Hey! So this is the scene I wrote for SingerDreamer42 who guessed my lovely plot twist, so I really really hope you like it. I wish I could have made this longer, but any more and it would have been overdone and combining it with another scene would have made it too long. Thank you so much for all the feedback, fav lists and alerts, they mean so much to me. Every single time I get a notification, my day gets better. It really does. Thanks again guys, please keep it up!
-Han
"I find it endlessly beautiful," she whispered, leaning back in the small, cramped space in order to see the sky better. He didn't need to ask, he already knew. "The stars are so unconcerned with what happens below them. They simply continue to be." He watched her lips move with careful attention, catching the soft sigh she let escape them. The crow's nest was small, but they managed to fit, knees pulled up to their chests and shoulders brushing in a whisper of touch.
Her brown hair spilled over her shoulders, a slightly breeze picking it up with the breath of the ocean. She inhaled, her body rising and falling with the action, and allowed her blue eyes to shift from the blanket of night overhead to meet his.
Jack stared back at her, warm gaze that left a physical touch, a burn she loved. He wondered if he should respond; the silence seemed sacred. She dared to smile, just the glimpse of one on the edge of her mouth, a quick twitch of the corner of her lips. He returned it, moving slowly, carefully, giving her time to turn away.
She didn't.
Anna's breath caught in her chest, not daring to move an inch as his rough hand cupped her neck, calluses and ocean-worn skin pressing against her. His smile grew as she leaned into the touch, almost unconsciously, her eyes drifting back up to the sky. The darkness made her eyes seem to glow, ethereal and bright. The blue reminded him of sailing on the Caribbean for the first time when he was younger, how quickly he fell in love with the crystal waters and how much he wanted to be back. She took him there, mind and heart and soul vaulting to the sea he loved, the woman he loved. The one he didn't want to lose.
"But we, concerned with them, burn out so brightly," he said finally, his voice a rough whisper on the slight breeze. He drew his hand away, sandpaper against silk. Anna looked back at him, that spark of eternal awe still shining, her attentions refocused. She turned as easily as she could, facing him in the small, cramped space. He let her.
"The more reason to memorize the flames," she murmured. Nimble fingers whispered across his collar bone, her touch sending sparks along nerves and he was alight. Her hands glided over his neck, his eyes falling closed in content, in ecstasy. Just the tips of her fingers moved up to glide along his jaw, shift up to feel the sharpness of his cheek bone, trace the sleepy bruises beneath his eyes, the ridge of his nose broken more than once, the little 'x' shaped cut beside his eye. Her thumb brushed his lower lip. Time stopped.
She leaned in.
He couldn't remember a time when she'd kissed him first and he savored it, drinking in every sensation as if it was the first time, the pressure of her lips on his was something more than beautiful. It was stunning in a way the stars couldn't compete with. He kissed her back, drawing out the touch like it would be their last, his fingers weaving into her hair, her hand cupping his jaw, her thumb making small circles on his cheek.
Fire roared in her chest, her movements turning almost frantic, a need to be close raging through her body. He cradled her in his lap, his other arm wrapped securely around her back, refusing to let go. The gentle lull of the ship felt unsteady, rocked by a storm though the waters were calm and the sky was clear. The breeze was gentle but it felt numbing. Kisses turned rough, drew frantic gasps from her chest as emotion spilled out.
Every hesitation, every moment of confusions and desperation rolled into a moment of peace and they were prisoners, wings clipped and bound and little dolls held down with a knife to keep them in place. She didn't feel real, distanced from everything when her movements were automatic and something in her was afraid.
Because they might not make it back, the last unbroken thing in her life, the good piece of her left behind by years of wear and violence could be ripped from her fingers. She needed to feel alive. The crow's nest was cramped but it didn't matter, the stars overhead were silent.
Their lips crashed together in a feverish attempt to reach reality and heaven all at once, the need to be here when they were stuck in cages. The need to find a moment, to get away. For a moment, one unrepeatable moment, they were a clash of lips and tongues and teeth and the soft way he bit her bottom lip had her writhing in his arms and breath seemed far away and she swore she heard music, such beautiful music.
