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Charles’ first thought upon waking and seeing the warmly lit room and white linen sheets was “so she let me back into her bed after all.”

It was a fleeting thought, and one he quickly dismissed upon spotting a familiar tricorn resting on a chair, as distinctly crooked as the man who wore it.  Charles lifted his head – still muddled and throbbing – and spotted the woman slouched by the door, picking aimlessly at her nails.  Red hair, not yellow.

Not Eleanor’s bed then.  The thought made him drop his head back to the pillows, letting it rest heavy as he sorted through the fog of his brain.  He could still hear the venom in her voice from their last conversation.  Her anger was nothing new, nor was her disappointment, but the hatred in her eyes had been unrecognizable.

He couldn’t be sure what had happened to trigger that fight.  Maybe he hadn’t backed her up at a time she thought he should’ve.  Maybe he’d been too quick to back her up at a time when she hadn’t wanted him to.  Maybe he wasn’t making her enough money.  Maybe he was making too much money, and she wanted more credit for the leads.  Maybe it was all of those things, building up over the years, and she finally decided he wasn’t a good enough fuck to warrant it all.

Maybe he hadn’t done a single fucking thing, and the blame really fell on that one freckled bastard who’d been stupid enough to begin a business meeting with Eleanor Guthrie by addressing Charles first.

He wanted to kill that man.  He should kill that man.  Charles didn’t know who he’d been or which crew he was a part of, but Jack knew just about every pirate on Nassau’s shores and could track him down easily.

Speaking of–

Charles forced himself to sit up, feeling slightly better now that he’d decided on his next course of action.  He could still feel the consequences of the last couple of days sitting heavy on his body.  His mouth felt like cotton, and his throat was parched and aching, either from shouting or smoking or puking. He couldn’t remember fighting anyone specifically, but his arms were tired and there were fresh bruises on his chest and stomach.  His leg ached and stung, and he took a moment to yank his pants down far enough to see a fresh gash across his upper thigh.  It was stitched up at least – not neat enough to have been a doctor.  If Charles had to guess, he’d say it was Jack.  Him and his fucking needlework.

“Where is he?” he asked aloud, frowning at how wretched his voice sounded.

Anne lifted her head to look at him, unsurprised to find him sitting up.  She didn’t respond and instead reached over to push a pitcher of water across the table towards him, offering it up.

Charles didn’t press for an answer, instead taking his luck for what it was.  He’d been avoiding them both for days now, ever since his falling out with Eleanor.  He wasn’t in the mood to hear Jack bitch, moan, and complain about how the quick deterioration of his relationship would detract from their earnings. He’d know he couldn’t avoid them forever. They stuck to you — Anne like a burr caught on your coat, too sharp and prickly to bother prying off, Jack like a mold that you didn’t notice until it’d spread too far. It’d been like that since he’d met them years ago.

He tried to remember how he’d ended up in their bed, but his memory was more blank than blurry. Most likely he’d passed out somewhere – he had a vague memory of visiting the tavern yet again – and Jack had dragged him back here.  It wouldn’t be the first time Jack had deposited his drunk captain in his own rented bed instead of helping him back to his tent.  It was less of a show of care than it was a matter of convenience.

He’d grown accustomed to waking up to their conversations, and hearing Anne stomp around like a bull in a china shop, and listening to them generally pretend as if he wasn’t there.  He’d even watched them fuck a couple of times, when he was too jittery to sleep but too lazy to get out of bed, and they didn’t seem to give a shit, though sometimes Jack would throw out an amused “by your leave, Captain,” before Anne would climb on top of him.  Once he’d listened to them stop halfway through so Jack could start a short conversation about the price of linen, as if Anne wasn’t still sitting on his cock.

Charles really didn’t fucking understand them, was all.

Charles rested his head in his hands for a few moments, trying to massage the blossoming headache away.  He’d been through worse withdrawals than this one, which was surprising in its own way, but it still felt like hell.

“You ain’t gonna start crying again, are you?” Anne spoke at last, her voice unimpressed and off-putting.

Charles growled under his breath and didn’t respond.  He heard Anne huff an amused breath, like it was some big joke, even when Charles felt like his world was ending.  If anyone else had said it, he would’ve been angrier, but he was always less inclined to get angry with Anne.  He didn’t know why.  Maybe because Jack was usually around at the same time, and he earned a lot more of Charles’ irritation a lot more easily. 

“Heard she got some new whore already,” Anne commented.  “Some sweaty bastard was angry that his regular got bought out by her.  That true?”

Charles clenched his jaw at the thought, remembering how Eleanor had looked at him from across the tavern that night after their falling out.  How easily and defiantly she’d sat on that girl’s lap, as if daring Charles to get angry about it.  She’d always refused any affection in public for fear of appearing vulnerable, but she’d do it now, just to twist the knife.

