Chapter Text
He’d been on the Pandora just over a week now. Bex, the young woman with braids down to her hips who seemed to be their medic, had cleared him for walking short distances, so he’d finally been allowed out of the small cabin he’d been staying in, and out to explore the rest of the ship.
He’d been surprised to learn Bex’s brother was also a part of the crew, long and lanky where she was short and heavier built, though she walked and with the grace and precision of an acrobat on a tightrope. Apparently, one needed that steadiness if one was to be a medic, but Finn’d grown up on the dark orca, where the medic was more likely to give you an infection than if you just sucked it up and fended for yourself, so what did he know?
Her brother’s name was Donnis, who was tall and had dreadlocks that brushed his shoulders and very kind eyes. He'd been one of the boys who’d helped him onto the ship, along with the red-headed Marley, and their captain, T.J. There was also willowy Elio with bright-red hair buzzed close to the scalp, Camron, who packed a surprising amount of speed and muscle into a stringbean of a build, and Raden whose fingers were always adorned with heavy, gold rings that glinted as he steered the large vessel across the sea.
Finn’d been surprised to find the captain out so late, taking Raden’s usual place at the wheel from where she’d seemingly sent him to bed. A cigarette dangled from her fingers, blonde hair tied back in a loose bun that let most of the front pieces loose to the mercy of the light wind that had picked up.
‘Heya Finn. Shouldn’t you be resting?’ she asked as he approached, and he really shouldn’t be surprised she’d noticed him, despite him being well out of her field of vision. Marley and Donnis had informed him she had a knack for noticing the unnoticeable, lies, tells, presence, you name it.
‘Hi. Wanted some fresh air, sorry ta’ bother ya’ he said quietly, wary around the girl. He’d seen her and her blades in practice, the way they seemed to become a part of her rather than a tool, and wasn’t eager to anger her.
‘You’re not bothering me. This is your home now, and as such, you are welcome to take up as much space as you wish’ she stated calmly, seemingly reading his mind, despite still looking forwards as she twisted the large, wooden wheel to the left. She sounded a lot older than she was, and it was odd to know that the person he looked to for orders was someone who would actually listen, and had his best interest in mind.
He’d been skeptical at first, but he’d seen Bex report the needed supplies for medical without so much as a comment from the captain about expenses, and Marley seemed more than welcome to request for them to get goldfish crackers when they next docked. So, he nodded, and leaned against the railing looking out over the vast ocean.
Maddy was out there somewhere. He wondered how she was doing, if their father was taking his anger out on her now that he wasn’t there to take it. Danny-boy cared for them, yes, but he wouldn’t dare disobey direct orders from his captain, no matter how much he liked them. He could still remember her face when Hammerhead had found the communicator he’d been using to contact Fontaine, tip her off on what his father was planning, so she could inform her parents and stop him before he got himself cursed, injured, or dragged his children down with him to doom and certain death.
Of course, Hammerhead hadn’t seen it as such, and he’d nearly cracked Finn's skull open with how hard he slammed his son into the metal walls of the sub. Maddy had stood, paralysed with fear and surprise as her father had proceeded to lift Finn by the neck, and demand he apologise for ‘working with the enemy’ and ‘putting shame on the pirate name’
Finn had then made the very stupid mistake of telling his father he didn’t particularly want to BE a pirate in the first place. Maddy’s look of surprise had quickly morphed into anger as she started spitting insults, the image of what their father considered a perfect pirate-in-training. That had hurt more than all his father had ever done to him combined, not that he’d ever tell her.
He’d refused to apologise. He wouldn’t apologise for what he wanted, not if he ever wanted Fontaine to even consider him as an option
His father had only gotten more angry, and had grabbed Finn’s wrist more than hard enough to bruise when he’d tried to flee. Honestly, it was on him for not knowing better. You did not show weakness around Hammerhead, not unless you wanted your punishment to get worse.
And it could get a lot fucking worse.
He was janked back with such force, he was half convinced his arm would simply rip from his body. Hammer head then wound one giant, meaty hand round his neck, and fueled with rage quite literally lifted him from the floor. madeline made a sound of both surprise and fear, but Hammerhead was distracted enough with his son slowly going purple not to notice.
‘Dad?, Dad, please, let him go. You can’t make him be a pirate if he’s dead!’ she hollered, fear like ice in her chest as Finn’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he went limp.
‘He won’t be a pirate. It’s too late for him, but you lass, you will make me proud, eye?’ he asked, raising a great brow to look at his daughter. She mumbled an ‘eye’ to satisfy him, and felt her hands shake as she heard him muttering of how to ‘dispose’ of his son once he woke up while exiting the small room, presumably to pester Danny-boy about another treasure that probably wasn’t even real.
