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warnings: engagement partyyyy!, confident Jake, anxious panicked reader, drinking, alcohol, SMUT 18+!, little bit of oral sex (f. rec), drunk sex, dirty talk, semi-public sex? in a bathroom, little bit of dom Jake, more drinking, more drunk sex, finger sucking, riding, missionary, unprotected sex, light impact play, crying, Jake being a smug shit, hangover, fluff, mushy shit all mixed in, lemme know if I missed any!
a/n: this is the long awaited fic based off of this wonderful request! thank you anon, I hope you enjoy ❤️
Masterlist
It’s impossible to ignore.
The ring catches the light every time you move– tiny flashes that feel louder than they should be. It sits heavy on your finger, unfamiliar but right, and every time you notice it, your stomach flips.
It makes you smile.
It makes you want to throw up.
You reach for your brush, but your hand trembles so badly you stop halfway, inhaling slowly, trying to steady yourself.
“I cannot have you spiraling on me right now.” You look up. Grace is watching you through the mirror, eyes wide, her own nerves barely contained. “I’m already hanging on by a thread,” she adds, pressing a hand to her chest. “Planning this has ruined me. You don’t get to lose it too.”
“I’m not losing it,” you say, which would sound more convincing if your voice didn’t wobble. You swallow hard, fingers fidgeting with your necklace. “I’m fine.”
She gives you a look that says you are absolutely not fine.
“Makeup first or dress first?” she asks.
You hesitate. Either option feels like a trap. “Makeup… first? We can– I don’t know, cover it or something.”
“Okay. Yeah. That works.” She nods quickly, already moving. “Dress on. Now.”
You do as you’re told, stepping into the white fabric with careful hands. Your heart pounds while she zips you up, the sound loud in the small bathroom.
You glance at your reflection.
Grace goes still behind you.
“Oh,” she breathes, softer now. “It’s… really pretty.”
It is.
The dress fits like it was made for you, hugging in all the right places before falling into a soft, airy skirt that brushes your thighs. It’s simple, but not plain. Your chest sits just right, just enough to make you hyper-aware of yourself.
Just enough to know Jake is going to notice.
That thought alone sends another wave of nerves through you.
You sit in the chair you'd sweet-talked Jake i to bringing in earlier, remembering how easily he’d carried it like it weighed nothing. Like tonight was nothing.
Like he wasn’t nervous at all.
Meanwhile, your hands won’t stop shaking.
Grace drapes a towel over you and gets to work. Her fingers are steady, practiced– curling your hair into loose waves that frame your face, softening everything. Bit by bit, you start to breathe easier.
Until you hear him.
Movement in the other room. Footsteps. A drawer closing. Humming.
Jake.
Your chest tightens again.
Grace finishes your makeup, adding just a touch more than usual. Now you just look… polished. Like a version of yourself that might actually be able to get through tonight.
“Okay,” she says finally, stepping back with a proud smile. “Shoes and you’re done.”
You nod, but don’t move.
She studies you for a second, then squeezes your shoulder. “You’re good. I’m right outside if you start panicking again.”
“Again?” you mutter.
She just snorts and slips out.
You’re alone.
For a moment, you just stare at yourself. Searching. Waiting to find something wrong– your hair, your makeup, the dress, anything that justifies the feeling twisting in your chest.
Your gaze drops to your hand, noticing how the ring gleams back at you.
You exhale shakily.
A knock sounds at the door. You don’t need to ask who it is. You open it.
Jake leans casually against the frame, like he’s got nowhere else to be. Like this is just another night. His eyes find yours immediately, and that small, knowing smile tugs at his mouth.
“You’re freaking out,” he says.
It’s not a question.
Your shoulders drop, the tension leaking out of you all at once. “I am.”
He tilts his head, taking you in slowly. His gaze drags from your face down to the hem of your dress and back again, and he hums under his breath, low and approving.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “You look so fucking pretty.”
Heat rushes to your face. “You always say that.”
“I always mean it.”
He steps inside without breaking eye contact, the door clicking shut behind him. His hands come up, warm and steady as they cup your face, grounding you instantly.
“Why are you freaking out on me, baby?” he asks, voice low, smooth– like nothing in the world could possibly go wrong.
You let out a breath that trembles at the edges. “I just… I want tonight to go well. I want your family to like mine, and I want them to like me, and–”
“They already do.”
You blink.
“They love you,” he says simply. No hesitation. No doubt. “And if our families decide they don’t like each other… Not really our problem, is it?”
You huff a quiet, nervous laugh. “I know, I just– I overthink everything.”
“I know you do.”
His thumbs brush lightly along your cheeks, steady, unhurried. He leans down just enough to press a kiss into your hair.
“It’s one night,” he murmurs. “We’re gonna show up, we’re gonna have fun, and if anything gets messy…” His lips brush your temple, voice dropping just a fraction lower. “I’ll handle it.”
You pull back slightly, searching his face. “You’ll handle it?”
He meets your eyes, calm as ever. “I’ll handle it.”
And you believe him.
Because he says it like it’s already taken care of. Like there was never anything to worry about in the first place. Something in your chest loosens.
His mouth curves, just a little. “You’re doing too much thinking.”
“Someone has to,” you mutter.
“No,” he says easily. “That’s my job tonight.”
Your brows lift. “Oh, is it?”
“Yeah.” His grip shifts, one hand sliding down to your waist, grounding, steady. “Your job is a lot easier.”
“Oh, yeah?” you echo.
He leans in, voice low, edged with that dry humor of his. “Yeah. You just worry about being my pretty little arm candy.”
You stare at him for half a second– then laugh, the tension finally cracking, “You’re ridiculous.”
“I know.”
But he’s smiling, soft and certain, and his thumb traces a small, absentminded circle against your side.
“You don’t worry about anything,” he adds quietly. “I’ve got it.”
Your chest feels lighter now.
“I love you,” you say.
“I love you too.” He presses a quick kiss to your lips, then pulls back just enough to look at you again. “C’mon.” His hand finds yours, steadying the tremor you didn’t even realize was still there. “Let’s go have some fun.”
—
It starts out almost perfect– Warm hugs, happy well-wishes, lots of gifts Jake hands off to his mom, who puts them away safely before you can even worry about them.
He takes his role very seriously, ensuring you don't think twice about anything, keeping a steady arm around your waist, holding you securely.
You meet more of his family, loving every one of them, hoping they love you too.
Jake charms your family with ease, lots of laughter and jokes that make you beam with pride.
After a couple hours, the older crowd begins to dissipate, more wishes of joy and happiness given to you both as they leave. And it's just your family and friends, along with Josh, Sam and Danny still laughing and chatting.
Josh appears, a bottle of vodka already in his hand, “Alright, the old people are gone,” he says, handing you the bottle. “We're gonna get drunk as fuck now.”
He holds out two shot glasses, taking the bottle back from you when you and Jake take the glasses.
Jake lets out a heavy breath as he unbuttons his shirt a little more, making your eyes wander as Josh fills your glasses.
“Cheers to the happy couple,” Josh says, lifting the bottle, taking a rather large swallow from it as you both down the shots.
It burns your throat going down, making you cringe as you cough tightly. Jake takes it like it's nothing, and you nudge him as Josh refills your glasses.
“Show-off,” you mutter.
“Lightweight,” he returns, winking at you.
You already feel warm, the liquor heating your insides as you take another shot.
—
You've had too much to drink, you think.
You're not completely tossed, just enough to give you the confidence to join Grace out on the dance floor, laughing and dancing without a care.
You hadn't seen Jake for a bit, but you know he's got an eye on you. He always does, he's always looking out for you.
That thought alone makes you miss him. So you tell Grace you're going to go find him.
You slip away, scanning the room, frowning when you realize you'll have to go searching for him.
You take a deep breath, the alcohol making you warm and dizzy, and… craving Jake. You want him. You want his hands on you, you want his mouth on you, you want his cock inside of you while he says dirty things to you.
Your cheeks flush either from the filthy thoughts plaguing your brain or the alcohol in you. Maybe both.
You search the room for him, biting your lower lip when you see him talking to Josh, the two of them laughing too much, and you know they're just as drunk as you are.
You move through the chattering crowd to your fiance, hoping you don't look as desperate for him as you feel.
When you reach them, you immediately grab him a little firmer than usual, “Josh, I gotta steal him,” you say, leaning into Jake, your smile wide.
Josh takes his leave with a wobbly salute, and you grin up at Jake, “C'mere,” you whisper, pulling him with you.
“Hi, pretty girl,” he murmurs, his hands falling to your waist as he walks along with you, “Where've you been?”
“Dancing a little bit,” you tell him, like he didn't have his eyes on you the entire time you and Grace were flailing around on the dance floor.
“Where are we going, honey?” He asks softly.
“Bathroom,” you say with a grin.
He hums, “What for?” He asks as you reach the door.
“I'm fuckin’ wasted,” you breathe, giggling as you shove him into the bathroom.
He smiles, “Me too, baby.”
“I want you to fuck me,” you say, shutting the door behind you.
You clumsily lock the door behind you, biting your lip when he grins at you, “You naughty little girl,” he whispers, “In the bathroom?”
“I need you,” you say, pushing him toward the counter.
He turns the two of you around, pushing your upper half against the cold marble of the counter.
He flips the skirt of your dress up, crouching down to press his lips to the backs of your thighs. He lets out a sound when his fingers press over the drenched lace of your panties.
“Oh, you're dirty,” he whispers, moving your panties to the side, licking a single stripe over your soaked heat.
“Please, baby,” you ask, pushing your hips back into his face.
He allows you to for a moment, flattening his tongue over your clit as you grind against him. You let out a moan that's much too loud when he flicks his tongue, and you feel your heart drop when he pulls away.
“This is why I can't ever be too nice to you,” he murmurs as he stands back up. “You can't be quiet, can you?”
“I can,” you protest, sighing when he straightens you to stand once more. You turn quickly, grabbing onto him, “I can be quiet, Jakey. Just fuck me. Please.”
He moves his hand beneath your dress again. “You can't even be quiet for my tongue or my fingers, you think you can be quiet for my cock?”
“Please,” you sigh, “You can cover my mouth while you fuck me–”
“Oh, you think that's how it works?” His fingers dance over your clit, barred by the wet lace that's now sitting uncomfortably against your skin.
“Can I at least suck your dick?” You ask, rocking into his touch.
“So desperate for a cock in her mouth– You'd shut up that way, wouldn't you?”
