#MIRADOR

A collaborative work by @i-choose-the-road , @bentleywilde , and @pavartijanuswrites Characters: Jake Kiszka/Chris Turpin (Slash!) , Josh Kiszka, Mikey Sorbello Word count: ~3.3k Chapter tags/ Warnings: (18+ Minors DNI) Pirate AU, plot stuff, nighttime talks, secrets revealed, graphic sm ut (I promised you would have it soon 💋), m/m, nudity, oral sex, tenderness and fluff Enjoy chapters one , two , three , four , five , and six here! 💋 The sky mottled and darkened into the navy blue of an Englishman’s coat. A gauzy haze fell over the still water as night brought cooler air. And Raider departed, leaving the ship in silence. An odd mood settled in as the crew realized he’d come alone on a boat that should’ve taken two to row. Was the creature beneath them now, mere inches from the glassy surface? Had it helped the hull along like watery stallions drawing Poseidon’s chariot? It might be caressing Marauder’s underside now, its hideous appendages groping, curling, writhing in its silent nest. “What do we do now?” Someone asked quietly. Jacob did not answer. His eyes were vacant and his pensive expression was turned toward the enemy ship, his face a silver circle in the night. Either he didn’t hear, or he was too entrenched in his thoughts to respond. “Go below, for now,” Sorbello volunteered, “Rest. Collect yourselves, and await the Captain’s next orders.” There was a moment of pause, as though this moment represented a turn of a page. A transition from before to after a moment of revelation. Every soul on board seemed stuck in place where they stood, Jacob against the railing, Christopher in the crossbreeze on the stairs, Sorbello leaning solidly against the mast. Then the crewmen filed away to their individual corners of the ship, their voices a low swell on the wind. Christopher held eye contact with the Second Mate. He wanted to ask him why he’d come to Jacob’s defense, when only hours ago he’d accused him of sorcery, of disguise and manipulation. But with a curt nod it was understood between them: Whether the accusations were true or not, the outsider had no place in the private dealings of this ship. It would be advantageous to keep this secret between the two officers–At least until they’d learned more. There were too many loose questions. Too many Jokers in the deck. Sorbello sniffed and withdrew to his quarters. Christopher shuffled numbly up the stairs and placed a steadying hand on his Captain’s shoulder. “He is gone. We’ll turn in and plot a new course. Then you need to rest.” Jacob looked up. His profile caught a pale sliver of moonlight as the crescent above them awakened, illuminating every curve of his soft features like a hilly horizon. But he seemed so thin and withered under Christopher’s hand, as though the Raider’s presence had leeched something from his blood. He gave a wan smile, “I think we both know I won’t be able to sleep.” “You must. I insist,” He squeezed fondly, “We will live until tomorrow. The events of today will not change if we neglect ourselves.” Jacob nodded mutely. Then the silver on his face winked into darkness as the tilt of his hat blocked the light. *** “Thought I’d find you here,” A soft, rugged voice accompanied the creak of the hatch behind him. Jacob could feel Christopher before he could see him, his proximity almost a palpable warmth on his back. “I so hate to become predictable,” He murmured, having been tugged from the mire of his thoughts. But he smiled. It was a welcome distraction. “Well, it wasn’t much of a mystery; You are perturbed, and when you need solitude there are limited places you can go,” Christopher sidled close to him, his ribs meeting his own like the fond nudge of standing cattle, “I’m just glad you didn’t climb the fucking jibboom and perch on it like a crow, because I certainly wouldn’t be able to follow.” Jacob exhaled a gust through his nose - the closest thing to a laugh he could muster. Indeed, he’d thought to take a shift in the lookout nest atop the world and watch the horizon until it blushed with the sunrise. But his injured leg felt leadened and dead beneath him, his adrenaline and stubbornness having finally yielded to pure weariness. He wouldn’t be climbing anything for a while. There was hardly room for the two of them on the narrow foredeck beneath the ship’s figurehead, where the bowsprit thrust like a spear into the dark. The carved woman at their backs leaned eternally forward, her wooden hair streaming, her blind gaze fixed upon the horizon. Beneath her outstretched hands the water peeled away in silver-capped ribbons, parting around Marauder’s prow. The rail curved tight against their hips; the timber underfoot was damp with brine. Each slow rise of the hull lifted them, then lowered them again, so that they swayed in an unconscious rhythm. The air changed around them in the few moments of silence. Jacob could feel Christopher’s shift in mood and could sense the dreaded question before it