#I mean it is a good idea… blowing your entire life up irrevocably is almost always a good idea

[whentherewerebicycles]

the moon looked bigger in real life

[glynnisi]

ShieldShock Holiday Fic 2020       FOR  @ava-rosier      

At Ao3:  Snowbound Christmas

Prompts:

-There's only one hotel room left and it's a blizzard outside and There Is Only One Bed.

-Either at a Mall or an Airport during the busy holiday season, a villain is trying to steal/ruin the holidays and Steve and Darcy, who are both there for Reasons, team up to foil the dastardly plot.

-When Darcy wore her new, risqué Captain America xmas/holiday sweater to work that day, she didn't expect that he would actually...y'know...SEE it.

---

So, it’s been a while since I wrote. Hi, friends!!! :)  But I adore ShieldShock still and will always adore @mcgregorswench and the ShieldShock Holiday Fic Exchange.  I tried to capture the feel of your prompts, @ava-rosier .  I’ve done holiday in the airport before but can NEVAH get too much of THERE IS ONLY ONE BED.  Hope you’re having a wonderful holiday, enjoying seeing 2020 finally end, and that you’ll enjoy your ShieldShock holiday fic gift!!! :)

---

Snowbound Christmas

Darcy startled as the car door scraped open over deep snow and a gust of wind blew in to steal her breath. It was even colder than the previous times. Steve could move fast, but not faster than the blizzard winds. He shook his head as he slammed the door closed behind him, sealing them in the relative calm. The only sound at first was the rustle of her shivering. He turned the car on again and they both savored relief as the air around them warmed.

She shifted position in her seat. “Steve, my friend! No room in the Inn?” Darcy tried to sound upbeat rather than weary. “I’d so hoped the eleventh try would be the charm. I mean, those two were raved over in Google as ‘simple’ and ‘budget’. You wouldn’t think that would draw a crowd.” She continued to watch the snow fall, eyes going out of focus.

Steve shook his head and pushed his snow-damp hair back. “I tried all five places in the village. Cut across town on foot rather than wasting gas.” He frowned. “I’m too stubborn. Should ‘a stopped twenty miles back where there were more possibilities. I’m sorry, Darcy.” He kept his eyes on the road as he started slowly moving. The snow was falling hard, gusting winds whipping it around them with abandon. Even with four-wheel drive, good snow tires, and perfect reflexes- Steve didn’t dare go more than fifteen miles per hour. Driving was hazardous, more by the minute.

Darcy shrugged her shoulders. “The forecast was off. I thought we had more time before it got bad, too. I swear! I only closed my eyes for like twenty seconds. When I opened them again it looked like I’d missed seeing three inches fall. You must be freezing. The other motels are two miles away, aren’t they?�� She shivered, both sympathetically and because the car was still warming up.

“I’ll be fine.” Steve sighed again and glanced at Darcy’s phone before staring ahead of them again. “Any other ideas?”

Darcy squinched up her features, “well…” She was glad Steve focused his attention on the road. She worried that her idea wouldn’t be well received. “We could ask the others for suggestions? Surely Tony owns something between here and the City.” Darcy held her breath. She’d seen Steve and Tony clash at the Avengers Upstate Base enough to know that he didn’t want to ask Tony’s help.

Steve reached in his jacket pocket and handed his phone to Darcy, groaning in resignation. “Had the same thought. See if he’s replied?” He steeled himself.

Darcy laughed merrily as she read his incoming texts.

“That bad?” Steve’s frown lines deepened.

Darcy’s lips twitched. “Nah, buddy-o. Tony’s busting your chops about being a damsel in distress. He reminds you that he’s been away from Pepper for a week and has injuries to rest up from. Says to cool your heels at a summer lake cabin of hers. Coordinates and key code provided. And to resist the urge to crash dramatically into the lake as it wouldn’t be very festive of you. Cabin can be drafty, but was cleaned recently. Which, yay! They were going to come up last week for a dating anniversary celebration before the weather changed and he took that mission.”

Steve nodded and blew out an impatient breath. He glanced at Darcy again, “does anyone other than Jane know you’re with me?” His tone sounded wary.

Again, Darcy shrugged and avoided his gaze. “I dunno. If the local mechanic didn’t have sick kids at home, I’d be driving myself through this like I planned. Probably would’ve crashed in a snow drift by now or be caught in the sadly-parked madness on the interstate you were smart enough to skip. Why? I’m sorry that coming for me put you behind schedule. You’re too kind, putting yourself out for little ole me. You probably have plans with close friends, or something.” She trailed off, uncertain if that was a fair assumption regarding Steve. As much time as they’d spent together since they met over a year before, he seemed to always be working.

Darcy frowned, sad for Steve. And for herself. She’d tried in vain to shake the crush she had on the loneliest Avenger. He seemed determined to stay lonely and fill his time almost entirely with work. Whenever he came to Jane’s lab, she struggled not to let her extreme thirst for him show. She ended up babbling most times, griping about stuff and talking nonsense. He came by the lab a lot, so she had many embarrassing memories to cringe about.

“Not really. And don’t apologize, Darcy. I wanted to help you. I’m glad you’re with me rather than stuck, or worse.” Steve chose to ignore part of her question for the moment. “I was just going by Tony and Pepper’s party at the Tower to keep some peace between us. Then I figured I might go to Brooklyn to see the crazy lights they put up there these days, and then maybe head down to D.C. to see Sam. Nothing firm. No big deal.” He turned into a skid and eased up on the gas. Anyone else would have registered alarm at the need to maneuver like that. The majority of drivers would have wrecked. Sleet mixed in with the precipitation.

Darcy nodded, silent. She clicked on the coordinates Tony had sent and turned up the volume on the phone directions. When there was a pause, she spoke up, “still sorry to keep you from your party, lights, and Sam. I’m relieved that you weren’t just planning to ignore the holiday at the Upstate Base again this year, though. No offense, but hearing you did that last year made me mad at you.” She let out an indignant huff and blinked back tears.

He raised his brows, but didn’t reply at first. Finally, not wanting to seem rude, Steve asked, “mad? Why?” He fought against both flickers of hope and melancholy.

Steve tried not to wish for what he believed he couldn’t have. He’d found that Darcy won friends easily, but rarely let anyone get close enough to know her the way he’d like to know her. She kept things light and funny, using her humor as a shield against intimacy.  He admired her ability to deflect when she used it with others, lamented it when she used it with him.

The first day they met, Steve fell hard for the brash, strong-willed, funny, gorgeous dame. And then he met her boyfriend, Ian. Even after that relationship ended, Darcy made it crystal clear that she saw Steve only as a friend. Her emotional shield pushed him back like the strongest of force fields. She bristled if he held a door or pulled out a chair for her. She acted like it was weird if he did anything for her- like bringing her coffee when he was getting some for himself in Jane’s lab.

Also, there was Darcy’s apparent dislike of soldiers. She cursed agents and soldiers as ‘jack-booted thugs’ every time a piece Jane’s equipment misbehaved. He’d overheard Darcy rant to Jane about her sister’s hard life with a military guy Darcy disdained as ‘Soldier Boy’. Steve was a soldier. He'd never regretted it until it came between him and the only 21st century woman he’d met who captivated him.

Her tone as she spoke next brought Steve out of his reverie. “I know that those you love from your time were more like family to you… that you still mourn all you lost.” Darcy avoided looking at Steve, “But, I consider you a friend and I don’t like for anyone to treat my friends bad… especially, themselves. Thinking of you doing busy work and walking echoing halls alone. Imagining you eating frozen dinners and training alone while the rest of the world celebrated? Too sad. Awful. I wish you would’ve let me, I mean, someone, anyone, know that you didn’t have plans.” Darcy swallowed hard around the lump in her throat. She’d held that in for the better part of a year and was terrified that she’d overstepped enough to anger Steve. If her voice sounded brittle, she couldn’t help it. Her feelings for Steve ran deep. She’d taken one look at Steve Rogers and lost her heart irrevocably.

Steve shook his head and joked to offer one correction, “I hardly ever eat frozen dinners.” He cleared his throat. “What did you do for Christmas last year?” Steve’s tone was mild, unreadable. He’d spent a lot of the previous year’s holiday week reliving the pain of seeing Darcy being kissed by Ian under mistletoe. It was a harsh blow since he’d heard rumors that they’d broken up and dared hope for a chance with her. Thinking of that terrible moment still filled Steve with potent jealousy.

Darcy cut a glance Steve’s way. “I went to the usual lame lab holiday party, complete with joke gifts and too much mistletoe. Then, un-fun family time. As soon as I could escape my dumb sister Beth and ‘Soldier Boy’, I got back to Jane’s. I made Thor watch Christmas cartoons while I struggled to explain the pop nuances of them to him. We drank eggnog. I exchanged joke gifts with him and Jane and Erik. Then we all helped serve Christmas dinner at homeless shelter. And I ate too much and fell asleep on the couch at Jane’s place that night. I ‘peopled’.” She glared at Steve and repeated in an accusing tone, “’Peo-ple-d!’”

Darcy frowned as she also remembered Ian cornering her under mistletoe before Christmas. He tried to get back together with her until she threatened to tase him. It had cast a pall over Darcy’s entire holiday.  That was one interaction with people she did NOT look back on fondly.

Steve chuckled weakly, “and you’re mad at me for not ‘people-ing?’”  

“You never want anyone to pity you in any way, but then you do stupid stuff like that! I mean, I was drunk when Thor told me, but it made me CRY.” Darcy shook her head and looked away, frowning, angry. “Sorry. Said too much. Not my business. I know. Sorry.” She hunched her shoulders as though concerned he might offer a rebuke.

Steve's face fell into a sad grin. “No need to… It’s nice that you worry about me, Darcy. Thanks for that.” He resisted the urge to cover her hand with his. “I’m sorry I made you cry.” Genuine distress filled him, that she’d cried and that he had no right to offer comfort. Something in her reaction brought out his deepest protective instincts.

Careful to avoid distracting Steve from driving, Darcy poked his rock-hard bicep. “Pfft. Silly. You’re not alone, even if you try. You have friends. I’m your friend. You know that. Right?”

“Friends.” Steve nodded, grim. “Yeah. Thank you for being my friend, Darcy.” He sighed, long and low.

Darcy nodded, unable to speak around the lump in her throat.

---

 Soon, they arrived at the coordinates. A tiny cabin nestled in the deepening snow. It was dark, but for a dim light visible through its large windows.

Darcy moaned, “finally.”

“I could carry…” Steve’s voice trailed off as Darcy threw her door open and jumped out into the knee-deep snow. She almost fell, but righted herself. The winds swirled snow and sleet all around her.

“Shit! Cold!” Darcy trudged with purpose towards the cabin. “So cold! And, eww, wet. Oh!” She input the code Tony had sent for the front door lock and shoved inside. Darcy kicked off her snow-covered boots and dropped her coat inside the front door. She scurried to the bathroom. “Some of us don’t have super bladder capacity!” Her brief view of the cabin interior was minimal. Dark shapes stood out against the eerie snow light through the windows.

Steve slammed his car door and followed. He shook his head and yelled back, “nobody has that” as he picked up Darcy’s coat, shook snow off, and hung it on a hook. He toed off his boots and set them and Darcy’s boots near the fireplace. Then, he peeled off his snow pants and hung them on a hook near the door. They’d kept his jeans dry.

“Don’t get your tights in a twist. I’m hurrying!” Darcy called from the bathroom.

Brows raised; Steve surveyed the cabin. He flicked light switches and swore under his breath as low, golden light bathed the tight space. The room was dominated by a low bed and floor to ceiling windows. A Christmas tree decorated with lights stood by the bed. There were at least a dozen pillows and a sheer hanging canopy laced with warm string lights over the bed. There was no sofa, only two reading chairs and a small table in front of the fireplace. A kitchenette took space along one wall. It had a well-stocked wine rack.

Mostly, there was the ridiculously romantic-looking bed. Face prickling with heated anxiety, Steve found a thermostat and started the heater. Then, he began to build a fire in the brick fireplace. The cabin was cold and the windows were more suited to airiness than warmth. The back walls were brick, attractive but cold in winter weather.

“Uh, Steve?” Darcy sounded sheepish; voice muffled by the bathroom door. “Can you hand me a blanket or look for a robe or something? I’m sorry to trouble you. My pants are soaked up to the knees and I can’t put them back on. They’re freezing. Wet with snow.”

Steve closed his eyes, still for several seconds. He looked around for a closet and saw instead a wardrobe. He grabbed a black silk robe, frowning at the sheer and gauzy red alternative hanging beside it. The top shelves held baskets of swimsuits, shorts, and other summer clothes. He took the black robe off the hangar and walked to the bathroom. He knocked and held out the robe, eyes averted. Then, he went back to work on the fire.

“Thanks, I didn’t think. Just ran to the bathroom. I…” Darcy stopped as she got a good look at the cabin. “Oh, holy… uh, night.” She cut a careful glance Steve’s way.

Steve shook his head and chuckled. “Something like that. Don’t worry. I can sleep on the floor. I’ve done worse.” He arranged another log in the growing flames and warmed his hands.

“You can NOT! Don’t be stupid. I won’t attack you. Promise. We both need to sleep and there’s room for two if we remove a few hundred pillows.” Darcy’s tone sounded more certain and stubborn as she talked. She rolled her eyes at him. “Make a line of pillows down the middle of the bed as a dividing line if you want to keep me away. Or, I can do it.” She frowned at him, set her jeans near the fire to dry, and moved to the kitchenette. Darcy opened the refrigerator, freezer, and cabinets to see what they had to work with. “Sorry about my coat and boots. I was gonna get them, I swear.”

Steve frowned, disliking her urgent anxiety. “No problem.”

Darcy opened a bottle of water and drank it. “I didn’t dare drink much water while we were stuck in the car, but I still needed a bathroom for at least the past hour.” She offered him a bottle, which he accepted and downed before returning his attention to his work. Darcy moved food from the freezer to the refrigerator to thaw. She opened a couple of cans of soup and put them on to simmer, and sat in a reading chair. “I checked the weather forecast while I was in the bathroom. We’re not getting out of here on our own power before tomorrow night at the earliest.” She tightened the belt on the robe and leaned towards the fire, hands outstretched. “Nice. Getting a little warmth there. Thanks.”

Steve excused himself to the restroom. On his return, he sat in the other chair. He watched the fire’s progress, then turned his attention to the deepening snow visible through the windows all around them. “Quieter now. Slowing down, or a lull before more blizzard.”

“Lull, according to radar. Fresh snow absorbs sound. Something about air between the flakes dampening vibrations.” When Steve gave her an impressed look, Darcy grinned, “I saw it in a meme on the Internet. Must be true.” She winked at him.

Steve returned her grin. “Internet. So helpful.”

“Except when it’s REALLY not.” She made a face, both sad and angry. “Beth met ‘Soldier Boy’ online. And, of course his worst notions get amplified there. Bleurgh.”

Careful, Steve dared, “what branch of the Military is your brother-in-law with?”

Darcy choked on water. “Br... Whaa?” She shook her head, hard. “God, no! Don’t say that. It might come true if you say it.  Eww! Grandma Esther'd roll right out of her grave to beat the ever-living sh… heck… pardon me, out of Beth if she marries that Nazi wannabe.” Darcy shuddered dramatically. “Crud. They’ve been dating more than a year. And, Christmas… You may be right. Ugh.” She spoke as she texted into her phone, “‘If you marry him, I’ll give you kitty litter as a wedding present, used kitty litter. Dumbass. BTW I hate him. He’s awful.’ Ugh. Delete. Delete. Delete.”

Steve digested all this and stayed quiet. He noted with interest that Darcy’s cheeks reddened as though with embarrassment. In his experience she didn’t embarrass easily. Her plush lower lip jutted out in a pout. “Beth’s dating a racist faux-militia-type lunatic. She’s decided she’s Sub to his Dom and overlooks his politics and crazy behavior. It’s nauseating.” Darcy frowned, sad, “I don’t see the attraction. Mom says the sex must be great, cuz she doesn’t understand the attraction, either.” Darcy twirled a piece of her hair nervously on one finger. “Mom thought she had the worst taste in men in the family, but Beth’s making her wonder.” She shook her head. “Sorry. Nothing to you. You don’t know them. Crazy family of a sorta friend.”

“I know you… some. I care more than you think.” Now Steve’s cheeks reddened. He hadn’t meant to say that aloud.

Darcy gestured as though to bump shoulders with him. “Nice.” She arranged the robe over her legs, both from cold and modesty.

Hesitant, Steve ventured, “you never mention your father.”

Darcy’s gaze turned his way. “Nope. Long gone.” Her expression hardened. “Thank goodness.”

After an awkward silence fell between them, Steve went to the stove and spooned soup into two bowls. He returned to his place by the fire. He handed Darcy her soup, noting her mild surprise at being served. They ate without speaking. When they were done, they both took their bowls and rinsed them in the sink.

Darcy walked over to the bed and started moving pillows. “Do you want a dividing line?” She didn’t try to meet his gaze.

“Not necessary. Let’s put the pillows by the windows. They’ll block some of the cold that’s coming in and making it hard for this place to warm up.” Steve pressed pillows along the bottom edge of one window. He glanced back as Darcy slid beneath the covers, still wearing the black robe. The warm light brought out red and light brown highlights in her long hair. She looked even prettier than usual in the golden glow. And he thought she was always beautiful.

Darcy shivered hard. “Sheets are freezing!”

Swallowing hard, Steve sat on the far side of the bed from her. “Want the decorative lights off?”

“N…n..not unless you do. They’re p..pretty. Make me think warmer thoughts.” Her shivers shook the bed.

Steve shifted so that he could lift the covers and lay underneath them. They were icy cold against his pants. He imagined the chill was worse against Darcy’s bare legs. He lay back and closed his eyes, feeling the motion of the bed from Darcy’s shaking. The winds began to wail again, harder than before. He opened his eyes and turned to look out at the raging blizzard. “Wanna lay back-to-back? I run warm.” As she shifted so that she faced away from him, he rolled to his side and moved back against her. He cursed himself as a masochist.

“Ohhh. Fuck, yes!” Darcy swore under her breath and whispered, “sorry. So sorry!”

“I know what you mean and you don’t have to avoid cursing around me. We’re not on a mission communicator in an official capacity. That ‘language’ thing they joke me about is nonsense. I don’t give a damn about how people want to talk in regular life.” Steve closed his eyes again, trying to keep his tone even as Darcy wriggled against his back. He heard her mutter thanks a few times. Making her feel good pleased him.

Five minutes later, Darcy rolled over and pressed her cold nose against his shoulder. She spent several minutes trying to figure out where to put her hands. She ended up crossing her arms over her chest and tucking her hands under her chin. Within minutes, she was asleep.

Listening to the sound of Darcy’s breathing as it evened out and deepened lulled Steve to sleep soon after. His face settled into a small smile.

---

 Steve supposed it was a slight change in the blizzard-muted light of day that woke him next. Languorous, sensual dreams dissipated through his hazy thoughts. Dream images of Darcy, kiss-swollen lips and bared creamy skin, heated his blood.

Then, awareness hit him hard. He and Darcy clenched in a lover’s embrace. Their legs entwined and her head was on his chest. Her sweet, feminine scent filled his senses. Her amazing breasts pressed against one side of his chest. One of her hands was against his arm and the other warmed the skin of his stomach, inside his shirt. It all felt so good and right that it stole his breath. His body’s natural response to his dreams, to her, and to waking was extreme. He was afraid to move lest any friction push him past sanity. A small, low moan sounded in her throat as she shifted against him. He tensed.

Her voice was raspy with sleep. “I know it’s awkward, but I’m way too comfy to regret it. You feel good, Steve.”

“Right back atcha’, Doll,” he whispered. Wishing himself back in his dreams, he kissed her forehead and squeezed her even closer. He wanted her so much he could hardly stand it.

Darcy made another small sound in her throat as she wriggled against him. The realization that he was aroused sparked her passions, but she didn’t dare to presume too much. Maybe it was only an impressive sign of morning. She followed his example and placed a chaste kiss below his jaw. She felt his heart pounding more quickly and closed her eyes again. She flexed her fingers against his ridiculously-cut abdomen and felt him jolt. She debated if any of his reactions had anything to do with her in particular. She wished they did.

Both of them were awake, but neither admitted it.  Each of them savored the embrace and the feel of the other’s body. They each fantasized about the other.  They fantasized about passionate first moves, expressing affection and desire. Want. They became lost in imagining more and more.  Time passed. Their emotions swirled like the blizzard winds that trapped them together.

They lay cuddled and simmering with unspoken desires until Steve’s phone rang. It broke the spell. He moved away from Darcy and answered the phone.

She watched the play of muscles under the back of his shirt and struggled to stifle her lust.  Darcy closed her eyes.  It was futile.  Her lust for Steve had been growing for over a year.  In this circumstance, lust was inevitable.

While Steve talked with Sam, assuring him that he was fine though the storm prevented him reaching the City, Darcy left the bed and went to the bathroom. She snagged her dry jeans on her way there. She took a shower and did what she could with toothpaste she found in the medicine cabinet and her finger. When she came back out, she hung the robe in the wardrobe and put on her Christmas cardigan. She looked through the wardrobe and giggled at the sheer red robe. Then, Darcy took a step back. She buttoned and straightened her sweater by her reflection in the wardrobe mirror.

Steve paused in his conversation, a gob-smacked look on his face, “what…?!”

“Oh! Yeah. I know. Gaudy, isn’t it? Well, last year Tony gifted the ‘ugliest sweater at his party’ winner $10,000. I know what he can be like, so I thought I’d stand a better chance of catching his wallet’s attention if I went a little on the sexy side. And I sewed in lights.” Darcy twirled and turned on the LED lights that adorned the sweater. Her dark green Christmas cardigan had bauble Avenger emblem buttons. A Captain America Shield button strained to hold the sweater together over Darcy's breasts. Silver and gold trim around the hem resembled tinsel. Red and gold lighted and embroidered ornaments dotted the sweater at random. It was a bit gaudy rather than ugly, but sexy most of all since the fabric hugged Darcy’s ample curves. She wore it over a tight red top and skinny black jeans. The ensemble played up her natural assets.

Steve could only nod in reply. He tried to turn his full attention back to his conversation, but didn’t do well.

By the time Steve was off the phone and had made the bed, Darcy found waffles in the freezer and syrup in the pantry. She had coffee brewing and was downing another bottle of water when Steve began stoking the fire embers and adding wood. They shared a quiet breakfast. Steve tried not to look at Darcy’s figure and failed again and again. He tried not to fantasize as Darcy licked syrup from her lips. He failed.

As they finished breakfast, Darcy looked around the cabin. “Aw, man. No TV?”

“Actually, there’s one over the bed.” Steve swallowed the last of his coffee.

“Over?” Darcy gave him a disbelieving look and went over to look up inside the bed canopy. “You’re not kidding.”

He chuckled and shook his head, “at first I thought it was a mirror.”

Darcy lay on the bed, on her back. She looked around for a remote control, finally finding one in the nearby window sill. “Icy remote.” She pointed it up and sighed, “but it works!” Channel flipping and streaming services browsing occupied her for some time.

She hoped rather than believed that Steve was looking at her with lusty interest.

Steve was. The intimacy of their situation and Darcy’s sensual appearance were a potent combination. He could hardly speak. He excused himself to go get a quick shower. He came back out a few minutes later, dressed again but still toweling his hair dry.

Darcy didn’t meet Steve’s eye as she offered, “you’re welcome to join me. Just friends watching television, ya know. I’m watching a silly Christmas movie. ’Scrooged.’ Okay?”

Steve shrugged as he made his way back to the bed. He shuffled, awkward, as he drew nearer.

Darcy shifted towards one edge of the bed, not meeting his gaze. “Plenty of room. Don’t mind me.”

