Chapter 19
Chapter nineteen
Killian
“Because you killed his parents, he got your hand, so you could feel what it was to lose something you love and need,” James answers me, mumbling, maybe he is finally seeing the truth.
The pan flute music’s effect should be wearing down now.
One of the things I was hoping to accomplish, after realizing Peter was never coming for him.
To keep James here long enough so he would see the truth.
I should get some satisfaction from it, but my entire focus is on the words: “so you could feel what it was to lose something, you love and need,”
It feels like the Obsidian Oath is floating through the portal again, a tunnel of rushing water around us drowning out all the sounds.
The only bit of light coming from something at the end of it.
He told James, I didn’t know what it was like to lose something, someone I loved before he took my left hand.
“Tinkerbell?”
“Tinkerbell,” James repeats my question, unsure of what I am asking him.
“Who is she,” I snarl, looking him dead in the eyes, my hook in his Panatoean silk shirt, making sure he is on eye level with me.
“I don’t know, you know her, that is why she was here right?”
He is scared, his pupils are so wide there is hardly any gold left in his eyes, his trembling hands leave wet stains on white sleeves as he claws at me to let him go. He is trembling so bad, I feel he is one step away from soiling himself.
“Who is she to you, I swear to god, if you don’t tell me now, I will throw you back in to the Silvermist Ocean, and this time I won’t haul your pretty ass out,” I say through gritted teeth, still trying to control myself, ready to kill him. But it’s not him I want to kill, it is his lover.
“Just a brownie, I… we have a ton of brownies back at Silvermist Castle. Peter told me she was obsessed with him, so he punishes her, locks her in a jar,” he hesitates.
Eyes flying up to me, wide dark eyes, the color of his eyes almost disappeared beneath his widening pupil.
“I pity her, she is kind of nice, she hangs around me a lot. I thought she ratted me out, that is why I got mad the other day.”
“She wasn’t born as Tinkerbell, no brownie is ever born, Peter creates them. Do you know how, darling?” Of course, he doesn’t know, that’s clear from his answers. But words just hit different if they leave your own lips. Especially when your plump, peach lips tremble to get the words out.
“How?” Voice breaking on just that single word, the question that served as answer.
“He puts a spell on humans, fae, fauns he doesn’t need anymore. Including my sister Celeste, his ex,” I say, trying to read all the emotions flickering across his face.
“Your, sister, oh… Matthew and Barry, I would…” He spoke about his brothers before, he must be talking about them now. Imagine what he would feel, if he was in my position.
“Ex, what… Peter is gay, he told me. Tin- Celeste, she is a, well… a she,” he stammers. I rub my chest, there is this warm pang, as James corrects himself, using Celeste’s real name.
“Darling, Peter lies, have you not figured it out yet, he told Celeste she was his fated mate. Played the pan flute for her every night, all her worries about the Lost Ones would disappear,” I say my eyes flying to the chest on my desk, where all her letters still are, locked away.
“She would stop missing home, missing the sun, the flowers, the ocean, all because of the mate bond, she just remembered that precious bond better when he played his pan flute.”
I can see the words sink in, like watching a rock sinking down in the ocean.
His shoulders slump towards his knees, like they have suddenly grown heavier.
The fire in his eyes, the sparkle he always had, suddenly dull.
“No, you’re lying, no you, no I, that’s just not true,” he whispers, and I am unsure he wants me to hear the words.
His movements are slow, sluggish, as if he is not walking out of my quarters but as if he is dragging through the Never swamps.
I broke him, I should be happy about that, but the fact, he seemed to recoil learning Peter is bisexual made my chest feel unbearably tight.
Imaging him judging me even more, hurts more than it should.
My legs have turned into led, my quarters are slowly getting dark.
But I am still unable to stand up and pull my eyes from the door through which James just left.
“Killian, what is going on?” Somehow Seviin appeared in the door opening. I blink, against the sight of my boatswain, and friend in the door opening, I didn’t even hear the door opening. My eyes prick, like it’s been a while since I last blinked.
“Everything,” I sigh, my head, feels warm as it falls on my crossed arms. “It’s never everything, it just feels like it. What did the brat do,” she asks as she sits down in true Seviin fashion. Not asking for permission feet propped up at my desk.
A ball forms in my throat, and no matter how often I swallow, I can’t get it to go away.
“He barged in, asking me the truth about Peter, of course it didn’t go well.
I unleashed everything. Didn’t give him the time to catch up before hitting him with a new truth.
You know what he seemed to find the most shocking, the fact that Peter is, bi. ”
Seviin arches a perfectly curved dark eyebrow. “And that’s relevant, why?” I have no answer for her. Not because I don’t know the answer because I do, I am just not ready, to acknowledge them. Not to my crew and friends, not to myself.
“I don’t know Sev, it’s just, I have no fucking idea what we are going to do anymore. Even James seems to realize that Peter is not coming for him. That’s why he came to me for answers. What if after this, he still believes in Peter’s love, what are we going to do then? If we let him go…”
“Listen, I don’t like the arrogant, food stealing, cunning brat that made me go hungry.
Hells, I am not even sure why I saved his life the other day.
But he at least he seems intelligent enough to see through Peter’s bullshit in the end,” Seviin tells me.
She is right, the fact that he came to me demanding answers, it says something.
