CURSEDSAILS

nico nodded, "yes! because i am going to die. they will catch me. i will not be able to dodge them for forever. not now that they know they are to find me. not when they have already caught me once. it is simply a matter of time and i do not want you getting mixed up in things when they do." that would be worse than death itself. if nico was going to be selfless, for the first time in his life, then it was always going to be for dorian.

at the others command, nico sighed. he bowed his head for a moment, as though giving in. when he was about to look back to dorian, the other man had already started to pull him away. towards the sirens nest, he would assume. would he really put the sirens at risk for him? "te amo." nico whispered, unable to look at dorian as they continued to walk.

"i am mixed up in more than you could imagine." he huffed quietly, his tone less harsh in the brief moment he had taken to compose himself. "and if you think my reach extends as far to you and then stops..." he shook his head, unable to bring himself to look at nico. "you should know better." he muttered.

but nico's words, his admission that dorian had heard so many times before, forced his head to snap. forced his gaze to search for the other man's. forced him to stop dead in his tracks. "basta." it wasn't the fact that nico loved him that made his grip tighten enough to stop his hands from shaking, it was the way he said it like it might be the last time dorian could hear it. "don't talk to me like it's goodbye."

Bartholomew leaned against the bricks, ever the portrait of eeriness and glared again. "Of course, Dorian. I'm well aware of your terms. You've made them clear last time I visited" Bartholomew remember the night he came in smelling of death and blood. He knew to stay far away from harming any of the sirens or bringing trouble to the nest. "Nothing disgusting within the Nest's doors." . Not that they'd be much help to him scientifically anyway. "I have more important plans to get ahead of anyway. I hardly believe that any of them would have the cure to smallpox sitting on their dresser "

he drew in a lazy breath, eyebrow cocking. "smallpox, hm? a noble pursuit for such a ghoulish hand. careful, bartholomew. cure too many ills and men might start mistaking you for a saviour." his grin sharpened, as though the whole exchange amused him more than it unsettled. "though i'll admit, the thought of you saving lives is nearly more disturbing than the thought of you ending them."

Jo found her back to the table, face nearly flush to Nima's as the physician's glare bore fiery holes into her skin. The grin, impish and taunting in nature, was anything but by the time it reached her eyes. Splendor in the puerile fun danced across her expression in pinpoints, dotting all over her face. As if the entire episode had been a ruse, a ploy, simply to get within a distance of Nima that would allow their breath to mingle, bodies exchanging a little warmth this far away from the fire. "I'm sorry," she choked out of the ropey hold her throat had on the laughter that threatened to erupt. "I'll stop touching the naughty bottles, mum. These hands obey your whims." She danced her fingers on each side of her face, as if to trot out their willingness - or trouble. "Whatever they may be."

after a moment she let her arms loosen with a quiet exhale, fingertips brushing the edge of the table rather than digging into her own elbows. "you'll get me in trouble one of these days. distract me well enough to miss something." she said as she glanced back down at the papers in front of her, a gentleness creeping in despite her best efforts. there was a warmth to her gaze as it lifted again to jo's face, and she angled herself a little more towards her. "though i suppose you'd be the one to get me out of it too, wouldn't you?"

No real fiction without truth. As deeply held a belief as the pirate code among them, a north star, and the script all in one. As they tossed around banter with equal measures of divestment and humor, there was always a shred of something real hidden between each word. No good story was believable without it. Even the best of falsehoods rang a familiar toll at the bottom of someone's belly. No real fiction without truth, she thought with a heartened glance that bent at the will of his hands, and never correct yourself. "I meant with the flies hanging around," she answered, tipping her chin to expose the slope of her neck, the neckline of her dress, where they met against the skin of their chests. His thumb ran the edge of her jaw, as if willing the truth from her throat. Her eyes forged into a sharper blade, smithed by the telling, upholding her end of their bargain. He would understand, if he knew how to listen. "They'll pick a carcass clean to the bone - they don't know any different. I'd hate for you to be caught standing in the mess they leave behind."

his eyes narrowed as he took in her words, gaze dragging over the exposed line of her throat with a weight that could be hidden well enough to any onlookers. though dorian did what he could to keep the nest safe, there was no way to guarantee that spies could slip through its net, and he knew this room was no place to truly speak freely. so as his eyes met hers again, fingers gently moving to brush her hair from her cheek in a gesture of affection that masked the heaviness between them, his voice dipped low as he spoke slowly. "me estas advirtiendo?" his native tongue felt more secure, though still he made sure no one else could hear. "o me amenazas?"