“Yes,” you whimper, “I'll be nice and quiet, Jake. I'll let you fuck my mouth as hard as you want and I'll be so quiet.”
He hums, “As tempting as that is, angel, I like it when you make your pretty sounds. And I don't wanna fuck your darling little mouth or your sweet needy pussy until I can hear them.”
“Baby, please,” you break out the tears, rocking slowly into his touch, “I need you to make me come.”
He lets out a heavy sigh, “Alright. But if you make a single sound that's too loud, I'm stopping. And you're not gonna come until we get home.”
“Okay,” you eagerly nod your head, wrapping your arms around his shoulders as he boosts you into the counter.
He lifts your skirt again, and drags your panties down your legs. You spread your thighs for him, sighing with need when he shoves your panties into his pocket, “Jacob,” you chastise.
“Shut up,” he murmurs, eyeing your dripping heat for a moment, “You think we can make it quick if I fuck you?”
“Yes,” you say quickly.
“Yeah,” he murmurs, unbuckling his belt, “I think so too.”
“Give me that pretty cock,” you plead, spreading your thighs even further open.
“Quit talking,” he orders, slipping his dick from his underwear, “You just shut up, alright?"
You nod, biting your lip when he grabs your thighs and yanks you to the edge of the counter. He doesn't waste any time in slipping inside, muttering a quiet curse as your soaked walls envelope him in their warmth.
“Oh, my God,” you whisper, leaning back against the mirror as he settles his hands at your waist.
He grunts, low in his throat, tilting his head to watch as he starts moving.
You melt in content, letting your head fall back with a soft thump against the mirror, “Feels so good,” you whine, reaching for him and pulling him closer.
He places a hand on the edge of the counter beside you, using his hold for better leverage as he starts fucking into you hard and fast.
You let a whine escape, tightening your grip when his palm collides with your outer thigh. “Told you to shut the fuck up,” he says, voice taut.
“M'sorry,” you breathe as he reaches up, yanking the top of your dress down to reveal your breasts, “You make me feel so good, Jake– Fuck…”
His hand moves from your hip to your mouth, hooking his thumb inside as his gaze roams over your chest, watching it bounce with every slam of his hips. “Our families are right outside, honey,” he takes on that low, rough voice that makes your clit throb, “You think they know what we're doing in here?"
You hum around his thumb, rolling your tongue before you respond with a slightly drunken slur to your words, “I don't care if they know.”
“Fuckin’ filthy,” he whispers, slipping his thumb from your mouth, sliding down your body and pressing it over your clit, “This is why I can't let you drink,” he says, rubbing tight circles over the throbbing bud, “You always get so slutty.”
“I do not,” you whine, wrapping your thighs around him.
“No?” He asks you, “Look at you– All wet and messy with your thighs spread for me in a dingy fuckin’ bathroom.”
“I just love you,” you defend needlessly.
He grins, contrastingly soft compared to what he was doing and saying, “I love you too, baby.”
“I wanted you all night,” you gasp, your thighs tensing as you grind your hips up into his, “You look so good…”
“Mm, so do you, baby,” his eyes move back over your chest, down your torso, jaw tight as he watches himself fuck you. “With your pretty tits bouncing, and this sweet little pussy squeezing me so tight– Fuck,” he leans in, “I need you to come for me, sweet girl. All over me…”
“Jake…” Your hand tangles into the hair at the base of his skull, “M'so close. Help me–”
“Give it to me,” he orders, grabbing your hips and moving you to meet his thrusts, “Come on, baby, give me a good one.”
It hits hard and fast, and you cry out much too loudly, quickly slapping a hand over your mouth when his eyes meet yours with a disappointed look. He fucks you through it regardless, his own ending washing over him with a low, grunted curse falling from his lips.
It slows to a moment of heavy breaths and rustling clothes as he slips out of you, straightening you up with a gentle hand.
“Still too fucking loud,” he says, fixing the top of your dress.
“I'm sorry,” you murmur, still fighting to catch your breath as you watch him tuck himself away, buckling his belt back up and adjusting everything accordingly.
He hums, a smile at his lips as he helps you clean up. He pulls you down from the counter, making sure you stand in steady feet before he pulls your panties from his pocket, “You don't need these, do you?” He asks, lifting an eyebrow.
“I don't think I should go without them tonight,” you murmur sheepishly.
His smile grows as he lowers to a crouch, lifting one of your feet to slip them back on. You lift your other, swallowing heavily when he slides them back up your thighs, slipping them back into place.
He fixes your skirt back to normal, rising back up and meeting your lips with his own.
You hum when he walks you backward, your back hitting the tile of the wall beside the door. You wrap your arms around him, greedily accepting every bit of what he's giving you.
A knock sounds on the door beside you, and he pulls away with an annoyed huff.
You avoid the eyes of the woman waiting at the door, a blush overtaking your face as Jake gives a polite hello to her.
“She's gonna know what we just did,” you whisper to him, your skin warm where his hand lay as he guides you through the small crowd.
“We'll never see her again,” he says, “Now come on, we've gotta get drunker so we can have more nasty, filthy sex.”
“You're so romantic.”
“You'll thank me later.”
—
You shove the bedroom door open harder than you mean to. It hits the door stopper with a loud bang, swinging back and nearly hitting you if it weren't for Jake's hand appearing out of nowhere and pushing it back against the wall.
“My hero,” you sigh, turning to him and throwing an arm over his shoulder. Your other hand snakes between the two of you, grabbing his dick through his pants as he hums low in his throat.
“Does my pretty girl wanna fuck?” He asks, grabbing your hand and moving it over the length of him.
“Yeah,” you lick at the shell of his ear, “I want your pretty cock inside me.”
He pushes you against the wall, grinning when you let out a laugh as you pull him closer.
“You're gonna be my wife,” he says, hands grabbing wherever he reached, squeezing tightly, sliding to a new place to grab.
“You're gonna be my husband,” your words slur as you lean back into the wall to hold yourself steady, letting out a soft sound when he grabs your breast without tact.
“I'm gonna fuck you into the mattress,” he says, reaching for the zipper on the back of your dress.
“No,” you protest his declaration, pouting in a way that makes his cock twitch in his pants, “I'm gonna ride you.”
“Why?” He asks loudly, a frown on his own face.
“Because I want to,” you say, as if it's obvious.
“Five minutes,” he holds up a hand with his fingers splayed out, visually showing you the time he's allotted you.
But now you only want his fingers in your mouth. So you grab his hand and pull it toward your parted lips. He seems to catch on half a second too late, pushing his fingers into your mouth with a drunken little, “Ooh,” murmured.
You giggle around his fingers, hollowing your cheeks as you roll your tongue around them. He hums, pushing his fingers in just a little deeper until you lightly gag.
Then they're gone, and he clicks his tongue, “Don't want you fuckin’ throwin’ up on me.”
“I won't, you jackass,” you grumble, grabbing the lapels of his jacket, “Take your fucking clothes off.”
“I love it when you talk dirty to me,” he says, pulling his jacket off and letting it fall to the floor without a care in the world. He struggles with the buttons of his shirt for a moment, before he curses and yanks it open.
You gasp when a button hits your chest, “Jake! I liked that shirt...”
“I have, like, a hundred more of the same one,” he says, slipping out of his shirt, “You'll be fine.”
“I liked that one specifically,” you say, reaching behind you to pull down your zipper on your dress.
“You said that about the other ones too,” he mutters, spinning you around and tugging your zipper down so fast that it makes you dizzy.
“Woah,” you breathe, letting your forehead fall to the cool plaster of the wall for a moment, “S'really hot in here.”
“I'll fix it,” he says softly, “On the bed, naked, wait for me.”
You mock salute when he spins you back around, and lightly pushes you toward the bed with a swat to your backside. He leaves the room, and you let your dress fall without a care as you collapse onto the mattress. You lift your hips as you slide your panties down, whining in annoyance when they tangle at your feet.
He comes back only a moment later, and as if on cue, the loud hum of the air conditioner kicks on.
You sigh as you grin at him, opening your thighs as much as you could with your panties still wrapped around your ankles.
“Help me,” you say softly.
“Poor girl,” he murmurs, pulling them off with ease, “Look at that pretty pussy, she's fuckin’ dripping, baby.”
“It's ‘cause she wants you,” you tell him, slipping a hand between your thighs to brush your fingers over your clit, “So bad, Jakey.”
He groans, hastily tearing open his belt. He stumbles only a little as he kicks his pants away, and before you can beg him to hurry, he's on top of you, his bare skin pressed flush to yours.
“You feel that?” He asks, pressing his hardened length against your drenched center, “Feel how fuckin’ hard you make me?”
You nod, “Feel how wet I am?”
“Yeah, I feel it,” he murmurs, rocking his hips against you, “So wet, baby, I'd just slip right into that greedy cunt, yeah?”
“Yeah,” you sigh, nearly letting him until you remember your bargain. You place a hand at his chest, “I get to ride you.”
He immediately pouts, still grinding against you, “Come on–”
“You said five minutes,” you argue, rocking your hips up into him regardless.
He lets out an annoyed sound, pushing off of you and flopping over onto his back, “I just wanna love on you,” he grumbles, “Don't want you to do any work tonight.”
You giggle as you climb over him, straddling his hips and circling your hips ever-so-slightly over him, “You can,” you pause when his eyes light up, “In five minutes.”
He tilts his head, looking at the clock, “Tick tock, baby.”
You reach between the two of you, wrapping a hand around him, and positioning him right at your slick hole. You sink down with a moan, your hands falling to his chest as you take a quick moment to adjust.
Your favorite part of drunk sex with Jake is how intense it all feels. You can feel every ridge, every curve of him inside of him, you're hyperaware of the sensations filling your body. And he looks so fucking good, with his flushed cheeks and messy hair, and that drunken light to his eyes that mixes into the love you see there when he looks at you.
“Fuck,” you breathe, “You're so big.”
“Yeah?” He asks, his eyes lazily watching the way you move on top of him, nodding encouragingly when you lift up and glide back down.
“Yeah,” you respond, clenching around him just to listen to the hum he gives you. “You're so fucking hard, Jake…”
“And you're all wet,” his hands finally move to your hips. “Soaking my cock and we're just getting started.”
“S'your fault,” you say, bouncing just a little harder to watch the way his muscles tighten. “You were so mean to me in that bathroom.”
“You still mad at me for that?” He teases, “All because you couldn't stop fuckin’ whining and crying?”
“I love you,” you defend yourself, “It isn't my fault you make me feel good.”
He grins, “You know I love your pretty noises, baby. I'd give anything to hear ‘em whenever I want to.”
