The Mirk and Midnight Hour
Pairing: Maeve/Sinbad
Rating: M (language, sex, violence)
Setting: Just after Season 1
All standard disclaimers apply
Maeve doesn't leave her cabin all day.
"So…your talk either went great or terrible," Doubar says over breakfast.
Sinbad raises an eyebrow at him.
"Terrible. Right." He swallows a hunk of flatbread and date paste. "What now?"
Sinbad shrugs. "What can we do? I can't order her to go to bed."
"Wait, whose bed are we talking about?" Doubar snickers like a little boy.
Sinbad makes a face. In some ways, Doubar is as annoying as any other brother. "There was just a moment," he muses, recalling the unproductive conversation of the past night, "when she actually relaxed. I almost thought she might doze off, but she wouldn't let herself. She sat up and moved away, wouldn't let me near her."
"Maybe she just doesn't like you."
It's a question Sinbad has wrestled with often. Maeve runs hot and cold, her mixed signals jarring. He can't make himself believe she doesn't like him—not when he holds memories of her fiery kiss, hot and molten-sweet. It's more like something's holding her back. If so, she refuses to tell him and, once again, he can't order her.
Local girls are much simpler.
"She was so stiff." Sinbad's talking to himself, breakfast forgotten. He stares into the ubiquitous gloomy darkness below deck. "So wary. Almost as if she was afraid of something."
"That doesn't sound like our Maeve. Not now, anyway. I know she didn't trust us at first, but was she ever really afraid of us?"
The answer, of course, is no. Maeve is fearless-recklessly so at times-and she's never been afraid of him. Suspicious, yes. Disdainful, certainly. Not afraid.
"Do you think this has anything to do with our last run-in with Rumina?"
Sinbad tilts his head to the side, considering his brother's question. It has some merit. They destroyed the evil sorceress's lair, which was good, but they had not been able to kill the witch. Once again she'd slipped through their fingers. When they began their journey back to Baghdad Sinbad thought Maeve was fine despite the disappointment. Now he knows better, but is that the answer?
"I don't think Maeve will ever truly relax until Rumina is dead." He looks at his brother somewhat helplessly. "Whether that's the problem now, I can't say."
"That girl is certainly a mystery." Doubar grunts and pushes himself away from the table, helping himself to his brother's untouched bread as he goes. "Good luck, captain."
Maeve doesn't open her door for two days.
Sinbad isn't sure what to do—what he might even try. He can't order her to sleep, can't order her to eat. He could try to give her a watch on the tiller, but after Firouz listed the symptoms of sleep deprivation he doesn't really want her in charge of his ship. Things have been quiet so far and they're almost to Baghdad. He has no wish to take chances with his ship.
"How about telling me what's bothering your mistress, huh?" he cajoles Dermott one windy afternoon as the hawk alights near him.
He half expects the bird to answer, but Dermott merely favors him with a long, silent look before taking off again. Sinbad shakes his head. Even her hawk's upset with him.
That evening, Sinbad decides to try talking to her one more time. They'll be in Baghdad soon, thankfully, so if he screws up again they won't have to deal with the fallout very long.
No one's in the galley when he approaches her door and knocks softly.
There's no sound. For a moment he wonders if she's finally fallen asleep, but no. Silent as fog, she opens the door. Her face is blank; she observes him cautiously.
He holds his hands up, palms toward her, in a gesture of harmlessness. "I don't want to fight. I just want to talk."
"About what?" Her voice is dull, flat. The sleeplessness is finally getting to her. He can see the beginning of darkness under her eyes and there's something hazy in the way she looks at him, vague and very unlike Maeve. She's usually so direct, something he deeply respects about her.
Not today.
"It'll be Doubar's birthday while we're in port," he lies, "and I wanted your opinion on celebrations."
"That's Firouz's thing, not mine."
"Please?" He tries to offer a winning smile, which usually makes her roll her eyes and laugh.
Today her expression doesn't change. "I'm busy."
"Too busy for Doubar? Come on." He offers his hand, palm up, reaching, hoping she'll take it. She's so tired; he can see it in her stance, her eyes, the shape of her mouth. Sinbad's watched her for so long. He knows next to nothing about her, but he knows her. Her anger, her joy. How a cloak of sorrow looks when she wears it. Right now she's so tired he wonders if she feels anything else at all.
Maeve studies his outstretched hand for a long breath. Finally, as if in spite of herself, her own hand rises. Slowly, slowly it slips into his.
Relieved beyond words, Sinbad twines his fingers through hers. He can't help himself, and he raises their hands to press a kiss to the back of hers, smiling at her over their knuckles. Her answering smile is hesitant, unsure, but there. He leads her across the galley to his own cabin and latches the door behind them so they won't be disturbed.
