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past the gates of hell ;
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"Grow up, Jack of Frost," Elsa whispered, eyes slanted sharp;
blue steel against blue sky, blue veins in his throat pinched tight beneath the kiss of her
heel.
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"Within my crew,
there is no place for the weak."
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The crew did not speak of it.
Knew better than to dare a passing remark, muttered or bellowed—it didn't matter. She would hear it. She would know.
When Captain Elsa, Snow Queen of the treacherous North Seas, retired to her cabin for the evening, company in tow, the crew did not blink, did not falter, did not flinch. It was not difficult for many—naught but a simple, worthy show of loyalty; a means of paying due respects to their commander.
The last man who'd seen himself fit to judge had paid far higher a price.
Jack the deckhand (Jack of Frost; Jack the Pale; Jack, the pasty, piss-poor excuse for a pirate) continued his scrubbing, and never once looked toward the door to the captain's cabin, to the dying candlelight within.
He scrubbed until his fingers bled.
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"You're being summoned."
Jack's fingers stilled upon the ropes.
(Unlike the first time, however many moons ago, Jack's hands held tight; the sails did not slip out from between his fingers.)
Kristoff was even less patient than usual.
"Oi," he grumbled, and a sharp sting split the back of Jack's skull.
Jack turned towards him, one hand had already come to cradle the back of his head; he would have dropped the ropes entirely, had Kristoff not reached out to snatch them. Jack was still scowling when Kristoff leaned closer. "Watch it."
"My head's not that thick, y'know."
"No?" Kristoff challenged, brow arching high. He took the ropes in one large hand, moved with an ease and strength that spoke of years of practice, and with the other—pushed Jack by the back of the skull to get a move on.
He stumbled forward, then glared back, biting his tongue. Kristoff was already making quick work of what would have taken Jack half a lifetime. He didn't bother looking in Jack's direction as he yanked upon the sails, but Jack wouldn't question it.
Kristoff's tolerance only went so far.
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It was a learned trait,
Jack supposed.
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"Your first mate's getting a little handsy," Jack announced, when the two of them had finally been left alone; she had not bothered to look up from the map as she'd dismissed the others, crewmen and advisors alike.
Elsa had no need for guards.
Jack watched as she traced a line over the parchment, coordinates and planes and currents spread flat across a desk; she paused when her eyes caught sight of something stretched before her, something Jack could not see, and then a cold smile curled over her lips, quiet and feral and victorious. She tucked it away as she stood, crawled her danger back inside, and stared out the window at the calm of the sea.
"He would not be the first," she reminded him.
Jack remained where he was, tall and lanky near the cabin door—off to side, where he wouldn't get in anybody's way—and said nothing. Her words rang in his head, loud and light—the same way the rest of her filled him up, deafening, and blinding—and, on a different day, he might have thought her words clever.
She noticed his silence.
(But, of course she did. She saw through him like the transparent fool he was, the stupid boy he'd tried so hard to leave behind on the docks. Elsa saw all, and she would not take kindly to his reticence.
Her eyes narrowed upon the sea.)
"Jack," she called softly, quiet and lilting with command. "Come hither."
Slowly, as if his feet lay heavy with anchored steel, Jack forced himself forward. Like a moth to a flame, or a sailor to a sandy shore, Jack felt himself draw closer to home with each begrudging step—home, or something like it—and no matter how his gut clenched, or his palms sweat, or his heart quickened in his chest—
He came when it called.
"Look here, at this map."
She stood to the side, a pretense of allowing him room, of allowing him space, and Jack gladly took it—his whole body propelled forward, save for his dragging feet. The desk was made for her size and stature—petite, except for all matters of murder—and the rich, lacquered wood only rose to the meat of his thighs.
He was not unfamiliar with its height.
(It came easily, the memory: through the window, caked with cracking brine, there was moonlight. Her hair splayed open in it, across seas of maps and commerce,
of names and cities painted red.)
His gaze stared blankly at the faded parchment, stained yellow by too many fingers, too many days in sunlight, and it was the innocuous city of some poor peninsula that Jack's eyes fixed upon when Elsa took back the precious space she had so graciously shared.
One of Jack's hands fell flat to the desk—wrinkling edges and corners of documents he dared not read— as the cold heat of Elsa seeped into his flesh, the warmth of her breasts pressed close to his side. He stood awkwardly, off-kilter at an improper angle, hip jutting into the ridge of solid wood, holding tight with the curl of his fingers digging into maps; Elsa's hips were close, and then they were closer, shaking his balance and his resolve, and soon Jack's hand was clenching at a pile for purchase as Elsa casually slipped into his space, inescapable and merciless, and staring down at her map, all the while. No sound escaped him, even as her hips aligned more searchingly with his, molding to the heat and stiffness of the feelings she found there, just as she knew she would.
His hand tightened into a fist.
"Look at the infantry," she whispered, grazing a single fingertip along the allotted path. Her stomach was tight against his, so much that he could feel each breath, each twitch of muscle, every inch of scorching heat, and she was testing him, testing his limits. He couldn't bring himself to appease her. "See how well they lie in wait?" she breathed, almost lovingly, if not for the small knife she drew from behind, the way she traced circles above each enemy ship with tender care. "Our beloved Corona seeks to cut us off."