He smiled as he sat on the other edge of the bed and forced himself to speak up. “Sam said that they’re busy helping first responders deal with stranded motorists. Hundreds of them all across the state. A lot of people didn’t have our luck and find shelter. I had to agree with him that it’s more important that they help them than us. I’m sorry you won’t have the chance to win the sweater contest.” He eased onto his back beside her, folding a pillow behind his head.

“Of course, they need to help people who’re stuck!” Darcy shuddered. “It’s super cold out there and the storm got out of hand so fast. I can only imagine. We’re fine here.” She grinned and turned to him. “You really think I’d win?”

Steve was struck by how pretty her green eyes were. He blushed. Her look turned quizzical. He nodded and spoke a thick reply, “yeah. Definitely.” Steve forced his gaze up to the television mounted above them. “I assume that ‘Scrooged’ refers to the Dickens novella?”

“Yup.” Darcy shifted further to the edge and lifted the covers so that she could get under the blankets. Once under there, she groused, “darned lights and ornaments are poking me.” She frowned, and unbuttoned the sweater again and lay it aside. Buttons and lights made a clicking sound on the floor by the bed.

After debating for what felt like an endless time, Steve got under the covers and shifted closer to her. “Can’t let you freeze.”

Darcy rolled up on her side and looked him in the eye. “It would be rude to let me freeze. I’m glad you’ve seen the light.” She winked at him, trying to seem playful. She thought that he was looking at her lips, but dismissed it as wishful thinking.

Steve assured her, “I’ll do my best to keep you from freezing. Wouldn’t want to be rude.” He put one arm around her, hand spanning the middle of her back. “I’m a polite guy.”

“You’re the nicest soldier I’ve ever met. Have I ever mentioned that?” Darcy ducked her head as a blush filled her cheeks. The way his hand covered her whole back made her feel tiny. Did things to her. Made her want his hands on her in other places. The fire she tried to play with was backfiring spectacularly, leaving Darcy breathless with desire.

“No. But I’m glad to hear it.” Steve gave her a squeeze.

There was a loud noise onscreen. Darcy rolled onto her back so that she could see the television again. She hoped Steve wouldn’t notice that her breath was racing.

After a few minutes, Steve nudged her. “Tell me about other soldiers you’ve met? There are good and bad apples in any group, you know.” He felt Darcy tense.

Though she didn’t look at Steve, Darcy decided to answer. She told him about Puente Antiguo and the SHIELD agents and soldiers who took Jane’s research- and their computers and even Darcy’s personal iPod. SHIELD ran a strange, temporary military base near the town and Erik worried about their absolute power. She told him about the shifts in those soldiers’ attitudes after Thor returned to Asgard. First, they were obsequious, but gradually more restrictive. They coveted Jane’s research and tried to control them all. After a long pause, Darcy shared, “some of them reminded me of my dad. He was military, Marine. Not a nice guy, especially to our mom.”

Steve rubbed Darcy’s arm as she talked. He felt that it was a privilege that Darcy was telling him something so personal. He didn’t want to break the spell, rather hoped that she might open up to him more.

Darcy blinked back tears. “He found fault with everything she did. She couldn’t do enough fast enough to avoid setting off his temper. Then he… well, you know.” Darcy ducked her head.

Realization dawned on Steve. “So, he never served her a dish or coffee even if he was getting something? He never held doors for her or pulled out a chair? You never saw him treat her with respect?”

Steve stilled as Darcy sat up on one elbow and stared at him, eyes wide. “Respect? No. No respect.” She grabbed the remote again. “Let’s look for something else. I saw…” Darcy glanced at Steve. “’White Christmas’ is about to start on this channel. I remember liking the dancing and pretty outfits and thinking it’s sweet. The story starts in your time, though. Do you mind?  Will that make you too sad?”

Steve shook his head. “I’ve heard good things about it. I’ll be okay.” He wanted to say that he was more than okay with Darcy next to him, but was too tongue tied.

As the classic channel announcer talked, Darcy shifted closer to Steve again. “I want you to be okay. The 21st century’s not all bad, ya know.”

Again, Steve kissed Darcy’s forehead. “Yeah. Thanks, Doll.” He stroked her hair as they began watching the movie. “This okay?”

Darcy nodded, wondering if he was only being nice because he felt sorry for her or if there was another reason. “Yes. Very okay. Feels nice.” As his fingers trailed down her back, she shivered with pleasure. She wondered if he had any idea what his touch did to her. She savored the feelings, the want and heat, for a long time. Other thoughts ran through the back of her mind while she tried to ignore them.

Most of the way through the movie, the 'pretend-engagement' conspirators confessed to Bing Crosby’s character. Steve commented, approving, “at least they fessed up and set him straight. Too many times in romantic comedies the people avoid saying what’s on their mind until it’s too late. It's silly.” He stilled as Darcy pushed back from him and stared at him again. “What?  You okay?”

Darcy nodded.  “I… yeah. Sorry.” She sat up on the edge of the bed, paused the movie, and grasped her phone. After a moment, she nodded. “I’m gonna do this. I’m gonna make this call before I chicken out. Wish me luck.” She grabbed the green sweater from the floor and slipped it on over her red top again.

“Luck.” Steve got up and walked around the bed so he could sit next to Darcy. She looked up at him with a grateful warmth that transfixed him. He nudged her shoulder to offer comfort as someone answered her call.

“Beth? Hi. It’s Darcy. Merry something or other.” Darcy’s knee bounced, betraying her restlessness. Steve could feel tension fill her frame. After a moment, she continued, “yeah. Fine. I found a place to stay. I’m with a friend. And, Beth?” She took a deep breath, “He treats me with respect. Caring and respect. Even if he were…” Darcy paused. She rushed the next words out all at once, “well, if he was my Dom? He wouldn’t embarrass me or push away you or Mom by making me say ‘Meow’ and only ‘Meow’ to you at his whim. He wouldn’t think that's funny. He wouldn’t call me a ‘dimwit’ or a ‘bimbo’. He… Beth? I’m sorry to criticize your choices. But you deserve better than that kind of stuff. I hate the way Chad treats you, the way he talks down to you and tries to change you. You don’t need changing. I don’t know if it’s just me that Chad can’t stand. But, if it’s not? If he treats you like that in front of other people? I mean, would he demean you in front of your kids like Dad did Mom? Would he hurt you? How much like Dad…? Scratch that. Sorry. He’s not Dad. I’m not trying to be an unfair bitch to Chad, whatever he says. I worry that…” Darcy gasped, “don’t cry! I’m sorry! No! You… what? He what? He didn’t… What?!?” She shook, both in her body and voice. There was a long silence on Darcy’s end as her sister talked and cried. Darcy only interrupted the flow of words to utter sounds of disgust and disbelief.

Steve went to the kitchenette and got more water. He opened a bottle of wine and made thawed meat into fried burgers and baked French fries in the oven. He took Darcy water and returned to work on their lunch. The smell of good food soon filled the tiny cabin. He stayed busy, but most of his attention was on Darcy and her conversation.

Finally, Darcy rasped, “Well, that’s… What?! You’re thanking me? No. What? I thought you’d tell me to go to Hell, not take my call as a divine sign that you should say no and leave him. Oh, thank Baby Jesus!” Darcy laughed through tears. “Yes! I know I’m a bitch and I’m causing you to throw yourself on Mom’s mercy at Christmas. Enjoy her cookies for me. If it makes you feel better, I don’t have baking ingredients. Oh, fine! Hm? My friend? Awesome like you wouldn’t believe. Uh, I don’t know. It’s… pffft. I need to talk straight to him, too. Wish me luck?” Darcy wiped tears from her eyes. “Yes! I love you, too. Now, go. Text me when you’re safe at Mom’s and tell her I’m safe and I’ll call later. Merry Christmas.” Darcy hung up from the call and stared at the phone, rocking in place until she received a text. Then, she collapsed backwards onto the bed and stared up, unseeing.

Steve stayed quiet, letting Darcy calm from her talk with her sister. When the food was ready, Steve returned to her side and offered her a hand up, leading her towards the fire.

Darcy stumbled to a chair. “Thanks. You’re the best.” She drank more water.

“So, did he propose?” Steve began eating again and gave Darcy time to answer.

Darcy ate a bite of hamburger with a few fries and shook her head, “nope. TOLD her she was gonna marry him. Told her!” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “Jackass! Good riddance.”

Wry, Steve shook his head. “Not very romantic. Not that I’m an expert in that department, but…”

Darcy only nodded as she devoured the rest of her food and sipped wine. “I had no idea how hungry I was.” She looked at Steve, thinking how lucky she was to be trapped with a good person who exuded calm and kindness. She especially appreciated that after the intensity of her conversation with her sister. Darcy sipped the wine as she focused on Steve. Being with him settled her, made her feel safe. And looking at him was always a delight. Steve Rogers was handsome, to be sure. He’d rolled up the sleeves on his green and blue flannel shirt. Unfair of him to subject her to sexy forearms on top of all the rest. Like every shirt she’d ever seen him wear, this one struggled to cover his muscles. She’d given up trying to think of adjectives that could convey how attractive Steve was. And nice. He didn’t call her out for staring at him like a weirdo, mooning after him. He didn’t even press her to speak up now, when she was sure he must be curious about the ‘straight talk’ she’d mentioned. He gave her the space she needed to regain her equilibrium.

Respect. Steve treated her with respect. She had a wonderful friend who treated her with respect. She ought to be forever grateful rather than daring to wish for more.

Steve finished his glass of wine and poured himself another.

Darcy held her glass out for him to top off, then sipped it again. “This is good stuff. I never spend more than $10 on a bottle. I’d bet the cork on this stuff costs that much,” she giggled, “or even the label.”

“I’ll give Tony money to cover it when we get back to the Tower.” Steve shrugged.

Darcy glanced outside. Snow and sleet fell still. “That’ll be a bit yet.”

Steve nodded, not sure what to say. He felt happy trapped with Darcy, to have a chance to talk with her and hold her close. Even if she only saw him as a friend who kept her from getting too cold. Silence fell between them again.

“Wanna finish the movie? Sorry I shut it off without asking.” Darcy needed more time to gather courage.

Steve nodded, “no problem. Yeah. I’d like to see the ending.”

They took their dishes to the sink and then returned to the bed. There, Darcy took off her Christmas sweater. She threw back the covers and snuggled next to Steve under the blankets. He put his arms around her while she used the remote to restart the movie. Finally, the lovers in the movie sorted out their misunderstanding, kissed, and made plans for their future. Fierce longing overwhelmed both Steve and Darcy. Unconsciously, he stroked her back.

There was no one and nothing to distract them or come between them. Nothing except for their own emotional shields. But it was a day for dropping those.

Cheers and strains of the song ‘White Christmas’ sounded behind the words ‘The End’. Darcy ducked her head so that she didn’t have to look Steve in the eye. “I wish…”

Steve interrupted, “I wish that you didn’t dislike soldiers so much, Darcy. I’m a soldier and I can’t change that, never could.”

Darcy pushed back from him, “what? Change? You? No! I don’t… Oh! No. I only dislike the bad ones. I don’t like jack-booted thugs who steal Jane’s research and my personal stuff. I don't like Nazi wanna-be’s or, well, mean soldiers. I like… I like you, Steve.” She swallowed hard and jutted her chin out. “I wish that your work didn’t take pretty much all your time and that you didn’t miss your good old days so much. I wish…” She blinked back unshed tears. “I really wish you wanted to be here- in this time- with me, Steve. I’m sorry. I know you only want to be friends. And I won’t say anything more to make you uncomfortable, friend.” She smiled a small, watery smile. “Friend. I’ve done that for you all this time. I can keep doing it. I want any relationship we can have, even just friends.”

Confusion filled Steve’s expression. “Is that why you say ‘friend’ to me so much? Because you think that’s all I want?”

“Uh huh.” Darcy nodded miserably.

He inched closer. “And you like me even though I’m a soldier? And you want to be more than friends with me? Darce?” He whispered, “do you… want?”

Darcy looked up at him, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry to make things so awkward when you’re stuck here with me. Yes. I want! I wish that you wanted to be more than fr…Mmph!”

Steve kissed her.

He pulled back and stared at her as he cupped her cheek with one hand. “Sorry. I should ‘a- May I kiss you? I’m crazy about you, Darcy. I’ve wanted you for months and months. Want you so much I can hardly stand it. Not just friends, please. More, Doll.” His eyes gleamed with fervor.

Darcy nodded, stunned.

Steve chuckled, kissed her forehead and kissed her cheek again, with reverence. “Darcy, Doll… can I get a ‘yes’ to me kissing you?” He shifted so that his lips were a hair’s breadth away from her lips. Charged air shook the space yet between the two of them. He waited.

“Yes!” Darcy closed the distance between them and met his kiss with her own. They both trembled into it, a feather-light exploration. They each absorbed the idea that they’d misread what the other wanted. She murmured again, “oh, yes, Steve.”

He grinned as he kissed her again, deepening the kiss. He nibbled at her plush lower lip as he’d fantasized and dreamed so many times. Reality was a million times better. Darcy shuddered against him and groaned with pleasure. Steve stilled and closed his eyes. “Oh, Doll.” Darcy teased at his lower lip and he groaned, “gonna be hard as hell to be a gentleman with you doin’ that.”

Darcy chuckled, “who says you have to be a gentleman?” She shifted her leg to brush against his hardness. “Mmm. You were saying?” She nibbled at his lip again and played with the top button of his shirt.

Steve jolted and cursed under his breath. He kissed her quiet, again deepening the kiss and learning how they fit together. Steve savored Darcy's lips and tongue and throat while also exploring what she liked best. Sensitive spots. Sweetness. Eagerness. It was pure bliss. Darcy was becoming short of breath. Steve lay back and looked up at the next movie that had started while his Christmas dreams began to come true.

Darcy glanced at the Santa onscreen and panted. “I no longer have anything to ask Santa for.” She undid Steve’s top shirt button and kissed at the base of Steve’s throat. “I can think of a few things I’d like to ask you for, though.”

Steve grinned down at her, “same, Doll.”

“Oh?” Darcy undid another button on his shirt and kissed the exposed skin. She looked up at him and held his gaze as she undid the next few buttons.

Steve pulled her up for a long, slow kiss that set Darcy’s every nerve ending afire. She undid another few buttons on his shirt. When he shrugged it off, Darcy stilled, staring at his naked chest. “Holy…”

“Night?” he suggested. She snorted a giggle. He shifted her so that she sat astride him. He asked with his eyes if he could lift her shirt.

She nodded. “I may freeze, but yes. Please do.” She lifted her arms.

He shook his head. “Not gonna freeze. Haven’t you heard? I’m the man with a plan.” His voice tightened as he pulled her shirt up over her head. He shifted another pillow behind him and sat up some, pulling her towards him. He kissed her breasts as he reached around and undid her lacy red bra. “Damn, Doll. You’re a fantasy come true.” As he began to tease at her breasts with his lips and tongue, Darcy shivered and moved on him. He groaned, “here.” He pulled his shirt out from beneath him and helped her put it on, open at the front but warming her arms and back. "Looks much better on you than Tony's robe."

“Ahhh.” Darcy tried to talk, but Steve returned to tormenting her with his insistent lips. “G...good plan. Ohhh.” She squirmed in his lap, grinding against his erection with abandon. He let out a lusty groan that made her proud.

Steve pulled her chest against him for warmth as he moved up to kiss her lips and face again. “You’re shaking.” He looked concerned, but couldn’t resist kissing Darcy again. And again. He plucked and teased at her with his dexterous fingers. He loved the frantic sounds she made in the back of her throat.

“Not cold.” Darcy pulled back, then kissed him again and again. “Just want. Want you. Want so much.”

Steve shifted, rolling Darcy down onto her back. “Good thing, Doll.” He kissed her. Long, slow, passionate kisses that she met with a fervor that lit him up more every second. He palmed her breast and continued his exquisite torment. Darcy arched up against him, writhing. He lowered his lips to her breasts again. First one, then the other. Kissing and nibbling and sucking. She cried out and bucked as he swirled his tongue, hard. Darcy wasn’t sure if she would be embarrassed to come just from his attention to her breasts or impressed. Possibly both. Likely both.

He resumed teasing her nipples with his fingers. He placed open-mouthed kisses all along her belly. Steve took his time. “Beautiful.”

Darcy whimpered and began to shove her pants down. Steve stilled her hands. “I got you.” He undid the snap on her black jeans and kissed the exposed skin. Then he lowered her zipper and kissed her more. Darcy held the covers up with one hand and ran the other covetously along Steve’s shoulder. Steve pulled her pants and panties off and then moved back up her body to kiss her cheek and lips again.

“Pants!” Darcy begged him between kisses.

Steve huffed a laugh and unbuttoned his jeans. Darcy pressed against him, skin to skin. She wore only his shirt and warm red socks. Finally, he pushed down his pants so that he wore nothing.

Darcy’s eyes went even wider. “Oh, my. You go commando?”

He shrugged. “Habit. The uniform requires special briefs.”

She reached for him eagerly and wrapped her fingers around his shaft.

“Fuck,” Steve hissed.

Darcy's grin had a wicked glint. “Something like that.” She kissed down his chest and abdomen until she finally took him in her mouth. Then, Darcy delighted in taking Steve completely apart.

When he’d caught his breath again, Steve gave Darcy a smile unlike anything she’d ever seen from him before. It was both delighted and full of mischief that caused her pulse to race. He again pulled her astride his legs so he could taste and tease at her breasts. He left lingering kisses along the column of her throat and over her wrists. He disappeared under the covers and kissed her thighs and the backs of her knees. Darcy squirmed and unseeingly stared up at the movie. Steve didn’t tire, didn’t cramp- only focused on Darcy's pleasure with single-minded, super-strong drive. He had her writhing with pleasure long before he let her come. Another Christmas movie was playing onscreen and halfway over before Steve came up for air.

Finally, when Darcy begged, Steve slowly slid home. She realized that he’d been prepping her so long because of his size. She felt stretched wide as he twisted to hit her G-spot just right. She came quickly and felt as though she continued coming again and again as Steve pounded into her. He twisted her around so that he could plunge in from behind while rolling her swollen clit between his calloused fingers. After he came, he laid his fingers flat, soothing. He cradled her body tight back against his. Aftershocks left her spasming with pleasure. Steve kissed Darcy’s head again and again, murmuring, “sweet Darcy. Crazy about you.” She dozed in his arms, warm and loved and completely satisfied.

Dinner that night was steak and vegetables from the freezer, paired with an exquisite red wine. As they lay in bed afterwards, cuddling and teasing each other, Darcy felt Steve’s arms tighten around her. He buttoned a few buttons on his shirt to cover her and murmured, “company.” Soon, Darcy heard the sound of Iron Man landing outside the front door of the cabin.

Tony threw the door open and sauntered in, “I’m here to rescue you.” He stared, looked around and saw the open wine bottle and two pairs of pants on the floor by the bed, and shook his head. “Or, not. I guess Pep can stop crying about you being lonely on Christmas again this year, Cap. And I can stop wondering why you’re not answering texts. Nice shirt, Lewis.” Tony was blinking hard, slack-jawed with surprise.

Darcy laughed, “you should see the sweater I was gonna wear to your party. It’s around here someplace.”

“Lights up, sparkles, and hugs her curves to perfection. I’m sure she would ‘a won your contest,” Steve grinned, enjoying Tony’s shocked expression.

Tony smiled, “I bet. Well, Mazel Tov! Thanks for popping Cap’s cherry, Lewis. ‘bout time.” He pretended to wipe away a tear of pride.

Darcy snorted, “no way was that his first time. Orgasm hall of fame. All my Christmas dreams have come true.”

Steve ducked his head against her hair. “Good to hear, Doll. Right back atcha’.”

Tony shook his head. “Good reviews all around then. Well, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays kids. I’d guess you’re all set here ‘til it’s safe to drive again?”

Steve looked down at Darcy and she looked up at him. They both nodded emphatically and turned to Tony, “we’re good.” Tony laughed.

“Merry Christmas, Tony,” Steve beamed. “We’ll see you in a day or two.” He repressed a shiver as Darcy began teasing him under the covers again.

Darcy called out, “Merry Christmas! Thanks for dropping in.”

Tony shook his head and waved back at them as he went out the door of the cabin.

Steve pinned Darcy on her back and began ravishing her again, mock joking, “naughty girl!” He pushed into her again and set a slow pace as he rained kisses over her breasts.

Darcy looked up at him and batted her eyelashes. “Your naughty girl.”

Steve kissed her hard. “And my nice girl. Merry Christmas, Darcy.”

Gasping with pleasure, Darcy answered him, “Merry Christmas, Steve.”

 Fin

[reachexceedinggrasp]

So the majority of the shows I’ve seen lately can be charitably described as ‘light entertainment’, including the ones with dark elements or more weighty, ponderous plots. They might be entertaining or interesting, they just... don’t stand up to scrutiny. Turn your brain off because this isn’t that carefully or skilfully made and you’ll only be annoyed if you start thinking about it as a whole. Including the last couple 'tragic’ historical dramas I’ve watched, which were not effective tragedy for that very reason. If you’re going to kill off the main cast, you have to earn it, and overwhelmingly writers don’t. Anyway, I’ve been getting despondent about whether stories which actually hang together and form a coherent narrative unit with consistent themes are the exception rather than the rule.

(And I feel like that should be a pretty low standard to meet, it’s sort of Step 1 of ‘being a story’: be about something! Communicate something, no matter how basic it is. Dead simple stories with rock basic messages can be revelatory! Just do it well!)

I’ve seen very little genuinely focussed or meaningful storytelling in my ventures for what feels like a long time. Basically, I can kind of count on one hand the number of films or dramas or whathaveyou I’ve seen from the last few years where it felt like the filmmakers were in complete control of their story and everything in it was purposeful and intentional. Most things have felt slapdash or shallow or fleeting. Story elements and character choices come out of nowhere just to derail already concluded arcs and fill screen time with empty repetitious drama, not to serve a meaningful narrative purpose. I would be watching with zero confidence anything in particular was going anywhere or that the writers knew where that should be. It’s just throwing shit at the wall, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type writing all the time and it fucking shows.

But then I watched Money Flower.

Money Flower is different. Money Flower is towering head and shoulders above every modern drama I’ve ever seen. Titanically good writing which rises above its genre and makes conventions seem radically new and fresh not by reinventing them or deconstructing them, but by playing them straight, taking them seriously, and committing 1000%. This is all your familiar rich family tropes but with masterpiece execution, infused with consequence and meaning because they’re all driven by the psychology of complex three-dimensional characters. So many moving pieces and none of them are random or unmotivated. Just... GOOD WRITING. And I want to make the point that it is this wherein art lives. The difference between a rank Lifetime movie and Romeo and Juliet is not novelty or tropes or plot twists- it’s execution.

This show is such a perfect example that it is not ‘mere events’ (aka plot) or novelty or shock value or cool ideas which separates something brilliant and timeless from forgettable schlock; it is solely and entirely execution. It’s writing itself, if you know what I mean. You can describe many of Shakespeare’s tragedies and history plays as soap opera plots. What makes Macbeth a deathless masterwork and Death Wish Hollywood wank isn’t a fundamental difference in subject or genre. It’s Shakespeare’s characterisation and purposeful storytelling. It’s the poetry of the dialogue. It’s the craft of writing. Most of Shakespeare’s plots are based on existing stories or on historical events and that has never mattered because novelty is not an inherent good or of any inherent artistic value.

Like, this is the problem with storytelling right now blah blah GOT, shitty endings everywhere etc. because power over the audience (can’t let anyone guess the plot, looking ‘clever’ with meaningless callbacks) and novelty are valued over narrative structure or things making sense or emotional verisimilitude. We have so many writers thinking being ‘shocking’ is all it takes to be a genius. It’s easy to be shocking if your story makes no goddamn sense because things that don’t make sense are literally unpredictable. Not in a good way, though. A great twist or sudden swerve needs to be unexpected but inevitable in hindsight or it does not work. I should be able to rewatch your thing and think ‘oh, of course! you can see it was [x] all along!’

