The Pirate King Ch. 23

I turned my head in his grasp, slipping through his fingers until I kissed his thumb lightly. We stayed there, looking at each other. Then his eyes darkened and he smiled a smile that made my hair stand on end with anticipation. His finger caught in my lip as he turned away. I watched him for a only a moment before hastening to undress.

I heard him moving around the room, dropping clothes and curses wherever he saw fit. I didn't pay him much attention because I was focused on making myself as desirable as possible for his return; my clothes off, a pillow beneath me for support. My ass up and legs spread, for him. I knew the moment he turned and saw me, heard it in the long pause and then the quick, heavy footsteps coming my way. I shivered in anticipation and spread my legs a bit further.

He was on me in what felt like an instant, his body covering mine as best it could. His hand grabbed my hair, pulling my head back to sit next to his, his breath hot in my ear. "This is going to be fast," he told me, words raw and breath ragged. His finger was already in my ass. I moaned to feel him within me. "You know how I love to play with you, tease you." Another finger already; it hurt, the pain blossoming out into pleasure as he finger fucked me roughly. His mouth was pressed tight up against my skin; he did not seem in control of his hips, bucking against me, his cock sliding between my legs and rubbing against my own. "But Sailor, I need to fuck you."

I was already lost to him; to his touch, his control, the delicious cycle of pain pleasure pain pleasure his fingers in my hair and ass directed of me. He yanked my hair up, pulling my skin away from his. Just as I was beginning to understand the motion enough to mourn the loss, he pulled my head sideways and pressed his lips into mine.

I kissed him back as best I could, unable to contain the noises his hands were forcing from my lungs. He licked up my moans and cries, biting my lips around them, panting in time with his thrusts.

My body, already half twisted by his rough handling, began to fall to the side. He took advantage of my imbalance and pushed me all the way to my back. He didn't pause to tease, didn't pause at all, but instead thrust his cock deep into my ass.

We gasped together. He stopped there, his cock fully inside me. Me laying beneath him, unraveled. Him above me, wondrous. He placed his hand on my neck, gently tracing his thumb under my chin. His touch felt like lightning. I know he could feel the effect he had on me, his eyes fluttering shut.

When they opened again, they contained eternities. "I fucking love you," he said, with awe, with hunger, with the kind of violence our love demands.

And then he fucked me.

The ocean stretched above us; the sky opened fathomless beneath our bed. We upended the world. He had his arms wrapped around my head, his face buried in my neck. My fingers dug into his ass, pulling him into me harder and harder with every thrust. I could vaguely hear him speaking, feel his words falling upwards in the gravity we had created, past his lips, his chin, to spill over my face tasting of lust and need.

"-come, baby," I heard him say. "Need you to come." I had been on the edge ever since he had first touched me; I told him that with noises and a hand raking down his back. He hissed in my ear at the pain. His nails trailed down my chest in return and I cried out in rapture. He fumbled for a moment, our bodies too close to make things easy, but he lifted from me slightly and took hold of my cock in his hand.

His touch was all I needed. I came all over our stomachs, his hand working me even after I had finished. Cries leaked from my mouth at the mix of sensations, his hand on my overly sensitive cock, his cock pounding at my ass, his fingers again pulling at my hair. The Captain kept me in this blissful torture only for a few moments, his release not far behind my own. He thrust within me deep one last time, his hand in my hair pulling my head back hard, his eyes on the lines I made for him. I felt him shudder above me. I saw the eternity of his eyes consume me. Then his body, spent, collapsed atop mine.

We lay there, bodies entwined, souls as one. Our breath mixing in the space around our heads, our own atmosphere. Our only world. Unable to move, unwilling to disturb the peace we had finally found.

I felt his lips on my neck. He tasted my skin, moving upwards until he kissed my throat, my chin. My lips. I kissed him back, gently at first and then with increasing need. We kissed for three days of distance suddenly collapsed, with sorrow and rage and fear realized. For loss. For reconnection. For the quiet, terrible parts of us that had wondered if we would ever kiss again. And then we kissed for us, for sex and love and fate and the things that could never be broken by distance, by hardship. By death. And then we kissed simply because we could, because we wanted to, because he was there and so was I and his lips were soft and wondrous and his teeth were sharp against my skin and because it would have been harder to stop. Kissing him was like falling from a cliff, like floating in salt water. Like loving him. I didn't know how not to.

