SPN Reversebang fic: Beyond the Shore (J2, PG-13)
Art Title: The Good Ship Impala
Art Prompt: R1004
Artist: dizzojay
Fic Title: Beyond the Shore
Characters/Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: PG-13
Word count: ~4200
Summary: Age of Sail AU. Six years after Jensen left the Navy-and Jared-to become a pirate, Jared seeks him out.
Contains: References to period-typical homophobia.
Beta: marciaelena. Thank you so much. ♥
A/N: Title from Bobby Darin’s ‘Beyond the Sea’. Thank you, with all my heart, to my wonderful artist dizzojay for the incredible art, and for coming up with such a lovely Age of Sail prompt. ♥
(AO3)
Chapter 1
Then
‘Come with me,’ Jensen says.
They’re standing on a moonlit shore, waves lapping at their booted feet.
‘You can’t mean to do this.’ Jared’s gaze scrapes over Jensen’s face, and he knows he’s trying to commit his Captain’s features to memory, terrified that he’ll never see him again.
‘Denial was always your greatest strength.’ Jensen drops his hand, his face expressionless.
Jared takes a step back, the harsh words hitting him like a blow, all the harder because they’re true.
Jensen turns away. ‘I won’t live like this, Jared. Not even for you.’
Jared stands at the water’s edge for a long time, long after Jensen’s sloop-stolen from His Majesty’s Royal Navy-has disappeared far beyond the horizon.
Now
‘Ackles? The deserter?’ Admiral Cortese’s aristocratic features twist into a hateful snarl. ‘I would see him hanged and strung up on Dead Man’s Cay, not offered a commission with the government.’
‘With all due respect, Admiral,’ Captain Collins says, throwing Jared a quick glance. ‘He may be the only hope we have left.’
‘Hope? The man is a vile creature. A sodomite and a thief. We would do better to lose honourably in battle than ally with the likes of pirates.’ The Admiral takes a fortifying sip of port before continuing. ‘Give me one good reason to entertain this foolish request.’
Jared speaks for the first time during the meeting. ‘He knows these waters well, and then some. The connections he has could prove invaluable in our mission to rid these waters of piracy once and for all.’
The words sound hollow to him.
Hollow. It’s how he’s always thought of the sounds he hears from the conch shell he carries around with him.
Jensen picks up a shell that’s been washed up on the beach. He turns it over in his hand, holds it so the remaining water inside the conch drips steadily out into the sea, leaving its insides hollow.
‘Listen.’ He holds the shell to Jared’s ear.
‘I hear nothing,’ Jared says. Jensen raises his eyebrows in a silent question. ‘Nothing but roaring. Nothing but the echo of something unreal.’ He pushes Jensen’s hand away. ‘Nothing for someone like me.’
‘Nothing for a coward, you mean. Nothing for someone who would rather live a life regimented by rules and laws of someone else’s making. Rules that don’t even make rational sense.’
‘I’m not the one who’s running away.’
‘Running away?’ Jensen stares out across the ocean. ‘Call it that if you like. I may be running from rules that I don’t agree with. But I’m also running toward a place I can call my own. A place where no one can own me. Where I make the rules.’
He lets the shell drop from his hand. It sinks slowly into the wet sand, driven by the waves. ‘I thought I knew who you were, Jared. I was wrong.’
It’s their second last conversation, the night before Jensen leaves Jared’s world and goes to make his own.
I would see him hanged and strung up on Dead Man’s Cay.
The Admiral’s words come back to haunt Jared as he sits in his office. The heat is stifling, his bound hair damp with sweat under his starchy wig.
(In the days before his leaving, Jensen had often joked that being forced to wear an officer’s wig was reason enough to quit the Royal Navy.)
It’s an image from his nightmares: Jensen, arrested for piracy-worse than common piracy, because he had once been an officer of the law-and hanged, his body strung up on the islet known as Dead Man’s Cay, where the corpses of pirates hang in a grisly warning to those breaking the law.
Jensen has made a name for himself over the last six years. His ship, the Impala, is the stuff of legends: all black, with black sails, more myth than fact, if the stories are to be believed.
(It’s only in the darkness of night, when he lies staring sleeplessly at the ceiling, that Jared admits to himself that the sight of those black sails is the one he yearns most to see.)
‘He won’t relent,’ Captain Collins says in disgust, bursting in and breaking into Jared’s thoughts. He flings his hat across the room and throws himself into a chair.
‘The Admiral?’
‘Can’t see past the end of his fancy powdered nose.’
‘He has a point,’ Jared says. ‘Consorting with the likes of notorious pirates can’t be good for the Navy.’
Collins stares at him. ‘Notorious pirates? Have you forgotten this is Jensen we’re talking about? The same Jensen you were inseparable from for years?’
‘I haven’t forgotten.’ Jared gets up and picks up his hat, setting it firmly on his head. ‘Maybe you’re the one who’s forgotten something.’
‘And what might that be?’ Collins looks at him with narrowed eyes.
‘People change.’
He packs his bag in the middle of the night, interrupted only by Collins bursting in, as is his habit, without knocking.
‘Hah. I knew it,’ Collins says.
‘Shut the door,’ Jared mutters irritably. ‘Someone might see you.’
‘See us, you mean.’
‘You’re not coming, Collins.’
‘Like hell I’m not.’
‘Look.’ Jared sits down at the edge of his bed. ‘I don’t know if Jensen will even agree to see me. And that’s even if I can find him.’
‘He does seem to enjoy being mysterious. I heard a tale at the tavern the other day about-’
‘I don’t want to hear it. He’s not a legend or a myth, no matter what stories are told about him. He’s very much human, and he’ll be killed if he’s caught.’
‘And you think you’re going to-what? Warn him away?’
‘Talk him into taking a privateer’s commission, if he’ll listen.’
‘And if he doesn’t?’
