The Breaking
Chapter 13

"Daddy, don't be sad," the twins said as they kissed him goodbye before leaving for school. Sparrow snorted; assuring them he had nothing to be sad about. He was merely annoyed. And not at them. Just at one particular dead Hero of Skill who still wanted to cheat death even though he was already dead. The ridiculous thought tugged a little quirk of a smile on his lips, assuring the twins that Daddy was indeed 'not sad'. As he watched them pass the gates of the house, he cleared up breakfast and started a stew, slicing vegetables with more force than necessary. It was only after he finished cleaning up that his eyes fell on the envelope. Sparrow could not deny the hammering against his chest as he thought of a Reaver, living again. Somehow Reaver escaped all the absolutes of life and death in his mind. There were no absolutes. Only memories. Sparrow turned away from the basement door and left the house for work. The dead needed weeded graves today. He worked on the graves distractedly. The weeds had been pulled roughly, fresh flowers on the graves bruised from careless handling. Sparrow's mind kept wandering to the too dead body in the basement of the mansion and he could not concentrate. It felt like his hands wanted to unleash the kind of bloodlust that he used to crave in the past.

When noon arrived, Sparrow returned to mansion with dread weighing in his stomach. Time to resurrect an old friend. It was an almost mindless task as Sparrow prepared the machine. He had gone through the procedure too many times to count, prepping for a corpse that would never arrive. The only one that did was the last one he expected. Sparrow glanced at the pale form in the opened coffin. Soon he would wake. What then? As soon as the pirate's eyes opened, he would leave. And Sparrow would let him. Bitter thoughts filled his mind.

He nudged his hands under the body. He carefully hauled the body up, pulling it close to his chest. Cold. It still amazed him how his mind was still in disbelief when the body in his arms undoubtedly belonged to Reaver. Just a few more minutes of silence before he would awake again. Placing the lifeless into the machine, Sparrow attached the wires onto the core points according to the diagrams Victor provided. The fingers. The temples.

The last time this happened, it was a grey pile of bits of meat and bone that stared up at him as it awaited the return of its soul. Victor the gravekeeper still called her beautiful without knowing the actual person that pile of grey had really been. There was a reason she was taken apart like that and Victor, who claimed to know everything about her past, still wanted her. The first time Victor saw her broken pieces, he had fallen deeper in love, a real, permanent kind of love. That was what had driven him to add a love potion that induced attraction and devotion in Lady Grey. Lady Grey had opened her eyes and Sparrow had seen them brighten at the sight of the timid gravekeeper. Induced love.

Here, now. It was Reaver in that machine. He was complete, not broken grey parts of a corpse. In honest truth, Reaver looked…beautiful; like Reaver and not a pile of decomposed flesh. He looked peaceful; as peaceful as he looked whenever he slept after a long night except that there were no muttered words falling from his lips this time. Sparrow paused in his task to observe the dark lashes in contrast to the too pale skin. He brushed his thumb over the faint scar across Reaver's lips. It was unnoticeable when the lips were curled into a smirk. But with the mouth set to neutral, as it was now, it was visible. Sparrow caught himself before he leaned down to press his lips onto the unresponsive ones.

He finally took out the rod of life from its case and inserted it into the machine. It lit up blinding white. Sparrow put the finishing touches onto the machine, wound his fingers around the lever and pulled. The machine whirred to life. Electricity surged through the machine as the oversized lamps on its hull connected with a strand of lightning blue. A cloud of smoke formed around the body, dark and thick as it engulfed Reaver, hiding his face from sight. For a long time the smoke swam around the contraption; Sparrow watched and waited, noting the sounds of the mansion. Only the machine was creating a racket. The machine wailed when it died, the tinning sound faded when the smoke cleared. The metal casing sprang apart with a clang and a whine, revealing the supine body. Sparrow waited. He watched the body sit up in a slow, fluid movement, hands stretched out in front of it like it was reaching for something or someone. A low moan escaped from the other's lips as the fingers twitched now and Reaver placed his palms over his face. Sparrow's breath left him at that moment.

"That… was hell," Reaver said. That admission made Sparrow feel a spark of familiarity under his ribs and he choked on a sob. Grey eyes focused on him. Reaver smiled at him the way he sometimes used to when it was just the two of them.

The pirate slid off the machine, his feet landing onto the stone floor with the grace he always had, as though he had not just died and lived again. Sparrow watched the pirate stroll up to him in measured steps, feeling a mixture of relief and euphoria spreading through his chest as the pirate neared him. His heart felt full and swollen. Reaver reached for him, his fingers running up Sparrow's arms, his neck and over his cheeks, before pulling him close. Being pressed up to the pirate like this, Sparrow felt the familiar fire burn slow within him but the coldness Reaver had in death was still present in the arms that wrapped around him.

"You decided to save me after all," Reaver mocked without venom. The exhaled breath caused ripples over the skin of Sparrow's neck. He felt hands slip under his shirt to press into his skin, sucking warmth from him. It was then that he realised that Reaver was trembling. He threw a blaze into the fireplace as he dragged the both of them to it. "Sparrow," Reaver whispered into his ear when they collapsed into the armchair which stood by it. He held Reaver till the pirate stopped trembling. Guilt came to Sparrow for being annoyed at Reaver. He felt guilty for pushing this procedure a bit later than it should be done, for hating Reaver so much sometimes, for many other things he did not want to think about now. This uncommon fragility Reaver showed broke his heart, causing a sharp exquisite pain in his chest with each breath.

"Isn't this strange…," Reaver said, the cold lips brushing the shell of his ear. "I long for you." Sparrow kept silent as he felt the other's pulse against his lips.