#a ship is always safe ashore

[faeriecourts]

naruto modern au

Naruto once broke the sole of his slipper. It was a cheap thing, something he slipped under his desk in the office his father gave him, back when he was 16, and Naruto had wanted to be just like him so badly that he spent a few summers in the Namikaze Enterprises building. He opened up the brand new bottle of little superglue he got from the convenience store downstairs, and it spilled all over his hands and his jeans. He ended up having to borrow some facial oil from one of the sales girls who kept their skincare routine on them just to unstick his fingers, and to this day the superglue dots are in those pairs of jeans he wears at least once a week.

He thinks falling in love with Sasuke feels a little like that. A wanting with good intentions, and then a distraction, and then something much, much more. Like an accident, before the feelings spilled over him, sticky and heavy and forever marked.

on ao3 here -- part one two three four

[milkteabinniechan]

♡Storms & Sirens - Hyunjin

MINORS DNI 18+ ONLY MEMBERSHIP//M.LIST

pairing: merman! Hyunjin x fem! reader

summary: Mermaids are the mystery of the sea, with few humans ever seeing one. You are the dread pirate queen of the Barbados, a legend that a certain merman has always wanted to meet.

warnings: mentions of claws, sharp teeth, webbed hands

"You're the one they call the Pirate Queen aren't ya? the dreaded queen of the sea?”

You stilled as the deep voice carried across the water. You squinted your eyes out at the blue horizon but there was no other ship in sight. Behind you, your crew continued to grunt and heave as they pulled their oars in unison with one another. You and your crew mates had pulled a small dingy from your ship and were making your way to a nearby island for supplies. You feared the summer sun had finally consumed you when you heard the faint sounds of slapping accompanied by a playful laugh.

“Who goes there?!” You shouted, your hand already brushing against the hilt of your haltered sword.

He swims closer, his fins propelling him through the water with ease, he looks up at you with a pair of bright yellow eyes, a mix of curiosity and admiration.

"I've heard so many stories about you, Pirate Queen. They say you're ruthless, cunning, and beautiful. Which one is true?”

Your eyes widen at the sight of sharp teeth and glistening scales that cascade beautifully down a toned chest and abdomen. His tail captured the moonlight with a haunting and hypnotizing shine. Fully embracing the possibility of this gorgeous creature being a hallucination, you decide to indulge it.

“All be true, fish man. All be true.” You spoke proudly, puffing your chest out slightly.

He chuckles, a deep rumbling sound that vibrates through the water. He reaches out a hand, his claws gleaming in the moonlight, and gently touches your arm.

"Fish man?" he repeats, a smile playing on his lips. "I prefer merman, Pirate Queen.”

Your body tenses at the sight of your claws. The feeling of the sharp cartilage scraping across your skin. This was no hallucination. You had never witnessed something so beautiful and so deadly. You look back at your crew but they are still focused on rowing. You glance back down at the merman then to the horizon, where a small piece of land floats just out of view. “See there, merman? We be dockin’ there. Need to replenish food and water. Do you know of the island?”

He nods. "Ah, I know it. Small, uninhabited except for the wildlife. Perfect for pirates to dock unnoticed." He retracts his claws and flexes his webbed fingers. "I can swim ahead, scout it out for you. Ensure it's safe?” He offers; a coy smile still pulling at his lips.

You tilt your head, hesitation blatantly plastered on your face. But you know that pirates before you have sent out less reliable mates to scout ahead. You weighed the options in your head for a moment before giving the mythic creature a firm nod.

he grinned wide, his teeth glinting in the moonlight, then dived beneath the waves. His powerful tail propelled him forward as he swam towards the island. Hours passed as your dinghy finally approached the island. He resurfaced beside the dinghy, water cascading down his scales. He rested both arms on the edge of the smooth grain wood of the small ship. You give him a grateful smile as you and your crew step onto the sand of the beach and pull the dinghy ashore. The sound of the ocean swept through the air. The salt of the sea clung to your hair and clothes. The island's temperature was a scorching difference from the water, causing you to remove some layers of heavier clothing. The soft, white linen shirt that remained billowed in the wind.

The merman dragged himself onto the sand, his tail thrashing behind him. He propped himself up on his elbows and looked at you, his eyes roaming over your body appreciatively.

"The island is safe, Pirate Queen. No signs of other humans. Wildlife is abundant."

You nod firmly as you can yourself from the intense jungle heat.

“Thank you, merman. I have my gratitude.”

He watches you fan yourself, his gaze lingering on your face before he glances around the beach.

"You could offer me something more than just gratitude, Pirate Queen. Perhaps a token of your appreciation?" He asks, his voice low and husky. "Something to wear around my neck?”

Your eyes sparkle at his request. Now he was speaking your language. Doing a favor for the promise of treasure was something you always understood, even as a child. Your small smile turned to a generous grin.

“Aye. So it's treasure you be after, is it? I may have just what you want.”

You reach into a small sack attached to your hip to reveal a long, gold chain with a large aquamarine pendant dangling from the end. You hold it close to the creature's face. You watch his perfect features contort and change from pessimistic to astonishment. His eyes widen at the sight of the pendant, his pupils dilating. He reached out slowly, his claws retracting as he took the chain from you. "It's beautiful... like the sea," he whispered, his voice filled with awe. He looks back at you, his gaze intense.

He clasps the pendant around his neck, the aquamarine stone resting against his chest. He propped himself up more, his tail swishing against the tide rushing back and forth.

"Now, Pirate Queen, May I request one more reward?”

“More? Greed for treasure will only consume you, merman. Trust me.” You warn, your voice taking a more serious tone.

He leans up close to you, his clawed hand cradling the back of your head.

"A kiss. For a merman who's never known the touch of a human woman, a kiss from the legendary Pirate Queen would be worth more than any treasure." He grinned.

Your brow furrowed and a shiver traveled through your body at the feeling of his webbed fingers on the back of your neck. Your eyes locked onto his as you felt your body instinctively moving closer and closer to his mouth. You fall to your knees into the sand, your faces now inches from one another. The merman leaned down and he closed the distance, pressing his lips against yours in a firm, possessive kiss. His arms wrap around your waist, holding you close as he explores your mouth with his tongue.

“Ah, you taste even better than I imagined.” He breaks the kiss, panting slightly.

You pull back as well, only slightly with his arms still snaked around your waist. You search his face, taking in his ethereal features. The mixture of human and sea swirled around his skin like an intimate dance of creation. Your eyes had never witnessed something so unique, a living, breathing treasure.

“Let me ask you something now.” You whispered. “Do you have a name?”

He tail slaps against the wet sand, his eyes widening with excitement as he parted his lips to speak.

“Hyunjin. My name is Hyunjin.”

You repeat his name, Hyunjin as the sand hugs the two of you in a warm embrace. Hyunjin rests his forehead against yours, his eyes gleaming with curiosity and something else.

“Tell me, what's it like being a legend? Do people worship you? Fear you?”

You ponder for a moment. An intimate moment such as this was not something gifted often to a ruthless pirate like yourself.

“I suppose a bit of both. I've had men desperate to destroy me and to have me in bed.”

Hyunjin’s arms tighten around your waist possessively. He nuzzles your neck, his gills fluttering against your skin.

"Well, I want both. I want to destroy any who dare threaten you, and I want you in my bed, Pirate Queen.”

You moved in again for another kiss. You were sure what made you want to kiss him again. But the taste of him was everything that drew you to this life in the first place. He kissed you back hard. As if you would wash away with the tide if he let you go. The kiss lasted longer than the first. Soon, you heard the familiar boot stomps of your crew mates returning from the hunt. You sighed deeply and stood up from the beach, adjusting your clothes and brushing away the sand.

You helped your mates load the dinghy full of fresh fruits, wild boar and fish. You reluctantly pushed the modestly sized boat back into the ocean and hopped inside. You glanced back at the shore, hoping to see your merman, your treasure. But where the two of you once lay, there was only sand and shells. You turned your eyes back towards the horizon, rolling your shoulders and considering the fact that you may be delusional. When suddenly the recognizable sound of water slapping unevenly against wood caught your attention. You leaned over the edge quickly to see a shimmering face bobbing up out of the waves.

“Where are we off too now, Captain?” Hyunjin hummed softly.

It seemed that you had become his precious treasure as well. And he would become greedy for it.

taglist: @simply-trash5 @sugawhaaa @trixiekaulitz @chrizzztopherbang @cassidymb121 @roanns-posts @staysinbloom @yaorzu-blog @bubblebisk @cotton-candycloudz @beautyinhypnosis @domicaru @strawberry31 @slxtmeri @newhope8 @tinyelfperson @dandelions-143 @stayyyyyyyyyyyy21 @msauthor @fun-fanfics @ell0thebell @stephanieeeyang @juskz @kimahreummm @readr1221 @kayleefriedchicken @ovulatingrn @hwnglixho @darthmaddie25 @queen-in-the-shadows @itgirlalisaa @miinhoo @greyaia @chanchansgirly @skzleeknowcore @skz-smut-reader @thatisrankharry @hearts4yawnzzn @jchotch726 @cherricola-star

[snurtsnurtcreations]

The Fisherwoman Pt 1

Call of duty pirate au outline part 1 (links: part 2, part 3, part 4)

Consider: Pirate captain Soap x Former navy officer now pirate first mate Ghost x fisherwoman reader

This has been on my mind for SO LONG, you don't even KNOW. Im probably never going to actually finish fleshing this out into a full blown fic, so here's the outline for the story

Warnings: gun use, a little suggestive scene, pining

They keep meeting you at a common port on their travels. Usually at the marketplace where you’re selling your catch, sometimes on the shore, once out fishing in your lil rowboat

Y’all’ve got a nice banter going between the three of you. They always keep an eye out for you whenever they’re at port. You always greet them snarkily but happily. You even let them get away with buying fish off you at a discounted price (they don’t know you’re discounting it for ‘em)

You’ve got an inkling that they’re likely not the most upstanding citizens around but you let it slide because, well, they seem like good people. They stood up for you when some guy was bitchin at you, they helped the neighbor’s young boy gather his lost marbles. If they happened to be at odds with the law, well, you certainly don’t mind when they act kinder than most officers.

There might aaaalso be some sexual tension there as well but… nah, surely not.

Simon and Johnny have been together for a fair amount of time when they first met you. Late at night, within each other’s arms sometimes they’d talk about what it’d be like to have a girl waiting for them ashore, somebody sweet and soft and kind and everything that they’re convinced they’re not.

Simon particularly has had the fantasy for ages of growing old in a little cottage with a lil lady by his side. Johnny never though allowed himself to believe it was a possibility with his… career choice but he confesses he’d love to have a gang o wee kids to coral. They fantasized together, but ultimately figured it’d be unlikely to happen in their lifetimes.

Until they met you, that is.

But you’re not one to jump into love. You’ve lived alone, providing for yourself, scraping by with your own two hands, for a very very long time now, and you’re not about to let anyone you can lose into your life all of the sudden.

And so it goes for a while, catching glimpses of each other every now and again, glowing in each others presence, them cautiously hopeful, you stubbornly in denial

It all comes to a head when they come stumbling into your home in the middle of the night, both injured, Johnny leaning heavily on Simon, begging you to take them in

They’d been ambushed by rival pirates as they were docking at the port. They barely got off the ship, ordering their crew to get to specific safe houses, and themselves slipping out of the city to retreat to a house they sincerely hoped would take them in

You let them in, of course, worried out of your mind. Patch them up, set up a place for them to sleep, share your heated leftover dinner, fuss, flutter, your imploring eyes burning right through them

They come clean about the events that led them here and who they really are, but you brush it off, because, really, they thought they were being subtle? (they were, you just always pay such close attention to them it became glaringly obvious to you)

You agree that they oughta stay low for a while, and freely offer they stay here until they can organize their crew and get their ship back up and running. They eagerly accept.

The next many days pass in domestic bliss. Raspy good mornings, cooking together, brushing past each other in the small house. Simon appreciates the homemade tea mix your neighbor gave you, Johnny promises to bring some good coffee from overseas once this all blows over. They watch as you mend nets, tag along when you set out on your rowboat, carry your basket for you when you’re searching for clams and the like.

You always go out barefoot if you're near the water. Simon inquires about this

“No use putting boots on just to get them wet and worn down. I’ve got only a single pair and those are for going out.” You state simply. Just a fact.

Johnny and SImon share a look when, later, you put your boots on for market and they’re noticeably worn out.

“Those look like they’ve seen better days. Why not get yerself a new pair o boots, lass?”

“New boots are expensive, and I’ve got larger priorities than some footwear.” You shrug, “Besides, these still work just fine.”

During the evenings, just after dinner, when the sun goes down and the only light is from the few candle lit lanterns, they really get to know you outside of your work. Of course, there are many a night when you’re working on stitching a net or mending some clothes and you ask them to tell you a tale of their pirating adventures, but once in a while, you take out your guitar and sing a song, enchanting them with a voice like honey. Or even better, you’d tell a story of your own. But they notice you always, always keep your hands busy

You help them change their bandages as needed -an intimate affair in itself. One night, you don’t even realize you’d started tracing a scar on Simon’s shoulder. Johnny disturbs you out of your thoughts, awful jolly as he regales the tale of how Simon’d got the scar (one of their first battles as Navy Officer Simon versus the slippery pirate Captain Soap). Simon snarkily remarks about a scar Johnny got from a stupid mistake.

“Really?” You laugh, astonished, as you finish binding the bandage round Simon’s shoulder. “Lemme see!” 

“As the lady wishes.” Johnny winks as he strips of his shirt.

So the evening goes, talking turns into tracing scars, which leads to softly murmured questions, which turns into soft kisses

They ask if you’ve got any scar stories of your own, and you reply that there’s nothing like theirs, if you don’t count the many on your rough hands from all your fishing misadventures

“...show us?” Johnny asks with hooded eyes.

Flushed, you abide, slipping your blouse off.

“Beautiful…” Simon caresses a hand down your shoulder as though entranced. “Totally unblemished.”

And. Well. Things get very heated from there ;)

The following morning you’re mortified because you know to you that was more than just a fun night, you’re emotionally invested here… but they’re only staying long enough to gather their wits and then they’d be gone. They’ll leave.

You push the feelings down and try to act natural. They don’t bring up anything about it, continuing the morning routines as usual, so you don’t blurt out anything either. Business as usual then. (Nevermind that when Simon wakes and see you making a pot of tea for the three he brushes awfully close to you when getting the mugs out. Nevermind that at the breakfast table Johnny sits close enough to have his entire thigh pressed against yours. Nevermind that when you leave for market, they each brush a kiss against your cheek and forehead. No, no, this all means nothing. Business as usual.)

Couple days later, Johnny and Simon are cooking dinner, awaiting your return from the market. You startle them when you burst through the door, locking it with shaky hands, eyes wild and breaths erratic. You ignore their questions and climb up on a chair to take your shotgun off its mantle above the door

This, off course, alarms them twice as much. At their questioning calls to you, you brusquely reply, “Shadow pirates.” And station yourself at the window, loading the gun.

They stiffen, then reach for their own weapons.

“Here they come.” You glances at the two, then back out the window, hissing, “Hide.”

The two disappear around the corner. You shoot a warning shot out the window. The group of men outside scatter.

“Who goes there?” You holler.

