#note to self to edit next links to permalinks. when I can leave the recliner and actually use a computer without passing out from pain.

[whumpacabra]

Chapter 5. Clipped

Intentional self harm, knife wound, hand trauma, implied painful shapeshifting, whump of a minor [11], internalized fantasy racism, past abuse, past trauma

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Finn…Finn was okay. He was living in a constant state of confusion, just trying to get from one minute to the next now that he wasn’t safe in the captain’s quarters. (The trust was shaky at best, constant doubt poisoning every soft smile and gentle hand. Was it a joke? A trick? Bait to lure him to make a mistake?)

He at least expected the ship to make sense, to be predictable the way this captain wasn’t. It was, to an extent. Words and shouts and rigging he recognized and could understand. Chores and menial labor that felt safer than anything else this ship carried.

(Save for that pelt, in the cargo hold, so close - )

“Your hands start bothering you, we can find Misha. But I’m not getting down on my hands and knees to scrub the deck under the stairs - glad we have a shrimp like you around for this.”

This one was called Kell. Dark skinned with long, goldthreaded braids. Finn was proud of himself for remembering so many names and faces. The uniforms on the Lieutenant’s ship made everyone blur together, but the crew here all dressed distinctly.

Friar wore a whale leather apron. Sweet Marie her tricorn hat. The captain, his red coat. And so on. Kell wore a purple scarf, wrapped around their head. There were letters on it, embroidered in shiny green thread, but Finn couldn’t look at it long enough to read it.

This - Finn almost felt good doing this. A damp rag in hand, soft wood grain stained green with algae slowly returning to its natural brown hue. It was odd, uncomfortable not having a list hanging over his head, a time limit to finish his chores before the sun set. But, this past week or two was starting to feel…safe. Good.

He was rotating among the crew, working through different aspects of the ship in a circuit. The kitchen with Friar, the bunks with Ainim and Ishvael, the deck maintenance with Kell. He was told he would be at the helm with Marie next - reading the wind maps and current charts.

He never got to do something like that on the Lieutenant’s ship - which was…scary, but, like the sea rocking his hammock at night, didn’t feel as scary as it should have felt.

There was a rhythm as he worked, the pitch and yaw of the ship as it charged over the waves was as steady as his own hands, rinsing the rag in a bucket of clean sea water and returning to work at a particularly bad patch of -

His hands burned.

It wasn’t the burn of fire, or salted flesh - it was the burn that preceded those dreadful sensations. The skin stretching and bones shifting and -

Finn pitched forward, a sharp hiss strangled before it could leave his lips. He dropped the rag, drawing his hands to his chest to furtively look between them and where Kell stood a ways off, chatting with Marie.

His hands, tanned from his recent days in the sun, were now splotched with white, the blotches creeping up his wrists - as deep as his hands had sunk into that bucket of sea water. (How could he have forgotten - ?) If it was discoloration alone, maybe no one would notice - save for Misha, who might check them despite having removed the last of the bandages days ago -

But his hands were changed, even from just a short submergence.

Webbing had crept up from between his fingers, stretching as he flexed his hand and hanging loose between the digits as he curled his hands smaller. His nails too had changed, thick and dark and no longer bitten back to the nailbeds. It hurt - but it would hurt a lot more once someone noticed, when someone told the captain -

He needed to take care of this. Quickly.

Otherwise the captain would cut him - just as the Lieutenant always had - but maybe, just maybe if he did it himself, it wouldn’t hurt so badly. (He couldn’t stomach the thought of Captain Flint, the first soft hands he had known in so long, turning a blade on him. Finding out he was a monster - )

(“Do you really think anyone could love something like you?”)

Finn, for all his newfound confidence, hadn’t lost his skills forged on the Lieutenant’s ship. Kell didn’t even realize he had left, seal skin boots soft and his slight frame easily dipping between the sun glare and shadows to slip below deck. There it was even easier - almost no one was here during the day - and at that thought he paused, eyes drawn to the cargo hold’s door.

(He could almost still smell it, still feel it under his fingers - no. Not yet. He couldn’t get caught stealing. Not without a way to escape - and the sea was not an escape he could risk. Not here, in the open ocean.)

The kitchen was empty, last night’s stew kept at a low simmer over dying coals. The kitchen wouldn’t be empty forever; it was almost time for Friar to make his rounds with water and a midday snack of dried fruit and meat for the crew. Finn had to work quickly.

He pulled a knife from the work table, stumbling back as the ship pitched beneath his feet, but reeling forward to splay a webbed hand on the table. He suddenly realized he was panting, adrenaline rushing into his shaking hands, tears welling in his eyes. No matter how many times the Lieutenant carved away the webbing, it always came back. It always hurt. And it always would. He needed to learn to do this himself, to take care of himself. And that meant making sure no one found out what he really was.

(What was he?)

He could do this.

The first cut, run along his left index finger, bled more than he remembered. The webbing too seemed thicker, more resistant. Or maybe he was just starting to shake, nauseous and lightheaded from pain. He moved the knife to the opposite side of the webbing, along his middle finger. Black spots started to float across his vision, a strangled whine in his throat as tears fell freely. One section was almost done - he just needed to cut the base, the meeting spot between those fingers…

His world flashed white as he finally cut away the last sinews of flesh, the pain exhausting and the thought of cutting another section of webbing away was almost impossible to fathom. But he had to - he had to or else someone would see, someone else would cut him -

And he couldn’t fathom anyone on this ship hurting him the way the Lieutenant hurt him, not without shattering this fragile dream of safety.

As long as he was the one to do this, no one else had to.

He started on the opposite side of his left middle finger, vision blurry with tears and fading gray. Just - just a few more and then he could…find Misha. Tell Misha that he had been clumsy. Careless. Blisters or something. Something - a good excuse -

He was stalling. Finn pressed the blade down and bit his tongue until he tasted blood, but a sob still wracked through him as he continued to cut.

He had almost finished his left hand when footsteps clattered down the ladder, boots against the boards as someone stalked the lower deck.

Already? Friar shouldn’t have come back so soon - he thought he had more time -

“Finn? Finn are you - fucking Blackblood kid, you scared me. Thought you…” Kell’s voice trailed off, and Finn felt his hands go (blessedly) numb, even as he continued to grip the knife. “Finn. Finn, put down the knife. Now.”

He was - he was so close he just - he just needed to finish and - and somehow - somehow cut his right hand and everything would go back to the way it had been. Finn brought the knife down quickly, a flush of nausea heating his cheeks as the last chunk of webbing was severed from between his pink and ring finger. He was shaking too hard, the knife thankfully wedged into the table under his hand - he would have dropped it otherwise.

(“You got a da around?” Friar’s voice from the other day seemed to echo mockingly in his every hollow sob.)

Kell was yelling at him, walking up behind him - surely about to hit him or - or finish the other hand -

(It would be easier if someone helped with his other hand.)

Finn shuddered, knees giving out as the ship crested another wave. The table was slick with blood - his blood, and the adrenaline was still keeping his hands clumsy and numb. Finn sobbed, keeping his cut hand flat on the table and reaching his other up to splay beside it.

He didn’t care if they made it hurt more, or salted, or burned the cuts - he just needed Kell to finish it so he could - so he could stop thinking about how much his hands hurt.

The shock of Kell dropping to their knees and wrapping him in a hug, muttering panicked and desperate comforts, made even that pain far away.

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