“I don’t get the big deal,” she continued.  “What’s so special about her?  She got two cunts or something?”

He didn’t know how to answer that.  There were a thousand responses, and none of them good enough.  She held herself differently. She commanded every room she walked into, no matter how many men were there staring her down. She was clever. She was good at business. She was tough where it mattered, and soft where it didn’t. She wasn’t scared of anybody. She didn’t need anybody. She didn’t need him.

It was easier to love Eleanor than it was to not.  Or at least, it had been.

“She knows me,” he said finally, though he doubted Anne cared about a response.

Her face didn’t change when she looked at him, all quiet and calculating.  He wondered if she understood what he meant.  Maybe that’s what she would’ve said about Jack if asked the same question.

Then she sneered and said, “you wanna be known, get some coins and go pay one of Noonan’s whores.”

Charles exhaled tiredly, the quiet camaraderie between broken.  “Fuck you.”

“Fuck you,” Anne spat back, properly angry now. “As if Jack and I don’t know you after all the shit we’ve been through, all the shit we’ve done for you. We know you better than that bitch ever did, and we did without ever touching your cock.”

Charles narrowed his eyes.  It wasn’t often that Anne actually found it necessary to speak up or talk back.  It was rare she needed to, when Jack was always willing to do it instead with twice the opinions and three times the vocabulary. But if Anne was angry enough to talk, he dreaded to hear everything that her partner had to say.  No doubt it was at least an afternoon’s worth.

“Where are you going?” Anne asked as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and laced his trousers up again.

“Dunno,” he replied gruffly.  He looked around for his shirt but didn’t see one anywhere.  He doubted he’d had one on when he arrived here.

Anne pushed off the wall and stood up straighter. “He don’t want you leaving before he gets back.”

Charles reached down to grab a plain blue shirt from the foot of the bed, sniffing it quickly. Clean enough. It was Jack’s, which meant the sleeves would be too long and the chest wouldn’t fit right, but it wasn’t obnoxiously horrible like some of his clothes wore, and it would work until he got back to his tent.

“Don’t give a shit,” he said as he pulled it on.

“You owe him.” Charles couldn’t help but laugh at that.  Jack was under the impression that half of Nassau owed him something or another.  Anne took a few steps closer.  “You ignored us for a fucking week. The men too. Who do you think it was kept your crew in line? Sold the latest haul we risked our lives for? Ran your affairs while you were crying over some fucking woman?”

Charles dropped the shoe he’d been about to pull on and looked at her, gaze stony.  Anne glared back, twisting her hands over her knife’s hilt. Charles watched the movement and the glint of her eyes and realized that she wasn’t fucking around.  She was actually prepared to pull a weapon on him, no matter how insane, just because Jack wanted to talk to him.

Ranger men had been calling Anne Bonny a guard dog for years now.  They had no idea how right they were.

“He don’t want you leaving,” she repeated, each word a hit of steel.

They regarded each other for a minute. Charles could get past her if he wanted to, but not without roughing her up first, which he was hesitant to do.  He had enough to deal with as it was without turning those two against him.

“He gets half an hour,” Charles conceded.  “Only because I’m tired.  If he isn’t here by the time I wake up again, I’m leaving whether he wants me to or not.”

Anne rolled her shoulders, still ready for a fight.  He ignored her and instead buried back into the sheets.  His head screamed out in relief when he shut his eyes again, drifting off to the sounds of Anne’s feet and the smell of brothel perfume.

***

He woke up again, this time without the disorientation. The pounding in his head had subsided, and he felt less desperate to run off and grab a bottle of rum or a pull of opium. He could hear Jack and Anne on the other side of the room, speaking not-quite-softly.  The sun had set further since he’d last been awake, slipping into that hour before dusk, and a couple of candles were lit on the dresser.

He sat up, and the conversation stopped.

“Ah, Captain,” Jack started, his voice switching to the tone he always directed at Charles, the one that got under his skin almost instantly. “How are we feeling today?”

“What the fuck do you want, Jack?”

“And here I thought you might be happy to see me,” Jack mused as he pushed the chair out between him and Anne and set a plate of food in front of him.  “It’s been days since we’ve gotten to chat.”

Charles glared at him, willing him to just get to the point.  As annoyed as he was, he still climbed out of bed and took a seat in between them, digging into the food.

“Good news, actually,” Jack said, voice still lilting and humorous.  “It wasn’t easy, but I managed to actually convince Gates to keep Flint from murdering you in your sleep over those kind words you threw his way.”

Charles paused in his eating.  Right. He’d forgotten about running into Flint at the tavern last night.  Must have been before Jack and Anne had dragged him away.  It was a hazy memory, but he got the gist: Flint had thrown some unkind sentiments his way about Eleanor coming to her senses, and Charles had said more than a few choice words back.  Fuck if he knew what they’d been.  Also, there was a chance – a rather good chance – that he’d been the one to start it.  He didn’t remember more than that.