‘I don’t know.’ Jared looks down at his hands. ‘I haven’t thought that far. But you should know something. If he doesn’t agree, then I…’
‘Then you’re not coming back,’ Collins says shrewdly. ‘You sure you know what you’re doing, laddie?’
‘I’ll take things as they come.’ Jared hitches his bag over his shoulder. ‘Well, Captain Collins. It was a pleasure working with you.’
Chapter 2
Then
Jared is sent to join the Royal Navy three weeks before his fourteenth birthday.
His first station is on board the HMS Endeavour, a hundred-gun warship. Amid the stench of gunpowder and blood, and the chaos of near-constant battle, his only refuge is in the steady, calm presence of his commanding officer: Jensen, already a Lieutenant at eighteen, having been in the Navy since he was twelve.
‘Twelve,’ Jared says in awe when he finds out.
Jensen smiles. ‘It wasn’t so bad. Loads better, really, than the life I lived at the orphanage. Couldn’t wait to leave.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Jared says. It sounds hollow, but Jensen seems to thinks it’s genuine.
‘It’s all right,’ he says. He gestures to the bottle of watered-down rum in Jared’s hand. ‘I just hope you get to be a boy a little longer than I did.’
‘I’m not a boy anymore,’ Jared says. He’s fifteen and drinking undiluted rum now. He even shot a man through the leg in battle the other day.
He’s not a child, but Jensen sometimes insists on treating him like one.
‘Let me kiss you,’ Jared says. He knows he’s begging, and he’ll never take the same tone with anyone else. It’s only ever for Jensen.
They’re in the brig, the only place which is free of sailors. There are currently no prisoners in the cells, and Jared doesn’t miss the irony that a place of imprisonment is the only one where he’s free to say the things he wants to say to Jensen.
‘No,’ Jensen says, but he’s smiling. At over six feet, he towers above Jared. He’s the only person beside whom Jared doesn’t mind feeling small, but this is one of those times he can’t wait to be fully grown.
He reaches up to frame Jensen’s face in his too-small hands. ‘Please.’ Jensen’s hair, unlike that of most of the officers, who wear theirs long and bound in strict queues, is cropped short. Jared brushes his fingers through the soft, dark blond spikes. ‘Please.’
Jensen bends his head to press his lips to Jared’s forehead. ‘Not yet, kid.’
‘I’m not a kid.’ Jared pulls away.
Jensen smiles again. ‘You’ll always be a kid to me,’ he says, fond.
When Jared is sixteen, Jensen is shot by pirates.
It should have been a routine job, just taking out a bunch of rum smugglers, but it almost cost Jensen his life.
‘It’s all right,’ Jensen says when Jared sneaks into the hospital at night to see him. ‘I’m all right. I promise.’
‘You don’t get to die. You don’t get to leave me.’
‘Come here,’ Jensen says, wiping the tears off Jared’s face.
Jared squeezes into the narrow bed against Jensen’s uninjured side. ‘You were unconscious for five days,’ he says into Jensen’s shoulder, his voice muffled.
‘I won’t leave you,’ Jensen says, his face buried in Jared’s hair. ‘I won’t ever leave you.’
The first time Jared learns about Jensen’s misgivings with the Navy is when he’s eighteen. They’ve earned a rare bit of shore leave and are spending it in Marseille, Jared dazzled by the art, the history, the wine that comes in so many varieties that it’s impossible to count them all.
Jensen indulges Jared’s love for museums, and it’s when they’ve just left a particularly enthralling one in which Jared had spent close to an hour poring over old coins and manuscripts that Jared speaks up.
‘You’ve been a little quiet,’ he says as they share tea and sponge cakes at a small seaside inn.
Jensen shrugs. ‘I enjoyed watching you look at everything.’
Jared nudges Jensen’s knee under the table. ‘Tell me.’
Jensen spoons some honey into his tea before he replies. ‘It’s just… so much of this seems fake to me.’
‘Fake? How?’
‘Most of the artefacts we saw today… they were stolen from people in other countries. People our government is colonizing. People we’ve enslaved, whose rights we’ve taken away.’
‘I never thought of it like that.’
Jensen looks out of the window to the sea. ’It’ll get worse before it gets better.’
They take a single room at the inn that night, a common enough practice for sailors who want to save money by sharing rooms. Jared lies awake long after Jensen has fallen asleep, mulling over Jensen’s words in his mind. He’s known for years that meeting Jensen has changed his life in ways he could never have imagined, but that night, lying safe and warm in Jensen’s arms, he also realizes for the first time that he’s learned more from Jensen than he could have from any teacher in a school.
It’s when the East India Trading Company is given unequivocal control over the naval base where they’re stationed that Jensen decides to leave.
‘They call themselves a fucking trading company,’ he says, his voice shaking with fury, his fists clenched. ‘The only thing they trade in is violence and thievery and murder, all in the guise of commerce. I’d rather be a pirate than be controlled by this kind of filth.’
‘You don’t mean that.’ Jared puts his hand over Jensen’s, trying to soothe him. They’re safely hidden in Jensen’s private quarters, a perquisite of being an officer. Seeing the world through Jensen’s eyes, Jared knows well enough that men who have anything beyond friendship with other men can be punished by death.
‘Don’t I?’ Jensen runs his hand absently through Jared’s hair, his mind far away.
‘Pirates are… surely they’re worse than the government?’
‘Worse?’ Jensen laughs humorlessly. ‘There’s no more honor in being in the Navy than in being a pirate. At best, there’s more honesty in admitting that you’re a scoundrel and a thief. Far more than the precious Navy will ever admit to being.’ He looks up. ‘You remember Aldis?’
Jared nods. Aldis, stolen from his home and forced to be a slave, had been sentenced to death for being found in an embrace with the Admiral’s daughter. Jared has long suspected that Jensen had a part to play in Aldis’s escape the night before his scheduled execution. The Admiral’s daughter, Genevieve, had vanished too; while most believed she’d been sent back home to Virginia, a hushed rumor also circulated about her having run away, fed up of her father’s regimented and outdated ways.