His cabin is the biggest on the ship—the crew sleep in hammocks in the hold. Maeve's cabin is little more than a closet with a porthole and a bunk, and Firouz has use of the only other cabin when they have no passengers aboard. Here Sinbad has a desk and a bench, a bigger bunk, two portholes, and plenty of room for storage though he personally travels light. He pulls Maeve down beside him on the bench and fishes for a blank piece of parchment as if he really does want her opinion about Doubar's birthday. In reality they don't celebrate birthdays, and Maeve ought to remember this. It's just another clue to how exhausted she really is.
"I was thinking he should have something special," he says, filling the silence with innocent talk. "Maybe some of that good palm wine the caliph keeps for state occasions. I bet he'd give us a few bottles, since it's for Doubar."
Maeve makes a noncommittal noise. After a moment, to Sinbad's surprise, a soft, wistful smile touches the corners of her mouth. "If we were farther north, I'd hunt through the markets to find him some whiskey. That would make him happy."
"I've heard tales of this northern whiskey." Sinbad pauses his search for parchment. She's half-drunk herself on sleeplessness, which might make his scheme somewhat easier. "Is it really as potent as they say?"
She chuckles, a low, sweet sound Sinbad has missed badly. "Back home the men say, 'Best not let it touch your gums on the way down." She rubs her eye without noticing, but Sinbad does. He slips his arm around her waist, remembering that one soft moment of surrender several nights ago, when she let herself lean against him, let herself let go. Watching her carefully, he begins to tell a story about when he and Doubar were children. It's lighthearted, and he keeps his voice low, easy, as if nothing of importance is happening at all. As he speaks his thumb slowly strokes the fabric at her waist, a gentle caress unconsciously in time with the rocking of the ship. She's lost weight, which worries him a little; she doesn't carry any extra. Maeve is long, slim muscle and supple skin, tall, slender, and all female. Even were she to dress in men's clothes, no one could mistake her for anything but what she is.
Her eyelids lower and she blinks slowly, thick lashes like smudges of soot below her eyes. So beautiful, this curious woman, fierce and angry, yet delicate, vulnerable. He can sense the deep sorrow in her, the pain below the surface that keeps her at arm's length, stops her from trusting him fully. Oh, she trusts him with her life—that's been proven beyond a doubt. But she doesn't trust him with her secrets, her past. He wonders if she ever will.
Sinbad's story draws to a close and his voice flows easily into another, meaningless reminiscences of happy times with his older brother. He strokes Maeve's waist, watches her eyes close, open, close again. He's not being subtle, but she's too confused by sleeplessness to realize how she's being led slowly, inexorably, toward rest. It's what she desperately needs right now, and Sinbad is her captain. He isn't sorry at all about tricking her.
Her nodding head comes to rest against his shoulder. He continues to talk, voice smooth and low, caressing her gently with hand and words. He's not really used to being soothing but with Maeve it's as easy as breathing. He knows her in ways he doesn't entirely understand. It's inexplicable but undeniable. He presses a kiss to her forehead, inhaling the scent of her. She isn't heavily floral like other women—she's cedar and rain and woodsmoke, sweet and clean, not cloying. Sinbad loves it. He imagines this is the scent of her homeland: cold air, wet grass, fresh-cut wood. Rich and green and alive. Maeve is all these things, plus the fire at her heart. He kisses her forehead again, and knows immediately when she finally succumbs fully to sleep.
A large part of him would like more than anything to put her in his bed and stay with her, to watch over her, hold her, make sure whatever she's afraid of doesn't happen. His logical side wins out, however, and he carries her carefully into her own tiny cabin, places her on her bunk. Putting her in his bed is definitely the sort of thing that will make her furious—angrier than she'll already be when she realizes she's slept. So, though loath to do so, he settles her on her bunk, covers her with a light blanket, and leaves her to her rest.
"Sweet dreams," he whispers as he closes the door.
A heavy hand clamps down on his shoulder. He's small and frail, and his bones nearly snap under the iron grip. He looks up into the face of a man who doesn't look like the men he knows: bushy dark beard liberally laced with threads of dirty grey, skin like dark oak wood, flint-hard black eyes over a large nose. The man towers over him, and the smells of raw fish and young whiskey are so strong that his eyes water. He can't breathe, and the hand on his shoulder squeezes tighter and tighter…
"Listen, child. You feel this?" The man's words are hard to understand. He does not speak the language well and his accent is thick and unfamiliar. The man pulls on a chain. His breath is sour, tainted with the fumes of alcohol. His eyes are bloodshot, his teeth rotting in his mouth. "Well?"
He coughs, tries to breathe, iron links pulling at his skinny throat "Let me go!"
The heavy hand lifts from his shoulder, but the other hand has already been drawn back and now swings forward. Knuckles connect with his face. He collapses instantly, hearing something crack, and blood pools in his mouth. A heavily-shod boot connects with his stomach, his ribs, the solid sweep of his sternum. He can't breathe, csn't scramble out of the way, can't do anything but wait for the blows to stop.
"You listen good this time. That chain means I own you. You, little one, are mine now. Bought and paid for."