had even formed on the First Mate’s lips. “We didn’t outrun the Starcatcher by our own strategy, did we?” Jacob fidgeted with the ring on his finger. He pulled an uneasy breath, “No, we did not.” “I see,” Christopher’s neck bobbed, “And the skies were clear this morning. Storms don’t move in out of the clear blue.” “No,” He agreed numbly. “Neither do…” A swallow, an exhale, “Krakens.” “Indeed not,” Jacob felt too warm, too trapped on this narrow ledge. But he knew there was no escaping his First Mate’s deductions. He’d lived through the same day, and had seen all the same unnatural events unfold. What else could be done, but to confront it? Christopher faced him, then waited for the eye contact that Jacob couldn’t muster yet. “I do not know why I hold sway over the patterns of the ocean. I have never understood it–Only that I can…feel it, hear it,” He kept his voice barely above a whisper, lest some unsuspecting soul atop the main deck overhear, “I can guide it.” “Guide it,” Christopher echoed thinly, “Is it magic?” He lifted one shoulder, then dropped it. “Raider said he was your brother. Perhaps it is hereditary?” “Perhaps,” He mused, “But I have no family line to speak of, no surname, no home. Neither of us do.” “Surely you have a father,” Christopher scoffed, “You two didn’t just appear out of sea foam like in the Greek storybooks.” Finally, Jacob’s eyes alighted on Christopher’s blue ones, now steely rings of moonlight, “Perhaps you can see why I kept that secret close. I don’t understand it, so how could anyone else? It would only make this ship a target for someone like Red Raider—Someone who would seek the glory of conquering a demigod.” “A demigod,” Christopher seemed to taste the word in his mouth, to feel the way his tongue fit around it. How strange it must be: for a man to learn his lover was a different creature than the one he’d come to know—perhaps one that wasn’t even human to begin with. “I am sorry. I had hoped there would never be occasion to use my influence over the seas, and therefore never an occasion for it to come to light,” Jacob could feel his chest getting tighter, so he soothed himself with the repetitive, smooth glide of metal on his skin, rotating around and around the axle of his finger, “But Raider had other plans.” “Mmm,” Christopher waited, as if for more words, more explanations. And as he waited, the pressure of his silence seemed to coax them out. Jacob squirmed. The firmness in that steely gaze was like the oil press to an olive - a constant, gentle pressure that would open even the most unwilling of fruits. “His name is Joshua,” He confessed, “Even our names match, as though someone intentionally gave them to us - though we can never recall what happened at our birth.” “Or who birthed you,” He finished. Jacob gave another shrug, inhaling weakly against the squeeze in his chest, “Some things we can never know.” Christopher picked at a fraying edge of his sleeve. Jacob was relieved that he didn’t move away, but instead chose to remain alongside him, his side a solid plane of warmth. “How does it work?” Jacob took a chance at levity, “Well, you see: when a man and woman love one another—” Christopher’s elbow drove lightly into his ribs. “Don’t be clever.” “I am not,” Jacob said, though the ghost of mischief lingered at the upturned corner of his mouth. “Though I admit the temptation to let you believe I was instead hatched like some sea creature, and rose fully formed from the tide.” Christopher shot him a look. Jacob’s smile thinned. His gaze drifted past Christopher’s shoulder to the water below, to the dark swell sliding along the darkened planks of the hull. “It would be easier,” he added quietly, “if it were something so simple.” “Jacob.” Jacob held his gaze. Those ice-blue irises held the weight of shared storms, of narrow escapes, and of quiet nights spent with hands clasped in the dark when the rest of the ship slept. Christopher had followed him without question into waters that no sane man would chart willingly. He had bled for him. If there was any soul aboard the Marauder to whom he owed the entire truth, at least as he understood it, it was this one. He let his gaze drift outward, beyond the silvered wake. “It is…like standing in a crowded room and hearing one voice clearer than all the rest of the noise. The ocean is never silent, not to me. She groans and chatters and mutters to herself. Most men hear only the bubbling upon the surface.” Christopher’s jaw tightened, but he did not interrupt. “I can feel the tension in a current before it turns,” Jacob continued softly. “Where pressure gathers. Where it will break into a wave. If I focus - if I open myself to it - I can manipulate it. Only slightly, though. A degree to starboard. A swell lifted here, a trough softened there. Enough to spare us from a razor-sharp reef. Enough to coax a storm into skirting our path instead of swallowing us whole.” “And this time?” Christopher asked. “This