Chapter Text
Jack's got his old, yellowed sea charts spread across the dining room table by the time Aster comes home. At the sight, Aster's heart sinks. He'd known this day was coming, he'd just hoped it wouldn't come quite so soon.
"Hey, Honeybun," Jack looks up when Aster approaches, and drops his work momentarily to arch back in his chair and reach both slender, pale hands towards him.
Aster obliges, shedding his green tailcoat and hanging it on the rack before coming up behind Jack to lean on the back of his chair. Jack's cold fingers probe under his shirt-cuffs to wrap around his forearms, steadying them both. Aster stares down into those clear, loving blue eyes. Jack isn't as far gone as Aster expected, apparently. Must still be in the early stages.
It won't last. Jack's been at port for—what, three months now? Four? And he's been getting restless. Jack doesn't often keep his feet on the ground, much to Aster's dismay.
"So," Aster starts, unsure how to broach the question. "You've got your charts out again."
"What? Oh—right," says Jack, and that lighthouse-beacon gaze turns away from Aster to the well-creased papers spread before him. "Had an itch."
"Which horizon is calling you this time?" asks Aster, trying to joke. There are disadvantages to being in love with someone struck down by wanderlust; Jack tends to sail off to wherever the wind will take him.
"West," Jack replies, cheeky. "Or south. Maybe both." He steals a glance at Aster, before putting on an angelic smile. "…I could bring you back more of those cocoa beans you liked?"
"Mmm." The sound escapes Aster before he can stop it, and he barely has the control to make it sound non-committal. Those cocoa beans were good to experiment with. Roasted, mixed with a bit of liquors, or java, or that cane sugar Jack often brought back from the islands— "…No, I think I'd rather have you."
"And here I thought you had good taste." Jack laughs.
"Pity," Aster agrees.
Distracted again by his maps, Jack picks up his caliper, toying with the v-shaped instrument absently while his eyes roam over the waters. Barely suppressing a sigh, Aster unfolds from his lean. "Supper?" he asks, since it's about that time—though he's a bit lost his appetite.
But then again, perhaps he can cook one of Jack's favorites. A reminder of what he'll be missing—a temptation to stay.
Jack shrugs in response, but Aster's mind is made up now. They've got leftover honeyed ham in the coldbox, and fresh milk; potatoes au gratin should suffice quite nicely. And, he thinks, rolling up his sleeves and heading for the kitchen, those chestnuts in storage - they'd make a good after-supper treat. A fine supper, a simple dessert, perhaps some romance at the end of the night—see Jack try to leave him then.
"You doing alright, by the way?" Jack calls through the doorway.
Aster digs out the cooking utensils and stokes the fire. "Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"
"You do tend to get…" he hesitates, choosing words. "A bit… competitive? When the sea calls me away?"
A huff. "Don't be ridiculous." Aster scoffs, already into the throes of his temptation dinner. "I'd never."
"Never, huh." A dry question asks.
Aster knows, deep down, that his attempts are futile. Jack can no more resist the sea than he can resist breathing. And Aster would never keep him. Just, maybe, delay his departure for a while. It shouldn't be an unreasonable goal to cling to.
It shouldn't hurt this much to hope.
The telltale scrape of a chair being pushed back is all the warning Aster gets before two pale arms snake about his waist. The touch, abrupt and intimate, warms Aster even as much as it shames him. Is his countenance so plain that Jack can read him like a book from an entire room away?
"The voyage isn't for a while yet," Jack soothes. He gives a gentle squeeze. "We have time."
"Good," Aster says. He doesn't want to move out of Jack's grip. It's comforting. He finishes preparing the food in his hands, chipping coins of potatoes into the dish until he's run out. "…What brought on your wanderlust anyway?" he asks at last.
"The shipwright came calling. He's almost repaired the damage from the last voyage," Jack says. Aster's mind flickers back to the holes that had littered the hull, imagines the canonball's crack against wood, and winces; Jack, sensing this is a bad direction to take the conversation in, is quick to add, "And I ran into Old Man North at the market. He's putting out feelers for a crew."
