The Pirate King Ch. 15

Panic. Anger. Overwhelming antipathy. I let Dave see it all and more as it crashed through me, as his words pulled the oceans from every corner of the world and settled them into my throat and mouth, put them on my tongue. "No."

Dave seemed unperturbed by the sudden presence of the sea. "Give him to me and your debt is canceled."

"He will come to you," I let Dave know, putting salt water behind every word, "only when I do, and then only when it is our time. There is no deal."

Dave took a moment to look my body over. "He is yours."

There was no issue in admitting as such. "And I am his."

"Then give him to me."

The ocean pulled at something deep in me that anyone, anyone would even think, would dare to consider such an action acceptable, possible. Dave must have seen my reaction or perhaps he felt it, could sense the change in the currents that surrounded his oceanic home, for he raised his hands and smiled a much different smile than before.

"Alright, alright," he said. Almost sounding sincere. "I'll leave him alone then." His portal began opening beneath him, his body returning to water to drip through. My oceans churned at the grin on his face. "We'll talk again soon.Tch."

And then he was gone.

***

Cass frowned at me as I entered the kitchen. "He tried to name you."

I threw myself down on a chair and grabbed the Captain's hand, paying no attention to the frown the man gave me, to the look that passed between Cass and himself. I needed to touch him, to reassure myself that he was still here, that he was not beneath the sea in the grasp of a man who cared not for him but for the power he held, the ways in which he was alive. The offering he would make. I pressed his hand to my mouth and breathed in deep.

"My love?" I could hear the worry in the Captain's voice. It frustrated me that I had caused him any distress. "Are you alright?"

I kissed his hand lightly in response. If he was alright, then I could be alright. That was my truth. He responded to the contact by shifting closer to me, letting his hips press against my body, his free arm draping over my shoulders. We allowed ourselves to simply exist for a small moment, allowed our love to carve out a space in this room that was for us.

Then I sighed and smiled up at him, calmed fully by his presence. Or as calm as I could be after speaking to Dave. "What did you need to talk to me about?"

"Ah." His brows pulled together and he glanced at Cass.

"You guys fucked up." I looked over to her, brows raised, but she merely shrugged. "Not a lot, probably. I think." She frowned. "It's hard to tell."

"What did we do?" It was hard to find fault with how we were right then, entwined. At peace. Complete.

"Well," Cass told me, her voice business-like and holding just an ounce of worry. "You named each other."

There was a stretch of silence as I took this in.

"Of course," I decided, snaking a hand around the Captain's hips.

"And it's weird," Cass continued. "I can't see the names, and the world can't, it's like you guys have created this little fucking self-verse where - wait, did you sayof course?"

"Captain," I told him, pulling him closer. I could feel his hesitation and wanted to press it from his body. "My love." My lips found his ribs, landing somewhere near his heart with the word.

"How is thisof course? Nothing about this is of course."

"Sir," I continued, my voice low and for only one person in this room. I rejoiced at the way he wore his shirt so loose, so unlaced as my teeth scraped skin and I felt him shudder. I needed no distance between our bodies; I needed us to be one. We were one. I held my name in the pleasure he gave me, in the way I hurt to be away from him. In the spaces between him that I had become, in the way those spaces were still infinite. He wore his in the way he lay reflected across my surface like the calmest winter night. My arms pulled him down in my lap, bringing him as close as he could in this space.

"Sailor," he whispered, the name - for it was a name, it was not just a word it was so much more, it had always been more coming from his soul - settling over my skin as his lips brushed against my chin and caused my fingers to tighten their grip. His hand moved up to land where his lips had just lit up my skin, soothing and demanding and I gave to them instantly, gave to him and when he smiled at me I felt my eternity rush out to envelop him.

"Husband," he finished for me, for us, and I smiled as he leaned down to kiss me, my name on his lips.

***

Cass needed another few hours to figure out what exactly this naming meant for us, for our journey. I wasn't worried. A thing as intimate as this, as powerful? It sat in our souls and did nothing but make us stronger.

When she emerged from her divining room, she had a sour look on her face. "You're lucky," she told me sternly before I could ask. "But you're going to go have to see Sybil."

I frowned at her. I didn't want to go back to see Sybil, at least not yet. I wanted to North. I wanted to see my revenge.

"Don't you frown at me." Cass fell back in a chair, looking more tired than I could remember ever having seen her. "There's shit I can't see and you can't exactly go into this without some sort of. Something. I mean, fuck." She shook her head, still giving me that look. "Regicide."

"He started it," I replied sullenly.

"Fuck, babe, this isn't some goddamn playground dispute!"

I looked back at her evenly. This was exactly the way any playground dispute would have ended in my childhood. It had not been negotiable; my father had seen to it. She turned her gaze away as she remembered to whom she was speaking, what my past contained. "You know what I mean."

"So, what?" the Captain put in. "We go back? Sybil is your daughter, right? A seer as well?"

"Yes." Cass closed her eyes. "She'll need to give you words. The right words. That's all I can see, it wasn't clear. The stupid fucking lines got crossed. And." Her hand pressed to her face. "Fuck, I'm not as young as I used to be, you know?"

"Rest," I told her gently. "We should be going anyway." The Captain sighed in my arms, and I kissed the back of his neck. "We have a journey ahead of us before we get to Val."

"Fuck," he muttered, remembering I'm sure his own reaction to meeting Val for the first time, the ways in which Val's new reputation sat hard and spiked around his soul. The way the men would react to such a being near their ship. "That's gonna go over fucking great."

"It'll be fine," I told him, not mentioning that we would also need to sail directly into one of the cracks of the world. He had already done it once; it would be fine to do it again. And this time I knew where we were going and could instruct Cookie on the proper protections. I turned back to Cass. "We might need some extra comfrey."

Cass nodded but didn't move. "Family," she said from behind her hand. I knew she was missing Sybil; I also knew that she would not be able to see her for another three years. That had been foretold. We had known that from the day she had been born.

"Aye," the Captain said. He surprised me by reaching out and taking Cass's free hand in his and giving it a light squeeze. She surprised me even more by squeezing back. "Family."

We sat there for some time in the light of the cavern, entwined in the patterns of the world and the wills of fate. Known only to each other and the currents of the sea.

Until we remembered that we had left poor Finn stranded by the entrance of the cave. "Oops," the Captain murmured, Cass laughed, and she got us the comfrey and packed flasks of tea and then we were sent along our way.