time I called upon the lightning to assist.” “I could feel it in the air this morning,” he continued. “That the conditions were too still. The water had a cross-current beneath it, though the surface lay smooth. You know that feeling before a squall? The way the world seems to pause, as though it has drawn breath and forgotten to release it?” Christopher gave a small nod. “That is when it is possible,” Jacob said plainly. “I cannot summon lightning from a truly clear sky. The charge must already be building between cloud and sea. The wind must be waiting to turn.” His eyes flicked upward briefly. “When the tension gathers and lightning is searching for its path downward, I can…persuade it.” “You knew of this ability as well,” Christopher said quietly. “It is indeed not new knowledge to me.” He exhaled, shoulders lowering as the admission hung between them. Jacob’s fingers clumsily fidgeted with his ring again, and the small, habitual motion betrayed his anxieties. “You could have told me,” Christopher said quietly. Jacob stared past him into the seam where the sea met the dark, moonlit sky. “I did not know how,” he admitted, “And I did not want you to look at me differently.” A flicker of disbelief crossed Christopher’s face. He stepped closer, until the fabric of their coats brushed together. “I am looking at you differently,” he replied. “Jacob,” he continued, “I just watched you drag a storm out of what the naked eye would perceive as a clear sky and hurtle it towards an enemy. I already know that you’re different.” “That’s precisely my point.” Christopher shook his head once. “No. Your point is that you decided for me what I could handle.” The ship shifted beneath them. Jacob shifted his weight from his injured leg onto the other and Christopher’s hand came to his waist automatically, steadying him. He didn’t remove it. “I wasn’t trying to shut you out,” Jacob said, “I was only trying to keep you safe.” “From what?” Christopher asked. “From you?” Jacob flinched almost imperceptibly. “I don’t even understand it fully, whatever this is,” he said, his voice cracking in frustration. “How was I meant to explain it to you? ‘Good evening, by the way, I can turn the tide and redirect lightning when the air’s right.’ It sounds absolutely mad when spoken aloud.” He swallowed before continuing. “And I was afraid.” Christopher’s jaw tightened. “Of me?” “Of losing you,” Jacob said plainly. “I thought if you saw the whole of it - of me, of what I can do - you might decide it in your best interest to step away.” Christopher stared at him, as though the suggestion were clearly absurd and he was waiting for his Captain to realize it. “Do you really think I’d run?” he asked. “I think you’re sensible,” Jacob replied, “And this is not.” For a moment neither spoke. Then, Christopher lifted his hand from Jacob’s waist to the curve of his neck. “Listen to me,” he said. “You’re not just some kind of dangerous weapon lying in wait until an opportune moment to wreak havoc arises.” His voice dipped lower. “You’re the man I chose, and you are still him despite the weight of what you hold inside.” Jacob closed his eyes, and for a moment, he let the weight of Christopher’s touch anchor him to the railing. The night was growing ever colder, but his skin buzzed with heat along the places where their bodies met. He could almost believe, in this moment, that he was just a man and not a thing to be studied, not a mechanism for violence, not a problem to be solved. Then Christopher drew him in until their foreheads touched and spoke, “You could directly command every storm that I encounter in this life and it would not scare me away, but if you ever try to spare me from yourself again, I’ll throw you overboard myself. Understood?” Jacob nodded against Christopher’s brow. The words “the man I chose” reverberated in his mind, ricocheting into the deepest parts of him that had always ached for belonging. He let the silence linger between them, not wanting to break it with an ill-fitted joke or to shatter this rare, pure stillness. The ship rolled lazily beneath their feet, but with Christopher’s hand still at his neck, and their bodies aligned, Jacob felt capable of braving anything. It was only then that he stopped to consider how impossibly close they stood, which was far beyond plausible deniability or the guise of simple camaraderie. It was completely dark now, the sky a mottled shade of deep blue and black. Under the main deck Sorbello and the others would be long abed by now, or at least in quick pursuit of the bottom of a bottle. Up here, beneath the figurehead, they might as well be the only men in the world. Christopher’s thumb moved to trace the line of Jacob’s jaw - a slow, deliberate motion that sent heat pooling low in his belly. “Christopher,” he breathed a weak warning, unable to care about how desperate the name sounded as it rolled off his tongue. “I know, love,” Christopher muttered. His other