He was silent, but his expression revealed everything that was going on inside him, and it was anything but pleasant. He had failed to reach the Revenge to seek Bartholomew's help, and had stumbled upon the familiar road to Nima purely by chance, thanks to a stroke of luck. His blue eyes followed the brunette, as if he feared she was torn between saving him and killing him. He trusted her somewhat, but they all lived in turbulent times, and often good friends turned out to be enemies under certain circumstances.

"I wasn't particularly lucky in this fight, but others were less fortunate than me," said the captain, but his smile was nothing like the one that usually graced his face - this one was completely grotesque and distorted. It betrayed the pain he felt in that moment. "I don't have much to boast about - three men attacked me from behind. I dealt with them, but I'm not proud of myself, for I never even recognized them."

The pirate hissed, clenching his teeth to keep from letting out an unwitting groan. He refused to show weakness even in so dire a moment. His pride - so great and such a driving force in his life - would not allow him to reveal any part of himself that was not for others to see.

"Why did you agree to help me so easily?" Magnus asked suddenly, looking at Nima. "I suppose you want a favor from me. Is that right?"

He tried to laugh, but what left his lips was only a poor imitation of laughter.

she leaned back, arching an eyebrow at him as her lips pursed. "do you forget where you are?" she asked, standing from her stool to go and fetch what she needed to clean and patch him up. he was brave, she could tell that much, but even the bravest of men had flinched under her hands no matter how practiced they were. "this door is open to those who need help. i'm paid for my services, not owed. do you always owe favours to the people who help you?" she gathered what she needed and returned to the stool beside him, moving with purpose and intent, with little room for grace. "maybe you let the wrong people offer you aid."

without warning, she wrung out the cloth from the bucket she had fetched and began to clean his wound, reflexes ready for him to flinch. she gave him a moment, then curiosity got the better of her. "you didn't know them." she mused, keeping her eyes on his wound. "why would they attack you?" naïve as it may have been to ask, nima needed to figure out if there was something about him she ought to know. something that might paint the target on her back too for helping him.

"X's mean toxic, nothing on the label means probably toxic, a skull means deadly, but not if the skull has eyes, that's a face, that means your face will melt straight off, Exsic means dried, Sp means spirit, a dram is a measurable unit of volume but a bloody minim means absolutely nothing and yet is somehow still a measurement, one bone on the label means it's for dogs, two bones means it's for women but only on the full moon and in the latter half of the month of May, and it's only at its maximum potency if the medic is hopelessly in love with the patient, is that correct or shall I go on?"

Afternoons tormenting Nima with obnoxious rambling was an afternoon well spent. Enjoyment distilled like sugar down to syrup, pure and sweet in its essence, a sprinkle too much often left on Jo's tongue. She wandered with slow, leisured steps through the scents of herbs and blood, pads of her fingers sliding across tables and shelves as if to read the tales left within their ridges with her touch. A grin, impish and squirming, ached to wriggle up the side of her mouth. She took up a bottle with a black label, red lettering smudged all around its curves. "What's this, then?"

she was pretending to ignore jo rattling off quite possibly everything she could that might get a reaction out of her, though a trained eye might have been able to notice the tiny tug at the corner of her mouth. she didn't mind jo hanging around, if anything she daren't admit that she enjoyed the company, and try as she might to let her stubbornness win and not give in to jo's teasing, she couldn't stop the snap of her head as she heard something lifted from its shelf, and the way she lurched forward to stop it, reaching towards the other woman.

When he said the words, gentle and protective that made the lines in his face softening for her, Rue’s expression shifted. The play left her eyes lowered from burning flame to simmer, and something gentler settled in its place. She set her glass down and reached, impulsive as the tide, to squeeze his hand once. The contact of their skin, a gentle touch, always surprisingly grounding. Even if the movement was quick, yet grateful. It was not quite a promise but close. “You say you’d never let it happen,” she murmured, the words tasting like confession. “And I believe you, darling. How I ever came to deserve such devotion is a miracle and mystery to me both.”

he shifted in his chair, the arm draped over its back tightening, his body leaning in with a slow and deliberate grace as he let out a rough sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "a miracle? perhaps. a mystery? not to me, i've always known." his thumb traced the condensation on his glass before he slid it aside altogether, leaving his hand open on the table again, palm waiting should hers wish to return. "fate may have written your name, but it never accounted for me. it never does." his crooked smile played warmly on his lips as he shot her a wink across the table.