“You're just bossy,” you mutter.
“And you like it,” he calls you on it, “Makes your little cunt all wet and snug– Fuck, I wanna live inside her.”
“You're so fucking dirty.”
He hums, looking up at the clock again, “Two minutes.”
“Touch me,” you plead, unsure how exactly you were so close already, “Please, Jake, I wanna come like this.”
He obliges, his hand finding your clit with ease, circling over it gently at first, “You can come like this,” he starts, “But I'm still gonna fuck your shape into our bed and you're gonna come again– Maybe a few times.”
You nod rapidly, “Okay, okay, just– fuck, I'm so close.”
He begins to move beneath you, fucking up into you as you rock and grind on top of him. “Better hurry, baby,” he taunts, “You got one minute to come.”
“Fuck you,” you whine, speeding up in desperation, almost scared he was going to make you stop right before you hit your peak.
“Come on,” he urges, “Let me feel that pretty pussy squeezing my cock, baby. Make a mess all over me– I want it fucking filthy tonight.”
His words send you over the edge with a loud sob from your lips. You try to stop, but he keeps you moving, ensuring you feel every bit of it and then some. Your nails have buried themselves into the warm, taut muscles of his chest, your hips jerk and your thighs twitch erratically around him as he eases his thrusts into slow rolls of his hips.
“You're so fucking pretty when you come,” he praises, reaching up to almost clumsily shove your sweat-dampened hair away from your face. “God, I get to watch that for the rest of my life. My pretty little wife coming all over my cock. Fuck, I love you.”
You collapse around him with a whine, wrapping your arms around him, “I love you so much,” you breathe, nesting into the hollow of his throat, “You make me feel so fucking good, Jake.”
With a soft grunt from him, he rolls the two of you over again, wrapping your thighs around his hips.
He pushes up just enough to look at you, a soft smile at his lips as he traces his fingers over your face.
“What are you looking at?” You ask in a teasing tone.
“My wife,” he whispers.
“Shut your mouth and fuck me,” you say, suddenly overcome with emotion. Your eyes water as you pout up at him, “Don't get sweet with me right now, you know I'm gonna cry.”
“Crybaby,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your nose. “My sweet little crybaby. What are you crying for, hm?”
“I love you,” you sniffle, “You know I'm soft.”
“I know, honey,” he wipes a tear away, “You want me to fuck you all better? Make your pretty pussy cry instead?”
Jesus. How he could easily switch between soft and filthy always made your head spin, but it seems to affect you more being drunk.
“Yeah,” you breathe, “I want it so bad.”
“So greedy,” he's already fucking into you slowly, “Spoiled and greedy. Getting my cock once tonight wasn't enough, huh?”
“It's never enough,” you admit, digging your nails into his shoulders, “I want you inside all the time.”
“Fuck, I wish,” he murmurs, “Wish I could keep you wrapped around my cock all day, all night. You have no fuckin’ clue, honey.”
“Harder, baby,” you plead in a sigh, “Fuck me harder, please…”
He obliges, leaning closer into you and licking a stripe up the side of your throat, “I love when you're like this.”
“Like what?” You ask, your hands roaming all over him, his chest, his shoulders, his back.
“All drunk and slutty, thinking you run shit,” he wraps a hand loosely around your throat, “Makes my cock fucking ache, baby.”
“I do run shit,” you tease with a grin.
“Yeah,” he agrees, fingers tightening as his hips hit yours with sound smacks, “You do. You've got me fucking whipped. I'd crawl through broken glass just to look at you.”
Your lips part as his hand tightens around your throat, “I don't want you to do that,” you pout, the thought making you both sad and incredibly turned on.
“You're so fucking sweet,” he smiles, pressing a kiss to the corner of your mouth, “My beautiful girl, I love you to bits.”
“You're soft,” you tease to deflect, to stop your alcohol-induced emotions that you're feeling extra hard right now.
“Soft?!” He repeats, pretending to be offended. His hand moves from your throat, lightly slapping your face, not even hard enough to sting. It still makes you moan and clench around him, sending a heat zipping through you.
You've always liked when he gets rough with you, but he was right earlier– You do get slutty when you drink, and you're even more desperate for the filthy, nasty things he does and says.
“M'not soft,” he says, voice rough, “I try to be sweet to you and you just act so fuckin’ bad,” he tweaks your nipple between his fingers, “Bad girl.”
“Fuck, Jake,” you whine, “Don't stop, baby, please…”
His palm connects with your breast in a heavier slap, his eyebrows furrowing when he watches the recoil, “Are you getting close, angel? Gonna come on my cock from me being mean to you?”
“Yes,” you nod quickly, wrapping your thighs tighter around him, “I love it… Fuck…”
He hums a smug laugh, before he slips his hand between the two of you, rubbing tight circles over your clit, “I wanna hear my name when you come,” he instructs, “Want you to cry for me when you come, be fuckin’ loud.”
You nod again, because it seems to be all you can do as your orgasm draws closer. You're already being loud, whining and moaning with every drag of his cock along your pulsing walls.
“Do it,” he orders, “Right now. Fucking come for me.”
You do.
It hits you hard and heavy, and a loud, broken sob of his name falls from your lips as you come undone around him.
He grunts out curses and praise, choked awe as he grins down at you, fucking you through it expertly.
You find it in you to string words together, just enough to ask him, “Fill me up, Jakey,” as his hips stutter.
He comes with a tight hold on you, his jaw tightening before falling slack as you feel his warmth coating your slick walls in his release.
“Fuck,” he hisses, his hips slowing as his eyebrows tilt up.
He stills inside of you, his forehead falling to your collarbone as you melt into the mattress.
Your chests rise and fall together in heavy breaths, your body trembling beneath him as his hands glide over your heated skin.
Finally he manages to roll off of you, sprawling beside you and pulling you into his side.
“We'll clean up in a minute,” he says, eyes shut as he smiles in content.
“I can't walk,” you whisper, your thighs feeling like jelly.
“I'll carry you,” he offers.
“We're too drunk for that,” you object.
“Touché,” he mutters, pushing himself up, “Hold on.”
You watch with a besotted smile as he makes his way to the bathroom. He returns a moment later with a washcloth, his cheeks flushed red and his hair messed from your hands.
He cleans you up with a gentle hand, soft kisses on your thighs as he does so. And before you know it, you're wrapped back in his arms, cuddled into him beneath the blankets. A warm glow and satisfaction fills your bones, making your eyes heavy as he turns the lamp off.
“I love you,” you mumble, already halfway gone into your slumber.
“I love you,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your hair before sleep overtakes you both.
—
You wake slowly, aware of warm hands moving in slow, absent patterns across your back. It feels nice– really nice– until your skull feels like it's splitting open from the inside.
The headache hits the second you’re fully conscious.
You groan.
“Good morning, baby love,” Jake murmurs, pressing a soft kiss between your shoulder blades.
“Kill me,” you mumble into the pillow, squinting against the thin blade of sunlight sneaking through the blinds.
“Tempting,” he says lightly, then reaches over you to yank the curtains shut. The room falls back into blessed darkness. “But no. Wake up, honey– I got food.”
“I don't think I can eat right now,” you admit, rolling onto your back to pout at him.
“Tough shit,” he says in a teasingly firm tone, smiling at you, “I got the greasiest, nastiest looking food for us.”
“How romantic,” you mutter, tilting your head when he leans over to his nightstand.
“You'll thank me later.”
“How are you even functioning right now?” You ask, watching as he brings a paper bag over, already splotched with grease, the smell suddenly hitting you.
“Experience,” he says, opening the bag as he smiles at you, “You, however, are a delicate, fragile little thing.”
“I am not,” you grumble. You push yourself up to sit, the blanket falling away to reveal your bare chest.
He pauses for a moment to stare, humming quietly to himself when you lightly shove his arm.
“Breakfast and a pretty view,” he says, holding out something in a foil wrapper for you.
“You're dumb,” you giggle, taking them from him with a grin.
“I'm in love,” he corrects, “With my pretty fiancee.”
“I like the way that sounds,” you admit. unwrapping the foil with a blush on your cheeks.
“Yeah?” He asks, slipping a fry into his mouth, “I think wife sounds better.”
“I like that much better,” you whisper, avoiding his eyes as warmth overtakes you.
He leans in and presses a kiss to your forehead, “I can't wait to marry you.”
“I threw up in the rose bushes last night.” You say, the realization hitting you. You frown as he hands you more food.
“Yeah,” he says like it was nothing. But you're embarrassed.
“Jesus,” you whisper.
“It was just us,” he says with a shrug, “I laughed so hard I threw up in the yard.”
“That's what you get,” you giggle.
“Yeah,” he grins, “What a pair we make.”
You smile softly again, picking at the food in your lap. “I love you.”
“I love you,” he says, nodding to your food, “Now eat so we can recover.”
“Yes, sir,” you mutter. He only lifts an eyebrow as he watches you take a bite. Immediately it's as if the nausea dissipates, the only symptom left is your pounding head. “This is so good,” you sigh in relief.
“Told you,” he says around a mouthful of his own food.
You both eat in a comfortable quiet, the only sounds are the crinkling wrappers and the occasional hum of content.
Finally, unsure how you've managed to, you've eaten all of your food, and Jake has too. When the trash is thrown aside, and you're nestled into his arms again, you sigh at the dull ache still plaguing your head.
“I still have a headache,” you whisper.
“I have a cure for that, too,” he says, his voice a little rough, either from exhaustion or his idea that you are well aware of.
“I'll bet you do.”
“It helps,” he murmurs, his hands wandering over your bare skin.
“Then help me out,” you nip lightly at his throat.
He hums a laugh, already moving to hover over you. You melt beneath him, not willing to tell him that the thought of what's coming has already made your headache disappear.
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Chapter tags/Warnings: (18+ Minors DNI) Pirate AU, plot stuff, nighttime talks, secrets revealed, graphic smut (I promised you would have it soon 💋), m/m, nudity, oral sex, tenderness and fluff
Enjoy chapters one, two, three, four, five, and six here! 💋
The sky mottled and darkened into the navy blue of an Englishman’s coat. A gauzy haze fell over the still water as night brought cooler air.
And Raider departed, leaving the ship in silence. An odd mood settled in as the crew realized he’d come alone on a boat that should’ve taken two to row. Was the creature beneath them now, mere inches from the glassy surface? Had it helped the hull along like watery stallions drawing Poseidon’s chariot? It might be caressing Marauder’s underside now, its hideous appendages groping, curling, writhing in its silent nest.