‘I met him the other day.’
‘You did? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I wouldn’t have you caught in the company of a wanted man, Jay.’ He holds up his hand to silence Jared’s protests. ‘I knew what I was doing. I was prepared to take the risk.’
‘I’m guessing he’s a pirate now,’ Jared says, filled with dread at the thought. If Aldis is caught, he’ll be killed without a trial. It’s the common law now for those caught in acts of piracy.
‘Can you blame him?’ Jensen says. The words are soft, pain-filled.
‘No,’ Jared says, resolute. ‘Not even a little.’ He climbs into Jensen’s lap, straddling his thighs.
Jensen sighs into their kiss, fingers slipping into Jared’s hair and entangling in the long strands.
He manages to pretend, for the next few weeks, that he doesn’t know about Jensen’s decision.
The fear and the anger emerge only in the last few days, in arguments that last long into the night, every night, leaving them exhausted. Leaving them incapable of love, or at least of expressing it to each other any longer.
Chapter 3
Now
After weeks of searching, Jared finally catches up with the Impala. Anchored in a cove embedded in the Haitian coast, the ship looks every inch the legend it’s described as in stories, floating serenely on the waves like a promise, worn sails fluttering blackly in the evening breeze from the ocean. Jared falls helplessly in love for the second time in his life.
He gazes at the ship until the sun starts to set, and then leaves his perch on the cliff to keep his rendezvous at a tavern in town.
The Crow’s Nest is noisy and crowded that night, with people dancing everywhere, some even on tables, and calling for pints of ale and rum amid raucous laughter and passionate, drunken arguments. Jared is bare-headed, his hair tied back neatly with a ribbon but in clothes that could belong to any workman. He hopes nothing about him screams ‘Navy’.
He’s just shouldered his way into a spot by the bar when a familiar voice speaks from behind him.
‘Well, look who grew up all tall and strong.’
‘Genevieve!’
Jared’s only half-turned before she catches him in a huge hug. Laughing, he swings her around before setting her down.
‘I’m serious. You’re a fucking giant,’ she says, smiling so hard her cheeks must be aching. Jared’s no better.
‘You look wonderful,’ he says, meaning it. She’s wearing trousers not unlike his own, with a rough sailor’s shirt tied off at the waist.
‘Best thing about running away was never having to wear a corset again,’ she says.
Jared grins back at her. ‘The place looks wonderful, too. How’s Aldis?’
‘Oh, he’ll be along. Still claims he misses being a pirate, but I think he’s more of a landlubber than he’ll ever admit to.’
‘I’m glad you’re both safe. And happy, by the looks of it.’
‘We are.’ Genevieve squeezes his arm. ‘Come, you look famished.’
In a small private parlor above the bar, they catch up over ale and freshly-baked, crusty bread and a hot, thick, savory stew that Jared relishes every bite of.
‘Did you make this?’ he asks through a mouthful.
She laughs. ‘Al’s the cook. I burn water.’
‘Too bad. I guess I’ll have to ask him to marry me instead.’
‘Too bad I’m already taken,’ Aldis’s deep voice says from the doorway.
Jared turns around, a smile on his lips, and freezes. His spoon drops into his bowl with a splatter.
‘Hello, Jared,’ Jensen says formally, his face and voice expressionless.
He remains at the door as Aldis comes over to hug Jared warmly. ‘Good to see you, my friend.’
‘You too,’ Jared says, grasping for words.
Genevieve stands up, squeezing his shoulder. ‘We’ll be in the bar,’ she says, taking Aldis by the hand. The door closes behind them with a quiet click.
‘Cat got your tongue?’ Jensen asks. It’s soft but almost cruel, no hint of the teasing warmth in his tone that Jared remembers from so long ago.
He looks… fantastic. Skin browned from days in the sun, gold highlights in his short hair. His shoulders are even broader than Jared remembers, his thin linen shirt stretched taut over them, with dark breeches and boots encasing his long legs. A broad sword-belt and a long, dark brown coat slung carelessly over his arm complete the ensemble. The laugh-lines around his eyes are more pronounced, but he’s not laughing now.
Raising his eyebrows at Jared’s continued silence, he picks up a handful of chocolate-coated raisins from the bowl on the table and sprawls comfortably in an armchair, popping a raisin into his mouth. ‘You wanted to see me.’ It’s not a question.
‘Uh. Yeah.’ Jared sits down again, his knees feeling like water.
‘So? I’m here.’ Jensen spreads his arms, as though Jared could possibly miss his presence in the room. ‘Talk.’
Jared has to look away, blinking rapidly to keep his eyes from stinging.
‘What do you want, Jared?’ Jensen’s voice is hard, completely unfamiliar. ‘One last fuck, for old times’ sake?’ He slaps a hand against the broad oak table next to him, the sound cracking in the quiet room like a gunshot. ‘Want to bend over this for me? Looks sturdy enough.’
‘Don’t be crass,’ Jared says, soft. He hadn’t thought anything could be worse than the pain of Jensen’s leaving. He’d been wrong.
‘And why shouldn’t I be? I am a pirate, after all. We’re not known to be polite.’
‘You were like me, once.’
‘We all make mistakes,’ Jensen says with a shrug, carelessly elegant.
Jared gets to his feet. ‘This was a mistake. I should go.’
Jensen is out of his chair and next to Jared in one fluid movement, his fingers snaking around Jared’s wrist. ‘Not so fast, Navy boy.’
Jared closes his eyes, despairing. Jensen is much too close, and he smells like the sea. His hand is a vise around Jared’s wrist, his rough, callused fingertips sending shock waves of sense memory through Jared’s body.