When they broke apart, foreheads pressed together and chests heaving in the attempt to draw in salty air, she smiled, kissed him again, again, again. Each touch of her lips on his was endless, moments mashed together and strung out over the ocean and nothing was real and everything was alive.
"Maybe more than just a flame," Jack whispered hoarsely, a chuckle working its way through his chest. "I'd say an inferno, brighter than the fires of Hell." She smiled, pressing another kiss to his cheek, relishing the closeness.
"What are we to do but embrace it?" Anna questioned wryly, flicking her gaze to his endless brown eyes.
"Nothing," he murmured. More sparks, more fire engulfing their senses and drawing them closer to an inevitable brink of sensation, somewhere in their chests, voices screamed for the other. Hearts aching to be closer. The beats pounded out a steady rhythm, souls begging to feel every facet of pain and desire, mixed into one, mixed into everything.
Eyes closed and hands shaking, she slid fingers down his neck, gripping, drawing sounds from him that she would replay in her head until her last breath. She needed to breathe. She broke away again and he trailed fire down her neck. Eyes closed, lips open in a silent explanation of ecstasy.
"You're going to kill me, Jack," she whispered, and her voice was almost lost in a sigh that nearly resembled a moan. Her voice was music, breathy pants a symphony to him.
"A marvelous way to go," he murmured against her skin. She grinned, flicking her eyes to the sky above them with elation burning through her body, happiness she could never explain, he was her addiction.
"Undeniably," she answered softly. "To leave in a blaze is more memorable than being blown out." A beat of pause passed, silence engulfing them amidst the faint orders of the Quartermaster below them.
"We don't have to leave," Jack whispered finally, mouth pressed against her neck. She shivered, unwillingly finding herself falling, drowning in the possibility, the notion that she wouldn't have to lose him. That she could stay next to Jack forever.
"Jack," she whispered, and he could barely hear her. His name was only a sigh, desire she couldn't voice, fear and need warring in her body. Death was courting, piracy couldn't keep both of them safe and inevitably someone would get hurt. She was already worn on the edges and one day she wouldn't be able to get back up. "We can't. Not like this."
He didn't speak, his back pressed into the walls of the crow's nest, a soft breeze playing over his face and his mind on blood, wounds, red coating his hands that left her white, drained, empty. One day she wouldn't get back up.
"Jack," she said again, stronger now, reverberating through her head. "The Fountain isn't the way. You know what we'd lose." Her voice was insistent, nearly begging and she felt fragile, like one word could rip her apart.
"What's the loss of someone like Blackbeard on my conscience?" Jack asked stubbornly, looking away from her into the darkness. She shifted, clambering off of his lap until she was seated next to him again, her knees drawn up to her chest.
She didn't speak for a moment and maybe she didn't have anything to say. He took to listening to her breathe, the gentle flow of air in and out, in and out. When she finally spoke it was removed, distant. "The Fountain will test us, and Jack? That is not the way to pass." She swallowed, her eyes burning in the darkness, drawing his gaze back. "The value of human light must always be more than that of our own fear of Death. There isn't any other way."
He knew she was right. Jack slid his hand across her ribs, pressing down enough to draw a strained wince from her, the touch sending sparks of pain along her healing bones. "I value your life." That was only a reluctant whisper on the wind, barely there and stuck in her head and she'd never forget that.
"Then don't make me live forever knowing I've stolen the breath from another man," she murmured, trying to read his carefully blank expression. His eyes betrayed him and they were endless, so black they could reflect starlight and they shone in a way she couldn't describe, like moonlight on the rippling sea. "And I won't take a sip knowing you won't be flooded with your own youth, but we cannot keep looking for reasons. There are other ways."
"Then are we to sit back and let Blackbeard take it?" Jack asked with desperation lined in his features, the mask shattering around him on the floor. His hand moved from her ribs to cup her cheek, rough on smooth, callused on soft. Real.