“Good for you,” Charles replied after a second.  He dug back into his chicken, unwilling to share with Jack just how out of it he’d been.

Jack huffed, no doubt frustrated that Charles didn’t care more about the affair.

“You know, I’ve sailed with some of the most vile men imaginable in my career.  Even I didn’t know all the words you called Flint.”  Jack was actually scolding him at this point, and Charles just rolled his eyes.  “Gates was more than willing to let Flint have his pound of flesh.  You’re lucky I managed to get him to see reason.”

“You paid him off,” Charles translated.

“Quite a bit, in fact. And before you worry about paying me back–” Charles scoffed at the idea. “Don’t, because I already deducted it out of your shares from our last prize.”

Charles snapped his head up.  “You took my money?”

Jack sipped his wine coolly.  “You weren’t awake to tell me no.”

Charles growled, his hand tightening around his fork.

“Besides, Gates wanted money, or a public apology.  I’m sure I can get the money back if you’d rather the latter?”

“Flint should be the one apologizing to me for last night, not the other way round. He started it.”

Jack glanced across the table at Anne.  They shared a heavy look, and Charles growled.  He hated when they did that, acting like words were beneath them.  He stabbed at his plate as they spoke with their eyes before directing their attention back to him.

“Your word against his, I suppose,” Jack conceded.  “Unfortunately, his word is backed by almost every man who was at the bar last night, so that’s a bit harder to navigate.”

“Is that all you wanted to tell me?”

Jack drummed his fingers on the table.

“Hardly.  We haven’t spoken in days. Now, I think it’d be best for everyone to get back on the water as quickly as possible, but we have – well.  No leads, no headings, and no reliable source for either.”  Charles sneered at the implication there, but Jack ignored him.  “We have business.”

Charles really wasn’t in the fucking mood, but Jack had a point. The sooner they made a plan for shunt, the sooner they could get the fuck out of this town.  Away from Flint, away from the men staring at him, away from the whores and their whispers.  Away from her.

He pushed his plate back and dragged a hand over his face.  Best to get it over with.

He let Jack talk for hours, cutting off certain ideas, contributing a couple of his own.  Anne said nothing at all, to the point where he had to wonder if she was even listening, but every now and then she’d hum or scoff at a particularly dumb suggestion, and he knew she was paying attention. 

They would get past this, it was agreed. Eleanor Guthrie’s favor had helped establish their reputation as reliable hunters who would get the job done, but Charles’ reputation went well beyond that, and even if people did stop seeing the Ranger as a legitimate business investment, they were still the same ruthless killers they’d always been.

The crew would survive it.  Whether or not Charles would was another topic, one that the table was less willing to raise, although he could tell it was on their minds by the way they glanced at him every time Eleanor’s name came up.

It felt insulting, honestly.  Where did they get off, looking at him like that, when they didn’t know the first thing about it?  He’d drown in his loneliness, and there they were, unable to remember what loneliness even felt like.  He knew the story of how they found each other, knew that Anne had spent about a dozen years of her life without Jack, and him even more than that, but it was impossible to imagine now, when they couldn’t spend more than an hour or two without the other.

He found himself thinking about that one morning he’d watched them, when they’d spoken of linen prices like there was nothing to worry about.  There was no rush to the end, no desperate race to come as quickly as possible.

He thought of how he and Eleanor had fucked like they only had minutes to live.  They’d played it off as passion instead of what it was – a deep, rotten fear that if they slowed down even for a moment, one of them would come to their senses and leave.  There was a franticness that came with not knowing how long any of it would last. They’d fucked like the world was crumbling around them because, deep down, they’d both known it had been.

Jack and Anne didn’t know what that felt like.  Most likely, they never would.

It was some kind of hell, Charles decided, being stuck in the middle of them now.

“Alright, enough,” Charles snapped at last, when the room was black except for the spots of candlelight and Jack was getting into wild specifics about ship maintenance.  He could hear the street laughing and drinking below, and he was tired of being cooped up.  “We can talk about this shit later.  It’s fucking late.”

Jack sighed but dutifully finished his drink and shrugged.  “If you insist.”

Charles got to his feet, suddenly aware of how long he’d been sitting.  He hated being idle, hated the feeling of his body growing tired and weak.  He heard Jack move to the windows and pull them closed and Anne got to her feet as well, cracking a few joints.

He’d fished his boots out from below the bed and was about to pull one on by the time he noticed their frowns.

“Are you going somewhere?  It’s late.” Jack asked lightly, and Charles frowned.  He shook some sand and rocks out of his shoe, sitting on the bed.  

“Got a tent, haven’t I?  Gotta make sure my stuff’s still there.” Nobody would be stupid enough to steal anything out of his tent, but they ignored that.

