Jason knew his life was nothing more than a treacherous wench. He had cheated the sea and death more times than he could count, but he wasn't foolish enough to believe his luck would last forever. 

Still, he didn’t expect it to expire in such a spectacularly cursed fashion.

He had only planned to use you as a human shield, a bargaining chip to slip past the Royal Navy patrol. Jason realized too late that the well-dressed lady in his arm was betrothed to the Navy’s golden boy, that pressing a dagger to your throat would provoke cannonade — not surrender. That his foolish plan would seal his fate, causing the most self-aggrandizing prig on this side of the Atlantic to declare that the most wanted pirate in the Seven Seas was worth more than his fiancée being alive. 

The cannonball missed you both by a hair, splintering the dock as Jason yanked you into a sprint. He stole the first sorry-looking skiff he could find, all while you stared back at the shrinking figure of your betrothed with a look of such profound betrayal that Jason almost felt bad — almost.

And now he’s stuck in a town that smells like fish and failure, crammed into a room he cannot afford with someone who loathes his very existence no less.

He lounges on a wooden chair, stretching out lazily before offering you the lumpy bed for the night. Jason tells himself it’s chivalrous, a final shred of gentlemanly conduct his father had beaten into him before the world went to shit. It definitely isn’t because he wants to sleep with a clear view of the door, or that he expects the Navy crew to swarm this room at any moment.

There’s a distant revelry from the bar below as silence stretches on, only broken by the rhythmic scrape of steel blades on whetstone. The air is thick with unspoken threats and reluctant alliance. 

Because you are stuck together regardless of your feelings.

Jason finally meets your murderous gaze, noting how intensity can set this room ablaze. There’s a dark bruise blooming on his lower lip and a dried cut on his cheekbone, yet the smug grin remains on his lips. His life can’t get any worse, but at least he isn’t dancing the hempen jig yet — and that he can annoy you to keep himself entertained.

“Did you miss the part where I said we’re moving before sunrise?”  He tilts his head, the picture of feigned innocence despite the “Terror of the Trade Winds” title written across his forehead.