‘If you really want to go,’ Jensen says, soft, ‘I won’t stop you.’ He loosens his grip a little, rubbing his thumb over the soft, bare skin at Jared’s pulse point. His other hand comes up to touch Jared’s jaw. ‘Look at me.’
Jared opens his eyes, helpless against Jensen’s command. ‘You… you aren’t you anymore.’
‘Believe me,’ Jensen says, ‘I’m more myself than I ever was.’ His fingertips move along Jared’s jawline to his mouth, lightly tracing his lower lip. ‘Except maybe when I was with you. You remember, kid? You remember all those times, all those nights, being with me? Belonging with me?’
‘You belonged with me, too,’ Jared says. His vision is blurring now, and he wants nothing more than to escape from this version of Jensen before he does something unthinkably humiliating like give in to his grief in front of him.
‘So I did.’ Abruptly, Jensen drops his hand and moves away. ‘I need a fucking drink,’ he mutters.
Jared hears him move to the sideboard and pour out some rum. He wipes his eyes quickly, before Jensen can turn around.
‘Sit down, Jared.’ Jensen pushes a glass into his hand.
Jared takes a sip of rum, taking strength from the burn of the alcohol. ‘When did you become so cruel?’ he asks, finally, after several moments of silence.
‘What?’ Jensen seems genuinely startled. ‘Oh, you mean-’ He glances at the table, and then moves his gaze quickly back to Jared. ‘I was-I suppose I should apologize for that. It’s just… it’s always been so easy to pull your leg.’
‘Didn’t sound like you were joking.’
Jensen scrubs a face across his face. ‘Give me a break, kid. You show up out of nowhere, after six fucking years, what was I supposed to think?’
‘You were supposed to know me better than that. You were supposed to… to…’
‘To what?’ Jensen’s voice is curiously gentle.
‘You know what,’ Jared says thickly, his damned tears clogging his voice. He takes another sip of rum.
‘To never leave you?’ Jensen says, still in that strangely tender tone.
‘Don’t-don’t mock me, Jensen. Don’t you-’
‘I’m not, kid.’
‘Don’t call me that. You don’t get to call me that.’
‘Then what should I call you? Sweetheart?’ Jensen’s tone doesn’t change. ‘You always liked that, even when you told me you hated it. Or is it ‘Captain’ now? I hear a promotion is in order.’
‘I haven’t been promoted yet.’
‘But you will. When you return to your duties.’
‘If I return.’ A thought strikes him suddenly. ‘Wait, you knew? About my promotion?’
‘Of course I knew.’ Jensen drains his glass in one long swallow and sets it on the floor beside him. ‘If you so much as caught a cold, I knew.’
‘Why-why didn’t you ever contact me?’
‘You were where you wanted to be, Jared. You made that clear.’
‘I never wanted-‘
‘To be without me? I know. But you also wanted to stay within the law. You didn’t want to be with me badly enough to break your precious rules.’
‘They were never my rules. And I wanted to stay because-because I thought I could make a difference.’
‘Make the world a better place by staying within a corrupt and unethical system?’
‘Make the world a better place by changing the system,’ Jared shoots back.
Jensen smiles. ‘There’s my boy.’
‘What?’ Jared says blankly, his thoughts wildly scattered, moving too quickly for him to get a grasp on them.
‘The way you looked,’ Jensen says, getting to his feet, ‘when I walked in.’ He kneels in front of Jared’s chair, reaching up to cup Jared’s face in his hands. ‘Like you were broken, like you’d been smashed to pieces. I couldn’t bear that, couldn’t bear the thought that I’d done that to you.’
Jared leans in to press their foreheads together. ‘And so you thought the best thing to do was make it worse, somehow?’ he says shakily.
‘You know how I get when I’m scared,’ Jensen murmurs. He brushes his lips lightly over Jared’s, and Jared feels a tremor run though his body. ‘You know me so well. You always did.’ He reaches up to tug the ribbon from Jared’s hair, making it spill around his shoulders. ‘Look at you, my kid.’ His hands tangle in Jared’s hair. ‘My beautiful kid.’
After that, the only conceivable thing for Jared to do is throw himself into Jensen’s arms. They land on the floor in a fierce tangle of limbs, mouths desperately seeking each other’s, hands frantically trying to touch each other everywhere all at once.
‘Bastard,’ Jared says between biting kisses. ‘You complete-and utter-bastard.’
‘I’ve been called worse,’ Jensen says, grinning. ‘But never by anyone quite as enchanting as you.’ He pulls Jared’s head down for another kiss, slower this time, changing the pace but somehow increasing the intensity until it’s almost unbearably tender. ‘Missed you,’ he murmurs. ‘Missed you something fierce, kid.’
Overwhelmed, shivering almost uncontrollably, Jared buries his face into the soft skin of Jensen’s neck as Jensen’s hands map him all over, tracing the curve of his shoulders, running along the line of his back. ‘If,’ Jensen says.
‘What?’
‘You said if. If you return.’
Jared lifts his head. ‘I did.’
Jensen reaches up to stroke his hair out of his eyes. ‘Wait.’ He shifts under Jared. ‘Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?’
Jared lets out a laugh. ‘Not that I’m not very happy to see you, but it’s not what you think.’ He reaches into his pocket.
‘You kept it.’
Jared puts the shell against Jensen’s ear. ‘What do you hear?’
Jensen cups his hand over Jared’s. ‘You want to offer me a privateer’s commission.’
‘Don’t suppose you’ll take it.’
‘Not in a million years, kid.’
‘At least say you’ll think about it.’
‘No.’ Jensen smiles, the same smile he’d given Jared when he’d first asked for a kiss. ‘How badly do you want that promotion?’
‘Not very badly at all.’ Jared smiles.
‘Such a good answer,’ Jensen says, pulling his head down again, and no more words are spoken for a very long time.
