Chapter Two: The High Seas

Yuri woke up, and then decided that this had been a very poor decision. He was no stranger to pain, but out of all injuries he'd picked up over the years, this took the cake. He took a deep breath through his teeth, but that had also been a poor decision because deep breaths aggravated his abdominal muscles. Ow. Ow. Ow. A deep throbbing ache took hold in his mind, making it impossible to concentrate on anything else. It was like trying to look at an idyllic pond with a giant alligator dancing around in front of you, if that alligator was also trying to gnaw you in half because oh fuck this hurt.

He needed to find something else to focus on. He decided it was about time he figured out where he was, and slowly looked around. He recognized it immediately as the captain's cabin. This cabin didn't get much use, because Yuri preferred sleeping in a hammock with the rest of the crew and Karol felt silly sleeping up here all alone. It had the most comfortable bed on the ship, though, which he couldn't really appreciate now. He was pretty sure he wouldn't notice a lumpy mattress when he was busy dealing with a burning metal pole skewering his abdomen. Dammit, he was trying to avoid thinking about that!

There was someone else in the room. He'd only just noticed her, but that girl from before was sleeping in a wooden chair by his bed. Through the haze of pain, he couldn't quite remember her name. Estelle-something. "Hey," he croaked, hoping for a distraction. "Hey… Estelle?" Why was she in his room? Shouldn't she be back with the navy? He couldn't be too mad at her, though. After all, from what he remembered, she'd saved his life. "You awake?"

"Hm…?" She slowly opened her eyes and looked around the room in confusion. "What… oh! Yuri, you're awake!"

"Unfortunately," he grumbled. He couldn't concentrate on anything. Every thought that crossed his mind was punctuated by a reminder that he was in pain. Oh, when he got his hands on that bitch who'd stabbed him…

"Are you in a lot of pain?" she asked.

Yuri slowly turned his head to glare at her. "What the h-hell do you think?" A wave of pain caught his breath. He'd been trying to keep his voice steady, and his failure would have annoyed him if he had any emotions to spare beyond the all-encompassing agony.

"Here, let me give you something for that," she said, turned in her seat to rustle around in her medicine chest. Yuri still couldn't remember her name, and decided that Estelle was close enough. She pulled out a dark glass bottle and a small cup, and poured a tiny amount of a brown liquid into it. "Drink this," Estelle said, handing it to him. "It will make you feel better."

Yuri didn't even ask what it was. He didn't care. He'd drink piss if someone told him it would make the pain go away. He downed the entire glass in one swig, and then burst into a coughing fit as his face wrinkled up in horror. Oh hell, maybe that had been piss. The coughing caused his abdominal muscles to clench, which sent fresh stabs of fire shooting through his body. He clutched his gut and choked out, "Are you t-trying to kill me!?"

"I'm sorry!" Estelle said. "I know it tastes bad. It's laudanum - it will make your pain go away."

"Great," he said through clenched teeth. Sharks had been known to give more convincing smiles. "When does it st-start?"

"It takes a few minutes to kick in."

"Ok." He bit down on his lip to smother a moan of pain. To keep himself distracted, he tried to ask, "What are you… doing here? Shouldn't you be back with the navy?"

"I'm staying here until you're better," she explained. "Flynn is with me too, but the rest of the navy has moved on."

"Flynn's here? Great." Flynn… what an idiot. The moron didn't even recognize him. Yeah, it had been thirteen… more like fourteen years since they'd seen each other, but he'd certainly recognized his old friend at first glance. He would be hurt, if he had any pain to spare on anything other than his stomach.

Estelle stood up and said, "I'm going to go find Karol. He wanted to know when you woke up."

"Yeah. Ok. Thanks, E-Estelle."

She paused on her way out and tilted her head to the side. "Estelle?"

Oops, that wasn't actually her name. Whatever, he was in too much pain to care. It really wasn't fair; he'd been stabbed in the gut, so why did his entire body ache? It was like there was too much pain for one small area to contain, so the rest of his muscles shared the load. "Whatever your name is," he grumbled.

"Um… right! I'll go find Karol." She hurried away and left the room.