He can't breathe, but the spark of defiance inside him hasn't died. He tries to speak, but there's a sharp pain in his side when he tries to inhale, and the air will not come. Spots dance before his eyes. He can't even cry, but he shakes his head, denying the dark man's words.
"Do not think you can defy your master. You will learn your place one way or another." The man pulls him to his knees by the rough iron chain, grabs his chin, forces his head up. "A pretty thing. You'll be worth a small fortune when I get you south. Marrakesh perhaps, or even Baghdad."
He cannot breathe, cannot answer. He pulls his head free and bites the man's dirty thumb.
The dark man swears in a strange language. "If you won't behave, then so be it!" He hauls him to his feet again. "Time for your real punishment." He pushes the small, stumbling figure before him, half-dragging him away from a little fire and into the darkness of a wet, brambly forest.
Pushed and supported by the looming man, he tries to breathe, tries to make his legs work correctly. He takes several shallow breaths, pain lancing through his chest at every movement. He swallows reflexively, his mouth full of blood, and the sudden warm liquid in his stomach makes him heave. He doubles over, vomits blood onto the dark, loamy forest floor. Nothing else comes with it, for there was nothing in his stomach to regurgitate.
The man releases his collar. Without support he falls to the ground, the impact driving the breath out of him again. Vaguely, with a small corner of his dizzy mind, he hears the splintering sound of a branch breaking off a pile of deadwood. He can't move to get away. He knows little of the body and how it works, but he knows that something inside—perhaps several things—must be broken. He can only lay on his stomach, one arm bent painfully underneath him, the smell of blood and earth under his nose, as his shirt is lifted. For a brief moment he feels cold air against his exposed skin, before the first blow falls. The broken, splintered edge of the stick bites into his back, his buttocks, his thighs—again and again, small splinters of wood lodging in his flesh. He wants to sleep—wants the welcome numbness of unconsciousness to bear him safely away. It does not come.
The blows cease. Barely conscious, sick with pain but unable to catch enough breath to cry out, he listens for the blessed sound of the stick finally dropping from that brutal hand. Instead, he feels the rough stick wedged between his knees, pushing them apart.
"You need to learn your place," the man says, breathing fast, voice raw with exertion and—something else? He can't tell, but it terrifies him. The man's breath comes closer, and he feels coarse wool on the insides of his legs where the man now kneels. A broad hand comes up under his belly, forcing him up on his hands and knees, and a sickening feeling creeps into his chest as something large and hard pokes clumsily between his legs, searching for entry. He can't move, can't scream, but he shakes with fear. He hears grunting from the man behind him, then a moment of silence. The man pushes once, buries himself inside the too-small opening. He opens his mouth to scream, but he has no voice.
Sinbad is in the galley playing dice with Rongar when the first scream sounds.
It's a hollow, haunted cry; the captain is half out of his chair before it ends, bolting toward the hold where his crew sleeps. Rongar is just behind. They've made it past Firouz's cabin when the second scream erupts. The third, overlapping with the last, is Doubar.
They rush in to find everyone out of their hammocks, three men sleepy-eyed and confused, three pale and shaking.
"What's wrong?" Sinbad demands.
Rashid is on his knees; he lowers his head into his hands and doesn't speak. Salman creeps toward a bucket near the wall, skin gone green, and is violently sick.
"Doubar?" Sinbad can only hope his first mate will be able to tell him something. The hold is dark save for a small lamp near the door, but he sees nothing amiss. Behind him, he hears Firouz join the crowd.
"A…dream?" Doubar's voice is cautious. He stares at the darkened hold, at his brother, his crewmates, as if gauging their reality. "I suppose? But it felt so real."
"A nightmare?" Sinbad watches his brother doubtfully. Doubar isn't one for flights of fantasy; he's never been frightened of a mere dream before.
"I was a little boy again," Doubar said slowly, "but smaller than I've ever been, even as a child. There was a man…"
"I had the same dream, captain," Rashid manages to say, though he doesn't raise his head from his hands. In the corner, Salman shudders and nods.
"Three crewmembers, one nightmare?" Sinbad turns to his scientist. "Firouz, is that possible?"
"I suppose it's not beyond the realm of possibility," the inventor says slowly, "but highly implausible."
"Magic, then."
Sinbad and Doubar exchange a speaking glance. "Where's Maeve?" the first mate asks.
Sinbad really doesn't want to wake her if the screams from the crew haven't already, but there's no one else to ask. Nodding slightly, he sheaths his sword and pushes past Rongar and Firouz, heading for the sorceress's little cabin.
Hoping not to startle her, Sinbad is gentle as he pushes the door open. "Maeve?" Inside, her cabin is black as tar. He didn't leave a light when he put her to bed several hours ago, which means she must still be asleep. Of that he's glad, and wishes he didn't have to wake her. Walking the two short steps to her bunk, he reaches down to find her shoulder.
Firouz appears in the doorway and holds up a lantern. The dim golden light makes shadows leap and dance, illuminating very little of the tiny room. But it's enough to show Sinbad a rumpled blanket and empty bunk. Maeve is gone.