Eventually even our lips ran dry of kisses and we laid there, exhausted. I shook there in his arms, and he asked if I was okay with his thumb running up and down the back of my neck and I promised I was with the way my fingers traced his shoulders. Our souls rested light against each other, an endless horizon.

I was home.

***

The Captain would not let me leave the bed for two days.

It was partially, perhaps, to help my unraveled body gather strength once more. I was in no condition to work the deck of a ship; I could have hurt myself or, worse, hurt others when my body gave out in a moment I expected it to hold strong. It was also, I have to believe, a way to give the men space. A few days to reclaim the their ship from the terror that had been pressed into its wood, the heedless flight North. The deaths. The god they had met in their midst.

It was good that the Captain took that space. It was important that he could reintegrate with his men as he saw fit, without the ghost of my form coloring his return.

It could also be that the Captain was not ready to give me up. He kept me sequestered in the room, all to himself, and I did not mind it one bit. I did not want to see any soul bit his. He fed me, he fucked me, he loved me. I allowed myself to be cared for and relished in the luxury of having to do nothing at all.

But my body is not made to sustain such absence. There was work to be done. One the morning of the third day I awoke before the Captain and my soul stretched up toward the deck, and my body vibrated with unexpended energy. I knew I could lay in bed no longer. I kissed my Captain gently (wondrous, wondrous how that quiet gesture made him frown, how he pursed his lips and drew his brows and still turned towards my form) and headed towards the kitchen.

I had beaten Cookie to the kitchen. I crouched before the oven and began raking last night's coals up in preparation for the morning's bread.

"All the fuckin' gods, lad." I didn't turn to look at the cook standing in the doorway, instead choosing to focus on the hot sparks flying towards my hands and arms. "Think you let things get a bit out of hand, there?"

Everything had turned out as it was meant to be. The memory of my Captain's face rested warm on my soul; the fire before me was baking into my skin. I pulled at another pile of coals and smiled as sparks tried to live on my skin.

"Do you even know how many men you killed? How many ships we sent down to that Black God?" He made a motion of protection when he said that, but he shouldn't have worried. "The King'll hear about that, his ships falling to your storms."

Let my brother hear. I had faced down death and come out on top - what could my brother do to me? There was a large coal in the back giving me trouble and I focused on that, tapping it with the rake.

"And what about the men you killed on this own ship? Did yourself no favors there, lad. No love gained among this crew, not with the way you pushed them through the night, the day, the night again. No regard for their safety, them knowin' you might kill them if they didn't do what you asked." Was I not the sea? Had I not been the sea since the moment I had stepped foot on this ship? These men should have always feared me. These land boys should have always known it was only my lack of attention that kept them alive. "Takin' us right into the heart of the King's territory with you the way you were, knowing he'd be lookin' for us after we took his island. Goin' to yer sister! And yer first mate, yer poor first mate, lad. You kept that boy in the dark the whole trip - he's just a boy, lad, don't you forget that - didn't tell him enough to fill a teacup and then when we get to that haunted, dangerous place, after he's stayed away three days and nights for you, you tell him to do the impossible. You pushed that lad too far. Should see the look on his face these days. Thinks you'll kill him, most like. Even he's afraid of -"

The coal burst as I hit it too hard, sparks flying at my form. I had to throw my hands up before my face, shielding myself against the explosion of heat. I felt the bite of fire on my arms and pretended it was the only thing causing me discomfort.

"I did what needed to be done," I told Cookie, told myself. Without looking at him I closed the oven door and stood. "Your fire is ready."

"Lad." His tone was softer. "I'm just warnin' you. The ship ain't fixed just 'cuz you got your Captain back. There's work to be done yet."

I leaned on the counter and used the flesh of my palms to cover my eyes. Perhaps I had come back too soon. Perhaps I was still too exhausted to do the work demanded of me.