Maddy had wasted no time in gathering supplies, and once darkness fell, she hauled her barely-conscious brother into the red claw, and spead them to the only place she could think where their father wouldn’t look. No kid would be stupid enough to hang around the black market without at least a plan to fall back on. She had no plan, and couldn't help Finn further than this. Hammerhead would get suspicious if she was gone any longer, but it was easy to become anonymous in places like this, and Finn had to become nobody if he wanted to get out.
He’d woken briefly as she hauled him onto the rotting planks on the far side of the market, where no-one paid any mind to the two young teenagers, one with bruises already forming around his throat and wrist. He couldn’t speak, just reached for her, and she was sure she’d lose her nerve there and then. Say with him, damn their father and his bullshit.
But one of them had to stay, or they’d never be free. And it couldn't be him. For once, she would be the hero, even if he couldn’t know.
‘Get yer hands off me, ya goodie-to-shoed ninny. Yer disowned, Daddy sedans his regard. Piss off.’ she snarked, and pretended not to see his heart break. She turned on her heal, and didn’t look back as she hopped into the red claw and disappeared, lest he see the silent tears pouring down her cheeks, and know.
Know that she didn't mean a single word of it, that she loved him, and that this was something she had to do. For them. For him.
Finn knew none of this of course, and snapped back to the present as T.J. tapped his shoulder, asking if he was alright.
‘I have a sister. Or. Had? Is she still my sister if I’m disowned?’ he asked, hating the shake in his voice. He couldn’t imagine a world where he didn’t have Maddy as his annoying, brilliant menace of a little sister.
‘I think family is more than the blood we share. If you want her to be your sister, she’s your sister,’ the girl replied, as if it really was that simple. Perhaps it was?
‘I left her there. With him’ who knows what he’ll do to her now that I’m not there to stop him? goes unsaid.
She studies him for a long moment. Green eyes almost owl-like with the way they widen, not blinking for much longer than the average person, like she’s trying to take in as much of him as she can.
‘You had to leave. She chose to stay. Forcing her would be making the decision for her, and I’m not sure she’d thank you for removing her choice’ she says finally, carefully, like she’s picking and choosing her words with the uttermost of care. She stamps out her cigarette on the bottom of her red sneaker, so full of holes he can see her sock. Cream with red stars. Odd, he thinks, that she chooses to keep such old ones, when she clearly has the budget for new ones. A question for another time.
‘She’s a kid. She doesn't understand. I should have tried harder, taken her with me anyway. I'm her BROTHER’ he enunciates the last word, putting weight on it, the way it sits heavily on his chest. He starts pacing, up and down the deck while T.J. leans back, lazily tapping a song on the wheel with her finger.
‘Yes, you're her brother. Not her parent. She’s what, thirteen? By the time I was her age, I’d already been living on my own for ‘bout five years, on and off. She’s young, but she ain’t stupid kid. She made her choice, you made yours’ she says finally, calm, steady. Like she isn’t saying his sister abandoned him. Left him for a father that never cared, not after their mother became nothing but a cooling corpse.
‘She’s eleven. I’m as bad as him if I just leave her there.’ he answered shakily, nausea rising at the thought of being ANYTHING like his father.
‘You’re you Finn. You can’t become someone by making their choices. And anyway, you ain't leaving her anywhere, she chose that. Look, there are two types of people, yeah? Good people who occasionally do bad things, usually as a cause of circumstance, and bad people who occasionally do good things, usually only because it benefits them. You are the former. Madeline? Probably the latter. So am I for that matter’ she shrugged, like saying she was a bad person had about as much effect on her as a fly landing on her finger.
‘You don’t even know her’ he protested firmly, displeased at having his sister referred to as a bad person.
‘No, I don't. But she’s ticking off all the boxes, and you can't just ignore that because you care for her Finn. Did she stand up for you when you needed her?,- his silence was more than enough confirmation,- ‘She used you as a shield when it was useful. Left you when you could no longer do that. Smart kid, from a survival’s point of view. She’d do well in an apocalypse’ T.J. offered, though he took little comfort in her words. She was brutally honest, and it hurt. But, at least she didn’t bullshit, and that was something.
‘Make peace with it. Or Don't. But it will eat you alive, from the inside out.’ She got an odd look in her eye, like she was somewhere else entirely as she spoke, and he had the sudden feeling that she was speaking from more than a theoretical perspective.
What horrors had this girl seen? Experienced?
He just nodded, slowly turning and walking back the way he came. She huffed a laugh once he was out of view, turning to look at the stars.
‘You smart, smart girl. You dragged him to that market yourself, didn’t you, to protect him, for once?’ she said to no-one in particular, smiling sadly to herself.
‘I do hope you’re doing okay kid, wherever you are’ she whispered, voice so quiet, no one but the wind and stars could hear it.
She would protect Finn, an oath she spoke from one sister to another, though her counter-part could neither hear nor see her. Like one of her own.