The Pirate King Ch. 18

He caught my gaze and winced, a darkness settling behind his features. "I'm not going to tie you up as punishment, love. Never that. Okay? I just." Love, my heart beat. Love, love, love. "I just need some space."

I nodded, relief fluttering in my chest and making my waters shake.

"I can find somewhere else if it's easier, I don't want to make you -"

"No," I interrupted him. He was the Captain. These were the Captain's quarters. "I'll sleep in the riggings."

His frown was so natural, so ordinary, that I settled into it without thinking. "Isn't that uncomfortable?"

I shrugged. I found it as comfortable as a bed, more so than some, but the reasons why were complicated and confusing even to me and so I simply told him, "I'm used to it."

His frown deepened. "I don't think I like these things that you are used to."

I shifted, not sure what he meant by that. "It is not so bad," I tried to explain. "I like it."

He frowned further at me, and I found myself inexplicably smiling. It was in the way his brows furrowed, I think. How he carried his worry so physically, so tactilely. So right. "Don't worry about me," I told him softly. "I'll be fine, my love."

His face was on the way towards gentling when he ripped his body away from me, his hand returning to his curls as if their errant paths were the thing leading him astray. "Fuck," I heard him say towards the wall. "Fuck."

I turned without another word and let myself out of the room.

***

It felt good to be on deck, to be in the fresh air of the night. The sky welcomed me with open arms, the stars hidden from my view by dark clouds but still I pretended I could hear their voices. Minnie always used to tell me that the stars sung to those who were hurt, that the voice of a constellation could heal any wound.

I listened that night so carefully that I was sure I could hear every refrain.

I could not get to sleep right away, not with the buzzing of what had happened that day, the knowledge of my family so recently left, my lover alone in his room. The stars above singing for me. And so I settled myself on a beam and looked out over the waves. First back towards home, where Val might be yet and where Sybil certainly still was, where the cracks of the world slowly stretched. The birthplace of the end. Where I had built my home. And then I looked towards the East, where the Cave of Sapphires glittered in the night, where Cass would be holding conference with fishermen and fae and merfolk, where whales in need of friendship came to teach and learn songs from sirens who had come for a healing potion and ended up staying the night, or the week, or the year. Where the tea was better than anywhere else in the world. Where I had found a home before I had needed one built, where I was taught all the things that a home was supposed to be. Where I had learned what was possible, that a home was possible. And then I looked North, where a ship sailed, massive and imposing and held aloft as much by fable as by its framework, captained by a man who had killed me and hurt my love and where more lies and truths lay than I ever wanted to touch. A place where I doubted more and more every day my home had ever existed.

Home, I thought. Home is a strange thing when you are the ocean. Home is a delicate concept when it relies just as much on those around you as it does on the place.

"Penny?" Sneg asked. I hadn't noticed them climbing up, so entrenched was I in my musings. I looked askance at them, unsure what they meant.

"Penny for your thoughts," they expanded, settling beside me on the beam.

"My thoughts are worth more than a penny."

Sneg laughed. "It's a land saying, man. And no one's thoughts are worth more than a penny." They smiled over at me, nearly glowing in the soft light that finds its way into the night, strands of brightness catching on their long braid like moths. "So, what were you thinking about?"

I saw no reason to lie, not to someone with so many ways of listening. "Home," I told them.

"Heavy concept."

"Aye."

We sat in the quiet of the stars song for a bit. Perhaps Sneg thought of their home, burned down by men who believed they had dominion over the wars of the gods. Perhaps they thought of the ways in which they had created new homes in places I had never been, with people I would never meet. I do not know. I did not ask. I listened for the stars and would have been content to continue doing so, but Sneg again began to speak.

"Have you spoken to the Captain?"

I nodded.

"And?"

I shrugged.

Sneg nodded empathetically, a small noise of agreement coming from their lips. "Is that why you're out here?"

"He asked for space." I was the one with space. I thought for a moment of him alone in that room, that bed, his words and mine still mingling on the floorboards and getting caught up in the linens, crawling over his skin without the soft caress of starlight to press them from his mind...

"He'll come around."