~end
A/N: The last few lines are adapted from Gilmore Girls as a little tribute to Lorelai/Max. :-)
Art Prompt: R1004
Artist: dizzojay
Fic Title: Beyond the Shore
Characters/Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: PG-13
Word count: ~4200
Summary: Age of Sail AU. Six years after Jensen left the Navy-and Jared-to become a pirate, Jared seeks him out.
Contains: References to period-typical homophobia.
Beta: marciaelena. Thank you so much. ♥
A/N: Title from Bobby Darin’s ‘Beyond the Sea’. Thank you, with all my heart, to my wonderful artist dizzojay for the incredible art, and for coming up with such a lovely Age of Sail prompt. ♥
(AO3)
Chapter 1
Then
‘Come with me,’ Jensen says.
They’re standing on a moonlit shore, waves lapping at their booted feet.
‘You can’t mean to do this.’ Jared’s gaze scrapes over Jensen’s face, and he knows he’s trying to commit his Captain’s features to memory, terrified that he’ll never see him again.
‘Denial was always your greatest strength.’ Jensen drops his hand, his face expressionless.
Jared takes a step back, the harsh words hitting him like a blow, all the harder because they’re true.
Jensen turns away. ‘I won’t live like this, Jared. Not even for you.’
Jared stands at the water’s edge for a long time, long after Jensen’s sloop-stolen from His Majesty’s Royal Navy-has disappeared far beyond the horizon.
Now
‘Ackles? The deserter?’ Admiral Cortese’s aristocratic features twist into a hateful snarl. ‘I would see him hanged and strung up on Dead Man’s Cay, not offered a commission with the government.’
‘With all due respect, Admiral,’ Captain Collins says, throwing Jared a quick glance. ‘He may be the only hope we have left.’
‘Hope? The man is a vile creature. A sodomite and a thief. We would do better to lose honourably in battle than ally with the likes of pirates.’ The Admiral takes a fortifying sip of port before continuing. ‘Give me one good reason to entertain this foolish request.’
Jared speaks for the first time during the meeting. ‘He knows these waters well, and then some. The connections he has could prove invaluable in our mission to rid these waters of piracy once and for all.’
The words sound hollow to him.
Hollow. It’s how he’s always thought of the sounds he hears from the conch shell he carries around with him.
Jensen picks up a shell that’s been washed up on the beach. He turns it over in his hand, holds it so the remaining water inside the conch drips steadily out into the sea, leaving its insides hollow.
‘Listen.’ He holds the shell to Jared’s ear.
‘I hear nothing,’ Jared says. Jensen raises his eyebrows in a silent question. ‘Nothing but roaring. Nothing but the echo of something unreal.’ He pushes Jensen’s hand away. ‘Nothing for someone like me.’
‘Nothing for a coward, you mean. Nothing for someone who would rather live a life regimented by rules and laws of someone else’s making. Rules that don’t even make rational sense.’
‘I’m not the one who’s running away.’
‘Running away?’ Jensen stares out across the ocean. ‘Call it that if you like. I may be running from rules that I don’t agree with. But I’m also running toward a place I can call my own. A place where no one can own me. Where I make the rules.’
He lets the shell drop from his hand. It sinks slowly into the wet sand, driven by the waves. ‘I thought I knew who you were, Jared. I was wrong.’
It’s their second last conversation, the night before Jensen leaves Jared’s world and goes to make his own.
I would see him hanged and strung up on Dead Man’s Cay.
The Admiral’s words come back to haunt Jared as he sits in his office. The heat is stifling, his bound hair damp with sweat under his starchy wig.
(In the days before his leaving, Jensen had often joked that being forced to wear an officer’s wig was reason enough to quit the Royal Navy.)
It’s an image from his nightmares: Jensen, arrested for piracy-worse than common piracy, because he had once been an officer of the law-and hanged, his body strung up on the islet known as Dead Man’s Cay, where the corpses of pirates hang in a grisly warning to those breaking the law.
Jensen has made a name for himself over the last six years. His ship, the Impala, is the stuff of legends: all black, with black sails, more myth than fact, if the stories are to be believed.
(It’s only in the darkness of night, when he lies staring sleeplessly at the ceiling, that Jared admits to himself that the sight of those black sails is the one he yearns most to see.)
‘He won’t relent,’ Captain Collins says in disgust, bursting in and breaking into Jared’s thoughts. He flings his hat across the room and throws himself into a chair.
‘The Admiral?’
‘Can’t see past the end of his fancy powdered nose.’
‘He has a point,’ Jared says. ‘Consorting with the likes of notorious pirates can’t be good for the Navy.’
Collins stares at him. ‘Notorious pirates? Have you forgotten this is Jensen we’re talking about? The same Jensen you were inseparable from for years?’
‘I haven’t forgotten.’ Jared gets up and picks up his hat, setting it firmly on his head. ‘Maybe you’re the one who’s forgotten something.’
‘And what might that be?’ Collins looks at him with narrowed eyes.
‘People change.’
He packs his bag in the middle of the night, interrupted only by Collins bursting in, as is his habit, without knocking.
‘Hah. I knew it,’ Collins says.
‘Shut the door,’ Jared mutters irritably. ‘Someone might see you.’
‘See us, you mean.’
‘You’re not coming, Collins.’
‘Like hell I’m not.’
‘Look.’ Jared sits down at the edge of his bed. ‘I don’t know if Jensen will even agree to see me. And that’s even if I can find him.’
‘He does seem to enjoy being mysterious. I heard a tale at the tavern the other day about-’
‘I don’t want to hear it. He’s not a legend or a myth, no matter what stories are told about him. He’s very much human, and he’ll be killed if he’s caught.’
‘And you think you’re going to-what? Warn him away?’
‘Talk him into taking a privateer’s commission, if he’ll listen.’
‘And if he doesn’t?’