"Remember," Cookie continued. "These men used to think of you as a prisoner. You shocked their systems, you right did."

"Maybe it's better," I tried. I knew it wasn't - Natch afraid of me was not better. The men doing what I said because they feared I held their death in my hands was not a way to lead a ship. I had seen my father lead his ship that way. The only thing it had lead to was his destruction.

Asking the Captain to align with me as I now stood was dangerous. And I would not put my Captain in danger.

I stood up straight and looked Cookie in the eye. He met my gaze steadily. "Thank you, Alan," I told him. He nodded, once, and I turned to begin gathering the morning's work. "Will it be porridge for breakfast?"

"Aye, lad." He patted me on the back as he moved past me to grab the large soup pan. "Porridge it is."

***

The men held a new understanding of me at breakfast.

How many times had I done this? How many times had I stood before them and handed them their food? It should have been routine. It could have set things back to right. But they understood, now, the things my body could become. They had watched what these hands could do, and it was much, much different than making porridge. They took their food and did not meet my eyes.

I did not worry about most of the men. I had seen this happen many times before, lived through men who had become comfortable around my form being reminded of the violence I held. But if I was the sea (and I was nothing if not the sea) did I also not rock them to sleep every night? Did they not look out over my waters and proclaim me beautiful, serene? Had not every single one of these men already proven that they would return to me, again and again and again? My violence was a part of their life. It had always been known. I watched them wear that knowledge prickled against their skin and knew, from experience, that it would soon settle back within their souls.

But some of the men held their discomfort in different ways. Thron, who shook so badly as he took his breakfast from my hand it nearly spilled on the counter. Hamms, the old salt, who was wonderfully unaffected ("We'll be getting a rest after that one, aye?" he asked, and smiled at me as I patted his arm). The Russian, whose sharp smile pressed a weary sigh from my chest.

And then there was Natch.

Natch did not even come up to the counter to get his breakfast. I watched him enter the mess hall, saw his young face blanch as he saw me waiting for him. Followed his shaking form until it disappeared behind the Russian's bulk.

I finished serving the line, then filled two bowls and made my way toward the group. As I walked though the mess hall silence fell in my wake; I was the eye of a storm of my own creation, a moment of silence in a room filled with such tension I thought it might ignite. The place I had sat so many times stood open, the power of routine strong in these sailors. Only Finn looked up to me as I approached; he quickly returned his gaze to his porridge, eyes wide.

"Natch." The boy did not look up from clasped hands as I sat across from him. I leaned over the table and placed a bowl in the space his arms made. "You need to eat."

"Ghost." He sounded as if he might cry. "I'm sorry, I couldn't -"

"Be still." He fell silent. There is work to do, I thought. There is a lot of work to do. I considered my words carefully before I continued. "The ships." I saw him stiffen at the mention of the broken command and hurried to finish my thought. "They were part of a promise I made long ago. One that I made alone." To see them there had enraged my already angry soul. I was dangerous, and raw, and unthinking. "I was unfair," I concluded out loud. "We were there to find the Captain. Nothing more. I should never have put my broken promise onto you." I reached out and put my hand over his, watching carefully to see what this touch might mean to him. His eyes fluttered shut for a moment, breath escaping from his mouth in a moment of relief. "You did everything I needed, and more." Salt water slipped into my mouth. I meant every word and needed him to hear it. "I could not have made the journey without you."

Natch nodded, his eyes meeting mine. He took the ocean in my words and used it to straighten his spine, finding his footing in the rocking of my voice. He had always been a man of the sea. He had seen what I was long before the others - he, of all of them, understood me the best.

"Thank you," he said.

I squeezed his hand. "Thank you, Natch."

"Are you going to kill Thron?"

The sharpness of the question bit into my side. I pulled up short, casting my eyes around the table. Finn, Natch, they both sat in their usual spaces. The Russian, his words still hanging from his lips, sat in his.

I remembered clearly the way the Russian had kept Thron from sharing the same fate as the others who had tried to cast the Captain's body away. I remember clearly, painfully, the way it had made me feel to see their hands on his form. "Should I?" I asked, and Natch pulled his hands away from mine at my tone.