Jack and Anne were still quiet.  Jack’s fingers were drumming a quick rhythm on the back of the chair.  Anne had drifted a few steps to the side, Charles noticed, standing unassumingly in front of the door again.

“What?” Charles grunted.  “Am I still not allowed to leave?”

He paused, dropping the joke when he saw Anne’s hands dancing back on her knives.  Jack looked more fidgety than usual, like a bastard caught fucking another man’s wife.

“You see, Charles–”

“Jack –”

“There might have been one more clause to that deal,” Jack explained.  He straightened up, clearly trying to look in control of the situation.

Charles breathed heavily.  “The deal? With Flint’s man?”

Jack gave a long-suffering sigh.  “It’s temporary, of course.  But it was agreed that we would stay in tonight.  Until the Walrus departs in the morning.”

Charles narrowed his eyes to slits.  Anger was licking at his throat, and he swallowed it down.  “Why the fuck would we do that?”

Jack rubbed at his brow, glancing at the ceiling like he was praying for divine intervention.  

“Gates fully believes he’ll be able to assuage Flint’s temper so long as they can have a reasonable conversation.  Which they’ll have – on the Walrus on their next hunt.  But it was made clear that he makes no promises as to what happens before that, and since we can all agree that any encounter between you and Flint right now will end badly, I agreed it’d be better for all parties if we were to lie low for the night.”

Charles let out a harsh bark of laughter.  “I’m not running from a fight.  If Flint doesn’t want one, he can stay out of my way.  And if he does, I’m more than willing to meet him halfway.”

His body was begging for it actually.  He could feel his skin itching for contact, for a hit or a slash or anything harsh and real.  And Flint had been asking for it.

“You’re in no state to fight,” Jack threw back dismissively.  Charles threw his boot down and stood up, staring at him from several paces away.

“The fuck do you know?”

Jack poured himself another drink, shaking his head.  Anne was still plastered to the door, eyes slowly keeping track of the argument.  She still looked ready for a fight.  Charles was about ready to give her one.

“In complete honesty, Charles?” Jack paused to take a gulp of the wine.  He’d given up any pretense of diverting Charles’ temper, now happy to meet him in irritation.  “I’m a betting man, and if you were to confront Flint right now, I’m not sure you’d like to know where I’d be placing my money.”

Where the fuck did he come off, talking to his captain like that? Charles felt his pulse quicken, growling as he stared at the casual demeanor of Jack leaning against the table.  “I can beat Flint any day.”

“You’re a wreck,” Jack condemned easily.  “And besides, Flint isn’t the only man offended, is he?  No, as I understand it, every other man on the Walrus is currently pissed off and ready to defend their captain.  I doubt I could say the same of our men, seeing as you’re hardly acting like their captain.”

Charles’ hands itched for their knives.  He wished he knew where they’d ended up.

“And what about the two of you, huh?  You don’t have my back either, after all the shit we’ve been through?” He directed the last part to Anne, twisting her words for earlier.  She curled her lip at him, crossing her arms hard.

Jack was gaping at him.  “What exactly is it you think we’re doing here, if not backing you?”

“The same bullshit manipulation you’re always trying to pull on me,” Charles snapped.  “The only thing you’ve ever cared about is what’s best for the two of you.”

“Is it so impossible to believe that those two things might be synonymous?” Jack asked incredulously. “I mean, can you understand that having our captain killed might be, in the very least, a fucking inconvenience?”

Charles slammed a hand against the side of the dresser, rattling the candles dangerously.  “Flint and I haven’t killed each other before. Why the fuck are you so nervous now?”

“Because in the past, you and Flint both knew that any actual attack against the other would complicate your personal and professional relationships with Eleanor fucking Guthrie!” Jack exclaimed.  “You’ve lost one of those already, and I won’t have you losing the other over Flint of all people.”

Charles’s stomach turned at the thought, shutting his eyes for a moment.  He heard Jack sigh.

“One more night.  You’re not in your right mind, anyways.”

“You’ve decided that, have you?”

“You practically told me as much, Captain.”

Charles blinked his eyes open.  “What does that mean?”

“You said Flint should apologize for what he said last night.”

“The fuck does that–”

“Because that wasn’t last night, Charles, it was three nights ago!”

Charles fell silent.  He looked at Anne for confirmation, which she gave in the form of an unimpressed glare.  It made a bit of sense: the hunger, the foggy memory, the ache in his body that was beyond bruising.  His stomach turned again, more violently this time.  He hadn’t lost himself like this in years, not since his falling out with Teach, when his brain had turned violently dark.  No wonder Jack and Anne were irritated with him.  He’d been passed out in their bed for three days.