I shrugged again. He would, he needed to, he had to or my world was no longer mine, but that did not mean I could bring myself to agree out loud. My stomach tied in knots sitting so close to the possibilities and it made me want to fight a demon.

But Sneg seemed unconcerned. "He will. I mean, I was pissed at you for summoning me back to the sea, and I was even more pissed at you for making me deal with Yarrick, but hey, look at us now. And I like you, sure, but I don't love you. Love moves mountains, that's another land saying. A good one, though. Love moves mountains, love changes the maps of the stars. And you two love each other." I did not respond, but instead thought of how the Captain had not even been able to smile at me as I had left his room. He was so angry, so lost. It did not seem good to change a map when you needed it for your basic navigation. I was not so sure that moving mountains was always such good thing for the land.

"It'll be alright." Sneg placed a small, pale hand over mine comfortingly. "You'll see."

"How do you know?"

"One, because the love that you two have is so fantastic it's almost disgusting. I traveled with a troupe for a year and you two make their love ballads read like merchant reports. Two, because if it doesn't work out I'm pretty sure you'll each independently tear the world apart. And you might know where the cracks lie, all the maps to the pressure points and how to not become overwhelmed, and you might have a hell of a witch on your side, but I wouldn't put it past the Captain to beat you to it. He seems the determined type." I turned to Sneg, frustrated by their flippancy, but they merely grinned and patted my hand again. "He's determined. He's not going to let you just walk away, or if he does I'll beat his ass until he sees reason because I'm not dealing with any more of your angst than I have to. Either way, it'll turn out." Sneg's grin turned into something softer, something closer to a smile, and I found myself relaxing. "Trust. It's going to be alright."

Trust. I felt the stars on my skin, and trust just above that. If I could obtain the stars, why should I not be able to obtain trust?

"Okay," I told Sneg. "Trust."

They patted my hand one last time. "Get some sleep. You must be exhausted."

I nodded as they began to slide off the beam, their feet searching for footing among the ropes. "Sneg?"

They looked up just at the clouds broke. The moon shone down, catching on their face like wisps, casting their face in cold light and making them look like a light source themself. Like a ghost.

"Thank you," I told them quietly. Thank you for everything.

They grinned, flashed me a quick thumbs up, and dropped towards the deck.

***

It was a few hours more before I allowed myself to turn to rest. The moon came out periodically, checking on me and lighting the deck below, but I preferred the darkness. The semi-gloom of clouded night, the light drifting by on warm currents. In that space I found solitude and the type of quiet that held the ever-present noises that gave me peace.

When I finally laid down, it was to the gentle hum of wind through the ropes, the quiet creak of the ship, the lap of water against her hull. The singing of the stars. All of these things swirled around me, filling the emptiness and keeping me from loneliness.

And then, the sudden vibration, the twang of ropes beneath my form that told me someone was climbing towards me. This, this was why I slept like this so often, so exposed, so safe for I always knew when someone approached, the weight, how they climbed, who it might be, and so I sat bolt upright and felt my heart begin to take off because I knew who was coming up those ropes but I did not know why.

When the Captain reached me, I was waiting.

"Hey." He leaned against the nest I had made, eyes critical.

I did not know how to respond, and so I sat, silent, in the music of the night sky and the beauty of his gaze.

"Will that thing hold me too?"

I nodded. It was not a matter of weight, but rather a matter of space -

"Good." He pushed himself into the ropes, entering my space with such speed he knocked me back. I grabbed onto him automatically, keeping him from the larger holes and settling him where it was safe, where it was comfortable. Where it was best for him.

Which, in such a small space, turned out to be pressed against my chest and neck, his legs entangled with mine. My heart beat; my hands shook. "Captain," I began.

He cut me off. "Couldn't sleep." His hand came up to rest on my shoulder, a light touch that pushed all the breath from my body. "Room's so fucking empty without you." His fingers traced gently over my skin. "Is this okay?" he asked, his voice hesitant.

I nodded, then realized he wouldn't be able to see the movement from where his head lay nestled in my neck. "Yes."

He let out his breath in a whoosh that raised goosebumps all over my skin. "Good." His fingers traced over my shoulder again and I shuddered. "Good."