“What do we do now?” Someone asked quietly.
Jacob did not answer. His eyes were vacant and his pensive expression was turned toward the enemy ship, his face a silver circle in the night. Either he didn’t hear, or he was too entrenched in his thoughts to respond.
“Go below, for now,” Sorbello volunteered, “Rest. Collect yourselves, and await the Captain’s next orders.”
There was a moment of pause, as though this moment represented a turn of a page. A transition from before to after a moment of revelation. Every soul on board seemed stuck in place where they stood, Jacob against the railing, Christopher in the crossbreeze on the stairs, Sorbello leaning solidly against the mast.
Then the crewmen filed away to their individual corners of the ship, their voices a low swell on the wind.
Christopher held eye contact with the Second Mate. He wanted to ask him why he’d come to Jacob’s defense, when only hours ago he’d accused him of sorcery, of disguise and manipulation.
But with a curt nod it was understood between them: Whether the accusations were true or not, the outsider had no place in the private dealings of this ship. It would be advantageous to keep this secret between the two officers–At least until they’d learned more. There were too many loose questions. Too many Jokers in the deck.
Sorbello sniffed and withdrew to his quarters.
Christopher shuffled numbly up the stairs and placed a steadying hand on his Captain’s shoulder. “He is gone. We’ll turn in and plot a new course. Then you need to rest.”
Jacob looked up. His profile caught a pale sliver of moonlight as the crescent above them awakened, illuminating every curve of his soft features like a hilly horizon. But he seemed so thin and withered under Christopher’s hand, as though the Raider’s presence had leeched something from his blood.
He gave a wan smile, “I think we both know I won’t be able to sleep.”
“You must. I insist,” He squeezed fondly, “We will live until tomorrow. The events of today will not change if we neglect ourselves.”
Jacob nodded mutely. Then the silver on his face winked into darkness as the tilt of his hat blocked the light.
***
“Thought I’d find you here,” A soft, rugged voice accompanied the creak of the hatch behind him. Jacob could feel Christopher before he could see him, his proximity almost a palpable warmth on his back.
“I so hate to become predictable,” He murmured, having been tugged from the mire of his thoughts. But he smiled. It was a welcome distraction.
“Well, it wasn’t much of a mystery; You are perturbed, and when you need solitude there are limited places you can go,” Christopher sidled close to him, his ribs meeting his own like the fond nudge of standing cattle, “I’m just glad you didn’t climb the fucking jibboom and perch on it like a crow, because I certainly wouldn’t be able to follow.”
Jacob exhaled a gust through his nose - the closest thing to a laugh he could muster. Indeed, he’d thought to take a shift in the lookout nest atop the world and watch the horizon until it blushed with the sunrise. But his injured leg felt leadened and dead beneath him, his adrenaline and stubbornness having finally yielded to pure weariness. He wouldn’t be climbing anything for a while.
There was hardly room for the two of them on the narrow foredeck beneath the ship’s figurehead, where the bowsprit thrust like a spear into the dark. The carved woman at their backs leaned eternally forward, her wooden hair streaming, her blind gaze fixed upon the horizon. Beneath her outstretched hands the water peeled away in silver-capped ribbons, parting around Marauder’s prow.
The rail curved tight against their hips; the timber underfoot was damp with brine. Each slow rise of the hull lifted them, then lowered them again, so that they swayed in an unconscious rhythm.
The air changed around them in the few moments of silence. Jacob could feel Christopher’s shift in mood and could sense the dreaded question before it had even formed on the First Mate’s lips.
“We didn’t outrun the Starcatcher by our own strategy, did we?”
Jacob fidgeted with the ring on his finger. He pulled an uneasy breath, “No, we did not.”
“I see,” Christopher’s neck bobbed, “And the skies were clear this morning. Storms don’t move in out of the clear blue.”
“No,” He agreed numbly.
“Neither do…” A swallow, an exhale, “Krakens.”
“Indeed not,” Jacob felt too warm, too trapped on this narrow ledge. But he knew there was no escaping his First Mate’s deductions. He’d lived through the same day, and had seen all the same unnatural events unfold. What else could be done, but to confront it?
Christopher faced him, then waited for the eye contact that Jacob couldn’t muster yet.
“I do not know why I hold sway over the patterns of the ocean. I have never understood it–Only that I can…feel it, hear it,” He kept his voice barely above a whisper, lest some unsuspecting soul atop the main deck overhear, “I can guide it.”
“Guide it,” Christopher echoed thinly, “Is it magic?”
He lifted one shoulder, then dropped it.
“Raider said he was your brother. Perhaps it is hereditary?”
“Perhaps,” He mused, “But I have no family line to speak of, no surname, no home. Neither of us do.”
“Surely you have a father,” Christopher scoffed, “You two didn’t just appear out of sea foam like in the Greek storybooks.”
Finally, Jacob’s eyes alighted on Christopher’s blue ones, now steely rings of moonlight, “Perhaps you can see why I kept that secret close. I don’t understand it, so how could anyone else? It would only make this ship a target for someone like Red Raider—Someone who would seek the glory of conquering a demigod.”
“A demigod,” Christopher seemed to taste the word in his mouth, to feel the way his tongue fit around it. How strange it must be: for a man to learn his lover was a different creature than the one he’d come to know—perhaps one that wasn’t even human to begin with.
“I am sorry. I had hoped there would never be occasion to use my influence over the seas, and therefore never an occasion for it to come to light,” Jacob could feel his chest getting tighter, so he soothed himself with the repetitive, smooth glide of metal on his skin, rotating around and around the axle of his finger, “But Raider had other plans.”
“Mmm,” Christopher waited, as if for more words, more explanations.
And as he waited, the pressure of his silence seemed to coax them out. Jacob squirmed. The firmness in that steely gaze was like the oil press to an olive - a constant, gentle pressure that would open even the most unwilling of fruits.
“His name is Joshua,” He confessed, “Even our names match, as though someone intentionally gave them to us - though we can never recall what happened at our birth.”
“Or who birthed you,” He finished.
Jacob gave another shrug, inhaling weakly against the squeeze in his chest, “Some things we can never know.”
Christopher picked at a fraying edge of his sleeve. Jacob was relieved that he didn’t move away, but instead chose to remain alongside him, his side a solid plane of warmth.
“How does it work?”
Jacob took a chance at levity, “Well, you see: when a man and woman love one another—”
Christopher’s elbow drove lightly into his ribs. “Don’t be clever.”
“I am not,” Jacob said, though the ghost of mischief lingered at the upturned corner of his mouth. “Though I admit the temptation to let you believe I was instead hatched like some sea creature, and rose fully formed from the tide.”
Christopher shot him a look.
Jacob’s smile thinned. His gaze drifted past Christopher’s shoulder to the water below, to the dark swell sliding along the darkened planks of the hull.
“It would be easier,” he added quietly, “if it were something so simple.”
“Jacob.”
Jacob held his gaze. Those ice-blue irises held the weight of shared storms, of narrow escapes, and of quiet nights spent with hands clasped in the dark when the rest of the ship slept. Christopher had followed him without question into waters that no sane man would chart willingly. He had bled for him. If there was any soul aboard the Marauder to whom he owed the entire truth, at least as he understood it, it was this one.
He let his gaze drift outward, beyond the silvered wake.
“It is…like standing in a crowded room and hearing one voice clearer than all the rest of the noise. The ocean is never silent, not to me. She groans and chatters and mutters to herself. Most men hear only the bubbling upon the surface.”
Christopher’s jaw tightened, but he did not interrupt.
“I can feel the tension in a current before it turns,” Jacob continued softly. “Where pressure gathers. Where it will break into a wave. If I focus - if I open myself to it - I can manipulate it. Only slightly, though. A degree to starboard. A swell lifted here, a trough softened there. Enough to spare us from a razor-sharp reef. Enough to coax a storm into skirting our path instead of swallowing us whole.”
“And this time?” Christopher asked.
“This time I called upon the lightning to assist.”
“I could feel it in the air this morning,” he continued. “That the conditions were too still. The water had a cross-current beneath it, though the surface lay smooth. You know that feeling before a squall? The way the world seems to pause, as though it has drawn breath and forgotten to release it?”
Christopher gave a small nod.
“That is when it is possible,” Jacob said plainly. “I cannot summon lightning from a truly clear sky. The charge must already be building between cloud and sea. The wind must be waiting to turn.” His eyes flicked upward briefly. “When the tension gathers and lightning is searching for its path downward, I can…persuade it.”
“You knew of this ability as well,” Christopher said quietly.
“It is indeed not new knowledge to me.”
He exhaled, shoulders lowering as the admission hung between them.
Jacob’s fingers clumsily fidgeted with his ring again, and the small, habitual motion betrayed his anxieties.
“You could have told me,” Christopher said quietly.
Jacob stared past him into the seam where the sea met the dark, moonlit sky.
“I did not know how,” he admitted, “And I did not want you to look at me differently.”
A flicker of disbelief crossed Christopher’s face. He stepped closer, until the fabric of their coats brushed together.
“I am looking at you differently,” he replied.
“Jacob,” he continued, “I just watched you drag a storm out of what the naked eye would perceive as a clear sky and hurtle it towards an enemy. I already know that you’re different.”
“That’s precisely my point.”
Christopher shook his head once. “No. Your point is that you decided for me what I could handle.”
The ship shifted beneath them. Jacob shifted his weight from his injured leg onto the other and Christopher’s hand came to his waist automatically, steadying him. He didn’t remove it.
“I wasn’t trying to shut you out,” Jacob said, “I was only trying to keep you safe.”
“From what?” Christopher asked. “From you?”
Jacob flinched almost imperceptibly.
“I don’t even understand it fully, whatever this is,” he said, his voice cracking in frustration. “How was I meant to explain it to you? ‘Good evening, by the way, I can turn the tide and redirect lightning when the air’s right.’ It sounds absolutely mad when spoken aloud.”
He swallowed before continuing. “And I was afraid.”
Christopher’s jaw tightened. “Of me?”
“Of losing you,” Jacob said plainly. “I thought if you saw the whole of it - of me, of what I can do - you might decide it in your best interest to step away.”
Christopher stared at him, as though the suggestion were clearly absurd and he was waiting for his Captain to realize it.
“Do you really think I’d run?” he asked.
“I think you’re sensible,” Jacob replied, “And this is not.”
For a moment neither spoke. Then, Christopher lifted his hand from Jacob’s waist to the curve of his neck.
