Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Author's Note: I feel as though it's been a very long time since I've posted something, and it probably has been. School is keeping me extraordinarily busy in the best of ways. I go for my first black belt at the beginning of June.
I've missed this fandom and these characters, and it was something of a relief to come back to them. I recently watched up to season 3 of Black Sails, as Hulu doesn't have Season 4 yet, unfortunately, and I've combed through AO3 as hard as I can without trying to get too many spoilers. This fic was inspired by just, that general fandom and those fantastic characters and relationships in that show.
"I love her and that's the beginning and end of everything."
—F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Do you believe in Fate?"
Kratos shifted beneath her, dislodging her leg from on top of his thighs. It was a kind of thrill that Anna was unsure that should could ever get used to, watching Kratos wake up, feeling his lean muscle stretch alongside her, those pretty red-brown eyes of his blinking open and refocusing on the world.
He made a questioning sound.
"Or you can call it destiny, whatever," Anna added.
"How on earth do you come up with these questions?" Kratos grumbled, pushing his mussed hair out of his face.
"Because I have a working brain, Kratos," she said, amused. Her fingertips traced along the thin red creases left behind from the pillow.
"Oddly enough, I was aware of that," he said dryly, his right hand making absent circles on her hip. "Now. What was the full question?"
"Do you believe in Fate?" Anna repeated. "Or destiny, whatever you want to call a pre-ordained path of life."
"Remind me again how you got to this subject at—" Kratos glanced out the window. "An absurdly early hour of the morning?"
"Don't get fussy; you don't need to sleep anyway. And some fortune-taller in town was harping on about it." She pokes him in the shoulder. "Now stop trying to avoid the question. You're very bad at it."
Kratos huffed a laugh, little more than a breath of air, but his eyes lit up, creasing gently at the corners. "No, I don't."
"That was a fast answer." Anna shifted so she was more on top of Kratos, folding her arms and resting her chin on them. "Why not?"
Kratos was still for a long moment. The kind of stillness only possible when you didn't need to breathe. And indeed, Kratos wasn't, his chest completely still beneath her. It had been a long time since Anna had gotten this kind of reaction from him.
Finally, his chest moved again and he answered, "It would mean that this—all of this—the worlds splitting, Mithos' madness, Martel's death, the War, was all supposed to happen. That in someone's script of the universe, billions of people have been made to suffer and there's nothing anyone can do about it. And that is a terrible thing to play into."
They're close enough that Anna could feel his breath puffing out with each word. One of his hands came up to trace the scarred skin along her cheek, a souvenir from the ranch. His eyes, so full of mirth not a few moments ago, seemed far away, as though he was seeing so much more than what was in front of him.
"This wasn't your fault either," Anna told him quietly, taking his hand in hers, kissing the palm. She could follow the train of his thoughts so easily that it left Kratos unmoored sometimes, adrift in a strange sea.
"Yes it was. Partially. There is nothing we can do to change that."
"No, you can't. But Kvar is a shit person, regardless of your influence. Cruxis gives him authority and opportunity he might not otherwise have had, but if you believe in free will, then he had the chance to be kind and refused. You," Anna punctuated the word by nipping sharply at his collarbone. "Are not responsible for other people's choices. You didn't force him to be a Desian, you didn't hold a sword to his throat. So I need you to get off your self-centered high horse."
Kratos pulled her into a bruising kiss, his hand curling into her short hair. Anna pulled away, breathless, laughing into his mouth before he kissed her again.
(It's overwhelming, sometimes, how much he loves her. Anna Irving is, against all odds, one of the most stubborn, clever, curious people he has ever known. HE cannot believe sometimes, how pride keeps her spine unbent her incredible will spitting in the face of every authority she has ever known., and still, she manages to be so kind)
"You think too much," Anna murmured, kissing her way down his jaw and throat.
Kratos arched into her, chuckling. "I'm not the one who wanted to debate destiny instead of sleeping."
A wicked grin slashed across her face, eyes glinting in the dark. "But there are so many more interesting things to do than sleep."
Kratos hummed, settling back into the pillows. Her short nails scratching at his sides left him very, very warm. "I rather like this intellectual discussion we're having. I mean, you have to consider the inherent irony in the concept—"
Anna groaned, hands gripping his hips. "I hate you, Kratos."