We laid there in silence, the kind of light that exists in clouded nights trailing over our bodies. My heart beating fast in my ears. The Captain's fingers on my skin.

"I was worried you'd be angry with me," he said, a quiet statement that caught me by surprise.

I had not thought I had a right to be angry. I was in the wrong here. Wasn't I? "Why would I be?"

"For. I did not treat you with respect."

I shifted, my arm wrapping around his back, holding him because it was needed but also because I was too afraid still to touch him in any other way. My other hand hovered close to his chest but I held it at bay, held it back with the power of guilt and care and trepidation. "You were angry. You had a right to be."

"Please don't -" He took a quick breath in. "Why are you making excuses for me? I had no right to act like that. I can be mad at you, I can be pissed that you lied to me but. Fuck, I threw something at you, Sailor. I said the cruelest fucking things for no reason at all. How can you act so calm around me still?" He ducked his head into my chest, so close to my heart I was sure he was listening. "How are you not indescribably angry with me, knowing the shit that went through my head? The way I thought about you?"

Could he not feel the way my heart beat for him? Could he not hear how the thought of him fearing me, that those were thoughts he held in his body and not just words he hurled at mine, tore my breath to shreds? "Do you think of me like that now?"

"Of course not." My lungs, oh my grateful lungs. "I might not know what to think, not really, and my whole body is fucked and my head is fucked and I don't know what I'm supposed to do with any of this information but." His fingers tightened on my skin for a moment. "I know I trust you. I have to trust you."

My hand made its own way to his chest, closed the gap while I was distracted by his words and I felt the way that made him lose his breath, just that small touch, watched his eyes flutter closed and relief seep over his face and that made me need to touch him more, need for him to know he was safe, we were safe, that everything was going to be okay and so I lowered my head until it rested on his, my neck craning until I could bury my face into his hair.

"Love," he whispered, his grip pulling me closer. I said nothing with my words and everything with the way I tightened my own grasp, holding him, breathing him in.

We existed. We clung. We rocked there in the night sky, danced over by threads of errant moonlight and the kinds of songs you aren't supposed to hear.

"You're shaking," he said quietly. It was true; I had not gained control of my body, not fully. I took another breath of him and felt how that settled like a weight in my limbs, made me feel almost steady. "Why are you shaking?"

I paused before answering, unsure how to say what I needed him to hear. "You scared me."

"Fuck." He immediately attempted to pull away from my form. "Fuck, I fucking knew -"

"Love." I hadn't let him go far, mostly for fear of him dislodging from the riggings and falling to the deck. He was not looking at me, eyes cast to the side and brows drawn down. I knew what he was reacting to, my words having been as always too careless. "I was not afraid of you."

He drew his eyes up to me slowly.

"I was scared," I began again, hoping this time I could get this right, that my words would be what I needed them to be, that they would come out as I asked and not as some other force decreed, "but not that you would hurt me. I know you wouldn't do that." He looked away again, and I fought to bring his gaze back to me. "Not like that, my love. If you ever hurt me like that you would never forgive yourself."

I knew it was true even as I said it, although I had never had the occasion to think such a thing previously. Of course the Captain would not hurt me, not like that. Not without destroying himself. It was true and then I said it; I saw him collect my truth on his skin and breathed a quiet sigh of relief as his eyes again raised to mine.

"I was scared," I continued, "that you would hurt yourself." I swallowed, seeing the guilt building in his eyes even as I tried to dispel it. Worrying that the next words, so true, so raw, would not help. "I was scared that you hated me for things I had no control over. That the stories had done to you what they did to so many others, that you would hear others words and judge me for actions that were not my own." Or perhaps my own, or, or. Or. His eyes were so dark I could not see them in the night. They swallowed light and my words alike and did not allow any of it to escape. "I was scared that I might lose you."

I felt how his breath shuddered as he ducked his head back into my chest. "Never," he told my skin. My soul. "You'll never lose me."

And something within me softened at his words, and my own breath shuddered as my lungs took them in, and I knew, I knew they were the truth. It was true and then he said it. What more proof did I need? "I love you," I told him.

