#h2p

“The both of us, we’re alive for a reason.” Jess murmurs, trailing her fingers along his jawline, his cheek, lightly across the leather strap of the eyepatch. “We survived for a reason. The last children of the Leviathan.”

“You’re the only one who claims such a title. Emmerson is my past, I don’t intend to make him my future.” Marco reaches up for her hand, still resting on his cheek, intertwines their fingers as he pulls her hand away. “I wonder what the republic would say, if they knew the truth of the Leviathan’s bastard son.”

“Do you intend to tell them?”

“No.” He murmurs, letting go of her hand and dropping his arm. “You wound me to assume I would ever betray you.” He pauses, seemingly skims her expression, before. “Besides, you fit the role quite well.”

“Oh?”

“You’re quite like him, you know,” Marco tells her, a sardonic smile playing on his lips -- and the look he’s giving her is almost pitying. She despises it. “It’s almost as if he put a piece of himself in your heart, carved a place there to stay.”

“Thank you.” She replies, meeting his gaze head on -- matching the fire in that single, gleaming hazel eye. There’s more burning determination there than when he still had two.

“I didn’t mean it as a compliment.” Marco retorts, casually, and Jess balls her hands into fists by her side, nails digging sharply into her palms -- it’s all she can do not to wrap her fingers around his throat.  He’s still smiling, head tilted slightly to the side as he watches her. “Emmerson’s mistakes were what got him killed. I hoped you would see that.”

“He was like a father to us.” She bites out, through gritted teeth, muscles in her clenched jaw jumping. “And yet you insult him.”

“He was like a father to you.” Marco corrects her, voice still soft. “Never to me.”

“He loved us.” Jess hisses back -- how can he deny that? “All of us.”

“I don’t doubt that. He loved us as any man loves his weapons. They protect him, after all.” Marco shrugs, and his gaze is fixed on her still -- and finally, that smile wobbles, becomes something more like a grimace.

“He was training us.”

“To be his soldiers.”

“To be his crew!”

“We were children.” It’s the first time Marco’s voice has raised, has come anything close to harsh -- but he’s composed himself a moment later. “What good man does that? What good man moulds a child into a weapon?” He stares at her for a while longer, before scoffing, dismissively.” “You want to hit me for that, don’t you? I can see it in your eyes. I don’t see why not; it’s what Emmerson would have done.”

There’s a deadly pause then -- a stiff, awkward silence, and she can feel the tension crackling in the air between them. She digs her nails deeper into the palm of her hand as she fights to restrain herself, jaw clenched so tight that her teeth hurt.

“No, that’s not you,” Marco says, gently, almost fondly, with a soft sigh. “You wouldn’t do that. I always thought you’d be like Emmerson, but I always hoped that you’d be better.”

“No one could be better.”