‘I don’t know.’ Jared looks down at his hands. ‘I haven’t thought that far. But you should know something. If he doesn’t agree, then I…’
‘Then you’re not coming back,’ Collins says shrewdly. ‘You sure you know what you’re doing, laddie?’
‘I’ll take things as they come.’ Jared hitches his bag over his shoulder. ‘Well, Captain Collins. It was a pleasure working with you.’
Chapter 2
Then
Jared is sent to join the Royal Navy three weeks before his fourteenth birthday.
His first station is on board the HMS Endeavour, a hundred-gun warship. Amid the stench of gunpowder and blood, and the chaos of near-constant battle, his only refuge is in the steady, calm presence of his commanding officer: Jensen, already a Lieutenant at eighteen, having been in the Navy since he was twelve.
‘Twelve,’ Jared says in awe when he finds out.
Jensen smiles. ‘It wasn’t so bad. Loads better, really, than the life I lived at the orphanage. Couldn’t wait to leave.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Jared says. It sounds hollow, but Jensen seems to thinks it’s genuine.
‘It’s all right,’ he says. He gestures to the bottle of watered-down rum in Jared’s hand. ‘I just hope you get to be a boy a little longer than I did.’
‘I’m not a boy anymore,’ Jared says. He’s fifteen and drinking undiluted rum now. He even shot a man through the leg in battle the other day.
He’s not a child, but Jensen sometimes insists on treating him like one.
‘Let me kiss you,’ Jared says. He knows he’s begging, and he’ll never take the same tone with anyone else. It’s only ever for Jensen.
They’re in the brig, the only place which is free of sailors. There are currently no prisoners in the cells, and Jared doesn’t miss the irony that a place of imprisonment is the only one where he’s free to say the things he wants to say to Jensen.
‘No,’ Jensen says, but he’s smiling. At over six feet, he towers above Jared. He’s the only person beside whom Jared doesn’t mind feeling small, but this is one of those times he can’t wait to be fully grown.
He reaches up to frame Jensen’s face in his too-small hands. ‘Please.’ Jensen’s hair, unlike that of most of the officers, who wear theirs long and bound in strict queues, is cropped short. Jared brushes his fingers through the soft, dark blond spikes. ‘Please.’
Jensen bends his head to press his lips to Jared’s forehead. ‘Not yet, kid.’
‘I’m not a kid.’ Jared pulls away.
Jensen smiles again. ‘You’ll always be a kid to me,’ he says, fond.
When Jared is sixteen, Jensen is shot by pirates.
It should have been a routine job, just taking out a bunch of rum smugglers, but it almost cost Jensen his life.
‘It’s all right,’ Jensen says when Jared sneaks into the hospital at night to see him. ‘I’m all right. I promise.’
‘You don’t get to die. You don’t get to leave me.’
‘Come here,’ Jensen says, wiping the tears off Jared’s face.
Jared squeezes into the narrow bed against Jensen’s uninjured side. ‘You were unconscious for five days,’ he says into Jensen’s shoulder, his voice muffled.
‘I won’t leave you,’ Jensen says, his face buried in Jared’s hair. ‘I won’t ever leave you.’
The first time Jared learns about Jensen’s misgivings with the Navy is when he’s eighteen. They’ve earned a rare bit of shore leave and are spending it in Marseille, Jared dazzled by the art, the history, the wine that comes in so many varieties that it’s impossible to count them all.
Jensen indulges Jared’s love for museums, and it’s when they’ve just left a particularly enthralling one in which Jared had spent close to an hour poring over old coins and manuscripts that Jared speaks up.
‘You’ve been a little quiet,’ he says as they share tea and sponge cakes at a small seaside inn.
Jensen shrugs. ‘I enjoyed watching you look at everything.’
Jared nudges Jensen’s knee under the table. ‘Tell me.’
Jensen spoons some honey into his tea before he replies. ‘It’s just… so much of this seems fake to me.’
‘Fake? How?’
‘Most of the artefacts we saw today… they were stolen from people in other countries. People our government is colonizing. People we’ve enslaved, whose rights we’ve taken away.’
‘I never thought of it like that.’
Jensen looks out of the window to the sea. ’It’ll get worse before it gets better.’
They take a single room at the inn that night, a common enough practice for sailors who want to save money by sharing rooms. Jared lies awake long after Jensen has fallen asleep, mulling over Jensen’s words in his mind. He’s known for years that meeting Jensen has changed his life in ways he could never have imagined, but that night, lying safe and warm in Jensen’s arms, he also realizes for the first time that he’s learned more from Jensen than he could have from any teacher in a school.
It’s when the East India Trading Company is given unequivocal control over the naval base where they’re stationed that Jensen decides to leave.
‘They call themselves a fucking trading company,’ he says, his voice shaking with fury, his fists clenched. ‘The only thing they trade in is violence and thievery and murder, all in the guise of commerce. I’d rather be a pirate than be controlled by this kind of filth.’
‘You don’t mean that.’ Jared puts his hand over Jensen’s, trying to soothe him. They’re safely hidden in Jensen’s private quarters, a perquisite of being an officer. Seeing the world through Jensen’s eyes, Jared knows well enough that men who have anything beyond friendship with other men can be punished by death.
‘Don’t I?’ Jensen runs his hand absently through Jared’s hair, his mind far away.
‘Pirates are… surely they’re worse than the government?’
‘Worse?’ Jensen laughs humorlessly. ‘There’s no more honor in being in the Navy than in being a pirate. At best, there’s more honesty in admitting that you’re a scoundrel and a thief. Far more than the precious Navy will ever admit to being.’ He looks up. ‘You remember Aldis?’
Jared nods. Aldis, stolen from his home and forced to be a slave, had been sentenced to death for being found in an embrace with the Admiral’s daughter. Jared has long suspected that Jensen had a part to play in Aldis’s escape the night before his scheduled execution. The Admiral’s daughter, Genevieve, had vanished too; while most believed she’d been sent back home to Virginia, a hushed rumor also circulated about her having run away, fed up of her father’s regimented and outdated ways.