“I have been working for days to patch things up with the Walrus crew, not to mention everyone else you’ve decided to make enemies out of,” Jack was saying, practically pleading in his tone.  “You think it’s just Flint I’m keeping you from?  I don’t want our men to see you like this, for fear they’d desert. You’re falling apart, and why?  Because Eleanor Guthrie decided her legs would stay closed for business? Hell, I don’t want her seeing you like this.”

Charles felt flushed.  His chest rose and fell quickly.  When he spoke again, his voice was low and barely audible.

“I’m not some fucking animal you can chain up in a room, Jack.”  

Jack snorted and set down his glass to refill it.

“It’s a relief to hear you say that, Captain,” he answered, the title as grating and mocking as it ever was on his lips.  “Seeing as how you’ve been begging for scraps at her bedroom door like a dog locked outside by its owner.”

Charles saw red. His body, thrumming with anger, did the work before he even asked it to, already crossing to where Jack stood.  He knocked the wine out of Jack’s hand and slammed him into the wall, a hand closing over his throat.

Anne moved just as quickly, and he felt her knife without seeing it, pressing dangerously into his side under a rib.

“Eleanor doesn’t own me!” Charles shouted into Jack’s face, his fingers tightening dangerously around the man’s windpipe.  Jack grabbed at his hand, not exactly prying him off but ready to try.  “Nobody fucking owns me.”

He felt Jack attempt to swallow beneath his hand.  He didn’t look scared, just wildly alert, as if he’d remembered how quickly Charles could move to action. His dark eyes were focused as he choked around the grip. Charles squeezed in a threat before lightening up, just enough for him to talk.

“Apologies,” Jack managed when he could, his voice strained.  It didn’t sound like the joke it usually was – all the times Jack did whatever he wanted with no regards to Charles or his authority, and later apologized for how well it all turned out.  “It was a poor choice of words.”

“You ever talk to me like that again and I’ll take your head off,” Charles threatened, his voice low and gravely.  “You understand?”

He felt Anne’s knife press closer, making him hiss quietly.  Her other hand grabbed at his hair and yanked his head back in a painful warning: you move, I move. He paused for a moment.  Experimentally, he leaned a bit harder into Jack, who gave a rough gasp, and he felt Anne’s hand clench tighter, sending a jolt of pain through his scalp and neck.  A feedback loop – any pain he inflicted on Jack paid right back to him.

He leaned back, satisfied, and lightened his chokehold on Jack, though he didn’t remove his hand completely.  In return, Anne’s grip loosened, still holding on.

Charles’ threat was a real one and they all knew it, but so was Anne’s.  He might be able to kill Jack without breaking a sweat, but Anne wouldn’t waste a moment before returning the favor.  It didn’t matter that he was her captain, or that she needed him, or that she maybe even liked him (as much as Anne was capable of liking anyone).  One word – no, one look from Jack and she’d be plunging a knife through his ribs.

That was loyalty.  Jack and Anne were some of the only people he had left at this point, definitely some of the only men on his crew he trusted at all, and yet they’d choose each other over him without a second’s regret.  Twenty something years of life he’d suffered through at this point, and he’d never known loyalty like that.  The greatest love he’d ever known had as suddenly as a sour business partnership, with only a “fuck you” and a reminder that he wasn’t built to belong in people’s beds.

He wasn’t sure if he hated Jack and Anne for their lack of commitment to him, or admired them for having the balls to care about someone that goddamn much.

None of them had moved yet, all pressed into each other uncomfortably.  Jack had stopped looking at him, and his gaze was somewhere over Charles’ right shoulder.  He was looking at Anne, no doubt, as if Charles wasn’t right in the middle of them, as if he was just a moth on a wall.  It yanked at something in Charles’ gut – something angry, or maybe just hungry.

Fuck them , he decided suddenly.  Fuck their loyalty.  Fuck their bed.  And fuck it for being the only bed I’m still allowed into.

He was sick of being the only broken thing in the room.

Charles wasn’t sure why he did it— anger maybe, or misplaced grief, or maybe it was just that his body was still craving a fight or a fuck and this seemed like the surest and quickest way to achieve both.  Whatever  the reason, the high-pitched and undignified whine he received when he slammed his mouth into Jack’s was worth it.  He abandoned his grip on Jack’s neck to grab his jaw instead, impatiently licking and biting his way into Jack’s mouth, which had opened easily for him beneath grunts and moans.

Charles thought back to Eleanor kissing the whore in the tavern just to prove she could.  He growled and knocked his teeth against Jack’s.

Anne hadn’t withdrawn.  He could still feel the lines of her body against his back, the point of her knife.  She also hadn’t stabbed him yet.  The hand twisted into his hair had lost its grip, just hanging suspended in a tangled mess.  Charles felt something smug bloom in his chest.  He’d once seen her come within seconds of stabbing a woman just for laying a hand on Jack’s neck.  She was good at that – staying close and scaring off anyone who got too close.

Come on, Charles thought as he crowded into Jack.  Am I close enough yet?