Yuri stared at the wooden ceiling to distract himself. He tried to tell himself that he'd had worse, even if he knew that was false. It felt like the knife was still in there, sending constant burning throbs of agony through his torso. He was painfully aware of every second trickling by, making minutes feel like hours. He didn't like being in this much pain; it made him feel weak and pathetic. Anyone could just walk in here and finish him off and he couldn't even raise a sword to defend himself. Surely the laudanum should have kicked in by now. In fact, it probably had, but those few tiny drops hadn't been enough to deal with this level of pain. It was ridiculous, now that he thought about it. Like expecting a couple drops of water to fill a bucket.

He turned his head and eyed the bottle still sitting on the table by the bed. She had not given him enough of that stuff. He reached out with a shaking hand and grabbed the bottle. With great effort, he pushed himself upright with trembling arms and a grimace. Yuri pulled the cork from the bottle and took a swig, trying to ignore the awful bitter taste in his mouth. He swallowed slowly and carefully to avoid coughing again, and then set the bottle on the table and collapsed into the pillow. Hopefully that would make a difference.

He stared at the ceiling, waiting for it to kick in. He analyzed the grain of the wood, hoping to distract himself from his gut. As he lay still, a fuzzy, numb feeling gradually took hold in his brain. Oh… that was nice. He slipped into a bathtub filled with warm marshmallows as light washed over the world. Pain slipped away, along with any of his concerns about the navy or Flynn. This was great. He was great. Everything was great. His chest swelled with a sudden deep understanding and love for every person he had ever hated. The world was warm and soft and full of love and he was content to lie there with a smile as he watched the ceiling spin in circles.

The door opened, and he didn't even look away from the ceiling as he announced, "Estelle, I am floating." The bed had fallen away and instead his weight was supported by a fluffy cotton cloud.

Karol stared at him. "Uh… what?"

Yuri pried his eyes away from the ceiling and stared. He'd been expecting to see Estelle. This was not Estelle. The dissonance between what he had expected to see and what his eyes actually registered took about thirty seconds to sink into his brain. "You aren't Estelle."

"No, I'm not," Karol said, walking across the room.

"You're Karol." Yes, good. He knew who this person was. He liked Karol. In fact, he loved him.

Karol frowned. "Are you feeling ok, Yuri?"

Karol was clearly concerned about him, but he didn't need to be. He needed to impress upon Karol just how good he felt so that he wouldn't worry. He searched his mind for a word that adequately summed up his euphoric feelings, and settled on, "I'm goooood. Really, really good. I feel great. Except I'm floating."

Karol eyed him with a frown. "Uh, no you're not, Yuri. You're lying in bed."

"No, I'm pretty sure I'm…" his thought trailed away. He couldn't remember what he'd been saying, so he switched back to, "I feel really good."

Karol looked over at the table and picked up the bottle of laudanum. He quickly read the label, and said, "Oh, great. Estellise gave you some of this stuff, didn't she?"

"It's great," he said with a big grin.

"How much did she give you?"

"Not enough. It's really great." He kept forgetting what he was trying to say, and reverted back to how good he felt because that was the only constant in his mind. He felt so good already. What would make him feel even better? More. He reached for Karol. "Gimme that."

"I think you've had enough," Karol said, stepping back and holding the bottle away. "How much did you have?"

He held up his hand with his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. "This much." He wasn't sure how accurate his measuring was, so he kept moving his fingers around to try to find the right amount.

Karol frowned. "Yuri, the label says to take only a few drops."

"That's not… um…" he took a moment to remember what he'd been saying. "Not enough."

"Do you even know what this stuff is?"

"Yes," he said with a blissful smile. "It's happiness."

"This is a mixture of alcohol and opium," Karol said, setting the bottle down far out of Yuri's reach. This annoyed Yuri for about two seconds, until his capacity to feel irritation faded away under a happy fuzz. "I'm not sure if you're drunk or high."

Yuri giggled. "Both?"

"You took more than Estellise told you to, didn't you?"

"Shhhh." He tried to pull his finger to his lips, missed, and poked his eye. "Ow." It didn't really hurt. Nothing hurt. Well, it did hurt, but the pain was very far away and didn't seem to matter any more.

Karol frowned at him, and Yuri was struck by the terror that Karol didn't like him anymore. No, why was he upset?! He shouldn't be upset; Yuri felt really, really good. "Karol… Karol I love you."

"What? Yeah, I love you too, Yuri."