‘I met him the other day.’
‘You did? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I wouldn’t have you caught in the company of a wanted man, Jay.’ He holds up his hand to silence Jared’s protests. ‘I knew what I was doing. I was prepared to take the risk.’
‘I’m guessing he’s a pirate now,’ Jared says, filled with dread at the thought. If Aldis is caught, he’ll be killed without a trial. It’s the common law now for those caught in acts of piracy.
‘Can you blame him?’ Jensen says. The words are soft, pain-filled.
‘No,’ Jared says, resolute. ‘Not even a little.’ He climbs into Jensen’s lap, straddling his thighs.
Jensen sighs into their kiss, fingers slipping into Jared’s hair and entangling in the long strands.
He manages to pretend, for the next few weeks, that he doesn’t know about Jensen’s decision.
The fear and the anger emerge only in the last few days, in arguments that last long into the night, every night, leaving them exhausted. Leaving them incapable of love, or at least of expressing it to each other any longer.
Chapter 3
Now
After weeks of searching, Jared finally catches up with the Impala. Anchored in a cove embedded in the Haitian coast, the ship looks every inch the legend it’s described as in stories, floating serenely on the waves like a promise, worn sails fluttering blackly in the evening breeze from the ocean. Jared falls helplessly in love for the second time in his life.
He gazes at the ship until the sun starts to set, and then leaves his perch on the cliff to keep his rendezvous at a tavern in town.
The Crow’s Nest is noisy and crowded that night, with people dancing everywhere, some even on tables, and calling for pints of ale and rum amid raucous laughter and passionate, drunken arguments. Jared is bare-headed, his hair tied back neatly with a ribbon but in clothes that could belong to any workman. He hopes nothing about him screams ‘Navy’.
He’s just shouldered his way into a spot by the bar when a familiar voice speaks from behind him.
‘Well, look who grew up all tall and strong.’
‘Genevieve!’
Jared’s only half-turned before she catches him in a huge hug. Laughing, he swings her around before setting her down.
‘I’m serious. You’re a fucking giant,’ she says, smiling so hard her cheeks must be aching. Jared’s no better.
‘You look wonderful,’ he says, meaning it. She’s wearing trousers not unlike his own, with a rough sailor’s shirt tied off at the waist.
‘Best thing about running away was never having to wear a corset again,’ she says.
Jared grins back at her. ‘The place looks wonderful, too. How’s Aldis?’
‘Oh, he’ll be along. Still claims he misses being a pirate, but I think he’s more of a landlubber than he’ll ever admit to.’
‘I’m glad you’re both safe. And happy, by the looks of it.’
‘We are.’ Genevieve squeezes his arm. ‘Come, you look famished.’
In a small private parlor above the bar, they catch up over ale and freshly-baked, crusty bread and a hot, thick, savory stew that Jared relishes every bite of.
‘Did you make this?’ he asks through a mouthful.
She laughs. ‘Al’s the cook. I burn water.’
‘Too bad. I guess I’ll have to ask him to marry me instead.’
‘Too bad I’m already taken,’ Aldis’s deep voice says from the doorway.
Jared turns around, a smile on his lips, and freezes. His spoon drops into his bowl with a splatter.
‘Hello, Jared,’ Jensen says formally, his face and voice expressionless.
He remains at the door as Aldis comes over to hug Jared warmly. ‘Good to see you, my friend.’
‘You too,’ Jared says, grasping for words.
Genevieve stands up, squeezing his shoulder. ‘We’ll be in the bar,’ she says, taking Aldis by the hand. The door closes behind them with a quiet click.
‘Cat got your tongue?’ Jensen asks. It’s soft but almost cruel, no hint of the teasing warmth in his tone that Jared remembers from so long ago.
He looks… fantastic. Skin browned from days in the sun, gold highlights in his short hair. His shoulders are even broader than Jared remembers, his thin linen shirt stretched taut over them, with dark breeches and boots encasing his long legs. A broad sword-belt and a long, dark brown coat slung carelessly over his arm complete the ensemble. The laugh-lines around his eyes are more pronounced, but he’s not laughing now.
Raising his eyebrows at Jared’s continued silence, he picks up a handful of chocolate-coated raisins from the bowl on the table and sprawls comfortably in an armchair, popping a raisin into his mouth. ‘You wanted to see me.’ It’s not a question.
‘Uh. Yeah.’ Jared sits down again, his knees feeling like water.
‘So? I’m here.’ Jensen spreads his arms, as though Jared could possibly miss his presence in the room. ‘Talk.’
Jared has to look away, blinking rapidly to keep his eyes from stinging.
‘What do you want, Jared?’ Jensen’s voice is hard, completely unfamiliar. ‘One last fuck, for old times’ sake?’ He slaps a hand against the broad oak table next to him, the sound cracking in the quiet room like a gunshot. ‘Want to bend over this for me? Looks sturdy enough.’
‘Don’t be crass,’ Jared says, soft. He hadn’t thought anything could be worse than the pain of Jensen’s leaving. He’d been wrong.
‘And why shouldn’t I be? I am a pirate, after all. We’re not known to be polite.’
‘You were like me, once.’
‘We all make mistakes,’ Jensen says with a shrug, carelessly elegant.
Jared gets to his feet. ‘This was a mistake. I should go.’
Jensen is out of his chair and next to Jared in one fluid movement, his fingers snaking around Jared’s wrist. ‘Not so fast, Navy boy.’
Jared closes his eyes, despairing. Jensen is much too close, and he smells like the sea. His hand is a vise around Jared’s wrist, his rough, callused fingertips sending shock waves of sense memory through Jared’s body.