He could feel Jack’s cock already hardening in response, his hips pushing forward wantonly.  Charles, who’d been half-hard since he first threw Jack into the wall, just smiled and pressed closer. 

Now that he’d started this, he felt desperate with it: the need to know if he could crawl into the middle of the two of them, find some hidden fracture or fault line to bear down on until it finally cracked down the middle.  He’d always been good at breaking things, and Jack Rackham and Anne Bonny were practically begging for it, as whole as they were.

He paused to lay a bite on Jack’s throat, where his hand had left a bruise, before turning to look at Anne.  He couldn’t read her expression, which was as stoic and shadowy as ever.  Her eyes were narrowed, and her lips slightly snarling, but that didn’t mean anything.  She stared at him for a long moment and huffed, like she knew exactly what game he was playing, and found it amusing more than anything else.

Charles felt annoyance bloom in his chest, which was only further aggravated when she looked at her partner again.  It seemed to be built into them – the ability to look past him, no matter what.

Jack looked like a proper fucking mess, which gave Charles a certain amount of satisfaction, but it was overshadowed by how dark and focused his eyes were.  The shock had disappeared from his expression, and Charles watched in apprehension as he narrowed his eyes towards his partner and smiled wickedly.

Anne’s mouth barely twitched in response, but it was enough.  They’d reached an agreement.

They moved easily — Anne yanking him back by his hair and Jack forcing him away from the wall without allowing an inch of space to come between them.  Charles tripped over his own feet, caught up in their wave of movement, and hit the edge of the bed before he could process what was happening.  His mind was haywire, trying to catch up and ready himself for a fight, but Anne was already pulling him down to the mattress, crouching behind him as Jack slid down to kneel in front of him.

Charles realized that he’d lost the upper hand in this game around the same time Jack unlaced his trousers and shoved them away just far enough to swallow him down.

Charles groaned, drowning in the feeling of so much touch.  He’d been so desperate for a fight before, for skin against skin, but maybe this is what he’d been craving.

Anne was still behind him, her shoulders and elbows knocking sharp against him.  Her dirt-crusted hair was tangling with his own, her breathing just as heavy.  She yanked at him again, and Charles didn’t move until he realized she was trying to rip his shirt — Jack’s shirt — off over his head.  He let her, and soon enough he was more naked than not, the others still fully dressed.

He didn’t realize he was reaching for Jack until Anne caught his hand and twisted it back behind him, rough and unyielding.  Charles groaned at the combination of pleasure and pain swirling in his gut.

“You don’t get to touch him,” Anne growled, tightening her grip on his wrist. She grabbed his other hand as well and pulled it behind his back as well, locking them in her own hands.

This wasn’t the reaction he’d been so impatiently seeking out before.  Her meaning was clear, and it didn’t have anything to do with jealousy.  They were in control here, not Charles, and she was going to make sure he knew it.

He felt the rub of rope curl around his wrists at the same time that Jack curled a hand around the base of his cock.  He wasn’t sure where Anne had retrieved the line from, or if she’d just summoned it out of thin air, but he could only groan at the burn of it as she tied a bowline deftly and professionally — a true sailor.  Part of him wanted to follow his purest instinct to fight against the restraint, but he couldn’t deny how good it felt to be strung out between them.

Anne’s hands instantly found purchase elsewhere, one pinching into his side, and the other reaching around him to trace soft strokes over Jack’s cheeks as he continued to work his mouth over Charles’ cock. Charles breathed heavily as he watched her hands, testing the strength of the knot as he leaned against her.

“He likes this, you know.” Anne’s voice was as low as he’d ever heard it, rumbling into his ear.  She rested her chin on his shoulder as they both stared down at Jack.  “Gets off on it.”

Jack did indeed seem to be savoring the act.  His eyes were closed and his brow was pinched either in bliss or intense focus.  His hands were as restless as always, rubbing gentles circles into the slopes of Charles’ hips and stroking the few inches his mouth couldn’t reach.

“Sometimes he goes down on that wooden cock of ours before I fuck him with it,” Anne continued, her mouth just as sinful in that moment as Jack’s.  She spoke plainly, her tone not particularly excited or wanting, but her words did the work for her, and Charles swallowed dryly.  “I can’t fucking feel it.  Don’t get anything out of it. But he does it anyway, he just likes it that much.”

Charles gritted his teeth, unable to keep from picturing it.  His hips bucked forward unbidden and he felt Jack gag around him before pulling off.  Charles waited expectantly for one of the both of them to snap at him, but Jack just stared hungrily at them both before diving back down.  Charles watched in heady awe as Anne fisted a hand in Jack’s hair — the place Charles so desperately wanted to place his own hands — and began to control the pace with complete authority.  She was anything but soft with him, but Jack just leaned into it like he’d been waiting for it.

