Haunted

The sweltering hot rays of the midday sun glistened against Valentine's bare skin as he worked. He used a large stone to hammer some decent sized branches deep into the sand to mark the tides. Wesley wasn't entirely certain why the pirate was so adamant on knowing how far low and high tide reached on the shore, but he watched the man slave away nonetheless.

Wesley was sitting in the shade of a palm tree, lazily drinking a goblet of warm wine as he watched the pirate's muscles ripple and flex with each strike. His body was something to ogle at and Wesley couldn't deny that if he tried. The way shadows and light played on his skin was quite mesmerizing. Every time he moved, the contours of his abdomen, pectorals, biceps, shoulder blades, and spine became all the more apparent. Sweat gleamed against his skin, but it only offered highlights that brought out his eye catching build even more. As Wesley observed him, he noticed the indications of faint scars riddling the man's bare torso, but they only seemed to emphasize his beauty.

Wesley wasn't afraid to admit that the man was beautiful because to him, it was simply a fact. In all his life, he had never come across another man—or woman for that matter—that held the same physical allure as the pirate did. He would never let the words leave his lips, since Valentine was hardly in need of an ego boost, but they echoed in his mind every time his eyes swept over the man.

Wesley supposed it made sense that Valentine was a siren. Nothing that was human could even begin to compare to his appearance. In fact, if Valentine had said he was a god instead of a siren, Wesley probably would've believed him.

He was beautiful, but still a monster in every sense of the word.

As the faces of his crew flashed in his mind, Wesley's heart clenched painfully and he forced himself to look away from their killer. He licked his chapped lips as he turned his gaze instead to the tide. The repetitive movement of the water was soothing, familiar, and with each diminishing wave, was lulling him closer to sleep.

Or perhaps that was the wine.

Either way, Wesley let his head fall back against the trunk of the tree and closed his eyes. The poor sleep from the previous night was begging him to replace it now. He was perfectly content to slip into a peaceful nap, but unfortunately, he didn't get a chance to.

His eyes opened when he heard Valentine trudging back towards him, breathing heavily and wiping a sheen of sweat from his forehead.

"Why is it so bloody hot out?" he complained, plopping down beside Wesley. They were not touching, but Valentine's arm was close enough to Wesley that he could feel the body heat radiating off of him in waves.

The pirate made short work of stealing the goblet from the merchant's fingers and downing the rest of the liquid within it.

Wesley didn't have the heart to protest.

"At least its not raining," he countered. Valentine nodded in agreement, peering up at the nearly cloudless sky. They had yet to build a shelter, though Valentine had plans to use the jolly boat as cover should it start storming unexpectedly. He hoped it wouldn't come to that, though, since the boat itself was bloody heavy and would not be easy to maneuver.

"I could help build a shelter," Wesley reminded the pirate, "if you give me a knife."

Valentine ignored the merchant. Instead, he placed the empty goblet in the sand between them and stretched out his leg. His breeches were rolled up to his knees, but they still featured a tear and blood stains over his thigh. Using his fingers, Valentine gingerly pulled open the tear, careful not to the damage the material further, and viewed his injury. It was little more than a scab now, which was a relief, though it still ached a bit when he put too much strain on the leg.

Valentine glanced over at Wesley only to catch him with his eyes trained on the wound. The merchant seemed startled by the gaze that was suddenly upon him and his own briefly met lavender before flitting toward the sea.

Valentine didn't mind Wesley looking at him. He had felt the merchant's eyes on him while he was setting up his tide markers but avoided looking back in his direction so that those beautiful blue eyes didn't get scared off.

It was a fine line that Valentine was trying to walk. Most of the time, the only emotion he felt from Wesley was animosity. It was moments like this one—of calm and tolerance—that gave him the smallest sliver of hope that maybe the merchant wouldn't hate him forever.

Valentine wasn't sure if it was the wine that was making Wesley more tolerant or just time. Either way, the parched feeling in his throat decided that more of the liquid definitely wasn't a bad idea.

"We need more wine," he announced his thoughts, picking up the goblet again and standing.

"Abner White," Wesley said, making Valentine's mood deflate in an instant. The moment had not lasted long. With an annoyed grunt, Valentine walked away before he could hear another wretched sob story.

----+------+----

"Marcellus Baker," Wesley said as he stared into the flames after dark that same day and took another gulp of wine. He was drunk, he knew, but he kind of preferred it that way. It made everything feel more like a dream than reality. It gave him hope that he might wake up to a living crew and an unraided ship. He sighed at the reminder that this was, in fact, reality and continued, "will never meet his first born child."

