the-lilted-tune

The Volunteer groaned around her the way it always did at this hour, timbers settling into the swell like an old man settling into his chair. You had grown almost fond of the sound over these past weeks — almost fond of the whole ship, in fact, with its tar-and-salt smell and the endless grey horizon that never seemed to change no matter how many days you counted.

Tonight, though, the ship's familiar noises were no comfort at all, because tonight your back had seized somewhere between your shoulder blade and your spine, a low vicious ache that had been building since you'd helped haul rope that afternoon and had now settled in for what felt like a long and unpleasant stay.

You stood outside the surgeon's door for longer than you cared to admit, hand raised, not quite knocking.

It was foolish to feel shy of him. You had spoken to Patrick Sumner perhaps a dozen times since the Volunteer had left port — polite exchanges, the odd shared joke about the abominable food, once a longer conversation on the deck under a sky so full of stars it had made you both fall quiet. He was, by every account you'd gathered from the crew, a decent sort of man, quieter than most, with a steadiness in his manner that put people at ease. And yet something about the notion of being examined by him — of standing in a small room while he looked at you the way a doctor looks at a patient — set something fluttering low in your stomach that had nothing to do with your aching back.

You knocked before you could think better of it.

"Come," came his voice, muffled through the wood.

The surgeon's cabin was small and close, lit by a single swinging lamp that threw long shadows across shelves crowded with brown glass bottles and rolled bandages. Sumner sat at his little desk with a book open before him, his dark hair falling loose over his forehead, his shirt collar unbuttoned in that careless way men allowed themselves once the day's proprieties had worn thin. He looked up when you entered, and something in his expression sharpened — not surprise exactly, but attention, quick and complete, the way a man looks when he has been waiting without knowing he was waiting.

"Miss," he said, rising. "I did not expect callers at this hour. Is something amiss?"

"I am sorry to trouble you so late, Mr. Sumner." You pressed a hand instinctively to the small of your back. "It is only — my back. I believe I have done myself some injury with the ropes today, and it has grown a great deal worse since supper."

His gaze moved, briefly, to where your hand rested against your spine, and you saw the doctor settle over him like a coat being put on — the softness of a moment ago tucked away beneath something more purposeful.

"Let me see what's to be done, then. Sit, if you please." He gestured to the low stool beside his desk and busied himself at the shelf, taking down a small brown jar and setting it near the lamp. "How long has the pain troubled you?"

"Since this afternoon. It was a dull thing at first. Now it is rather less dull."

That drew the ghost of a smile from him, there and gone. "You are not the sort to come to me over a trifle, I think. I have noticed as much." He crouched slightly to bring himself level with you as you sat, and for a moment his eyes met yours very directly. There was something searching in the look, something that lingered half a second longer than a physician's glance ought to — and then it was gone, and he was all business again, or nearly so. "I will need to see the place that pains you. If you would loosen your collar and turn from me a little."

Your fingers went to the buttons at your throat, and you were absurdly conscious of him watching your hands as you did it — not staring, nothing so improper as that, but watching all the same, in the unhurried way of a man who has trained himself not to look away from things that interest him. You turned on the stool, easing the fabric of your bodice down over one shoulder to bare the upper stretch of your back, and you heard him draw a slow breath behind you, quiet enough that you might have imagined it.

"Steady now," he murmured, and his voice had dropped, gone low and even in the way voices do in small rooms at night.

His hands, when they came, were warm — startlingly warm against skin that had gone cold with sea air and nerves both. He did not touch you carelessly. Each place his fingers found, he pressed with a doctor's deliberation, watching your face over your shoulder for any flinch, any catch of breath, cataloguing what he found with a low, thoughtful sound in his throat.

"Here?"

"Yes — there, just there."

"And here?"

You could not help the small gasp that left you as his thumb found the knotted muscle just beside your spine, and you felt, rather than saw, something shift in him at the sound — a stillness, half a heartbeat long, before his hands resumed their work with the same steady care as before, though perhaps not quite the same. There was something new in the way he touched you now, something that had crept in around the edges of the clinical.

"You have strained the muscle badly," he said. "Not torn anything, I think, which is a mercy, but you have done yourself no favours with the ropes today. You'll want rest, and heat, and—" He paused. You felt his fingers trace, very lightly, the line of your shoulder blade, and the touch was no longer entirely a physician's. "And this ought to be worked on properly, or it will trouble you the length of the voyage."

"What would you suggest, Mr. Sumner?"

There was a silence behind you, brief but charged, before he answered. "I have a liniment. Camphor and oil of wintergreen, mostly, with a few things of my own besides. It wants working into the skin to do any good — it is no use simply dabbed on and left." Another pause. "If you would permit me."

You should have thought it forward of him to ask, and forward of yourself to answer as quickly as you did. "Yes. Please."

You heard him move to the shelf again, the small clink of the jar's lid, and when he returned to kneel behind you, you caught the scent of the balm before you felt it — sharp and clean, camphor and something sweeter beneath it, something you could not name. His hands, when they touched your bare skin again, were slicked with the ointment and warmer still than before, and the first slow drag of his palm down the length of your spine drew a sound from you that was not entirely one of pain.

"Forgive me if I am too rough," he said, and his voice had thickened, gone rough itself at the edges.

"You are not too rough."