hand slid to Jacob’s hip, fingers curling into the fabric there. “Tell me if you want me to stop.” Jacob’s answer was to close the remaining distance between them, capturing Christopher’s mouth with his own. The kiss was far from gentle; it carried the weight of the day’s revelations, of the fear knotted in Jacob’s chest now seeking release. Christopher’s tongue slipped into his mouth, causing him to utter a sound that was half gasp, half moan. His hands found purchase of their own in the lapels of Christopher’s coat. He could feel the evidence of his first mate’s arousal pressing against his thigh, and it made him weak at the knees. “Here?” he asked, though the tone of his voice held no real protest. They had been reckless before in their encounters but never quite so exposed as this, with only the cover of darkness to shield them from anyone’s wandering gaze. “Here,” Christopher confirmed. His hand slid to the front of Jacob’s breeches, cupping him, causing his hips to jerk forward involuntarily. “Unless you’d rather I take you back to your cabin, where I’ll have to keep you quiet.” Jacob’s breath hitched at the suggestion. “You bastard,” he said weakly. “You love it,” Christopher smirked. There was such warmth in his voice, such affection beneath the air of teasing, that he thought his heart might burst. Christopher kissed him again, slower this time, as his fingers deftly worked at the fastenings of Jacob’s breeches. The night air was cool against his flushed skin as he was freed from the confines of the fabric, and he shuddered at the contrast. The thought was cut short as the warmth of Christopher’s palm wrapped around his length. “Look at you,” he murmured, his voice turning low and reverent the way it always did when they were able to sneak in a moment alone like this. His hand stroked once, then twice, and Jacob had to bite down on his lip to keep from crying out. “So perfect and responsive for me.” “Christopher, please -” “Shh,” Christopher soothed, ”I will take care of you.” He immediately sank to his knees, his hands steadying Jacob’s hips as he took him into his mouth. The first touch of his mouth sent a shudder reverberating through Jacob’s entire frame, and he was almost brought to his own knees. Christopher’s tongue traced the underside of his cock lazily before taking him deeper, and Jacob’s hand flew to his uninjured shoulder in response. He gripped him almost hard enough to bruise, bracing his other hand against the base of the figurehead. Her carved eyes stayed fixed on the horizon, almost as if she’d agreed to keep watch as they stole this moment for themselves. Christopher worked him with the practiced ease of a man who had learned Jacob’s body as thoroughly as he’d learned the Marauder’s rigging. “God,” Jacob gasped, tangling his fingers in Christopher’s windswept, flaxen hair. “Christopher, I -” Christopher hummed around him, and the vibration sent sparks up Jacob’s spine. His hands slid around to grip his ass, pulling him in deeper still. Jacob clamped a hand over his own mouth in a mostly fruitless attempt to muffle the sound of the loud, broken moan that suddenly tore from his throat. Christopher had set a maddening rhythm, and Jacob knew that he wouldn’t last long at this pace. His injured leg throbbed, but the pain was becoming distant now, drowned out by the overwhelming pleasure of Christopher’s mouth on him, by the pressure, the wet heat, and their shared obscene sounds. Jacob’s fingers tightened in his hair - a silent warning - but he didn’t pull away. Instead he doubled his efforts, and Jacob finally came with an audible, strangled cry. Wave after wave of pleasure crashed through him, leaving him shaking and boneless, held upright only by Christopher’s hands and the railing at his back. When he finally came back to himself, Christopher was rising to his feet, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. There was a satisfied smirk on his face that Jacob wanted to kiss off of him, and so he did. He gently tucked himself back into his breeches, then pulled him close, pressing a kiss to mouth and then another to his temple. He buried his face in Christopher’s neck, breathing in the familiar scent of him. He could feel the hard line of his neglected arousal still pressed against his hip. Christopher’s hand came up to cup the back of Jacob’s head, his thumb stroking through the hair at his nape. The simple touch held an unspoken promise - later , it whispered against Jacob’s skin, when we’re somewhere I can take my time with you - and Jacob shivered in response. They stood there for a long moment, wrapped in each other’s arms, the ship rocking gently beneath them and the stars scattered across the night sky like diamonds on velvet. Whatever came next, whatever Raider had planned, they would face it together. For now, that was enough. *** Taglist (click here to join!): @sanguinebats @livviaaa @dazeebean @jake-whatthefisgoingon-kiszka @sacredsparrow