her toast had him tipping his head in a half-bow, reaching for his glass to lift it once more, though with less theatrics than before. "to your revolutions, querida. and to me watching over you through each one." he chuckled, taking a swig. "you know, i always wondered if you would leave this island. and i always believed that if anyone could find something better off of these shores, it would be you. not that i'm condoning piracy, we've been through that already."

his concern written in the line between his brows, dairo waits. lets hanna take the time needed. he's witnessed this before aboard the harbinger's ship, tucked into the hanna's space. he'll always wait, until she's ready.

and yet --- and yet.

would he have ran, if he knew before what would fall from her lips? belief in the boneteller never faltered, for how often has he paid tribute to the sea for safe passage and silent escapes? there are spirits of all kinds who could alter his fate, and he will listen to each, even if they won't change his mind.

but he doesn't truly listen now. he can't. his thundering heartbeat drowns all other sound. a woman --- in you ---- guards you ---

( she haunts his dreams, always in the corner, the breeze kicking up her hair to cover her face. but when she reaches he wakes with beading sweat and gasping breaths and a hear that breaks all over again. )

the silence hangs heavy. hanna looks at him, and dairo can't tear his gaze away. "this woman --- " his voice cracks. swallowing, he starts again. "this woman . . . how long is her hair?"

but that look on his face. the way his eyes revealed the way his very soul was being carved out. hanna knew that dairo felt it too.

at his question, her hand raised close to his face and moved slowly as if she were stroking the dark strands of this woman's hair around her nimble fingers. her hand stopped just past his shoulder, where she could see the strands fade away. "so beautiful. so... so much sorrow." she muttered with a deeply furrowed brow, as if the words just slipped out without her control. she was still in a daze from this spectre who had visited her.

no. he couldn't let that happen. he wouldn't. nico would sooner give himself to the guards before he let anything happen to dorian. this was the man that he had loved for most of his life. this was the man who gave so much of himself to the people who relied on him. what did nico have? not much.

he sighed, "it would be better if you forgot me, mi vida." the pet name slipped out before he could think better of it. "knowing me will only get you in trouble. you and the sirens. you need to forget i ever existed." if the roles were reversed, nico knew it would be impossible for him to do as he told dorian. but he had to hope. he had to try. "you couldn't know that i was here, dorian. it would land you in a world of trouble."

he couldn't help but scoff again at nico's suggestion to forget him, his pulse thumping harder under his skin. "how many times have i told you the same thing?" his voice was a harsh whisper, muted by the hum of tortuga's busy streets at this time of night when devils came out to play. "and every time you come back." he had warned him off more times than he could count, had told him that his hands were no safe place to keep his heart, even if they had tried to cling to it.

"and now, when you think you are going to die, you tell me to forget? now? dios mío, sometimes i forget you are a pirate until you say something so stupid." the words were spilling out of him, fuelled his passion. by his anger and frustration. by his godsforsaken heart. "venga conmigo." he gave nico no choice as he took his arm and began to lead him through the dingy narrow street. "save your heroics about getting me into trouble." he couldn't bring himself to say it out loud, but if the last time he saw nico's face was at the gallows, he would have far more trouble with the crown trying to burn them all down than he would trying to stow nico away from them.

their irritation doesn't dissipate at dorian's antics. but it weakens nonetheless, propped by the decades they've spent in his orbit. the ships still remain on the horizon, but kun's mind can focus here, on dorian's lips brushing knuckles, and be better for it.

still, they roll their eyes, head following in action. "i'd knock you out before you could take enjoyment in being tied up." the smallest curl of amusement plucks at the corner of their lips, and they pull their hand away, beckoning him to follow into the apothecary.

"why do you always assume i want trouble?" he drawled, that famous lazy grin on his face. "i want to have fun. i want to fuck for hours. there's no trouble in that, is there?"