“Listen to me,” he said. “You’re not just some kind of dangerous weapon lying in wait until an opportune moment to wreak havoc arises.” His voice dipped lower. “You’re the man I chose, and you are still him despite the weight of what you hold inside.”
Jacob closed his eyes, and for a moment, he let the weight of Christopher’s touch anchor him to the railing. The night was growing ever colder, but his skin buzzed with heat along the places where their bodies met. He could almost believe, in this moment, that he was just a man and not a thing to be studied, not a mechanism for violence, not a problem to be solved.
Then Christopher drew him in until their foreheads touched and spoke,
“You could directly command every storm that I encounter in this life and it would not scare me away, but if you ever try to spare me from yourself again, I’ll throw you overboard myself. Understood?”
Jacob nodded against Christopher’s brow. The words "the man I chose" reverberated in his mind, ricocheting into the deepest parts of him that had always ached for belonging. He let the silence linger between them, not wanting to break it with an ill-fitted joke or to shatter this rare, pure stillness. The ship rolled lazily beneath their feet, but with Christopher’s hand still at his neck, and their bodies aligned, Jacob felt capable of braving anything.
It was only then that he stopped to consider how impossibly close they stood, which was far beyond plausible deniability or the guise of simple camaraderie.
It was completely dark now, the sky a mottled shade of deep blue and black. Under the main deck Sorbello and the others would be long abed by now, or at least in quick pursuit of the bottom of a bottle. Up here, beneath the figurehead, they might as well be the only men in the world.
Christopher’s thumb moved to trace the line of Jacob’s jaw - a slow, deliberate motion that sent heat pooling low in his belly.
“Christopher,” he breathed a weak warning, unable to care about how desperate the name sounded as it rolled off his tongue.
“I know, love,” Christopher muttered. His other hand slid to Jacob’s hip, fingers curling into the fabric there. “Tell me if you want me to stop.”
Jacob’s answer was to close the remaining distance between them, capturing Christopher’s mouth with his own. The kiss was far from gentle; it carried the weight of the day’s revelations, of the fear knotted in Jacob’s chest now seeking release. Christopher’s tongue slipped into his mouth, causing him to utter a sound that was half gasp, half moan. His hands found purchase of their own in the lapels of Christopher’s coat. He could feel the evidence of his first mate’s arousal pressing against his thigh, and it made him weak at the knees.
“Here?” he asked, though the tone of his voice held no real protest. They had been reckless before in their encounters but never quite so exposed as this, with only the cover of darkness to shield them from anyone’s wandering gaze.
“Here,” Christopher confirmed. His hand slid to the front of Jacob’s breeches, cupping him, causing his hips to jerk forward involuntarily. “Unless you’d rather I take you back to your cabin, where I’ll have to keep you quiet.”
Jacob’s breath hitched at the suggestion.
“You bastard,” he said weakly.
“You love it,” Christopher smirked. There was such warmth in his voice, such affection beneath the air of teasing, that he thought his heart might burst.
Christopher kissed him again, slower this time, as his fingers deftly worked at the fastenings of Jacob’s breeches. The night air was cool against his flushed skin as he was freed from the confines of the fabric, and he shuddered at the contrast. The thought was cut short as the warmth of Christopher’s palm wrapped around his length.
“Look at you,” he murmured, his voice turning low and reverent the way it always did when they were able to sneak in a moment alone like this. His hand stroked once, then twice, and Jacob had to bite down on his lip to keep from crying out. “So perfect and responsive for me.”
“Christopher, please -”
“Shh,” Christopher soothed, ”I will take care of you.” He immediately sank to his knees, his hands steadying Jacob’s hips as he took him into his mouth.
The first touch of his mouth sent a shudder reverberating through Jacob’s entire frame, and he was almost brought to his own knees. Christopher’s tongue traced the underside of his cock lazily before taking him deeper, and Jacob’s hand flew to his uninjured shoulder in response. He gripped him almost hard enough to bruise, bracing his other hand against the base of the figurehead. Her carved eyes stayed fixed on the horizon, almost as if she’d agreed to keep watch as they stole this moment for themselves.
Christopher worked him with the practiced ease of a man who had learned Jacob’s body as thoroughly as he’d learned the Marauder's rigging.
“God,” Jacob gasped, tangling his fingers in Christopher’s windswept, flaxen hair. “Christopher, I -”
Christopher hummed around him, and the vibration sent sparks up Jacob’s spine. His hands slid around to grip his ass, pulling him in deeper still. Jacob clamped a hand over his own mouth in a mostly fruitless attempt to muffle the sound of the loud, broken moan that suddenly tore from his throat.
Christopher had set a maddening rhythm, and Jacob knew that he wouldn’t last long at this pace. His injured leg throbbed, but the pain was becoming distant now, drowned out by the overwhelming pleasure of Christopher’s mouth on him, by the pressure, the wet heat, and their shared obscene sounds. Jacob's fingers tightened in his hair - a silent warning - but he didn't pull away. Instead he doubled his efforts, and Jacob finally came with an audible, strangled cry. Wave after wave of pleasure crashed through him, leaving him shaking and boneless, held upright only by Christopher's hands and the railing at his back.
When he finally came back to himself, Christopher was rising to his feet, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. There was a satisfied smirk on his face that Jacob wanted to kiss off of him, and so he did. He gently tucked himself back into his breeches, then pulled him close, pressing a kiss to mouth and then another to his temple. He buried his face in Christopher's neck, breathing in the familiar scent of him. He could feel the hard line of his neglected arousal still pressed against his hip.
Christopher's hand came up to cup the back of Jacob's head, his thumb stroking through the hair at his nape. The simple touch held an unspoken promise - later, it whispered against Jacob’s skin, when we're somewhere I can take my time with you - and Jacob shivered in response.
They stood there for a long moment, wrapped in each other's arms, the ship rocking gently beneath them and the stars scattered across the night sky like diamonds on velvet. Whatever came next, whatever Raider had planned, they would face it together. For now, that was enough.
***
Taglist (click here to join!): @sanguinebats @livviaaa @dazeebean @jake-whatthefisgoingon-kiszka @sacredsparrow
Content tags/warnings (18+ Minors DNI): Pirates (and all the violence it entails), Night terrors, nightmares, panic attacks, emotional hurt/comfort, emotional baggage, sea monsters, sword fights, action violence, hurt/comfort, major character injury, tending wounds, blood and injury gore, twin chitchat, very brief mention of torture (but nothing described), plot thickens, details about hidden past, potential double-cross, plotting and scheming, Captain negotiation, yearning, eventual smut
Enjoy chapters one, two, three, and four here 💋
This stranger’s ship felt so foreign under Jacob’s feet—so unlike the living motion of his own vessel. This one felt dead and still. Its planks were more solid than a lighthouse, the sheer weight of its hull and its cargo neutralizing the ocean’s dipping motion. Compared to the constant cradle rocking of The Marauder, Starcatcher felt ironically earthbound.
And Jacob felt imprisoned within its impersonal walls.
The battle had been lost, yet his life had been spared on one condition: To board this enemy ship and entertain its Captain’s questions. Christopher lay tied and bleeding—perhaps dying—on Marauder’s deck with the rest of her crew, waiting for the diplomacy of their leader to save their skins. So what choice did he have but to strike a bargain?
Now he sat, rigid and silent in an opulently carved wooden chair, legs crossed in a weak disguise of repose. His molded leather tricorn was settled precariously on his knee, as though the thing had grown sentience and was trying to escape this stifling room. A brief image flashed through Jacob’s mind—of the hat transfiguring into a nervous lap dog and leaping free with a terrified yip. But there was no humor in it.
He felt like a cornered animal himself.
Would he be questioned and tortured? Killed outright? Had he been reduced to a nameless prisoner, another slave to Raider’s whims to be used and discarded, then hung from the mast as an example?
The room around him wept wealth and pretense, the air thick with incense smoke. Wrought iron lanterns glowed merrily from their sconces. The morning sun through the tall windows cast swaths of gold in the air, catching the undulating currents and curlicues of smoke in shifting patterns. There were velvet curtains and tapestries in rich jewel tones at every turn, clinging to the painted wooden walls like a lady’s skirts. And before Jacob stood a table, its surface littered with paper scrolls, books, and wax drippings, along with various trinkets from the depths of this man’s pockets—coins, dice, a lone ivory chess piece, a glass bauble full of dyed streaks. The clutter was suffocating.
Jacob practically vibrated with tension as he waited, on the edge of snapping from his chair and retreating to the familiarity of his own quarters aboard his own ship. At least the clutter there was his own, the papers useful and the trinkets sentimental. Here, he felt like he sat in the center of a dragon’s poisoned hoard.
“So tell me:” This stranger flapped the tail of his exquisitely embroidered coat—likely a motion of flamboyant habit, as he made the gesture with such ease and confidence. Then he flopped into the high-backed chair at the table’s head, “How does a man with an exact replica of my face evade me time and time again? And in my own territory?”
Jacob said nothing, choosing instead to glower in a sullen rage.
“My face isn’t quite so beautiful when it’s so sour and hostile,” He warned, “I thought we were friends by now.”
Off came the nameless figure’s wide-brimmed hat, then he dropped it unceremoniously on the mess of litter between them. The hat’s loud, befeathered presence made a show of almost laughable extravagance—though levity escaped Jacob in these present circumstances.
Jacob only drummed his fingers against the cup of rum he’d been given as a thin display of hospitality. But despite its alluring draw, he didn’t partake. He knew it would dull his mind and thin the blood that still beaded up from the gash at his thigh. So instead he absently fidgeted as his mind raced, his eyes measuring the man across from him as a lynx measures its prey. He imagined the lynx’s teeth sinking into that smooth, tan neck, the blood spurting across the table and ruining that hideous hat—
“I know. I’m wasting your time. You’ll be wanting to get home to your lover—“
Jacob bristled defensively.
His mirror image smiled, those full, pink lips spreading into an almost inhumanly wide grin. A neat row of clean teeth the color of sun bleached whale bone gleamed back at him.
“Oh, was that a secret? I see his kisses all over your chest,” He flashed his matching one, its smooth, hairless contours an exact duplicate of Jacob’s slight build, only without the scattered red-purple marks, “Pardon my deduction—only he practically threw himself on my blade for you, and those bruises are fresh. You’ve been sailing for a third fortnight, so you haven’t a bonny lass at a port town, aye? No buxom bosom to rest your mangy head—”
“You and I are twins,” Jacob supplied dryly, “Estranged from birth—if we were born at all.” He didn’t humor the obvious bait, meant to antagonize and belittle and establish dominance. No, Jacob wouldn’t be buried by this man’s glamour and bravado.