Silence, even as the blade drew closer to his wrist, to the pale stretch of skin below the cut of his elbowed sleeve, threaded blue with tiny, delicate veins. Silence, even when he swallowed.
"You're angry," she accused, cold, and dangerously gentle. The blade danced above his forearm, along the soft underside of what little strength he had, and Jack watched the way the light flickered in the sheen of metal, conspicuously clean. The point dragged lightly, over and under, creeping closer over ridges of muscle towards his straining fist, and her voice was soft, so soft, so terrifyingly soft, when she stilled her knife and demanded, "Explain why."
His blood was thrumming, heart howling, but his head was devastatingly clear.
"Hans is working for the King," he declared, through a rasp that he could not help, nor prevent, nor regret. The cool touch of blade, the hot kiss of Elsa's hips—
"Hans is a rogue," Elsa corrected, with the same even patience, with the same glimmer of condescension that Jack had known since he was a child. The blade began traveling once more, point and tip digging invisible lines across his flesh, its flat belly laid smooth against his skin like spreading butter upon her feast of bread. Her breath was cool upon his neck when she tilted her head, looked at him for the first time since he'd entered her cabin, and decreed, "He is an associate who has proven himself a valuable asset."
Asset, Jack's mind hissed.
"Hans is a liar."
Jack did not look at her, still, not even when the blade paused, and then slipped away, disappeared back from whence it came. (Jack did not mind her games, did not mind the way she played, but today—
Not today.)
A brittle laugh flowed through him, light and tinkling, the sound of bells steeled too sharp. "Hans is a liar," she agreed, and she was still laughing at him, with her warmth and her cold soul, when she made to end her charade and pushed forward more firmly, pinning him to the unforgiving ridge of the desk, and with a tone in which no meaning could be mistaken, whispered just past his downturned lips, "And a rather skilled one at that."
"Is that what you're after?" he snarled, dipping his chin to face her at last. "Lies?"
It was a mistake. A mistake, but a necessary one—or so Jack would swear to himself for years, for centuries of dreams to come. He was lost at sea, heart and body surrounded by a world of freedom, but Jack was ever the fool; he was a free man, unbound by chains, but only so long as he believed himself to be, and—by fate's design—
His soul had picked the wrong anchor.
Her eyes were very clear, and very sharp, and then he saw nothing at all, felt only the heat of her mouth against his. Felt the pull of his collar by two slender hands, the ache in his groin as she shifted against him, harsh and sudden and strong, and something released in the back of Jack's throat—a needy, desperate sound that sickened him as much as it thrilled him—and then her lips weren't enough, sucking and wet, but there was her tongue, wrapped around his, jaws clashing, hands gripping tight, grappling for her hips, wooden desk cutting into his back as she rode onto his thigh, and it was with this gasp, this broken, ragged breath of release that Jack felt the sharp sting of the blade pressed to his skin once more.
To the hollow of his throat.
"Allow me to remind you of something, Jack," she whispered, hands steady, gaze even. His cock twitched against her hips, even as she sank the blade lower, deeper, onto the flat ridge of bone.
Her eyes were clear, unyielding, and her words fell upon his lips like an almost-kiss, just close enough to feel the heat, but too far to taste.
"I offered you a place on my ship because when I found you, you were scraping out dirty stables and back alleys of Tortuga for backwashed liquor," she whispered, mouth forming each word with endless care. The cold shock of metal on his clavicle kept him alert, but the unexpected touch of her lips to his brought a weakness to his limbs, and upon every word was a never-ending kiss. "I heard your tragic story," she mocked, and Jack only knew it for the mockery it was by the taste of her, too sweet to be real— "The sickness that took your loved ones, of the pirate father who abandoned you, of the little sister you. Could. Not. Save.
"I offered you the world," she hissed against him, "spread before you on the vast seas, and you took it. I offered you a reason," she reminded him, through gritted, clashing teeth and parted lips, "for the pathetic life you were left living... to follow me past the gates of hell, and all of the treasures it holds."
And then she laughed, as she was wont to do, and leaned upwards, onto her toes, to whisper in his ear, "I offered you a place in my bed, because I liked your hands."
Jack doubled over with the force of the blow to his gut, head spinning and spots in his vision, and he fell to the floor where Elsa once stood.
"It is called an offer, Jack of Frost, because it can be revoked," she warned, as he choked back air into his lungs. "It is a gift, and a privilege, and should I fail to see your gratitude again, you could lose more than just my good graces."
There was a burning in his lungs—stars in his eyes—and he couldn't breathe, couldn't see—couldn't think past the bile rising—when he saw it.
Just for a moment.
Jack knew it to be a trick of the light. Knew that it couldn't have been anything more than the tearing burn in his gaze, the dizzy throb of his head as he lifted his face to look at her—it was imagination, and delusion, the look he saw in her eyes.
And then the Snow Queen returned, once more.
She turned her back to him, cold and resounding, as loud in the silence as any slamming door, and his head was still spinning, heart still clenching, but the ship's captain had no time for such things.
"Resume your post," she commanded, and he did.