We have so many popular writers now who are so shallow they don’t think anything needs to make sense on a character or emotional level. They don’t think their story has to be about anything. Substance is irrelevant as long as the surface is flashy enough. That has no staying power, you can only watch it once and you will forget about it quickly.

However, if you have ever wanted to experience the constant heightened stakes and High Drama of a soap opera without being annoyed at how ridiculous it all is and while actually giving a shit about the characters because they feel like real human beings, if you’ve wanted to feel repercussions when characters make choices, and get the emotional payoff that is the entire point of drama- now you can. Watch Money Flower. And let me tell you, it is fucking riveting. This show is mostly made up of people sitting in rooms talking and yet it is heart-pounding excitement nearly every episode. It is profoundly traditional and by the book while being totally fresh. It’s the most engrossing and satisfying artistic experience I’ve had in a long time.

Like, THE TENSION, THE DRAMA, THE REVEALS!!! You can, in fact, spend most of 24+ hours on the edge of your seat about family problems and business mergers. It seems unlikely, but that is the power of this series, it creates insanely high stakes and mesmerising suspense out of the most commonplace ingredients. Familiar plot elements become brand new and surprising under the deftness and tightness of this narrative. The plot itself is certainly 100% melodrama but it never feels like a soap opera and is never ever soapy in in a pejorative sense because it handles its classic tropes with such maturity and nuance that it's like you've never seen them before. The writing is incredible.

It is on an entirely different level than the vast majority of dramas, with a total self-assurance that keeps the pacing relentless yet unhurried- taking its time to let the impact of events be felt, the narrative always knowing exactly where it’s going and how to get there. The characters are all multi-faceted and unpredictable without ever being incoherent, their motives and goals always being gradually uncovered in more detail that only makes the storytelling and characterisation even tighter, even richer. The twists and cliffhangers are always mind-blowing but always earned, never cheap or nonsensical, and I can't remember ever thinking that about another show. (There’s literally one exception towards the very end where something a bit random happens for reasons of pure symbolism- it’s a misstep imo but it’s minor in the scheme of things)

Every time I started to doubt the writing, started to think ‘oh no, they’re going off the rails’, they showed me I was wrong and they were in total control. The only 'problem' with the show is that the drama is also profoundly painful to watch unfold, particularly in the beginning, because it's a story where everyone makes terrible life choices and moral corruption is everywhere. It's hypnotic though, like a car crash. If you can handle something dark, insidious, cerebral, and character-driven there is nothing I've seen in the same vein that can approach its brilliance. It’s like The Magnificent Ambersons as a slick modern revenge drama. There is also (PRECIOUSLY!!) a core of stunning romanticism around which all the horrors revolve and that saves it from becoming hideous or cynical. There is a chance for redemption and a new beginning after all, in spite of all appearances.

The ending has apparently been controversial, and it is definitely not quite as climatic as you would have expected given how powerfully climatic almost every regular episode is, but it's a good ending. There isn't full closure, they don't provide final resolution in a bow, but to me it's an ending about hope. It suggests optimism for our characters and I was satisfied with that. It's extremely rare for a 'revenge story’ to allow this kind of room for healing and it can do that because, imo, we discover in the end that it wasn't ultimately vengeance in Pil Joo’s heart. He has not become a tragic hero who will be consumed by the cannibalistic darkness of revenge, his quest was for justice. He teeters on the edge of the abyss but he avoided falling in; he didn't sell his soul, at least not irrevocably.

He is nonetheless a very tragic figure and an anti-hero, but despite having dedicated his life to bringing down the Jang cabal, it’s not that he’ll stop at nothing. He will make any personal sacrifice no matter how desolate, he lives as a mere husk of a man, and he facilitates enormous emotional harm to others in service of his goals, but he has ethical hard lines he never considers crossing. His sense of decency and compassion is never extinguished; he does care about the collateral damage he is causing even when making justifications for it. It’s important to him to give people as much agency as possible in their choices, to mitigate the damage done by his schemes as much as he can. To try to prevent harm coming to undeserving bystanders. Not that this makes it okay that he uses people, which he does, but the point is he never completely surrenders his moral compass to avarice. He’s never okay with burning down the world or ruining innocent lives just to get to his target.

Pil Joo is less a vigilante and more an avenging angel, he wants justice more than retribution. He wants fairness and a better, safer world where what has happened to his family won’t happen again. The reason this story never becomes Sweeney Todd (aka: a full on tragedy where we see the inevitable outcome of lust for revenge) and the reason he can survive twenty years spent pursuing someone’s downfall is exactly that principle. Searching for retribution would have destroyed him, he would have become the very thing he hated, but instead he goes as far as necessary to publicly expose the Jangs for what they are and then willingly submits to penance for his complicity in their crimes and tries to atone with the people he hurt along the way. Purged, he’s symbolically reborn and takes back his real name to maybe finally have a chance at the life he should have had. He moves on, content, a positive force. He’s capable of healing from the ordeal because he realises he doesn’t need retaliation, just seeing them stopped and facing consequences for their actions is enough.

The love story is a superbly poignant part of this. Their love is the ‘victim’ of his revenge and it will forever be impacted by it, but it’s not something that can be killed, so there’s still hope. Mo Hyeon’s bookending rescues of Pil Joo from death mean first that he has a purpose he must fulfil and then the second time that he has freedom to finally live as himself, for himself. There’s a future. And maybe they can be together there. I’m emo about it.

Anyway, if there was the slightest doubt about me becoming a long-term Jang Hyuk fangirl, it’s been put to rest. This performance is easily one of the best I’ve ever seen, period. No contest it’s the best I’ve seen in a tv drama. It’s also the most subtle and masterful turn he's delivered in his whole career. He's so restrained, but he is giving absolutely everything; he has total control over every microexpression, every gesture, every molecule in his body. There is so much simmering under his surface, so much going on in his eyes; the layers and depths are endless. The intensity and sharp intellectual focus he brings to the character is breathtaking. Everyone else is doing amazing work too, but he is almost constantly on screen and has this spectacular command of such a sprawling story, such a complex character, and he makes it look effortless. All artifice has melted away. The fact that being so tightly contained is in stark contrast to the bombastic element in many of his other roles renders its delicate precision even more startlingly impressive. I thought he was a great actor before, but I didn’t fully appreciate what he was capable of until Pil Joo.

[dayurno]

Can I just 💛💝💘

every day i lose 8 years of my life expectancy trying to come out with a spoiler because i’m lame and like to tell stories in their entirety.... but i will do this for u 

💛: what is the title based on?

i apologize in advance for what i’m about to say but it’s from the mamma mia song called the name of the game! i chose it because it has a very specific childishness to it that i feel like i wrote a lot about in this fic, at the same time that it’s a coy song about wondering if the person you’re developing feelings for feels the same way about you :^) there is also the innuendo with the word game and, you know, exy. here are some of the parts i consider parallel a lot with this fic:

I was an impossible case No one ever could reach me But I think I can see in your face There's a lot you can teach me

And you make me talk And you make me feel And you make me show What I'm trying to conceal

What's the name of the game? Does it mean anything to you?

but for the sake of curiosity, here are some of the names i’ve considered so far and might switch my mind to when it’s time to post the fic: 

kill your darlings

illicit affairs

andante, andante

language of averted eyes

💝: who has your favorite character arch? give a brief summary i KNOW it’s my god given duty to say kevin, but i actually want to say neil. i think it’s a common thing to gloss over neil’s flaws in canon, and while i suppose it depends on interpretation and whatnot, there is just something so irrevocably boring about the way people write him that motivated me to actually put in the work not to just understand neil, but to see him in his entirety. at the start of the fic, he’s entirely too dependent on the rest of the foxes to tell him who he is (much like he was with his mother), he clung to kevin because kevin gave him a purpose and neil wanted nothing more to have one, he lashed out on everything and everyone who made him even the slightest uncomfortable because that was both his flight and fight response, and he was at constant odds with himself and andrew/kevin because he didn’t know how to cope with his attachment to them. i also wrote a lot about his relationship with his mom: about the way sometimes he wishes she was still there to tell him what to do and who to be, about how much of a betrayal to her it feels to be happy still, about how alike they were.

at the end of the fic, i feel like he’s a lot better at working through his issues without lashing out or repressing them. it’s a hard process, of course, and lots of fights come from it, but i think he realizes, in the end, that no one is going to leave him as long as neil does not leave them, and that there is no reason to live on the defensive side now that mary is gone and he has to fend for himself. personally, it felt extremely cathartic to touch on these topics, and while writing neil’s pov was claustrophobic at best and downright annoying at worst, i think he’s a funky dude. could use some therapy tho.

💘: give us a huge spoiler

Kevin, from the passenger seat, drenched in moonlight, presses his lips into a tight line. Very beautiful, but that’s not the point. “I don’t understand you,” he confesses, at last. This is the longest grocery store run of Neil’s life. They hadn’t even gotten out of the parking long yet. “I don’t understand anything about you. You—” Kevin huffs frustratedly, “you don’t like me.”

That’s a way to put it, Neil thinks. “I do.”

He ignores it, averting his eyes to the window. There is nothing interesting there to see —  just cars, charmingly unrecognizable, but still just cars —  but Kevin doesn’t seem to mind it so much as long as it’s not Neil. “Then why can’t we be friends, Neil?” he asks, his voice so distant Neil almost deems it a rhetorical question; a wonder made-aloud. “I don’t understand you. I don’t understand—  us. When it’s good, it’s so good, but when it’s bad, it’s so bad.” Kevin’s shoulders fall. “I don’t like fighting with you,” he ultimately decides, “but I just can’t apologize. I can’t apologize like you did.”

“I understand,” Neil replies, forcing his eyes to meet the lamp post just in front of the Maserati to keep himself from compulsively staring at Kevin’s face. How ridiculous is their situation —  looking everywhere but at each other, blowing air into the night to avoid blowing up their relationship, worn out like a party dress. These stupid feelings of his for Kevin will be the death star of their entire planet: something will choose to grow or rot from it, but everything else will be extincted nonetheless. Tentatively, Neil asks, “Do you think we’re bad at being friends?”

“Yes,” Kevin immediately answers. 

I don’t want to just be your friend, he thinks. Neil files that out for later. “How would we be if we were good at it?” he prompts, “Like you and Andrew?”

Kevin does something that’s half a scoff and half a huff —  it’s scornful regardless. “I don’t think I’m friends with the two of you,” Kevin admits, eventually. He looks small, at sudden. “I don’t know if we ever were. Neither of you know how to be friends with me.” He fidgets with the door handle for a second. “I don’t understand why.”

There is an edge to the voice —  something charged, something that implies an Am I the problem? that Neil absolutely hates. “It’s not your fault,” he murmurs, biting down on his own tongue. You did this; he is violently reminded. It’s not what Neil meant, of course, but he ultimately decides that his intentions failed him. “I think we’re just… Bad, in general.” Neil presses his lips together in thought. “But I won’t leave unless you tell me to. It’s not over until you tell me it is.”

At that, Kevin turns to him abruptly, blinking in surprise as if he hadn’t even considered the idea of a life without Neil in it. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he replies, almost stern. “I said get out of my house, not get out of my life.”

“Semantics.”

“Not semantics,” Kevin disagrees. “I don’t want you out of my life.” 

“Kevin,” Neil finds himself almost pleading, “I don’t want to be bad to you.”

[alecmagnuslwb]

This Type of Love Isn’t Rational

Read on AO3

When the magical stone her father gave her glows bright she knows she’s in for it. He’s been supportive more or less since she left home on her nineteenth birthday to figure out who Zatanna was when she wasn’t just known as the daughter of the great Zatara.

He doesn’t call often, just an occasional check in, but more often than not he hears enough from his many contacts to know she’s alright which satisfies him. If he’s calling now it’s because he’s heard all about her new companion and he’s likely not happy.

But then again most people wouldn’t be all that happy to learn their child is running around with the likes of John Constantine.

“Ekam em elbatneserp,” she says waving a hand down her body and adjusting herself on the bed. In one magical wave she’s dressed in a t-shirt and dark comfortable pants, her messy hair now a neat ponytail on her head, she looks like she’s getting ready for bed not like she just had John’s face buried between her thighs for an excruciatingly beautiful amount of time.

“Hey, dad!” she says bright and chipper as she touches the sigil on the stone her father’s image coming to life in front of her swathed in sparkling blue magic.

“Hello, Zatanna,” he says with a grimace. Yup, he definitely knows about John. For a few minutes though he keeps the small talk just that, small, asking about her recent shows and how she’s doing with keeping up on her magical studies and then he steers the conversation exactly where she knew it was going.

“So I hear you’ve been running with a Mr. Constantine,” he says leadingly, it’s funny to hear someone refer to John as Mr. Constantine usually it’s just Constantine or extremely colorful insults when he’s referred to.

Zatanna takes a deep breath, her dad won’t outright say he doesn’t approve based upon what he’s most likely heard about Constantine, but he no doubt wants her to admit she’s dating a criminal.

Which technically she is. John isn’t what Zatanna expected. She’d been on her own for nearly three years by the time she ran into him. She could feel his magic from across the room and despite the cocky grin and the obvious fact he only had one thing on his mind as he looked her up and down she got closer.

She didn’t go home with him that night, but before the week was out they were sleeping in the same bed more often than not and she was quickly more than aware of who he was and how he operated.

John doesn’t play by any rules. He does magic the way he wants and he lives the way he wants. If that means swindling people out of money, magic and on one memorable occasion the entire house of mystery, which he proceeded to lose in a poker game months later, he doesn’t mind.

Zatanna may not directly participate in his more illegal choices, but she also doesn’t try to stop him or change him because underneath the con man is a good man who cares and wants to help a lot more than he’d ever willingly say out loud to anyone, even to her. She knows though, she sees the man underneath it all.  

But she’s not stupid either, realistically this could all blow up in her face one day and she gets that. For all intents and purposes John is what people would call a bad boy with a tainted heart, but she’s irrevocably in love with him anyway.

Most people can’t fathom what she sees him, she’s very much certain her father will also be on that list.

“I am,” Zatanna says hearing the shower shut off. She hopes to move this conversation along quickly as to not have her father get more than eyeful of John. “Why do you ask?”

Her father pauses pensive, clearly carefully choosing his words to not anger her before he even gets to make the point he wants to make.  

“Well, I was thinking it’s been a while since you’ve been home and if this…young man is important to you that you could bring him along and we could meet,” he says diplomatically.

Zatanna squints her eyes knowing this is a bad idea, a colossal mistake, she can tell from the tone of his voice her father already has an opinion about John that any sort of dinner won’t change his mind and will no doubt be a disaster.

However, she kind of loves the idea of the mayhem. Being with John has really brought out some of the more diabolical bits in her.

The bathroom door starts to open and Zatanna rushes her father away.

“Sounds great, dad, how about we come by for dinner on Friday?”  she rushes out just as John steps out with not so much as a small towel on. Her father barely gets to nod his head in agreement before she’s saying her goodbyes and shutting the call down.

“Who are we havin’ dinner with Friday?” John asks as she tosses the stone onto the nightstand. He grabs his cigarettes and lights one before flopping back on the bed next to her.

“My father,” she says glumly falling back on the bed as well.

John chuckles and takes a quick drag before tilting his head to the side to look at her.

“I’ll put on my best suit,” he says with a cheeky grin. Zatanna rolls her eyes as far as she can tell John only owns one suit that he just keeps washing the blood out of and continuing on. This dinner is most definitely going to be a shitshow.

***

“My dad is going to hate you; you know that right?” Zatanna says as they make their way to the front door that Friday.

“Why’s that?” John says with a sly grin. “Is it because I’m a two-bit con man who smokes too much and has a questionable criminal history and magical record?” he continues cheekily coming to stop on the top step leading to the door.

He attempts to adjust his tie, cigarette still hanging loosely from his lips as he raises a hand about to knock before Zatanna pulls it down and turns him to face her. She moves her hands up to his neck fixing his tie properly and buttoning up the open buttons of white his shirt, a real opposite to how she usually gets when her hands are on that red tie of his.

“That’s exactly why,” she says with a smirk of her own patting John’s tie once it’s evenly placed. She reaches up and plucks the cigarette from his still smirking lips. She takes a calming drag before flicking it into a puddle she narrowly avoided moments before at the bottom of the stairs.

She hasn’t exactly picked up John’s favorite bad habit on the regular, or this one at least, but she’ll be damned if the smell of his particular brand and the burn of it on her lips doesn’t have the keen ability to soothe the edges of her nerves from time to time. It’s all his damn fault, bastard she loves and his shitty habit she hates that she loves.

Her father opens the door before she can even knock a big greeting smile on his face, he pulls her in for a tight embrace before focusing his attention on John. The handshake they share is so tense she’s certain it’s all going to go off the rails immediately before they can so much as pick up a single fork.

But much to her absolute shock her father is well behaved in the moment, introducing himself politely and then all through appetizers and the main course he keeps that same bright attitude. Half of the smiles are as fake as they can get and he’s clearly trying to goad John into slipping up and play into every rumor he’s ever heard about him, but no fights break out which she calls a win.

John plays the picture-perfect boyfriend, he’s a good con man for a reason, so much so that Zatanna has to hold in her laughter at how corny he’s being. Her father’s almost buying it, that’s how good he is at this.

Dessert is when it all falls apart.

“Zatanna could I speak to you in the study,” her father says gesturing to the door from the dining room they’re in that connects to his office, a room she once used to admire in wonder that she’s now dreading.

She nods as her father stands up from the table and heads for the double doors. John makes a teasing face like a child watching their friend be called into the principal’s office at her and she reaches out shoving a hand through his and yanking it back playfully before turning to follow her father.

He wastes no time getting started once he shuts the doors behind them.

“Do you know what kind of man you’ve taken up with?” he says none to quietly. There’s no way John can’t hear them. Usually this room would have some sort of silencing spell on it, but she can tell from the lack of magic in the walls that there aren’t any today. Her dad wants John to hear that he isn’t good enough for his daughter.

“I’m well aware,” she says frustrated even if she saw this coming.

“The things I’ve heard about him from very trusted sources are abominable. The dealings he’s made, the magic he’s tampered with,” her father says pacing the room back and forth getting louder by the second. “He’s a thief and con man at best, a monster at worst and neither of those options are good!”

He goes on for a few more minutes throwing out any number of words about John and about her poor judgement. She tunes him out letting him get it all out of his system before she interrupts.

“Hguone!” she shouts and her father goes silent. “You don’t need to tell me who the man I’ve been with for nearly a year is, I’m aware he’s not exactly some golden boy, but I don’t care. I know him better than you could ever know him from just rumors and stories.” She says loudly then lowers her voice so John doesn’t hear the next part. “I know that maybe one day I’ll have made a bad call here, but so far all he’s done is trust me and love me, so I can take the rest as it comes.”

She takes a deep breath before making her finally point, voice deadly calm.  

“You’re right about one thing he is a criminal, and guess what dad? I love him and that’s not changing anytime soon. When you have accepted that or at least trusted your own daughters’ judgement on who she’s sleeping with, we’ll come back by for a more peaceful dinner, but for now we’re leaving.”

She finishes with a turn her coattails spinning out behind her as she opens the double doors. John is already sitting there on the table waiting for her tie loose and buttons undone once again, an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips and a plate with four generously sized pieces of chocolate cake on it in his hand.

“Figured we’re having dessert to go,” he says with a wink when he spots her eyeing the plate.

He holds out his free hand and hops off the table. “Shall we, luv?”

She grabs two forks from the table as she walks towards him tossing one last glance back at her father who looks so disappointed as she grabs John’s hand and pulls him to the front door.

Yeah, one day this may all blow up in her face, one day her father may get to say I told you so, but for today she’s going to enjoy the ride with this devil of a man she’s fallen for.

[rightsockjin]

Master List

Master list

**BTS fan fiction**

Key: Angst = A/a, Fluff = F/f, Smut = S/s

Time Stamps Masterlist 

Meet cute -  F Jin is preparing to meet Namjoon’s girlfriend at a ski trip but ends up meeting someone much more interesting.

Zoinks! -S

SCOOBY DOO AU! Seokjin and his dog Jjangu, have a special bond, one that no one could ever challenge and it was absolutely adorable. They were always paired up to scope out the place, but when Namjoon decides to pair the team off differently and you get stuck with him instead, things take a turn for the worst…or is it for the best? ZOINKS!

Time Stamps Masterlist 

Meet cute - F Yoongi finds inspiration at his local coffee shop. Bubbles  - F, suggestive Yoongi falls asleep while he works and you decide to take care of him. Blowing Bubbles -  F, SYoongi likes to take care of you the same way you take care of him, of course with the addition of some more activities. Almost is Never Enough - AYoongi was a very busy man so busy that he never made time for you. It had never bothered you but today was the last straw. The Theory of Love and Hate - F Collage AU! Yoongi and you are in the same psychology class and he really can not stand you... SafeWord- S Everyone says that Yoongi, millionaire Casio owner, isn’t a Dom. And maybe they’re right, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t give it a try. Don’t call me Squirt- F, light S A road trip with your lifelong friend takes an unexpected turn for the best… Yellow- F, light S, A When soulmates are found to be real, it's only a matter of time before Yoongi is paired with his. But all is not perfect and he can't figure why. Royally Fucked- light A, Heavy S Your best friend of your near entire life has been a total asshat to you ever since you started to casually date which didn't seem super fair to you since he did the exact same thing and you were nothing but supportive! It just sucks that you two are growing apart over a coping mechanism that you adopted to distract yourself from your overwhelming crush on said idiot. If only he knew. Wait- did you say that OUT LOUD?

Timestamps Masterlist Meet cute - F                                                                                                So they called it puppy love~ Dirty Dancing - S Its Disco night and Hoseok was ready to get down with it. He’s not opposed to a partner dance either.

Time Stamps Masterlist - F,(eventual)S, A

In which Namjoon meets his pen pal for the first time when she moves to South Korea completely clueless that she’s completely and irrevocably in love with him.

Meet Cute - F Namjoon meets a cute clumsy girl at the movies.

French Girl - F, suggestive  You, an art student, are inspired by your beautiful boyfriend Namjoon but things take a weird turn and you end up with a strange-looking drawing.

A Little Bit of Stress - S You and Namjoon haven’t had sex in God knows how long because of your mutually busy lives. Namjoon was stressed for the next comeback and you had students to motivate but how were you supposed to focus on your job when all you could think about was your boyfriend naked?

Flight to Paris - A  You and Namjoon get into a fight after you overheard something you weren’t meant to hear and things head for the worst.

Rainy day in Paris - A, S You come home from Paris, Namjoon finds you crying in your apartment, an apology ensues but will you take him back?

Strawberries and Rose Perfume - F Namjoon just wanted to look at the night sky while you were getting ready to go on a date. What he didn’t count on was how breathtaking you looked wearing your strawberry lipgloss and rose-scented perfume. What he also didn’t count on was your complete hatred of stepping barefoot on grass.

For the Record - S

Namjoon owns a record shop. It’s more for the nostalgia than anything but he loves to see the happiness on someone’s face when he can recommend a good record to someone who’s never owned one before. Enter you, but you’re not looking for a record. You’re looking for a helping hand and a gentleman. Namjoon is happy to oblige.

What You Don't Know- A, S, F

Your long term boyfriend proposed to you and gave you the ultimatum you knew was a long time coming- it was him or your best friend Namjoon. You thought you could let him go. He would be better without you, but as you’re looking into his pretty eyes and there is nothing but pain and regret… you can’t help but wonder what you don’t know.

Timestamps Masterlist

Meet Cute - F Jimin is at a wedding alone. This doesn’t bother him. He’s got the best friends he could ask for, a booming career, and a family. He was set. But as one of his best friends danced with his new wife, Jimin couldn’t help but wish he had someone special too. That’s where you come in with a mouth full of sass.