The man leaned back in his gaudy upholstered chair and propped his closely fitted boots on the table, momentarily silenced. He tapped their narrow soles together with three brisk clicks, “It would appear to be so, Brother.”
“I make my own deductions,” Jacob spat, “Like why a man needs to call upon a beast to intercept his opponent.”
“Why does a man call upon a lightning bolt to save his sweet blonde love?”
“A threatened bear bites.”
“Ah,” Starcatcher’s Captain stood and circled the table. His fingers, gaudy with rings and mixed metal baubles, traced the wood with a soft whisper. Then he took the cup from his identical counterpart’s hand, the sickly sweet smile never leaving his dark, shining eyes. He drank deeply and placed one ruffled sleeve against Jacob’s headrest, drawing intimately near. So near that Jacob’s senses were filled with whatever exotic oils perfumed his disappointingly un-bitten neck, “And what does the bear do when he’s kept in a cage?”
Jacob felt a sheen of sweat dampen his underarms. He smelled his own fear oozing from his traitorous body, and it was all he could do not to lash out like a snake in a trap.
The man grinned, wry and wide, and exhaled a sour plume of liquor vapor, “He dances.”
***
Christopher slept deeply beside him, his battered body nestled securely into Jacob’s sheets. His face was weathered and the corners of his eyes were carved with lines from years of squinting against harsh sunlight, but now his features were soft and smooth in rest. He looked so tranquil, so distant from the agony he’d surely wake to.
Jacob reached out and smoothed a lock of fine, brassy hair away from his forehead, then studied every facet of his features. The line of his jaw was strong and his brow bone was stronger, the structure of his face so plainly visible beneath his fair English skin. Blue eyes hid behind delicate kohl-lined lids, the lashes pale and sun bleached. Short, coarse facial hair surrounded soft pink lips—ones that had given kisses so freely.
Jacob smiled. Those sweet lips had lavished him with beautiful words and the tongue behind them had given such blinding, knee-weakening pleasure. And Jacob had freely taken it.
Guilt knotted his insides and the smile died. His heart felt choked, like its chambers were full of stones rather than blood. Stones heavy enough to drag him down, down into the ocean’s depths…
“I’m so sorry, Christopher,” He murmured, barely a whisper, “Your wounds are my own fault. Why do you love me, when all I have brought you is pain?”
Christopher answered only with his rhythmic, gusty breaths.
“Why do I take from you, when I cannot…” Jacob thoughtfully fingered the necklaces at his own sternum, the chains and medallions clinking gently in the dark. Then he reached higher, where his solid silver circlet rested snugly at the base of his neck. It had no closure, no latch and no lock, simply a metal band that was too snug to fit over his head and too thick to break. It had rested there always, just above the notch in his collarbones—a permanent shackle and a cruel heirloom.
Jacob slipped his fingers beneath the band, taking comfort in the fact that he could easily fit four digits between the metal and the skin. He inhaled deeply and focused on this narrow slot of safety. It was far too easy to imagine the metal constricting like the hangman’s noose and collapsing his windpipe. But it offered some measly relief to have his fingertips wedged in the void between life and death, as though he could simply hold back the irrational fear with his hands.
Jacob swallowed and tightened his grip on the necklace as his pulse fluttered erratically against his fingers.
And that was his answer.
When Christopher slept, the nightmares crept in, his mind a leaky hull. Jacob took from his ruggedly beautiful First Mate because Christopher closed up the cracks and took away the fear. He offered distraction. His breaths were a metronomic lullaby that hid the siren song of the ocean. His arms offered safety from the terrors and his cock filled him up so there was no room for anything else.
Oh fuck, his cock.
Jacob’s eyes roamed there now, where Christopher’s lap was hidden beneath the coarse woolen blanket. He longed for it now. He wanted to get lost again, to stop this wretched panic that threatened to close his throat. He wanted to join that warm pocket of his body heat amid the sheets and feel both his softness and his hardness against him. He wanted naked skin to touch naked skin, to be fucked in the way only Christopher could fuck him—as though Jacob was something precious and beautiful, and not the despicable monster he’d become.
“I’m sorry, dear friend,” Jacob sighed and wearily passed a hand over his face, “I don’t know how to stop this. I don’t know how to stop needing you.”
He gave no reply. Only the sigh of a man contentedly at rest.
***
“Does my twin have a name?” Jacob asked, his voice dangerously low and even. He focused on the identical necklace wreathing this man’s identical neck—the same silver shackle that Jacob always wore at the base of his throat.
It would appear that they were duplicates in many ways.
The man pulled back, and Jacob could finally take a breath that wasn’t full of his heady perfume oils.“There’s power in a name, is there not? Child Pirate? Ghost? Bonny Mackey?”
Jacob inwardly flinched at every title, each one bringing with it a host of recollections. He was a sickly child, his willowy frame so gaunt and malnourished. He’d passed from fishing boat to fishing boat, as lost and waif-like as a wayward spirit, living on whatever scraps he could pinch. Then starvation had taken its toll on his early adolescence, limiting his growth and forever stunting his stature.
But he’d learned to market his traits—his small, lithe form and sharp, too-large eyes—trading his lookout capabilities for a steady food supply and half the wages of a fully grown crewman. It had named him Ghost Boy, for the way he’d gracefully traversed the rigging, as though his body was an incorporeal as vapor. For the way his dark pupils stood out against his face in the night, always watching and always aware.
“I like Marauder best. It’s fitting that my perfect match at the duel would have a fearsome name to go with it.”
He tries intimidation, then insults, then finally flattery, Jacob thought with a shred of satisfaction. A duller man might’ve missed these tactics. It meant the stranger wanted something, and would chip away at Jacob’s sensibilities to get it. Which meant he’d be kept alive and breathing—At least for the next few heartbeats.
“Shall I only refer to you as Red Raider, then?” He pointedly diverted the conversation back to the man across from him, “Rather a pretentious label, there; Did you choose it yourself? Marauder was earned.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw, “I’m called Joshua, with no surname to call my own,” He pantomimed tipping his hat in greeting, “Means ‘Yaweh is Deliverance.’ Yours means ‘May God protect.’ Interesting, don’t you think—That our names have biblical roots, when God has all but forsaken us?”
Jacob swallowed, at a loss.
“God didn’t save us when we were motherless children, left to chew seaweed and soothe our wounds with saltwater,” The man’s eerie smile finally decayed into something fiercely angry. Something deep and wounded. He sank into his chair again, this time with none of the pomp and flair, “God didn’t stop me from nearly succumbing to the wasting illness as I fought for my survival. And God didn’t stop me from losing my brother, when we could’ve grown as boys together. Think of the fun we could’ve had, you and me.”
A pang of loss struck Jacob then. He was disarmed by the shedding of Joshua’s puffed up persona and the sudden display of genuine emotion. Now he saw himself in those huge solemn eyes. He saw his own hardened visage there, hiding a reservoir of memories and agony.
“My God—or Goddess, rather—is the sea. Calypso. She has watched over me—us—better than God ever has,” Sparks returned to those eyes and the smile stretched his face back into its smug carnivale mask, “She gave you lightning and currents, and I a Kraken to command.”
“You think Calypso—?”
“Yes, of course!” He chirped.
His voice was much more animated and expressive than Jacob’s—a surreal thing to hear when he was so accustomed to his own calm, even tenor in his skill. This one was jubilant, forming words like there were sparks on his tongue, every syllable coming out like an over-enthusiastic street peddler’s call. “Come taste the sweetest fruits in all of the continent! Only a few coins and you’re a scurviless man! Oranges here!” Jacob’s vibrant imagination filled his mind with the sound, almost causing an untimely snort.
“Who else would bestow us with gifts such as these?”
Or curses, Jacob thought (“One beast from the deepest, foulest pit of the ocean—and it only costs one human soul!”).
“How else would we have such power at sea, but not on land? You and I are two halves of Her,” Joshua leaned forward on the table and propped his chin on his palms in a mannerism that almost made him look childlike. It made his face rounder, his brow innocently tickled by the ends of a bramble of chestnut curls, as silky as a babe’s hair, uncorrupted by age or sea-brine.
Jacob found himself watching a perfect ringlet as it wagged against Joshua’s brow, dancing with the motion of his jaw in his decorated hands.
“I daresay that land gods don’t tamper with Her playing field. Perhaps that’s why ‘Yaweh’ doesn’t interfere: we are outside their jurisdiction and simply Her playthings, here to do as She chooses.”
Calypso’s playthings. The thought had occurred to him already, but it was disconcerting to hear his private musings aired out by a voice so similar to his own. It felt like a violation, as though this stranger was reaching into his head and rummaging around, dislodging each piece of logic to add to his dragon’s hoard of trinkets. How many more pieces would he rob from him? How deeply would this man burrow his claws into Jacob’s secrets?
Unnerved, Jacob’s eyes followed those slender fingers as they plucked the lone chess piece from the tabletop and slid it along the irregular borders of a pile of coins.
“Tell me, darling, treasured brother,” He smiled again as Jacob frowned at the name. They were yin and yang. Perfect opposite expressions reflected in the same face—Childlike glee and reproachful hatred, “Do you have gut-twisting nightmares?”
The hat in Jacob’s lap finally fell.
He jerked in surprise.
Joshua didn’t.
***
“What in the Nine Hells happened on that ship?” The Second Mate’s robust black beard wagged over his robust chest. He had rounded cheeks, a balding head, and sloped shoulders, which gave the man an appearance like a jolly shopkeep. Indeed he might’ve looked too round, too soft for the high seas, were it not for the muscle beneath the deceptive belly and the stern ice in his eyes, “What did the Captain trade away for our lives?”
“Sorbello—” Christopher began, his voice much steadier than he felt. Already, he could feel his blood heating his cheeks and his throat clot with doubt. Because in reality he had no answer to give, only Jacob’s cryptic excuses.
He’d been asked to the Second Mate’s cabin under the pretense of a shared drink and a card game, but now the true motivations were laid bare. Now they sat in the humble, but tidy room, its floors newly oiled and the bed’s linens turned down with militaristic precision. Even the table at their elbows was neatly arranged, as though Sorbello spent free moments organizing matchsticks in their box, coins in their stacks, and linens in their designated trunk.
“We were terribly outmatched. The battle hadn’t begun before it was lost, yet still we live. Why?”
All truths, Christopher winced.
