Marcos Prescott | 26 | He/Him | Sailor
M: Cam
“Prescott.”
Marcos shifted in his dazed state, squeezing his eyes tighter in hopes he would be allowed to sleep in. He wrapped his bandage around his left arm a bit too tight last night— that or some mold or creature had gotten into the fabric he used— and his arm ached with an itch that kept him awake. Other than the redness of his arm and rough texture of the hammock, the only thing Marcos felt was heavy bags under his eyes that dragged on his face. He desperately wanted to go back to sleep but he could just hear the grating voice of Archie going: “Prescott…”
“Archie, leave ‘im be, will ya?” Chris huffed softly. “Let the guy sleep in.”
“Well, he’s gotten plenty of sleep this week and his lazy ass needs to get up already,” Archie growled back as Marcos could just picture his face wrinkle with anger at Chris, his freckles scrunching together. Archie’s heavy footsteps collided with the wood by Marcos’s bed. Marcos could practically hear his enraged, boar-like breathing before the man started clapping right into his ear. “Prescott! Wake the fuck up already!”
Startled from his half-asleep state, Marcos shot up from the loud, sudden sound. His body was rigid for a moment before he turned, glared at Archie, and whacked him in the side of the ribs. Archie gave a pathetic sound in either shock or pain (despite Marcos barely tapping him). Like a toddler, Archie shoved Marcos and stomped over to his hammock on the other side of the ship’s cabin, muttering to himself about how “ungrateful” and “useless” Marcos was. Marcos just sighed and propped himself up on the backboard of the bed, lazily taking in the room’s messiness.
Marcos had only been with this new crew for a bit yet the room Marcos shared with the crew already threw his things in wildly different directions. Rations, supplies, and ammunition was strewn about so much so that Marcos’s shirt was somewhere lost in one of the piles of belongings Marcos had no energy to search. Hammock placement had been rearranged so Chris was the mediator of the other two warring men in the room with a few other hammocks of other crew members also in between as meat shields. This was fortunate in some regards in that the sun was coming through the porthole on Archie’s end, furthest from Marcos, but this also placed most of the random piles of important things further from Marcos’s grasp.
Chris sat with his legs crossed under the off-white sheets of his hammock with odd stains from never being washed. Chris was the only one fully dressed out of the three of them in the cabin and he seemed the most ready with an air of freshness permeating from him. He looked almost regal as he adjusted his pristine glasses and pushed his neatly combed brown hair out of his face while looking down at the map on his bed. Half-naked like Marcos, Archie was picking clothes off the floor by him and putting them on his hammock, but the room was still an insurmountable mess. The sun peering through the window above Archie’s hammock only made the mess of the room more apparent as it highlighted all the areas that needed cleaning, including Archie’s mess of a red tuff he called “hair.” Marcos could not make sense of his actions, maybe he was looking for a particular shirt or he was genuinely trying to make the room better, but he was poorly failing at both. Committing to not moving his body, Marcos did up his belt, vowing to search for his shirt and coat later, and reached into the satchel beside the bed to pull out a hunk of wood and a small knife.
“Sooo—” Chris interrupted the silence as he looked up from the rustic map over at Marcos with a smile— “did you get all the beauty sleep ya needed?”
A chuckle left Marcos’s lips. “Yeah, but I don’t think I got enough to make up for those of us who ain’t got any beauty.” Archie’s sunburnt face met Marcos’s as Marcos nodded in his direction, causing Chris’s to snicker.
“That ‘pposed to be funny, Prescott?”
“It is. It ain’t as funny as your face though, that’s for sure,” Marcos retorted with a smirk, not looking up from hewing the wood in his hand. He loved how easily his bad insults got under Archie’s skin.
“Christ, you’re annoying…,” Archie muttered with a scowl, roughly throwing the shirt he had just picked up down on the hammock so much so that it nearly swung around in a whole circle.
“Aww, is someone grumpy?~” Marcos purred. Marcos could practically hear Archie’s blood veins popping as he placed a foot on the floor and rocked himself in the hammock. Marcos’s smirk only grew. “Chris, I think the baby needs to go down for a nap because he’s starting to throw a tantrum.”
“Shut your trap, Prescott!”
“Hey, he’s just joking around… Let’s not—”
“‘Let’s not’ what, Chris?” Archie barked as he spun around to properly face Marcos and Chris. “Let’s not fight? Let’s not be a dickwad? Let’s not what?” Archie threw his hands up as he waited for an answer from Chris. As Chris averted his gaze, Archie turned his blue-eyed gaze to Marcos. “Because I sure as hell can assure you that Marcos already did whatever you’re about to say.” Archie began walking towards Marcos’s hammock, causing Chris to stand off his hammock in anticipation and Marcos to look up in his direction. “Anytime you say ‘let’s not,’ it’s when you tell me, someone you’ve known for years, to lay off on a slacker with a bad mouth.” Archie stood over Marcos, glaring down at him as his shadow blocked the warm light of the window. “You’re just defending a soulless, son of a pirate!”
Marcos instantly stood up and got right in Archie’s face. Marcos’s green eyes seeped with poisonous anger as he whispered: “Repeat that again. I dare you.”
There was a second of silence.
“You’re only researchin’ the disappearance of sailors for money. You’re no better than the man everyone knows is your father, Prescott. You’re a greedy, self-serving, self-righteous pir—”
“Okay, guys, how about we not do this right now, alright?” Chris chuckled nervously, stepping between them as he placed a hand on both their chests and pushed them apart like magnets that were clawing towards each other. Chris looked at Marcos with kind eyes yet Marcos never took his eyes off his opponent. “Marcos, we wanted to wake you up since we are stopping in town and stretching our legs before we head out. Did you want to get out for a bit of fresh air and dry land?”
There was another second of silence.
“It’d be my pleasure,” Marcos hissed, his words like venom for the daggers he was glaring at Archie.
Picking up his shirt, coat, swords, gun, and satchel, Marcos left the room and slammed the door behind him.
Cam was the first he found and not entirely on purpose. Marcos just wanted to walk along the beach of the island to cool off. It was not exactly fun to wake up to Archie of all people. Of course, deep down Marcos knew he was part of the problem but Archie was just so damn aggravating.
Regardless, Cam was the one he found first because, as he was walking past the fish stalls and crowded docks, he spotted her swimming in the water.
Cam looked genuinely happy as Marcos sat on the docks. Stripping off his tall black boots and socks, Marcos dipped his feet in the water, undoing his scabbarded that weighed him down. Marcos leaned on the damp, rotting, wooden railing of the dock and smiled.
Marcos felt bad for bothering Cam, but he did have questions to ask. Questions that he did not get answered by Chris after Archie decided to not be able to take a joke. After a moment of letting her swim more, Marcos cupped his hands to his mouth.
”Hey Cam!” Marcos called. “Can you come in for a second when you’re done? I need to talk to you!”