Roller Rink- S

Jimin spent all of his time practicing for the performance at the roller rink on skates. And he means ALL of his time. He was a little frustrated, to say the least. Won’t someone lend him a hand? Or possibly… a mouth?

Time Stamps Masterlist 

Meet Cute - F                                                                                                aehyung likes to admire scenery at the park with yeontan.

Emerald- S

Lingerie By Vante was a highly luxurious brand with the signature color of Emerald. That’s what brought you to the main sight to be fitted for your first-ever set! But when the store closed early, you were forced to turn around, that is...until Mr. Vante himself offered to fit you in.

In Hindsight- F, A

Summary: Taehyung just wanted to find a decent gift for his girl friend on their 100 days of dating but Yeontan had different ideas. Non Idol AU.

Time Stamps Masterlist

Meet Cute -F Jungkook is uncharacteristically clumsy at the gym.

Colorful- F                                                                                               Jungkook like to let his significant other color in his tattoos.

Timbs- S,F

Jungkook is the best friend anyone could ask for. He’d been there for you through thick and thin, and right now, you were looking extra thick and his patience was thinning...

Intrusive Thoughts-S,F,A

(Timbs part 2) After your last encounter with your best friend and the words exchanged, you aren't sure where you stand... but maybe you should focus on where you lay...

Series

Bangtan in Paradise- F, A, S                                                                                    

You, Y/N, have just come off of the bachelor dejected and rejected. What’s a girl to do other than to go home and cry? Join paradise of course!                                   

Series masterlist 

DYNAMITE- S

These one-shots are all based on the music video and the vibes that the members give off! As far as I’ve thought ahead, they’re all going to be smut. I think! I will let you know! Hope you enjoy lighting up the city with a little fucking song.

Series masterlist

Reactions

Baby Mama Love - BTS loving their curvy pregnant wives.

Autumn Dates - BTS taking their y/n out on a cute fall date 

PlayTime ft. curvy girls- BTS using toys with their significant others     HYUNG LINE       MAKNAE LINE

Polls and Links: Please participate!

Who is your bias? -Tell us who you bias and who is your bias wrecker!

What should the members call Y/N?- What category of cute nicknames should we use for each member? What would they call Y/N? Help us pick!

Romantic Movie OneShots- Help me figure out what member is best suited for each romantic movie!

BestFriendBTS x You!- Help me choose who's out next victim- well contender for a BTSBFF X YOU one shot! (current)

MTL

coming soon~

Prompt List~ For y’all to send an ask and help us write more!

Request list~ here you can check what requests are in the works and what’s already come out!

**TXT Fan fiction**

[michael-langdon-appreciation]

Are we getting the twin fic anytime soon? please feed me ma'am I'm starving

Here is is! The next update in the twins story. It became a mix of many things we all talked about and this was the end result. I kinda feel it needs a Part 2 but we shall see heh heh.

There are some time-jumps which are broken up with ---

ALSO BE WARNED THERE IS SMUT IN THIS FIC INVOLVING OUR SWEET JEFFREY HARMON! 

😇😇😇

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jeffrey had always been admired. His golden hair shimmering halo-like, complete with sinfully vibrant eyes that knows the deepest desires of your heart. People followed him almost without regard, brazenly. Unlike the narrow-minded dolts at Hawthorne who saw Michael’s power as being the epitome of success, once on the surface again away from that primitive hollow, Jeffrey’s true beauty could the bloom. 

It was only a matter of time before someone couldn’t resist his brother’s draw. Someone would want to pluck Jeffrey’s ripeness, to taste his plump lips and devour his innocence. Michael noticed firstly how Orion lingered too long during meetings. Jeffrey’s attendance at Kineros was so incredibly rare there was even a rumour going round the company that the Antichrist had no brother. The white-wearing male was a facade, a projection created by Michael himself to throw everyone off. To ensure their loyalty was firmly with Satan. Perhaps out of ignorance or determination, Orion didn’t ever notice Michael’s eyes burning into his back. 

It was all just so simple. 

Orion would hand Jeffrey his tea complete with no sugar but so much milk to almost completely dilute the golden colour. 

Just how Jeffrey liked it.

‘No sugar again?’ The Angel would smile, his eyes soft as the cup and saucer are placed before him. 

‘You’re sweet enough.’ Orion would remark, the back and forth completely cliched. 

Michael’s fists clench under the long, obsidian table. The latex squeaks and that is enough for Orion to pick up on the taste of danger Michael sends wafting over to him. The young designer straightens and drops himself in a seat next to Mutt.

‘Move.’ Michael’s voice commands, his displeasure still obvious. 

There’s a beat as the entire boardroom wonders who the Antichrist is referring to. Jeffrey’s laugh tinkles round the room, ‘Let’s not be petulant, brother.’ He cautions, ‘Everyone is here for you.’ 

‘Are they?’ Michael’s eyes sweep across every face, ‘Is everyone here for me, or my father?’ 

The mood is sickening. Jeffrey shrinks away, trying to make himself as small as possible. 

‘Dude, we totally respect you.’ It’s Jeff who speaks up, ‘You’re awesome, bro.’ 

‘Yeah. Fuck the planet.’ Mutt echoes, going as far as to stand up. ‘Blow it all to fucking pieces.’

The room joins in at once, everyone murmuring their dedication to the Antichrist and the plan. Orion however, remains quiet. He nods along enthusiastically, but his eyes dart helplessly to Jeffrey. 

Michael’s revulsion deepens. 

What the fuck does he know? 

                                                           ---

Michael held off on his concerns, more due to being far too busy to corner Jeffrey’s admirers. He didn’t think anything of it, till words flitted into his ears as he passed the break room. ‘He’s just so stunning isn’t he? There’s a real mystique and power there but it’s so subtle.’ He paused, Michael more than eager to have his ego stroked. 

‘Personally I’d like to see him get down and dirty.’ A woman whispers back, ‘See him in something other than white.’

His stomach curls. They’re talking about Jeffrey.

His Jeffrey.

‘Don’t get me started.’ Orion agrees, ‘I’d kill to see what’s underneath him. What really makes him tick.’

Michael can’t listen to anymore. He strides towards his office, the doors flinging open without his touch. Jeffrey jumps, closing Michael’s laptop lid, ‘You gave me a fright.’

‘Grow up.’ Michael snaps, ‘You should be used to me by now.’ 

Jeffrey’s eyes glint as he catches on to his brother’s mood, ‘I am.’ He agrees, ‘All too well after so many years, Michael.’ The Antichrist sweeps into one of his office chairs, sinking down and letting the chair swing round. Jeffrey watches from Michael’s desk, ‘I’m not the person to ask to deal with someone, if you’re struggling yourself.’ 

‘I’m not.’

‘Right.’

Michael stops swinging, ‘Why do people like you?’

A smile winds up Jeffrey’s face, making Michael want to slap it off at once. ‘Because I treat people with respect. With kindness.’

‘So did I!’ Michael is on his feet at once, bearing over his brother. ‘And what did it get me? My Mrs Mead dead. The Warlocks dead-’

Jeffrey looks away, his hands dropped into his lap. ‘This isn’t about me really, is it?’

Michael swallows, ‘You have…admirers here.’ 

‘Well that makes a change.’ 

‘What does that mean?

Jeffrey pushes away from the desk, his white shirt today is sheer revealing his toned body underneath. ‘Did I ever once complain at Hawthorne, when you had your band of merry followers hanging on your every word, tainting our room with the stench of sweat?’

‘You didn’t have to say anything.’ Michael retorts, ‘Your disdain was evident in your looks. Why do you think we ended up in the library so often?’

‘Oh how considerate of you.’ Jeffrey gushes, but the ice is plain in his voice. ‘May I remind you I don’t have to be here.’ 

That has Michael backing down, ‘No.’ He admits, ‘No you don’t.’

‘But I am. Because I love you.’ 

‘Love you too.’ Michael repeats it back automatically.

Jeffrey’s fingers ghost over Michael’s shoulder, ‘I like hearing you say it. It’s been a while since I heard that.’

‘Starving makes you see what’s important.’ Michael says, ‘Who is important.’ 

Jeffrey’s hands cup either side of Michael’s face, those eyes so similar to Michael’s own swim before him. The Angel is on his knees before him, ’You will always be the most important person in my life.’ 

‘Will I?’

‘You have to let me speak to people. You have everyone here. You have your Mrs Mead back now. Who do I have?’

Michael knows he has a point, ‘Be careful?’

‘I promise.’ 

                                                           ---

It brings Michael out of his slumber, a breathy sound that a normal human wouldn’t be able to hear. Michael’s senses sharpen as he zeroes in on what he can hear, shuffling of feet, the sound of something dropping onto the floor. 

Moans. 

He pads quietly on bare feet across his bedroom and opens the door. Michael makes sure not to make a sound as he leans over the railings and peers down into the living room below. The sight before him burns. Jeffrey’s shirt is on the floor, the column of his throat peppered with dark bruises and hickies. A tongue works a new one into his skin as Michael’s little brother squirms in delight.

‘Oh God.’ He moans sacrilegious sin into the air as Orion drags their lips back together. 

Jeffrey’s hands run all over the designer, through his hair and down his chest as Jeffrey works open the buttons. 

He’s divine like this, full of abandonment as Jeffrey embraces the taste and flavour of his first sexual encounter. Michael sinks down with his back to the railings, he can’t keep watching can he? That wouldn’t be right? But Jeffrey’s eagerness is more than prevalent as the sound of movement alerts Michael again.

When he peeks round, Michael’s eyes widen. 

Jeffrey is pressed over the kitchen countertops, his cheek against the cool marble. ‘Please.’ He begs, ‘I need it. I’ve craved you to touch me and make me sing.’

‘I will, sweetness.’ Orion vows, ‘You’re so beautiful. Thank you for giving me this.’ 

‘Michael can’t ever know.’ Jeffrey pleads, ‘I want to be with you, but if he knew….he wouldn’t forgive me.’ 

So now they keep secrets from each other? Michael knows he doesn’t have a good track record, but never in his life has he concealed a part of himself from his brother. Jeffrey knows everything, he’s been there through everything up until Michael’s sojourn into the forrest. Was that the moment that changed them irrevocably? Did Jeffrey’s decision to remain behind, to not chase after hhis brother for the first time in their lives create a chasm that Michael can never bridge? What else doesn’t he know about his brother? Jeffrey knows the most intimate details of Michael’s life. His twin and only his twin knows how Michael only hurt the cats because they lashed out and scratched him first. He must have been holding them too tight and now Jeffrey knows Michael won’t go near any innocent animal. Jeffrey knows Michael only tolerates French Toast because Mrs Mead thought it was his favourite and he doesn’t have the heart to tell her it isn’t. Even to this day. He doesn’t realise he’s crying till the tears are flooding down Michael’s cheeks. 

Jeffrey, how could you? 

‘He doesn’t own you.’ Orion says, tugging Jeffrey’s trousers down. The intruder mouths kisses over Jeffrey’s spine and across the inside of the Angel’s thighs. ‘You can do as you wish.’ Jeffrey’s thighs almost flutter at the affection. He begs for more, taking every sweet ripple of pleasure Orion gives him. Jeffrey allows himself to be selfish, to demand that he become submerged in sensation. ‘You know that, right?’ Orion presses him, his eyes lifting to look into Jeffrey’s. 

Michael too waits for the answer.

Jeffrey struggles, but one more kiss from Orion and his mouth is running. ‘He’s so innocent though.’ Jeffrey’s lost in this new world Orion is opening up for him. ‘He likes to make out he’s the big bad one but he’s so scared. Underneath it all…he needs someone to love him. He needs my love, if he knows my heart has turned to you…’

Orion murmurs against Jeffrey’s lips, ‘I don’t plan to get in his way.’ 

‘You already have done.’ Jeffrey whispers, but Michael still catches every word of betrayal. ‘Because you chose to love me.’

‘I do love you.’ Orion agrees, standing and unbuttoning his fly. ‘I’ve loved you since I first saw you float into that boardroom. I lost all train of thought, couldn’t finish presenting my idea.’ 

‘It was a good pitch.’ Jeffrey whines, spreading his legs to give Orion room to make himself at home. 

‘No more talking.’ The designer murmurs, ‘I’m gonna take you now. I’ll be slow, gentle.’ 

‘No!’ Jeffrey’s head turns like lightning to make eye contact with his lover. ‘I’m tired of gentle. I can take more than people think. I can do it.’ 

Michael doesn’t want to hear more. He picks himself up from the upstairs landing and throws himself on his bed. He clutches his pillow tight to his chest as the tears pour from his eyes and his chest shakes and everything around him is blurred and hot and stings. His chest howls with pressure and pain, just as it had those four days he’d spent alone. Losing his Mrs Mead when the world was just too cruel for him and all Michael had wanted to do was to gouge out his own heart and every muscle and organ responsible for giving him emotions. He prays to his father to abolish him of feeling. To take away the hurt and the lies people feed to him and leave him with an empty cavity. 

It has to be better than this.

He can’t keep being betrayed by a brother who despises him enough to give his heart to another so freely.

Who the FUCK did that designer think he was? To take away Jeffrey Harmon from him? From the Antichrist? 

The sounds of sex rise up from below, like demons chanting their verses in Michael’s ears. He can hear every grunt, every thrust and hitch as Jeffrey cries out when Orion clearly bottoms out. Michael flings his pillow over his head. He can’t leave without Jeffrey knowing and his twin believes he’s working late tonight. Jeffrey would never think Michael might want some time with his brother. No, he must work and work and work and work and work. Michael must bring about the apocalypse and Michael must continue to devote his entire life for a world he doesn’t fully believe in. Hatred fuels his actions, revenge and mutiny against those fucking witches. 

He’s not scared. 

He’s the Antichrist. 

Clarity covers Michael as he rolls onto his back. The lovemaking continues but Michael’s mind is working overtime. 

Was this Cordelia’s fault too? 

She took his Mrs Mead and the warlocks…but what did she say to Jeffrey? 

Did she poison his own twin against him? Is Cordelia fucking Goode the reason why Jeffrey is in the arms of a stranger, someone they don’t even know. Giving his sacred virginity away to some fake-glasses wearing fucker? Is that why Jeffrey no longer comes to visit Michael? He gets the notifications from security that his brother is at Kineros, but Jeffrey rarely visits him anymore. 

So….why is he there? 

What is he doing?

Is he using those times to see Orion? To hook-up with him and fuck in Michael Langdon’s dominion? 

When did his priorities change from Michael….to another? 

He dials Mrs Mead immediately and the robot picks up on the second ring, ‘We need to pay a visit to Dinah Stevens tomorrow.’ Michael’s eyes blaze, but his lips curl into a smirk of victory. Oh he’ll make that supreme bitch pay for taking his twin from him. He listens to Mrs Mead bluster on till he cuts over her, ‘Pick me up at 7am tomorrow. She’ll know how we can get into that coven and blow them all to fucking pieces.’ 

He ends the call only to hear silence. It’s over. They’ve finished for now. 

Michael removes the pillow from his head and finally lets his body relax back into the bed. He’s exhausted, drained and most definitely sacking off work tomorrow.

Tomorrow is a day for him.

Tomorrow he’ll end the witches and then, perhaps if he’s feeling particularly vengeful he’ll end the day by slitting Orion’s throat. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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[magioftheseas]

The Hinata/Kamukura Files - Recent Patients’ Thoughts

Written for @the-hinata-project

Day 6: Heterochromia/Hope Arc Hinata/Kamukura -or- Boats/BBQ/Friendship

Rating: PG

Warnings: There’s some references to past despair but it’s mild.

Notes: I was going to do all the sdr2 kids but decided to stop with all the ones who died in the simulation. The survivors will get their day tomorrow. For now, I didn’t want this one significantly longer than the others. It’s still pretty long though. It’s really hard to write in all the different voices but I did my best and I hope this counts for something.

***Alternate Ao3 Link***

Commission? Donate?

It’s funny, for a boy who thought nothing of himself to mean the world to everyone else. You don’t believe me? I’m not terribly good at words, so I’ll pass on the torch in this case.

--

Hinata Hajime is someone who I suppose I envied. A person who accepted himself even after desiring to be someone else for so long.

“It’s because what I have is more precious than talent,” he said. When he had supposedly been chasing talent all his life.

I envied that—perhaps I also sensed it. He’s definitely a person that can be trusted in spite of his mysteries. His identity not quite being as set in stone as it should be.

I understand that, likely better than anyone. That’s why I—well.

It’s why we are friends, I suppose.

--

Hinata-kun’s perfect and delectable in many, many ways! Fine personality, fine face, finer a—

Cough. Cough. It seems I’ve been struck.

More seriously I suppose, Hinata-kun is a kind and adorable sort of person. He’s been through a lot but he’s still innocent. He’s someone that I’m sure Mama would adore me bringing back home.

He’s rough around the edges, but as sweet and homely as red bean paste. Truly wonderful.

--

Hinata’s super unreliable, but he’s motivated and considerate if nothing else. It’s honestly a little embarrassing to praise the guy, but... I do remember a bit more about him.

He was classmates with Satou. And even Kuzuryuu’s sister. I heard—that he was friends with her. With that sister. And yet, I remember Satou mentioning that he’s not the worst offhandedly when I had asked back then. I hear he blames himself for what happened. Back then.

It makes me so angry I want to cry. I’m still fighting off the urge to tell him off! But, the realization that he saw an entirely different side to that conflict—I’ve been thinking about that.

I don’t hate him. I like him a lot, actually. He’s described my photographs in a way that warmed my heart.

He may be unreliable, but I still have places I need to improve, too. So, I think the two of us are fine as long as we keep trying.

--

We don’t have much of a relationship but it goes without saying that I’m aware he’s a kind person. He’s close to someone I—care very much about, as well.

Truth be told, I’ve been drawn as of late to that other presence. The one called Kamukura Izuru. Someone who is very different and yet very similar to myself.

It is not very often I wonder what would have happened to myself if I was never taken in by the Kuzuryuu family. I sincerely do not believe it would have been a normal life regardless. Even now the idea of seeing myself as normal is incomprehensible.

“It is how you lived,” Kamukura would say oh so dully.

“We’re all struggling to be normal,” Hinata would hurriedly add, smile strained.

And both are true, aren’t they? I am aware—that both of them are right.

And I am grateful for many reasons that go beyond expected.

--

They’re both wimps and cowards, but that’s why they need to be protected. That’s what I definitely think—even though I definitely want to mess with them until they keel.

Hinata-nii in particular is still so easy to mess with. Kamukura-nii is less so, but that just makes me more determined. It’s a welcome distraction from all the bullshit we deal with beyond ourselves.

...

We really shouldn’t be alive, y’know? We’ve done way too many fucked up shit to ever make up for it, so I don’t even see the point. But, because of those two, we’re all here anyway. Because of those two, the others are trying to live. Mahiru-nee and all those idiots—even...her.

That might count for something. It might not. I don’t know. I don’t really care.

I’m too stubborn to fall behind at this point. And I might struggle, and I might have to bite the hands that get offered to me by Hinata-nii, but I—

I think we’ll manage somehow, even after we inevitably fall back down.

--

The person you are takes a lot to nurture and blossom, you know?! Hajime-chan has made that much clear! He’s always struggling, sometimes his arms are all wobbly like noodles! And yet, he keeps on beating that drum I got him!

We’re all struggling but making noise—and I think the louder, the prouder!

There are still days where we scream our hearts out, even to the point it blows out our throats. It’s a good thing, then, that Izuru-chan has the talents to deal with that. Him and—even Mikan-chan can help a lot. We’ve all gotten really good at supporting each other!

But, I’m also sure a day will come when we go our separate ways. It’s heartbreaking, maybe even despairing, but despite that, I won’t be alone even when on my own.

It’s fun—how we’re all so different and yet glued together by our experiences. And we have Hajime-chan to thank for that, don’t we?

--

It’s, um, difficult to figure out the words to say. And it’s also so...so difficult to get on your own feet. I still struggle a lot more than I probably should. It’s hard. Even now I have to remind myself where I am—who I’ve become with everything that happened.

It’s horrible, but—I still miss her. I miss Nanami-san too, of course, but—it’s horrible that I miss a terrible person, too.

“It is expected,” Kamukura-san had said. “Regardless of the circumstances, your feelings had ran deep.”

“You’re not a bad person, Tsumiki,” Hinata-san reassured me. Hinata-san reassured me, and Kamukura-san had nodded as well—even though they both hated her so much. Even though they couldn’t understand at all.

They really were so...so kind...

It’s so...difficult but...it’s worth living for.

--

It’s important to live and work hard every day, despite the failures along the way.

That’s always been clear but with Hinata, it’s been even clearer.

He’s the kind of guy who takes on a lot—a real athlete, even discounting Kamukura’s obvious advantages in strength. Kamukura was supposed to be unmotivated—but like hell I’d allow that!

They both need to work hard! Run until they’re high on fumes! Beginning to end!

But it’s our duty to support them. It’s my duty to guide them, since I’m supposed to be acting as a coach right?!

In the past—I may have let a lot of people down. I may have even pushed them to the brink. I won’t lie, waking up was hell, but training from hell is just par for the course, isn’t it? Gyahaha!

I’ll support them, and they’ll support us in return—we’re all a team after all.

--

There are few titles befitting of such a being. However, he is and always shall be the singularity. The singularity of our realm who had crawled his way out of an imprisonment of his own design. Someone who voided their existence—only to return.

Something like that could be called almost godly, but Hinata Hajime, the singularity, is as mortal as can be. He is still weak to humanity’s faults. He can be meek. He can be hesitant. He can be cowardly.

However, he still pushed through—and he is ultimately the reason that our world and our own reason was restored. To call that a feat would be inarguable.

There is—much to be grappled with. Even someone such as I can confront difficulty, but there is no greater privilege than to live and live I shall. Death is a mere afterthought—I have already died twice, fufufu.

But, I live again because of him.

For that, I...will not forget.

--

Ahaha, wait, it’s my turn again? Hasn’t this been dragging on for too long already? I’ve already had my moment before, too.

That doesn’t count? What are you even saying? Someone like me shouldn’t count in the first place.

I chose to die within the simulation. But, so did Kamukura-kun. Hinata-kun also chose to die when he accepted the terms for that wretched project all those years ago.

I suppose it’s only to be expected that we all remain, wretched beings that we are alongside everyone else.

...

It’s because of both of them that we turned out the way we did. I hate them, but I love them, too. I’m not like everyone else, who are all irrevocably kind and appreciative.

There’s still one other ‘victim’ that deserves to speak but she’s no longer here. Expected. But still—unfortunate, I suppose. She was quite cared about.

In her stead, I’ll make sure those two don’t falter. That their future is seized with no chance of escape. It’s not because of my own gratitude. I’m not that selfish.

Hinata-kun...and Kamukura-kun...

I do want to see how you two will shape that future.

It looks bright already.

[stargazerdaisy]

SSS - Angst (I am sending you an angst prompt for each verse) - Skye expresses worry to Kara about Ward not finding her as attractive anymore because she's big. And Kara is having none of it.

Kara coming back to the base was a bit of awhirlwind and it took a few days before she had any real, quality time with,well pretty much anyone, but especially Skye.  While she’d known nothingabout what had happened to Skye (and Ward) during her absence, she’d heard thebasic story from Bobbi.  She’d had a lot of questions.  Finally theyhad an evening where they could just slip away from everyone and they retreatedto Kara’s room with a pan of brownies and possibly, a bottle of rum.  Maybe. No one can confirm that and neither of them are admitting to it.

Anyway, Kara asked some initial questions to getSkye’s perspective on everything, but noticed quickly that Skye was sticking toa lot of facts and avoiding talking about what she felt - at least about herself. She told Kara all about how scared she was when Ward got the serum, how mad athim she was for both not telling anyone he was in as bad of shape as he was andfor deciding to get the serum in general, and how relieved she was wheneverything went well.  But when it came to how Skye was adjusting to herown transformation?  The subject was skirted around several times. Finally, Kara had had enough.