“I was not privy to that meeting,” He hid his pink flush with a deep draw from his tankard and cursed his fair, transparent skin for betraying him, “I was occupied elsewhere, remember?”
Sorbello’s dark eyes flicked downward to the bulky bandages beneath Christopher’s neckline, then up again. These eyes were deep-set and small, shadowed beneath the convex curve of his meaty brow. They weren’t long-lashed and sugary as the Captain’s, but cold, scrutinizing, reflective like a beetle’s chitinous shell.
How different brown eyes could be.
“You were privy to another meeting,” The broad man folded furry forearms on the low table between them. His chair complained beneath the solid muscular heft of him—a strength that served him in both battle against their foes and in peacekeeping amongst their own. And now, it made him into a dense, frightening wall.
“Right, you are. I was,” He rolled a few words in his mouth with another draw of ale as he contemplated which ones to spit out. Would he speak plainly and relay his version of the truth? Or would he spin a lie to spare his Captain’s reputation?
“He told me nothing. He wasn’t given an opportunity, as he was preoccupied with stanching my bleeding.”
“Oh, so he’s a surgeon as well as a sailor?” Sorbello drawled.
Christopher bristled at the smugness in the Second Mate’s voice, “He sews like a surgeon. Nay, an artist,” He snapped back.
Well, perhaps he had been too quick to defend. Too like a guard dog at his master’s feet, eager to bite at anyone who came too near. Fuck this infernal blush. I must look like a lady in rouge.
The corner of Sorbello’s mustache lifted, granting those cold eyes a glimpse of warmth, “Must be nice. Having a touch after so long at sea.”
“Are you implying—?” Christopher sobered and coughed up an errant droplet.
“My cabin shares a wall with his, did you forget?” The ice in his gaze was thawing, “But you needn’t worry; I haven’t told a soul.”
Christopher’s jaw set as he noted the Second Mate’s implication: He hadn’t told a soul yet.
“I see,” He absently swirled his drink. Surely by now the flush had spread to his hairline, like the rosy burn the sun left behind. Surely he couldn’t take this bait offered to him now: information for information in an even exchange.
“You’ve seen what lies beneath that scarf he wears so scrupulously. Does he have a soft woman’s breast? Is that what he traded away to this Starcatcher’s Captain?”
This time Christopher paled, his blotchy redness bleeding away, “Pardon? You think—that is, you presume he…?” Words failed, guttering to a halt on his tongue.
“It is only a speculation. He is so small, so graceful, a frail little doll, bird-boned and all,” The ink in Sorbello’s forearms flexed as he distractedly cracked one knuckle at a time, one hollow crick after another, “Of course, his disguise is a sensible one. Bad luck to have a woman on board. And there are many on this ship that would leap at a chance to find him out.”
Christopher only stared, wide-eyed.
“And I’ve heard you in the night, bedding him oh-so-sweetly. Are we to have a babe Captain heir playing at the crewmen’s heels soon?”
Christopher’s stomach roiled and the air tasted bitter.
“Blonde, like you, with pretty Spanish eyes—or is he Romani? Polish? Shall we build a nursery in the cargo hold? Tend his labors as his midwives as well as his officers?” A merry smile cracked his face until crooked teeth showed beneath the soot black of his mustache, “Shall the babe suckle at the Captain’s teat whilst he commands from the helm?”
“I see your point. You have garnered a piece of incriminating information there, Sorbello—though I will do you the courtesy of ignoring your speculation, since you and I are friends,” Christopher composed himself. He was painfully aware of how much he stood to lose, should he drop one misplaced word, “But be cognizant of how you speak of our Captain.”
Sorbello raised his hands in a silent Alright, then, leaning back from the table and earning another creak from the chair beneath him. He swigged from his own tankard and cleared his throat, “Clearly I don’t contest his right as Captain. Woman or not, he is as fearsome as a viper, clever as a fox, and I will use ‘he’ or ‘she’ as he likes; It makes no difference to me.”
The implicit But it might make a difference to others hangs unsaid in the air.
“I have my own life to think of, and the lives of our men, you understand. And today we were nearly crushed by a Kraken,” The beetle-black shine of his eyes returned, “So just swear me this: if you learn the Captain traded the Marauder, or put the men in danger to save his own hide, you’ll tell me so we can act. I will not serve this new, pompous idiot of a Captain, with his deep sea pet,” He spat.
Act. Again, he didn’t need to clarify his meaning.
Christopher did what he knew he must, if only to delay the truth a while longer: He nodded and clinked his tin tankard against his Second Officer’s. They both drank deeply, sealing their tentative alliance. But Christopher felt a deep uneasiness settle into his bones.
There was silence between the two, with nothing but the creaking of the pendulous lantern on its hook and the satisfied slurps echoing hollowly from the bottom of Sorbello’s cup. Then he set it down with a metallic thud, emptied and yawning. The jarring baby-pinkness of his tongue came forth to tidy the froth from the forefront of his mustache. The beetle eyes stared.
“I’m glad we agree,” He nodded, “Because there was more than one sorcerer on this ship when the Kraken surfaced—luckily one who fought on our side.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Christopher’s eyes narrowed, teeth gritting.
“The viper himself. Who do you think started the fire on the deck and chased off the beast?” Sorbello murmured softly now, almost as though he was afraid to speak the words into reality, “Why do you think this Red Raider fellow so closely resembles our Captain? Same height, same weight, same skin and eyes. It is evident that they are of the same blood—and the same magic.”
“First you speculate on the matter of his sex and then you accuse him of sorcery. Jacob is not of that man’s blood,” Christopher reasoned gruffly, “It is a trick of these hellish waters—a doppelgänger or a shapeshifter sent to muddle up our minds.”
“Oh a shapeshifter,” Sorbello chuffed like a horse.
“Hell, I don’t know!” He ran a sweating hand through his flossy hair, “We were attacked by a vile creature of lore already, is it so hard to imagine two?”
“But I ask again: Who do you think called the lightning bolt? I saw Marauder point and shout his command.”
“I saw nothing of the kind.”
“You had already fallen. And I was at the helm, taking charge as you so gallantly tripped over your feet.”
An anger lit a fire beneath him, heating his blood and striking him mute. But he could not contest the fact that he’d fought about as valiantly as a wagging daisy. The shock of the doppelgänger’s face had been enough to disrupt his thoughts and disarm him so completely.
How could he strike the face of the man he loved? The man whose smooth amber body he’d kissed and caressed, sucked and bitten countless times? How could he behold that face without the memories of sweat sodden nights and slow, gentle mornings?
Another long creak came from the man’s broad center of gravity shifting forward, forward, until he braced both hands on either edge of the table, “I am simply relaying what I saw while you were in need of your smelling salts. Believe it or don’t—You are responsible for your own foolishness.”
Finally, Christopher’s eyes fell, catching on the candle on the tabletop, the wooden planks below them, the tattooed meat of Sorbello’s arms—anywhere that wasn’t those scarab thorax eyes. His shoulder ached terribly as his heart thumped in his ears.
“A storm stirred up when there was nothing on the horizon. And I saw him command lightning,” He insisted solemnly, “Pay attention. Our Captain has been keeping secrets. And he is much more powerful than we know.”
***
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Content tags/warnings (18+ minors DNI): Pirates (and all the violence it entails), Night terrors, nightmares, panic attacks, emotional hurt/comfort, emotional baggage, sea monsters, sword fights, action violence, hurt/comfort, major character injury, tending wounds, blood and injury gore, eventual smut
Read chapters one, two, and three first 💋
Christopher surfaced from the darkness like a creature dragged suddenly from deep water, gasping, unable to tell horizon from hull. The world swayed before his eyes, his peripheral vision cloudy and mottled at the edges. It took only a fleeting moment for him to become aware of a steady, throbbing pain pulsing across his upper torso. It was sharp enough to steal his breath, and sheer instinct had him scrambling to find the source. His muscles tensed in pause, but his hands didn’t follow their lead. For a heartbeat he couldn’t understand why, as his consciousness was still slogging through its post-battle fog. Then the ropes reminded him, tight and coarse against his wrists. Why had he been tied? What had happened to the crew? To Jacob?
He strained again uselessly as he tried to free himself, to contort in an attempt to survey his wounds, but the effort rewarded him only with a deep, nauseating throb across his chest, the heat of fresh blood spreading beneath his shirt fabric. He let his head fall back against worn shiplap, breathing heavily through clenched teeth. Somewhere above a line snapped in the wind. The ship groaned, and the sails whispered like spirits floating on the wind. He closed his eyes, succumbing to his fatigue, and eventually found himself counting the waves as they crashed against the Marauder’s sturdy hull. Three, then four, then, five - his wound almost seemed to throb in time with the count.
Bootsteps cut through his quiet dysphoria. Slow. Measured. Deliberate.
The captain’s shadow fell over him before the man himself came into view. His expression was mostly unreadable, but his eyes held a flicker of something Christopher couldn’t quite place. The boots stopped beside him, and for a moment, neither man spoke.
“What a mess,” Jacob finally said quietly.
Christopher tried to straighten and failed before uttering, “You should see the other man.”
That earned him the faintest curl of a smile before Jacob crouched beside him.
“You disobeyed me,” he said, abandoning the air of fondness and remnants of his smile for sternness.
Christopher let out a faint, humorless laugh that was cut short by a wince of pain. “Would have been a rather short battle if you had gone down in my stead.”
“That was not your call to make.”
“I made it anyway.”
Jacob’s jaw flexed once before he looked away.
“You think too damn much with your heart,” he muttered angrily, reaching out to carefully press his hand against the bloodied fabric clinging to Christopher's shoulder and chest.
Christopher let out a gruff groan. The touch was slight, but even that was enough to set a fire ablaze under his skin.
“And you don’t think with yours at all,” he replied finally.
Jacob’s gaze flicked upward at that.
“Thinking with hearts is often enough to get men killed,” he said, stone-faced.
Christopher’s lips twisted into a weak smile. “Then I suppose I’m already halfway there.”
For another short moment, neither spoke and the sounds of the ship and the sea filled the silence. Jacob drew in a long breath and let it out slowly.
“You’re bleeding too much,” he said finally. “And haven’t the patience to wait for you to lose consciousness again.”
He reached for the knife at his belt. The blade glinted as he slid it beneath the ropes binding Christopher’s wrists. With a swift pull the cords gave way.
“Don’t move just yet,” he warned.
Christopher flexed his freed hands, grimacing as blood rushed back into them. “Didn’t plan to.”