Yuri suddenly realized that he didn't think he'd ever told Karol how much he loved him before. He had to fix this! Karol was like a brother to him, and how much he loved him swelled up inside him like a bubble, pushing all other thoughts out of his mind. They weren't difficult to move. "I really, really love you, Karol. I love you… I love you more than… " He trailed off, losing track of where he was going with that sentence. He tried to remember, and then got distracted by the pattern on the curtains over the window. He smiled, all thoughts pushed from his mind as he lay there in blissful contentment.

"Are you sure you're ok, Yuri?"

He suddenly remembered that Karol was in the room. He tore his gaze from the curtains and asked, "Why does your hair go up, Karol?"

"My… hair?"

"It goes up." He held his hands up to his head and gestured upward to get his point across. "How does it… uh…. It works. Why?"

"I don't know," Karol said. "It just doesn't lie flat. Maybe you should go to sleep, Yuri."

"Noooo," he whined. He felt so fucking great, why would he go to sleep now? This was the happiest he'd ever felt in his entire life; he didn't want to waste it.

"I think I'm going to go."

"Don't go. I love you." He reached out and grabbed Karol's wrist.

Karol easily pried his grip off. That wasn't supposed to happen; shouldn't he be stronger than Karol? "I'm going to go let Rita and Judith know that you're… sort of ok."

"I'm not ok," Yuri said. "I'm great. That's important. Really, really great."

"Yeah, sure, Yuri." He started backing toward the door.

"Waaait," Yuri said. "Tell Flynn… I wanna see Flynn. I like Flynn."

"What, the navy officer?" Karol said with a frown. "But Yuri, you hate the navy."

Hate? He didn't hate anybody. How could he hate anybody when the world was so warm and sunny? The whole world was filled with wonderful people and they were all great just like opium was great. What had he been talking about again?

"Yuri?" Karol asked. "Are you still listening to me?"

He blinked and stared at Karol. "Uh… what?"

"Flynn. Why do you want to see Flynn?"

Memory sparked. "Oh! I want to see Flynn."

"I know you want to see him," Karol said. "I'm asking you why, because usually you hate the navy."

No, no, no, no, he didn't hate Flynn. He didn't hate anybody. Wait, hadn't he already gone down this trail of thought? He was pretty sure he had and it had led to confusion. Right, Flynn, he especially didn't hate Flynn. "No, I love Flynn. He's my Flynn."

"Your… wait, Yuri, are you saying he's the same Flynn you used to know?"

Yuri bobbed his head. He couldn't think of the words to properly explain who Flynn was, so he hoped Karol could figure it out by saying, "My Flynn." He giggled to himself, wondering if Flynn would appreciate the spinning walls more than Karol did. "But he doesn't know," Yuri said. "He's so dumb… he doesn't rememem…" he got lost in the word for a few seconds. "Remember me." He laughed again, and through the laughs he forced out, "Don't - don't tell him. This is hilarious. I wanna… I gotta see how long it takes him… he's so dumb…" His own memories weren't too clear at the moment, because he couldn't seem to wrap his mind around any sort of memory longer than a minute ago, but he remembered Flynn.

"Right, uh… I'll go get him. You stay there." Karol grabbed the bottle of laudanum to take with him.

"No, bring it back," Yuri said, reaching for it. If this was how great he felt after how little he'd had, he could only imagine how much more great he'd feel after drinking the entire bottle.

"You've had enough."

"But Karol, I love you." He reached for the bottle, but his hand closed on empty air. Huh, apparently Karol was farther away than he thought.

"I'll see you later, Yuri."

He walked out, and Yuri dropped his head against the pillow. He was upset for a second, and then it fizzled away into a haze of bliss. He couldn't stay mad long. He was just so, so happy.


Flynn stood on the deck of the ship, looking out at the ocean and wondering if he'd made the right decision. It was too late to change his mind now, because the Endurance wasn't even a speck in the distance anymore. He wasn't a prisoner, he told himself. He was here by choice… technically… and he and Lady Estellise would leave in a couple of weeks as soon as Yuri was well again… hopefully. The pirates so far didn't know Estellise was a princess, but would they be so willing to let her walk away if they found out? They seemed pretty amicable so far, but they were still pirates.

Admiral Alexei was going to be displeased with him, but he hoped he'd be understanding. Alexei was a reasonable man, after all. He didn't know what else he could have done. He'd been given the option of kidnapping Estellise, abandoning her, or joining her. Even still, he'd felt terrible watching the Endurance sail away, and the threat of court-martial hung over his head.

"Hey, Flynn," Karol said, walking across the deck toward him.

