Archive of Our Own

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He comes to her, hat in hand, because he needs her to know.  He needs to be sure she knows.  A tentative knock on her door at their usual time, and she’s slow in answering, slow enough that he almost leaves, but she does come, and she looks so tired standing there in her waistcoat and shirtsleeves, her eyes red-rimmed, her hair hastily tied back.  Stockinged feet.

“Vasco,” she says, and she sounds so sad.

“I’m just here to talk,” he says quickly.  “Please, just a moment of your time.”

She lets him in. Even after all this, she lets him in.

He’s been going over the little speech in his head, running through it over and over as he walked up the streets of New Serene towards the Silver Quarter, hitting every key point as he stood anxiously outside her door, but it all evaporates in the face of her fatigue, her obvious misery.  The only words that come to him now are blunt, plain things, a sailor’s speech to lay at the feet of this noblewoman who’s stolen his heart, as if it could ever be worthy of her, as if she’d even want it.  But he has nothing else, so he says it anyway: “I didn’t know. What the Nauts – what we kept from you – I didn’t know. I understand that after all that's happened, weathering one more betrayal would be too much to ask. But please, listen to me. I didn't know. Believe me, I would have told you.” He pinches his brow, because this went so much better in his head. “There’s… so much I’ve told you I shouldn’t have.” He looks up and stares into pained green eyes. “I don't want to hurt you. I… I never want to hurt you, Marie." 

It’s too much, half a confession – and when something stricken crosses her face at the sound of her name, he wonders if he’s no longer entitled to use that, either. Her voice, her sheets soft and warm from her skin and with the smell of rosewater she started putting at her neck after their first – engagement… They tugged at him like the tide, or a star to look to, letting him trudge through the docks or meetings with Cabral with a secret lightness in his chest – on his way here, they nearly tripped him. They feel unearned; they’re things she must want to take back.

“Oh, Vasco,” she says softly, “you don’t have to do this.”

“I do.” Losing her he can bear, he thinks.  Never touching her again, he will survive.  But the thought that she might think he betrayed her cuts at him, the notion that he would go to her bed and lie to her through his teeth all the while, when the truth is that he loves her, he loves her.  She looks at him, silently, wretchedly. He swallows. “Enough people have used you. I couldn’t stand to be one of them. I care for you too much.” Shit. “For your regard.”

He wonders how he could have possibly made this even worse; she looks at him like she might cry.  Vasco doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know what to do, lost landward with this woman he adores, who has hardly spoken to him all week, who hasn’t touched him since – 

“I know,” she whispers.

“You do?”  The words come tumbling out of his mouth, clumsy and foolish.  “You aren't angry with me?”

“No.  Not with you.”

With Cabral, then?  With all of us?  “Is it that I’m a Naut – ”

“No!” she cries, as though she’s shocked he’d even think it. Then what in the nine winds… what is this? “Vasco, I – I’m not upset with you. Please believe me."

"I find that difficult. I've hardly seen you.  You left me on your doorstep, and you’ve been giving me your court smile since then. Once we might have had a drink together, laughed together. There’s none of that now.  What did I do?” He pauses, feeling sick at the thought. “I hadn’t thought it was the way I – I thought we’d only done things you’d asked for, but if I was wrong…”

“No!” And Marie puts a hand on his wrist now, curling against his glove. “Light, no, don’t think that of yourself.” She stares at him, her eyes overbright. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think you’d torture yourself over this. You’ve been nothing but kind. You’ve been… so very kind.” For just a moment, he swears her thumb strokes over his glove – then she lets go, as if that was a mistake. His heart sinks. She says he hasn’t done anything, but she can’t bear to touch him?

“What is it then?” he says. “Surely there’s something I can do – if you need help – “

“No. Thank you, but no. It’s me. I…” She shakes her head. “This is my foolishness to sort out.” She looks at him, and there’s a hint of gallows humour in her eyes. He doesn’t like it. In her head, she’s mocking herself, he can tell. And there’s still that shine to her eyes. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen her cry, she’s never seemed to come close except at her cousin’s diagnosis, and storms, if he’s done that… She says, shakily, “No-one’s going to get hurt. You should go home, get some rest – or at least do something more enjoyable than this.” She tries for a half-smile, and it’s a ship running into the rocks. “I promise, I’ll stop being so… strange with you. I hadn’t realised.”

He pauses. “The thing is, de Sardet, I don’t believe you.”

She stares at him, eyes widening.

“You can barely look at me. And I thought we knew each other a little better than that. Whatever this is, it’s hurting you. And I’ve never been good at leaving a friend with something that’s eating them alive.”

“Friends,” she mutters, scraping her hands over her face. “Isn’t that the problem.”

“De Sardet – “

“I – I broke my promise to you,” she says, abruptly, and looks at him. Her voice doesn’t quite shake, but it’s a near thing. “And apparently I’ve terribly upset you in the process. Oh, Vasco, I’m so sorry.”

What? But he barely has time in his confusion. It’s too much, watching her crumple. He puts a hand out – leaves it in the air, remembering she might not appreciate it. “Marie,” he says softly – a slip he regrets when she almost flinches. “De Sardet. I don’t understand. Your… promise?”

“This was meant to be an arrangement between friends,” she tells him wretchedly, like that’s supposed to explain it.  “You and I… It was never meant to be anything more than that.”

He still doesn’t know what she’s talking about. 

She swallows. "I don't just want to be your friend anymore, Vasco."

He stares at her. For a moment, he thinks he's misheard. The sea roars in his ears, and his relief, his disbelief, might drown him. He feels like the sun is rising in his head, in his heart. "You have feelings for me?" He waits for saying it to break the spell, to wake him up. This can’t be – he’s had this dream – but in his dreams, she never looked so sad. 

"How could I not? Anyone in their right mind would," she says, still folding into herself as he watches her. Her smile isn't a smile at all – as if she’s confessed a sin, not something good. It’s an apology – an apology for her heart. "You're wonderful. I only… I hadn't realised."

Storms fucking sink me, Vasco thinks. He lays it out word by slow word, trying to understand. "You realised this, and you turned me away." 

"I couldn't pretend anymore. I couldn't touch you, and tell you how lovely you were, and pretend I didn't want…" She says, utterly, strangely agonised, "Vasco, I want to hold your hand."

He stares at her. She's tied him up and fucked him. She's fed him his own come.  And that’s got her upset?

Marie ducks her head. "I promise I'm not expecting anything of you. It's not going to be a problem. Frankly, I'm amazed – delighted – that we're friends. I asked you to smuggle! I'm the reason you were fired!" And it's almost one of her jokes, except it's high and brittle and her voice is shaking. He can hear her creaking in the wind. She's floundering and he wants to find the words to reassure her, to treasure her as she deserves. Tides, the poets were better at this. His tempest, cowed and afraid and thinking he doesn't – thinking she doesn’t have to expect anything. She says, "You’re such a good friend. That’s all I need. More than I could have ever hoped for. I told you – when we met, I was almost certain you'd hate me."

He says softly, vehemently. "I couldn't. The moment I knew you, I couldn't." He wishes she'd look at him; he wants to ask her to, but he doesn't dare to push in case he breaks this.  He reaches out to her with a slow, cautious hand.

She looks up at that. "And see, you say things like that and I – " She finally realises. "Vasco, what are you doing?" 

He wriggles his fingers: an offer. A request. She stares at them, then at his face, eyes wide and green and beautiful. It's dawning on her now, though he can see her fighting through the disbelief. Slowly – so slowly – she reaches out, and takes his hand. 

She swallows, still seeming incredulous. "Light, your parents sold you because of me. Why aren't you running a mile?" 

…What? He remembers her fears in the alley, curses himself for it not even occurring to him. He knows her better than that, and she takes everything upon her shoulders. He hopes, at least, that the blunt confusion in his tone will convince her: "You were an infant. None of that was your fault. No more than it was mine for being sea-given. And my parents sold me because of their Prince, or more likely because they were money-grabbing bastards. It doesn’t matter to me." He takes a sharp breath, because he's never put it so bluntly even in their escapades to find the d'Arcys and she's staring at him, somewhere between startled and heartbroken. "You… you were the finest storm to bring me onto land, and I am glad for it. For you."

She just watches him for a long second, as if this is a dream, as if he might disappear. Her eyes search his face for any hint of a lie, and from the look in her eyes, it’s written in his expression, all that he feels. And in return, moment by moment, he watches the realisation dawn on her face that this is really happening, her mouth opening. Then she glances down and turns his hand in hers; she strokes a soft thumb over the inside of his wrist. The smallest thing, and yet it's more tender than some kisses he's had. He realises that she's lost for words; it's hard to recognise, because he doesn't think he's seen it before. 

He shifts his hand to lace their fingers together. "You spoke of the unlikelihood of us becoming friends. That’s nothing compared to… more. We both know it would be a bad idea for a Naut fresh off his ship to fall for the prince's niece." 

Any other time she’d say I’m not really his niece, or laugh, and he waits for it to come. She doesn’t say anything. She’s watching him like he's the world, as if a cast word might break the spell.

"But so I did,” he continues.

Marie’s eyes widen.

"I realised, the week after that fight, when you nearly… The night you fucked me."

"The night you kissed me on my doorstep," she says, softly. Of course she remembers that. "In the morning, I thought you were… I thought I might have done something wrong." 

He hastens to tell her, "No, nothing like that. I needed to think."

"You've fallen for me," she repeats, in wonder. She swallows. "You've just been carrying that around, all this time? Vasco, why didn't you say something?" 

"Why didn't you?" 

At that she does laugh, a tight, pained thing. "You're right. I… is it too late to say it now?" 

"Not too late," he responds, softly, his heart suddenly in his throat. 

"I love you, Vasco," she says, voice quiet, eyes green and painfully earnest and it's You were wonderful, it's You're so beautiful and You're always so kind, the things she desperately wants him to know. "Very much." 

…Oh. He’s dared to imagine it – once or twice, the swiftest thing before he crushed it as self-indulgence – and in his brief dreams, it never sounded anywhere near as good as this. He never imagined her standing before him in her stockings, a lock of hair falling into her eyes, and he can’t – he needs her to know – 

“I love you too,” he blurts out – breathless and hushed, awkward as a cabin boy, too used to biting it back. It feels like a weight lifted from his chest. Her face lights up, joyous and bright, so bright he almost thinks her magic’s about to spark over her skin. She beams at him, and he wonders again how he could ever have found her severe, how he could ever not have known what kind of woman was underneath, if he cared to look. 

For a moment she just looks at him, as if she’s savouring what she sees; the same way he’s caught her watching the mist over the mountains in the morning in camp, or the canopies of great trees. That quiet wonder. It takes everything in him to meet her eye; perhaps if they weren’t of a height, if it were easier, he’d give in to temptation and avoid it. She says, softly, "You should see your face. It's like the sun rising. And to think, I was so frightened of saying it.” She half-smiles, bashful. “I’ve never met anyone quite like you before.”

“A Naut?” he manages, voice rough and barely above a whisper; he thought it was meant to be flippant, but he might be too dazed to manage it.

She grins, her hand rising to cup the back of his neck. He wants to kiss that smile but he also wants to listen to her forever, and if he could have both, he would die a happy man. “No,” she says, “you. I’m so glad you washed up on my shore, Captain Vasco.” Her thumb rubs over his neck, and her forehead meets his, her eyes on his mouth. "I love you so much," she murmurs, and then kisses him, soft as silk.

He breathes, awed, "Marie.” And then he can’t help but kiss her. Her name is like nectar on his tongue and he has to share it with her, to show her the perfect sweetness of it.  Her arms go around his neck; her hands tangle in his hair; his hat is on the floor somewhere at their feet, and he doesn’t care.  Vasco clings to her like a man drowning, like she’ll vanish if he lets her go. 

It’s the first breath of wind after two weeks becalmed.  It’s the sight of land after five months at sea.  It’s a lifeline thrown to a shipwrecked sailor.  It’s what he needs most in the world. He gathers her into his arms, and kisses her again, again.  She said I love you, he thinks a little wildly.  It feels real and not real at the same time – a mirage or perhaps dry land – but Marie is solid in his arms, kissing him back, her mouth insistent on his, and it’s no hallucination. He meets her there with equal fervour; her hand strokes over his back, pressing his coat and his layers to his skin, as if she’s checking, too. So long biting the words back, terrified, wanting… He can finally breathe. She’s been there, too, all this time, afraid and lonely and… in love with him. Storms, she’s in love with him. He should have just told her all those weeks ago, should have gathered his courage and poured his heart out to her that morning in her bed.  I love you.  I hope you don’t mind.  It’s all right if you don’t feel the same.  But I love you, and I thought you should know.  He is a hundred times a fool.

Her kisses are growing more and more desperate; she sucks his tongue into her mouth, making him moan a little. She strokes her hand through his hair, touches his jaw, as if she can’t bear to tear her hands away: soft, awed little touches even as she kisses him like a tempest. In his arms she is a burning brand, the heat of her body pressing closer, the power and strength of her.  Vasco has been dying for want of her and now he’s being swept away, awash in her bounty.

“Vasco,” she whispers fiercely.

“Take me to bed?”  He’d make love to her right here in her sitting room if she’d a mind, but he suspects her housekeeper might object.

“Gladly,” Marie says, and takes his hands.

They barely make it through her bedroom door.  Marie can’t bear to be out of his arms for more than a moment.  Joy is rising light in her chest, bright and glad and golden, so she turns back into his embrace and presses her mouth to his, cupping his face in her hands.  Vasco’s lips part under hers, ready and willing, his hand gripping a fistful of her waistcoat at the small of her back.  She grins against his mouth, unable to contain herself.

“I love you,” Marie tells him.  She never wants to stop saying it.

Vasco laughs softly, wonderingly.  “Marie,” he murmurs.  She never wants him to stop saying that, either.  She kisses him deeply, tasting her name like honey on his tongue.  He’s warm and solid against her, deliciously real, and she is giddy with it.  She wants to feel his skin under her hands, under her lips; she wants to taste more than just his mouth on hers.  Marie undoes his belt with a quick tug as he takes his gloves off and tosses them aside; next she worries at the knot in his sash – fortunately he hasn’t used one of his damned complicated knots today, and it comes loose under her fingers.  Then comes his coat; he’s trying to unbutton her waistcoat and she’s having none of it, sliding her fingers under the shoulders of his coat and easing it down his arms until he gives up and lets her strip him out of it.  She takes his waistcoat off the same way, then lets him finish with her own buttons as she runs admiring hands down his chest, feeling his heartbeat through the soft linen of his shirt.

“You’re beautiful,” she tells him, and he kisses her as he eases her waistcoat off her shoulders.

“I love you too, Marie.”  His voice is a gentle rasp, warm with feeling and a little wryness. She gives him a sheepish smile, then trails kisses down the line of his jaw to his neck, where she sucks a love bite into the skin; Vasco draws in a harsh breath, his hands tightening on her.  She can feel his cock hardening against her thigh, so she leaves a second love bite beside the first, just to hear him moan, and moan he does – her name.

She bites his earlobe; Vasco catches his breath.  “I want you,” she murmurs.  It’s a silly thing to say at a time like this, but Vasco doesn’t seem to have a quip ready – he’s melting against her, clinging to her like she might vanish at the first opportunity, or maybe like his knees have turned to jelly.  Marie kisses his mouth again and slides a hand down his belly and into his trews.  Vasco groans as she wraps her fingers around his cock.  He’s fully hard already, thrusting up into her grip a little as she holds him.  It’s impossible to really please him in those tight captain’s trews of his, of course.  She doesn’t want to use her hands in any case.  So she kisses him once more, then goes to her knees at his feet.

“What are you doing?” he asks a little breathlessly as she opens the front of his trousers and pulls his cock out of his underclothes.  She’s not the only one saying silly things tonight, it seems.

“What does it look like?” she asks, and then takes him into her mouth.

He tastes of skin and salt; she smells the warm, clean musk of him and revels in it, revels in the flavor of the slick leaking from his cockhead.  Vasco – her lover – they’re lovers now, aren’t they? – he’s always so delicious.  The skin of his shaft is soft and smooth; the head is silky, nestling perfectly into her soft palate.  He moans helplessly as she takes him as deep as she can, and she lets out a slow breath as she swallows him down, excitement darting down her spine at the sounds he’s making, at the way she can feel his cock twitching against her tongue.  When she looks up at him she finds his eyes fixed on her face, his mouth falling open, his brows furrowed with pleasure; he reaches down and threads his fingers through her hair, not gripping her, just touching.  She swallows around him and he shudders.

“Oh storms, Marie,” he gasps.

She draws back, licking at the bottom of his shaft, then plays the tip of her tongue over the little cleft of his cockhead as she sucks on him slowly, gently, her eyes never leaving his.  She can see the excitement in his face, the way his pupils have dilated, the tension in his jaw, his brow.  He’s losing himself in it already and it’s intensely arousing; she can feel herself getting wet, her cunt a needy, pleasurable ache between her thighs.  It’s tempting to slip a hand into her own trews as she pleases him, but she wants to focus on Vasco, and besides, he’s going to want to make her come just as much as she wants to do the same for him; it always seems to delight him so.

Marie sets a steady pace, just slow enough to be tantalizing.  A breathy little moan catches in Vasco’s throat every time she takes him to the root.  She sucks on him the way she knows he likes, her tongue playing over his shaft, one hand in his trews, stroking his balls with her fingertips.  He tightens deliciously slowly against her fingers, his breath coming faster and faster, his moans getting less and less breathy.  Marie would stay here forever if she could, making love to him with her mouth, watching him inch towards his climax with every stroke of her lips on his cock.

Vasco comes at last with a helpless cry, his whole body going tense as his cock spasms in Marie’s mouth.  She takes him to the root and sucks on him hungrily, swallowing his seed as heat rushes over her skin.  Her cunt aches with desire for him.  His climax holds total dominion over him for a long moment, his eyes burning into her face, his body shuddering as he comes, and then he relaxes with harsh exhalation and Marie releases him.  Vasco’s head drops back against the door and he leans there for a moment, panting as she wipes her mouth.  He looks down at her dark-eyed, and smiles crookedly.  She beams up at him, lust and joy blooming together in her.

“I love you,” she says again.

He laughs that wondering laugh again, as though surprised at his own happiness.  “I didn’t mean to come so soon,” he says, a little apologetic.

“You say, as if I didn’t want you to,” Marie replies, bobbing her brows at him.

Vasco chuckles.  “Fair enough.”

“Come on.  I promised to take you to bed, and so far I’ve failed miserably in that regard – ”

“On the contrary, from a metaphorical standpoint you’ve done quite well,” Vasco says.  

Marie snorts.  “Get your boots off,” she tells him, fondly.

They sit down together to divest themselves of their footwear, shoulders bumping companionably as they sit side by side on her bed; it’s a familiar moment, far older than their sexual relationship – they’ve done this time and time again in camp, sitting down at the end of a long hike and getting their damned boots off, bickering good-naturedly over whose were the worst blisters.  But they never stripped naked out there in the mountains, and Vasco never leaned over to kiss her the way he does now, pressing his lips to her shoulder, then her cheek.  Marie looses her hair from its tie and runs her fingers through it; Vasco nuzzles into it and kisses her neck.  She runs a thumb down the line of his jaw and presses her lips to his, leaning into his embrace, her thigh hooking over his as she moves closer.

Vasco pulls her into his lap and she goes gladly, lets him lay her down on top of the coverlet and kiss her face, her chest, her belly, his lips and hands trailing over her skin, as if he’s trying to count with his kisses every way in which she is precious to him.  The thought should feel silly, like something out of a romance novel – it almost makes her cover her face in embarrassment – but it also feels utterly, unutterably true.  There’s a desperate softness to the way he touches her, fiercely gentle, like he needs her to know something he can’t quite put into words.  As if I love you, whispered in that lovely burr of his, were not enough, she thinks.  It would always be enough.

“Vasco,” she breathes, her fingers tangling in his hair.

“Marie.”  He kisses her breast, takes her nipple into his mouth, teasing it with his tongue into a delicate, pebbled peak, then eases up her body, kissing her clavicle, her neck, biting her the way she likes.

“Oh,” she gasps, arching under him at the pleasure of it.  He runs a hand down between her legs, cupping her gently, stroking a finger through the wetness that’s gathered there.  Vasco enters her easily, two fingers sliding into her cunt and crooking against the spot inside her that he’s learned to find so quickly.  “Oh, Vasco!”

“Let me please you,” he murmurs in her ear.

“Ah,” Marie gasps.  “Yes – ah!  Vasco…”  The pleasure breaks over her in waves as he kisses his way down her body and settles between her thighs, parting her folds with his thumb and pressing his mouth down onto her cunt.

For some months they’ve been sleeping together, long enough for him to learn what she likes, to learn every breath, every moan, to learn to read her body – the pleasure he gives her now, after all that practice, is exquisite.  Marie doesn’t even try to direct him anymore, just lets herself sink into it, her legs wrapped loosely around him, her hand clasping his where he grips her thigh.  I love you too, Marie – she hears him say it again, drowning as she is in the sensation of his mouth on her, his fingers in her, the rhythm and heat of him, how he knows exactly what she wants.  Perhaps this is what it feels like to be loved by Vasco – this sublime bliss, the way he knows her, the way he looks after her always.  

It seems to take her a long time to come.  It doesn’t take him long to get her there, not after she spent all that time sucking his cock, growing more and more pent up all the while as she eased him through his pleasure, but the climax itself seems to last forever, a slow, brilliant unfolding deep inside her, gathering itself bit by bit as Marie tenses and arches under Vasco’s patient tongue, as she starts to shake, as she moans his name.  The white heat of it grows from a tiny spark until it fills her, until she feels that she must shine with it, quite literally alight with ecstasy.  When at last the paroxysms take her she comes with his name on her lips, crying out desperately as she shudders against him.  She feels him groaning against her cunt, but she can’t hear him, lost in the intensity of her climax.

Marie lies there for awhile afterwards, deafened by pleasure and hardly able to move, just catching her breath.  She feels Vasco wipe his mouth off and lean his cheek on her thigh; he laces his fingers through hers, holding her hand as she rests.  His thumb rubs over her knuckle, slow and affectionate.  At last she lifts her head with a sigh and looks down at him; he smiles at her, soft-eyed.

“How was that?” he asks her.

“It was wonderful.  You’re wonderful,” she tells him sincerely.  His smile blooms under the praise.  He kisses the inside of her thigh, nuzzling against her – affectionate, or hiding his face?  Marie reaches down to run her fingers through his hair.

“Come and kiss me,” she tells him, and Vasco crawls up her body to press his lips to hers, his hair falling down around their faces as he bends over her.  Marie pulls him closer, her arms around his neck, her legs curled loosely over the backs of his thighs, drawing him down to lie on top of her.  Vasco obeys the unspoken order, deepening the kiss as he does so, his tongue delving into her mouth.  He’s soft against her belly, but perhaps that will change in due course, and she’ll be able to make love to him again.  She rather thinks she’d like that.

“You’re beautiful,” Vasco says, and gives her a long, clinging kiss, cupping her head in one hand.  Marie looks up at him under her lashes when they break apart.

“Why, thank you, Captain,” she teases.

“I mean it, Marie.”  He looks so serious.  Oh, she thinks.  

“Thank you,” she says softly.  Vasco smiles at her crookedly, then leans down, pressing his forehead to hers and shutting his eyes.

“You’re beautiful and brave. You’re clever and generous and kind,” he tells her fiercely.  “And perhaps a bit mad, I think.  And you’re awful at accepting compliments, and I love you so much.”

“Vasco…”  Marie’s heart feels overfull.  Tears prick at the corners of her eyes.  She takes his face between her hands and holds him, stroking his cheeks until he pulls back to meet her gaze.  She tries to steady her voice. “You know, your integrity impressed me right from the first time we met."

"If I recall, I told you to sneak into a warehouse," he says, unsteadily. 

"Because you didn't want me to hurt anyone. And you knew damn well I'd let those heretics go. And you cared about a cabin boy."

"Someone had to," is all he says, roughly. 

"I agree. But you have such courage, and such strength – in here," and she touches  his forehead, "and here," she adds, pressing her hand over his heart. "You've made yourself into someone so… you're so kind. I don't think you know how much. You're thoughtful, and honest, and brilliant. Even if you hadn't been terrifyingly handsome, I would have fallen for you. But of course you are, and… It is an honour to love you, Vasco."

He gives a hoarse little breath of a laugh, like she’s knocked it out of him.  “I should know better than to trade compliments with a noble,” he says, and his tone is joking but the look in his eyes is a hundred fathoms deep.  “I’m just a sailor.  I can’t possibly compete.”  She thinks what he means is ‘No one’s ever said anything like that to me before, and I love you so much that I don’t know what to do.’

“I like your compliments.  You needn’t try to dress them up for me. They’re lovely. And at least you mean them, unlike every courtier who’s ever tried to flatter me into submission.”

Vasco touches her cheek.  “I’m glad I can be of some small service,” he says.

“You’ve been much more than that,” she says, and pulls him down for another kiss. She says, gently, after a moment, "You know people so well. You watch them the way I do. Do you know what it means, after years of the viper's nest at court, to hear someone like you call me good, call me kind?" 

"You are," he says, matter-of-factly as if it's obvious and he might fight anyone who says otherwise, stroking his thumb over her cheek. 

She stares at him. The corner of her mouth twitches. "...All your talk of nobles being duplicitous, yet you really have no idea, do you?" She sighs. "Even when you took against me, you kept trying. You argued with me. You laughed with me, and you blasphemed with me, and let me make awful jokes. The moment you wanted to, you saw right past the face I put on for court. I can believe you. You saw… me, not de Sardet, the prince's niece." She says, softly, incredulously, realising it as she says it: "You love me." Her eyes may have got a little wide. 

He strokes her face and says, very seriously, "I do." And then he smiles at her, and it's devastating. Then he pauses, and for a moment he does just look at her as if to prove her point, eyes assessing and perhaps a little heartbroken, wandering over her face, her body. Then he kisses her, a soft, brief thing. Drawing back, he says with a falsely casual air, "It's interesting. With a land-dweller they usually just see our tattoos, or our foreign customs. And then you achieve rank, and you bark at your crew when they ask you how you are, and they say yes, cap'n and leave you be. They stop asking. To your face, anyway." He tilts his head and looks at her, eyes like sharp gold in the light of her room. "That didn't work on you." He says, voice quiet and rough as a file, "You care too much."

"I could call you cap'n, if you like," she offers, with a gentle half-shrug. 

He sighs, but he's smiling with it. "Marie." It's fond and exasperated and wonderfully heavy on his tongue with significance. 

She realises she's staring when he strokes her cheek and says, "Marie?" 

"I… nothing. I was just thinking how lovely it sounded in your accent."

He looks at her in surprise. Raises a brow. "...You're right. You're a terrible noble."

She pauses, and rolls them over, gently. She rests her chin on her arms, half-lying there on his chest where he can't avoid her gaze, and considers him. She says softly, "What, because I love your accent, and your tattoos, and the way you know the difference between port and starboard?" 

"You asked me to explain that," he says, with an amused huff, but he has that startled, loving look in his eyes again. 

"...And the way you love your ship, and your crew? And the way you mourn when we find sunken vessels, and I can hear it in your voice? And the way you look at the stars like they're telling you secrets, and collect sea poetry?" She swallows. "I told you, you being a Naut was never the problem. It's who you are. The same as me being a terrible noble… And, apparently, being of Tir Fradi." She glances downward, still feeling the strange new sting of that. His thumb traces over her jaw, green mark and skin and all, and it's affection and reassurance both. 

You being a Naut was never the problem. Marie looks at him and licks her lips, trying to find the words. She doesn’t want the thought to intrude into this cocoon of rumpled sheets. She’s tried to put it aside, for fear it’ll ruin everything it touches. But… she needs him to know. 

Vasco watches her, eyes sharpening, because he knows her face too well and it’s obvious she’s trying to get at something. (Never let yourself be so known, they’d say in court. Never leave your back open for ridicule or a knife. Never let your dearest friend pleasure you relentlessly and then hold you carefully afterwards, knowing the scars and bruises from months on the road. Never let him look at you like you’re something holy, hands so tender it aches.)

“Vasco,” she says, into the warm, close silence. It comes out almost conversational, for the start of such a confession.

He raises a brow, and tilts his head.

“I’m sorry,” she admits, too quietly, as if he’ll somehow miss it and they won’t have to have this conversation. She wants to look away from him, but he deserves her honesty. After all his bravery, the least she can do is this.

“What do you have to be sorry for?” he asks, brow furrowing. And he seems to mean it, the bastard. Her heart clenches.

“For turning you away. For ever letting you think you’d hurt me.” Swallowing, she finally looks away; she’s rarely one to cry, but looking into those wide, surprised whiskey eyes and their utter lack of judgement might set her off. “You never have. I… panicked. You deserved better.” She feels his hand touch her face, coax her gaze back to him.

“And I should have told you,” he counters. “I did hurt you. If I’d not been scurvy and said something, we might have avoided all this grief.” He sighs, his hand drifting under her chin. “But I didn’t, and yet somehow, here we are.”

She wriggles pointedly against him, relishing his soft breath of laughter. “Yes. We are.” Unable to help herself, she adds, “Though not without some work.”

He leans into her, forehead resting against hers. “Perhaps love makes fools of us all, my tempest.” The words are soft, as soft as the kiss he presses to her mouth.

She kisses back, unable to turn down something sweet as a sip of good wine. The endearment warms her from her head to her toes. Is that what she is now, to him? Maybe he'll call her that again, voice so fond and yearning, like something out of his poetry.  She hopes so. Forgiveness tastes lovelier than she'd ever imagined. 

He murmurs against her lips, "Marie." And… it's I love you. And suddenly she's beginning to suspect that maybe it's always been I love you, right from that first shattered moment when she was inside him. Oh, Vasco. 

That makes her kiss him with renewed fervour, needing to show him that he's not alone in this. And then, perhaps, because it's just wonderful to be kissing him, and his body feels so very good against hers. She ends up underneath him, with him kissing her cheek, her jaw, her neck, clearly plotting out a destination. 

She says, idly, "I'm sure I – oh – had something I was going to do." She tilts her head back in invitation. 

He kisses her throat, open-mouthed, and then says wryly, against her ear, "I can leave you be."

"Oh no, I, mm, I think my plans were just drinking tea and thinking of you." She strokes her hips against his, lets out a soft breath as he nips at her earlobe; there should be a law against his mouth. Add that to the one about his eyelashes, and his laugh, and… all of him, really. Positively lethal. 

"Thinking of me, hm?" She feels his smile against her cheek. "Fondly, I hope."

"Often. Always, really." Her voice is soft, and she melts back into the sheets as he kisses along the line of her jaw. He's going to drive her mad, isn't he? And she's entirely willing. 

“I want to make love to you again,” Vasco says, and kisses her neck, biting her gently.

Marie sighs with pleasure.  “Are you ready?” she asks.

“Let’s see,” he murmurs, and takes her hand and guides it down to his cock.  She strokes him slowly and feels him begin to respond, hears the little catch in his breathing.  

“This seems promising,” she jokes, heat gathering in her belly.

“Mmh,” is his only reply.  He kisses her as she pleasures him, sucks a love bite into the skin of her neck, fills a calloused hand with her breast and teases her nipple with a gentle thumb, his lips and tongue hot on her skin as he rolls his hips forward, thrusting into her hand.  By the time he’s fully hard, they’re both panting.  Marie nuzzles against him until he raises his head and lets her kiss his mouth, tasting his tongue on hers, the delicious slide of two lovers’ mouths meeting.  Vasco slips a hand between her legs and strokes her gently.  Marie sighs as pleasure blooms within her, her body responding to his touch.

“Let me have you,” he murmurs against her skin.

“I’m ready,” she replies.  He enters her with a single finger and she arches against him, sighing blissfully.

“Storms, you’re wet,” he says, his voice so rough it’s almost a growl.

“Fuck me,” she breathes.  Vasco doesn’t speak, but settles himself on top of her once more, gripping her thigh in one hand and drawing her leg up against his side as he kisses her passionately.  Marie wraps her legs around his waist, canting her hips up; she can feel the tip of his cock pressed against her cunt, so close to entering her.  Arousal burns through her, swift and flame-bright.

“Please,” she says – no, begs.  Vasco kisses her again and rocks his hips forward, sliding into her with his tongue in her mouth.  Marie moans at the blissful ache of it.  He’s thick and blood-hot inside her and she feels full, somehow complete, something deep inside her saying yes.

“I love you,” he says, his voice tight with pleasure.

“Vasco…”  I love you too doesn’t seem like enough to encompass what she’s feeling – she doesn’t have the words for it, for how badly she’s wanted this, how much she’s needed it – needed him – and all this time he was right there just waiting for her, and now she has him and he loves her too, oh, Light, he loves her… Marie pulls him down for a kiss, overwhelmed with emotion, and Vasco begins to thrust into her.

Vasco is slow, gentle, almost more occupied with kissing her than with fucking her, his hips rocking back and forth against hers in a steady rhythm, and bliss moves through her in ripples, thick and sweet as honey.  His cock touches every perfect, secret place inside her, coaxing the pleasure out of her with every careful thrust, and Marie wraps her legs loosely around his waist and lets herself sink into it, loses herself in the smell and taste and feel of him.  He’s exquisite.  He’s beautiful.  She loves him more than she has words for.

Her eyes flicker open when he breaks away from their kisses; he reaches down and takes her hand, then puts two of her fingers into his mouth and sucks on them, looking her in the eye all the while.  Marie catches her breath, feeling the way his tongue strokes and tickles her skin, light and clever, the way he sucks on her, swallowing her fingers down to the last knuckle; her fingertips brush his soft palate and he doesn’t even blink, just strokes her with his tongue.  Then he takes her hand out of his mouth and presses it down between them, rising up on his elbow to give her a little room.

“Touch yourself?  I want to watch you come,” he says softly.

“Yes,” she says, her voice barely more than a whisper, feeling half-drunk on the pleasure he’s already given her, and reaches down to stroke between her folds with spit-slick fingertips as Vasco begins to thrust into her again.

The pleasure takes her up bit by bit, every circle of her fingers over her cunt, every thrust of his cock into her filling her a little more.  She feels like a clear glass full of light, cool and golden, growing brighter with every touch.  Marie keeps her eyes on Vasco’s face until they won’t focus anymore, watches the way his brows grow tight, the way he begins to pant for breath, his lips parted, his eyes dark and fixed on her, the heat in them, the passion, the tenderness.  In the end it feels too good to keep her eyes open; she is blind with pleasure, deaf with it, lost in her rising climax as it gathers itself inside her, filling her up as slowly and surely as Vasco’s cock, blossoming under the warmth and steadiness of him.

Marie comes with a cry, clutching at the sheets with her free hand, the other stroking herself, delicate and precise, and Vasco fucks her through it, never faltering even as she feels him moaning above her, even as he begins to shake with his own pleasure, up until the moment he buries himself as deep in her as he can and comes.  It’s those little twitches of his cock that seem to feel the best, that light up her body like the rising sun as he spills himself inside her, leaving her gasping and clinging to him as her climax ends.  He crumples down onto her with a sigh, burying his face in the curve of her neck as he catches his breath, holding her close beneath him and pressing soft, openmouthed kisses to her sensitive skin.

“Marie.”  He breathes her name like a blessing, like a prayer.

“Vasco,” she murmurs, putting her arms around him.

They lie there like that for a little while, catching their breath and trading kisses and caresses, not saying a word, just holding each other.  Vasco grows soft and slips out of her; Marie kisses his cheek, his forehead, his lips; she never wants to stop touching him.  He rolls off her eventually, settling himself beside her.  They’re still on top of the blankets,  so Vasco rectifies that, tugging the coverlet out from under them both and then tucking them in.  He lies down on his back and she settles herself on top of him, not wanting to be parted from him for even a moment.  She lies with her hips between his thighs, her face tucked against his neck; he curls a leg over the back of hers as he puts his arms around her, and runs slow fingers up her spine as he slides one hand up to cup the back of her head, pulling her tight into the cradle of his body and wrapping his other arm around her.

She enjoys it for a moment – basks in it, in the warmth and gentleness of him – and then she pauses, and looks at him. “What was that, before?”

“Hm?” He frowns, searching her face.

“You called me something. Your… tempest.”

He freezes, just for the slightest moment, so swiftly that if she weren’t a well-trained diplomat she would have missed it. He raises his brows, playing at innocence. Oh. Something important, then.

“Is that a Naut thing, or a you thing?” Marie presses, then rubs her nose against his, just briefly, in affection and reassurance, before she smiles at him.

“Does it… bother you?” he says, finally.

“Oh no, I liked it. And the way you say it is…” Desperately tender, warming as a bottle of good rum. Like you’re overjoyed I’m still here. The sort of tone I had to ask about because it sounded like your heart spilling from your mouth, which usually ends with me not quite sure whether I want to cry or take you to bed. She manages, bashfully, “...well, I rather like it.” She ducks her head, and watches his hint of a smile reappear. Good, she hasn’t scared him off. She examines the caught-out look on his face with quiet delight, and leans closer. “But if we’re playing question for a question: it’s a you thing, isn’t it?”

He swallows and looks at the ceiling, not quite with a roll of his eyes. “I – oh, storms sink it. It’s from a poem.”

She blinks. Fondness – no, she can name it for what it is now, love – rises in her chest, fierce and instant. “Would I know it?”

Swallowing, he seems to consider his words. “You might. It’s not the most… I used to reassure myself with it. I would tell myself not to get too involved.” 

“With me?” she asks, soft and careful.

A moment passes, and then… “Yes,” he says, like it’s been dragged out of him.  And then he begins, slowly, haltingly, his eyes flickering back to her every few words:

“The sea and love are sailed by common stars.
Equally bitter are they, dram for dram;
Both the unlucky to their depths will damn,
For both are tempest-torn, and leave their scars.”

The familiarity of it creeps up on her and rises around her ears, and Oh, Vasco.  She realises she’s stroking her thumb over his chest as she listens, to show that she’s still here, that she understands.

“The one who fears the waves should stay ashore,
The one who fears love’s torments must beware
And keep their heart proof to both lust and care
Safe from the deeps to stay forevermore.”

Marie thinks of him sitting in that narrow docks room, lonely and exhausted, rereading and stubbornly deciding to stay ashore.  She could have been holding him.  

“Whence was love birthed but from the sea’s own womb?
Yet fire, born of love, shall find its tomb
Within the sea’s embrace, which love endures.”

(All her hours sitting in her half-dark room after yet another dalliance had ended because she couldn’t, wouldn’t offer them access to the Prince; because their eyes lit up when they saw Constantin in the way that spoke of a dowry, not love, and they’d taken his hand a little too long to shake; because they’d expected a noble who understood these things, not a soft-hearted fool, and they’d looked at her in disgust and left her hastily pulling on her robe... Constantin would just make her drink and be morose and see people, let them see her in return: a humiliated fool on the inside even if they kept these matters quiet in the family, and – tracing the pages and mouthing along, O, nature’s lay idiot, I taught thee to love… ) But Vasco has fallen silent at last, his nerve deserting him. One of the bravest men she knows. 

Marie finishes, softly, 

“If water could extinguish love, then I
Would fill an ocean with the tears I'd cry
To quench a love that burns me such as yours.”

His eyes flicker swiftly to hers, caught-out. He inhales. Waiting patiently, she strokes his cheek, watching him.

He says, “And then it no longer worked for me, because I realised something.” Frowning as if his own words surprise him, he says, “I realised that love was terrifying, but I’d be prepared to brave it, with you. To find out if this time, it would be worth it.” He looks at her, suddenly, eyes very hazel and a little grim, as if he’s said too much and he’s expecting her to hop out of bed and flee naked into the streets just to get away from him. His jaw works. When she stays, her thumb tracing over his collarbone, he says, “I thought about it often. Asking whether you thought the same as that poem. Or whether it seemed… whether you’d want to try and sail that sea. With me.” His voice is barely more than a whisper. A secret shared. 

Her response is instant. “I would have said yes,” she says, voice hushed.

There it is again: the sun rising in his eyes. It almost blinds her, the power of it, but she never wants to look away. He stares at her, clearly still not sure this is real. Sometimes she almost forgets how young he is; sometimes she almost forgets that half-frightened gentleness he shows and then swiftly tucks away before someone can stab him in it. Light, his heart. She’s holding it – the first time she’s held anyone’s in such a long time, and now it’s the least likely, most wonderful person’s – and she tries not to harm it. She says, still touching him to show him how very real this is: “Well, you are an exceptional captain. I’ve set sail with you once.”

“Marie,” he says, softly. 

“I’m sure you can brave a tempest. Am I really so frightening?”

His answer is immediate: “Yes.” But it’s the sort of flat that’s secretly very fond and always makes her laugh; she does now. He adds, “Especially when you keep nearly getting yourself killed.”

She says, “Well, once you sat by my fire, telling me about how you made it through a hurricane.”

“You remember that,” he says, with a quiet kind of surprise.

“You made me very happy, putting up with all my questions, drinking my tea. You were in my home, and I was so… pleased to have you there.  I thought you were finally my friend, and I was delighted by it.”

“I thought you were strange.” His brow knits. “Kind. Often kinder than I deserved. …My friend.” Yes, definitely quiet surprise.

Nuzzling her nose against his, she echoes fondly, “My friend.”

He takes her face in his hand, kissing her – a tired kiss with a prickly chin, without finesse or performance, that utterly delights her. “My tempest,” he says, against her lips.

She pulls back a little. “What was it you said…” The words still make her flush, still weigh joyfully in her chest, countered only by a thread of disbelief that’s keeping them aloft. “The finest storm to bring you onto land.”

He looks at her, helpless, probably too tired to discern whether she’s about to mock him – and she strokes his hair, still being careful with his heart.

And then she laughs, softly. “...Oh.”

“What?”

“What was it… ‘fire may be quenched by the sea, but love endures’?”

He narrows his eyes, clearly seeing her train of thought. “It’s about passion,” he says, flatly.

“Oh, yes. And I’d argue it’s about sex.” She beams happily at him. “And loving someone even after you’ve had it.”

“Marie.” He’s relaxing a bit too much to glare at her properly now, all the fear from their conversation gone. Light, how she loves him this way.

She keeps stubbornly beaming. “Vasco.” She thinks she might be glowing with it, and can’t bring herself to care.  “I… might be taking the wrong things from the poem.”

“Or the right ones.” His hand goes stroking down her spine again, and his embrace loosens, and there’s the requisite shuffling about to get comfortable; she’d stay awake all night if she could, just to hold him and know that this is real, to show him the same, but the exhaustion of the day and released fear and two bouts of very good sex is creeping up on them. She puts out the lamp with a click of her fingers. He falls asleep with his hand resting below her ribs, a loose trailing touch as if to make sure she’s still there. It’s not too long before she drops off, too, lulled by his steady breathing and the warmth of him beside her.