A single figure separates himself from the group

“Ma’am, my name’s Mr. Graves, and these here are my associates. We just ahd some questions for you is all. No need for violence.” He says placatingly.

“Well excuse me if I don’t trust a group of strange men in the dark.” You snark, “You can ask your questions from over there. What do you want?”

“Surely we could have this conversation in closer quarters than this, ma’am?”

“Surely you understand how improper and outright dangerous that would be for myself, a lone woman letting a stranger into her home at this hour?”

“I… Alright, alright, my apologies, ma’am. We simply wanted to know if you’d heard or perhaps seen two dangerous criminals around these parts? They’re known as Captain Johnny Soap and his first mate, Ghost. Vicious pirates those two, they are.”

“Only dangerous men I’d seen round these parts are you and your crew. Mr. Graves.”

“Bare with us a little longer, ma’am. Are you certain you haven’t seen anythin suspicious lately?”

“Well.” You pause. “I know there was some sort of skirmish nearer the city a week back or so, but no travelers make it all the way out here. Besides you, of course.”

At the frustrated silence from him, you scoff.

“Now away with you lot, before I go and make true on that warning shot!”

“Thank you kindly ma’am.” Graves says as they leave, though you suspect it was meant more sarcastically. You don’t loosen up your port at the window until long after their silhouettes are gone past the horizon. By then, Johnny and Simon have come out of their hiding spots, pistols at the ready but relaxing as the moments tick by

You only let go of the tension in your shoulders when Johnny sets a gentle hand on one.

“I think they’ve gone noow, luv.”

Simon slides the shotgun from your grasp and easily sets it back above the doorway. Meanwhile, you crumple in Johnny’s grasp, breathing heavily and trembling in his arms as you bury your face in his neck, letting the stress of the situation wash away in his hold.

“A right menace ye are.” johnny soothes, caressing your hair. “Scared ‘em away right quick.”

“You did so well, love.” Simon assures, stroking your back and pulling your legs into his lap

“They’d better never come back.” You attempt to grumble but the affect is ruined by a sniffle, “Or I really will blow their brains out.”

“That’s our girl.”

They become much more protective after that incident, insisting on coming out with you when you head to market.

Eventually they start heading out to town on their own as well, trying to learn what’s changed while they’ve been recuperating. It takes them weeks but they track down their crew members as well, and commission someone to fix their ship up.

You get used to being the one waiting for them to come home, usually just before dinner needs starting.

One day they return from the port city with a fine new pair of boots for you.

“Bonny lass like yoo oughta ‘ave a good pair o’ boots fer yer wee feet.”

Another day they take you out to the city with them, claiming they need a proper tour around the place, and what better guide than you?

Its all a ruse to spoil you, of course. You point out the fancy pubhouse the rich folk go to and turn away, already pointing out the next thing. They lead you in and y’all have a very nice meal together (possibly the nicest meal youve ever had, you admit softly. They think it’s because it’s expensive but you meant it was because they had taken you there)

You sarcastically lead them through the marketplace “Oh and this is the market, I’m sure it’s entirely new to you so why don’t I show you the highlights.” 

But then actually you get really into it, stopping to inspect the trinkets here and the ribbons there, amicably greeting the folks you know. Johnny “sneakily” buy a couple things for you, and you catch on to what they’re doing, flustered and blustering “what, you don’t think I’d buy it for myself if I really wanted it?”

Simon’s dead serious when he says, no, you wouldn’t. And he’s right of course, so you flush and accept the gift as graciously as you can after that.

All in all, y’all have an absolutely lovely time in each other’s company and it turned out to be a fantastic day out.

When you get home you tell them you oughta do something to thank them for such a great time, and Simon suggests you sing a couple songs for them, so you get out your trusty guitar and do just that (Johnny leans on you just so and Simon’s eyes are glued to you like a man entranced, neither can believe this isn’t a dream)

you find another way to thank them as well but shh

There is still the ever present itch in the back of your mind that this is all temporary, that they’ll leave soon, that they’re working on it to happen with every passing day, but in moments like this it is easy to silence that voice and just let yourself be in the moment, let yourself love and be loved, even if just for now, just for tonight, you let yourself savor the feeling

[xiaoaetherposts]

All Lantern Rite event, but it's XiaoTher

Summary of Xiao x Aether content in every Lantern Rite event so far.

Lantern Rite 1.3 event (2021):

☆ Aether helped Xiao perform various tasks.

☆ Aether visited Xiao in Wangshu Inn.

Aether: "You wouldn't go to the festival, so we brought the festival to you."

Xiao: "Does is serve any grander purpose?"

Aether: "This way you can take part in Lantern Rite."

☆ Aether prepared a dinner for Xiao and helped organize a small Lantern Rite celebration at Wangshu Inn.

☆ Xiao accompanied Aether to Liyue Harbor.

Aether: "O Vigilant Yaksha, please escort us safely to the city."

Xiao: "So be it. I shall accept your proposal."

Xiao: (...) Speak my name. Anywhere. Anytime."

☆ Xiao watched the lanterns and smiled.

I know, it sounds like two characters dating. It was like that. Sometimes even I'm surprised how canonically the Xiao x Traveler ship is treated by HoYo.

Lantern Rite 2.4 event (2022):

☆ Xiao invited Aether to Wangshu Inn.

Xiao: "When this matter is resolved, come to Wangshu Inn. In previous years, the Mingxiao Lantern has been visible even from there."

☆ Aether visited Xiao and bring him food and other presents.

☆ Xiao said Aether that:

Xiao: "If anyone wishes to see me, I know they'll come and find me"

implying that he would like Aether to do this.

☆ Xiao watched the lanterns smiling again.

What was especially cute was that when Aether arrived at Wangshu Inn, Xiao right away went up to him without Aether's calling and asked if he could help.

This happened at the first meeting and even during the Waterborne Poetry event, but it's rare when Xiao takes the initiative.

Lantern Rite 3.4 event (2023):

☆ Xiao saved Aether from the water and was very worried about him.🥹

*Someone carries you ashore, so quickly that you don't catch who it is...*

Xiao: "Glad you're okay."

Xiao: "...Your actions here caused caused others a great deal of worry. Do not repeat them again in the future."

☆ Xiao finally went to the Lantern Rite festival in Liyue Harbor because of Aether.

Xiao: "She told me that all the guests today would be "acquainted with elemental power." and I knew that you would be here."

☆ Xiao sat down next to Aether at the dinner table and then escorted him out.

Aether: "I ate too much. Could you come take a walk with me?"

Xiao: "Sure."

☆ Xiao and Aether talked lovingly in private:

Xiao: "Whenever I think of the ordinary conversations I've had with you, it feels... strangely novel."

Aether: "Strange in a good way?"

Xiao: "Yes." *little smile*

☆ Xiao chose Aether to be "the most distinguished guest." (so that even Zhongli was there, whom he deeply respects)

Everyone: "Who is the most distinguished guest here?"

Xiao: "One person here is well-acquainted with everyone else."

Aether: "(...Hm?)"

☆ Zhongli approved Xiao and Aether's relationship and gave advice to Xiao.

Zhongli: "Just as Xiao may seem unapproachable to most, but Aether has proved otherwise."

Xiao: "Rex La- I mean, Zhongli, what you're saying is..."

Zhongli: "Haha I meant what I said."

Xiao: "General Kapasis always said that we should live in the present and enjoy every little pleasant surprise. Perhaps that's what I should do with what I'm feeling now."

Zhongli: "It looks like you understood what I meant."

Xiao to Aether: "I appreciate your kindness. See you next time, then."⬇️

☆ Xiao and Aether finally watched the lanterns together.😍

Lantern Rite 4.4 event:

☆ Zhongli took Aether on purpose to the place where he knew Xiao was and wanted them stay together alone and fly a kite together.🪁

"Uh, why did you have us walk all this way?"

Zhongli: "I'll leave these two kites with you. Perhaps you can find a few friends with which you partake in the activity. You might find it to be enjoyable use of your time."

Flustered Xiao: "Oh, uh... Wait, who enjoy kite-flying?"

Zhongli: "Well, I would imagine some of your talent and wisdom is more the capable of finding out."

Xiao: Aether, when the Lantern Rite is over, come find me near Pervases' temple if you have the time.

Aether: "Absolutely."

Xiao: "Mmm." 😊

Zhongli: *plan succeed*

☆ Xiao invited Aether to visit him at the usual place and they released together the lantern that Xiao made.

Xiao: "Aether."

Aether: "It's just as I thought... You stopped short of stepping into the city again."

Xiao: "Being in the city isn't the only way for me to appreciate the lights and beauty of Lantern Rite. Look... Liyue Harbor lies just beyond this mountain."

Xiao: "As long as I stand at this vantage point, I may freely behold the sight of all the kites slowly ascending into the sky. ...For me, that is enough."

Aether: "Alright."

Xiao: "I invited you here because there is something I would like to do. I want to release a Xiao Lantern, and... I'd like you to be there for it."

Aether: "Did you make it yourself?"

Xiao: "Yes. I apologize for its crude appearance... I have little skill in that regard."

Aether: "No, no! It's amazing!"

Xiao: "...You're very kind, as usual."

Xiao: "Alright, it's time."

*they release the lantern together*

☆ With a nice metaphorical expression that Xiao said, it was hinted that Aether is the one who brings peace to Xiao.

Xiao symbolizes the lantern itself (to which the name Xiao Lantern refers), and Aether is the sky (his name means this in all languages).

Xiao: "Although, watching a kite gradually ascend into the sky does bring me a certain peace of mind. ...Perhaps they are a bit like Xiao Lanterns in that way."

This expresses Xiao's longing for Aether, which is also indicated by his idle animation (when he tries to reach the little light that goes towards the sky with his hand).

When he asks Aether to release the lantern into the sky together to bring the two things closer together symbolizes this beautifully.

Aether: "As the Xiao Lantern slowly disappears into the tranquil night sky, Xiao's expression softens."

Xiao: "... Aether. ... Thank you."

So as the Xiao lantern approaches the sky in a symbolic sense, as Xiao approaches Aether (which is referred to by the meaning of their names), as they have become closer and closer to each other over the years, and this has brought him calm and peace.

Twitter(X): @xiaoaetherposts

[sunnylolli]

Lighthouse au

A rough draft of the beginning of the au, though I'm still adding onto it!!

The rough idea is: Arthur is a lighthouse keeper, appointed to the job as a political favor to him in 1880, to thank him for his service in the Royal Navy. As he enlisted very young with the Marines, he doesn't have family to bring with him besides his brothers, who are largely uninterested and leaves him as the sole lightkeeper of an island (That I made up, but it's supposed to be off the coast of Dartmouth, Southern Britain) named Isle of St. peter.

Francis, a French Marine Captain, washes ashore in the bay, just beyond Arthur's house. Arthur discovers him on his way to the lighthouse early in the morning and brings him home for lack of anything else to do. Francis remembers little to nothing about before he woke up on St. peter's, he's wearing a marine uniform that is 30 years outdated and he's drawn out to the sea, wading out waist-deep sporadically, without cause. And when asked, he can't conjure up any explanation, other than he feels like he's forgotten something that he needs to find. The two of them grow close, becoming each other's confidants and warming up to each other over time.

But as time goes on, Francis begins to act strangely and Arthur begins to notice him zoning out whenever he sees the sea. Arthur begins to have dreams that he cannot remember in the morning, he begins to hear whispers whenever he's too close to the coast. The only place on the entire island that feels safe becomes the lighthouse, and as things escalate, he holes himself up in it more and more. Francis keeps wading out into the sea and Arthur needs to come drag him out more and more, until he eventually decides not to. In a morbid, insane curiosity to see what will happen when Francis inevitably cannot touch the bottom anymore.

He sees him drown. Then sees him back on the shore the next morning, alive and breathing. Arthur begins to try following him after that and it's a slippery slope, to follow the only person you've ever loved into the pitch black, icy cold waters of the sea, when you can't swim.

Arthur Kirkland sits on a chair with his overalls soaked to the knee and his woolen sweater damp enough to make even the warmth of the fireplace seem mute.

Wind roars and lures outside. The sun is obscured in spurts and rises to around mid-morning.

A stranger lies in his bed. Damp and pathetic, Arthur watches him cautiously from a respectable distance.

The stranger is wearing an old navy uniform.

A French marine uniform.

And he’s only breathing, in and out between shivers now, because Arthur found him when he did.

Floating just a bit out from the shore on his way to the light. He’d floated right at the surface. Back facing the sky, face down to the clams.

Arthur clasps his hands together.

The Frenchman keeps breathing.

He has a neatly groomed face, Arthur notes, something you wouldn’t be able to say about his hair.

It’s splayed around his head like seaweed.

Some of it stuck to his face, some sticks to Arthur’s pillow. Hair that long, it doesn’t seem like a skipper’s apparel.

He might be of higher ranking, then. Certainly comfortable enough to break dress code.

“Typical.” Arthur mutters, his voice is swallowed by the house as it always is and he reaches up to remove his hat. Rubbing his neck tiredly, he runs through the morning in his head and tries to slot it in with his duties.

He should alert the coastal guards.

Send out a telegraph, informing of a possible capsized french vessel somewhere around the mouth of the bay.

But the man’s uniform looks too old, somehow. And Arthur gets the feeling that even if he did alert authorities and got a team out to search, they wouldn’t find any ship.

And they wouldn’t find any other crew.

He sits there watching for a while longer, frowning. Fumbling with his hat and biting the inside of his cheek till it bleeds; The taste of iron gets him going and he stands.

He needs to re-oil the wheels and rewind the clockwork.

Maybe after, when he’s measured and noted down his supply of fuel, he’ll figure out where the hell this frog came from.

Francis Bonnefoy awakes to the sound of gulls.

They screech mercilessly outside and with a groan, he lifts a heavy arm, a subtle crack at his shoulder bringing him to full wakefulness.

He opens his eyes to a sunstreaked roof.

Wooden-beams cut across it, carved with initials he can barely see.

To his right is a nightstand, to his left, a window. Curtained with lace and cotton, allowing the barest of sun to peek through.

The air smells faintly like varnish and seasalt. The bed he lies in creaks beneath him, and he fights himself upright, supporting his arms against his knees.

He curses quietly to himself, bringing his hands up to rub delicately down his face.

He feels nauseous and faint.

Did he have too much to drink?

He doesn’t usually go overboard with his liquor, but maybe he holds his Gin worse than he thought.

But, he thinks, he doesn’t remember drinking. Matter of fact, he doesn’t remember a whole lot.

The room he sits in is wholly unfamiliar to him, once he feels good enough to glance around.

The sidetable is sparsely populated, with a single bottle of unbranded liquor, snuff and some sort of a journal accompanied by a pencil.

The floors are old and worn, a crate sits near the far wall, nicely decorated with an embroidered cloth lying on top.

An empty brandy bottle, serving now as a candleholder, sits overrun with wax on top of it. The glass glistening a soft brown in the light from the windows.

The room doesn’t leave much space for much else, besides an overridden desk and a dresser. There are a few pictures on the walls; Francis spies a group photograph, paintings of boats and ships. A half-finished project of a model ship sits on the windowsill.

The wood awkward and angled, the masts missing its sails.

It’s strange.

Francis feels strange.

He doesn’t remember docking.

He especially doesn’t remember entering a town, let alone a house.

He turns to look through the window and pulls the curtains aside to peek outside.

The view that greets him is of a green hilltop overlooking the sea. He follows the curve of it, going up and up until he spots a lighthouse.

A path forged from the garden gate a few feet away all the way up to the beacon.

His stomach sinks.

They were at open sea.

Nowhere near the shore.

He looks down, patting at his uniform.

It’s stiff and damp to the touch. Sand in the folds of the clothing, algae and seaweed sitting trapped around the buttons.

“Oh.” He mutters, swallowing against a dull panic clawing at his chest.

“Oh, Sainte Marie.”

[city-of-ladies]

Strong seawomen

You can read more about Iceland's seawomen here!

"Born in 1829, Ísafold Runólfsdóttir grew up on a remote farm in East Iceland near present-day Vopnafjördur. From a family celebrated for their singular strength, Ísafold was known as the best and strongest of the bunch. She was so renowned for her strength that she became part of the folk history of the area, with accounts of her taking on the form and style of the traditional Icelandic narrative tales. She is described as very intelligent, tall, broad-shouldered, handsome with a firm expression, bold, eager in her work, unsparing in her words, unafraid to speak her mind (her language sometimes a bit crass) and overall considered a hero both at sea and on land.

Ísafold went to sea when she was ��very young,” first rowing with her father Runólfur. Fishing became her main source of income. She often went out alone, and only the “hardest workers could hope to match her.” As with so many of the seawomen in the historical record, it was not so much for her fishing that Ísafold is remembered but for her personality and phenomenal strength. This included her ability to pull her heavy wooden boat ashore alone—an unheard-of feat. One young seaman recalled that once, when the boat was getting in danger upon encountering rough waves as they neared shore, Ísafold jumped from the boat into the waves, grabbed him, and then tossed him with such a throw that he landed safely on shore. Then she dragged the boat ashore after her. Another account describes how, when unloading hundred-pound bags from the boats with the men, who carried one bag each, Ísafold would often remark, “Well, you are not so strong,” and grab two bags, one in each hand.6 Some speculated that it was the fish oil she took religiously that aided her famous strength—but that she was stronger than almost anyone else, man or woman, was undisputed. 

Ísafold also had exceptional skill and strength at a wrestling and martial art form called glíma. Brought from Norway by the early Icelandic settlers, glíma was played in medieval times by men, women, and gods alike—and considered fundamental for a warrior. In the 1800s, it was still popular, and as Ísafold’s reputation at glíma grew, many men came to test themselves against her, including some of the area’s best-known fighters. But always these men found themselves facedown in the “cow muck” in the barn, defeated by Ísafold. Eventually, Ívar Jónsson, a “mountain of a man in both size and strength” came to challenge Ísafold. Their fight was both “long and even,” but “being an experienced fighter,” he was eventually able to take Ísafold to the ground, where she admitted defeat. Even so, Ívar affirmed that “he had never before or since fought a worthier opponent”. 

Ísafold was clearly both attractive and independent, and the descriptions of her thwarting sexually aggressive men (usually reported as foreigners), repeated to the delight of the town, take on the tone of parable. These accounts always start by outlining a situation in which some very foolish man or men decide to harass Ísafold. (...).

At this juncture in each account, someone goes running to Ísafold’s father, warning him that his daughter is in danger. Each time he declines to budge, saying that his “little girl” can take care of herself. And each time she competently does. On the ship, some men flee but the rest she sends “one by one rolling down the gangway.” In the other cases, she comes down the stairs holding the man under her arm with his head hanging down. As for the man who wished to “enjoy” her, Ísafold stomps down the stairs with him under her arm, his trousers around his ankles as he ineffectually screams and curses at her. She strides out of the house with him, down to the sea, and, with a grin, tosses him into the water. The laughter of their audience reportedly “rang around them.” The man manages to wade to land, pulling his trousers up as he goes, loudly cursing the woman who did this to him. After this incident, he was reportedly not seen in public for a long time. At each story’s conclusion, various townspeople thank Ísafold, saying that the men are known for their uncontrolled temper or have “been a bother to other women before her.”

Beyond using her physical strength to protect herself, it was clear that Ísafold, like other seawomen such as Foreman Thurídur, stood up for her rights and voiced her opinions—sometimes in fairly outrageous ways. One week in church, Ísafold found the pastor’s sermon objectionable (the account, sadly, neglects to tell us what he said). After the communion service had concluded, she darted outside ahead of the pastor and squatted by the church door, as if to relieve herself. As the pastor walked by, she said, “I guess this was rather pointless. The sacrament has already passed through.”

Ísafold eventually took over the family farm, and adopted her sister’s child after that sister’s death. Although, sadly, Ísafold’s first love died of illness—after she had braved trekking through deep snow and a blizzard trying to save him—she later married and had one son, whom she named after the Saga hero Úlfar the Strong. In addition to her amazing strength and fishing abilities, Ísafold had great skill for natural medicine, healing wounds, and even surgery; when her adopted son tore off two fingers in an accident, she successfully reattached them. According to a local pastor, Ísafold remained strong, living to be “an old lady,” and was still living on a farm as late as 1901. Another source, while agreeing that she had a long life, recorded that after her father died in 1870, Ísafold left farming and moved to a home by the sea. 

These stories of Ísafold are rollicking and fun, but they remind us that in the rowboats, the ability and strength to row against wind and current could make the difference between a safe homecoming and death. Even in the early Icelandic Sagas, women with such skills were recognized, though not glorified in the way the men were. In the Saga of Gísli Súrsson, Gísli, who is being hunted down by numerous enemies, travels to Breidafjördur to take refuge with his friend Ingjaldur. When his enemies get wind of his whereabouts, fifteen of them board a ship and head across the bay in pursuit. Meanwhile, Gísli has gone out fishing with Ingjaldur and two of his slaves, a man Svartur and a woman Bóthildur. Sighting the enemy ship, Gísli hurriedly changes places and clothes with Svartur, who rows away with Ingjaldur. Gísli, however, joins Bóthildur, pretending to be Ingjaldur’s well-known “half-wit” son. Ingjaldur and Svartur head for a nearby island, while Bóthildur rows toward the enemies. Through cleverly implying doubt as to the identity of Ingjaldur’s companion, she misleads them into pursuing the other men, thereby saving Gísli’s life. By the time the enemies realize they have been fooled, Bóthildur is already far down the channel. With many men rowing, the enemies rapidly gain on them, but Bóthildur rows so fast that the “steam comes off her,” getting Gísli ashore just before the enemies catch up to them. In thanks, Gísli gives Bóthildur gold to take to Ingjaldur and his wife, along with his request that they free not only her but Svartur as well.

Strength in working at sea was always important, and people who were exceptional got noticed. Examples of women dragging the heavy medieval ships ashore do exist in the Sagas, although later it seems not to have been common until the 1707–8 Plague killed a quarter of the population. During that terrible time, the women dragged up the ships and buried the dead. From then until the early 1900s, when boat construction changed, women dragged the boats to shore alongside their crewmates. Even well into the mid-1900s, on seaside farms, people, including women, were still dragging their boats to the sea. Unnur, the seawoman featured on the cover of this book, recalled this from her youth in the 1950s:

One of my first memories of our boat was helping to push it down to the sea in spring using ribs of whales instead of wooden planks for the boat to slide on. There was a drum at the shore from which we would unwind the wire holding the boat. At the same time a flock of people were supporting the boat so it would stay upright. Then as one rib was loose above the boat it was loose above the boat it was carried down below the boat and so on every time the boat moved further down the slope. When the boat reached the water all ribs were taken and put in the shed.

Historical accounts of strong female rowers also continue throughout the centuries: women rowed record distances—with no helping wind—in record time; seawomen in their seventies exhausted their strong twentysomething-year-old sons; rescues were accomplished due to a woman’s superior rowing; and numerous women rowed in a competitive dare, changing the rhythm to see if the other rowers could keep up. The historical record is full of these women’s adventures, such as those of another seawoman from East Iceland, Helga Sigurdardóttir. Born in 1823, Helga lived to be almost ninety, and, in addition to fishing, she managed her own farm, including the haying and tending the sheep. Like Gudný Sigrídur Magnúsdóttir, Helga ran over mountains, but unless the ground was frozen or it was raining, she ran barefoot. She fished in the spring and autumn, and always wanted someone of equal strength to row with her—something apparently not so easy to find. She was particularly remembered for outrowing everyone in both boats when her boat and a companion boat got caught in a fierce storm together; her strength and encouragement were credited with getting the entire group through the danger safely."

 Seawomen of Iceland: Survival on the edge, Margaret Wilson

[neonthewrite]

Grey Landing (Part 10)

I have finished another GT July(2023) prompt! This time the prompt was "Memory". I don't remember what I had originally planned for this prompt when I started the challenge, but when I started planning it Isaac kept coming up. So we have more of Isaac's misadventures.

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Part 6) (Part 7) (Part 8) (Part 9)

~~~

The food, simple but hearty, felt heavy and strange in Isaac’s hands, like he held edible gold. He wasted no more time tucking in to an unorthodox meal, tearing bites off the large crumbs of bread and cheese and trying not to picture the disapproval he’d get from his mum for it. She’d taught him manners for how to be a guest in someone else’s house. She’d given up trying to get him to use them at sea.

Considering his predicament, trapped in a giant bowl on a giant counter in a giant bloody house, Isaac considered himself still adrift. So he ate like a sailor. His body sang with relief.

It forced him to think about when he last ate. He cast his mind back to a morning that felt normal, a coffee and breakfast before heading out with a bundle to be his lunch while he was out on the waves working for their next supper. That hadn’t been this morning. Had it been the day before? If he’d known a storm would break his ship and send him so far adrift, he’d have been more discerning with that precious bundle of rations, maybe the last lunch ever packed for him. Hell, he might have said something more to the people he passed on his way to the dock.

They probably all thought he’d been taken by the waves.

As with most things that might lead to heavy thoughts, Isaac pondered the memory only long enough to know he ought to shut it away again. A moment’s reprieve didn’t mean he had the time to break down just yet. Beyond the walls of his improvised jail cell, three giants sat at their dinner table, talking little but every casual word boomed.

He thought he’d finish up the offered food in his desperate hunger, but eventually the scale of things caught up to him. He pondered what remained of what he’d been given and wondered if they’d even be able to tell he had anything. His core was heavy and full, but he’d hardly made a dent. He set the ridiculous portions beside him and considered climbing out of the bowl before abruptly lying back with a huff. 

His eyes closed in spite of himself. He didn’t plan to sleep, but he would make himself as comfortable as he could. The giants could take their time as far as he was concerned‒

“Long we’ve tossed on the rolling main, now we’re safe ashore, Jack!

Don’t forget your old shipmate, faldee raldee raldee raldee rye-eye-o!”

He’s on a ship, a chorus of voices calling up as a hundred hands or more toil away. It’s all familiar. A grinning face, pale and mischievous, angles his way as the lyrics of their shanty always come back to the name.

“Long we’ve tossed on the rolling main, now we’re safe ashore, ‘Zac!”

While everyone else sings ‘Jack’, the nicest voice on board sings to Isaac alone and he knows he can belong‒

A jab to his side broke Isaac out of the unexpected dream. He flailed away from the offending feeling, a hazy memory of someone he might never see again clinging to his thoughts. A confused noise escaped him as he caught up to what had poked him.

A giant fingertip, large and callused and probably strong enough to crush his ribs by itself, lingered nearby. The attached hand loomed close in the bowl with him, with an equally giant arm extending overhead. Isaac’s brow furrowed as he stared up, again confronted with the scale of these giants. Clei stood over him, looking almost worried.

“Am not dead yet, lad,” Isaac told him. “Restin’ my eyes and slackin’ off, is all.”

Clei huffed and muttered in that language of theirs. “Crur cayg.” Apparently that was his warning, because that hand descended on him despite his noise of alarm. Once again Isaac found himself all too easily gathered up in a single hand, a fist curled around his middle and restricting his movements. He grimaced as vertigo gripped him just as securely when Clei lifted him out of the bowl and turned away from the counter at the same time.

The room whirled past him, barely-familiar shapes passing in and out of notice in the fast movements of a giant who didn’t seem to notice Isaac turning green. Thankfully they didn’t have that far to go, at least as far as Clei was concerned. A few steps later, Isaac found himself back on the giant table, scrambling to his feet after Clei set him down prone. The dishes from dinner were set aside along with the centerpiece, so Isaac found himself fully on the spot with giants looming and staring from three sides.

Clei still looked sheepish. Gufnad still looked annoyed. Trydi had her lips pursed in something like exasperation. Isaac, deciding not to let the silence draw out too long, held out his arms. “Am I on trial, then, my gracious hosts?”

Gufnad bristled, a lot like Isaac expected him to. He had a memory of more than one disciplinary hearing from his navy days, when just existing rankled an officer or two. Gufnad followed that pattern all too well.

Before the man could bark some indignant thing at him, though, Trydi shot him a look. “Gufnad. Dlad.” And then she sent Isaac a similar look, one that cowed some of his contrarian attitude despite himself. “Kaimu. Dlad.” She said more, quick syllables falling over each other and leaving Isaac in the dust, unable to pick up words in her rhythmic accent any better than he could before, though he realized partway through her question what their language reminded him of.

Isaac sighed. Some of the annoyance left his shoulders, but he still gestured vaguely at her. “I don’t understand you, lass. I don’t speak … Big Welsh. I don’t even speak normal Welsh. And for that, am sorry. We won’t get anywhere talking at each other like this, hmm?”

Clei finally chimed in, with the attitude of someone not used to speaking up to the others. He stammered a bit, and though Isaac tried to follow, he only heard one familiar sound among the rush: the giant used his name, once or twice, and Isaac had to hope he was vouching for him the best he could.

When Clei finally tapered off, Isaac watched him for a beat, then looked to the other two expectantly. “Only good stories, I hope,” he said, again only to prevent an awkward silence.

Gufnad’s frown didn’t waver. “Trydi, crur bid wal nei̯fitblei̯nd.” Isaac narrowed his eyes. He recognized the word that Gufnad had called him before, and he could only assume it was some kind of insult. Neigh-vit-blind yourself, you stubborn bastard.

Trydi winced faintly and glanced between Gufnad and Clei, and occasionally even Isaac. As head of the household, apparently the tie breaking vote fell to her. Isaac didn’t get a vote at all, not that that surprised him either. All he could do was stand there in the middle of a giant table and hope the outcome favored him.

Finally, she sighed and tilted her head towards Clei. “Bid tars. Clei, yulubus grag. Gaog, wif gwut hust.”

Isaac still didn’t understand them, but the grin that broke over Clei’s nervous face and the resigned eyeroll from Gufnad told him enough. He sighed; two giants on his side wasn’t bad at all, and having the lady of the house giving him any measure of a chance was worth a lot. His shoulders unwound some tension and he once again held his hands together in front of himself, nodding at her. “Trydi. Thank you.”

She didn’t smile at him, not exactly, but her lips twitched in bemusement. “Rayfn, kaimu.”

~~~

@not-a-space-alien

@amenarae

@starskichild

[scoops-aboy86]

All-Inclusive

Here’s something that was also inspired by this prompt from @hotluncheddie back in January that I’ve been poking at on and off ever since. It’s 7k of no Upside Down, Steddie somewhere in their mid-twenties maybe, with brief Chrissy and Robin cameos, chubby Steve Harrington. 😜

-

A meet-cute: Eddie works as a masseur on an all-inclusive cruise ship, and Steve was supposed to be coming on the trip with a girlfriend (and possibly future fiancée, he has the ring packed and everything) but, well. He boards the ship alone. Which sucks, because the cruise is mostly couples and he’s all alone, filling his time swimming laps in the onboard pool and visiting the ship’s spa just to keep himself occupied. 

There’s also the buffet, which clears out most days if he times it right, shows up when most of the couples go ashore for day tours and just hangs out in there for a change of scenery from his cabin or the pool, sometimes until it gets crowded again. If he overdoes it on the complimentary drinks sometimes, so what? He’s on vacation. If the drinks lead to losing track of just how many times he’s gone back to the buffet to reload his plate or how long he’s been in the dining hall, who cares? It’s not like there’s anyone with him to notice. 

And anyway, he wants to lose track. He’s hungry, why bother with thinking about it when he could just eat and enjoy himself? That’s what vacations are for.

Eddie, meanwhile, is really starting to sweat every time Steve shows up on his schedule—which is most days, sometimes twice. He finds out that Steve keeps asking for him specifically, even though Steve isn’t one of the talkative ones, just sort of zones out during his massage and goes completely relaxed under Eddie’s practiced hands. So, like, it’s safe to say that Eddie is becoming pretty familiar with most of Steve’s body, and he notices the cumulative effects of the ship’s all-you-can-eat food and drink. He definitely notices the way Steve seems to be getting more sensitive by the day and sometimes it’s all Eddie can do not to react to the punched out little noises Steve makes more and more often. 

At first Steve asked for Eddie because he feels more comfortable with a guy touching his body right now, and… okay, the other masseurs aren’t as pretty. But he’s on vacation, okay? And wallowing, but he’d prefer not to wallow too much. He’s known he’s bisexual pretty much forever but never had much chance to act on it beyond making out with some guys in college, no one he ever felt much of a spark with. But Eddie? After a while Steve asks for him because he thinks he does feel some sort of electricity between them, even though everything always stays strictly professional. 

They’ve never even had a real conversation—until one night, when Eddie is covering the poolside bar for a friend and Steve parks himself on a stool, his swim trunks maybe a little snug but still acceptable to wear in public. When he rests his elbows on the bar and leans forward to order, he catches the way Eddie’s eyes flit down to where his arms are pressing his hairy, softening pecs together into the faintest suggestion of cleavage, then dart back up with a slight flush to his cheeks and oh, Steve likes that. Likes that when Eddie looks him in the eye after his gaze is a little darker, a little bit wilder. Likes the tattoos that are on display, the piercings he usually takes out when he works in the spa, and the hint of stubble on his face. 

By the end of the night, Steve can’t even remember the name of the girl he was supposed to be on the cruise with, and it’s not just because he’s tipsy and overly full from sitting belly-up to the bar for hours, Eddie passing him appetizers he hadn’t ordered more often than the drinks he did. He is, however, becoming very familiar with the taste of Eddie’s mouth as they stumble into his cabin. The waistband of his swim trunks is rolling down under the weight of his full belly but he doesn’t even care, can’t think of anything but the way Eddie is pulling him along by a firm grip on his hips. Massaging love handles he didn’t quite have at the start of the cruise, tugging and leading him through the kiss until Eddie’s calves come up against the bed. 

Eddie falls backward and pulls Steve down with him, onto him with a moan. He doesn’t even pause the kiss to catch his breath, just gets more frantic with his mouth and his hands, and Steve has never felt more manhandled or wanted in his life. 

A while later, once they’re sated and cleaned up and resting, and Steve is sprawled on his back with Eddie half cuddled up half sprawled over him, practically curled up around Steve’s belly like a contented cat, Eddie asks, very quietly, if it’s alright if he stays the night. 

Because Eddie has dated, but never anything that progressed from dating to in a relationship; he’d never seen the appeal of it, or met anyone he clicked with enough to try. With Steve, though… They’ve been talking for hours and never once has Eddie gotten bored, enamored with the slightly bitchy side of Steve that comes out sometimes during their banter. 

And he’s never been with anyone who’s accepted food they didn’t ask for so easily. Not all of the guys he’s been with have liked the particular attention he pays to their bodies, the way he wants to worship the parts of them that are soft, but Steve has always been so responsive—even in the spa, when touches were strictly professional, making those noises that had Eddie thinking about every unsexy thing he could call to mind in order to avoid any outward signs of how much it affects him. Tonight, not only has Steve let him touch those places, he’s reveled in it. At one point he’d gone so far as to drag Eddie’s hands to his belly, plump lip caught between his teeth until Eddie grabbed and squeezed and kneaded, and his mouth fell open in a beautiful moan as he’d arched into the touch. 

So Eddie asks, and Steve just smiles and runs his fingers through Eddie’s sweaty curls, and says of course, he can stay as long as he likes. 

After that, they meet up almost every night in Steve’s cabin. The cruise boasts 24/7 room service, and occasionally they put that to the test… which is Steve’s idea, actually. Glancing over at Eddie one night, eyes heavy-lidded after sex, and asking, “Why’d you keep bringing me food that night, at the bar?”

Eddie pulls a lock of hair across his mouth to hide the half smile half nervous wince it’s doing against his express wishes, and deflects with a question of his own. “Why’d you keep eating it?”

Steve shrugs. “I like to eat. It’s kind of why… Well. You know how this is a two-person cabin?” It’s not something they talked about that night at the bar, but Eddie has wondered. “My ex wanted to go on a vacation, so I took time off work and booked this, but… when she found out about the all-inclusive part, she said she didn’t want to come with me if I’m just going to…”

“Eat?” Eddie guesses softly, after Steve trails off. 

“Yeah.” He looks down at his belly, which is bloated as usual, and presses a hand to it. Lets his fingers press in as much as they can—not much, towards the top, but leaving soft divots that go deeper as he drags his hand down. “I’ve always liked it. And I don’t mind gaining weight from it, but I’ve always been in the minority there.”

Breath catching in his throat, Eddie drops his hair to lay his hand over Steve’s. “Right there with you, sweetheart.” As soon as the words are out of his mouth he wants to swallow them up, worried that he’s been too forward, shown just how much his stupid heart is on his sleeve way too soon in what to Steve might just be a vacation fling. 

But Steve just hums and lifts his belly a little, wobbling it slowly up and down with Eddie’s hand still along for the ride. “Thought so,” he says with a shy little smile. “I like that. I really like you, Eddie. And I want… I mean, if you don’t mind…” 

Every inch of Eddie is buzzing to hear where that sentence is going, his cock slowly stiffening back to attention at Steve’s hip. Thinking of that night at the bar, Steve sitting there in just his swimsuit, not even a shirt, and gradually but steadily putting away everything he was given. 

“I’m hungry,” Steve finishes, cheeks flushed and eyelids drooping a little further, because he can feel exactly how interested Eddie is and feels an answering stir between his own legs. 

So, room service. While they’re waiting, Steve shows Eddie the contents of his suitcase—a range of incrementally increasing sizes because he’d guessed, he’d known, he’d planned. Plus some things that had already been a little tight on him when he’d boarded. 

Steve accepts the delivery in sweatpants and a button-down shirt that strains at the buttons, showing tanned skin and chest hair through the gaps. Faint, clothing-imposed rolls on his front to match the ones starting to form more naturally on his sides and back.

Eddie stands behind the door when the food arrives (because he’s not technically supposed to fraternize with the passengers, as a member of the crew), watching. He can’t see which waiter it is. Despite the all-you-can-eat nature of the cruise, they don’t actually get a lot of this, and he can imagine several of his fellow crew members having truly amusing reactions… and a couple who would, silently but effectively, be absolute dicks. But Steve just seems pleased to get the food, nudging the door closed with his foot and presenting Eddie with the large, silver-domed tray because—and Eddie is still inwardly reeling from this in the best goddamn way—he wants Eddie to hand-feed him. 

This cruise job was just supposed to be a way to kill his summer, build up his resume, and avoid apartment hunting. You know, after his latest Craigslist roommate situation went sour from his weird sleeping patterns, poor memory for doing his half of the chores, and habit of learning songs on his guitar by ear, the same track set on repeat for hours at a time. His life is kind of a perpetual disaster. And now Eddie finds himself sitting on the plush lap of one of the hottest guys that’s ever so much as looked in his direction. Steve isn’t even watching the food in his hand, he’s watching Eddie, trusting him to get the next bite to his lips. It’s heady and sweet, that confidence in him even though they’re still practically strangers. 

When Steve is full, he guides one of Eddie’s hands to his packed belly and presses needily into the touch. But there’s still food left, and it feels so freeing to moan “Keep going, keep, keep feeding me Eddie…” 

No one has ever seen this much of him before, both physically (as the stretch marks can attest to) and intimately. Steve knows they don’t really know each other yet, but he wants to. There’s potential here, he feels it in every gentle brush of Eddie’s thumb against his bottom lip, a tiny encouragement while Steve struggles to chew and laboriously swallow. Every bite lands heavily in his overtaxed stomach, and when he looks down at himself he’s bigger than he’s ever been and framed by tattooed legs and he feels so warm and full and everything is perfect. 

Eddie doesn’t usually have much after regular business hours, but on Tuesday nights he meets up with some of his friends amongst the staff for a dnd session. Chrissy, the bartender friend he covered for, comes to observe the game whenever her girlfriend (one of the waiters, who could talk the ears off a rock if given half a chance) is still on duty. She usually stays to help him clean up after, and she’s been good-naturedly teasing him about where he keeps disappearing to at night for a while by the time he breaks and tells her about Steve. 

She studies him for a moment, then says that he seems happier. “And I’m glad, Eddie. You’re a good guy, you deserve this.” Pausing, she purses her lips. “Just be careful, okay? I really hope your Steve is one of the good ones, he seems like a sweetheart. But I’ve been on both sides of the deck and sometimes passengers can be way too good at getting what they want and just… going home. That said, if you need a plan for what to do if your supervisor finds out, Robin and I have your back.”

“Oh? Seduce you over to the working class side, did she?” Eddie jokes, because Chrissy is the quintessential cheerleader type and he knows that she grew up with money, though she’s estranged from her family these days.  

Chrissy smirks. “Actually, it was the other way around. We got caught in… let’s call it a compromising situation, and right there on the spot she came up with the most elaborate lie about how we’d been long distance pen pals for years, fell in love, and only just had a chance to get together. She started rambling about how much she loved me, the details were just—That’s when I knew.”

And Eddie is well aware that he and Steve aren’t there yet. They’ve only been hooking up for a couple weeks now, and yeah Eddie has sleeping over privileges (and has to be very sneaky leaving in the morning so no one sees him but he still reports to work at the spa on time), but love? They’re not in love. 

… Okay, he might be, but he has no idea about Steve. 

The next night, Steve is halfway through a snack Eddie is feeding him when he says, casually, “I used to be a jock in high school, y’know.”

Eddie perks up, because Steve had maybe made some vague references before, but… “Really?” he asks, taking the pause in feeding as an excuse to look the man before him up and down. Reaching down pat and rub his bottomless pit of a stomach. “Kept up with it, I see.”

Steve hums and puts his hand over Eddie’s to encourage the groping. “With swimming, a bit. I used to be the swim team captain and basketball co-captain.”

“Really,” Eddie says, not skeptical so much as already daydreaming about Steve running around in sinfully  tiny shorts. “And what would your teammates say if they saw you know?”

“They wouldn’t want to be seen in public with me,” Steve says with a laugh. “I mean, look at me.”

Eddie blinks the fantasy away and does look—at something just as good or better. Steve is back in the outfit he’d worn the first time he’d set foot in the spa. The shirt has become skin-tight, polo buttons undone to allow for Steve’s thicker neck. Arms bulging out of the sleeves. Belly pushing up and hanging out the bottom enough to reveal his navel, bulging out over tight jeans that couldn’t even button, that couldn’t even go up all the way around his thighs and ass. Spilling out because he’d been stuffed near to capacity before even putting it on, but still eating, always eating, given wholly over to a vacation daze of never letting his mouth go empty for long. 

“I mean,” Steve continues, “would you?” It sounds flippant, far too casual for Eddie to really feel like it’s not secretly a serious question. 

“In a heartbeat,” Eddie replies immediately, and if that isn’t wearing his heart on his sleeve… But Steve had asked, and if the shy but bright smile on his face is anything to go by that was the right answer, so what the hell. “I mean, what, you expect that to bother me? It would, but in a really good way.”

He leans down, not to kiss Steve but to mouth at the shallow hollow of his throat, nuzzling down to the chest hair peeking out through the strained v of his polo. 

“I’d do exactly this on one of the deck chairs outside for everyone to see, if it wouldn’t get me fired on the spot.” He slings a leg over Steve’s and scooches down to snuggle further into his soft chest. “Partly because it’d get indecent real fast,” he adds while shoving a hand into Steve’s pants, into a painted-on pair of boxers. Peeling down the put-upon elastic band so he can easily take him in hand and give a squeeze. Steve gasps above him, his own fingers curling into Eddie’s hair like they belong there, and Eddie scooches further and presses a wet kiss just above his navel because they do, they do.

And while Steve is distracted, he reaches for the nearby plate of cheesy appetizers and lifts it towards him in offering. It balances easily atop his belly, which means Eddie can’t glance up and see his face, but that was bound to be eclipsed anyway considering what he has in mind next. 

“Enjoy it, sweetheart,” Eddie tells him in a rough voice, then dives in to wrap his lips around the head of Steve’s cock. He closes his eyes as a tremor jolts through Steve’s entire body, overfilled tummy sloshing and bumping against his forehead, but just keeps working his way down with a muffled moan.

“Fuck, Eddie,” Steve gasps, one hand still in his hair. From the sound of it, the other is pushing food into his mouth. “‘S so—Ohfuck, makes everything taste so, mmm, so much better—Love it when you suck me off, feels like all the flavors are brighter, and I’m eating it all for you. Gon—gonna come down your throat, feed it back to you, mmmm—Make you, make it drip b-back out, so full. Eddie, god, I’m so…”

Eddie is drooling, swirling his tongue and twisting his fist the more the wetness gathered, savoring the sweet taste of Steve’s precome. He dips low and swallows around him, eyes streaming from a slight gag, but his cock is diamond hard in his own clothes. The combination of Steve’s stream of consciousness babble (increasingly just a good-muffled litany of Eddie’s name as he loses himself to the dual onslaught of sensations) and the softness of him, the press and warmth all around, is driving Eddie wild. He feels like he’s being consumed even as he bobs on Steve’s dick, eyes rolling back in his skull a split second before his throat is flooded with come and Steve’s hiccuping cry is muffled by nothing, because he’s already plowed through it all. 

He wonders when the last time Steve got off without food involved. 

He wonders if Steve could eat himself out of this outfit entirely, snap through it like rags and moan in sensual relief as the pinch of it all disappears. 

He comes in his pants. Eddie is so behind on laundry but this is all he ever wants to do anymore. 

Steve still comes into the spa at least once a day, still asks for Eddie every time. Every time he shows up, he seems to be fresh from the buffet. If it’s twice a day, Eddie can see a noticeable difference since the first visit; after a few days, Steve begins to sheepishly admit that he can’t comfortably lay stomach-down on the massage table. “Overdid it again,” he’ll say, running a hand over his belly where it juts out and pulls his shirt taut, tracing seemingly idly over red stretch marks where doughy skin peeks out the bottom but always meeting Eddie’s gaze directly when Eddie looks up from following the motion. He has shirts that would fit him still; he just chooses not to put them on until they nearly don’t. 

There are whispers now, whenever Steve comes to the spa—gossiping about how he's blowing up, sometimes spilling out of his clothes in public, increasingly more often than not arriving with food still in hand. Today he shows up with a messenger bag slung over one shoulder, so pleased with himself that he’s all but bouncing on the balls of his feet; it’s full of leftovers from the buffet. Instead of a massage he asks Eddie to feed him, even though he’s already stuffed, and it’s a miracle that Eddie doesn’t come in his work uniform slacks. (He comes in Steve’s greedy mouth, instead.) 

“That was so fucking hot,” Eddie tells him later that night in Steve’s cabin, popping one of the profiteroles he’d brought as a preemptive apology for the next thing he’s about to say into Steve’s mouth, “but we can’t do that again. If anyone catches us like that while I’m on duty, I will absolutely be fired and dropped off at the nearest port… No, hey—don’t pout, sweetheart, it’s just that I’ll be damned if I’m made to walk the plank before I’ve even gotten your phone number.”

Steve’s eyebrows shoot up, his mouth falls into a breathless oh with pastry cream in the corners, and he immediately starts patting around to get his phone out of his pocket. He’s not actually wearing pants, but it’s the thought that counts. 

And it really does. They hadn’t exchanged phone numbers because they don’t need to on the ship, where they’re generally never more than a few hundred feet apart at any given time and can usually find each other within three guesses of where to look. Steve’s eagerness to exchange numbers now makes Eddie downright giddy; his eyes might even be a little damp as he places another profiterole in that perfect, sweet little oh. 

They don’t actually get around to exchanging numbers that night; Steve falls asleep to his belly as tight as a drum and Eddie gently wiping traces of dessert from around his mouth with a warm washcloth. He wakes up in the morning to the sheets next to him still warm and Eddie’s phone number scrawled on a scrap of paper left on the pillow. 

Yawning, he finds his phone, adds the number, and sends a first text so that Eddie will have his too. Then he dozes off again, still digesting. 

When he wakes again, it’s past noon. His belly grumbles; it’s angry at him for sleeping through the breakfast buffet, even though he’s not exactly empty… but he’s not full anymore, either, and that just feels wrong now. He wishes petulantly that Eddie didn’t have to go, that he could stay and feed Steve all day, rub his belly and tell him how big he’s getting, how insatiable he is, how impossibly hungry. In the absence of food to push into his mouth Steve reaches between his legs, stroking himself as he locates his phone, tapping briefly at it with his free hand and setting it to one side before calling for more room service on the cabin phone—because the buffet doesn’t have pancakes and waffles out anymore, but he can still get them if he asks. 

Throughout the call he keeps stoking, trapping the handset between his shoulder and softening cheek so his other hand can paw at himself, hefting and jiggling and squeezing and kneading, struggling to keep his voice even as he lists out everything he wants. When that’s done, he grabs his cell phone again and considers ending the video he’d been taking… but he’s so close. So close just from thinking about how much he’s had and how much more he still wants, how quickly he’s gone from normal-looking guy to fat, how big he’s eaten himself and still isn’t satisfied, doesn’t want to ever stop, and all he wants is—

“Eddie!”

Coming hard and out of breath, winded just from laying back and pleasuring himself, Steve ends the video. He’s still a quivering mess when he opens his texts to see Eddie’s responses wishing him a good morning, telling him how he almost hadn’t been able to leave for wanting to wake Steve up with his mouth. He’s a grinning quivering mess as he sends the video in response, along with the message, “Since you didn’t, I had to settle for waking up like this. Wish you were here.”

And doesn’t think until a few moments of no reply yet later that… maybe that was a little too forward for what they have. 

Is it too soon? They’ve got to be more than just screwing by now, with Eddie sleeping in Steve’s bed more often than his own and exchanging numbers and how much they share about their own lives in between stuffings and fucking. But… even if they are more, it could still be too soon, right? 

All his life, people have been telling Steve that he falls too fast, too willingly—because he’s a romantic at heart, and he doesn’t understand why that would be a bad thing. Except that it keeps costing him things, like his parents’ affection and now an entire almost-fiancée, and. What if it costs him Eddie too?

But he shouldn’t have worried. By the time he’s partway through an expansive breakfast, Eddie has sent a series of overheated-looking emojis, “Look what you make of me, sweetheart,” and a selfie in what Steve easily recognizes as the bathrooms in the ship’s spa. His uniform pants are down around his knees and his shirt held out of the way in his mouth, barely visible at the top of the frame, evidence of his orgasm dripping down his sleek, tattooed chest and over the hand still wrapped around his spent cock. 

Steve knows how Eddie’s schedule works, and the timestamp on the messages isn’t on the hour—Eddie either had a break in clients or had excused himself in the middle of a massage just to see what Steve had sent. And then liked it so much that he had to stop and touch himself right then and there. 

The very thought is enough to make Steve feel warm all over, and he finishes breakfast panting with his non-eating hand wrapped once more around his own cock, jiggling his way to a second (and eventually a third) round of coming his brains out thinking about this man. 

“So,” Eddie says one night once they’re cuddled up and both spent, Steve too crammed full from stuffing himself in his room all day. Too sated to move except where Eddie’s hands strokes absentmindedly over the expanse of his stretch-marked skin—on his belly, sides, thighs, even his arms now. “What happens after the cruise? What’s next for lil Stevie?”

Steve blushes at the nickname, pleased in a way that mixes sweetly with tongue-in-cheek embarrassment in his gut, but isn’t sure how to answer. Is Eddie asking about… him? Them? Some unknown third thing?

“Well… I guess I have to go back to Indiana,” he answers hesitantly. “Um. Back to working at my dad’s company, which sucks. I’ll probably need to order a new desk chair, heh.” A brief pause, as Eddie rubs over his full stomach and massages a burp loose. “I’ll… probably have to slow down a bit. On this. Which really sucks, because I’m going to have to get used to being hungry sometimes again.” 

Eddie pats his belly, seemingly entranced by the ripples sent out by even that gentle impact. “Yeah… Vacation eating doesn’t quite work in real life, does it?”

And the words are sympathetic, but there’s something sad behind them too, something resigned. Steve doesn’t think he’s messed up yet, but he’s pretty sure that he might if he doesn’t get the next few minutes right. He tries to rock a little, wanting to roll to face Eddie, but finds with another, wetter burp that he can’t; he puts a hand over the other man’s instead. “What about you? Are you… shipping out again, or heading home?”

“Home,” Eddie murmurs, not looking up from their hands. He bites his lip, then adds, “Between things. Honestly, this was meant to be a temporary gig anyway. I’ve been saving up to move somewhere less in the middle of fucking nowhere, you know? Somewhere with better job opportunities. I just… have to have enough for my own place.”

Eddie has told him before that he also has his home base in Indiana, some small town Steve would probably struggle to find on a map, with the uncle who basically raised him. His refuge in between attempts to strike out on his own, failing again and again because no one who isn’t family seems to want to live with him for long. Which is insane to Steve, because Eddie is so caring and sweet, who wouldn’t want to be constantly in his orbit?

True, he’s never seen the guy in his natural element because they’re always in his cabin, crew quarters being off-limits to passengers, but surely he couldn’t be that difficult a roommate. Sometimes Steve thinks wistfully of what it might be like to come home from a long day and fall straight into Eddie’s open arms, aware that he’s halfway in love—and that the ’halfway’ part is a lie to protect his own heart, just in case.

Steve bites back on what he wants to do (blurt out ‘Move in with me’ like a moron; he’d learned his lesson about that the hard way, ages ago) and asks, “Does, uh. Does ‘somewhere’ include Indianapolis?”

“It might,” Eddie replies just as carefully. “It could.”

“Do you ever… come up to visit? To look at apartments or do interviews or anything?”

Brown eyes flick up to meet his briefly, then back down. “I could. I mean, I haven’t much because it’s a long drive for a day trip, and unless I sleep in my van, staying overnight can get… Uh, and I don’t know anyone I could couch surf with up there.”

Taking a chance, Steve shifts his hand and twines their fingers together just a bit. “You know me. And I have a bed—I mean, a guest bed. A whole guest room, even. And a couch too, but you could have your pick.”

He spots the start of a grin while he’s still rambling and thinks with a wave of relief that he’s gotten it right after all. 

It takes some figuring out, and help from a waiter that Steve has been exchanging sarcastic jokes and gossip about some of the other passengers with since pretty much day one of the cruise, but Steve finally gets to see Eddie’s room on the ship about a week before the cruise ends, on Eddie’s day off. 

“Sweetheart, meet my sweetheart,” Eddie says, magnanimously letting Steve touch his acoustic guitar. “Not to be confused with my electric sweetheart, who decided to wait this one out safely on dry land.”

Steve raises an eyebrow, and doesn’t take it at all personally that Eddie lets him touch the instrument but not hold it. He’s not totally sure how to hold a guitar and wouldn’t want to drop such an obviously prized possession. “Do they have names, too?”

“The only two ladies I could ever be in a relationship with are nameless,” Eddie replies solemnly. “You’ll have to share me with them, I’m afraid.” 

And then he abruptly goes red, maybe because neither of them has mentioned the R word yet and he just went and implied it like it’s a given that’s where they’re headed, and Steve can’t help himself. He leans into Eddie, crowding him against the wall—not a long way to go here, in any direction—and kisses him hungrily. (He’s always hungry; for food, for Eddie, all the time now.) 

“I think I can handle that,” he tells a dazed looking Eddie before going back to examining the room. Again, doesn’t take that much time, but for such a small, blank space Eddie seems to have breathed so much life into it. Posters and polaroids taped up all over the walls, the pictures mostly behind the scenes shots on the ship. People he’s seen around and people he hasn’t. Eddie must know the waiter, Robin, too, because she appears in a number of them standing arm in arm with a more petite blonde girl who crops up in a lot of the photos. In one, she’s very clearly giving Eddie a wedgie. 

“That’s Chrissy. And, uh, there’s almost a reason for that one that doesn’t make us sound like feuding second-graders,” Eddie says, following his gaze and still flushed from the kiss. Or maybe from being pushed around a little? “She was my in for getting this job. Known her for years, she’s kind of my other half… in a completely platonic way, of course.”

Steve snorts. “Well that’s good, I’d hate to be sleeping with a guy who’d date someone he let hook his underwear over his head.”

Smirking, Eddie gives him a little shove—doesn’t move Steve at all, the hand just sinks into him with little effect. “First off, she’d need a ladder for an atomic wedgie, calm down. Second, she’s so not my type.”

“Oh yeah?” Steve looks Eddie up and down, then down at himself in feigned surprise. He smooths down the front of his cheerful yellow shirt then drags his hands back up, easing his belly out from where he’d tucked it into his shorts and the hem of said polo up too. Right on cue, Eddie’s eyes drop down to watch. “I never would have guessed.” He gives himself a little jiggle. “Remind me what your type is again, baby?”

Baby. Baby. Eddie has no idea what his face does in response to that because most of his blood is roaring straight to his dick, and he’s forgotten to worry about the fact that one look under the bed would bring Steve eye to eye with several days worth of dirty laundry. Forgotten that he was nervous about sharing his private space with Steve, with all the messy edges and nerdy interests showing. But if anything, Steve seems to enjoy the mess—looking at his pictures with interest (zero recognition of any of his metal band posters or niche horror movie favorites, but Eddie can work with that), and still flirting with him. 

“You,” Eddie breathes, then falls backward onto his tiny single-occupant bed and pulls Steve down with him, onto him with a moan. Kissing him so hard and frantic and completely uncoordinated. 

Steve nips at his lip, causing Eddie to groan and break the kiss. He lifts up on his elbows and knees, and they both have a moment when they realize that his belly hangs down far enough to just brush against where Eddie’s cock strains against his fly, soft against hard. Then Steve smirks and leans back down onto him with intent. “Was this your plan, Eddie? Get me alone in your room and have your way with me?” 

“I mean,” Eddie replies breathlessly, straining upwards trying to get another kiss. “It wasn’t not the plan.”

“Smooth,” Steve chuckles, and grants him a quick peck. “Didn’t plan it very well though, I don’t see anything here I can eat.” His eyebrows tilt and his bottom lip curves out in a pout that Eddie wants to bite. “What am I supposed to put in my mouth if I get hungry, huh?” He grinds down just right to make Eddie’s eyes roll back in his head. “Oh, wait. I guess there is one thing I can think of…”

Later, after Steve has sucked Eddie’s soul out of his dick and come into his own fist about it, then licked his hand clean with the fastidiousness of a cat who got the cream, and they’ve worked out that they can both fit on the bed if Steve lays on his back and Eddie lays half on top of him, half leaned against the wall… 

After all that, Steve asks about the guitars. Ha asks about the band Eddie had in high school that practiced in a friend’s garage and played once a week at the local shitty dive bar, and about one of the dirty t-shirts under the bed (which, yes, he did notice) that matches one of the posters on the wall. 

Eddie is pretty sure that he answers everything with stars in his eyes. He jokes that yeah, the posters do come with him wherever he travels, and melts when Steve asks if he’ll bring them when he visits him in Indianapolis. “You mean you really meant that? About me staying with you?”

“Yeah, of course,” Steve replies, smiling. “I really like you, Eddie. I don’t want this to just be some vacation fling.”

“Me neither.” Eddie’s arm tightens around him in a brief squeeze. It sets off a grumble in Steve’s empty, impatient stomach that makes them both giggle. “Ready to sneak back out again, big boy? I can text Robin to whip us up another distraction, and to have a snack sent to your cabin.”

Steve stretches under him, warm and pliant like the world’s snuggliest teddy bear. “Mmm, yeah. Make it a big one, that was a lot of exercise just now. I had to do a lot of the work, you know.”

“Well that won’t do,” Eddie teases, giving him a kiss before rolling off to find his pants, and in them his phone. “I’d better make sure my little ex-jock don’t have to lift a finger for the rest of the day, huh?”

When Steve sits up, Eddie has a perfect view of the way his side rolls and belly stack up atop one ever-thickening thigh. The luscious fruit of night after night of heady indulgences, day after day of Steve marathon-stuffing himself at the buffets, insatiable. So perfect that Eddie wants to swoop in on him again, but he knows it will be even better if he can slide more treats past Steve’s plump lips, spoil him and feel his stomach swell and round out while sweet whines and whispers of please, more slip out around mouthfuls, more, please baby I need it, fill me up, never felt so good before, doesn’t feel as good if it’s not you feeding me, baby—

Eddie has to check himself that he’s not drooling. Even though the cruise is almost over he still gets to keep Steve; this is the best day of his entire goddamn life. 

The last night before the cruise ends, Eddie lets himself into Steve’s cabin to find the man in question naked beneath a robe that no longer fully closes over his gut. He’d woken up early along with Eddie (who had to get to work) to start on one last lazy breakfast in bed and is still eating now, never having dressed and never having stopped. So full there are angry lines spidering over his belly and hips and he’s moaning between bites, during bites, pawing desperately at himself with one hand in a pitiful attempt to ease the ache even as his other hand still brings food to his mouth. Room service trays are scattered everywhere, scraped clean before discarded for the next, and the next, and the next. 

He sees Eddie and whines wordlessly, spreading his legs wider so his belly drops between meaty thighs and almost kisses the mattress. Eddie has been watching it get closer all goddamn afternoon in the pictures and videos Steve keeps sending. The last text is bouncing around in his head like a screensaver: Baby i need you i need more. 

Baby. It still gets him every goddamn time. 

Eddie opens the to-go box of cake he’s brought right there on the bed, fingers in Steve’s soft hair as he croons for him to sit up, just a little bit further, come on, sweetheart, I brought what you need. Watches until Steve, on his hands and knees, starts twitching his hips and moaning face-first into his post-dessert dessert before Eddie fingers and then fucks frantically into him while he finishes the rest. Comes hard and deep inside Steve, who’s almost sobbing don’t stop don’t stop don’t stop and yes yes YES as Eddie slides a plug into his greedy, messy hole to keep him full there. 

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” Eddie pants as he helps Steve collapse safely to one side. “Back when you booked the tickets? Just wanted to eat and eat and no one ever tell you no, hmm sweetheart? Keep you full the entire trip. Make you so much bigger by the end of it.”

Steve groans, almost slurs the words, “Fuck, don’ make me horny again, Eds… Ate s-so much, I could pop.”

Eddie shushes him, laying a finger across Steve’s sticky lips and only a little surprised when Steve responds by immediately opening them, licking and drawing it into his mouth like it might be candy. Like he doesn’t know how to respond any other way. Sucks on it instinctively and jesus fucking christ if that doesn’t make Eddie’s cock twitch again. The things this perfect man has been doing to his libido for the entire cruise is downright diabolical, it’s so amazing. He hasn’t been this on the cusp ready to go again so fast since he was a goddamn teenager. 

So he massages Steve’s swollen, churning tummy and coos over every freckle and stretch mark, every curve and bulge the way he’d wanted to from the moment he’d noticed them beginning to form. Gleefully and deliriously egging Steve on until his dick is hard against the soft underside of his belly, ready for the next round of their last hurrah. 

On the ship, anyway. 

Eddie already has Steve’s address saved in his phone. 

Plans saved in his calendar app to drive up and start job hunting in a mere two weeks, the longest either of them could stand to imagine being apart. 

Dreams of moving there, living with Steve and having this every goddamn day. Steve has already told him he can stay as long as he wants, so they’ll see. Chrissy and Robin might swing down from Chicago and they’ll go on double dates, Steve happy to polish off any leftovers that the girls don’t want to bring back to their hotel room when they’re out on the town. 

Would he have leaned so hard into it without Eddie to eat for, to seduce and impress and tip over the edge of infatuation to utter, love-soaked devotion? Maybe. But that would have been eating to fill a void in his life, in his heart. This, what they do together, the way Steve consumes and Eddie helps him push past his limits and break through to that blissful state of truly full, is beautiful. A connection that neither of them has felt before, not in any of Eddie’s casual affairs or Steve’s serial relationships. Something new and promising and bright… and big.

What started as a straightforward all-inclusive cruise might just have led to the best thing to happen to either of them in their entire lives, and Eddie can’t wait to see just how big Steve decides to get. 

[c-e-d-dreamer]

Falling For Your Fools Gold: Chapter 7

A/N: I hope you're ready for more tension, a Valkyrie introduction, and murder! This chapter might have gotten away from me a bit, but I still had a lot of fun writing it. And I hope everyone equally enjoys it! :) Trigger warning for murder/blood

Chapter Masterlist // Previous Part // Next Part

Nesta squints through the fog that swirls and billows off the rocking waves around the ship. The early morning sky is a hazy gold overhead, and even though the sun is hidden, it leaves the fog looking like it’s shimmering, like it’s alive. Nesta thinks she can make out some smaller ships moving through the water, thinks the dark lines in the distance must be the docks, but there’s only quiet cocooned amongst the fog, and it’s almost unsettling, eerie, the promise of something sinister waiting on dry land.

“Drop the anchor,” Baz’s voice echoes across the deck.

“Dropping the anchor,” Bram calls back.

Nesta frowns at the order, leaning further over the ship’s railing. Perhaps the fog is thicker than she realized? But there’s nothing except murky waves lapping along the wooden sides of the ship below, and Nesta’s confusion only grows. She turns to try and find Baz so she can ask him, but she’s startled to find Cassian already standing beside her.

“Why are we dropping the anchor?” Nesta voices, the weather around them making her feel like she needs to keep her tone quiet. “We haven’t reached the docks yet.”

Something passes over Cassian’s face then, his own gaze sweeping across the horizon. “Windhaven isn’t a port you want to dock directly in unless you’re interested in losing your ship. We anchor well past the break, and we’ll row the rest of the way into port.”

“Should I be concerned then? If Windhaven is such a dangerous port?”

“Don’t trust me to keep you safe, princess?”

Although she has no interest in admitting it to him, Nesta does trust Cassian. She can’t quite pinpoint when it happened, or even how it happened, but she does. She knows that despite his reputation, despite the fact he’s a literal pirate captain with plenty of blood on his hands, that he’ll never harm her. She knows that no matter what, she’s safe with him.

“I didn’t say that,” Nesta finally mutters.

A smaller boat is lowered over the side of the ship and into the water, a wood plank and rope ladder unrolled from the railing next. Baz clambers over the railing and down the ladder first, Cormac tossing down oars to him before following behind the first mate. Nesta lets the rest of the crew going ashore climb down next until it’s just Cassian and her still standing on the deck.

She can feel the captain’s eyes on her, and she’s sure if she looks over, she’ll find his accessing gaze watching her, peeling back layers of her like he always does, but thankfully, he doesn’t say anything, merely swings a leg over the ship’s railing and starts down the ladder. Nesta leans over the railing, eyeing the choppy water, the way the ladder sways slightly with Cassian’s weight. She takes a deep breath and swallows hard, finally climbing carefully over the railing as well. Her grip is practically white knuckled against the rope, but she breathes through the way her heart pounds between her ribs and slowly steps down and down along the ladder. One foot after the other.

She realizes belatedly that she should have counted how many steps there were because she doesn’t want to risk looking to see how much farther she has to go. Instead, she just focuses on lowering each foot to the next wooden plank of the ladder, praying she reaches the bottom soon. Nesta nearly jumps out of her skin when two large hands settle on her waist. She snaps her head over her shoulder, meeting a pair of hazel eyes. Cassian’s hands squeeze gently, a silent request, and Nesta finally releases her iron grip on the ladder, allowing Cassian to ease her onto the boat.

She shifts carefully to move to one of the seats, Cassian settling down beside her, and then Baz and Cormac are picking up the oars and rowing them toward the docks. Cormac jumps out of the boat first once they’re close enough, quickly tying off the rope and securing the boat. Cassian follows behind him, turning and holding out a hand toward Nesta. She slides her palm against his, allowing the pirate captain to help her out of the boat and back onto solid ground.

Already, Nesta swears she can feel eyes on her. The feeling scrapes along her skin like nails, creeping up her spine until every hair on the back of her neck stands on end. Her eyes sweep across the docks, and though she can’t see anyone, the area almost eerily empty, she can’t shake that feeling. It has her just barely swallowing down a shudder.

“They’ve requested the Captain’s Quarters for the meet,” Baz speaks from their left, crossing his arms and squinting toward the rows of buildings lining the docks and shore.

“The faster we get this over with the better,” Cormac mutters, his expression pinched.

Cassian nods, clearly agreeing, and turns toward Duncan and Wiley. “How much time will you both need?”

“It shouldn’t take me long to replenish our supplies,” Wiley explains. “Just an hour or two.”

“If you can spare an extra set of hands, it shouldn’t take me too long to get what we’ll need from the markets,” Duncan agrees.

“Alastair, go with him,” Cassian orders, gesturing with his head before holding out his arm for Nesta to take.

Nesta blinks a few times in surprise, not expecting Cassian to offer that she go along with him and his crew to whatever meeting they’re having. Somehow, it feels significant, feels like it means more that he’s allowing her in on his business, a true peek behind the curtain. For all his questions about Nesta trusting him, it’s as though Cassian is demonstrating his own trust for her. She’s not quite sure how she should feel about that.

Slowly but surely, Nesta settles her hand in the crook of Cassian’s arm, allowing him to lead the way through the winding streets of Windhaven. There’s more people as the buildings around them grow thicker, making their way down the main road that cuts through the port city, eyeing them from the different side alleys and streets. It has Nesta pressing that small bit closer to Cassian as they walk, but she keeps her shoulders back, her head held high.

The Captain’s Quarters isn’t much to look at. In fact, Nesta is quite sure that if someone wasn’t specifically looking for the tavern, they might miss it all together. The dark wood walls are plain if not a bit run down from all the sea air, and there’s no signage declaring the tavern’s name, parchment secured to the tavern’s windows as if to hide away whatever might be happening inside.

Nesta drops Cassian’s arm so he can step through the door, sticking close behind him. The inside of the tavern is as bare as the outside, only a few tables scattered around the space. A barman stands along the far right wall, a rag in one hand and a tankard in the other. He raises his chin in a nod, Cassian mimicking the gesture back to him. The barman’s eyes glance to the back of the room before meeting Cassian’s gaze again, some sort of silent signal, and then Cassian is moving again, leading their little group deeper into the tavern and down a set of stairs half hidden behind crates in the back.

The room below the tavern is relatively small, the majority of the space between the wooden pillars taken up by a large table. There’s already a group of men sitting on one side of it, a few more at their backs. The man sitting in the center is clearly the leader. His blonde hair is long and unruly, his facial hair just as unkempt, and a long scar runs from his ear all the way across his face to his nose.

Cassian makes his way around to the other side of the table, pulling out one of the chairs, but rather than sit, he turns to look at Nesta. It takes everything within her not to show her surprise at the gesture, at the literal seat at the table she is being offered when it comes to Cassian, his crew, and his business. Instead, she keeps her face neutral and settles into the seat, folding her hands neatly atop the table. Once she’s seated, Cassian takes the seat beside her, Baz in the seat beside him. Cormac remains standing, staying just over Nesta’s shoulder, his arms crossed over his chest and his gaze narrowed.

“Shall we begin then?” Cassian asks, his tone casual yet hard.

“Thought we were doing business,” the blonde man sneers, the drawl of his accent thick, his beady eyes sweeping over Nesta's frame, the disgust clear on his face. “Your whore doesn't need to be present for that.”

Faster than Nesta can even blink, Cassian is on his feet, his sword drawn and pressed to the man's neck. Fury rages beneath the surface of his skin, his hazel eyes hard and burning as he bares his teeth at the man. This is the pirate captain the world fears, and the man seems to realize it, his own eyes widening slightly.

“Say that about her again,” Cassian snarls, the blade of his sword digging in tighter until a trickle of blood drips down his skin. “I dare you.”

Nesta expects the man to finally back down, but it only seems to ignite his defiance. Even with the sword at his neck, he turns his head enough to spit at the ground, his tone mocking when he speaks again, “you've gone soft, Lord of Bloodshed.”

It's with cold, efficient ease that Cassian swings his blade, a deep red waterfall spilling from the man's neck until his clothes are drowning in the deadly color. A gasp tears its way free from Nesta's throat, and she can do nothing but watch as the color leeches from the man's face, as his lips part and he makes a gargled sound before slumping onto the floor. Cassian and the rest of his crew seem entirely unaffected by the display, Baz pulling out a handkerchief and handing it over for Cassian to casually clean his blade. The sound of Cassian re-sheathing his blade is especially loud in the near-silent room, and he crosses his arms, looking over the men still seated around the table.

“So, are we doing business or not?”

There’s no response from the remaining men to Cassian’s snapped question. Every set of eyes is pinned to the pirate captain, many wide and wary. Although, Nesta doesn’t miss the simmering anger sparking in the eyes of the man directly across from her. As the silence continues to extend, the tensions in the small room ratcheting up and up, Cassian raises an expectant eyebrow, his patience quickly diminishing.

“What makes you think we want to do business with you now after that?” the man still glaring finally dares to voice.

“What makes you think I’m not perfectly capable of taking this business elsewhere?” Cassian fires back with a scoff. Although, it’s clearly the answer he needs, turning to face Nesta again and holding out a hand for her. She allows him to tug her back to her feet, to set her hand back in the crook of his elbow. “Perhaps whichever of you pieces of shit takes over will remember to hold your tongue next time.”

Without another look back, Cassian guides the both of them back up the stairs and into the main part of the tavern. Nesta can feel eyes practically burning a hole into her shoulder blades the whole way, even with Baz and Cormac following behind them.

“I can put feelers out for who might be interested in a deal,” Baz offers once they all step back outside the tavern again.

“I have a contact in Windhaven that might have a lead as well,” Cormac adds, squinting down the road like he half expects his contact to appear.

“We’ll give it a day, but I won’t stay here in port longer than that.”

Both men nod and offer their agree with Cassian’s statement, heading away from the tavern and vanishing around separate corners. It leaves Nesta and Cassian alone once more, the pirate captain turning to stand properly in front of her. Slowly, his hand comes up, the backs of his fingers skittering gently down along her temple, her cheek, before tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Are you alright?” Cassian asks, his voice softer than Nesta has heard from him all day.

“I’m fine,” Nesta assures him, offering a small smile.

“I’m sorry we’ll have to stay in Windhaven longer than expected.”

“I’m sorry that I’m the reason you couldn’t do your originally planned business.”

“Don’t apologize for that,” Cassian argues, his hazel eyes blazing once again, an affronted frown tugging down his lips. “Never apologize for that.”

Nesta lets out a soft sigh, but she acquiesces and nods her head. Cassian’s eyes dance over her face, and whatever he sees in her expression, it seems to put him at ease. He gives Nesta a nod of his own and offers her his arm again, leading her away from the tavern and down the main road of Windhaven. The buildings around them start to get less rundown, the numbers of people moving about around them growing thicker, as they continue to make their way deeper into the downtown market area of Windhaven.

“Did you want to get some food?” Cassian suggests, nodding toward one of the cafes further down from them.

“I think I could…”

Nesta trails off, her eyes snagging on one of the windows to their right. Particularly, on the window display. There’s no mistaking the leather, the ink and gold leaf pressed into curves and swirls. A bookstore. A proper bookstore. Nesta is moving before she even realizes or thinks about it, not a care in the world, all but dragging Cassian along behind her where their arms are still linked.

They step through the door, and Nesta inhales deeply, her eyes fluttering close for a moment as the sweet scent of linen pages, of dried ink, floods her senses. It’s like a warm blanket settling across her skin, calming her soul even as her blood thrums to life, answering a call, welcomed home by the characters and stories waiting on the shelves, hiding between pages.

“Can I help you?”

Nesta’s eyes fly back open at the voice, the cool, clipped tone of the question. She finds a woman standing behind the counter along the right wall of the bookstore. Her long dark hair is braided over her shoulder, her cheekbones high and cutting, and her eyes a shade of brown that Nesta is sure would look soft and beautiful in the right light. Currently, that gaze in question is narrowed, the brown of them hard and simmering with the promise to cut a man down where he stands. The man currently standing beside Nesta.

“Just browsing,” Nesta cuts in, offering the woman a small smile in hopes of defusing any tension.

She quickly steps between the few shelves set up in the bookstore, running her finger along the various spines, swearing she can feel the pulse of the stories just beneath the leather. She pauses occasionally to read the title printed on a book, sometimes even pulling one out to flip through a few pages. Some of the story names are familiar, but others are completely new. She moves over to the table placed near the window next, eyes dancing over the different books on display there until one in particular catches her attention.

“Where did you get this?” Nesta asks, unable to take her eyes off the book as she picks it up.

“Are you questioning my merchandise?” the woman fires back.

“Not questioning, impressed. I didn’t think this had been mass printed just yet.”

Nesta flips through the pages in awe, still grappling with the fact that she’s truly holding this book in her hands. She runs her fingers along the leather of the spine, almost savoring it. When she looks up again, the hard lines from before have fallen away from the woman’s face. In their place is a wide, excited smile, her nose scrunching slightly from the expression.

“Have you read the previous one?” the woman asks, stepping from behind the counter and closer to Nesta.

“Of course. I practically devoured the whole thing, read it in just a day, and I’ve been anxiously awaiting for this to be printed, especially after that cliffhanger. Whose door do you think Miss Charlotte knocked on? I’m so hoping it’s Mr Williams. He’s a much better match for her in my opinion.”

“Absolutely not. After he didn’t respond to her letters? She should be with Mr Davies.”

Nesta lets out a surprised laugh at the argument. “It wasn’t like it was his fault. He was injured after the war.”

“Excuses,” the woman dismisses with a wave of her hand before that smile returns to her face. “I’m Emerie by the way.”

“Nesta.”

“Well, Nesta, if you liked that book, you should definitely read…” Emerie trails off, her hand dancing across the display of books before she finds what she’s looking for. “This book.”

Emerie holds out the book toward her, and Nesta takes it with a quiet thanks, tucking it and the first book into the crook of her arm. She expects Emerie to step away then, perhaps even return to behind the counter of her shop, but instead the woman steps closer, her hand curling gently around Nesta’s forearm.

“Are you okay?” Emerie asks, her voice barely above a whisper.

Nesta blinks a few times, surprised by the sudden change in conversation, by the serious look Emerie settles her with. “What?”

“You know who that is, don’t you?”

Emerie glances toward the other side of the shop, and Nesta follows her gaze, finding Cassian with his brow furrowed, causally flipping through the pages of a book poised in his hand. When she meets Emerie’s eyes again, Emerie raises a silent but pointed eyebrow, the question and concern clear.

This is it, Nesta supposes. One simple word, and it could all be over. All she would have to do is tell Emerie that she isn’t alright, and Nesta is sure that despite having only just met one another, that Emerie would help her get away. One simple word, and she could get back to Adriata. Back to her sisters. Back to her father. Back to the life her mother laid out perfectly and expectantly for her. Just that thought alone has Nesta’s chest tightening, her stomach roiling until a lump presses against her windpipe and she has to swallow hard around it. One simple word. She swears something deep between her ribs seems to roar in rebellion at the very idea.

“I’m alright,” Nesta assures Emerie, smiling softly. “I promise.”

Emerie’s eyes narrow, her gaze sweeping over Nesta’s face like she expects to find some hint of a lie, but whatever she finds seems to satisfy her. She nods her head and finally steps away, returning back behind the counter. Nesta follows behind her, setting her two books down against the wood.

Nesta senses him before she sees him. The warmth that always seems to leech from his presence prickling along the left side of her body, the scent of salty sea air and the crackling embers of a fire. She turns her head to find Cassian already watching her, and she drops her gaze to the book still in his hand, eying the long title pressed into the leather.

“Really? Another history book?” Nesta teases lightly with a roll of her eyes. “Because you don’t have enough of those in your cabin already?”

“Because you don’t already have enough smutty romance books?” Cassian shoots back, placing his own book atop Nesta’s stack before turning to the shop owner with a smirk. “Emerie.”

“Cassian,” Emerie greets dryly, crossing her arms across her chest.

“How much for the three books?”

“For you or for Nesta?”

Cassian chuckles, digging out some gold from the inside pocket of his jacket and setting it down on the counter. “Never change, Em.”

Cassian picks up their stack of books, placing his free hand on the small of Nesta’s back, guiding her toward the door and out of the bookstore. Nesta follows along almost in a daze, her mind still trying to wrap around the whole interaction. When they finally step outside, the fresh air and sun above draws Nesta back to reality with a jolt. She stops walking and whirls on Cassian, her shock quickly morphing into annoyance at the smirk the pirate captain is already wearing when he meets her accusing gaze.

“You know Emerie?” Nesta demands, gesturing back toward the bookstore they just left in emphasis.

“I do.”

Nesta waits for him to continue, to explain, but when he doesn’t, she lets out a frustrated huff. “How?”

“We’ve known each other since we were both young. I grew up in Windhaven,” Cassian finally explains, urging Nesta to keep walking once again with a hand at the small of her back.

“Windhaven is the port city you grew up in? Is that the real reason why you don’t like to spend too long docked here? Too many bad memories?”

“Something like that.”

~ * * * ~

Nesta and Cassian meet up with the rest of the crew at one of the inns in Windhaven, enjoying a dinner in the tavern that takes up the ground level. The mood is certainly sour at the fact they’ll be staying in port overnight, but Nesta finds herself trying to hide her smile into her spoon as she eats her stew. Staying in an inn means a proper bed for once. A proper bed to herself.

When everyone is finished, Nesta clutches her new books to her chest, all too happy to follow the crew up the stairs to where the rooms of the inn are located. Already, she can imagine slipping beneath the blankets, curling up and beginning one of her new books. Each of the men bid a quiet goodnight as they pass each of the crew’s respective rooms, and then Cassian is sliding the key into the door at the end of the hallway, opening the door and stepping back out of the way.

It takes everything within Nesta not to practically skip inside, to simply walk coolly past him. The furnishings are simple, a bed taking up most of the space in the center of the room and a table and two chairs lining the far wall. Nesta walks over to the bed, placing her books down on the small side table and lighting the candle that’s there, not even bothering to bite back her smile when she hears the click of the door to the room closing.

“You can use the washroom first.”

Nesta whirls around, her emotions caught somewhere between surprise and simmering anger. They swirl deep in her gut, each pressing more steadily for attention at the forefront of her mind, until all Nesta can do is gape. If Cassian notices her expression, he doesn't say anything else, too busy unlacing his boots. She supposes that she should have known. Should've known that Cassian would never allow her her own room. Perhaps she can sneak out and change her answer with Emerie after all thanks to the infuriating audacity of this man.

Nesta spins on her heel and storms toward the washroom attached to the room, closing the door behind her with more force than necessary. Because she's petty and because she can, she spends extra time washing away the day from her hair and skin, makes sure she's slow and careful as she pulls back on her shift to sleep in, as she braids back her hair. When she steps back into the bedroom, her dress and weapons tucked neatly in her arm, Cassian looks less than impressed, and she knows she's won. She casually flips her braid over her shoulder and smirks, making her way over to the bed.

Cassian steps into the washroom, so Nesta slips beneath the blankets. She tucks her legs up and grabs one of her books, balancing it on her knees and opening to the first page. She's already through the first few chapters when Cassian steps back into the room, his chest bare and just his loose pants on. Nesta watches curiously as he walks over to the door, seemingly checking it, before coming to stand next to her, on her side of the bed.

Nesta raises an eyebrow exasperatedly when he doesn't immediately say anything. “What?”

“Scoot over, princess.”

“What?” Nesta repeats, this time incredulously.

“You heard me. Move over.”

“This is my side of the bed. I always sleep on the right side on the ship. Why is this any different?” Rather than say anything, Cassian decides to clamber into the bed anyways, forcing Nesta to scramble back to the other side to avoid him sitting on her. She lets out an affronted gasp, smacking her book against his shoulder in protest. “What is wrong with you?”

Still, Cassian doesn’t respond, remaining stoically quiet. He pulls the blankets up to his chest, shifting around until he’s comfortably lying on his side, his back to her. Nesta considers smacking her book against his head rather than his shoulder, her fingers tightening around the leather of it for a moment. Instead, she rolls her eyes with an annoyed huff, leaning over her new side of the bed and setting her book gently down on the wood floors of the room.

“At least blow out the candle,” Nesta snaps, moving to lay down as well.

Cassian sits off enough that he can do just that, plunging the whole room into darkness. Nesta rolls over onto her side, glaring daggers into the back of his head. She knows that he can sense her ire, that he’s still awake, from the way his shoulders are held slightly tense, but he seems set on resolutely staring at the door all night. The thought echoes through Nesta’s mind as soon as she thinks it, reverberating and jarring.

The door.

When she thinks back to the nights spent on the ship, all those nights in the captain’s cabin, she realizes he would often face the door then too. Especially most recently. Ever since Summer Solstice he’s always had his back to her in their bed. Ever since they’d set their course to dock in Windhaven perhaps?

“Is it one of the bad memories of Windhaven then?” Nesta breaks the quiet. “That you have to face the door?”

Cassian lets out a soft snort of amusement. “You think I have some horrific memory from my childhood involving doors?”

“I don’t know,” Nesta shoots back defensively. “But it is the door, isn’t it? You have to face the door, that’s why you made me move. But the question is what happened in the past to warrant it.”

“Perhaps,” Cassian drawls, his shoulders shifting slightly with a shrug. “It is a more recent development.”

“That doesn’t answer my question. What happened? Or better yet, what do you think will happen? Do you think someone will burst through and—”

The words dry up in Nesta’s throat before she can even finish the thought. Oh. If someone were to burst through the door, if there was any type of danger, he would be the first line of defense. He’d be able to put himself between the threat and her and keep her safe if needed. The realization has warmth creeping through her veins, roots closing in and promising to bloom, but Nesta quickly pushes it down, swallowing hard.

“How very gentlemanly of you,” she teases dryly. “To watch the door.”

“I’m sure the events of today set me back a bit, but I had hoped I was starting to convince you that I’m not the monster you think I am.”

Nesta bites her lip at the almost dejected tone to his voice before whispering, “I don’t think you’re a monster.”

The silence that follows, that presses in around them in this bed, this room, is almost deafening, grating against Nesta’s skin. She reaches a hand up, slowly broaching the space between them. Her fingers are a hair's breadth away from making contact with his shoulder, from offering that comforting touch, when she pauses. Even the gods seem to be holding their breath with her, the moment teetering on something Nesta can’t quite name. She curls her fingers back into her palm, snatching her hand back to her chest.

“I shouldn’t have teased you,” Nesta continues instead. “I’m sure your future wife will appreciate such nightly chivalry.”

Cassian rolls over to face her finally, and it’s then that Nesta realizes just how small the bed is. Their faces are mere inches apart, every exhale from Cassian skating across her lips, her skin. She almost wishes they hadn’t extinguished the candle, that she could see his face better, read his expression. Especially, when Cassian’s hand comes up between them, fingers sliding gently along a stray strand of Nesta’s hair.

“I do want my wife to feel safe at night when she’s with me,” Cassian agrees, some deep, hidden emotion buried beneath the serious tone of his voice.

“She may feel lonely though,” Nesta points out, keeping her tone light in hopes of dissipating the strange air bubbling around them, a precipice threatening to burst. “If you face the door the whole night.”

“Well, your observation was only half correct. I merely prefer to have myself between the two, so I am able to protect and defend against any danger. But I don’t need to face the door the whole night to do that, so there is nothing stopping me from holding my wife all through the night.”

“And me? You’ll protect and defend me against whatever might walk through that door?”

“I’ll always protect and defend you, Nes.”

“Even if it was my father bursting through that door? Coming to take me back to Adriata?”

“If that is what you wish, I’ll be your sword to command.”

The promise feels heavy somehow, like he’s promising so much more than just the simple words, a hidden message and meaning burbling just beneath. It has Nesta’s chest feeling tight, even as her heart skips and pounds between her ribs. Even through the darkness blanketed around them, Nesta can feel Cassian’s hazel eyes piercing into her, swears she can hear his heart thundering a melody in time with her own. She swallows hard, her mind grappling with the right words to say, the right response, but it’s like grasping at smoke.

“Or if you wish, I will hold you all through the night too,” Cassian continues, that teasing, cocky tone of his finally returning.

Nesta scoffs at the implication and turns away from him. Silence settles around them again, but this time, it’s more comfortable, easy. Nesta worries her lip between her teeth as she stares at the far wall of their room, her mind still turning over everything that’s happened today, over this whole conversation with Cassian.

“I don’t want to go back,” Nesta whispers, her voice practically carried away in the dark of the room. “To Adriata. I don’t want to go back.”

—

Updated Taglist (let me know if you’d like to be added): @moodymelanist @nesquik-arccheron @sv0430 @talkfantasytome @bookstantrash @eirini-thaleia @ubigaia @fromthelibraryofemilyj @luivagr-blog​ @lifeisntafantasy​ @superspiritfestival @hiimheresworld @marigold-morelli @sweet-pea1 @emeriethevalkyriegirl​ @pyxxie @dustjacketmusings @hallway5 @dongjunma @glowing-stick-generation @melonsfantasyworld​ @isterofimias @goddess-aelin @melphss @theladystardust​ @a-trifling-matter​ @blueunoias​ @kookskoocie​ @cassiansbigwingspan​ @unlikelypersonalknight1​ @blurredlamplight @hereforthenessian @skaixo

[faeriecourts]

sasunaru university modern au | naruto pov tw: attempted assault, implied drugging

Sasuke swears drinking has never felt like this.

The first time he had a drink was a week after his 18th birthday. Itachi made sure of it, always commenting about how alcohol stunts growth and the legal age exists for a reason. So it was Itachi, too, who brought him to a private wine tasting. The car brought them weaving past grapevines to a stunning country house, with houses laid brick by brick and huge wood barrels that lined the walls of the interior.

Itachi was always more of a parent than his own father, in this way. He let Sasuke learn every kind of wine, how many glasses it took and how it felt after each one, made him note at what point he started to feel good and bad. He let him have way too many, and then some, so that he would know. And then he had him crash in one of the country houses he booked for their trip.

It’s only because of that, that Sasuke knows, it’s not supposed to feel like this. That two beers shouldn’t have him tripping over himself, like his own brain is pounding against his head. He can barely hear what the girls are saying to him, crowding around him at the bar. One of them is undressing him, he thinks, only processing it because the way her smooth, cold hands feel against his clammy skin.

He’s shoving them out of the way, stumbling through the corridor that he’s praying leads to a bathroom. He can faintly hear people laughing, he feels like it’s at him, he’s so, so grateful when the first door he grabs opens and locks it so fast behind him before his vision starts to swim again.

There’s a single minute of sparkling clarity as starts to register the sound around him again, he blinks his eyes back open to find sun-bathed hair and ocean-blue eyes.

“Are you okay?” The man asks, and he sounds genuine, not like he’s about to follow it up with something else. But Sasuke knows better than to believe something like that at face value. Everyone around him is a startling good actor, after all.

“What, you want a piece too?” Because it’s the only thing anyone has ever wanted from him. If they wanted connections, money, they’d call his brother.

“Huh?” The man stares back at him, dumbfounded. Sasuke laughs, mostly to himself, because some playing dumb trick isn’t going to work on him.