Flynn looked down at him. "Good evening, Captain." He still found it bizarre that this boy was the captain. And he thought he had become a captain at a young age.

"Yuri is awake. He says he wants to see you."

"How is he fairing?"

"Uh… hard to say," Karol said with a frown. "Estellise gave him some laudanum to help with the pain, and now he's kind of loopy."

"Ah… well, lead the way."

"Right, follow me."

As they walked across the deck, Flynn asked, "He gave his name as Yuri Capel, and you are Karol Capel. Are you related?"

"Sort of," Karol said. "We're kind of like… brothers, only not by blood."

"How long have you been the captain of this ship?"

"About three years now," Karol said as they walked down the steps to the gun deck. "We got the ship from Fortune's Market."

"And you decided to turn pirate," Flynn said, crossing toward the stern and the captain's room. He hadn't intended it to be judgemental, but he couldn't keep the tone out of his voice.

Karol looked over his shoulder with a frown. "Actually, we're privateers."

"Oh, of course." As far as Flynn was concerned, there wasn't much difference. Privateers were given authority by Altosk to attack imperial ships, whereas pirates attacked anyone, empire or Union. To Flynn, he considered them all pirates, just some of them were pirates who attacked each other as well. He was interrupted from his thoughts when he heard a growl. The gun deck was dark, since the sun was almost down and there weren't any lanterns lit, but in the dim light, a glowing eye rose from the floor. Flynn took an involuntary step back, led by a deep instinct to run away from anything that looked and sounded this much like an angry wolf.

"Hey, Repede," Karol said. "It's just us."

Flynn's eyes adjusted to the light more and he was able to make out the form of a large dog curled up protectively outside the door. The dog barred its teeth and glared at him with its one good eye. It's other eye was hidden under an eye-patch. "You, uh, have a wolf on board, then?"

"He's not a wolf," Karol said. "He's Repede. He's our dog."

"Why do you have a dog on a ship?" He could understand a ship cat, maybe. They could take care of the rats. But a dog? They contributed nothing and ate food supplies, not to mention they brought bad luck in general.

"Well, we couldn't leave him behind," Karol said, like this explained everything.

"Ah. Of course."

"It's alright, Repede," Karol said. "Yuri asked to see Flynn."

The dog laid down again, but didn't take his eye off Flynn.

"Go on in," Karol said, gesturing to the door. "I wouldn't take anything Yuri says too seriously, though. He's kind of out of it."

"I see. Thank you." Flynn kept one eye on the dog as he opened the door and hesitantly went inside. Yuri lay in bed, staring at the ceiling with a look of intense concentration. "Uh… Mr. Capel?" he asked.

Yuri turned his head, and then broke into a big grin. "Hi."

"How do you feel?" Flynn asked, still standing by the door.

"Reeeeeally great. Come here."

Flynn cautiously approached the bed. He wasn't sure how to deal with this man who was clearly drugged out of his mind. "Do you need something?"

"Yeah," Yuri said. "I need… wait… I need… what was…" He stared at the ceiling again until Flynn was pretty sure he'd forgotten he was even trying to say something.

"Mr. Capel?"

Yuri looked back to him. "Oh, hi."

"Yes, hello, I'm still here. You asked to see me?"

Yuri stared at him with glazed eyes for a few seconds, and then asked, "Why do empire people wear wigs? They look dumb."

"Pardon?" He'd taken his wig off by now and was back to his normal messy blond hair, but apparently Yuri still had it in mind. "I don't know; that's just the fashion."

Yuri didn't answer, just stared at him with that happy grin. It was more than a little unnerving. "Are you certain you're alright?" Flynn asked.

"That's what I need! More laudadeni…denum."

"You can't even say it; I hardly think you need more."

"If you're not going to help, I should kick you off my ship." Yuri frowned at him, but he couldn't hold it for very long before he forgot what he was upset about and started grinning again.

Flynn sighed, pulling up a chair. "There isn't really anywhere else for me to go. Besides, believe me when I say I would like to get off your ship as soon as possible."

"Yeah, gonna kick you off," Yuri said mumbled. "Kick you off and you can… uh… swim home. Yeah. Swim allllll the way back through the, uh, the… the wet… the big wet… the big blue wet thing."

"The… ocean?"

"Yeah." He closed his eyes and smiled. "That."