"We are to do as we have always done," Anna whispered, memories of adventures others could never know the way she did, rushed through her mind. "What we think is right, what we know is right."
"I don't like it," he hissed, flicking his eyes down the floor of the crow's nest, studying the grains of wood. Anna chuckled, rolling her shoulders in an attempt to find comfort like they had only moments ago and things could change so easily, a stolen moment turned harsh and sad.
"But could you live with yourself?" she asked, an eyebrow raised in question. He shrugged.
"I think I could, yes," he said with a charming grin and it was only fake on the edges, only blank to her eyes. She shook her head, a reluctant smile rising to her lips. When he wrapped his arm around her, she leaned into him on instinct more than anything. She would always lean into him, she hoped he knew that. "I think the more pressing question, Annie, is when we will have to join our fellow mutineers?"
"When the world becomes brighter," she whispered, and Jack knew she wasn't talking about the rising sun. The darkness that surrounded them surpassed the night, invading the cracks of the ship and bleeding into the sailors. There was no way out and they were trapped.
"And if it doesn't?"
"Then I could go a few rounds with Angelica to cheer myself up," she said lightly, a grin sparking something in her eyes. Jack raised an eyebrow, pursing his lips in thought. Memories of nights in Spain, skin-deep passion shared between writhing bodies passed through his mind and he was surprised that he didn't miss it. He didn't miss anything about Angelica.
"Are you jealous, dearest Annie?" he questioned with a grin, dispelling the feel of a different body against his own. The one resting beside him sent sparks up and down his body, made him fly.
"I just don't trust her, something about her story seemed wrong," Anna muttered, almost to herself. "She's a good liar, the worst kind of liar there is, and I don't believe a word she says." Her eyes were tracing the stars again, anything to keep her mind off of the life below them. She'd dragged Jack up here to escape it in the first place, tugging insistently on his shirt sleeve while worriedly eyeing the pitchfork Blackbeard had carved into his chest.
"By your logic, she is Blackbeard's daughter and the lies she told us were not lies?" Jack asked with a smirk, testing the waters around him as she shifted, shrugging as she focused her attention once again on his cut. She's already cleaned it as best as she could with half a flask of rum and a piece of cloth that looked relatively clean, but it lay open to the air, near the bullet wounds he'd harbored for most of his life. Her fingers traced the scars, avoiding the edges of the new slices in his skin.
"I wouldn't be surprised," she said softly, but her mind was distant. She wanted to be away, the ship below them only a memory and she and Jack could speak of softer things, happy things. She wanted Jack.
"Are you surprised by anything?" Jack asked, and it drew out a stillness in her body that let him know she was thinking. A moment later and her hand flattened against his chest, feeling the scars and the heartbeats.
"Yes," she whispered softly, her eyes slipping closed. "I'm surprised you're still with me."
Jack didn't know what to say to that. But he had to say something.
"You're so different under the stars," he whispered. Vulnerability seemed to be a night habit, something she could only show when no one else could see her and the dark was comforting, the night shieling, the world couldn't see her weak. "Beautiful," he added when her eyes dropped.
"In the dark, you control who sees you," she whispered, leaning against him, into the loose hold of his arm around her shoulder. Jack kissed the top of her head, the fire and ferocity with which he'd kissed her earlier had fled, drained away on the waves and currents of breeze. The world wouldn't let them escape forever.
He could tell her anything, beautiful lines, recited poetry. He could tell her that he loved her and it would be true, that he needed her, wanted her. Jack could say anything, but his words were chosen carefully. He couldn't encompass the complexity, the intricacies of a pirate who valued the lives of others, who carried confidence and vulnerability, who trusted him and thought herself less than him. The pirate who loved him but rarely said it because she knew. She knew better than anyone that words did not encompass them and saying it made it seem smaller.
"I see you." The night was dark around them as he pulled her to his chest, resting his chin on the top of her head. He started counting stars, wondering if they knew of their existence, wondering if they cared as much as he did. Another kiss to her forehead, hoping to communicate what words could never really say. "I see you."