But the Russian had never been afraid of the ocean. "You swore you would."

I moved my hand through the air. He had just given himself his answer - if I had sworn it, than it would be so. He should know this.

"You cannot do this."

Why should I break my promise? Why would I go back on my word, so clearly stated? I met the Russian's eye, looking for an explanation worth my time.

"I won't let you."

"You would die with him?" That was the only other option. If he stood in my way again, I would kill him. All around me, the table was silent.

The Russian met my gaze evenly. "I love him."

And there, there was something my that caused me to pause. It was not the words that surprised me; the Russian often declared his love for things. For alcohol, for a people, for a passing moment. The word fell from his lips like rain in the spring. But I had never, in all my years of moving in and out of this man's life, heard him say those words quite like this.

It was in his eyes, perhaps. Or the way he held his body, ready to fight. The way his expression was one of a man half broken, half healed. Whatever it was, I looked at this man and recognized parts of my own love in his bearing. And I remembered how it felt to lose that.

There is work, part of me reminded, while bits of my soul sang wondrous, wondrous. I looked down at my clenched fists.

There was no excuse for inaction. I could resolve this easily, now. I stood, my body turning towards where Thron sat across the room.

The Russian stood as I did, his hand on his knife. "Brat," he warned. There was ice in his voice.

"Sit, brother." My hand on his shoulder did nothing to calm him. The ocean in my eyes only fed his own storms. We had caught the attention of the men at a few nearby tables. They did their best to watch us without appearing to. "Sit," I commanded again to little effect.

"You will not kill him," he told me.

"I won't," I agreed.

He searched my face, then my body, his eyes carefully parsing every muscle for any sign of deceit. He would not find it. I pressed down on his shoulder again and this time, he allowed himself to be lowered. Once he was seated I patted him once and made my way over to Thron. I could feel the Russian's eyes hard on my back the entire journey.

Thron looked as if he might flee as I sat before him. I opened my mouth to speak, but his lips were faster.

"If you have come to kill me, I would like to say my piece." His words came tumbling out before I could stop them. "I did what I thought was right and I stand by it. You put the whole ship in danger with your actions, and I needed to look after the crew. The Black God could have come back for what was his and taken us all."

There was anger in my body, in my lungs, in my soul. "You should have listened to me."

Thron stood his ground. "You were not in charge of the ship. Natch was."

"The Captain was."

"The Captain was dead."

"And I promised you that I would get him back."

"And who are you to make that promise? Who are you to the God of Death, to Davey fucking Jones?" Thron's voice was high and loud. Afraid. Men around him made signs of protection and moved away from his form - still, he did not back down. "Who were you to make any sort of promises to me?"

"The sea." I had thought that obvious. I had thought this long ago settled. "You should have listened to me. You let your fear -"

"Yes, of course I was afraid!" I pulled back in surprise at his interruption. "I watched you throw my friends over the side of the ship without a thought! You didn't care about the ship, you don't give a shit about us! You would have killed us all if it had brought back the Captain." His hands were shaking; his voice was steady, and he was right. "I had to look after my men. You weren't going to. You only cared about your Captain."

"He is your Captain." I was furious. I was righteous.

So was Thron. "He is only one man."

"You are a coward," I told the landboy before me. "You have no place on the sea. I do not even have to kill you, you will fall on your own to the waves, you will die in the cold open ocean afraid and unloyal because you do not -"

But I was interrupted by the Captain sweeping into the room. I stood to make my way back to the kitchen, expecting to serve him as I had the rest of the men. As I would the rest of my life.

"No, love." He was faster than I, his hand on my shoulder pressing my body down and all tension from my body. I looked up at him, smiling, and he leaned down to press a kiss to my lips. "I'll get it myself, you're still recovering." He gestured over to Thron. "Making up? I think you owe Thron an apology."

Thron's eyes and mine met. Neither of us said a word for a long time.

"Yes," I finally told my love. "I do." He smiled down at me, sharp and loving, before planting another kiss on my forehead and sweeping off to find his breakfast.