"Right," Flynn said slowly. Falling overboard would be very dangerous, considering he, like most people, had never learned to swim. However, he didn't feel at all threatened by a drugged, wounded man rambling about the 'big blue wet thing'.

"Nah, don't worry," Yuri said, his smile spreading. "I wouldn't do that to you. You're too pretty."

Flynn frowned. "Er… thank you?"

"Yeah, you're really handsome. Congratulations on your… uh… everything." He opened his eyes and leaned forward, like he was trying to tell a secret, but he kept his voice just as loud as it had been before. "Just between you and me… you're reeeeally attractive."

Flynn's face flushed and he scooted back in the chair. The empire had some very strict things to say about sodomy, and none of them were positive. "Perhaps I should leave now." He didn't need this. Yuri's slurred words stirred up thoughts that Flynn put great effort into smothering.

Yuri burst into laughter. "You should see your face! Oh, wow, you're great. I love you."

Flynn stood up quickly. "You barely know me."

"I don't care. I love you. I can't feel my teeth but I… I… I love you. Right, that's what I was saying."

"I think I should be going now."

"Why does everyone keep leaving me? I'm just… I'm trying to explain… and nobody understands…"

After ten seconds, Flynn asked, "Nobody understands what?"

"What?"

"What does nobody understand?"

Yuri stared at him with no clue what Flynn was talking about. Flynn sighed and, thinking he was probably going to regret reminding him, said, "You just said you were trying to explain something that nobody understands."

"Oh yeah. The world. It's like… it's like warm fuzzy, ok? It's all shiny and we're all connected and it's squishy and bright and… The world is great, see? And everyone is wonderful and I just really love people, ok? I even love Cumore. He's great. I'm great. And opium is reeeally great." He grinned to himself, satisfied with delivering his compelling argument.

Flynn paused in confusion. "Cumore? How do you know Commodore Cumore?"

"Fuck Cumore."

"But I thought you loved Cumore?"

"Riiiight. Yeah. He's not nice. You're nice. I think." He spoke slowly, putting deep thought behind every word and struggling to stay focused. "But you're in the navy, and just… fuck the navy. Yeah," he nodded sagely. "Fuck the navy."

"If you have nothing else to say, I think I'm going to go now," Flynn said, heading for the door.

"Wait," Yuri said, reaching for him even though Flynn was at least ten feet away.

Flynn stopped with a sigh. "What is it?" He'd better not want to tell Flynn he was pretty again. The last thing Flynn needed right now was for some crazy drugged pirate to start stirring up all these feelings he tried so hard to ignore.

"I need to tell you… it's important… what was it…"

"You wanted me to bring you more laudanum, and I refused," Flynn said, hoping this was the end of it.

"No, there's more. It was… um… oh yeah! If you hurt Karol or any of the rest of the crew then… then I love you but I have to kill you. Ok?"

Flynn looked over his shoulder, taken aback by the suddenly serious topic. "I will not harm your crew."

"Yeah, but I can't believe you," Yuri said. "You're a navy captain and navy captains are bastards with stupid hair. It's…" he trailed off, staring at Flynn for almost thirty seconds before continuing again. "Oh. Right. I was saying you can't hurt Karol. I love Karol and if you hurt him or get this ship in trouble… I'll kill you."

"I understand," Flynn said, wondering if Yuri would even remember this conversation when he came down. "I promise, I have no intention of bringing harm to you or your crew."

"Good. Ok, goodnight."

"Is there anything else you wanted?"

"Nope," Yuri said. "Go away. I have… um… important stuff to do. Yeah."

Flynn gave him an amused smirk. "What important stuff do you intend to do from bed?"

"I need to… uh… I need to…." He stared blankly at Flynn. "It was… I have important stuff to do."

Flynn sighed. "I'll let you figure that out." Flynn left the room, not entirely sure what to make of that conversation. He'd had less lucid interactions in the past, but not many.

Back outside on the gun deck, Estellise stopped him. "Oh, hello, Flynn. Were you just in to see Yuri?"

"Yes," Flynn said. "It was… interesting."

Estellise frowned. "Karol told me he drank a bit too much laudanum. Is it that bad?"

Flynn tried to put the experience into words, but nothing came to him.

Estellise interpreted his expression easily enough. "Oh dear."

"Is there anything you can do?"

She shook her head. "All we can do is wait for it to wear off. Um… at least he isn't in pain anymore."

"That's something, I guess."