Aster is quick to seize the safer of the two conversations. "So this is North's fault," he grouses.
Jack laughs. "This is North's fault," he agrees.
"Good to know," Aster mutters. "I'll strangle the bastard."
"He'll knife you before you get the chance."
"Not if I knife him first!" Aster says. "See if I don't!"
"Then we'll both have to go to sea," Jack points out. "Start a new life elsewhere, without a bounty on your head. So the King doesn't have you hanged for killing the crown merchant."
Aster thinks of the bawdy, gung-ho man that is Nicholas St North and scowls. "…The King would thank me for my service."
Jack laughs and buries his head between Aster's shoulder blades. And Aster can't help it; his lips quirk up in a smile. He loves all of Jack's fond little gestures. He turns his attentions back to cooking.
After a minute, the hands around his middle go slack. "Really though," Jack insists, in a softer tone. "You could come with me."
"Oh, I think I've had my fill of that," Aster says. His stint in the Navy during the war showed him more of the sea than he could handle, and then some.
It was how he met Jack in the first place, actually - not-quite-pirate Jack Frost, sailing the little 5-man skiff that was almost certainly stolen, and doing it all on his lonesome so he could travel wherever he pleased. And if that weren't impressive enough on its own, he'd already sailed every crook and cranny the northern seas had to offer, before the Navy intercepted him.
It was Jack's inside knowledge and unprecedented navigational expertise that allowed them to head off the Dread Pirate Pitch Black in the Arctic waters. Jack had wisely disappeared after the arrest before officials could crack down on him, too, but he'd surfaced in the port town of Burgess, England years later, well after Aster had taken a tidy sum from the King to see him through retirement. Aster was a fool back then, thinking Jack had done the same. Jack would never retire.
"It wouldn't be like that, though," Jack insists. "It would just be traveling. Exploring. No one brandishing swords or shooting things at you." A pause, in which he seems to recall the cannonball holes in his ship, and adds; "Mostly."
"Jack…" They've had this conversation before.
"I could fire the cook." Jack offers. He burrows his head in the back of Aster's shirt again. "And we'd pick up fresh ingredients at every port. Imagine all the exotic foods."
Hardtack meals had been one of the things Aster hated most about sea life, but… "Cooking for a hundred is hardly the same as cooking for two."
"Yeah. Alright. Forget the cooking. A botanist, then," Jack offers. "I could use a good sketch artist to document all the new birds and beasts. You won't regret it, Aster, the things we see out there—" His breath sounds like it's been stolen from his throat. "The things we see, Aster, it's—the journals we write don't do them justice…"
He sounds misty, far away. And that's Jack for you; able to catch the glimpse of joy and beauty in everything. It makes Aster's heart ache.
"I can't," Aster whispers. He struggles to swallow. "You know I can't, Jackie."
Jack's form goes still against his back. He does know, all too well.
The horrors Aster saw during the war still wake him up in the dead of night. The intervals have grown few and far between, a wound healed with time, but the traumas are still fresh on his mind, aching like a scar healed wrong. Some days, Aster can go to work, to market, even to the docks without a care in his heart. But the memory lies low, a snake in the grass, waiting for a sign. A loud clamor, or the whiff of a familiar scent, and like that, it jumps up and bites him. Some days, it's like the war never left.
Aster's tried to follow Jack onto his ships before. It's an old routine, Jack setting sail; of course Aster's tried to follow. But something about the sway of the deck, the snap of the sails, brings the memories boiling to the surface. It sets Aster's teeth on edge. The last time he'd boarded Jack's boat, they'd only made it a mile out before they had to ferry him back to shore. And that was after he'd threatened to jump overboard.
The sea is nothing but a threat for him, now. Where Jack goes, Aster cannot follow.