He was quiet in my arms for some time after that. "I don't want you to forgive me so easily."

It was too late. It was done. I ran a hand down his back and listened to his breath.

"I haven't forgiven you. You lied to me, you kept information from me. You knew things about me that you shouldn't have and you didn't give me anything in return. I don't know what I'm most mad about of all the things, that you didn't tell me you were King, that you didn't tell me your brother was King, that I didn't put it together a long time ago from all the fucking clues I had. I'm so mad. At you, at myself, at fucking Cookie because he seems to know shit, at Natch even though I know he knows nothing. At everyone. At the fucking world." My hand had stilled; my body waited, my mind empty, for whatever it was that he might say next. "How aren't you angry?"

I thought about that for a moment. "I still have you."

"And it's that easy? You can just move on?"

"No." Because I had not moved on, could not. Moving on was a physicality, and my body still held flecks of anxiety in my shaking fingers, my hesitant hands. My only recently calming heart.

"Then why are you acting like you have?"

"Because." Because it had to be. Because I could not live if it were not. Because my body might know things but my soul could fight my body for years and come to no conclusion, and I knew this with the certainty of practice.

"Because what?"

"I do not know how to put it in words."

He sighed softly into my neck. "Will you try? For me?"

For him, anything. I looked out into the stars, listened to their song. Took some time to put the words in an order that made sense.

"For a long time I was alone. I had Val. Everyone else was someone that might kill me or someone I might have to kill." Val was supposed to be like that. It had been my father telling me to kill Val that had caused his own death.

In the end he had not been a god, as much as he had spoken as though he was and tried to hold power in his hands like bullwhips. He had been a man, and he had died in the night at the hands of children. His death was legend and no one knew his name.

"Val left the sea," I continued. "And then I was alone, and all I had was the ocean. And that was fine and I thought I was happy. And then I found you." And my world became complete all in an instant, and my body had known that and my brain had not allowed it for days. But in the end I had known. How could I not? This, this was completion. I pulled the Captain closer and felt him press his lips to my neck. "And I was not alone anymore."

"And this is why you're so quick to forgive?"

I was quiet for a moment. "I can't lose you." To be alone again would be alright, I could survive. But to be without the Captain...

His arms tightened around me like moonlight, like starsong. "I told you," he murmured into my neck. The words slipped down into my lungs, gathered there and swirled. "You won't. We can fight, we can be angry, we can be at odds. You won't get rid of me. I'm not going anywhere."

I held him close and let his words settle. Felt my body believe.

"Please don't drink anymore."

I think the Captain was as surprised by my words as I was; I felt the pause they gave him in the hitch of breath against my neck. "What?"

"You hurt yourself when you drink. We fight."

"We didn't fight last time I drank."

"No," I agreed. "You nearly burnt my brother's brothel down instead."

The Captain was silent for a moment. "Do we need to do this now?"

I lay silent. Hoping he would just agree and this would be over.

"Please, Sailor. I'm exhausted. Let's just sleep."

I nodded, and the Captain sighed in what sounded like relief but could have been exhaustion. He began to shift, moving to get out of the hammock I had made. "Alright. Let's get to bed."

The noises he made as I held him tight brought a smile to my lips. "Sailor, let's go. I'm tired."

I shook my head, happy where we were. The Captain took in my face, the smile just beneath my lips. His eyes roved past my face down all the way to the hard wooden deck.

"Oh," he said, his voice sullen. "Hell no."

I pulled his body back down into me, noticing how he did not fight his downward trajectory. I heard disgruntled noises coming from his throat as I settled him beside me.

"It is entirely too far up in the air," he told my cheek. I corded a hand through his hair and marveled at my capability to do so.

His breathing settled against mine as I ran my hand again and again through his long black curls. The clouds had long ago parted, revealing the night sky in all its glory. I held it there in my arms.

"Can you hear it?" I asked the Captain. "Can you hear the stars' songs?"

"You want a song?" his voice came back, held just steady as sleep threatened to turn it to wisps of ideas and currents of half-remembered interests. "Christ, Sailor. Fucking demanding." More ideas than words, that time. Less remembered and more felt. "Fine, then. But only for you."