His hand grazed the soft skin of her face and she felt her muscles become leaden, dropping into the landscape of his form. Her eyes stopped on Dorian's, not imposing, not studying, but rapt, a home made inside his gaze, even if no place truly was. Never the same place twice, the operative's mantra, had long since disintegrated under his keep. An otherwise trepidatious agreement that allowed her to walk into his stage as any character that suited her - siren, customer, winemaker - in fair and equal exchange for his protection from the less reputable, less scrupulous among them. And here, resting against him, free under a siren's skirt, and heart quickly following, Josephine bought into every piece of the fiction. "And how well fed you've kept me. I'm sorry if you've been bitten in my absence." She placed a hand not inside his, but underneath, to cradle his fingers, lifting them like expensive silks, up to her lips, a kiss to the ridges of his knuckles like a secret tucked between pillows. A name unmentioned but fully understood. "Of course, my love," she replied against his skin, as if imbuing her breath into his veins. "Nunca deseo molestarte."

then he leaned back again, a soft and barely noticeable sigh leaving his lips. when she melted into him, when her hand ghosted up and pressed his own to her mouth, something in his body stilled. he let her guide him, let her tuck that secret between her lips and his skin, and for a breath it was almost enough to quiet the sharpness in him. his thumb traced her jaw, steady, as though pinning her there by touch alone. "molestarme?" he tilted his head, pressing close enough that her perfume blurred with the wine still warm in his mouth. "why do you say that? do you bring me something bothersome?"

"I am a surgeon, and a rather accomplished one at that!" There was nobody in Tortuga that Bartholomew knew of that could match his expertise in the sciences. He had visited the Siren's Nest occasionally to indulge in comfort and intimacy. While he enjoyed it nothing could compare to the thrill of studying anatomy and medicine in his little alcove on the Raider's Revenge "The live ones have their uses I suppose"

"i don't object, mi amor, not outside of my doors. so long as your curiosities are strictly kept from my house, then we're far less likely to fall into trouble with one another, aren't we?" his eyes narrowed just a touch, enough to let that smile on his lips border on threatening, or at least allude to it.

He watched Hanna with obvious interest and acknowledged each of her words with a slight nod. If it weren't for his broad, cocky smile, he would have looked like a serious and thoughtful man weighing her confessions. But Magnus loved to drive others crazy, refusing to show even a hint of courtesy toward those he was indifferent to, let alone someone he more or less considered his enemy. And yet, one could say that he had a soft spot for the pirate who looked at him with such distrust. Her mysterious personality amused him, even though he didn't believe the rumors circulating around town about her.

"You try to stay out of my sight, yet follow me like a shadow" said the Blue-Eyed Devil thoughtfully, pressing his index finger to his lips. "I'd say you've got your eye on me, but you can't admit it to yourself. Don't worry - you have time. I, however, sometimes think of you at night."

His chuckle filled the space between them, and Magnus shook his head as if he didn't believe his own words. He doubted that Hanna would take them well. Did he like teasing her? Oh, absolutely. Let’s see how careful she could be before she pounced on him to claw his eyes out.

"There's a difference between looking and seeing, don't you think, my dear? But you're right that I'm not known for my patience, and not everyone can escape my foul temper. Thank God I like you so much and wouldn't allow myself to give up your company."

He winked playfully at her, continuing with his act. And although he seemed careless and distracted, the captain did not take his eyes off the woman, as if he were expecting some dramatic change that would surprise them both.

"the fish will follow the shark to hide under its fins, because it is safer there than it is to try and outswim the shark." she replied plainly, though there was a flicker of something in her eyes that could suggest playfulness, if it were possible that she could offer someone like magnus that.

hanna noted his unrelenting gaze, his stance, the way his eyes flickered with something wild and untamed like he was expecting a fight. "do you think i will hurt you?" she expected he might laugh and mock her for the small creature that she was, it was his way after all, but she was trying to reach whatever lay beneath that twisted grin. "my blade is not destined to spill your blood, magnus. does yours thirst for mine?"

his grip on her wrist tightened, enough to remind her that he could turn her whichever way he pleased. he guided her palm higher up his chest until it rested at the hollow of his throat, until she could feel his pulse still steady beneath her fingertips. "you think i don't know the price, mi sirena?" he murmured, his other hand sliding from his jaw into her hair to weave tight at the roots. he forced her head to tip back, her long dark hair spilling over the banister. "you call yourself untamed... good. i don't want something that bows."

his teeth caught at her bottom lip, a sharp sting of promise before he let it go again. "but don't mistake my patience for restraint. you've set your challenge, now show me if you can survive it." his grin widened into something wolfish, as he glanced down at the room below them that still thrummed with laughter and clinking glass. then his gaze flickered back to her, dark eyes burning. "what do you want?" the question had a different weight to it, his tone dropping as his eyes narrowed. "why do you come up here? to offer me games and refuse to play them with me?"