A Pirate's Life For Me

Breaking the Ice

A/N: This chapter is really really short. Important things happen.

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I blow out a shaky breath once the door slams shut, ignoring my flinch like second nature, now. The girl from the dock has wiggled her way into the corner, where she stays, glancing about her fearfully, like the doctor or Rosalette will jump out from the cement. A sharp tug on my heartstrings drops my jaw like a puppet.

"You okay?"

I ask this in the bearest sense of the word, but she glares at me, a spark of flame in the blue of her eyes. Why would she be okay? She's stalked and then taken from God knows where, dragged off and hogtied before taken to God doesn't know where, where she's beaten for the good of an hour to get some random guy she met once before to talk. That's not quite "okay" material.

"I'm sorry."

She recoils slightly, alarmed. I guess people don't apologize much to her, but I feel it's necessary in this situation. I dragged her into this. If it weren't for me, the general wouldn't have been near the docks, much less patrolling his pretentious ass along it. She would have been fine, working for her brother. That is, if Icas was telling the truth. Which, come to think of it, is highly unlikely.

Glancing back, out of my thoughts, I notice that she seems to be miming throwing up, working her jaw up and down and throwing her head around. I crack a smile.

"Hey, I don't think I look that bad."

Though I probably do.

A slight upward tilt to tearstained cheeks. I'd call that a success.

"C'mere."

She freezes, looks at me with the same fear she shows them, and something inside me cracks a little bit.

"I might be able to help you out of your bonds. Y-You'd have to do most of the twisting, but I can probably untie something." Or at least try. If she's free, she might be able to squeeze out the window if she's lucky.

She doesn't move, just continues to stare around her for some form of escape. There isn't one, but I won't be the one to tell her that. I count the seconds.

At seventy-five, I give up the hope that she'll trust me.

I don't really blame her. Both times she's seen me, I've been in chains.

Hanging my head, I roll my shoulders as much as possible, forging for myself a small temporary comfort to fall asleep in. In this place, I sleep as much as I can. Maybe she'll learn.

She grunts wildly as my chin hits my chest.

"What?" No response, but she makes eye-contact. Fearful eye-contact, but it's something. "They're gone, miss." The title feels foreign in my mouth, but something inside me demands that I respect this girl, so it slips smoothly off my tongue. "They won't be back for at least an hour. He probably wants me to get to know you, have a better emotional attachment and shit, but who knows."

She shifts slightly, the cloth twisted around her ears. I swallow hard, throat straining at all this extra use.

"I'm Oliver, by the way. Feel free to blame me for all your troubles."

Her coughing is what jerks me awake.

My head snaps up, body tensed, muscles screaming as warning bells clang a thunderstorm inside my head. It takes me a second to realize what's happening.

"Hey," I say, surprised, voice like a cat's scratchpost, worn and threadbare. "Look at you."

She coughs again but looks up, proud, the gag hanging around her throat like a necklace.

Outside of the window the sky is dark. I've been asleep for hours. She must've done nothing but work on the gag from the moment she got here. My eyes travel back to hers and we exchange a greeting in smiles.

"I'm Colette," she offers softly.

"Colette," I repeat. "Pretty name for a pretty face. But then, I'm sure you get that a lot."

I'm simply being honest, but she turns her face away in awkward embarrassment, and then I realize how flirtatious my words sound.

"I'm sorry to have dragged you into this, Colette," I say to break the silence and the block weighing heavily on my chest.

"You didn't drag me in, the guards did. It isn't—"

"Yes, it is." I cut her off. It is my fault. No matter how nice she wants to be.

"It doesn't matter, anyway," she dismisses my concerns, rolling onto her back, knees spread wide to the corner as she arches her spine and worms her fingers around beneath her.

"'It doesn't matter.' Really not what I was expecting to hear." My smile is all bubbles and lollipops, but my guard has risen. Anyone who gets tortured, even minimally, and says that it 'doesn't matter' isn't entirely stable.

"Nope," she says, smiling upside down at me, her dirty blond bangs flopping onto the concrete. Her grin takes me off guard. It belongs in sunshine meadows with flowers and rainbows and grass dripping with gold. Not here, in this dark, bloodstained cellar.

"And why's that?" I question cautiously, off put for more than a few reasons. She doesn't seem at all affected by the past hour, winces when she twists her bruised ribs the only indication of her beating. Plus she's smiling.

"Because someone's coming to rescue me."

Emotions encircle me like a whirlpool, sucking me in deep as her sparkling smile fades into the background. Anger. Fear. Sadness. Jealousy. Scepticism. Incredulity. Disbelief. Doubt. Confusion.

Loneliness.

Because as I kneel here, strung up with with arms pulled out to my sides, body slowly breaking from the pain and remnants of my week of not-quite solitude, she can fight against the bonds that hold her and smile at me, say with complete and utter conviction on her face that someone is coming to save her. That kind of conviction is only found in the people who aren't alone in this world, the people who have friends and family and relationships to keep and benefit from.

The people who are loved.

Finally, I laugh, a sad little snort puffing air through my nose as her smile fades to a determined grit and her body contorts, something to break the silence, something to break this wall of pity surrounding me. "Fun," I say bleakly, a small part of me scared but not surprised at how distant and thick my voice has become. "That's good for you."

And we sit together in the darkness as time spins by uncounted until the door creaks open.