Dead Maiden's Rose [boyXboy]

Chapter II

Chapter II

Morgan

Red's sleeping topless again, which means I cannot sleep at all. Again.

I sigh, throwing an arm across my eyes, and pray the image leaves my head before all this rampant longing makes me sick.

It doesn't.

Even though I've turned my head toward the ceiling, and blocked my eyes, I can still see him lying there peacefully; eyes closed, half naked. He's so much more beautiful when he's sleeping; I can just look at him without his damned personality getting in the way. He never looks cruel when he's sleeping.

"Look at him, the little slut." Ed's chuckle drifts across the dark, overriding the soft creak of swinging hammocks.

"No," I grumble, keeping my forehead covered.

"True enough," his reply is easy, "I worry about the way you look at him sometimes. It's so goddamn intense. Remind me never to leave you two alone; there'd be trouble if you killed him."

"Yeah."

I don't want to kill him, I want to save him.

Ha! As though he would let me. Red is my beautiful, delicate punishment. If I weren't already spitting in the face of my Lord, living this life of violence and sin, but I had to find myself victim to some sick perversion to top it all off. I've been too bad to be allowed to wait for hell; the first of my tortures must come now, and come it has, in the form of the slender man sprawled so openly before me.

I just want to go to sleep and use those few hours of oblivion to escape him.

But Ed's feeling chatty tonight.

"Don't get me wrong," he says, "I been on many voyages where men find they need each other, if you know what I mean. Alls I want to know is why he's got to be so open about it?"

"Like you don't want him, Ed," I sigh.

He chuckles.

"Not this close to shore, I don't," he says, "think of the girls, Morgan, they're, what? Fifty feet away?"

"Probably," I reply despondently. Ed doesn't seem bothered by my unusual lack of interest, though, and continues to chat animatedly.

"And the Captain's out there on his own; searching for crew my arse. We've got all the men we need. It's torture making us stay here while he gets all the fun. We're men too, we've got needs."

"I've got needs," I say, "I need to get to sleep."

Ed grunts and I can hear his hammock creak as he rolls over.

"No, if anyone needs to get laid, then it's you," he mutters.

I think I agree.

Sighing, I turn my back on Ed's bad temper. Unfortunately this sends me straight back to square one: staring through the web of hammocks at Red's exquisitely bared chest.

He stands out so perfectly from the rest of the grunting muscle that packs this cabin and my eyes are just drawn to him, whether I want them to or not. I'm not sure why it's the way he looks so feminine that attracts me... I could put it down to the fact that I see women twice a year tops: but I never liked women before I took to the sea either.

There's just something to him, something about the way his slender waist tapers into his hips and his ribs press delicately up against his pale skin. It drives me insane. It's not that he's weak or that I need to protect him, though that's exactly what I want to do.  He's made it quite clear that he can look after himself, and he's strong, in a wiry kind of way, perfectly suited for scrambling up to the crow's nest where he spends most of his time.