“Yeah yeah yeah, forget all that, Skye. I want to hear about you.  How are you doing?  How did this allfeel to you?”

Skye blinked like a deer caught in the headlights,then shrunk away.  “Uhh….ummm…I’m fine,” she stammered.

“Liar,” Kara chided, not unkindly. 

Skye stared at her hands for another minute, untilKara nudged her foot.

“Hey,” she said.  “It’sme.  You can tell me anything.  You’re the one I’m concerned abouthere.  Lemme guess though.  I’m betting it hasn’t be all sunshine andunicorns?”

Skye scowled. “Yeah because getting turned into a giant overnight is always soamazing.”

“There we go. The good stuff.  Tell me mooooore,”Kara cajoled.

“What do you want me to say?” Skye burst out.  “That I never in a million years thought thiswould happen?  That I woke up and lookedlike Mack, and then grew some more?!  That I can only, just barely now, have enoughcontrol to open a door without ripping it off its hinges?  That everyone stares at me like I’m a totalfreak and they’re just waiting for me to turn bright green and destroyeverything?  That nothing in my life isthe same and I’m pretty sure my own boyfriend doesn’t even find me attractiveanymore.”  Skye buried her face in herhands and flopped dramatically on the bed.

“Yeah something like that.”  Kara shrugged and then laughed as a pillowcame flying at her head.

“Not helping,” was the muffled reply.

Kara flopped down next to her friend, so theirfaces were level, even if Skye still had hers buried in the comforter.

“Skye,” she started.  When Skye just huffed and turned away, Karapoked her in the armpit.

“Hey!”

“Well, look at me,” Kara replied with a roll of theeyes.  “I’m trying to have a moment hereand they don’t happen often.”

“Ugh, fine,” Skye grumbled, rolling onto her sideto face her friend.

“Thanks,” Kara drawled.  “Anyway, yes, those were the things I wantedto hear.  So, actually thank you.  But let’s go ahead and address them.  You are NOT a freak.  You had something freaky happen to you, but you are not a freak.  And ifanyone dares say that or even look at you like that, then you just direct themto me, and I’ll take care of it.”

A small smile appeared on Skye’s face at Kara’sthreat.  The things was, she knew Karawasn’t kidding; she knew Kara’s “fite me” face well. 

Kara went on, “As for the total upheaval you wentthrough, no freaking wonder.  That’s a,forgive the pun, massive change.  Itmakes total sense you’ve felt like the world shifted under your feet.  But you seem to be figuring it out and makingprogress, finding a new normal.  Thereare some good things about this, right? It’s not all bad?”

“I guess,” Skye said, not entirely confident.  “I mean, it’s pretty cool that I can outbench Bobbi and May.  And you know, themandated nap time isn’t so bad either.”

The two women snickered and Kara put a reassuring handon Skye’s shoulder.  “See?  Not entirely awful.  And I’ve seen you in action.  Everything Ward and May already taught you,now dialed up to 11.  You’re pretty damnformidable.”

“Thanks.” Skye ducked her head and blushed.

Kara looked at her friend with a fond smile, beforecuffing her on the back of the head.

“HEY!!  Whatwas that for?” Skye yelped, sitting up to dodge any further blows.

“What is completely insane and utter bullcrap is this about Ward notthinking you’re hot anymore?” Kara shot back, actually looking kind ofpissed.  “Are you crazy?  Did that serum rot your brain?”

“Well, can you blame him?  Right after I changed, I looked more like himthan myself!  I mean, sure I’m all strongand stuff now, but I don’t look like I did when he first met me.”

A massive groan erupted from Kara as she draggedherself to a seated position. “Are you seriously this dumb?”

“Shut up!”

“OH MY GOSH, SKYYYYYYYYE.  Of course,he is attracted to you.  First of all,you’re just as hot as you ever were, so can we just drop that wholenonsense?  Second of all, have you evennoticed the way he looks at you?  Ever?!  We have to remind him to roll his tongue backinside his mouth and wipe up the drool. It’s actually quite sickening, so like, my life would be a million timeseasier if you’d just tone it the hell down a little bit.  Gah, think of the children.”

Skye was giggling by this point.

“And lastly, even if this serum had turned you in atroll, it wouldn’t matter to him.  Do youhear me?” Kara grabbed Skye’s chin and made sure she was looking her straightin the eyes.  “That man loves you.  Irrevocably, irretrievably,unconditionally.  He. Loves. You.  So, seriously, for the love of all that isholy, and several things that are not, forget that idea right now.  Do not give it another second of time or iotaof energy.  It is a physicalimpossibility.  Want me to go askFitzsimmons?  I’m sure they have itdocumented as a law of physics.”

Skye’s shoulders sagged, in relief, notdefeat.  She had heard that from Ward amillion times over, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was onlymollifying her, that there was no way he could truly mean it.  But she knows Kara.  There is no BS, no sugarcoating fromKara.  It’s only on missions thatabsolutely require it that Kara can be fake at all; certainly not with thepeople she knows and cares about.  Plus,Kara knows both of them, individually and together, almost as well as they knoweach other.  So if Kara is saying that,then it has to be true. 

She side eyed Kara.  “You could have said that without hitting me,you know.”

“I could have. But where’s the fun in that? Plus, who knows if it actually wouldn’t have gotten through your thickskull.  Honestly, did you get more stubborn in the last few months?”

“Maybe.” Skye’s grin was sheepish.

“Heaven help us all,” Kara muttered.

“Whatever, you love me.”

Kara slung an arm around her friend.  “That I do. Now, moment over.  Let’s go raidthe kitchen for ice cream.” 

[qqueenofhades]

The Dark Horizon: Chapter XLI

summary:  AU. The Caribbean, 1715: Royal Navy Lieutenant Killian Jones and his brother, Captain Liam Jones, have just arrived to help pacify the notorious “pirates’ republic” of New Providence. But they have dangerous allies, deadly enemies, and no idea what they’re getting into when they agree to hunt the pirate ship Blackbird and the mysterious Captain Swan. OUAT/Black Sails. rating: M status: COMPLETE available: FF.net and AO3 previous: chapter XL

For a very long moment, Flint, Silver, and Emma did nothing but stare up at Rogers on the deck of the Queen Anne’s Revenge, as he thrust the head back into the sack and put it aside like an ugly bit of bric-a-brac that he was removing from the mantel. It was silent enough to hear the continued caw and shriek of the birds in the jungle, as they must have all been desperately and collectively praying for the Walrus’ crew to decide now was a good time to return – but if they did, they would be gunned down like dogs by the regimented line of redcoats who had taken position at the railing with their muskets. Three of these were pointed at Flint, another three at Emma, and two at Silver, who seemed to have been accorded the least threat, but only slightly, on account of his missing leg. Nobody said a word. Someone seemed to have taken the gears and windings from the Watchmaker’s great clock, and stopped the world entirely dead.

“As you may see,” Rogers said at last, when no one else made a movement or a sound, “Captain Thatch has already made the fatal error of underestimating me. I assume you are not in haste to do the same. I do thank you for the recovery of six chests of the Spanish treasure, but by my account, there must be at least several more. Where are they?”

Flint raised his serpent’s gaze to the governor’s and said nothing.

“That, by the way, was not a rhetorical question.” Rogers raised a hand, and there was a shifting and clicking among the soldiers as they prepared to fire. “Where are they?”

“Gone,” Flint said. “I had them thrown into the water here. You’re welcome to jump in and find them. I think it’s only three hundred feet or so straight down, you can hold your breath.”

A faint, hellacious color crept across Rogers’ high cheekbones. “You’re lying.”

“Captain Flint, the liar?” Flint bared his teeth in a very, very misleadingly genial smile. “But why would I lie about something like that? Would anyone else do the same? I suppose you’ll have to go hat in hand to the Spanish, and warble some pretty tune about how you tried so very hard to recover all their treasure for them, but the barbaric pirates made it impossible. You can tell them whatever you like. I’m sure it’ll be a good story.”

The flush on Rogers’ cheeks deepened. “I am not the courier or the apologist to the Spaniards, Captain. And even you wouldn’t be so mad as to throw the gold away, so it must still be on your ship. Bring it up, and we can discuss terms.”

Emma and Silver glanced at each other, seeing as the six chests were in fact still in the hold, and could be handed over if they thought that would actually spare them from whatever grisly fate Rogers had subjected Blackbeard to. But saying so would mean that they publicly and irrevocably abandoned Flint, took the English side over his and left him to his fate, and all for the sake of warding off a fate that might be inevitable anyway. Emma could still feel the weight of her sword in her hand, the way she and Flint had been at the point of blows, but could not bring themselves to it. “Governor Rogers,” she blurted out, before she could stop herself. “He’s telling the truth. It’s gone. We threw it overboard shortly before you arrived.”

Both Flint and Silver’s eyes flashed to her at that, but Emma held her ground. Rogers had gone an ugly whey-white, lips a grim line, as Emma, sensing a weakness, probed further. “Perhaps you did not see the need to return all of that money to the Spanish empire completely untouched, did you? You used to sail as a privateer. It was the voyage around the world that made you famous, and which ruined your life. The entire point was to try to find a way to pillage a Manila treasure galleon. You wrote about it in your book.”

“Ah, yes. My book.” Rogers’ face remained a mask. “It’s good to know outlaws are such advocates of literacy, I suppose.”

“So,” Emma said coolly. “The costs associated with this invasion and occupation must be enormous. You’ve already said that you’re no friend of Gold’s, so I doubt he’s personally bankrolling it for you. You’re still an Englishman, the Spaniards are your enemies, and you never got over that voyage’s failure and what it did to you. So you were planning to repay your debts with a portion of the Spanish gold, and supposed they would either assume it had been spent by the pirates, or would have to shut their mouths and accept it as a condition of receiving their haul back. Weren’t you?”

Rogers’ gaze flickered slightly. “In the course of returning civilization to the Caribbean,” he said at last, “I have been forced to extremes, yes. None of which, I assure you, I enjoy. But your concern for my finances, Miss Swan, is touching but misplaced. Are you quite sure you want to stake your future on Captain Flint’s word that the gold is gone? Call him a liar, and we can consider pardons. My wife is fond of you. She would want me to save you.”

“Do you mean Eleanor? Eleanor is your wife now?” Emma wished she could say that she was surprised, though she wasn’t. “You married her?”

“I don’t recall that that is the topic of discussion.” Rogers leaned forward. “Flint’s lying, I know he’s lying, and I know you’re lying for him. This is your choice. Make it.”

Emma was silent for a long moment, as the tension hung over them even more thickly than the sweltering mist, the steam rising from the shore, the mountains, the sand. Then she said, “How did you find us here?”

“I had a man most familiar with Captain Flint’s thinking, the charts of the Walrus, and the possibilities for hideouts and places of refuge.” Rogers gestured, and someone stepped up next to him on the deck. “I believe you two also know each other.”

Emma had suspected it, but it was still a blow to see Billy Bones standing across from her, next to their enemies, arms folded and gaze defiant, though it momentarily wavered as he caught sight of her. She could almost believe that he, like Flint, had not wanted her to be stuck in the crossfire, but it had made no difference in swaying him from his stubbornly convicted course of action and whatever it would cost to make. “Billy,” she managed, wishing that Macintosh had not hit that particular tall, blonde, and cussedly stubborn nail so directly on the apparently impenetrable head. “I hope it was worth it.”

“Aye.” Billy did not look at Flint, as he clearly might have caught flames otherwise, but he glanced at Rogers. “Remember the condition I asked for. She comes aboard unharmed.”

Rogers looked at him just as unrevealingly, then back at Emma. “If you were planning to surrender yourself to the English crown and come with us to await proper address and retribution of your piratical activities, Miss Swan, this would indeed be the time.”

“Surrender myself to you?” Emma almost choked on the word. “After what you did to Killian?”

“I remember making it clear to both of you that that was the least desirable outcome in that circumstance for all of us. I gave you repeated opportunities to recant and take the generous settlement I offered.” Rogers’ eyes flashed. “Perhaps I should be unsurprised that you choose to spurn the final hand of mercy I am offering, in deference to your past friendship with my wife and your gentle sex, despite your ongoing treasonous actions and extensive connections with traitors. This is your very last warning, Miss Swan. Come aboard, or you will be treated the same as the rest of the Walrus’ crew and her captain. That, I need not add, is not a fate to aspire to. Is that clear enough for you?”

The ensuing silence was loud enough for Emma to hear her own heartbeat, rushing and thundering through her ears. It would be easy – terrifyingly so – to take the bargain, to step aboard to presumable safety, and sail back to Nassau and that future she so wanted. But Killian had taken that beating, suffered for hours under the devoted attention of Jennings and Rogers alike and not said a word or broken or betrayed their friends, and Emma was not about to cheapen that, or her own sense of integrity and devotion, for a return trip and a front-row seat to watch Rogers blast holy hell out of the remaining resistance and ensure he had enough nooses for all the hangings he would now have to conduct. She had made her choice long ago.

“No,” she said, as steadily as possible. “No deal.”

“Emma – ” Billy started –

“I’m sorry,” Emma said. “I am. You were my first friend in this world. You’re right that I have you to thank for sparing me and trying to get me ransomed. You used to be a genuinely decent man, Billy. Better than all of us, and for that to mean something. This, though. I don’t recognize this. I’m sorry you’re not going to get what you want, but it doesn’t seem as if any of us will.” She stepped back, solidly between Flint and Silver. “If you’re going to kill us, do it.”

Billy seemed briefly at a loss for words, before his eyes turned hard. “You’ll regret this.”

“Maybe,” Emma said. “But I’ll take that chance.”

Billy opened his mouth, turning to Rogers, but at that moment, everyone’s attention was distracted by the arrival of a large number of the Walrus’ men on the beach, storming down to see what the devil was going on with the apparent arrival of Blackbeard’s ship – only to realize, of course, that firstly, it was not Blackbeard, and secondly, they were most decidedly fucked. There were a few stares and shouts as both sides took each other in, and a moment of frozen silence. Unarmed except for the few weapons they had taken to guard against anything alive and hostile in the interior (and possibly coup attempts from the other parties) and completely exposed on the sand, with their only shelter being the Walrus’ small boats, the pirates were almost comically at a disadvantage, and Emma could see the split-second of realization cross Woodes Rogers’ face, the knowledge that he had a chance to end this once and for all, take down the pirates’ republic and erase them from the face of the earth, Nassau or no Nassau. Sam was dead, Rogers had just killed Blackbeard, and once Flint went down too, it was over. Hook and Vane could fight to the grisly end, or they could spare themselves the humiliation and give in. Not that that was likely for either of them, but it didn’t matter. This was it. The final hour.

“MEN!” Rogers bellowed. “READY! AIM!”

The redcoats raised their muskets, as flintlocks thunked and powder sparked, barrels trained on the defenseless pirates on the beach. A few of them had dived for the boats, but it couldn’t shield more than a dozen of them, and once the Revenge’s powerful cannons became involved, they would be blown into matchwood. Most of the Walrus’ men, rather than waiting to be shot where they stood, were either fleeing madly back into the trees, or plunging into the water, trying to swim back to the ship, where at least they would have more of a chance. But Rogers had no intention of letting them get there. “FIRE!”

The sound of two dozen rifles going off at once rocked the entire lagoon, a hail of hot lead hammering through the stifling air and down in blazing trails. The yelling was like the din of tormented sinners in hell, blood splashing darkly across the water and a few corpses already bobbing in the cobalt shallows. As Rogers shouted for the second detachment to step up while the first reloaded, Emma and Flint caught each other’s eye, knew there was only one chance of a single one of them getting out of this alive, and acted accordingly.

Flint shoved Silver in the back, toward the cover of the quarterdeck, then snatched a rope from the shrouds, grabbed Emma around the waist, and pushed off from the deck. They swung through midair, ducked as a stray round whizzed past their ears, and landed on the Revenge side by side, ripping their swords out, lowering their heads, and charging. Emma was all too aware of the fact that now she was the pirate attacking Billy from the Walrus, not vice versa, but it didn’t stop her. Flint went for Rogers, bound and bloody fucking determined to finish what he had promised he would, and Emma was left to face Billy across the point of a sword, just as she had at the very beginning. His blows were hard enough to make her arms tremble, as he was easily twice her size, but he still had that hesitance to commit himself fully, to fight her as viciously as he would have Flint, and she had to take advantage of it. Pirate. What she had become, how she had lived for years. Pirate. The lost Blackbird floated before her eyes, and the sight of her black flag with its swan and skull snapping on the Caribbean breeze. Captain Swan. All of it. At first only a way to provide for her boys, and now this. Going down fighting. Free.

In the disruption engendered by Emma and Flint’s attack on the Revenge, some of the Walrus’ men had managed to make it back to the ship, were clambering dripping over the railing, and sprinting to the cannons. The sound of the full broadside at point-blank range was absolutely deafening, throwing Emma bodily back against the mast, and the well-trained Navy gunners were already rushing to respond. Cannonballs thudded like foundation stones against the hulls of both ships, turning the world into a nearly beautiful mélange of fire and splinter and flying sails, and her own sword somewhere in the chaos, still slashing and hacking at anyone who came rushing at her. (That included some further of Flint’s men, swinging across to join the fight.) She and Billy had been broken apart in the onslaught, and she twisted her head around madly, trying to see where he had gone, before she finally caught sight of him. He and Rogers were teamed up on Flint, two on one, driving him hard, even as he fended them off with all his years of training and fury and skill. Whatever he might have decided on in regard to his own death, he plainly did not intend to go out quietly, or on his knees. He’d take them both to hell with him.

Emma hesitated, then braced herself to join him. But at that moment, there was an earth-shattering explosion behind her, she lost her footing, and covered her head with her arms as the Walrus’ port-side hull breached under the force of the Revenge’s bombardment. Water began to hiss and rush in, she heard Rogers yell, “CHAIN SHOT, TAKE OUT THE MAIN!” and the next instant, the distinctive scream was followed by the crack and crash of a direct hit. Flames began to lick across the deck as Rogers ordered a final volley, then whirled back to rejoin the fight against Flint – only to find that he and Billy were going great guns, hammer-and-tongs, and both of them had forgotten about Rogers entirely. Flint was climbing the shrouds, Billy hot on his tail, and as Rogers and Emma watched in mesmeric fascination, they reached the mainsail yard and resumed their duel. Both of them had lost their swords, so they were using knives and fists instead, breathless and furious, the anger of a thousand confrontations and betrayals come to full and inevitable boil. Even with the Walrus afire next to them, the ship where both of them had made their home and fortune, they did not for an instant swerve their attention from each other. Two had gone up, and only one would come down.

Emma knew she had to keep fighting, had to try to make it across the blood-soaked boards to Rogers, but she whirled around instead, searching for Silver among the roar and thunder of the Walrus’ unmaking. She couldn’t see him. Some of the men were trying to put out the fires, but with the mainmast down and the hull smashed, this was a losing battle, and the tough old bitch’s fate was already obvious. Men fell into the sails tattered and translucent on the water, spread-eagled and screaming, and then, Emma looked up just in time to see James Flint haul off, throw everything he had into a final blow, and send Billy Bones plunging from the yard and into the depthless blue hole below, with an almighty splash. Then there was another explosion, and she lost sight of him altogether.

Flint’s eyes caught Emma’s. She couldn’t tell what was on his face, if it was an apology for having had to do that to her friend, or final and searing vindication. Then the world lit on fire, and he was flying, and she was flying, and everything was flying, and the next instant, choking dark salt was all around her and she had no idea which way was up.

Panicking, thinking only of the fact that the water went down and down and down, Emma kicked madly, lungs burning, until her head broke the surface. In a few moments, Flint splashed up next to her, bleeding heavily from a gash across his face, and pulled her away from the roaring bonfire that had once been his ship, skeletal black beams collapsing even as they watched, outlined in fire from stem to stern. They made it to one of the boats, just barely afloat, at the same time a treasure chest smashed out of the violated hold and hit the water. Emma looked up through her curtain of soaking hair, spitting and scraping it out of her eyes, and saw Rogers catch sight of it as well, the realization that the rest of the treasure had indeed still been aboard the Walrus, just as he insisted, and that now, thanks to his own actions, it was all about to sink. The expression on his face was almost sexually satisfying.

Flint lunged for the chest as it began to go under, grabbed it with his free hand, and hauled it up onto the boat with a crash, making it swerve and dip. He and Emma hung onto the side, momentarily shielded from the Revenge’s guns by the bulk of the burning Walrus, men in the water to every side, debris bobbing and smoking. “Silver?” he yelled. “Did you see him?”

Emma shook her head.

Flint looked away, searching among the wet heads, as if to judge how far a one-legged man could swim. Whatever crossed his face in that moment, as ever, he kept it to himself. Then he turned back to her. “You hurt?”

Emma shook her head again.

Flint took a better grip on the boat, as the last remaining chest from the Walrus’ half of the treasure would be a considerable bargaining leverage (not that Emma remotely thought he intended to bargain with it), but at that moment, everyone’s attention was distracted by the appearance of a third ship in the channel. It took them a minute among the billowing smoke and mist, but they recognized it: the Rose, which Rogers must have ordered to sail as rearguard on the Revenge after he captured it. Emma felt her heart sinking through her stomach, and then both of them still further, at this sight of Navy reinforcements. The Rose was also lighter and fleeter than the Revenge, could range afield to pick up any escapees and haul them back to Rogers’ custody, and as the Navy frigate bore down on them, clearly not at all damaged and in full command of its batteries, its long nines were trained directly on Emma and Flint, exposed in the water with only a ship’s boat to hang onto, which would be no protection at all. In that moment, both of them realized there was nowhere to go, nowhere to swim for it, no way to make it to shore in time, and that the instant those guns lit, they were dead.

Flint grabbed Emma, shoving her face into his shoulder, as she tasted the rough wet cloth of his shirt, closed her eyes, and hoped it would be quick. And then the Rose’s guns boomed, they heard them and the echo of them, and yet, they were somehow still alive. As she jerked around, stared, and realized that the Navy frigate – which should have been moving to assist Rogers and corral any survivors from escaping – had just opened fire on the Revenge instead. As there was no way that the Rose men would not know that their commander and the governor of the Bahamas was aboard, that left, however utterly improbably, only one choice. Rogers was not the only one who had craftily stolen the enemy’s ship and slipped in under false colors, using them to put his opponents off guard. The Rose was under pirate control. Who, how, why –

“What the fuck,” Flint breathed, half to himself. “What the fu – ”

He stopped. Despite everything, almost laughed.

“Silver,” he said. “John fucking Silver.”

“What?” Emma really would prefer not to take such a second close shave with death, and Flint was not making any sense – there was no way that Silver would be able to escape the wreck of the Walrus, swim out to wherever the Rose was waiting, and then, as one crippled man, induce an entire shipload of Navy sailors to turn their guns on Rogers. “James, come on, we can still – ”

Flint grabbed for the treasure chest with his free hand, as both of them noticed that the one they had rescued from the watery fate of its fellows was the same one that he had broken the lock off earlier. He shoved the lid open, reached in and grabbed a sack, heavy with gold and gems, and slung it over to her. “For my granddaughter,” he said. “Get to the Rose. Find Silver if he’s anywhere around here, go back to Nassau, and save Hook and Madi and the bloody rest of them. Don’t leave any of them behind. This is your war now, Captain Swan. Good luck.”

“James – ” Emma tried to catch his arm. “You’re not – ”

“I’ll take the chest ashore, draw the redcoats off, give you a clean shot at capturing the Revenge and Rogers. After that – ” He paused, then grinned. Very softly, and very sadly, but the first real smile she had seen since their reunion. “I washed up on an island in the middle of nowhere once, brokenhearted and adrift. I made something of myself then, I’d say. If this is so again, it’s not been the worst of stories. I’m ready to find whatever is out there. To go.”