‘If you really want to go,’ Jensen says, soft, ‘I won’t stop you.’ He loosens his grip a little, rubbing his thumb over the soft, bare skin at Jared’s pulse point. His other hand comes up to touch Jared’s jaw. ‘Look at me.’
Jared opens his eyes, helpless against Jensen’s command. ‘You… you aren’t you anymore.’
‘Believe me,’ Jensen says, ‘I’m more myself than I ever was.’ His fingertips move along Jared’s jawline to his mouth, lightly tracing his lower lip. ‘Except maybe when I was with you. You remember, kid? You remember all those times, all those nights, being with me? Belonging with me?’
‘You belonged with me, too,’ Jared says. His vision is blurring now, and he wants nothing more than to escape from this version of Jensen before he does something unthinkably humiliating like give in to his grief in front of him.
‘So I did.’ Abruptly, Jensen drops his hand and moves away. ‘I need a fucking drink,’ he mutters.
Jared hears him move to the sideboard and pour out some rum. He wipes his eyes quickly, before Jensen can turn around.
‘Sit down, Jared.’ Jensen pushes a glass into his hand.
Jared takes a sip of rum, taking strength from the burn of the alcohol. ‘When did you become so cruel?’ he asks, finally, after several moments of silence.
‘What?’ Jensen seems genuinely startled. ‘Oh, you mean-’ He glances at the table, and then moves his gaze quickly back to Jared. ‘I was-I suppose I should apologize for that. It’s just… it’s always been so easy to pull your leg.’
‘Didn’t sound like you were joking.’
Jensen scrubs a face across his face. ‘Give me a break, kid. You show up out of nowhere, after six fucking years, what was I supposed to think?’
‘You were supposed to know me better than that. You were supposed to… to…’
‘To what?’ Jensen’s voice is curiously gentle.
‘You know what,’ Jared says thickly, his damned tears clogging his voice. He takes another sip of rum.
‘To never leave you?’ Jensen says, still in that strangely tender tone.
‘Don’t-don’t mock me, Jensen. Don’t you-’
‘I’m not, kid.’
‘Don’t call me that. You don’t get to call me that.’
‘Then what should I call you? Sweetheart?’ Jensen’s tone doesn’t change. ‘You always liked that, even when you told me you hated it. Or is it ‘Captain’ now? I hear a promotion is in order.’
‘I haven’t been promoted yet.’
‘But you will. When you return to your duties.’
‘If I return.’ A thought strikes him suddenly. ‘Wait, you knew? About my promotion?’
‘Of course I knew.’ Jensen drains his glass in one long swallow and sets it on the floor beside him. ‘If you so much as caught a cold, I knew.’
‘Why-why didn’t you ever contact me?’
‘You were where you wanted to be, Jared. You made that clear.’
‘I never wanted-‘
‘To be without me? I know. But you also wanted to stay within the law. You didn’t want to be with me badly enough to break your precious rules.’
‘They were never my rules. And I wanted to stay because-because I thought I could make a difference.’
‘Make the world a better place by staying within a corrupt and unethical system?’
‘Make the world a better place by changing the system,’ Jared shoots back.
Jensen smiles. ‘There’s my boy.’
‘What?’ Jared says blankly, his thoughts wildly scattered, moving too quickly for him to get a grasp on them.
‘The way you looked,’ Jensen says, getting to his feet, ‘when I walked in.’ He kneels in front of Jared’s chair, reaching up to cup Jared’s face in his hands. ‘Like you were broken, like you’d been smashed to pieces. I couldn’t bear that, couldn’t bear the thought that I’d done that to you.’
Jared leans in to press their foreheads together. ‘And so you thought the best thing to do was make it worse, somehow?’ he says shakily.
‘You know how I get when I’m scared,’ Jensen murmurs. He brushes his lips lightly over Jared’s, and Jared feels a tremor run though his body. ‘You know me so well. You always did.’ He reaches up to tug the ribbon from Jared’s hair, making it spill around his shoulders. ‘Look at you, my kid.’ His hands tangle in Jared’s hair. ‘My beautiful kid.’
After that, the only conceivable thing for Jared to do is throw himself into Jensen’s arms. They land on the floor in a fierce tangle of limbs, mouths desperately seeking each other’s, hands frantically trying to touch each other everywhere all at once.
‘Bastard,’ Jared says between biting kisses. ‘You complete-and utter-bastard.’
‘I’ve been called worse,’ Jensen says, grinning. ‘But never by anyone quite as enchanting as you.’ He pulls Jared’s head down for another kiss, slower this time, changing the pace but somehow increasing the intensity until it’s almost unbearably tender. ‘Missed you,’ he murmurs. ‘Missed you something fierce, kid.’
Overwhelmed, shivering almost uncontrollably, Jared buries his face into the soft skin of Jensen’s neck as Jensen’s hands map him all over, tracing the curve of his shoulders, running along the line of his back. ‘If,’ Jensen says.
‘What?’
‘You said if. If you return.’
Jared lifts his head. ‘I did.’
Jensen reaches up to stroke his hair out of his eyes. ‘Wait.’ He shifts under Jared. ‘Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?’
Jared lets out a laugh. ‘Not that I’m not very happy to see you, but it’s not what you think.’ He reaches into his pocket.
‘You kept it.’
Jared puts the shell against Jensen’s ear. ‘What do you hear?’
Jensen cups his hand over Jared’s. ‘You want to offer me a privateer’s commission.’
‘Don’t suppose you’ll take it.’
‘Not in a million years, kid.’
‘At least say you’ll think about it.’
‘No.’ Jensen smiles, the same smile he’d given Jared when he’d first asked for a kiss. ‘How badly do you want that promotion?’
‘Not very badly at all.’ Jared smiles.
‘Such a good answer,’ Jensen says, pulling his head down again, and no more words are spoken for a very long time.
~end
A/N: The last few lines are adapted from Gilmore Girls as a little tribute to Lorelai/Max. :-)