"Why do you waste your breath?" Valentine slurred. He too, was drunk. That did not stop him from feeling the tightness in the air between them, though. It was suffocating. "I care not for the fate of humans."

"Yet when I was to drown, you saved me," Wesley said, flicking his gaze to the man. "Why?"

Valentine met his eyes briefly before downing the remaining contents of his goblet.

"Because you're my mate," he bit out and tossed his cup into the sand.

"I don't follow," Wesley said.

The pirate exhaled heavily, running his hands over his face as he prepared to explain.

"Every siren has a destined soulmate. Some say it's a gift from the gods, to rectify all of the injustices brought upon us by their wars, but I think it's just another one of their cruel tricks. Our mates are supposed to be our perfect match, but in the end, we are destined to love and be loved by only one person in the entire world. The one that the gods chose for us. And if we lose them there can be no other. I think that's cruel."

Wesley was quiet for a moment as he absorbed the words. But then, with a rising bitterness in his voice, he spoke. "You expect me to love you?"

Valentine closed his eyes and sighed, knowing what was coming.

"After everything you've done to me?"

"You have every right to be upset with me."

"Upset?" Wesley laughed callously as he stood. "You think I'm upset? No! I'm fucking furious!"

Valentine rose to his feet as well, looking Wesley in the eye with his jaw clenched and a challenge in his gaze. "And what are you going to do about it?"

In all honesty, Valentine was sick of the tension that had been stretching between them since they stepped foot on the island. He wanted a fight, rather, he wanted Wesley to fight so that the tension could finally snap. He didn't like how much anger and resentment was consuming the merchant. He wanted it to end, and in order for it to end, Wesley had to get it all out of his system.

"You attacked my ship!" Wesley shouted as he stepped closer. "You killed eight good men! Men that had families that depended on their return after months of being away! You've condemned women and children to death because their only source of income and stability now lies at the bottom of the ocean!"

"I don't give a damn!" Valentine shouted right back, doing everything he could to encourage Wesley to take a swing at him. Whatever physical damage the man dealt, Valentine could heal from it. He'd much rather have Wesley take his anger out on him than have it fester inside him like a putrid infection of blame and grief and pain. "I've killed dozens of men and I would kill dozens more! I don't give a damn about your crew members or their families, and I never will! Do you know why? Because I'm a fucking monster and I take lives because I fucking can!"

Valentine's head was whipped to the side by a pretty ferocious punch from the merchant. It had him tasting blood, but he simply swallowed the pain and turned his head back to Wesley as the merchant swung again.

"They were my friends!" he cried out as his fist made contact again. This one was so hard, it sent Valentine to the ground. Wesley was quick to jump on top of him, straddling the pirate as he threw punch after punch at him.

"You took everything from me!" he yelled, his voice weakening and his vision blurring as frustrated tears slipped down his cheeks. "My men! My ship! My job! My income! My freedom! My home! My dignity! My life! You even took my death from me!"

He kept punching, and Valentine took it because in his heart, he knew it was the only good thing he could do for Wesley.

When exhaustion and the onslaught of the wine finally made the merchant's punches slow, Valentine easily caught his wrist before it could strike him again and eyed his bleeding knuckles.

"Wesley, stop. You're hurting yourself," he said in a softer tone as he ran his thumb near the split skin.

Wesley wrenched his wrist out of the pirate's hold and trapped the man's hands beneath his own. He wasn't really sure at this point how he was still holding up his own weight, but he did his best to keep his arms from shaking.

His face hovered over the pirate's, and the longer he looked down at the man's split lip, darkening cheek, and lavender eyes, the more his rage bled to sadness.

"It's not fair," Wesley's voice cracked. "It's not fair that you're the reason they're dead, yet it's my dreams they haunt."

"You're right," Valentine said softly. "It's not."

Wesley watched as a few of his own tears dropped down and landed on Valentine's cheeks. His eyes stayed on the droplets as they rolled through the pirate's stubble and disappeared under his ear. It reminded him of that soft spot just beneath it, and that time when Valentine's lips were on his own neck. Oh how unfair it was, that Valentine haunted his dreams far more than his fallen crew members did.

And not as a monster.

Wesley slipped down to his elbows, his nose now brushing the pirate's, and just before he leaned down to somberly connect their lips, he weakly whispered, "Why is it so hard to hate you?"

----+------+----

A/N

Happy Friday!

If you were an alien, what would you look like?

I'll see you all on Sunday,

-Mora Montgomery