Emma opened and shut her mouth. She knew she did not have time for much, as the Walrus had burned almost to the waterline, they would be exposed to the Revenge again in moments, and she had to make it to the Rose (and hope they were right about its new allegiances) or she too was about to die. But she was not about to let go of one more important person in her life with nothing, and she leaned forward and kissed Flint on the cheek. “Give that to Miranda for me,” she said in a whisper. “Whenever you see her again.”

“Aye. I will.” For a moment, he looked almost young, among the smoke and stain and wrack and ruin, among the fire, among the fragments. The unmaking of Captain Flint and the Walrus, and James McGraw blown away on the wind to begin his new adventure. “And tell Silver that he – that he was right. In the end, we were friends by then after all. Save him.”

With that, he took Emma’s face in his hands, kissed her on the forehead, and then pushed her away hard, toward a floating barrel. She began to kick, clinging to it with one hand and hauling the treasure sack with the other. Flint watched her for a moment longer, then grabbed a broken plank and paddled toward the beach. Yells began to spread as the redcoats noticed him, launching the Revenge’s own boat after him, as Emma kept her head down and swam for all she was worth. The Rose loomed closer and closer, and then finally she grabbed the rope someone threw down for her, tied the sack on, and heaved it up. It hit the deck above with a very solid-sounding thump, and she wondered briefly just how much money was inside. But as for her rescuers, offering her a forest of helping hands as she climbed over the side, she recognized them. Men from the Walrus and the Jolie alike, and –

“Merida,” Emma said weakly, dazed and utterly bewildered and relieved beyond words. “Macintosh said you were in Nassau. Stayed behind to fight.”

“Aye, well.” The red-haired Scotswoman mustered up a brave grin. “Couldna leave the thick-heided gomerel out here by his damn self, now could I? Get himself killed, for sure.”

“How are you – ” Emma stared around at them. “How on earth did you pull this off?”

“I’ll say for now,” Merida remarked, “that that John Silver is a bloody clever man. Too much so for anyone’s good, really. The rest, well, we’ve no time for. Captain Swan, if you’ll take command?”

Emma had to take that in for a moment, after how long she had been without a ship of her own, without any of this. She looked one final time for Flint, and saw a small black figure scrambling onto the beach, hefting the chest on his shoulder, and plunging into the trees, a detachment of redcoats rowing as fast as they could in hopes of catching up to him. Then he vanished, and there was only this, there was only now, and the Rose was hers, and it was time.

“Aye,” Emma said. Quiet at first, and then louder. “Aye. To your guns.”

---------------------

For a long moment, Killian simply stared. It seemed untrue, it seemed impossible, that Robert Gold should be standing here so casually, watching him with that air of studied unconcern, when it was the first time they had been face to face since that awful night in Antigua. When the Jones brothers were confronted and cast down, when Jennings had taken Killian’s hand and Hook had been born from the vengeful ashes. His voice felt caught in his throat, his world frozen in place, until he was briefly unsure how it could ever go on properly turning again. All his schemes, his visions, his ideas about what he would do when he was face to face with this man again, and yet he could recall nary a whisper of them. He could only stand there, waiting.

“Well?” Gold said. “Aren’t you going to greet me, Captain?”

“I – ” Killian’s tongue felt as heavy and uncooperative as lead. “The fuck are you doing – ?”

“Someone has to attend to the business of this place while Governor Rogers is away, wouldn’t you say? And considering the attempt made to sabotage my own power – which I am told you had quite a bit to do with – I supposed it was all just desserts.” Gold grinned, exposing a set of sharp canines. “Dearie, did you ever think a letter was going to take me down? As I said, I have David Nolan in my custody, and I intend to hang him side by side with Charles Vane at sunrise tomorrow. Planning to let him die for your mistake?”

“Vane?” England blurted out. “How the bloody hell did you – ”

“He and that wild pussycat of his managed to rescue Jack Rackham.” Gold sounded bored. “However, in the effort, Vane was captured instead. Rather like holding a brass penny and getting a golden doubloon in exchange, isn’t it? I am well aware that Vane is far more valuable to the pirates’ cause than Rackham, so it will be quite tragic for you to lose him. Make one wonder if the rest of your ragtag lot could hold together. Especially after Madi.”

“What?” Killian repeated stupidly. “What the hell have you done with – ”

“Nothing. Yet.” Gold shrugged. “She’s below – in this very fort’s dungeon, in fact. You and I can have a chat, as surely there’s quite a bit you wish to do to me, or you can go and fetch her out. I imagine it’s getting rather unpleasant down there. Your choice, really.”

Killian was still paralyzed, but at this, he became aware of a faint foul whiff on the air, smoke and saltpeter, which he had taken for some unpleasant side effect of the fort’s massacre – but surely Gold, a mid-fifties aristocrat with a limp, who was also not the most physically imposing specimen in the world, could not have carried it out on his own. He was also not the sort of man who would venture his person alone, and at that, it struck. “You brought your friend, didn’t you? Bloody Mr. Plouton, the two of you up to your ears together in this Star Chamber treason, and all the skill you both have in destroying men’s lives?”

“Treason? You’re using that word to me with a straight face?” Gold giggled, a high, eerie sound which did not suit him at all. “And our good Mr. Plouton never forces anyone to take a deal they don’t already want. Ask your brother about that, if you ever see him again.”

Killian turned to England, about to order him to do – well, he had absolutely no buggering, blasted, godforsaken idea what. The scent of smoke from below was growing stronger, and he understood just then that Gold had set it up this way on purpose. Killian could either stay here and fight him, though he was also sure that there would be some sort of trick or trap associated with that, or he could let him go run to Madi. Either way, Gold won. Get Killian to give into his revenge and stay to kill him at the cost of an innocent woman’s life and the disintegration of the alliance with the Maroons once they found out, the final proof that the only pirate they could trust was dead. Or Killian went to rescue Madi, and Gold himself weaseled off to hole up somewhere else, cause further trouble, and hang Nolan and Vane, which would likewise be the last nail in the coffin for their fragile coalition and fading hopes of success. Plouton must have brought a substantial private army with him as well, and Killian Jones and Edward England were, at the moment, exactly two people against the full fury of the most dangerous man in the West Indies, the careful puppetmaster and overall architect of his entire disgrace and downfall. There was nothing, nowhere to turn that Gold had not already thought of.

And yet. Killian wanted nothing more to draw his sword and run the stinking crocodile through from belly to backbone, wanted to cut him down right here and avenge himself in blood, know that Gold would not get away with this or anything like it ever again. But he already knew that he couldn’t. He didn’t know if this was the right choice, but he did know what was the wrong. He whirled on his heel, plunged into the passage that led to the dungeon, and began to run.

His eyes began to sting at once, his throat burning as the smoke intensified, a whiff of brimstone to it that made him think of hellfire, an oddly fitting metaphor considering everything. He knew he did not have long, and picked up the pace, battling through the dimness, toward the cells at the end. Could just make out something – someone – slumped against the bars, thought of Ursula on the Maroons’ island, putting her trust in him to take her away, and how he had broken it. He smashed at the lock with his hook, supposing that the bloody thing had finally proved to be good for something after all, and after a few more wrenches, got it to give. The cell door swung open, and Madi toppled out, semi-conscious and coughing. She tried to get to her feet, then fell hard.

Killian grabbed her, scooping her up in his arms and hoisting her clumsily against his chest, as he tried to spot any daylight among the billowing smoke. He thought he spotted it, put on a final burst of speed, and they somersaulted out through a broken hole in the stones, to the steep grassy verge beyond. They rolled and rolled in a tangle of limbs, until they finally crashed to a stop against the end of the wall, and simply lay there, hacking and heaving and bringing up chunks of sooty phlegm. Killian got woozily to his hand and knees, realized on the instant that that was far too much effort, and collapsed again, waiting for the chance to get off the world to present itself.

After this interminable recovery period, Madi finally spoke, her voice hoarse and choked with smoke. “You,” she said. “I was not expecting you.”

“I don’t imagine you were.” Killian tried another, slower attempt to get to his feet, which seemed more inclined to cooperate. “Do you – bloody hell, Robert Gold’s here, him and his bloody friends. He said they had captured Vane and they meant to hang him and David Nolan, he could have been lying, but – ”

“They have Captain Vane.” Madi sat up, also slowly, and spat a final hunk of soot. “And what are you proposing we do now?”

“My men are still somewhere around here, I have to find them before they head right into the middle of Gold’s evil bloody business.” At that thought, Killian lurched all the way upright and made a dogged effort to run back toward the bluff, as he did not want the Jolie’s crew to keep climbing, obviously under the impression that he and England were already in the fort and they needed to help take it, only to hit the waiting jaws of the trap. It was then, however, that he heard the rumbling in the ground beneath them, saw the smoke billowing from the rusted grates of the murder holes, and remembered the small fact that Gold had already set the damned place afire – the fire from which, of course, he had only barely rescued Madi. He hesitated, about to run back anyway – but then, it was Madi’s turn to grab him by the wrist, jerk him hard, and send both of them tumbling down the verge, just as he heard all the air suck out of the world behind them. In the next, the long-burning fuse must have hit the piled barrels of powder and shot inside the fort’s armory, and whatever other fiendish trick Plouton had provided to ensure it all was destroyed, because everything, everywhere, exploded.

Killian and Madi threw themselves under the thick sod berm of the foundation just in time, as huge chunks of broken wall cascaded past mere feet from them, crashing and roaring and sending up a plume of rock dust. The din was deafening, incredible, as Killian waited for them to be crushed at any moment, a big piece to punch through the earth above them and squash them to jelly. It felt rather like being buried alive, watching the light and air run out, waiting to die. He had, for so long, so very bloody long. Whatever was coming out of here, whoever, he did not know. Could not control it, or overcome it. Only wait, until it ended.

At last the thundering stopped, and once it had been more or less quiet for several minutes, Killian and Madi crawled very, very cautiously out of their hole. The air was hazed with dust and smoke and grit, but as they stood up and looked back, they could see that the fort had not just been destroyed, but completely obliterated, as if the great fist of a god had swung from the sky to smite it. A loyal governor would never have blown up his own fort, even at the advantage of denying its possession to the enemy, but Robert Gold was, after all, no loyal governor. This was the final stage of his plan, to take down the pirates and the British crown alike, until the only power left among the rubble, the only choice for it to rise again, was him. Star Chamber. The men who thought they could overthrow even the mightiest as they pleased, and craft the world again in their own image. This was it, then. It began, and ended, on Nassau, New Providence Island, and the hourglass was almost spent.

Killian might have been pleased that they had been so correct about Gold’s ultimate allegiance, and the games he had played to reach this point at last, but when that meant the world was literally blowing up around him, it was somewhat of a second priority. He and Madi picked their way down the hill as fast as they could, a dangerous obstacle course through sliding rubble and broken stones, as he started to hear gunshots cracking through the streets. Most of his men, if not all of them, would have been killed in the explosion, which he tried not to think of, and those sounded like well-trained, regimental gunshots. British Army gunshots, or so it would have been taken every care to appear, but it was not. Gold and Plouton making their last move, killing the remaining redcoats, anyone loyal to Rogers or the Crown or who might stand in their way. By this time tomorrow, Nassau would be the headquarters of the Star Chamber, Second Founding.

“What are we – ” Madi skidded to a halt, staring at the devastation to every side. Her lips were blanched, her gaze fixed. “How do we fight this evil? How is it even possible?”

Killian had to admit, he did not know. He had no idea. Even Woodes Rogers’ shrewd, cool, ruthless danger was safer than this, and at least he understood what Rogers was fighting for. The British Crown might be the devil, but it was the devil they knew, and there was that saying about which was the more preferable. And in it, Killian realized there was only one slender, vanishing, insanity of a chance. If the Star Chamber was going to turn on both the Navy and the pirates, then the Navy and the pirates would have to turn on it first. Lieutenant Killian Jones or Captain Hook? The answer at the very end, it seemed, was both.

“Do you know where they took Nolan?” He spun back to look at Madi. “You said you knew they had Vane, Gold wants to hang them together, they must be kept in the same place. Not in the fort, they meant to destroy that. Any ideas? Any?”

“No. I don’t know Nassau. I could not tell you its secret hideouts.” Madi spoke more or less calmly, though Killian could see the whites of her eyes. “What are you – ”

“In a minute, lass.” Killian started to trot, mind whirring madly. He could, he supposed, try Rogers’ office, the place where he and Emma had paid their first ill-fated visit to the governor, as Gold would certainly see the irony in using it to stage his grand takeover, and if there was one chance of stopping him, one small Achilles’ heel, it was in Gold’s arrogance. He would want the show, the display, the symbolism of the thing, taking down Nassau from its very heart, and with that, though it made his legs ache as if they too were about to fall off (in that case, Killian supposed, Silver could give him tips if any of them survived), he once more began to run.

He and Madi made it down to the streets, though they then had to keep low and move very carefully. Soldiers in blue jackets with a golden star on the sleeve, clearly Gold and Plouton’s special thugs, were patrolling the plaza where the gallows had been built, and more than once, Killian and Madi tripped over bodies that numbered both redcoat and pirate. Bloody hell, where are the Maroons? If Lancelot could get to them in time with reinforcements, it. . .well. . . their prospects remained as grim as absolute fuck-all, but still. Not that the slaves of New Providence would ever have expected to fight a foe this monstrous. Nobody had.

At last, Killian and Madi edged around the corner, glanced from side to side, and decided to risk the sprint of a dozen yards or so to the handsome colonnaded building that had served as Rogers’ residence and seat of business, and where (so Killian desperately prayed, because if not, they were out of bloody ideas) Nolan and Vane might be currently incarcerated. Just then, however, someone grabbed Killian by the shoulder, he whirled around and threw a punch with his hook, and thus only narrowly avoided inadvertently disemboweling a very filthy and very alarmed Jack Rackham. “Jesus Christ! It’s me!”

“How the hell was I supposed to – ” Killian tried to calm his racing pulse, to no success, as he took in the sight of him – no, them. Anne was equally dirty and road-worn, and both of them had the same desperate look in their eyes. “Let me guess, you’re doing the same. Trying to get to Vane?”

“Aye. The bastards grabbed him as he and Anne were rescuing me, we got away, but they took him. What the fuck is going on? Who are all these lunatics?”

“Robert Gold and friends. The Windsor’s here, on the west side of the island – he captured David Nolan and then sailed here, he means to hang him and Vane together.”

“I thought redcoats were the worst we were going to have to face in this fight.” Rackham scrubbed a hand over his face. “I sense this is the part where I’m mistaken.”

“Aye, but – I think most of my crew might have been. . .” Killian gestured behind them, at the smoke rising into the sky from where Nassau Fort had once stood. “I have a bloody mad idea, but it won’t work without at least some men. The Ranger is our last chance to find them. Do you think you can reach the ones who came ashore with Vane?”

“Could be,” Anne rasped. “There’s not many, though. Twenty. Thirty at the most. We can’t fight these fuckin’ monsters with thirty men.”

“Fine. We just need a few. There have to be some men aboard the Windsor as well, held in reserve, who aren’t part of Gold’s sick little scheme. Ordinary Navy sailors. As well, all the ordinary pirates Rogers is holding and means to hang, we can get some of those free too. We just need enough to run the guns on her and the Jolie.”

Jack and Anne exchanged a slightly stunned look. It was Jack who got it first. “They have sixty guns each,” he said. “Sister ships, both started life as Royal Navy third-raters, HMS Windsor and HMS Imperator. One captained by David Nolan, the other by Liam Jones. The latter, of course, now has become the Jolie Rouge, its captain has become Hook, and all because of what Robert Gold himself did to you. That’s our only chance. Getting the two of them to fight together, to reunite again after long last. But even if we do break Nolan and Charles out, even if we find just enough men to crew both ships, then we – what? All those guns are only good if we have something to shoot at. How do you think you can draw Gold down to the beach and into range, and the rest of his men with him? What can you offer up as bait?”

“That,” Killian said, with an utterly black smile. “That is actually the part of the bloody plan I am the least worried about.”

“Then what are you – ”

“It’s simple.” Killian turned to face them, spreading his arms. “Me.”

---------------------

The lagoon was on fire. Not literally, but nearly so, as the water was so thick with burning and smoldering debris that it was hard to tell the difference. The husk of the Walrus was on her side, splintered pieces and cracked masts standing wildly askew. It would take a while for her to go fully under, and in the meantime, she constituted a tricky obstacle. While it might be effective just to sail the smaller Navy frigate directly into the side of the larger Revenge, it would then leave them short both of those vessels to boot, and as Emma did not want to swim all the way back to Nassau, that difficulty had to be considered. Rogers was still striding the deck of the Revenge, and she had to find some, any way of getting to him long enough to take him prisoner and bring this to an end. But after what she and Flint had done earlier, anyone else trying to swing over on ropes would be shot out of the air before they could, and there was no other obvious method of getting someone close enough. Rogers had sent most of his men ashore after Flint, but there were still enough to make it chancy. So this was it, then. Whoever blinked first.

Just then, Rogers’ head turned, as if he could sense Emma staring at him from across the water, and their gazes locked. Their ships were not terribly far apart – a man with a strong arm could have thrown a rock from one to the other – and Emma could thus see the same realization forming in his eyes. That to end it, either of them only needed to capture the other, a chess player forcing the other into checkmate, but the moves to get there were nearly impossible to make on the overturned board. It was also clear that Rogers was wondering how the fuck his Navy frigate had ended up in pirate hands, but considering he had stolen the Revenge after luring it in by false pretenses, Emma considered that entirely fair repayment. But if –

At that moment, Merida sucked in a horrified breath, and Emma tore her gaze away – carefully, since anywhere she looked, Rogers might as well. It was clear, however, what had drawn Merida’s attention. A lone, dripping, dark-haired figure was climbing the side of the Revenge, just out of the sight of the soldiers on the deck, with a knife between its teeth. For a mad moment, Emma thought it was Silver, but it wasn’t. It was Macintosh.

It was clearly taking everything Merida had not to shout out at him, to stand there and wait to see whatever was going to happen. Indeed, she and Emma caught each other’s eyes, then affected to be looking at something else, shouting and waving, so that Rogers’ attention was diverted to them instead. Emma dared a split-second glance back, and couldn’t see Macintosh anymore. Then there was a thump, a crack, an outbreak of shouting, and he vaulted onto the deck, bull-rushed Rogers, and rammed him squarely in the chest. About six gunshots went off at the same time, Merida screamed, and Macintosh and Rogers hit the railing together, back-flipped in midair, and went overboard.

“GO!” Emma screamed, hauling on the wheel as hard as she could, heedless of the obstacles or the danger or anything at all. Rogers was struggling like a sea monster, kicking and thrashing and trying to break Macintosh’s grim-death grip, but the other man simply would not let go. The Rose skimmed over the water, Merida uncoiled a line and threw it to Macintosh as unerringly as firing an arrow, and he flailed out, got it coiled around him and Rogers both. “NOW!”

The immediately following moments were complete chaos. The pirates hauled as hard as they could, Rogers still fighting like a violent fish on the line, even as he and Macintosh were pulled bodily from the water and reeled in over the railing of the Rose, crashing down together in a tangle of arms and legs and curses. Six brawny pirates pounced on Rogers immediately, forcing him to his knees, as he flung a look of absolutely withering black dudgeon at them, clearly warning that they would have to beat any surrender out of him inch by inch. That, however, was not Emma – or Merida’s – main concern. Macintosh was sprawled on the boards where he had fallen, a slowly spreading stain of crimson beneath him. He managed a slurred, stunned, delighted smile when Merida knelt next to him and rolled him over, pulling him into her arms. “Hey. Lassie. Ye shouldna be here.”

“Ye stupid, stupid fat-headed fool.” Merida’s hands searched frantically for the wound, trying to stop the bleeding, but Emma could see at least three bullet holes. “I knew I couldna leave ye alone! The hell were ye thinkin’, don’t you – don’t you dare die on me, Alexander Macintosh!”

“That’s. . . good of ye.” Macintosh managed a crooked smile. “But ye ken, Merida Dunbroch. . . I never did. . . do what ye said.”

“No,” Merida said, cradling his head in her hands. “Look at me. At me, man, at me. I’m here.”

“Always have. Looked at ye.” Macintosh’s voice was slower, softer, farther away. “Wouldna rather go to the Almighty. . . lookin’ at anything else.”

He struggled to raise a bloodied hand, trying to catch one of Merida’s long red curls, as she bent to let him grab it, comb his fingers through it. “Mac,” she whispered. “Mac, mo ghaol, don’t.”

“It’s all right.” Macintosh raised his unfocused eyes to Emma, then flicked them around the deck, with the very last of his strength. “Cap’n. . . Swan. Have your own ship. . . again. You two lassies. . . do right by each other, eh? You and this other one. Otherwise I’ll. . . be. . .”

“You’ll be what?” Merida cupped his cheek as his head slumped into the crook of her elbow. “Mac, what? Don’t you dare be an arse to the end and never tell me what you – ”

He didn’t answer, a faint smile still frozen on his lips, as his eyes slowly began to reflect the sky. Merida let out a gasp, then a racking sob, bending over him, as Emma pressed her knuckles to her mouth, struggling to keep her composure. She did not want to begin to weep. Woodes Rogers was on her ship, Flint had given her the war, and she would not. She could not yet. She was not entirely certain if she could ever stop.

A few of the nearby men pulled off their hats or kerchiefs, an eerie, shattering silence falling over the inferno, until Emma rose to her feet and turned to face Rogers, still on his knees with the six pirates keeping firm hold of him. He tilted his head back to stare at her coolly. “I am worth a good amount in ransom, and doubtless you are aware of my family connections as well. But I will not beg for my life from the likes of you. If it is blood for blood you intend, have done with it. You will have no satisfaction or sport from me.”

“I might,” Emma said, cold and quiet. “If I was different. If I was you. If I was the monster you thought I was, we all are. But as it happened, as we have always agreed, you’re worth more alive, and I intend that you remain that way. First, we will be returning to Nassau. Other circumstances and any potential future arrangements will be discussed at that time.” She jerked her head at the men. “Take him to the brig.”

Rogers was hauled to his feet again and marched off, as Emma turned to stare over the lagoon one more time. The Revenge had struck her colors when Rogers was captured, and she had taken enough damage herself that she was not in much fit state to pursue, especially the smaller, faster Rose. But Emma could not simply turn around and sail off, not yet. She kept expecting to see the trees to part, for Flint to reappear, even though she knew he was not going to. Yet the last thing he had ever said to her was to save Silver, the man he had insisted that he wanted dead for the longest time, and she did not intend to dishonor his wish in such a way. But searching through all the debris would take hours, if not days, and God alone knew what awaited them back on Nassau. If they didn’t go, if they let Rogers’ men recover their wind after this stunning defeat –

Emma bit her lip. She could still see a few of the Walrus’ crew in the water, but not many of them were moving, and Silver did not appear to be among them. If nothing else, his lack of a leg should have made him – or his corpse – easy to pick out. She looked up and down. If he didn’t –

And then, in the final miracle, she caught sight of something, or rather someone, in the boat that Flint had taken ashore with the chest. A lone figure, rowing through the burning water, as the men leaned over the side and shouted. Until a few minutes later, they had thrown another rope to haul John Silver aboard, he fell hard and headlong on the deck as if he barely had the volition left to catch himself, and Emma crouched next to him. “Flint?” she said. “Did you – ”

It took Silver a long moment to answer. When he did, his voice sounded strange, distant and formal. “Captain Flint will not be accompanying us.”

“You must have made it ashore during the madness,” Emma said quietly. “Didn’t you. You followed him. Into the woods. The redcoats after him – ”

“They’re dead.” Silver reached out, nearly put his hand into a pool of Macintosh’s blood, and pulled it back, sitting up with a grimace. “You may have my assurances on that.”

“And – and Flint? Is he. . .” Emma tried to steady herself for an answer she knew was coming, but very much did not want to hear. “Is he dead too?”