Jacob sheathed the knife and shifted closer, slipping an arm behind Christopher’s back. The movement was matter-of-fact, but his grip lingered just long enough to betray his concern.
“Come on then,” he said. “You are of no use to me bleeding out on the main deck.”
Christopher tried to protest - something about being fine, about handling it himself - but the words died on his tongue as soon as Jacob pulled him upright. The world seemed to tilt on its axis, and he stumbled to find his footing. He caught himself on Jacob’s shoulder, breath coming in sharp gasps.
“Easy,” Jacob murmured, “I’ve got you.”
Christopher’s fingers bunched in the fabric of his coat. “Don’t suppose this is standard procedure for a first mate’s insubordination.”
Jacob gave a quiet snort that was half amusement, half exasperation. “You’re lucky that I don’t make you swab the deck with holystones before I piece you back together.”
They moved in slow, uneven steps. When they reached the captain’s quarters Jacob nudged the door open with his boot and guided Christopher inside.
The door closed behind them with a muted thump, shutting out the wind and the creak of rigging. The room was dim, its single porthole admitting only a muted shaft of afternoon light that did little to illuminate the space. Jacob guided Christopher to the edge of the bed and eased him down, his hands firm but careful. His gaze lingered on him a moment before he turned and fastened the door, the latch softly clicking into place. He crossed to his desk and lit the oil lantern there, adjusting the wick until adequate warm light spilled across the cabin.
The following change in his demeanor was immediate.
Jacob turned back to him, the barely upheld mask of stoicism fracturing under the new privacy of his quarters.
“You stupid, reckless bastard,” he said, low and furious, hands braced on either side of Christopher, continuing on before he could muster a response.
“Do you have any idea what it would have done to me had they chosen to end your life?”
His jaw was set hard, fury etched into every line of his face, but his eyes betrayed him - they were glassy and rimmed with wetness. The tears didn’t fall; they gathered instead, held in place by sheer force of will. An unmistakable fear lived within those coffee-brown irises, old and deeply ingrained, born of too many years spent watching everything he loved be claimed by an unforgiving seafaring life. Anger burned alongside it, not only at Christopher but at a cruel world that demanded more and more sacrifice until a man hardly knew what it meant to be whole. Beneath it all was a flash of relief twisted tightly with want.
The sight of him, of all the emotions reflected in his eyes, struck Christopher harder than the pain of the wound had, causing a tight, aching pull deep in his chest. He had never seen Jacob - always so steady and sure in his role - so close to breaking.
He knew with certainty in that moment that it was all for him, and he’d never felt so guilty in all his life.
He swallowed sharply, finding his throat to be suddenly dry. He drew a careful breath, wincing as his ribs protested, and tried to summon his usual playful words of defiance. “Jacob, I—”
Jacob shook his head and kissed him.
It was sudden and fierce, all of the captain’s performative restraint snapping at once. He moved swiftly forward and his mouth crashed into Christopher’s, cutting his words clean off, stealing breath and thought alike. Christopher startled, then melted into it instinctively, fingers clutching at Jacob’s coat. He felt Jacob’s hand come to rest at the back of his neck, a gentle, grounding touch, holding him there as he deepened their kiss. When Jacob finally pulled away, he did so slowly, reluctant to sever the connection. For a moment longer, neither man moved. Jacob’s thumb brushed once at Christopher’s jaw, a fleeting touch, and then the moment was over.
Christopher understood at once. Whatever had broken loose between them was already contained again, forced back under the rigid control that had become second nature between them. Jacob’s attention had moved away from his mouth, from him, and fixed itself instead his shoulder.
Jacob stepped back, allowing himself a practical amount of space to work. He reached for Christopher’s shirt.
“Arms up,” he said, and Christopher obeyed.
The fabric of the shirt was darkened and stiff with dried blood, which clung stubbornly to the wounds beneath. Jacob guided the movement with a steady hand, slowing when the fabric resisted, pausing when Christopher flinched despite himself. He worked it free inch by careful inch, easing the cloth away from torn skin until it finally gave. When the shirt came loose at last Jacob set it aside.
The wound was now clearly visible under the lantern’s glow. The long, ugly slash cut across Christopher’s shoulder and continued halfway across the smooth plane of his chest. The edges of it were ragged, the surrounding skin blooming with bruise-toned hues, the flesh beneath dark with blood that had slowed but not stopped flowing entirely. Jacob’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing.
Christopher glanced down at the wound and then quickly averted his eyes. His stomach churned at the brief glimpse, and he fixed his gaze on the wall ahead.
“I’ve had worse,” he managed meekly.
Jacob neither agreed nor corrected him. He simply cast him a sideways glance, and that was enough.
Jacob reached for his discarded shirt, tearing an unsoiled strip of fabric from it. He crossed to the desk, where a dark, amber bottle - likely of brandy, Christopher thought - sat. He uncorked it with a practiced ease, soaking the makeshift cloth.
“Best grit your teeth,” he warned, “This will sting.”
Jacob didn’t wait for a response before he pressed the cloth to the wound. Christopher sucked in a breath, knuckles whitening where his hands gripped the edge of the bed.
“Easy,” Jacob soothed.
He worked the cloth along the length of the cut, and the sharp sting eventually settled into a dull, relentless ache. When the wound was clean, Jacob set the cloth aside and retrieved a small leather case from the desk drawer. Inside lay a slightly curved needle and a spool of thread. He threaded the needle with practiced efficiency, his movements precise despite the slight tremor in his hands.
"Try not to move," Jacob said quietly, positioning himself closer. His knee pressed against Christopher's thigh as he leaned in, steadying himself against the ship's gentle sway.
The first pierce of the needle drew a sharp hiss from Christopher. His fingers dug harder into the bed frame.
"Tell me something," Christopher said through gritted teeth, desperate for a distraction. "Anything."
Jacob's brow furrowed in concentration as he drew the thread through. "Like what?"
"Like why you insist on doing this yourself." Another stitch. Christopher's breath came faster. "Surely the ship's doctor -"
"Is likely drunk below deck by now," Jacob finished, his voice tight. "And I trust no one else with this."
With you, the unspoken words hung heavily in the air.
The lantern light flickered as the Marauder rolled lazily over a larger wave. Jacob's free hand came to rest on Christopher's uninjured shoulder, steadying them both. His touch lingered there even as he continued his work.
"Almost done," he murmured.
Christopher watched Jacob's profile - the set of his jaw, the crease between his brows, the way his lips pressed into a thin line with each pull of the thread. There was something achingly tender in his focus, in the careful way he worked to minimize the pain even as he inflicted it.
The final stitch pulled through. Jacob tied it off with deft fingers, then reached for another clean strip of linen from the discarded shirt. He wound it around Christopher's shoulder and chest, his hands brushing against bare skin with each pass. When he secured the bandage at last his palms flattened against Christopher's chest, just for a moment, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath.
"There," Jacob said softly. "I think you'll live."
Christopher's eyes were beginning to grow heavy, the adrenaline that had sustained him finally fading away now that the worst had passed.
"Come on then," Jacob said, guiding him back against the bed. "You need rest."
Christopher allowed himself to be maneuvered, though he groaned softly as his back met the mattress. Jacob adjusted the pillows behind him carefully, propping him up at an angle that would put the least strain on his wound. His fingers lingered at Christopher's temple, brushing back a strand of golden, sweat-dampened hair.
"The Kraken," Christopher said suddenly, his voice thick with exhaustion. His eyes struggled to focus on Jacob's face. "How did he...the Red Raider, he was controlling it. I saw him, plain as day."
Jacob's hand stilled for just a fraction of a second before resuming its gentle motion through Christopher's hair. "You took a hard blow to the head," he said carefully. "The mind often plays tricks in battle."
"No." Christopher's brow furrowed, fighting against the pull of sleep. "I know what I saw. The beast responded to him. To his cry. Like it was...bound to his will somehow." His words were beginning to slur at the edges. "How is such a thing possible?"
Jacob's jaw tightened. He reached for Christopher's hand, threading their fingers together - a distraction, an anchor, a deflection all at once.
"The Red Raider has many tricks," he said. "Smoke and mirrors to frighten his enemies. You know how superstitious sailors can be."
"But the Kraken - "
"Is a revered creature of the deep," Jacob interrupted, his thumb tracing circles against Christopher's knuckles. "Wild and unpredictable. Perhaps it was simply drawn to the noise. Perhaps the Red Raider is skilled at reading the signs of its presence."
Christopher's eyes searched his face knowingly, even as they grew heavier.
“What do you know, Captain?”
"Rest," Jacob responded curtly. "We can further discuss the Red Raider's theatrics when you’ve had proper time to recover.”
Christopher tried to protest, but the post-battle exhaustion was finally beginning to claim him. In that final moment before he was pulled under, a fleeting thought surfaced. An unbidden image of the Red Raider's face as he’d been slashed. The resemblance to Jacob had been uncanny.
The observation dissolved before it could fully take root, lost to the pull of sleep.
-
“What do you know, Captain?”
Jacob felt the weight of his secret press against his ribs like a physical barrier. He thought of the way that the lightning had answered his desperate call, the feeling of the electric charge building in the storm clouds like an extension of his own will, the power that had thrummed beneath his skin. He thought of his forced meeting with Raider and the truths he'd revealed with such casual certainty. They had chilled Jacob to his very core. He attempted to push those thoughts away, but they clawed at the edges of his mind like a caged animal desperate to make its escape.
Christopher deserved the truth. Christopher, who had thrown himself into harm's way without hesitation, who had kissed him back with equal fervor, who trusted him completely.
But the truth was dangerous. The truth could get them both killed.
Jacob remained there, perched on the edge of the bed, watching the steady rise and fall of Christopher's chest. His thumb continued its absent pattern against the sleeping man’s palm. In the low light, with the ship rocking gently beneath them, Jacob allowed himself this moment of quiet guilt.
He had lied. Not outright, perhaps, but through omission, and that felt worse somehow.
He wanted to tell him. Ached to, but the world had proven time and time again its unkindness to those who wielded power beyond its understanding. And Jacob had seen too many good men burned, drowned, or hanged for far less than what had been stirred within his blood.
He squeezed Christopher's hand once, gently, then settled himself more comfortably beside him on the bed. He wouldn't leave. Not while Christopher's breathing was still shallow with pain, not while the memory of a narrowly avoided loss was still fresh.
Jacob closed his eyes and listened to the sea beyond the hull, feeling its familiar pull. When Christopher woke there would be more questions. When he woke, Jacob would deflect again.
But for now, he would simply keep watch.
***
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