He worked in silence for a while after that — long, unhurried strokes down the muscle beside your spine, his thumbs pressing in slow circles at the worst of the knots, and you found yourself leaning very slightly back into his hands without quite meaning to, your eyes falling half-shut, your breath coming slower and deeper than the pain alone could account for. Each place his fingers lingered seemed to bloom warm beneath the skin, the ache in your back giving way, gradually, to something else entirely — an awareness of him, close behind you, his knees braced either side of the stool, his breath falling warm against the nape of your neck where a few loose strands of hair had come free.

"Better?" he asked, low.

"Much."

His hands slowed. You felt them come to rest, briefly, flat against your shoulder blades, not working the ointment any longer but simply resting there, warm and still, and you understood, in the quiet that followed, that he had noticed the change in you as surely as you had noticed it in him. When he spoke again his voice had lost the last of its clinical evenness.

"You have a fine back," he said, and then, as though startled by his own words, added quickly, "for one so lately at hard labour, I mean — no scars, no old breaks, nothing amiss but the strain of today. It is not a thing I often see, on this ship."

"Is that so."

"It is." His thumb moved, just slightly, along the curve of your shoulder, and you felt the calluses of his hand catch faintly on your skin. "You've been careful of yourself. Careful, or fortunate."

"Perhaps a little of both, Mr. Sumner."

"Patrick," he said, quietly, as though the word had escaped before he could weigh whether he ought to say it. "You may call me Patrick, if — if you like."

"Patrick, then." You turned your head, just enough to see him from the corner of your eye, and found him already looking at you, his dark eyes gone very intent in the lamplight, his mouth slightly parted as though he had thought better of whatever he had meant to say next.

"I ought to let you dress," he said, and did not move.

"You ought," you agreed, and did not move either.

His hand had not left your shoulder. His thumb traced, once more, the line of your collarbone where it curved beneath your loosened collar, and you heard the breath go out of him, low and rough, half a sound of surrender.

"I find," he said carefully, as though each word were being chosen with great effort, "that I have had a great many patients aboard this ship, and not one of them has troubled my thoughts the way you have troubled them these past weeks. I had told myself it was nothing. A doctor ought not to — " He stopped. His hand tightened, very slightly, on your shoulder. "I find myself hungry for the sight of you, if I am honest. For a great deal more than the sight of you, if I am to be entirely honest, which I had not meant to be tonight."

The lamp swung gently with the roll of the ship, throwing his shadow long and close against the wall, and you turned fully on the stool to face him, close enough now that you could feel the warmth coming off him, could see the small scar above his eyebrow, the two days' stubble along his jaw that the lamplight caught in gold.

"I did not come here only for my back, Patrick," you said, and watched something break open in his face at the sound of his name in your mouth. "I think some part of me knew that."

"Did you," he said, very low, and his hand came up at last to cup the side of your face, his thumb brushing along your cheekbone with a tenderness that made your breath catch far more than the ointment or the ache ever had.

"I did."

He was quiet a moment, searching your face as though to be certain, and whatever he found there seemed answer enough, for he closed the last small distance between you and kissed you — slow at first, careful, a question more than a claim, his hand still warm and gentle at your jaw. You answered it without hesitation, your own hand rising to fist in the loose front of his shirt, and felt him make a low sound against your mouth, something caught between relief and want, before the kiss deepened, lost its carefulness, became something hungrier altogether.

"Patrick." His name came out of you half a plea.

"I know," he murmured against your lips, and then, drawing back just far enough to look at you, his eyes dark and unguarded now in a way you had not seen from him before, "I know. I have thought of little else, these past weeks. God forgive me, I have sat at that desk of an evening and thought of you until I could not see the page in front of me."

"Then stop thinking, and touch me instead."

He drew back before the kiss could go any further, though it seemed to cost him something to do it — his forehead came to rest against yours instead, his breath still unsteady, his hand still cradling your jaw as though he were not yet ready to let go of the feel of you.

"I ought not to have said any of that," he murmured, though he did not sound as though he regretted it. "You came to me for a strained back, and I have given you a great deal more to think on than a jar of liniment."

"I am not sorry for it."

"No." A low, rough breath of a laugh. "Nor, God help me, am I." His thumb traced once more along your cheekbone, slow and reluctant, before he finally let his hand fall away. "But it is late, and you ought to rest that back of yours, and I ought to remember myself before I forget it entirely."

You drew your collar back up over your shoulder, and he watched you do it with an expression he did not trouble to hide — want, plainly, but patience too, the look of a man content to wait now that he had let himself be known.

"Goodnight, Patrick," you said, rising from the stool.

"Goodnight." He caught your hand, briefly, at the door — not to keep you, only to press it once, warm and firm, before he let it go. "Come to me again, if the pain returns. Or," he added, quieter, the ghost of a smile at the corner of his mouth, "even if it doesn't."

You left him standing there in the lamplight, the little brown jar still open on his desk, and did not look back — though you rather thought, from the stillness of the ship behind you, that he stood watching the door long after it had closed.

Even the ice was remade with every dawn. Painted rosy by dawn, weeping at midday, hardening again come nightfall.

Ah, nightfall. The heavens were more navy than black, with enough starlight to read by.

It was beautiful. Stunning. Breathtaking.

