden.

"Stare at a man like that," the captain started, jolting him from his thoughts. "You might give 'im the wrong idea."

Finn blinked, startled. "What idea?"

But the captain had already shucked his boots and lain back into a mattress further back past the drawing room, his shirt riding just high enough for the ink to peek through.

...

It was hard to think past the buzzing feeling on his skin where the ink lay embedded in him. A part of him now forever.

He cringed as Lee placed a strange, cold leaf paste of some kind onto his nape, trying to stay as still as possible on the edge of the stupid hammock.

The doctor lay behind him, stretching from one end to the other, the hammock pushing all of his weight onto Finn's back. He tried to keep from sliding off the edge.

Across from them, in the dim lamplight, Rory lay comfortably in his own hammock, one foot hanging from the side to rock him idly.

Lee nodded toward the book Rory beheld, his own medical journal falling limp in his hands. "Lir helped me find it in the chartroom. Do you think it'll help?"

Rory's expressive brows furrowed deeply. "I...I think so. The words are..."

Finn's heart skipped a beat. That's right, he'd forgotten—there were plenty of common folk who hadn't been taught to read. He hadn't immediately expected it—he was pretty sure that the Brass Cities did no such disservice to their masses.

"Here," Rory scowled. "Look at it and see if the Abyssrian arts are in there."

Finn frowned, taking the book gently. Some of the pages had been warped by water, texts blurred near illegibly. He felt he could read quite well, but this was even impossible for him. "It's hard to tell, but I don't think it's one of ours. It looks different."