“Is Captain Flint dead?” Silver’s blue eyes, like the lagoon, had turned to something different, scarred and smoked and forever keeping hold of their secrets. “Yes, I daresay he is.”

Emma regarded him for a long moment, wanting to ask, to press for details, but already and utterly aware that she would get no more of them. She turned away to order the crew to make one more sweep for survivors, then to take the first heading for Nassau that they could, that they would likewise be sailing straight for as long as it took to return. When this had been done, when Macintosh’s body had been taken away to be sewed in sailcloth, she turned back to Silver, who hadn’t moved from where he was leaning against the railing, face raised to the sun finally beginning to break through the fog. “I’m told I have you to thank for this. The Rose.”

“Aye?” His expression did not change, though something flickered. “Does that surprise you?”

“Surprise me? No. Not exactly. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to know, now, how you did it.”

“Is that an order, Captain?” Silver spoke it with just enough respect to sound genuine, though his eyebrow raised. “No use in simply being grateful that I did?”

Emma regarded him for a moment, mulling any number of possible replies. Then she said, “The last thing Flint said to me was to save you. I’d like to be able to do that.”

“As in, you might not if I don’t cooperate?” Silver looked mildly impressed. “He did teach you well. And I know he was very proud of you.”

Emma glanced down, noting that Silver was using the past tense when speaking of Flint, but still refusing to break. She flicked her eyes up to his again. “Flint wasn’t the only one with a secret plan that he kept to himself all along. Was he.”

“No,” Silver said at last. “No, he wasn’t.”

“So why? What was yours?”

“I suspected.” Silver, having apparently decided to tell her, sat up straighter, pulling his tangled black curls out of his face. “That Flint did not intend to come back. As well, that Billy was going to attempt to split the crew and find takers for his incitement to mutiny. I lost my leg in the last one. I don’t imagine you can accuse me of not taking the prospect of another one very fucking seriously. But ever since Charlestown, everything that happened there and after, as Flint has come apart at the seams, I’m the one who has held the ship and the crew together. It was no accident. He was no accident. Long John Silver. The man who could say things, could concoct any tale, and other men would believe. It’s a strange and terrible power, isn’t it? When you used me to spread the rumor that Flint was alive, that he had returned, when I could have told you that he was already dead. See what you did, what I did? I made a dead man live for days, for weeks, so that folk would remember seeing him, speaking to him, knowing him, when he was only shadows and dust. It makes me a conjurer, of sorts. A necromancer.”

Emma folded her arms, watching him. Waiting.

“And yet,” Silver went on. “I knew it was not finished. Not yet. I had to be sure that if and when Flint finally began his last descent, there would be some way to get back, to escape it. Back to Nassau, back to Madi, back to – ” he looked at her straight – “Hook. So – ”

“You chose the men Billy brought with him.” Emma kept her voice level, even as she could only begin to grasp at the implications of this. “Told them to act in utter agreement with his plan to overthrow Flint, be willing to do whatever he suggested, as long as when the time came, you could count on them to rise up. Did you know Billy was going to approach Rogers?”

“Again. I suspected.” Silver could clearly hear the accusation in her voice, but he did not bridle. “I thought that was the most likely avenue he would take – and why would I stop him, when we needed Rogers to follow us, when we needed, in fact, to be sure that he would? If Billy went to him, there would be absolutely no doubt that both of them would chase Flint to the ends of the earth. All I told the men was that no matter what, they had to make sure that they reached us. They had to make sure there was a way for us to get back to Nassau. Whatever it took, they had to remember that. There were not so many of them that they could step aboard and openly start to fight – the redcoats would have outnumbered and overpowered them on the instant, and that would have defeated the entire purpose. They had to lie in wait. Choose their moment.”

“Rogers took the Revenge, then.” Emma closed her fists on her thighs. “By, ironically, the exact same stratagem. Pretending to make the Rose look abandoned and helpless, so Blackbeard would be gulled into a rash attack, and then caught off guard and taken. When you saw that, when you must have guessed something was happening – you still didn’t say a word?”

“Say a word to who?” Silver did not look away. “Blackbeard? What, tell him the one secret that could save all our lives in front of everybody on all three ships, so Rogers could hear it and turn on the men right then? Shout it to him over the water, perhaps? I’m sorry for what happened to him, but I am not responsible for his death. If Blackbeard had been meant to, he would have beaten Rogers then. There would have been no need for us to continue further out to sea, and thus for the plan’s existence. But because it did, we’re going back. To Madi. To Killian. Do you really wish we were not? I don’t think you do. That was the price. You might not have known exactly what it was, but you were more than willing to pay it.”

Emma opened her mouth, then shut it. “So your hand-picked group of mutineers found their moment,” she said at last. “When Rogers chose the Revenge to sail in here and catch us off guard, and to take full advantage of her superior guns. He took Billy with him, of course, and the rest must have promised that they would keep watch over the Rose. Then, when the odds were better, with most of the redcoats aboard the Revenge, they rose up, killed the remaining ones, took the Rose over, and had what you wanted all along.”

“And what you did. But if you’re going to blame me for not telling you either – I had no notion what had happened, as much as you did not. They could have taken the Rose. They could have been found out and killed. They could have decided to join Billy after all. Anything was possible. I set the pieces in motion, I could only hope they moved to the end.” Silver stretched out his shortened leg, unhooking the crude metal stump that served him in place of a foot. “And now the ship is yours. We have Rogers. We’re going back. So. . .?”

Emma continued to look at him. “What you said about not wanting to sacrifice Flint, was that just something – ”

“That was not a lie.” Silver’s voice remained quiet. “The last thing he said to you, so you claimed, was to save me. I would have done the same. Indeed, I made this plan for him, as much as for Madi. I knew he would lead us to the brink of destruction, and over it, and there might be nothing left when he had. I wanted there to be a way back for him as well. But he chose not to take it. He chose. . . what he did. Now both of us live with that. Don’t we.”

There was a heavy silence, Silver’s face drawn and introspective and haunted, until the question that had bubbled to Emma’s lips – did you kill him? – died unspoken. She had always had a sense of Flint and Silver as two halves of the same coin, with different methods but the ultimate and united aim, and had wondered if one could ever live, or truly be free or safe, while the other did as well. Or if such an organism must devour itself for sustenance, that only one could grow in the light and air, and the other must lie down in the darkness and wait to die. One’s star rising, the other’s dwindling, only existing in perfect balance for such a short time, and with an ever-increasing price to pay. Silver’s words from earlier still echoed in her head, that this particular price had been hers as well, that she would not change anything he had done if it meant, as it did, that she was going back to Killian now. And perhaps, after all, he was right. She did not know what that made her, and she was tired of trying to sort it out. She wanted to go home to the man she loved, and marry him, and lie down beside him, and sleep. Wanted to find what small tender shoot might spring up among the ashes. She wanted to be done. She wanted it so very badly.

And yet, she knew it wasn’t – or rather, that it was, and there was no telling what came now. Sam was dead. Blackbeard was dead. Flint was dead. Killian and Vane and Rackham might be as well, or at least in no position to offer further meaningful resistance. Woodes Rogers might be returning to Nassau as a prisoner, and there would be a high price to free him which he could already ill-afford, but he had done his job. He had brought down the pirates’ republic. Even if the scattered survivors formed some sort of new coalition or struck individual bargains, their entire world would never again be what it had been. Samson and the pillars of the temple had fallen together. There was only the question of what, if anything, would be rebuilt from the pieces.

Emma and Silver looked at each other for a final moment. The ghost of Flint hung between them, almost as tangibly as if he was really present, conjuring the memory of Silver’s words in the cabin. That Flint might not intend to give them a choice as to whether they had to sacrifice him, no matter how much they might both wish it had been different, and so it would remain. So he would. As if the man and the mantle of Captain Flint alike might be at rest now in the deep, like the Walrus, like Sam and the Whydah, like the legends that all of them would only one day be. Wherever that was, Emma hoped it was peace. Hoped it was quiet, and that there was sunlight on calm water, and Thomas Hamilton and Miranda Hamilton Flint had come to the shore to wait for him, their third part and their missing soul. That he saw them there, and smiled.

This is your war now, Captain Swan.

Good luck.

Emma dashed the tears off her cheeks, and turned her back on Skeleton Island. As Macintosh’s body was brought up, and she went, one last time, to send a man home to the sea.

-------------------

The night wind tousled Killian’s hair brusquely back from his face and sent his jacket flapping against his legs, as he did his best to affect as nonchalant a posture as he could. He could hear his heart hammering in his ears – if Gold did not go for this, they might as well start picking out a nice tombstone, not that they would be afforded even that luxury. Just be dumped in a pauper’s grave with no mark or blessing, after we strangled to death on the end of a rope. But Killian was wagering, once again, on the man’s arrogance. Gold would not be able to resist the opportunity to meet him face to face once and for all, to gloat, to feel assured in his final victory. Just get me enough men, Killian had told Jack, Anne, Madi, and England, who they had managed to find in the aftermath of the fort’s explosion. All the ones Rogers still has prisoner. Nolan and Vane if they could, but if worse came to worse, they would have to take the Windsor without its captain’s permission. They were, after all, pirates.

He waited a few more minutes, straining to hear anything from the eerily quiet streets, when he finally heard a measured crunch and tap. The footsteps, say, of a man walking with a cane, descending onto the debris-strewn sand, until the unmistakable silhouette emerged from the shadows. “Dearie,” the voice said at last. “I’m quite convinced you must have a death wish.”

“Or perhaps I just wanted to catch up with an old friend.” Killian’s own voice was just as sleek and dangerous. “Properly. We hardly had much time before your trick with the fort.”

Robert Gold smiled. “Ah. Yes. Tender sensibilities, Captain, of course. Exactly the case for a man like you. Or perhaps even you cannot help but being slightly impressed by my work here, and wanted, at last, to beg for mercy?”

“In your dreams, crocodile.”

“Crocodile?” Gold sounded amused. “I’ve been given plenty of epithets over the years, believe me, but I think that is a new one. Well, your idiosyncrasies of insult aside, I am a busy man, and so, it would seem, are you. Doomed, of course, but busy. What do you mean by this?”

“Just the truth. If you’re remotely capable of it, of course. You destroyed me and my brother on purpose, you made me into your perfect monster, so all the resources and all the money and all the time you requested from England to fight the pirate threat would be granted. All eyes on me. Everyone expecting me to be the enemy. They’d never once be looking for you.”

Gold did not bother to deny this, if at this point, there would be no real reason for it, and he was too proud of his handiwork to want to. “A story as old as the serpent in the garden, dearie,” he said instead. “As the saying goes, you can never be betrayed by your enemies. Only by your friends.”

“Aye, and Eve gets blamed for it.” Killian had not come here to argue theology with the evil bastard, but he couldn’t help himself. He thought suddenly of Milah, back in Antigua, who had saved him and tended him and fashioned him the brace, who would not leave her son behind since he was buried there, and the sense Killian had that Gold was responsible for his death. How, he did not know, or precisely what their relationship had been. But he wondered if perhaps it had been Gold’s son as well, and Milah had been sent into exile in the Indies rather than stain the governor’s reputation with her existence. Cruelly ironic, of course, that then he had followed her there.“That is likely your favorite part, isn’t it?”

“Are we talking of women?” Gold asked. “Specific ones? If so, Miss Guthrie – well, it is in fact Mrs. Rogers now – is presently the interim governor of the island, since her husband is away. Just as she’s always wanted. I had the chance to become acquainted with her in Antigua, when Captain Hume brought her and Sam Bellamy to me. I knew that she’d always make the choice to assist whoever would keep her in charge of this place, or tell her that at least, and indeed, she professed her willingness to fully cooperate. Good to find a woman of her word, isn’t it? So I am delighted to announce that Mrs. Rogers has, with the governor’s full warrant and authority, signed the possession of New Providence Island, and its seat of Nassau, over to myself and the Star Chamber. Guaranteed seats on the ruling council for her and her husband, of course. Generous financial settlement for Governor Rogers’ personal and professional debts. The removal of the English occupation, and the restoration of lawful commerce.”

With that, Gold reached into his jacket and removed the folded paper, unfolding it and holding it up as if for the presentation of a warrant. “Therefore,” he went on, “now that a strong and sensible agreement has been reached for Nassau’s future, you and your band of bilge rats can be safely assured that you play no part in it. I am told that Bellamy is in fact dead, is that true? Pity we didn’t get to hang him, but the universe will take its due in the end.”

“You,” Killian said, “were not fit to wipe Sam Bellamy’s arse.”

Gold laughed, but with less humor. “Yes, Captain Hume always did think you had a far too exalted opinion of that one. In either case, however, he is still not the purpose of this conversation. If you wished to agree and save us some difficulty, please, do so. Yet since I have already become well acquainted to the fact that you won’t, at least – ”

“Where’s Lord Archibald Hamilton?”

That caught Gold genuinely by surprise. “What?”

“Lord Archibald Hamilton. He was on the Windsor with Nolan, the last I heard, so either you brought him along here, promising to expunge his Jacobite activities from the record if he agreed to become your new figurehead governor – I don’t think you like Rogers much, he’s too smart and dangerous for your tastes, you need someone who more easily controlled, and everyone has known from the start that Hamilton can be bought. Or you likewise turned him in to the English authorities as a traitor, further proving how much they should trust you. Which one?”

“How civically minded of you.” Gold’s smile this time was the least amused of all. Good, maybe it meant Killian was finally getting under his skin. “As a matter of fact, Hamilton proved less amenable to cooperation than expected. He was sent back to London in chains.”

“Good. Could be Liam actually taught him something.” If he ever saw his brother again, Killian supposed, he would have to tell him that. “What about Nolan, then? Couldn’t resist the chance to humiliate him for daring to challenge you, I suppose?”

“Why, Captain. You can’t think that I’ll stand here and blithely fill you in on all my plans, now can you?” Gold raised an eyebrow. “I am, however, baffled by your apparent concern for his welfare. Please don’t tell me that Killian Jones, of all men, somehow still has sympathy and affection for the Royal Navy, or anyone involved with it. In fact, I’m surprised that you can’t see it. Though perhaps I shouldn’t be. You did not strike me as particularly bright.”

“That, then,” Killian said, “would be your mistake.”

“Is it?” Gold took a step. “We’re very alike, you and I. You from Ireland, me from Scotland, rose high in the ranks of the service to the English crown. But we didn’t start there. Born dirt-poor, mothers died early, fathers abandoned us. Had to make ourselves from the ground up, and against a system that would have liked nothing more than to see both of us bleed out in the dust. Whatever I had to do to become who I am – you hardly can throw any stones on that account, can you? You and Liam joined the Navy through deception and murder. You became Hook through more of the same. You know it, don’t you? So indeed. Isn’t it clear?”

“What is?”

“So as there are Flint and Silver, so too there are Hook and Gold. On the one side, an angry, disgraced ex-Royal Navy lieutenant, fleeing his old life and plotting his vengeance, taking on his new name, falling into that rage. On the other, the man whose name calls to mind what we are all after, in the end – money, largesse, treasure, riches – and who, while his methods may be the opposite, wants the same thing. Have you still not got it, Captain?”

“Are you honestly trying to claim that we’re on the same bloody side?”

“Aren’t we?” Gold’s eyes glittered ferally. “It’s not my fault you’re still too thick to see it. Haven’t I done what you could only dream of? I’ve torn down English power and rebuilt my own in its place. The Star Chamber is no different from the pirates’ republic. Unlawful by whose law? The English. Unwanted by whose interests? The English. Fought to disestablish by who? The English. We didn’t like what they gave us, so we changed it. Now you’re actually telling me that you want to stop what I’ve done? It’s the same thing you’ve been fighting for all along, but my version of it actually works. You think you’re the only one who’s ever lost something, someone they loved? I’ve done this, all this, so I don’t have to – ”

“No,” Killian said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“No.” He almost smiled, the spell of Gold’s words broken. “You can tell yourself you’re doing this for altruism, for love, for vengeance – anything you want. You’re not some great champion of freedom from tyranny, or justice for the downtrodden beneath the English boot. You’re building all the power you can simply because you love power, and because you love using it, and you love the sensation of playing puppetmaster with everyone’s lives, of pulling everyone’s strings. And why? Because you’re a coward. Because no matter how much power you have, it will never be enough for you. It will never be enough to think you’re free from the need, the compulsion to have more. So you’ll keep on burning and burning, and calling it a castle.”

Gold’s face went momentarily, entirely blank. Then it rearranged itself like the pieces of broken ice on a lake in winter, in jagged, unnatural edges. “You think so, dearie?” he breathed. “After everything you’ve done, you’ll dare to stand there and call yourself a better man than me?”

“No,” Killian said. “You’re right about that. I won’t. But I am a different man than you, and that bloody matters.”

“Indeed.” Gold smiled, the expression still strained and sickly. “So you still expect me to think you want to save David Nolan? I don’t think so. You’re lying, deflecting somehow, and when I find out what, dearie, I’ll crush you. Or I’ll just – what, pirate?”

“Nothing.” Killian kept grinning wildly. Only that he had heard something behind them, in the harbor, and when he turned his head just enough to look, it confirmed it. “Just that I know a few things about you, Robert. First is that, as I said, you love power for power’s sake. Second is that, as I also said, you’re a coward. I told you to come to this meeting alone, and I don’t doubt you did – with at least two dozen of your mercenaries waiting back there, to spring out and seize me or otherwise make sure you never actually risked your skin. Or for that matter, kept your word. I counted on it, in fact. So you can console yourself, later, with how very dense I am. How I never struck you as particularly bright. I’m sure you’re right.”

With that, he flung himself flat on the beach, rolling fast, as the night lit up with fire and thunder. The sound was like the Devil Himself rattling the bars of hell, trying to break free and wreak mere anarchy upon the world. Killian did not care, did not care about anything except the second report of guns – one ship fired as the other reloaded, so the broadside could be nearly constant. By the dazzling muzzle flashes, he could see the spectral shapes of the Windsor and the Jolie Rouge, which had been sailed stealthily ashore as far as they could come without going aground, all their lanterns dark and all their hatches shut, so there was no way to spot them before they started shooting. At this close range, the effect of the combined hundred and twenty guns, more than even a first-rater of a hundred and four would carry, was absolutely devastating. The entire beachfront was blowing to pieces, yells and howls from Gold’s men as more of them rushed to provide backup and were devoured by the maelstrom instead. Killian lay flat on his back in the sand for an absolutely eternal moment, stared at the stars in the brief flash he could see them before the heavens blew apart in cannonfire again, and laughed.

He barely remembered consciously getting to his feet, drawing his sword, hailing the boats that were launching, the ragtag remnants of the pirates that Jack, Anne, Madi, and England had been able to salvage from Nassau’s prisons and pits and everywhere else that Rogers had kept them, awaiting their execution at an opportune moment. They stormed ashore as both the Windsor and the Jolie kept firing to cover them, and Killian fought up the beach one more time at their side. He could also see a fair number of men in Navy uniforms with them, who must have come from the Windsor and decided that while the pirates were one sort of threat, Gold and his attempted conquest of the world was quite another. Added to Gold’s imprisonment of their captain under sentence of execution, the choice must have been clear. They were loyal to Nolan the way the Imperator’s men had been loyal to the Jones brothers, and would follow where he led.

Killian discovered that there were tears stinging his eyes as he battled up toward the road with some faceless young man in a blue jacket, until he had to blink them away ferociously. No matter what, no matter how it had come about, it was something he had never expected, to fight alongside a Navy sailor again and feel proud that he was. When they had reached the road and cleared a swath through the gold-starred uniforms rushing to stop them, he turned and realized to his shock that the man was Lieutenant Arthur Geoffrey, from the Halifax. Aye, David had picked up the survivors, they would have been on the Windsor, and Geoffrey had told him that Killian had tried to stop the killing of his men. Whether that mattered, whether any of it did, Killian still did not know, but he could not ever regret that he had.

The young man turned and recognized him in the exact same instant. For a moment, they simply stared at each other, haunted – as Killian had been before – by the similarity in their look and manner, their old position. Then Lieutenant Geoffrey’s throat moved as he swallowed. “Sir.”

“Lieutenant.” Away to the east, over Geoffrey’s shoulder, Killian could see a faint reddish glow. The dawn was breaking, the day coming, the world spinning on through this, toward morning. “As you were, sailor.”

They stood there, looking down at the blasted beach, the world turning from black to grey, the horizon from dark to pale, with the promise of that sunrise yet to come. The Windsor and the Jolie were visible in the harbor as the light stole over the hills, spilled across them. One flew the Union Jack and the other the skull and crossbones on black. One was still in Navy trim, the other scuffed and banged and tarred over. But you could see the same bones beneath them, the same mother. Sisters, aye? It made sense. It felt – no matter what Gold said – true.

A few minutes later, Killian and Geoffrey could see another boatload of men launching from the Windsor, and went back down the beach to meet them, as they jumped overboard and hauled up onto the sand. Among these, looking tired and thin and worse for the wear, captain’s uniform dirty and worn and torn with various delights of Nassau’s dungeons, was another man Killian recognized, and he felt his stomach twist with unexpected hesitation. “Captain Nolan.”

“Captain Jones.” David Nolan regarded him intently. “I’m told I have you to thank for my freedom.”

“I – told them to find you, yes.” Killian glanced away, unable to quite meet his eyes, as they started up the sand. “Where are the others? Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny, Madi –?”

“We sent Madi to the Jolie. She should still be there, as far as I know. Edward England took temporary command as captain to oversee the attack, we supposed you wouldn’t mind. But there’s still no time to waste.” Nolan’s face was urgent. “Charles Vane. We couldn’t find him.  Rackham and Anne went to continue the search. And as I recall – ”

“Gold said both of you were to be hanged at sunrise this morning.” Killian looked at the sky, now very decidedly past sunrise, heart skipping a beat. “Bloody hell.”

“Aye,” David said, and began to run.

It was a downright mythological effort to make it through the bombarded streets, the fallen men, the rubble of stones and splintered palms and broken pieces. Killian, Geoffrey, David, and a few others kept at it, though, none of them questioning this apparent combined decision by Navy and pirates alike to rescue one of Nassau’s most notorious and dangerous captains – indeed the only one, apart from Killian, that was still there or who might be left at all. They hadn’t seen Gold’s body among the debris, but then, they hadn’t had the chance to look very carefully, and try as he might, Killian could not quite believe he had been killed that easily in the assault. Some of those men had to have made it to him, pulled him out, forced him to play his final trump card, the last remaining threat. The plaza was just ahead, with that gallows that had seen so much traffic recently, and Killian and David sped up, as they skidded around the corner and –

A ring of men in gold-starred jackets guarded the square, standing shoulder to shoulder, muskets and bayonets outstretched in a bristle of steel, as a crowd pressed in. On the gallows, a soot-smeared and insane-looking Gold stood next to a man that Killian recognized at once as Mr. Plouton, the one from whom Liam had bought their freedom from bondage at such a high price, the death of Silver’s father and all his crew. All the connections snatched at Killian like cobwebs and shadows and smoke, but he still did not care. A handcuffed and battered-looking Charles Vane had the noose around his neck, the hooded executioner had his hand on the lever, the roll of drums was sounding, and in a moment – as Killian caught sight of Rackham and Anne racing down the alley from the other side – it would be too late.

In that very moment, a shout he only belatedly recognized as his own cracked the air.

“GOLD!”

Everyone turned to look at him, distracted from the imminent spectacle of Vane’s execution, as Gold bared his teeth in a savage smile. “Ah,” he said. “I was so hoping you could make it. We’ll fit another necklace for you as soon as this one is finished, don’t you fear.”

