Love is a wonderful ever-lasting thing, but sex is fun for the moment.
-The great philosopher and Daughter of Love, Emie of Ameros, 1022 BA.

Sailors always provided great entertainment when he occasionally travelled with them. Sure, they told stories, sang, danced, and no one can out drink a sailor, but, as far as Flynn was concerned, the sex was the main attraction.

Flynn pulled the sailor down by his collar and kissed him. Well, it was less a kiss and more of an excuse to smash their mouths together, teeth clashing, tongues wrestling in a clumsy, hurried frenzy. A meeting of two lonely, frustrated people who had no-one else for the night.

They were in the depths of a ship, ignoring the sound of raucous festivities and the thump of dancing feet against the deck above their heads. The sailor gripped his hips and hoisted him up, pressing his back against the rough wooden wall. There's a nail digging into his back and a bunch of splinters, but the stranger's mouth was on his neck, nibbling, sucking and licking up from his collar bone to under his jaw, leaving a trail of bruises, so he didn't even notice.

The sailor hoisted Flynn up again, and he wrapped his legs around the stranger's waist and gripped the sailor's shirt to steady himself. The sailor's ministrations got more insistent, and his callused hands roamed the length of Flynn's back, finally settling on his ass to prop him up as he stepped back from the wall.

The swaying boat and drunkenness made the sailor's path down the corridor with Flynn in his arms unsteady, but he made it to his room well enough and unlatched the door. The room was tiny, with just enough space for a small bed where he, rather unceremoniously, dumped Flynn before hurriedly undressing. His shirt was the first to go, and Flynn was not disappointed; the sailor was well defined, displaying a strength gained from a lifetime of hard labour on the sea.

The sailors joined him on the bed next, helping Flynn out of his tunic, leaving behind a few tears in the fabric.

"Wait," Flynn interjected as he snaked his fingers through the stranger's coarse brown hair, tugging slightly.

"What?" The sailor asked gruffly as his hands paused over Flynn's belt.

"I never caught your name."

The sailor barked out a surprised laugh. "Don't you think it's a little too late for that?"

"Well, how else will I know who's name I might be screaming out tonight?" Flynn asked as he pulled the sailor closer by his hair, not particularly gently.

"Might?"

"It depends on how well you do tonight."

The sailor chuckled again and leaned in to press a quick, hard kiss to Flynn's mouth. "Fair enough," he said as he pulled back. "My name's Lyam."

"Flynn," he supplied before Lyam could ask.

"Now that that's out of the way," Lyam said as he pulled down Flynn's trousers and undergarments. "Onto more important things."

The sailor isn't the best he'd ever had, but Flynn supposed he'd had worse. He wasn't too gentle, but he wasn't too rough either. He wasn't too quick nor was he a paragon of stamina. Overall, Flynn would say it was an average performance, but good enough to get him off so he supposed that was all that really mattered. Flynn supposed he could do worse. Lyam rolled off him and quickly fell asleep. Drowsy from ale and wonderfully strenuous activity, Flynn soon joined him.

Waking up with a hangover wasn't very new for Flynn, and neither was waking up in a stranger's bed, but he's never drunkenly woken up on a boat this far out to sea before or with clothes quite this fancy on the floor. The swaying wasn't helping his nausea or dizziness, and the snoring coming from the other side of the bed was making his headache worse.

Flynn silently picked his clothes up off the floor, not wanting to wake the sleeping sailor. If there was anything less pleasant than a snoring bedmate, it's one that might feel the need to make awkward small talk. He sneaked out of the cramped cabin and onto the rest of the upper deck, pulling his shirt collar up to cover his hickies. The upper deck was a busy swarm of sailors and deckhands, running to and from their tasks. Flynn weaved through the chaos, ignoring the way the cacophony of noise made the thumping in his head worse and entered the galley. The only hot meal the chef offered was gruel, so Flynn grabbed an orange from the ship's pantry and peeled it with his dagger.

He climbed up to the quarter deck and leaned against the mast, basking in the sunlight and wind as people worked around him, carrying cargo, pulling ropes and doing all the other things that kept the ship running.

His sister found him before he found her, appearing behind him like a silent ghost. "This ship is fucking boring."

Flynn didn't jump when she suddenly appeared behind him and spoke, he was used to her sneaking up on him. "I can't say the same for myself, but I can see where you're coming from."

Fianna grimaced, green eyes squinting in minor disgust. "Sailors are gross."

Fianna didn't say anything else, she just leaned on the lip of the ship next to him and started sharpening her arrows. Flynn didn't rush to fill the silence, he was used to sitting in quiet contemplation with Fianna, but eventually he couldn't ignore the current, glaring issue.

"Have you decided yet?" Flynn asked breaking the uncomfortable silence.

"I can't just leave Ameros behind."

"Why not? We're the only thing keeping each other there."

"The temple-"

"-is using us as much as we're using them."