As much as I hate to admit it, it took Celeste longer than him to see cracks in the armor.
It still doesn’t offer me an answer on what to do with the passionate, intelligent, witty brat who I am supposed to hate.
“Come on, you skipped dinner, you know how I feel about that.” The mother hen strikes again. I get up ready to go to the mess and eat something. Not because I want to eat, but because I don’t want to deal with an angry Seviin.
Of course, she walks me to the mess, making sure I am actually getting some food in me.
The rich buttery taste of cheesy mashed potatoes, and the crisp but savory taste of haddock reminds me of how little I have eaten today.
Even during the lunch with James, I hardly ate, too busy shattering his world.
“Has James eaten,” I ask over the painful rumbling of my stomach.
“No, he didn’t want to come out of his room,” Seviin admits.
“I see.” I need to drag the words out of my suddenly narrow throat.
The fish pie loses all of its taste, as I painfully swallow it down bite by bite.
My body feels too heavy, I get a bit out of breath, with every painful swallow.
Like I am suffering from a cold and the flu at the same time.
The second my plate is empty, I get up and rush back to my chambers, I am the one on night watch tonight.
But the idea of being surrounded by other people, even my own, my crew, makes my skin crawl like a thousand bugs are moving underneath it.
It’s nothing, I am just not the type of person who breaks people like I just did to James. It’s guilt and pity nothing more.
Four hours later, I make my way outside, it’s time for me to start my watch, even with the chances of being found, with the spell I cast over the Obsidian Oath, being small, the ocean still holds dangers.
At least everyone but Pax’, who I am about to relieve from his shift is asleep, a few more hours of quiet, time to get to terms with all the mess going on in my head.
Tomorrow I will need to act like nothing bothers me.
Today I excused myself with being tired, but I can’t keep that excuse up.
“Sea’s calm, Cap’n, but our prisoner is up,” Pax says, nodding his head towards a shadow on starboard.
“He greeted me, sort of, and since then he just has been standing there watching out over the sea. I don’t know Cap, felt wrong to send him back to his room.” Pax shrugs.
“I would have made the same choice Pax, I get it, go sleep see you tomorrow,” I say slapping his shoulder.
At least I still have this, a crew who feels like they can make their own decisions, tell me about them without fear for repercussions.
Pax even raises an eyebrow as I settle down in the wheelhouse. “No need for heights tonight?”
“I think it’s better to be closer to James, if he decides to wreak havoc again.
” A half-lie, I am honest about not retreating to the crow’s nest because of James.
I am lying about the reason, I am not staying here because I want to protect my ship, myself, and my crew.
No, I am staying on the upper deck to be able to protect him if it turns out all the truths I gave him are too much for him to bear.
“Fair ‘nough, night Killian.” And with those words Pax walks off. No doubt going to crawl in his bunk, hugging his partner. I shake my head, I never thought about who my crew is getting in bed with. It doesn’t matter to me, and the suddenness of this odd thought feels like the fumble on the wet deck, when I first boarded a ship as an inexperienced child.
I have no idea how much time has passed when I notice James’ hair sticking to his head.
His clothes move in the wind like fabric tied to a statue.
James does not move for most of the evening I observed him, his hair fluttering around, like moths circling his light.
His hair now sticking to his head has been the only indicator of the passing of time.
Being docked does nothing against the humidity of the coastal air.
So saturated with the ocean’s water that it will cling to anything that offers it warmth, your clothes, your skin, your hair.
Until the cold wind feels like a thousand needles made of ice biting into your skin.
I groan as I get up, not because my muscles complain, but because my mind does.
It seems like I am sailing towards a cliff and every word I say, every gesture I make, brings me closer to it.
And I don’t know how, but I know sailing off the edge of the cliffs will change my lives. In ways that can never be undone.
“Here, you will catch a cold out here, and you’re still sick. We will need you in the kitchen again soon,” I lie. It has nothing to do with me wanting him in the kitchen. And everything with me wanting to keep him from even more harm coming to him. More harm than Peter and I caused him up till now.
“Your sister and you… were you close? Are you close?“ James speaks so suddenly that it takes my mind a minute to catch up with my ears.
“We were. Come inside, share a tea with me, and I will tell you all about her,” I say, coaxing James to come inside with me. His skin has grown pale, his lips blueish; he needs to get into the warmth.
“You are always bribing me with tea, and or food,” he says, his voice lighter, rising a bit, as his face softens.
“I am not going to freeze my ass off to tell you all about the mess my life has become.” The words are genuine. I had not given them a second thought before uttering them. And when they are met with a sudden loud bark of laughter, I feel almost accomplished.
“Fine, fine. I hate to admit it, but you’re right about the cold,” he says pulling the blanket I just gave him tighter around his shoulders.
His now boot-clad feet are hammering down on the wood of the deck.
A stark difference to the soft whispers of the leather shoes the fauns are accustomed to wearing.
He looks less like a faun king-consort, and more like a pirate now.
The realization hits me like the first ray of sun does, as you step out in the morning.
“So, if Peter and Celeste were fated mates too, why did she no longer want to be with him?” His voice comes out in a whisper frail as glass. Still clinging to the belief he is Peter’s fated mate, like a lifeline. To save him from the big scary unknown that is me.