Killian looked around at the crowd. It was an eclectic bunch, mostly the citizens of Nassau and the stragglers from various crews, some freed prisoners, some survivors of the blast at the fort, several redcoats looking completely unsure whose orders they were supposed to be taking, and the general riffraff of looky-loos attracted to such an event. He glanced up at the window of the governor’s mansion, thought he saw a curtain flutter, wondered if Eleanor was watching, if hers had been the insistence that Vane be put to death rather than bartered back to the pirates for any hope of an agreement. Killian would not be surprised if she was already signing letters with the Star Chamber cipher, if she thought this was her final triumph. But the one thing in common that the crowd had, no matter their provenance, was their silence. They were edgy and anxious and trying to get a better look, but nobody seemed about to up and declare their defiance on the spot. Killian could see Charles Vane’s lip curling as he surveyed the scene, as if he was going to die a wolf before a crowd of sheep, who would then thus be scared enough to do what Gold told them. Who would agree to stop, to go away, if it just meant they did not have to care anymore.

The Star Chamber men shifted again, sensing potential trouble, as Gold and Killian stared each other down. Rackham and Anne seemed to be trying to edge unobtrusively through the crowd while Gold’s attention was distracted, to get to the gallows, but just then, startling all of them, Vane spoke. “Aye,” he said. “Hang me.”

Gold and Plouton looked briefly startled, as they had likely never heard these as last words before, and for a moment, everything stilled. Vane continued to regard the masses with depthless contempt, and a fierce, unyielding, unbroken pride. “Watch,” he rasped. “Watch this, you stupid motherfuckers. Watch me die, and think about what, if they’ll do to me, they’ll do to the likes of you. Cower and toady and suck their cocks if you want. It won’t serve you any differently in the end. Choose the collar you want to wear. I’ll choose this one, if it means you don’t. Fuck you. Fuck all of you. I’d rather die free than live kneeling. Fuck you if you won’t choose the same.”

Killian and Vane stared at each other over the heads of the crowd for a long moment as Vane smiled faintly. It’s Killian Jones the slave I’d put my faith in. Or am I wrong? The one thing they had always shared, despite their other differences – and yet, the deep-grained similarity that ran in them both, the wildness in its degrees, not terribly unlike after all. Killian had been about to rush the gallows and cut Vane down, but at that, crucially, he hesitated.

Gold and Plouton glanced at each other, as if aware that to take Vane up on his offer might be slightly more subversive than they had planned for, but equally aware that to back down would be just as ruinous. The silence held the entire square in thrall, as looks were exchanged and voices whispered, a current like leaves rustling in a gathering breeze. Rackham took a step, and Vane looked directly at him and shook his head. And then, as Gold – who had not noticed this – did the same to the executioner – the lever was pulled, the trapdoor dropped, and the crack as Charles Vane’s neck broke before everyone’s eyes was very much like a bolt from heaven. His legs jerked into the dead man’s jig for a few involuntary convulsions, then ceased.

For a few beats more, the communal stupefaction was unmovable, unbreakable, impossible. Then there was one furious hiss, and then another. A step was taken by the crowd, all together as if animated by one great ken, one beast with a hundred snapping heads, two hundred, more. The Star Chamber men lowered their muskets, preparing to blast sweet Jesus out of anyone who took another, but that did not stop them. Killian was shoulder to shoulder with David Nolan on one side and some unwashed lowlife on the other, as he could just catch sight of Rackham and Anne, pale and stunned and absolutely, transcendently furious. The standoff held for a split second more, but only that. Then someone yelled, “VENGEANCE!” and it broke.

The crowd charged the gallows as one, bashing and hacking and using whatever improvised weapon came remotely to hand, Vane’s body still dangling in its irons. The breeze from before had become a full-fledged gale, sweeping across the plaza like a force of nature, as everything burst apart at the seams. It did not matter what colors a man wore, or none. They rose.

Gold began to look alarmed. Coward. Began to stare around for the soldiers he must have paid to protect him, why they had not yet rushed in to swoop him away. Coward. It was David Nolan that Killian fought next to this time, as the hammer of muskets firing echoed over their heads as they ended up back to back, swords out, fighting their way to the gallows. Coward. Gold was actively trying to run now, but did not dare leap off the platform to all the hands that clutched and clawed furiously for him. As Killian and David battled up the stairs together, Gold yelled at the nearby redcoats, “I’m the governor! The governor! Protect me, you – ”

“Sorry.” David swung back the blunt pommel of his sword, and struck Gold an almighty blow over the head with it. “You’ve just been sacked.”

Killian went for Plouton, who had made it farther, but not much. The entire plaza, and the streets, had degenerated into no-holds-barred madness, and Killian was absolutely sure he saw more than one redcoat shooting the Star Chamber men instead of the pirates. Then as some of them were trying to get away, either to enact a tactical withdrawal or get a better shooting vantage, there was a second uproar from the outskirts. The next instant, Killian saw a phalanx of slaves armed with pitchforks and threshing knives and scythes and sugarcane machetes run past him, yelling various war cries at the top of their lungs in half a dozen African tongues – but among it, he could make out a name. Indeed, two. Felt it strike through him like a blow.

“BLACK SAM!”

“BLACK SAM!”

“WHYDAH! WHYDAH! WHYDAH!”

Killian looked to see, as he knew he would find, Lancelot waving in another surge of slaves – no, free men, there were only free men here. Him and Vane and all the other former slaves, all of them, dead or living, past or present, who had broken their chains and risen. He was so proud that he thought his heart would break, and it ached as if it already had. God, Sam. God, I wish you could see this. God, I wish you were here.

And then – it might only have been his imagination, some fevered dream in the heat of battle, as men died, as men lived, as the sun blazed down, as it was only brightness – but Killian did not care. Heard a familiar voice whisper back to him with a smile that could be heard, I see it. I see you. I’m here. I never left you. I never will.

-------------------

The calm after the storm was almost unsettling.

It was over. It was finished. It was done. Gold and Plouton had been captured, the Star Chamber men killed, the English ships destroyed apart from the Windsor, the redcoats and the Navy sailors either deserting their orders or actively following David to help the pirates. Eleanor had also been taken prisoner, the doors of the governor’s mansion smashed down and the place ransacked, all of Rogers’ requisitions and orders and papers piled in the square and burned in a great bonfire. The victory was too blood-soaked to be truly joyous, everyone as close to tears as to laughter, and Killian found he could not endure it. He took a bottle of rum, climbed up to a small promontory overlooking Nassau, and gazed out to the west, to the lengthening sun, and sat down, legs too shaky to hold him up. They’d done it. They had, objectively speaking, won. But there was absolutely no way to understand or predict what the future held from here, the world changed, the stars fallen. It remained a dark mirror, inscrutable and opaque.

He drank steadily. The sunset blurred through the tears in his eyes. Then to his surprise, he heard footsteps crunching up the verge, and tensed, reaching for his sword just in case – it would be a long time, if ever, until the instinct to fight was not the first one that came to him. But it was David Nolan, jacket off, cravat untied, carrying his own bottle of rum. Upon seeing Killian, he stopped. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll find my own spot.”

“No. I could. . . stand the company, mate.” Killian took an unsteady swig, wiped his mouth with his tattered sleeve. “I. . .”

David paused, then nodded, sitting down next to him. The sun slipped away over the western sky, bringing soft purple twilight whispering in its wake. For the longest time, both of them remained silent. Then David said, most unexpectedly, “My father-in-law is dead.”

“What?” That roused Killian from his reverie. “I – I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.” David’s eyes flickered sidelong to him. “I told your brother, in Boston, but I don’t remember if I told you. My wife, Mary Margaret, is Leopold and Eva White’s daughter. Leopold White being a wealthy merchant in Charlestown, and the man who – ”

“Emma was a maidservant in his house, aye.” Killian’s throat went slightly dry. As he was well aware what had happened to Charlestown recently, he was unpleasantly obliged to ask. “Flint and Vane, did they – ?”

“No.” David shrugged. “It was before. Illness. In any event, as my wife was his only child, all his wealth, holdings, and merchant business has passed to her. I assisted Liam in Boston partly because Mary Margaret was never at ease with the way her parents treated Emma, banishing her from their house when they learned she was pregnant. But now that we are the controlling interest in one of the Carolinas’ largest shipping concerns, you will of course understand if I inquire about your plans to return to piracy.”

“I have none. You may trust me on that.” Killian continued to stare out to sea. “I’m not sure anyone else does either. Bellamy, Vane, Flint, Blackbeard – all the powerful captains, half of them are dead, at least. Possibly all of them. The pirates’ republic is finished. Nassau as it was is over. I suppose civilization won in the end after all.”

“Perhaps,” David said. “But you see, that was not quite the reason for my interest. Leopold’s will also left us with a good deal of investable assets, and I think I see a way for Nassau to exist again. Differently, aye, but we all change. If Mary Margaret and I were to purchase its business and enterprise, to fund its rebuilding and reorganization, I think that would be sufficient to stop the English from continuing to treat it as an outlaw territory. They also owe you a debt, whether or not they will admit it, for stopping Gold and taking down his monstrous society, his destruction of their power from within. Nassau could thrive again. It’s possible.”

“So you – ” Killian blinked. “You and your wife would become the financiers for the island, let us trade and live as free men? I doubt you’d stand for your profits to be gotten by piracy.”

“As you said,” David pointed out, “the pirates are gone. The men who remain want what all men want. To make a good living, to be treated fairly, to provide for their families, and to hold their heads high and to know they have been heard. On the ships and captains that I would employ, they would find those things. Your brother always inspired me to be the sort of captain that I was. I do not intend for that example, in either case, to go to waste.”

Killian was briefly at a loss for words, stunned and touched and more than a little heartbroken. Wanted Liam to see this, as much as he had wanted it for Sam. “Aye,” he admitted at last. “If that was truly what you were offering, you’d have plenty of takers.”

“I hope so.” David took another sip of his rum. “So there you have it. I’d appoint someone to remain on the island and manage our interests, of course. Do you know anyone suitable?”

“I can give you a suggestion.” Killian sipped his own rum. “One, actually. A woman named Max. I think you’ll find she’s more than competent for the position.”

If David was startled by this recommendation, he gave no sign, only nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll take it under advisement,” he said. “As well, Gold and Plouton will be sent to English jails for trial and imprisonment, and there will be some sort of money from the English crown in gratitude for the service. I think it is only right that it should go to you.”

“I don’t want their money, mate.” Killian shook his head. “I don’t want anything else from them. I just want Emma to bloody come back, and for us to settle down somewhere, at last. I don’t think it will be Nassau. There are too many scars here for both of us.”

David paused, then nodded. “If there’s anything that Mary Margaret and I can do to make that easier for you, I hope you’ll ask. You saved my life. Your brother is why I am the man I am. Emma was done wrongly by our family in the past. We owe it to you. I hope you can let us start to make that up.”

Killian had been about to refuse again, but stopped. Looked at him for a long moment. The moon was beginning to rise over the water, huge and lucent as a fat pearl, and the wind smelled of battle and broken things and smoke and char and death, all the ghosts that would never be chased away now or in years, but who might, one day, be persuaded to lie down and take their ease. Then he raised his rum bottle, as David did the same. They clicked them together, and in the quiet of the night, they drank.

-------------------

The Rose returned to Nassau the next morning.

From the harbor, Emma could see the scale of the damage, the bombarded ships, the blasted fort, the seeming impossibility that anything, anywhere, could be as it had been before, that anyone had survived. It seemed almost quiet, warm, lazy, a day in deep summer where the world was at rest. No flag flew, no one was fighting. She still had Woodes Rogers prisoner, and meant to ransom him at some point, but she was uncertain as to who. Not that it mattered. It was not her main concern, or even registered beyond a vague sense of obligation. There was only one thing and one person that she cared about right now, and everything else dwindled to nothing before it.

She, Silver, Merida, and a few of the men launched the Rose’s boat, rowing ashore with pounding hearts, not knowing if they were walking into a trap or an abattoir. They had seen the Windsor and the Jolie at anchor, but the ships themselves meant nothing. The beach itself was littered with ruins and bodies, flotsam and jetsam, and Emma’s heart turned over. She and Silver climbed the sand as fast as they could, Merida behind them, a pale and silent wraith of herself, but still there, still trying, somehow, to carry on. “Killian?” Emma shouted. “Killian?”

“Madi!” Silver looked as if he had not meant to, but could not hold it back. “Madi!”

For a moment, for one final moment, for what felt like forever: nothing.

And then, two figures appeared out of the sunlit glow, just as tired and scarred and sunburned as them – and then, as they laid eyes on them, just as stunned. Until the world held its very breath, and nothing moved – and then rushed onwards again, and broke.

Killian broke into a full-tilt sprint down the sand, as Madi followed somewhat more tentatively – but as she reached Silver, as they stretched out their hands and caught each other’s fingers, a smile broke across her face to dazzle the world. For his part, he looked like a man in a dream, knowing he did not at all deserve the woman before him but realizing all at once how desperately he wanted to try. That, however, was all that Emma had time to notice before she was in Killian’s arms, and his mouth was on hers, and they were whirling around and around, and she did not care about anything but the stars.

They staggered backwards into the shallows of the glittering blue water, wrapped into each other, kissing again and then again and again, faces pressed together, mouths starving, tears flowing freely. Killian put her down, but only to kiss her again, and Emma pulled him to his knees as the wavelets broke over their shoulders, as they bobbed in the outgoing tide, as the sun blazed down. As they did not let go of each other, and did not think they would again, and in the wind, among the ash and smoke and rot of the old world, there came at last, like the stolen notes of a half-heard melody, the first and fragile, broken, beautiful whisper of the new.

[olehistorian]

Almost unrecognisable from her role as the dowdy housekeeper in Downton Abbey, Phyllis Logan is starring in an exotic new medical drama. She talks to Judith Woods about seizing the day and those Downton movie rumours… 'Obviously I never had a career to speak of before Downton Abbey,’ says Phyllis Logan drily, raising an eyebrow for further effect. ‘I sometimes wonder how on earth did I fill my time?’ It’s not true, of course, but we all know what she means: sometimes a jobbing actress is swept away by a juggernaut of a role that takes her a very long way from where she used to be. The Downton effect has had an impact on the career of every member of its award-winning ensemble cast. Lily James has starred in the BBC’s War & Peace and the movie Cinderella, Michelle Dockery landed a role as a criminal in the gritty US show Good Behavior, Joanne Froggatt played a serial killer in the ITV series Dark Angel – and now Phyllis is set to star in a new ITV drama series, The Good Karma Hospital. But it’s her years in service to the Crawley family that have made her a poster girl for ladies of a certain age who refuse to accept that life holds no more adventure. When her doughty but warm-hearted character Mrs Hughes finally found love with the pompous but kindly butler Mr Carson, it struck a blow for midlife love. In those days ‘Mrs’ was an honorific title bestowed on senior female staff, regardless of whether they had ever wed, so Mrs Hughes’s comical angst about whether he would be expecting ‘a full marriage’ struck a chord with any woman over 40 who has ever fretted about going to bed with a new partner. ‘Mrs Hughes was aerated about the sex thing because she probably hadn’t had much experience, but that turned out to be the least of her bloomin’ worries,’ acknowledges Phyllis. ‘God preserve us all from nitpicking middle-aged men who can’t abide change.’ In the phenomenally successful series, which ran for six seasons, Mr Carson (played by Jim Carter) turned out to be irrevocably stuck in his ways – the routines of the big house where he had been serving for many years. Ironically, it was his new wife’s performance in the couple’s kitchen (as opposed to the bedroom) that proved his greatest source of disappointment. Eventually, with affectionate pragmatism, the pair decided he should eat his meals at the Downton kitchen, cooked by Mrs Patmore, as before. ‘It’s a very identifiable scenario,’ says Phyllis, 61. ‘When a more mature couple makes a life together, each brings certain expectations and baggage and of course there’s always need for compromise, which some men in particular find difficult. Phyllis, once best known for playing posh totty Lady Jane Felsham in the 1980s and 90s series Lovejoy, was a late starter herself when it came to settling down. She met her husband, Pirates of the Caribbean actor Kevin McNally, in the 1993 miniseries Love and Reason when she was in her late 30s, but they didn’t get round to tying the knot until she was 55. ‘I had always sworn I would never have an actor in the house because they are so much trouble and so vain, but you can’t legislate for Cupid’s bow,’ she says. When she got together with Kevin, theirs was not a series of careful compromises but a classic coup de foudre. ‘I never thought real love – the sort where your blood tingles and your world explodes with joy – would happen to me at my time of life. I believed I had missed out. But I’m ever so glad it happened.’ A couple of years later, aged 40, she had their son David. He is now 20 and studying music and music production at university in Leeds. Once upon a time, reaching six decades was a milestone to be dreaded rather than celebrated, but, in well-cut jeans and a flattering floaty top, her burnished hair hanging loose, Phyllis provides incontrovertible proof that though life may not begin at 60, it sure as heck continues at a rip-roaring pace – as long as you have the right attitude towards the rollercoaster. ‘We packed David off to university not so long ago and as we drove back to our house in West London we were listening to the Elaine Paige show on Radio 2,’ recalls Phyllis. ‘She played Peggy Lee singing “The Folks Who Live on the Hill” and as soon as I heard the line “and when the kids grow up and leave us” I burst into absolute floods of tears and spent the rest of the journey splashing about in the passenger seat. But since then I’ve thought a lot about empty nest syndrome and how once your chick flies the coop it gives women the freedom to stretch their own wings once more, too.’ And as fate would have it, Phyllis’s new role in The Good Karma Hospital has allowed her to do just that and will doubtless prove a source of inspiration to a great many female viewers in a similar position. Set in India, the series features another estimable actress, Amanda Redman, 59, who plays an eccentric expat running a ramshackle cottage hospital, which is short on resources and long on compassion. ‘It’s a cross between Holby City and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel but with dark secrets, so it should be right up everybody’s street,’ says Phyllis. ‘I play Maggie Smart, who has come to India for her daughter’s wedding and becomes unwell, so ends up in hospital and falls deeply in love. Not with a man – she already has a husband – but rather with the community, the culture and the way of life. She’s a fascinating character who has such humour and joie de vivre and it was great to play a woman finding herself and connecting with a wider spirituality.’ Phyllis spent months filming the six-part series on location in Sri Lanka. She, too, found herself smitten with the place and the people and at one point Kevin flew over from the US where he is in the cast of the US television series Turn: Washington’s Spies and they managed a 12-day break together. ‘We stayed in a hotel on the beach and it was bliss. The majority of the population are Buddhists and seemed so calm, open and thankful for whatever life gave them; I think we could all learn from them.’ All the same, Phyllis isn’t entirely convinced she believes in karma as a concept. ‘It would be nice to think that if you are a decent human being then eventually things will turn out right,’ she says. ‘But fate can intervene and pull the rug out from under you without warning and there might be nothing you can do.’ It is something she and Kevin can speak of from personal experience. Phyllis’s mother died from a dementia-related illness aged 90, but it was the agonisingly slow decline of Kevin’s mother over many years that proved more devastating. ‘Kev’s mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in her early 60s and from then on his father became her carer and it was so hard for him. She reached the point where she didn’t recognise her own son and was agitated and upset because she had no idea where she was or who she was; that was heartbreaking to witness.’ Phyllis is an ambassador for Dementia UK and does what she can to support the charity’s work. ‘It’s such a cruel disease. I am aware there’s a genetic component so I do brain-training on my phone every day. Will that help stave it off? I have no idea; I think of Iris Murdoch – such a clever woman who dealt with words and complex memories all her life, and yet all those things that made her so creative and unique were taken while she was still alive. Ultimately, all you can do is cross your fingers and make the most of every day.’ Phyllis is certainly doing that. Last year was a veritable Air Miles bonanza; as well as her sojourn in Sri Lanka she went to Sydney for a Downton DVD launch, Los Angeles where the ensemble cast of Downton won yet another Screen Actors Guild Award, and then to New York to receive the prestigious Great Scot Award from the US branch of the National Trust for Scotland (previous recipients include comedian Billy Connolly and actor Alan Cumming). She wore a dress bought in John Lewis embellished for the occasion with a tartan sash and matching ribbon. ‘I’m not interested in fashion,’ Phyllis confides. ‘It’s just not on my radar. Whenever I’m doing a contemporary role, the wardrobe mistress will usually say, “Let’s go to Selfridges and get a personal shopper.” Most women would probably love it, but my face falls because I absolutely hate trying on clothes. One of the things I loved about Downton was the fact I had two outfits and maybe a coat if I got to go into the village; the girls in the Crawley family kept having to go for fittings every time there was a big dinner, which would have driven me mad.’ Logan loves… Reading Alan Bennett’s Keeping On Keeping On. I love him; my husband Kev played him in the stage version of The Lady in the Van. Listening to The Today programme on Radio 4 and Classic FM. Watching I do enjoy a good nature documentary. Planet Earth II was spectacularly good. Guilty pleasure A whole bag of Kettle Chips with a crisp glass of Picpoul de Pinet. Beauty product Boots No7 moisturiser; it’s not fancy but it does the job. Desert island luxury A karaoke machine, stage, lights and all the songs from the 70s. I’ll make a row of coconuts for an audience and there’ll be no stopping me. The ongoing international popularity of Downton means Phyllis and various other cast members are still asked to appear at events to meet the fans and launch DVDs. She’s often asked about her wigs and whether she kept one; she had three identical hairpieces all of which she affectionately dubbed Elsie. ‘People ask me if I was tempted to take a wig or that big bunch of keys I carried, but that would be theft, because these things aren’t my property,’ says Phyllis emphatically. ‘Besides, if there’s a Downton movie, which I hope will happen, all the props and costumes will be needed.’ Ah yes, the Downton film; rumours still swirl but so far there’s been no confirmation. According to Phyllis it may yet happen if – and it’s a huge if – the cast members can ever be gathered in one place long enough. ‘It’s like herding cats!’ she laughs. ‘We’re all so busy and in different countries, but it would be such fun to get together again. The camaraderie on set was extraordinary.’ Phyllis was in every episode of the family saga. Her husband even appeared in a handful of episodes as Horace Bryant, the stern father of an army major who fraternised with housemaid Ethel (Amy Nuttall), getting her pregnant before he died in action. Horace persuaded her to hand over his grandchild to him, which was brutal but necessary as she had been sacked from Downton in disgrace and had taken to prostitution in order to survive. ‘I was quite miffed that the producer had offered Kev a job without even consulting me,’ laughs Phyllis. ‘I wouldn’t dream of queering his pitch – although I do think I’d be great as Johnny Depp’s mother in a Pirates of the Caribbean film [in which Kevin plays Joshamee Gibbs]. And every lad needs a cuddle from his mother now, doesn’t he?’ Her eyes glitter with the sort of mischief Mrs Hughes would most certainly not approve of, but now Phyllis has emerged from the shadow of her fictional alter ego, she is keen to push boundaries. Last summer she resolved to challenge herself by taking on a theatre role in a dazzling touring production of Noël Coward’s Present Laughter, alongside Samuel West. ‘The prospect of going back on stage was a bit frightening, but that is exactly why I embraced it,’ she says. ‘I can be a bit of a scaredy-cat so I have to push myself and I was so very glad I did. It took me right back to my early days as an actress: booking my own digs, sitting on the seafront on my day off eating fish and chips. I also got to see fascinating places such as Canterbury, Cambridge and Brighton.’ Seeing the world – be it near or far – is something she gently urges all women to do once the kids have left. ‘Travel does broaden the mind and fill the senses,’ she says. ‘It gives you a new perspective and there are so many beautiful regions in Britain that I can think of no better way to spend time than exploring them because you’re a long time dead – so carpe diem, ladies!’ The Good Karma Hospital will be on ITV next month. Phyllis is an ambassador for Dementia UK and is supporting its campaign timeforacuppa.org Styling: Natalie Read. Hair: Alex Price at Frank Agency. Make-up: Lucy Gibson at Frank Agency using Clinique. Table and vase, both Habitat Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-4128572/Interview-Downton-star-Phyllis-Logan.html#ixzz4WSbvI2CF Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook