A/N: I realize that the whole mind of our dear fandom is focused on the crazy twists of 3x11, but I had started this little 3x10 fic and I thought I'd finish it. I hope you like it!
He lifts the bottle to his lips as his ship rocks beneath him and it's been many hours, many drinks, but through the burning trickle of rum all he tastes is her.
Her lips (on the rim, on his), sweet and hot and fresh (and not his).
He wonders if this is the beginning of drinking himself to death (or maybe it's the end).
He is no hero. This profound—and terrible, painful, idiotic—act of selflessness, of stepping back, of giving Bael—Neal his chance (such as it was) can only ever be balanced out by giving in to his ruling passion of protective selfishness.
But in the scheme of things, he rationalizes, getting dead-drunk on rum is far from his most selfish act…perhaps this really is a new leaf (albeit a small one).
After all, even though he is a pirate, as the whole world reminds him, he can't help but think (desperately, pathetically) that he'd sacrifice wealth and pride and power if he could only have her.
It's then that he realizes that that is the most selfish wish of all.
Why would she want him?
Broken and scarred by vulnerabilities she does not see, driven by passions he sometimes does not wish her to…pirate, not prince.
Bitter anger rises up in him, then recedes as swift as any fitful tide. For he hates who he is but he'd found long ago that if you try to hit the man in the mirror, all that falls is broken glass.
So he drinks and he hates and loves and thinks.
But while he searches the bottle for forgetfulness, all his mind finds are memories.