#i am SO tired i honestly cant think of any etiquette thign i might want to check i did right. and u can tell im tired because im hardcore

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hey ofmd fandom. have a writing warmup that turned out alright Jim/Oluwande post s1 stuff for a "fear" prompt. hope u like <3

Finding their way back to the ship was no relief, even when they were all allowed on board again—all but Stede. Which meant that most of the other outcasts had stuck to him, but… he had been unable to. Not with Jim stuck there.

They were, perhaps, the scariest part of all this. Now, this should not have been a surprise: Jim’s homicidal potential had been long established, and their mere presence should, by all means, have been enough to make anyone uneasy. But of course, they were also his partner, the tender wolf kissing his cheekbones and stroking his neck where the pulse would always jump into disarray. Oluwande trusted them to be on his side, as much as he trusted their competence with a knife. He had seen it first hand many times—ghost-quiet, a spirit made of sharp wind. They would have that steely stability of absolute focus in the way they moved that reminded him of a buzzard. It had been hot to look at, many times. One cannot overstate the pull of attraction of a very dangerous creature that knows what it is that they are doing, and are oh-so-good at it.

Or so you would think.

In this new context, Jim was in that state of keen battlefield awareness, perpetually. The enticement was gone; instead, Oluwande felt a mixture of sadness and dread, topped with the occasional spikes of terror that had him reevaluate his ability to swim. Jim looked tired. A few thin lines of stress had been permanently folded into the sides of their eyes. Another ran up the space between their eyebrows. Their jaw had a constant tension in it, like the next punch could hit at any point.

(To be fair to them, they had been hiding it exceptionally well. The only reason that Olu had noticed at all, was because he spent such an inordinate amount of time and energy paying attention to them.)

The implications were frightening.