Not really.

This sort of thing happened all the time, right?  And it wasn't like they were planning on growing old together: Starkey wasn't a fluff, and he knew Mason wasn't either.  The carpenter used to have a fiance, for Christ's sake.  Evelyn or Emily or Erin or something, some silly name that had made Starkey think of this little blonde thing he'd met in Spain a few years ago (if he could just remember HER name...)

There ought to be more women in Neverland.  That was the problem.  All he needed was a soft curvy thing, with long hair and a smooth chin, and a dress laced up so tight you thought she might pop out the top before you made it up to the room.  Who cares what she cost so long as she had something up top and nothing down below?  I mean, ANYONE would get a little twisted around having to live in such close quarters with six other men, with the nearest lady god-knew how many miles away over sea.

What he'd give for something with breasts.

Other than Cookson.

(Why did that thought make becoming a eunuch suddenly so appealing?)

He ought to blame Hook as much as anyone, he supposed.  If the damned fool would stop his mission of revenge and let them get the hell out of here they'd have been back along the Mediterranean, terrorizing legal ships and womanizing on the coast of Spain.  Then he would never have had to notice the fact Mason didn't keep his shirt on when he was hewing out new planks, and he would never have even wondered where he got that scar under his arm or how a hammer and saw could put that kind of muscle on his back.

And just because Mason was the brawniest man on board, and he just HAPPENED to be the problem, didn't make Starkey a fluff!  He was just lonely and Mason was his best friend, and weren't friends supposed to love each other anyway?

Not THAT way.  Damn it.

Okay, so it's not like we're talking about love here, we're not even talking about lust.  Starkey knew the difference because he had done both many times in his lifetime and it they weren't the same thing.  Lust was that thing you spent money on or at the very least left before her father wondered what was going on up there and came to break a chair over your head.  Love was that thing that made you come back the next day and the day after that and the day after that.  Besides, love always had a flare of the dramatic and there was nothing dramatic here.  It wasn't as though they'd started blushing whenever they got near each other, or had awkward moments in conversation.  Starkey didn't even get that fluttered, panicked, weightless feeling in his chest when Mason got too close.

Maybe it was what WASN'T there that was the problem.  Like the nagging discomfort that always made him put his clothes back on and mumble a red faced excuse before bolting the girl's bedroom afterwards.  Like the fact that if someone had woken up and wondered why they weren't in their bunks, and maybe had the insight to check the lower cargo hold, he SHOULD have put his clothes back on and bolted.  Mason had actually had to wake him up to go back to the crew quarters.  Starkey NEVER fell asleep.  It was just because Starkey had been tired that day; he would have fallen asleep tied to the mizzenmast, the fact he fell asleep with his head on a carpenter's chest didn't mean anything.

Okay, so maybe he hadn't been THAT tired that day, but still, he'd just fallen asleep.

It wasn't like he loved him or anything.

Not really.