"Flynn… I don't think I thanked you properly for letting me stay."

Flynn raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't aware I had a choice in your decision."

She covered her mouth and giggled. "Well, you could have forced me, but you're not like that."

"No. By the way, I like your new dress."

"Oh, do you?" She smiled and twirled around, although it didn't flare out the way her gowns usually did. "Rita gave it to me. My old one was, um, covered in blood. For being pirates, everyone here is really nice."

"Perhaps a little too nice," Flynn mused, thinking back on Yuri's rambling professions of love.

"When we get to Heliord, I'll tell Admiral Alexei that this was my fault, ok? I'll tell him I forced you to come with me. I won't let you get in trouble for this."

"Thank you for the thought, although I'm not certain how effective it will be." Most of the government didn't think Estellise was much more than a political pawn, so he wasn't sure how easily she could convince them that she'd forced him to stay against his will, but he did appreciate her effort.

"It will be ok, you'll see. I'm going to go check on Yuri and change his bandages, now. I'll see you tomorrow, ok?"

"Alright. Please let me know if I can do anything for you."

"Of course. Goodnight!" She waved and continued on to Yuri's room.

Flynn made his way to the steep stairs to the lower deck. His things had already been put away in the small cabin they'd given him. The ship came with an assortment of cabins for various ship officers, but since their pirate crew had a lot fewer official positions, a lot of them were used as storage. Flynn's cabin was right next to the one they'd given Estellise, and was quite the change from the captain's cabin he'd become accustomed to on the Endurance. There was a narrow, hard bunk with drawers underneath, a small porthole, and several barrels of salted fish hastily pushed to the side to make room for him.

Flynn sat down on the bunk with a sigh. The room, little more than a five-foot by six-foot box, was dark. He didn't have a lantern and the sun had set, leaving him with only the small amount of moonlight filtering through the grimy porthole. Estellise, at least, seemed happy. He had a feeling her insistence on staying to help Yuri was partly fuelled by a desire for adventure and to see more of the world than the empire. He could understand her longing, even if it irritated him. There was nothing to do for it now, though, but to go to sleep and hopefully find himself in a better mood in the morning.


When Flynn woke up, he was initially confused about where he was. As he sat up and looked out the porthole at the muggy grey of dawn, he remembered. Pirates. Right. There was no point sitting around, so he got dressed. He felt under-dressed without putting on his captain's jacket, but that had been thrown out after being soaked in Yuri's blood. What did it matter, anyway? No on this ship recognized his authority, not even Estellise. Once he was ready to go, he realized he didn't actually know what he should do. He wasn't sure if he was here as a passenger, a prisoner, or if he'd joined the crew. Well, he wouldn't figure it out by sitting around, so he got up to go find some breakfast.

The ship was alive with activity, and his passage was ignored. He headed up the stairs to the gun deck to find the galley, but just as he reached the top of the steps he nearly ran into Judith, carrying a tray with a bowl of soup.

"Good morning," she said. "Sleep well?"

"Fair enough," he said. "Where is Captain Capel?"

"I think he's still sleeping," Judith said. "Hey, I have some things to do, would you mind taking this to Yuri?"

"Yes, of course," Flynn said. Actually he didn't want to talk to Yuri at all, but perhaps this morning he'd be a bit more lucid.

"Thanks," Judith said. "Take the dishes back to Hanks in the galley when you're done and you can get some breakfast for yourself."

"Alright." He took the tray from her and she walked away. Flynn cautiously approached the door to the captain's room, keeping one eye on the dog that still sat curled up in front of it. The dog also kept one eye trained on him, and while was no expert on dogs, he could tell what message this one was sending: If you mess with my human I will rip your throat out.

Flynn knocked on the door, and got a grunt that sounded like "yeah" as a reply. He took this as an invitation to enter. Inside, he found Yuri lying on his side with his arms wrapped around his stomach, his face screwed up with pain. His blanket lay on the ground and the sheets still on his bed tangled around his legs. He cracked his eyes open and his grimace deepened when he saw Flynn.

"Oh," he grunted. "It's you."

"I brought you breakfast," Flynn said, setting the tray on the table.

"There's a h-hole in my stomach," Yuri said. "I don't want to eat."

"You haven't eaten since yesterday," Flynn said, sitting down in the chair by his bed. "You need to eat to recover your strength."

"If I eat… I feel like I'll throw up," he said. His fingers bunched around the side of his shirt. "That'll hurt."

"You're going to have to risk it," Flynn said. "If you don't eat, your body won't have the strength to repair your wound." Flynn held out a spoonful of broth. "Here, have a few sips at least."

Yuri flung his arm out, smacked the spoon away and splattering soup on the floor. "Stop treating me like an invalid!"

"But you are an invalid," Flynn pointed out. "You can't get out of bed and I don't think you can handle solid foods right now. Just eat your soup."

"I don't want to take advice from you!" He waved his arm around accusingly. "You - it's your fault this happened in the first place! Your woman is the one who -" he gritted his teeth, obviously regretting his violent movement, "who fu-fucking stabbed me." He took short, fast breaths and his clenched fingers shook.

"I can't apologize enough for Sodia's actions."

"You're right; you can't," Yuri snapped. "So get the hell off my boat."

"That's not really possible, since we're at sea," Flynn pointed out.

"So jump overboard and drown."

Flynn smirked and asked, "You mean in the big blue wet thing?"

"Shut the hell up!" Yuri moved his arms and tried to sit up, probably to reach over and punch Flynn, but he didn't get far before freezing up with pain. He fell back onto his pillow and bit down hard on his fist, trying to muffle a cry.

Flynn wanted to be angry with him for telling him to go drown, but it was hard not to feel sympathy for someone who was clearly in excruciating pain. "Would you like me to go find Lady Estellise so she can give you more laudanum?"

Yuri shook his head, and then lowered his hand to say, "No."

"Are you sure?" Flynn asked, glancing worriedly at the deep bite marks on his knuckles. "It will help you deal with your pain."

"No," Yuri said. "I don't like it."

"You seemed to like it yesterday."

Yuri turned his neck enough to glare at Flynn. "I'm not doing that again. Anything I said yesterday…" he knitted his eyebrows together, "forget I s-said it. I don't remember a lot of it but… but that wasn't me."

"Consider it forgotten." Flynn was more than willing to forget about some of Yuri's delusional ramblings. "I really think you should consider taking drugs, though. There's no reason for you to suffer like this."

"No one asked you," he snarled. "Go away."

Flynn frowned. "I'm only trying to help."

"I don't want help from navy bastards." He squeezed his eyes and folded his hands over his stomach. "Leave me alone. You're making my stomach hurt."

Flynn stood up with a sigh. "If you insist." Yuri didn't look up as Flynn left the room. He couldn't really blame Yuri for being so grouchy. He understood that the man was dealing with a huge level of pain and Flynn knew very well that he was in part to blame for that for bringing Sodia onto this vessel in the first place. Still, it took an unheard of amount of stubbornness to refuse medication in his current state.

On his way to the galley, Flynn stopped when he saw Lady Estellise hovering by one of the cannons while Rita cleaned it. Flynn veered off course to go speak with her. "Good morning, Lady Estellise."

She looked over with a smile. "Hello, Flynn. Did you sleep well?"

"Well enough. I was just in to deliver breakfast to Mr. Capel."

"Oh, is he awake?" Estellise asked.

Flynn nodded. "He doesn't want to eat, though. If you go see him, be warned that he's rather grouchy."

Rita snorted. "Don't take it too personally," she said, running her fingers over the cannon and searching for any cracks or problems. "He's terrible when he gets injured. He gets pretty irritable."

"Currently he's refusing medication," Flynn said.

Rita nodded. "Yeah, that sounds like him. Whenever he gets hurt, he tries to act like he's totally fine and that he's such a tough guy who doesn't feel any pain. Obviously he's not, and then he lies around feeling miserable but refusing to let anyone help him."

Estellise frowned and looked over at the door to Yuri's cabin. "Oh, dear… I should go see him and check on his stitches, just in case. Maybe I can talk him into taking a bit more laudanum."

"Don't get your hopes up," Rita said.

"I'm going to see him anyway," Estellise said. "I'll see you later, Rita."

She scurried away to retrieve her medicine chest. Flynn looked to Rita and asked, "I don't suppose you know what I should be doing?" After coming from being the captain, he didn't like suddenly not having a job to do. It made him feel useless.

Rita shrugged. "Don't ask me, all I care about are the guns here. Yuri's usually the ones who organizes jobs, but since he's out of commission you should probably ask Judith."

"Thank you." With nothing else to do, he set off in search of Judith.