The sight of both of them working together to fuck Jack’s mouth on his cock was too much for Charles.  He let his head loll back against Anne’s shoulder.  She was almost completely supporting his weight now, grunting and shifting beneath him, but still holding her own.

“You’d go off and get yourself killed, if we let you,” Anne rasped.  Charles wasn’t sure he’d ever heard her talk this much, and he wondered how many words she had left in her.  “Drink yourself to death. Smoke ‘til your throat bleeds. Bury a bullet in your brain. And where the fuck would that leave us, huh?”

This was a punishment, then, or maybe some backwards way of proving to him that he needed them.  He couldn’t care less.  He thrust deeper into Jack’s mouth again and thankfully Anne obliged him this time, holding Jack still and allowing Charles to control the pace.  It only lasted a couple moments before Anne pulled Jack back for air, and all three of them caught their breath.

Charles tensed as Jack began to stroke him again and laid his cheek against the bare skin, watching the pair on the bed with dark eyes.  The feeling of stubble dragging against his thigh made Charles shudder, and Jack smiled wickedly in return.

“You think some whore could do this for you?” Anne hissed, just loud enough for Jack to hear too.  She was slightly breathless, though Charles suspected it had more to do with the exertion of holding him upright than arousal.  He wondered faintly if she was getting anything out of this at all.  Jack was, as was obvious by the impatient drag of his mouth against sweaty skin and the jerky movements of the hand he’d snuck down to his own cock, out of Charles’ line of sight.

Maybe that was enough for Anne.  Maybe the two of them shared pleasure the way they shared everything. Just more coins to be added to a mutual account.

“You think that cunt could?” Charles flinched at the mention of Eleanor, but the hands on him held him together.  Anne ran her ragged nails up his ribs until they landed on a still-healing bruise on his collarbone.  She pressed in without mercy.  He groaned desperately and heard Jack give a low laugh against his hip.

“No. It had to be us.” Anne answered her own question, digging so deep into the bruise that Charles wondered if she’d break right through the skin, like puncturing an apple — one soft spot betraying a long-rotten inside.

He remembered he words from earlier.  Like Jack and I don’t know you , she’d sneered, without ever touching your cock. He dreaded to think what that meant for him now.

“Darling, don’t be cruel,” Jack admonished from below, still pulling lazily at Charles’ cock and licking at the pools of sweat on his stomach.  It was the first time he’d said in some time, and his voice was scratchy and low.  The rawness of it — so different from his usual mocking flattery — made Charles shudder.

“Why shouldn’t I be?  He likes it.”

“Then he should ask for it.” It took Charles a moment to decipher the suggestion.  Jack’s eyes found his again, his voice so casual that he could have been talking about fair sailing conditions.  His eyes glinted dangerously — his own version of cruelty.  “Don’t you think, Captain?”

His hand slipped off Charles’ cock without warning, and Anne pulled away from the bruise without missing a beat.  The sudden lack of touch was overwhelming, and he bucked against them searching for anything they’d give him.  Anne or Jack, pain or pleasure, it didn’t matter.  There was no difference between them.

Jack smirked at Charles’ sudden desperation, and Charles growled, regretting his decision to ever let Anne tie his hands back like she had.  He could kill Jack in that moment, he really could.

“Fuck you, Jack,” he spit.

“Not sure that’s on tonight’s itinerary, unfortunately,” Jack drawled back, resting his chin back on Charles’ leg, just below the mending gash.  He ran the backs of his salt-bitten knuckles over Charles, dancing around the wound with such tenderness that there was no doubt left in Charles’ mind about whose fingers had stitched him up that week.  Anne mirrored her partner with her own ghostly teasing touch, snaking her fingers through his matted hair.

They could break him like this.

They could own him like this.

He wasn’t sure what he ended up moaning when he finally gave in.  It could have been please , or Jack , or Anne , or some incoherent blend of the three, but whatever the plea was, Jack grinned back in satisfaction.

“Close enough,” he allowed, and even though it was Jack who’d spoken, it was Anne who touched him, pressing her thumb back into the bruise while simultaneously digging her nails into his scalp in five glorious points of harsh contact.

Jack rose from the floor at last and crawled onto the mattress.  He pulled Charles towards him, no doubt attempting to lighten the load Anne was currently carrying.  Charles followed easily, as if he had any other choice with the way the binding of his hands threw him off balance.  If they abandoned him now, he wouldn’t be able to catch himself.  He’d simply tumble straight to the floor.

“See what happens when you trust us?” Jack murmured against his throat, beginning to kiss and bite at his pulse point. He wrapped his hand around Charles’ cock again and stroked him more firmly now, his hand rough in a way a woman’s never was.  Between Jack’s hand and Anne’s scratching, Charles rapidly approached his climax.

Before he could get there, however, Jack pulled his lips away from his neck and stared at him hungrily.  Charles guessed what would happen before it did — Jack’s eyes sliding past him to land on Anne behind him.