His laugh was a low, rumbling thing that gave Anna no warning when he rolled them over, arms braced by her shoulders, knees bracketing her hips. This was the Kratos she loved best; playful, warm, so wonderfully alive, his energy breathing youth back into him.
And so damnably infuriating with that smirk on his face as he leaned in close, hands skimming past her breasts, scraping her stomach and down to curl around her thighs.
"All evidence to the contrary," he murmured.
Dawn crept over the horizon when Kratos stirred naturally. His leg was flung over both of Anna's, and one arm buzzed with numbness, having taken the place of Anna's pillow.
Her breathing was steady and quiet with sleep; the nightmares came much less often these days, though Kratos was still occasionally woken with her fingers digging into his throat, her eyes wild and unseeing.
Peace was always something too much to hope for. Something for other people to attain, something to fight for that was for other people to have. Kraots had dreamed of peace as a young man, but it had never looked like this. Like a wandering life on the run, sleeping in inns, and barns, and beneath the stars with such an incredible woman by his side. If Fate did exist—which was something Kratos highly doubted—it could certainly lead in unexpected directions.
"You think very loudly," Anna mumbled into the skin of his shoulder, her voice still clear to his enhanced senses.
Kratos pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Call it payback," he replied.
"Oh I didn't realize last night was such a trial for you. I guess I'll just have to take care of myself next time."
"You're a strong, independent woman. I trust you to figure it out."
She jabbed him in the ribs, but her lips were twisted up in a smile. She turned into him a little more so she could see him better. "What were you thinking about?"
His hand cupped the back of her head, scratching gently at her scalp and down the line of her back. She melted against him, humming contentedly. "Fate. And luck, I suppose."
"What of them?"
"You never told me where you stood on the existence of Fate issue."
"Honestly, Kratos. Look at me." She sat up on her knees a bit, looking down at him with raised eyebrows. The strange half-light of the early hour highlighted her collarbone, the sharp edges of her nose, the little hollows of her ribs and hips. Her hair looked nearly black in this light, disheveled and tangled. "Tell me you don't really think that I, of all people, actually believe in that."
"Why not?"
She crossed her legs, getting comfortable. "…I was raised on the idea of the Goddess, you know. Of course, we all were. So when I first got taken by the Desians, I remember wondering what kind of Goddess allowed things like that to happen, and was she really worth all the praise and worship she was getting." Anna's hand ran back and forth along his abdomen, dipping into the hollows of his hipbones and back up. "And I decided that no, she wasn't. Nothing was. It was my decision at fifteen years old to stand up to the Desians. To tell them to get lost and stop demanding higher taxes. My decision to fight back, to make things difficult for Kvar. It was my choice to follow you when you offered me a chance to escape, not knowing if it was even possible, and knowing that if I were caught, my life would get much, much worse.
"It was my decision to stay with you after you got me out. My decision to forgive you for the things you're responsible for. The only thing that hasn't been entirely my decision has been falling in love with you," Anna's mouth curled into a fond smile. "But I think that, knowing what I do now, I would make that choice every time. Even as exasperating as you can get, I'd still choose you.
"So no, I don't credit some higher being or force with the things that have happened in my life, good or bad. Things happen, and how you choose to respond to them—that is what defines a person." Anna ducked her head, a blush dusting her freckled cheeks. "That was quite the speech, wasn't it?"
Kratos' kiss was her answer, firm at first, but relaxing into languid carelessness. He pulled away, leaning his forehead on hers, their fingers tangled together. "I would choose you as well. Every time."
"Kratos Aurion, a romantic at heart." She watched him, half-lidded, a lazy smile on her lips.
This—she—was beyond all thoughts of Fate, Kratos thought. Hope was something you chose to do, peace was something you fought for, tooth and nail. Her arms slung around his neck, her kiss dizzying. A fierce joy blossoming in his chest as she settled herself over him, confident as ever. They had earned their peace, in unexpected places and in the most unexpected of times.
The most powerful things in the world—hope, love, honesty, peace—all of those good things, were choices, made every single day. It had been a long time since Kratos wanted to actively fight for something and Anna—she was worth fighting everything in the world for.