As good a show as any to witness before he died.

Patrick sipped some of his laudanum, glad that he'd had some on him when the ship sank. He didn't have much left, which was why he'd been doing his best to ration his meager supply. Already, he was weak with starvation and exhausted by the cold, no different from the rest of the survivors. But unlike them, he had another vulnerability: If he ran out of this precious poison, he'd grow sick. Become a burden. And if that happened, he didn't trust his crew to take care of him.

Best case scenario: They dumped him somewhere away from camp to die out of sight.

Worst case? They decided to eat him. Maybe have Drax butcher his body and then convince themselves the meat they were eating was pork.

Patrick needed another drink. Instead, he stoppered the bottle and returned it to its hiding spot under his blankets.

In the next tent over, angry voices were beginning to rise with the fanged wind. Patrick didn't need to listen to know what they were arguing about. It was one of three topics, really: Stay or go, whether or not they should start eating one another (Drax's sublime idea), or whether they should forgo another meal in order to make their supplies last that much longer.

"We should get out of here while we still can!" Cavendish stated. "Before we're too weak to move!"

"And go where?!" Otto argued. "There's nothin' but snow and ice and water in every direction!"

"There's got to be something! Anything!" Cavendish shouted.

"But what if there ain't?" McKendrick wailed. "What if we'd be leaving what little shelter we got?! Why not just leave well enough alone?!"

"You call this 'well enough'?" Cavendish challenged.

Patrick stopped listening after that. Instead, he turned to his tomes. Lost himself in their yellowing pages. Tried to forget his cold and his hunger.

For a while, he was indeed far from the Arctic. Instead, he was somewhere warm. Hot, even. Burning. Blasting.

India.

He saw the bleeding sun.

He heard the sounds of war, louder than any thunderclap.

He felt his leg scream.

He saw the little Indian boy.

It was realer than anything that'd come after it. Realer than this voyage, by far.

So real it was that, when he jerked awake, Patrick required a moment to remember where he was. About the time his gritty eyes needed to adjust to the gloom.

Just outside the feeble shelter of his tent, the sky was bleeding and the men were whooping. Cheering. Whipping themselves up into a frenzy. Their shadows writhed on the pink-hued ice.

Patrick climbed out of his tent, pulling his topmost coat closer to his body. He was wearing virtually every raiment he'd ever owned, but it barely did a thing against the northern winds.

What he saw, he could barely comprehend.

His fellow survivors of the Volunteer were handing out makeshift clubs and sharpening their knives, their excited gabber rising up in silvery plumes above their heads. Their eyes twinkled like the first stars appearing overhead. Patrick hadn't seen them this happy since their first few nights aboard.

Happiness was supposed to be infectious. But all he could feel was dread.

Drax being free of his chains, wielding not one club but two, didn't help Patrick's stomach settle.

Bypassing the brute, Patrick tapped Cavendish on the shoulder. "What is happening?"

Cavendish grinned at Patrick. Wide and toothy and wild. "A pod, Sumner. Pod o' seals, barely a league away from here! Two of our boys reported back when I sent them lookin' for... well, anythin', really. And this is better than we could've hoped for!"

Patrick's eyebrows nearly brushed his hairline. "Seals?"

"Yeah! Blubber, meat, and sealskins!" Cavendish gave a delirious laugh. "We can trade with the Inuit for passage. Maybe, if we get enough, we can make it all the way back to Hull. It ain't the same as whale oil, to be sure, but it's valuable just the same!"

"We could use an extra hand!" McKendrick offered Patrick a club that might've once been a plank from one of the supply boxes they'd salvaged. Nails poked through the end, as sharp as porcupine quills.

Patrick could see himself grabbing the club. Helping his fellow survivors ensure they made it back to the real world. But it was like something had snipped the connection from his brain to his arms.

The fact was, he'd tried to prepare for the expedition by reading whatever books he could find on the Arctic. Never mind what a waste that'd turned out to be. Among his tomes, he'd found sketches of seals. Big eyes, fat bodies, almost cat-like faces. Adorable, and surprisingly tenacious.

Of course, Patrick had known long beforehand that sealskins were valuable, and that the Inuit used every part of the animal they relied so heavily on for survival. He'd known that sealskin made for excellent tents and boots, and that the blubber could be made into an oil for lamps. He'd known all this, yet it hadn't triggered much in him by the way of sentiment. Man held dominion over beasts, after all.

And yet, seeing those sweet faces, those large eyes... Patrick had felt a twinge of grief. Of sorrow. Knowing that he couldn't change the way of the world, and lamenting his own powerlessness.

Patrick swallowed. Hard. "I... We..."

"What're you waiting for, dawn?!" The club was forced into his hands. "There should be at least twenty! More than enough to buy us passage to the nearest port town, and get us some proper food."

Patrick blinked. Behind his eyelids, he saw fractured bone. Mangled bodies. Snow turned to crimson sludge.

Man held dominion over beasts.

And these men in particular would die if they didn't seize this chance.

Patrick couldn't deny it. Every day, he could feel himself growing weaker. Could see his future fading like a departing ship on a foggy morn.

He could also see what the other men would think if he backed out due to sentiment. Drax in particular thought him a weakling. Worse, an intelligent weakling. If Patrick fueled that fire, then it'd spell trouble for him later.

In times like these, men's lives were on the line, they became shockingly adept at deciding who among them wasn't worth saving.

"And who will keep the fire lit?" Patrick tried to sound sure of himself. "It was difficult enough to keep it burning so far. If it putters out, we are lost. No," he shook his head, "let me remain behind to keep the fire high and hot. It'll act as beacon for your return."

Cavendish looked uncertain, but as he opened his mouth to protest, Brownlee spoke up. "Ah, let him stay." As he passed by, wielding his club like it'd fused to his palm, he glowered at Patrick. "Last I checked, hunting was something that men did."

Not for the first time, Patrick asked whatever deity he figured was running the cosmos why the sweet cabin boy, Joseph Hannah, had died while this bitter little man had survived so far.

The men were already hurrying out of the campsite, more shades than living people in the encroaching dark. The campfire's feeble flames cast their shadows against the ice, long and jagged.

Drax was leading the charge, howling like he'd been doing this all his life.

The sound blooming from his throat was obscene. Utterly devoid of anything resembling civilized.

"I am a man like any other, give or take," he'd stated.

A wolf in sheep's clothing.

Or, in this case, perhaps a seal's.

Cavendish sighed. "Someone's gotta keep that bugger in check." He handed Patrick his pistol. "Just in case a bear or a wolf show up."

Patrick pocketed the weapon. "Much obliged."

And with that, he was alone.

Not a terribly novel state of affairs for Patrick Sumner. But now, out here, on the very edge of the world, it was reshaped into something new. Twisted. Alien.

Patrick had spent his life feeling out of place. The odd one out. He'd lost both his parents at a young age, to the point that recalling their faces was like summoning a distant dream. Years later, when he'd still been far too young, his mentor, his surrogate father, the reason he'd gotten into medical practice to begin with, had died as well.

After that, Patrick had always felt like a rock in a river. A presence that the rest of the world, namely people, moved around without truly touching.

He'd been alone. Alone in a crowded room. Alone on a busy street. Alone in the middle of a war.

But now, he truly felt like the last man on Earth. A microscopic, insignificant specimen in a vast world of ice and snow. A thing that not only didn't belong here, but would leave no footprints if it departed... in one way or another.

Somewhere in the distance, wolves began to howl. Their voices, so eerily beautiful, climbed into the starry night. Hungry. Wild. Belonging.

Was the wind blowing his scent away from them, or towards them?

Patrick hurried back to the hearth. Fed it more firewood, courtesy of the crates they'd smashed. Added a few, precious drops of whale oil. Another miraculous recovery, now worth a thousand times its asking price.

The flames rose, reaching for the constellations with luminescent fingers. Growling like some beast in his den. Making the shadows darken as they danced.

For the first time all day, Patrick was warm. Almost comfortable. And yet, it brought him no solace.

He sat before the blaze. Tucked his knees against his chest. Stared into the ever-rippling tapestry of gold, white, and crimson.

After a while, he could see shapes within it.

He must've been in a worse state than he'd thought. Starvation, fear, exhaustion, and the occasional mouthful of laudanum... it was all finally getting to him.

Besides, fire could be hypnotic. Misleading. Stare into it long enough, and you'll see just about anything.

Even so, Patrick couldn't deny what he was seeing.

Seals, as graceful as swallows, swimming within the sparks. And sometimes, just for a heartbeat, they became people. ***

You were supposed to wake from nightmares, back into peacefulness.

That was how it was supposed to work.

Instead, you were woken from peaceful slumber and thrust into a nightmare.

You looked around with wild eyes, barely comprehending what you were witnessing.

Creatures with burning sticks whooping and hollering as they descended upon you.

The sickening cracks of skulls being caved in.

The first whiff of blood, thick and coppery, thickening in an instant.

Your family members trying to defend themselves, employing their sharp claws and powerful mandibles, but dying all the same. Oldest to youngest falling all around you, dying in puddles of their own blood. Of their own brains.

Your uncles and aunts.

Your siblings.

Your parents.

For too long, you were too shocked to do anything but cower. Trying to understand what was this horror you found yourself in, and what were these animals wringing it upon you.

They seemed familiar, you'd seen them from time to time from the safety of the water, but—

Finally, you snapped out of it. You lunged, teeth flashing and claws swinging.

You bit. You scratched. You fought. You desperately tried to protect those still alive even as the blood of the slain marred your coat.

You fought mindlessly, desperately, even though your foes were so much bigger and stronger than you.

Distantly, you heard splashes. Felt relief. Good. You'd bought some members of your pod time to escape. Not much. Probably a minute or two, if that. But more than they might've otherwise had.

But it wasn't enough. Too many had died. You couldn't look at them. Not yet.

You managed to somehow tackle one of the creatures. Crawled up his—you sensed it was a male—chest and found his neck. The rest of this thing's body was foreign to you, but you knew a throat when you saw one.

You bit. Hard. Felt flesh yield before your strong teeth, your powerful jaw. Hot blood flooded your senses. Not like fish or squid. But you kept biting. Chewing. Burrowing your muzzle until your nose bumped against bone.

Appendages grabbed your tail. Pulled you off your victim with far, far too much strength.

Then, a sharp pain to your skull.

White-hot, an echoing crack.

Then, nothing.

*** When you came to, the first thing to hit you was the ropes digging into your skin. Tight. Rough. Wet. Gummy with blood.

Your heart throwing itself against your ribs, you twisted around in your confined space. Trying to understand where you were.

When you did, your stomach plummeted to your tail.

A net. You were in a net. Being dragged by the things that had killed your pod.

And you weren't alone. Pressed up against you were more members of your family. Wounded, like you. Bleeding, like you. But not dead, like... you nearly wailed... the corpses slung over so many of the creatures' shoulders, barely recognizable as your kin. Some of them had had their heads smashed in so severely, they'd practically been decapitated.

What did these beings want? Did they want to eat you, like polar bears and orcas and foxes? If so, why hadn't they dug in already? Were they bringing back whatever they hadn't consumed to their... den? Hovel? Wherever they lived?

And why were you and the others still living?

You observed your captors. Tried to figure out what they were. Since you couldn't move, couldn't fight, couldn't do anything, you had little alternative.

They were unnatural. Walked on two legs. No fangs. No claws. Multicolored skins that hung off them. Made strange noises when they communicated.

You'd never seen their sort here before. Not so close. And yet...

Finally, your poor frazzled brain recognized them. You'd never seen a real one; just the shape your kind could take for reasons none of you understood. To step into that new shape was a rite of passage, an experience, like your first hunt and your first swim and your first mating season.

These things were humans.

You began to panic, and if it hadn't been for the bleeding and dying bodies of your fellow seals pressed up against you like packed snow, you'd have started thrashing. That probably would've doomed you. A part of you hoped one would notice and kill you. At least you'd be spared what might come next. What the stories of your people, as old as the tides and the ice, had always warned of.

Your surviving kin, sensing your distress, nuzzled up to you as best they could. Pressed their noses into your skin. Coiled their tails around your body. Rubbed their whiskers against you. You basked in their love. Their comfort.

And when they succumbed to their lacerations, one by one, you mourned them silently. Waited for your turn. It never came. That, perhaps, was cruelest above all.

You dozed off. Awoke. Grieved. Dozed off again. Until time lost all meaning.

Until something changed.

Brightness in the distance. Dawn? No. The eastern horizon was still too dark, the stars still gleaming.

It was... more human work. Like the distant pinpricks of luminescence your pod had spotted from time to time. As pups, you were told to keep your distance. Now, you were being hauled towards it.

What was the word for it? Your nana had named it. F... f... fire, yes. Sunlight in a pit, fed by wood.

Weird things surrounded the fire. Rocks? No. Squarish. Unnatural.

And sitting by the fire, another human. He looked up. Rose. You couldn't read his face, so alien it was to you. Yes, all your kind changed into humans once, just to learn about that part of your biological heritage, but you never stayed in that odd shape. Just once or twice.

It wasn't a handy shape in the wild. It couldn't holds its breath for long. Swam too slowly. Was too poor at hunting. Didn't have any blubber to keep warm. Couldn't see or smell as well. So, why keep it?

The human's face may have been alien, but you recognized his tone well enough. He was horrified, and quickly growing angry. Soon, he and the others were making loud noises at each other, not unlike the bulls in your pod arguing over things like food and females.

The net you were in was hauled away. Brought near one of the strange things. Dropped. Forgotten. The one who'd dragged your net here returned to the fire, where the others were still barking at each other.

A couple had no interest in the fight. They sat by the blaze with your dead brethren in tow. Summoned sharp things from their inner skins. Began to peel. Blood flowed like melting ice.

Nobody looked towards your net. They didn't even send somebody to guard it, like a member of your pod might've been assigned to watch your stash of food.

Nobody was paying attention.

You didn't want to leave your dead kin. But you didn't want to join them, either. Not when you had a chance to live.

In the water, you were fast and agile. But on land, you were slow. Toddling. It was part of the reason why pods were always in groups on land. Alone, on the ice, you'd make a tasty find for a fox or a bear. But even a starving bear would hesitate before attacking a pod.

But... as weak as it was, as strange as it was... your human shape was quicker on land. It was a land animal, made to run and climb and crawl and walk.

For a moment, you weren't sure how to do it. You'd only done it once, and had changed back quickly. Eager to be yourself again. What if you couldn't...?

Suddenly, you felt... overburdened. Restricted in a way that the dead weren't to blame for. Like that time you dove into a seaweed forest and emerged tangled in several tendrils of the stuff.

Eventually, with the patient aid of your mother and sisters, the greenery had slid off.

Something else was sliding off you now. Something warm and soft and comfortable.

Leaving you cold. Wet. Exposed.

You twisted you tail, trying to get more comfortable. But you had two now, split down the middle.

Your flippers, no longer flippers, reached out. So much longer than they used to be.

Covered in your own blood. Like you'd been dipped in it from head to tail.

No, not tail... Legs.

Found the net's hem.

With appendixes so much more dexterous than you were used to, you pulled.

Gave yourself an opening.

You slid under it. Bigger than you remembered being, but with more ease than you expected.

Skinless, raw, no better than a newborn cub, you crawled out. Made it back under the open sky.

Instantly, the wind—a mere nuisance on the average day, even when it picked up—bit you with frosted fangs. The blood coating your new form, adhering your... your hair to your head... instantly froze. Burning you with a cold you'd never known.

You instinctively hunched over, wrapped your... arms... around yourself. It was no use. You felt like you'd freeze to death right then and there.

Instinct kicked in.

You didn't know what the things around the fire were, but they were shelter. Crude shelter, but shelter nonetheless. You ducked into the one the net was closest to.

The cold relented, if a bit. The wind stopped chewing on you.

You found things that looked like skins but weren't. Not caring, you burrowed under them. Oh, softness! Oh, sweet relief! You didn't care if you smothered yourself to death. At least you'd die warm.

Eventually, the worst of the shakes left your body. Leaving your brain just enough room to think.

You knew this area like your own body. Well, your real body. You knew that there was nothing but water and ice for kilometers, far enough from human settlements that your pod—and others—had never worried too much about them showing up.

So, why were these ones here?!

You decided you didn't care. You'd rest. Reclaim your skin. Dive into the water and get as far away as possible. Maybe find another pod and beg them to take you in. It was unusual, but surely, it could be done, couldn't it? You were young and healthy. You could be bred, and help the other mothers watch over the young. You could hunt. You could help keep an eye out for predators. You could earn your keep.

A dark thought seeped into your mind.

Yes, you could reclaim your skin. Swim away. Survive.

But you could kill these humans first.

It was one thing to be eaten. It was the natural order of things. To be flesh was to eat and be eaten. To either kill to live, or die so something else might.

But even a hungry orca didn't decimate an entire pod. These humans had. They'd killed every seal they'd found. Far more than they'd needed.

And for that, they'd pay.

You'd never killed in this form before, but you doubted it'd be too hard.

Soothed by thoughts of death, of blood paying for blood, you dozed off.

***

It was for survival, they all said. The more meat, the better. The more skins, the more paved their road home would be. The more blubber, the more light after dark.

But for the life of him, all Patrick could see was barbarism.

Fifteen seals, some still barely more than pups, butchered. Two of them had been pregnant, their half-formed litters spilling out when their bellies were cut open.

Blood soaking into the ice. Bones sticky with viscera. Organs gleaming in the new dawn like wet jewels. Skins being crudely peeled by short tempers and fingers gone clumsy with cold.

He couldn't even eat the meat Cavendish gave him. "You need it," his leader coaxed. "And with Brownlee gone, there's more for the rest of us."

A practical way of seeing things. Less people meant more food for those that remained. Patrick still disliked it.

He couldn't say he was too upset at Brownlee dying. He'd been as mean as a bear with a wasp in its ear, and twice as vulgar.

If only Drax could've joined him, too. But no. Drax was in his element out here. He'd been bitten, like the rest, but not nearly as much. Certainly better than McKendrick, who'd lost two fingers.

Drax boasted the highest kill count at eight seals. The other men looked at him with something approaching reverence now. Among them was a true hunter. A provider.

Patrick, meanwhile, was the one who'd stayed behind. The coward. The only one who hadn't lifted a finger to earn his meat.

Within minutes of him refuting his meal, Otto came sniffing about. Patrick gave it to him without a word.

He wanted his laudanum. But he'd already had his daily allowance. Perhaps he could smoke his pipe instead. Or at least chew on the stem. It beat gritting his teeth, at any rate.

He wouldn't be missed, either. After a long night's hunt and the first filling meal they'd had since before the ship sank, the men were hunkering down. Retreating into their tents. No doubt feeling more optimistic than they had in a while.

Patrick couldn't say he hate them. But he couldn't ignore the blood, either.

The surgeon retreated into his tent just in time to see the pile of blankets moving.

He froze. Stared.

The blankets kept shifting. Slowly. Lethargically.

A flap of fabric fell away, revealing a woman's face coated in dried blood. Hair glued into place by gore.

Transfixed, he watched you sit up and rub your eyes. The cloth slipped down your shoulders, barely preserving your modesty.

Your eyes opened. Found his.

You froze.

Patrick held up his hands. "Easy."

You hissed at him, baring your teeth and bobbing your head.

Patrick stumbled back, nearly exiting the tent entirely. "It's all right," he spoke as softly as he could. "I'm not going to harm you."

You kept hissing at him. Kept bobbing your head.

All the while, he puzzled over your very presence. What in the world was a woman doing here? Why were you naked and covered in dried blood? How had you gotten here?

You snapped your jaws at him. Animal. Furious.

Not knowing what else to do, Patrick lowered himself to the ground until he was practically lying on his belly. Trying to make himself as small as possible.

Your bobbing slowed, your snarl softening by a fraction.

A wild idea came to him then. He rolled on his back and, even though he knew he'd hate it, got to work unbuttoning and untying his many layers.

All too soon, his belly was exposed to the elements. To you.

The cold carved right into his organs. Froze his blood. Licked at his spine. But he didn't move. Just lay there. Sensing, on some strange, primal level, that this was the way.

Your snarl slowly faded from your blood-painted lips, leaving only confusion.

You beheld him. He beheld you.

Took in how strangely you carried yourself, how uncomfortable you seemed. How big your eyes were—the biggest he'd ever seen, in fact, and almost completely round. The way you leaned in, nose first, and sniffed the air while keeping your gaze on him. Like you were trying to catalogue his scent.

Slowly, clumsily, you made your way towards him. You kept falling onto the blankets, no different from a newborn horse. You dragged your legs behind you even though Patrick could see nothing wrong with them.

At last, you leaned over him. He could smell you: Coppery blood and seawater.

You studied his belly, your eyes following every freckle, scar, goose-bump, and hair.

Patrick, in turn, examined your face. Watched the way confusion slowly gave way to curiosity, which in turn finally turned to understanding. To some degree, anyway.

You raised your gaze from his belly to his gaze. Tilting your head.

Patrick swallowed. Hard. Otherwise, he didn't move a muscle.

"I'm not going to harm you," he repeated, his voice as soft as new snow.

You may not have comprehended his words, but you seemed to finally sense the meaning behind them.

You crooned. Reminded him of a puppy still learning how to make noise. Then, you returned to the blankets. Slipped under the topmost one and settled there.

Patrick dared to sit up. You did nothing. He buttoned himself back up. Still nothing.

He found his pipe. Chewed on it. You watched him with those enormous eyes. He watched you back. A peculiar silence fell over you both.

Finally, he placed a hand on his chest. "Patrick."

You blinked.

He tried again. "Pat. Trick."

You stared at his lips. Patrick would've been flustered if he hadn't seen you then moving your own lips. Trying to mimic him.

Patrick repeated his name. Slowly.

What came out of your mouth wasn't an echo. But it wasn't a croon, either. Something between human and animal.

Patrick couldn't help but smile. "You're an odd little thing, aren't you?"

You made something like a bark, though it was too soft to truly count as one. "Yorp."

Patrick huffed with laughter.

You blinked. Tried to huff with laughter, just as he had. It didn't sound convincing even to your own ears, given your frown. You tried again. Not much better.

Patrick chuckled, then stopped.

When was the last time he'd laughed? He couldn't rightly recall.

Patrick looked at you once more. In awe of what you'd brought out of him.

You looked back at him with those strange eyes of yours. Large. Curious. Seal-like.

Jack sits in the Bureau car with tinted windows across the street, watching you nervously wave goodbye to Ellen and rush back to the house. You look both ways and still don’t see him. Idiot. A sports car speeds down the street– not a foot away from you! His heart skips a beat. You could have been hurt, or worse. 

He takes off, white-knuckling the steering wheel. How could you? He only has one rule for you, and you’re just breaking it? Day after day, going over to Ellen’s house to do God knows what with God knows who else. 

He parks the car in the garage and smoothes back his hair. He takes the elevator up from the garage to Surveillance. 

“Cutting it close on lunch there, Jack,” a coworker notes. “Too good for the cafeteria?”

“My lady makes a good tuna salad, Frank,” he jokes, trying to hide his grimace. 

At the end of the day, Jack says goodbye to the lingering agents in Surveillance– the ones without wives to get home to, who will probably heat up a TV dinner and fall asleep on the sofa. He casually strolls out to the parking lot. He fishes for his car key in his briefcase and scowls at that little plastic Dialpak hiding inside. He felt like throwing up when he found the thing buried among the powders in your makeup drawer. 

He drives home slowly. He wants to drag it out. He smirks a little at the thought of you tapping your foot anxiously while staring at the clock. Maybe you’ve frantically searched through every drawer trying to find your misplaced contraband. 

He parks in the drive and takes his sweet time walking up the path. He unlocks the door and pushes it open. 

“Honey, I’m home,” he calls.

He grins when he sees you. You do look frightened, but relieved. Your toe is tapping just as he predicted, and your shoes are on. 

“You’re so late,” you coo, walking over to take his coat. “The traffic must have been awful.”

He wants to start off nice. Ease you into this punishment. 

“Your shoes are on,” he states. 

“Hm? Oh. I, um, I was just trying them on with this dress,” you clumsily lie. 

“In the garden?” he adds, pointing to the smudge of dirt on the toe. 

“What?” you play dumb.

He grabs you by the arm and brings you to the kitchen, sitting you at the dining table. The plastic chair wobbles with the force. He kneels down, snatching your heel off your foot and inspecting it. 

“It’s dirty, sweetheart,” he grits through a pained-looking smile. “You went outside,” he accuses.

“J-Jack, I-” he sees the panic on your face setting in, “I’m sorry, Jackie, I’m so sorry, I was just dropping off that Tupperware Ellen had brought over-”

“For thirty minutes?” he barks at you, standing up. 

His hand squeezes your shoe and you watch his face turn red as the vein in his forehead pops out. 

“You… you were watching me?” you whisper in realisation. 

“Why didn’t you call her?” he snarls, his blue eyes wide and crazed. “She could have come and got it herself-”

“Because that sounds insane! Hi Ellen, I know you just live across the street but could you come to me and get your dish? You know they all ask, Jack! ‘Why can’t you leave the house? Why don’t you ever go anywhere without him?’” you shout at him. 

He throws your shoe across the kitchen, striking the clock and making it fall to the ground and shatter. You gasp but before you can complain about the clock being a gift, he’s got you by the arm again, lifting you out of your chair and taking your place. He drapes you over his lap and reaches for the hem of your dress. 

“Jack! Jack, no-!”

Your voice and struggles are both paused by a hard smack on your backside. 

“I’m your husband!” he shouts, spanking you again. “You’re mine, for better or for goddamn worse, and a good wife oughta listen to her husband. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Jack, of course,” you plead. “Yes, of course, please-”

“Be a good girl for me, sweetheart, please?” he says softly, patting your behind gently with that big, warm hand. “I love you so much, honey, I wake up in the night just worried sick about everything out there. You’re so beautiful, there are so many… deviants out there who would want to hurt you.”

“Please, d-don’t-”

He spanks you again, again, and five more times until his hand is rubbing that stinging heat in. You sob, gripping his trousers for something to hold on to. 

“Don’t you ever leave this house again without me,” he barks.

“I won’t, I won't," you bawl, your mascara blurring your vision of the tile in the kitchen.

“I don’t like to hurt you. I don’t like it at all, honey,” his voice slips into that squeaky, desperate tone again. “You can’t leave, baby. You can’t. I’ll just die if anything happens to you, sweetheart. I’ll die.”

You can’t even speak anymore. You’re overwhelmed by the broken glass and his rage and the heat between your legs– you realise suddenly that his hand is between your legs. 

“Oh, honey,” he purrs. “I knew you liked this.”

“No-”

“No, no, I knew it. You love it when I put you in your place, sweetheart. You’re such a good girl for me,” he breathes, his fingers skimming over the soaked-through gusset of your nylon panties. 

Despite your best efforts, you moan.

“I know what you need, honey.”

Your stomach drops.

“You need a baby.”

“No, no, I don’t want a baby, J-Jack, stop it, no-”

He lifts you up and pushes you over the dining table. 

“You’ll look so perfect with a baby. You’ll have something to worry about right here at home. No reason to leave, no reason to go over to anyone’s house. They can come here and help you with our little angel,” he explains. 

He’s giddy like a schoolboy, fumbling to unbuckle his belt and unzip his trousers.

“Jack- can I- y-your fingers first, please,” you beg in a choked sob.

“Ellen’s such a stupid whore, isn’t she?” he ignores your request, seething behind you. “Putting all these goddamn… ideas in your head, like you’re some kind of bra-burning college student. You’re not!”

He pushes you down and rips your panties down your legs, lining up with your soaking cunt. He drags the tip of his cock through your folds and pushes in slowly. You cry out, clawing at the table.

“Don’t scratch up the table, baby, we haven’t had dinner,” he snarls, leaning over you.

He lifts your hair and kisses the nape of your neck, inhaling deeply.

“Your shampoo smells so nice,” he murmurs. “I gotta give you a little baby. And maybe we don’t stop at one.”

You bawl, trying to wriggle out from under him. His large hand plants on your back, pinning your body to the table. Finally sheathed inside, he twitches, nudging your cervix. 

“J-Jack,” you croak. “Plea-”

Before you can finish begging, he pulls out until only the tip is in you and slams back in. He’s punishing you with this. It’s hardly even pleasurable for him, the way he pumps in and out of you like an animal. His hand fists into the skirt of your dress, using it to yank your hips back to meet his thrusts. The zipper on his trousers pinches into your thigh each time he drives home. 

“You’re my wife, my wife. You didn’t choose any of those other fucking morons in class, you chose me. Me! God, honey, you just make me so damn angry sometimes! I don’t want to yell at you!” he tries to hold back the rage shaking through his justifications.

You wish you could deny your body, but the warmth gathering in your tummy is hard to ignore. You’re cold and lonely all day in your empty house. 

Maybe it would be better to have a kid. You’d have someone to take care of, to keep you company and play with. And once the first went off to school, you could have another on the way. 

Jack watches the crease between your brows smooth out. 

“That’s it, baby,” he coos, holding you gentler. “That’s my girl. Lemme take away all that worry. Lemme give you a baby, sweetheart.”

“Yes, Jack,” you breathe, arching your back and allowing him to sneak his hand under you.

His fingers rub tight circles around your clit. He’s precise and quick. You’ve been married for long enough that he knows how to take you apart like he does his firearm. 

“There she is, c’mon. Don’t cry, sweetie. Don’t cry, this is a good thing,” he lies, trying to comfort you and coax you into an orgasm. “I know babies take better if the mama cums… cum for me, sweetie, be good for once today, please.”

You shatter in his hands, and he takes his time picking up your pieces. Kissing away tears, smoothing his hand over your shoulder. 

“Fuck, baby. Feel so good. I’m so clo-se…”

All the sweet words in the world have you in a deep spell— only taken out by the familiar sensation of his warm cum filling you up.

“Atta girl, hon. Love you so much.”

He gives you one last swat on the backside and pulls out. His fingers immediately plug the hole. 

“We’ll just stay here for a while… until it has time to take. And then we can have dinner.” 

He kisses your cheek. 

“I love you, baby.”

“I love you too, Jack,” you whisper, stuck under his thumb like you always are. 

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This also counts as my joc dead dove fest submission yay! @jocficlibrary

HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY @leosbones, a bit late but not by a lot-- my good friend, and gooner in arms, I've loved talking to you in the Patrick thread so much and I'm so happy to make this artwork for you of our favorite pathetic man !! I HOPE YOU LIKE IT MWAH 💋💞💞✨✨I hyperfocused and locked in on this for like 16 hrs over the past couple days 💀 remind me not to do that again I'm gonna get carpal tunnel 💀💀