Charles could do nothing but groan as Jack surged forward and Anne pressed sharply into his back, the two of them finding each other again over his shoulder, as if they’d ever been lost.  He’d never see them kiss like this.  They were ridiculously private in their affection, to the point that Charles might wonder about the nature of their relationship if he hadn’t seen the way they looked at each other.  He’d watched them fuck, sure, but even then they seemed to share an easy platonic fondness, only betrayed by the smallest carresses or affectionate small kisses tucked behind swaths of hair.  Even now, as trapped between them as he was, he still couldn’t bear witness, unable to twist his head far enough to look at them.  He leaned into the sounds of it— the slide of their lips, the small gasps and hums, the click of their teeth.

He’d done it.  He’d managed to crawl in the middle of them, and this is where it had gotten.  It had been a fantasy to ever pretend he could break them and pull them down to his level of loneliness.  So what if each of them was only half a person?  They were still more whole than he could ever hope to be.  

Anne reached around him to find Jack’s cock between them, matching the pace Jack had set with Charles.  Another feedback loop, like they were all one thing.

Charles wasn’t sure when they broke apart from each other, but eventually he felt Jack lick back into his own mouth as Anne closed her teeth around the shell of his ear.

He barely registered spilling over into Jack’s hand, keeping his eyes firmly closed.  Jack followed quickly behind him, as he always tended to do.

The three of them didn’t move for a long moment, slowly returning to the reality of late night brothel noises and the smell of dried spit and sweat.  When he became too aware of Jack’s breath on his neck and the sharp jab of Anne’s shoulder in his spine, Charles twisted away from them both.  They took his cue like always, Jack climbing back off the mattress as Anne broke the knot of the rope so Charles could pull his hands free.

They were watching him again, no doubt unsure if he would try to force his way through the door.  He had a feeling they might just allow it now, too unsure of their footing to put up a fight, but for once Charles didn’t care to press his advantage.  His body was exhausted, like the past week had finally caught up with him.  He didn’t care if it made him look weak.  After all, it wouldn’t be the worst state they’d seen him in.

He wiped himself off quickly with Jack’s abandoned blue shirt, earning a small huff in return, before collapsing back against the bed and waiting for them to join him.  They did quickly enough, taking enough time to blow out the candles and shed some ruined clothing.  A foot brushed against him, and a knee knocked into his, but otherwise they gave him space.

“Charles—“ Jack started after a long moment in the dark.  He cut himself off, or perhaps Anne gave him a sign to shut up.  Whatever the reason, it didn’t last, and soon enough he spoke up again.  “Chaz.”

Charles huffed.  He turned over and squinted through the dark to see the two of them.  He could faintly make out the shape of Anne’s head pillowed on Jack’s shoulder, his arm curled around her.

“I’m sorry about what happened between you and Eleanor.”

If Charles wasn’t so tired, he would’ve punched Jack, but as it were, he just stayed still and waited for him to continue.

“I’m sure it’ll work out, though,” Jack reasoned, his voice light.  Charles just blinked at him, unable to see his facial expression through the dark.  “These things always do.”

It was funny, in some terrible way, how Jack could say these things without ever understanding the irony of doing so while so tangled in the love of his life it was impossible to tell whose limbs were whose.  Charles wondered if he really believed it, or if was just another lie that found its way to Jack Rackham’s lips.  It wasn’t hard to decide between those two options.

“Jack,” Charles said, rather than figure out a response to all that.  “What’s the name of that one mouthy bastard who used to sail on the Margaret.  Short, freckled one.  You beat him at cards last month.”

Jack hummed, sounding unsurprised by the change of subject.  He was quiet for a long moment before responding, sounding triumphant.  “Darby.  First mate on the Cutlass now.  Terrible cheat.”

“I thought you beat him,” Anne rumbled quietly, turning over to face them.  She sounded like she was already dreaming.

“I did,” Jack agreed with a yawn.  “He was terrible at cheating.”

Charles barely listened to their exchange.  Darby.  He remembered it now, remembered Eleanor addressing the man in that curt way of hers before she’d turned her attention to him with a “Captain Vane was just leaving.”

He felt better, now that he had a name.  The Cutlass was on the brink of a mutiny anyway and half of Nassau knew it.  Wouldn’t be hard to pass off a death as someone else’s work, not with Anne playing lookout and Jack fabricating a cover story.  It’d be one of the easier jobs they’d pull off.  

“Do I need to ask why?” Jack was still awake then.

Charles grunted. “Tell you in the morning.”

They wouldn’t stick around forever.  Charles was smart enough to know that. He might even be smart enough to find a way to fuck them over before they got a chance to fuck him.  It didn’t matter.  He’d done worse things to better people. They’d survive him, anyways.  They always would.