"I know," Jack whispers into the folds of Aster's shirt. He buries his face, holding tighter. "I'm sorry, I know, I know."
"It's all right."
"I miss you too, Aster," Jack says. "Every night that I'm gone."
"…I know."
They stay quiet, stilled, for a long drawn moment. Content to hold and be held. Aster leans back into the arms wrapped around him, and Jack seems like he'll never let go. These nights will be a rarity soon - best savor them as they come.
But ever so slowly, Jack stirs. His fingers feel out, twining absently at the hem of Aster's shirt, his voice humming in his throat. He doesn't speak right away, much to Aster's bemusement. Jack wears his heart on his sleeve. Thoughts tumble out of his mouth without review. For him to hesitate, to hold back a thought, that is a rarity, and Aster doesn't know if it means good or ill.
When Jack finally gathers the strength to speak, the words surprise Aster—it's an offer he never expected to hear.
"I could stay," Jack says, voice whispered soft and quiet.
Aster's whole body stills.
"Stay?" He echoes, and wonders if he's dreaming. Perhaps he hadn't heard right. It's absurd after all, that Jack would tire of the sea.
"I'll stay forever if you ask," says Jack.
Stay. The offer was raised, so Aster contemplates it, rolling it over in his mind. No whirlwind packing. No tearful goodbyes. No nights stretching long, alone, lying awake in his bed, consumed with the fear that the ship might never come back.
Just the promise to stay; To come home, unfailingly, to Jack's impish face; to wake up with Jack in his arms…
A deep wanting surges like the tide in Aster's heart, bottling up his throat. He swallows it back down. Moving slow, Aster grabs Jack's hands and unclasps them from around his midsection, just enough so he can turn to face his partner and look Jack in the eye.
Jack, he's surprised to find, is teary-eyed. Despite his easygoing nature, Jack can so easily be overcome with bouts of intense loneliness. He stares up at Aster with an insistent, wanting gaze. Holding his breath - waiting for the word. Ready for the verdict to fall.
He means it, doesn't he? He'll stay forever, if only Aster asks.
Aster's gaze softens, gentle. "…And watch you wilt?" he asks, cupping Jack's face in his palm. "No. I'd never do that to you, Jack. I couldn't."
He knows how Jack gets when he misses the sea. Misty eyed. Absent. Sorrowful. Like a caged bird, drained of its song. It would be wrong to anchor him here.
"But I could," Jack insists, his grip on Aster's waist more insistent. "It's not too late. North can find another navigator. And another ship."
"You'd be miserable," Aster reminds him, trailing a tender thumb over Jack's cheek. Jack, lost in the touch, struggles to respond.
"Probably," he whispers, barefaced and honest. He leans into Aster's hand, cupping it in his own to keep it there. "But I'd do it. I'd do anything to make you happy."
Touched, Aster gives a broken smile. "And I'd do the same. Which is why I can't ask you to stay."
There's nothing more he can say to that. Jack breaks from Aster's hand to gather him in another embrace, tucked beneath Aster's chin. Aster runs a hand down Jack's white locks, fingers buried in the silk-like strands.
"How long?" he asks.
Jack releases a steadying breath, holding Aster firm.
"Three weeks," says Jack.
Three weeks till the voyage. Less than a month, and he's gone. The time he's been given is not nearly enough. But then, that's the fact of things; on the subject of time, they'd always be left wanting.
Aster sighs deep. "Then we'd best make the most of it. Just," he hesitates. "Promise me you'll come back?"
Jack squeezes him tight. "Always," he promises.
That's all he can ever ask. Settling his racing heart, Aster leans back and slips two fingers under Jack's pale chin, turning his face upwards. He leans and presses a kiss to Jack's chapped lips - Jack responds in kind.
They'll be apart soon enough, with long nights spent alone—Jack chasing the horizons and Aster waiting at the shoreline, praying he'll come back safe. Aster cannot go; Jack cannot stay.
But they're together right now. That's all that matters.