“I can practically feel your eyes on me.” Sasuke tests it, then, since this man won’t admit it. He approaches him until the proximity is damning, one hand around his waist. The man responds instinctively, his hand pressed against Sasuke’s chest.

And then it shocks Sasuke entirely, like a bucket of cold water over his head, that he wants this. He lets his eyes flit down to his lips, and he doesn’t know who leans in first-

But it’s soft, and it’s easy, and in this moment it feels so endearingly simple. He is kissing a man in a bathroom and he wants to, he can feel the man’s fingertips against his skin and it doesn’t make his skin crawl, instead he’s bringing him in closer, like if he presses them together close enough he’ll finally understand something, some secret that everyone else has always known.

There’s a moment afterwards where they’re making eye contact and Sasuke wants to laugh with pure joy, maybe even ask for his number, but then bile curls up in his throat and it’s all he can do to chuck the guy aside before he hurls into the bowl.

It’s staring at the mess he created that he realizes what he’s just done.

“You need to leave.” He tells him, because one of them needs to leave first. If they leave together, there are at least 3 women at the bar who will probably take a picture, and as much as Sasuke does not want to give his father another reason to disown him, he also doesn’t want his father to ruin the life of some stranger just because he didn’t knock on a bathroom door. And if he doesn’t leave soon, the girls will come to find him, and then they’ll both be fucked.

“Leave,” he wants to yell it, because it’s Sasuke’s own fault and he needs to get them out of this, and when the man finally does, Sasuke locks the door and collapses against it again.

He keys in Shisui’s number in his phone. It’s a futile attempt at keeping aniki from knowing, Shisui will most definitely tell him before he comes to get him, but at least Sasuke won’t have to hear his brother’s panicked voice.

on ao3 here -- part one three four

[peppermintquartz]

Original writing

--

There was always a flag flown from the top of the lighthouse.

Red flags had been used in the past to tell captains out in deep water that the harbor was open, that ships could dock safely. Black flags meant that the harbor was closed - perhaps it was already full, and there were ships docked for repairs.

And if there was a long white and blue pennant streaming with the red and black, it meant that the harbor was under attack and all available shipcrew were to answer the call of the house of Alwyth.

It had been at least three hundred years since all three colors had flown from the lighthouse.

More than five hundred years ago, the people of the islands east of Aleis chose their side: the one house in all the lands to offer their ports. Over the next few generations, the Alwyths crafted free trading agreements, requesting just a docking fee and a flat tax per ship per year.

And once Liria staked her claim on Halimgor, the first thing she did was to secure the support of the six captains who led the Harbor Court.

"You are certain they aren't going to stab me the moment I set foot in it?" Zerrul asked Liria over breakfast on the second morning of their voyage.

"I have sent word ahead that the Crimson Compass is allowed to dock, and that Captain Zerrul wishes to speak with his fellow captains." The duchess poured a cup of hot tea into Zerrul's wide-bottomed mug. "Whether they stab you is not up to me."

Between them, first mate Deel chuckled and took a slice of salted meat and tucked it into a bun. "I would think all of them would try to stab you," he said. "You did monopolize all of Izdahl's waterways. All that gilt, flowing right into the coffers of the Compass."

Zerrul waved that consideration aside. "I'm willing to negotiate a partial share of the canals. But I want the Compass back in Port Halim. The winds are changing, and I don't like where they're blowing."

"So long as they don't blow me away from thee, captain," said Deel fondly. He stood and pressed a gentle kiss to his captain's tattooed cheek, before bowing politely to Liria. "Duty calls. The men will slack without a stern voice and a quick hand keeping them on task."

After Deel left the cabin, Liria cocked her head and stared at Zerrul. "He's a beauty," she remarked. "How did you land him?"

"He insisted on serving on my ship," said Zerrul. His lips twitched, as if hiding a tender smile. "And he wanted to share my bed, too, after two seasons out running the black tides and coming so close to death as to shake hands with it."

"Your wife knows?"

"She likes him even better than I do." Zerrul snorted. "They get on famously when I'm ashore, going out and about like they're cheating on me. But she's a smart on, Sikka. Says it was better that I had a man who can keep me warm on board than for me to visit the whores or other port rats whenever I drop anchor, and he'll watch me when she's not able to do so. Two of them, Creation help me, keeping me from doing what I want."

The grumble was so affectionate and loving that Liria could not help feeling a little jealous. The captain was confident, powerful and attractive, certainly, but not handsome the way her brother or Deel was. Yet he could find two persons in his life who loved him enough to share their lives with him.

Perhaps she had not guarded her expression well enough. Zerrul's smile became genuine and kind.

"You are still young, your grace, and you have just won your seat, with much struggle," he said. "Time will lead you to what you're meant to find."

[north-blue-hearts]

Heart of Gold

CisFem Reader x Trafalgar Law

CW: ptsd, trauma, depictions/implications of suicide and suicidal ideation, language, violence, blood, canonical character death, mature themes and events 18+

Chapter 11: Communication

Law exchanges money with the bird and opens up the news. Skimming over the events, his frown darkens as he reads about the death of Edward Newgate.

Marshall D. Teach was a completely different variable to be worried about. Kaido and Big Mom were enough of an issue on their own. He was grateful, via Luffy, that Shanks wasn't going to be a wrinkle in any of their plans, but the other three Emperors were always a concern.

Whitebeard less so due to his failing health, and the powerful connection between Luffy and the 2nd Division Command, Portgas D. Ace. It was still plausible that the Whitebeard pirates would've come to blows with their own alliance, but it was less likely the end result would have had casualties.

"What's new?" You ask, coming out onto the deck. Law hands over the paper and you scan it. He didn't give you much to work off of anymore, making sure that you were building up your own understanding of the world.

"Oh." You say quietly. "That's..." You pause and shake your head. "I'm not sure. One less emperor, but it mentions someone I haven't really heard anyone talk about before. Who's this Marshall D. Teach?"

"He used to be part of the Whitebeard pirates. Killed one of their crew and stole and devil fruit." Law explains, letting you sort through the rest of your knowledge to connect the dots.

"Betrays the crew to steal a fruit, builds his own crew, and then starts a fight with that same crew... in a bid to become an Emperor?" You question.

Law shrugs. "Hard to say. He was – maybe still is – a Warlord. The world Government might support him in a false Emperor capacity."

"Oh, that would mess up the whole balance." You mutter and Law nods. "But... maybe not that much."

"Yeah." He agrees. "Warlord or not, Teach is still a pirate. The World Government isn't going to trust him as much as they would one of their own, and he's certainly not going to trust them that much either. Someone with a treacherous streak like his probably isn't trusting anyone. His own crew is probably a matter of transactional alliances."

You look up at Law. "Is he even after the One Piece?"

Law tilts his head. "I... don't know."

"The assumption is that everyone that's a Warlord, or Emperor, or part of... sorry, it's really called The Worst Generation?"

He nods.

You shake your head. "I understand the intended connotation, but it makes you all sound like you're bad at being pirates."

Law grunts.

"You're doing your first class today, right?" He prompts.

"Yes. Ah... on... on land." You look from the newspaper and look over the island. Something made you feel dizzy, like there was a weight on your chest. Some part of you was afraid of leaving the submarine, but you didn't know why.

There wasn't anything concrete. Just a steady, unrelenting feeling that if you left the ship you would be in danger. As though the very ground would give way beneath your feet and swallow you whole.

"Would it be okay to... to host it on the deck?" You almost feel dizzy asking the question.

"... What's wrong?"

You shake your head a little tearing your eyes from the island and looking back at your captain. "I... don't know. I just don't want to leave the ship."

"Have you been to this island before?"

You look back toward the island, trying to see if any part of it, a scent, or sound, or landmark triggered any memory. Nothing came to mind, and you shook your head. "I don't think so. It's... it's not the island itself."

"The ship feels safe." He states and you nod.

There's a silence between the two of you for a long moment and he puts a hand on your shoulder. "You can give instruction on the ship for today. But... you can't stay on the Tang forever. Maybe after the sun goes down we can go ashore."

"F-for?" You ask, voice a little shakier than you mean.

Law pauses for a moment, before looking at you. "Maybe you'd feel less anxious at night?"

"Ah... yes... per-perhaps." You nod a little in agreement, but the anxious feeling wells up in you again.

"Take a few deep breaths." Law instructs, standing with you as you breathe in deep and let it out slowly. He has you repeat the process a few times until your body starts to relax. "I'm not going to throw you on the island, or leave you behind."

"Oh, yes, no, I... I... don't know what it is exactly." You admit, looking down at the deck. "I just feel afraid, when I think about my feet on dry land."

"Is this a new fear?"

"N-new in what way?"

"Did you have a fear of dry land before you were imprisoned?" He questions but shakes his head before you could answer. "No, probably not. You were so forward at first that you would've said as much."

You chuckle a little, and nod. "You're not wrong. I... I don't recall being anxious like this before now."

Law puts a hand on your shoulder. "We'll work through it, don't worry about it for now, just focus on your lesson."

You nod, taking another deep breath and steadying yourself. You had a bit of time before the "class" would begin, and used that time to center yourself as the crew slowly gathered onto the deck.

Law sat separately from the rest of the crew as you walked them through your instructions. You decided to start with Observation Haki since you weren't ready to go to the island, and armament haki could get out of hand if you weren't careful.

You started out with the basics, building up from what the crew already knew and stepping beyond. Invoking future sight took a lot of practice and focus, and the capacity for how far you could see varied from person to person. Duration was also a matter of need.

Energy spent to see a full day could result in being exhausted for a week – and unable to do anything about the next seven days, never mind the one you were concerned about. It was a tool, not a boundless capacity to view the future like a proper seer. The best application within combat was to look ahead a second at a time, so much happens in a fight within a second, that the information provided was both useful and not overwhelming.

After lecturing for almost thirty minutes, you transitioned into practical applications.

Tying your hair back, you roll up your sleeves.

"This exercise will be easy enough. No using armament haki, especially since we're on the deck of the ship." You explain, pointing to Law and motioning for him to go stand with the others. His eyes narrow a little, but he secures his sword and hat against the railing and goes over to the others. "No devil fruits either." You add as Law waves his hand dismissively.

"The exercise ends, when one of you touches me." You announce with a smile on your face. "I can touch you, and grabbing a fistful of cloth doesn't count." Your foot slides back and you set your weight into your hips, holding your hands up in front of you.

The crew look at one another a little unsure, but Law steps forward first. You see him take in a breath and focus – he's at least using his observation haki, but he's not focused enough.

Yet.

When he grabs for you, it's neither lazy nor slow, he's at least putting effort into the move, but your haki skills are sharper, and you sidestep his arm, back to his body as you step and turn into his space. One hand around his wrist and another on his shoulder, your lower center of gravity gives you leverage, and you toss him over your shoulder smoothly.

After Law lands on the flat of his back you step back, watching him and the crew. You can feel the air shift. You've been little more than a prim and proper noble woman this entire time, slowly changing into a prim and proper regular woman, and just recently an official member of the crew. You hadn't even so much as raised your voice.

All you had done was said that you'd been formally trained, and pirates probably didn't put much stock in formal training. Which was fine – experience could often be a far crueler and more effective teacher than anything else. But the bruises and fractures you had endured at the hands of your teachers were long since faded, and your position meant you received the best care.

Your skin was smooth as silk – and so were your moves.

"... I still didn't hear the bell." Penguin says softly.

You jump in place, making the bell under your shirt jingle.

"Welp." Shachi resigns himself, rushing at you full force. You sidestep him easily, letting him nearly run himself into the railing as you return to your stance.

Chaos erupts.

The entire crew moves, and you slip through them like water through rocks. Gently you knock hands aside and step over feet. Your observation haki is refined enough to show you several minutes into the future, and not just several seconds. The crew are little more than back up dancers for your choreography, but the difference in skill lets you teach them gently.

"Focus!" You say sharply, knocking Bepo's paw into Jean Bart's hand before switching Penguin and Shachi's hats as you moved between them. "Reach out to the seconds beyond what you can see."

Grabbing Ikkaku's wrists, you twirl with her, listening to the surprised gasp as you waltzed her into Hakugan, sending them both backward. "You anticipate your adversary's movements as a natural part of your fighting already." You duck under a grab from Uni and shove Clione back with your hand to stop him from running into Uni's hand.

"Trust your instincts." You twist away from Law without looking at him, stepping low into his space as he's still moving toward you. Your shoulder goes into his thigh as you stand, heaving him up over your shoulder again and putting him flat on the deck – again.

The crew fought well together. The flurry of hands that kept after you didn't intersect with one another unless you moved them into one another's path. The longer the "fight" went on, the more the crew worked together. You could feel the haki coming off them, in different waves and focuses, but they were all trying.

The more they managed to focus, the better they worked together. The better they worked together, the more you had to work to evade them. You weren't dodging a single person, and the collective group made your openings smaller and smaller as time went on.

But that's why the first practical application was a group effort.

The third time you tossed Law over your shoulder, Bepo was nearby to catch him, and both recovered faster. You grabbed Penguin by the shoulder, turning you both around before you released him toward Jean, reaching out and grabbing Ikkaku. She expected you to waltz her around, so instead you lifted her up and put her in Jean's hands.

Both of them looked fully surprised, as you continued to dodge the flurry of hands around you.

"It's like... trying to catch... air." Shachi huffs, taking a second to catch his breath after nearly a half hour of everyone trying.

"The BELL." Penguin nearly sobs.

You smile, stepping aside from Bepo. "Will it give you more energy if it rings?" You question, grabbing Law's wrist and almost dancing with him for a step, giving him a wink and trying to ignore the flicker in your heart as his cheeks dusted pink for a second.

Penguin breathes in and lets out a frustrated grunt. "Yes!"

You set down your foot and the bell rings. There's a harsh light in your eyes, and an uncomfortable turn in your smile – at least as far as the crew is concerned.

"My apologies for any bruises." You say evenly before you move.

The soft jingle of the bell is easier to hear, than you are to see, as you forego grace for speed. The coordination of the crew falters for a moment, and you hear Penguin nearly whimper as Ikkaku swears.

The air on the deck shifts again, and the moment of uncertainty from the crew crumbles to dust. No one approaches you recklessly. There's a circle around and crew members come in one at a time, and you can feel the ones on the edges focusing.

Reaching.

Trying.

Not just to hone their haki, but to really take in your fighting style. The placement of your feet. How your arms and hands move. What parts of you tense as you move. The differences between grace and speed. The watery dance at the start is a sharp exchange of heat as you give them the fight they're finally willing to give you.

You're not a noble in their eyes. Not anymore. Not even residually. There's no ingrained hesitation in their movements. No fear of harming you.

You remember the stern man from Wano. A towering fellow who was more scars than skin, who had beat and bellowed forms into your bones for years. He often shared the philosophy of his homeland along with his more practical lessons.

There is no language more universal –

Stepping in you had to move more forcefully, gripping Shachi's thumb and turning his arm, bringing him to his knees as you stepped on him to vault over Clione.

No words more efficiently understood –

You redirected Bepo's attack toward Jean, and heard the mink apologize before he pulled the punch short. Shachi and Penguin stepped in, to box you in place, but you used Jean stepping back from Bepo's punch to pivot him and send him into the other three as you stepped away.

Then those exchanged in combat.

You bat Law's hand away before turning toward him. The way he moved, the smile on his face – a full smile – reveling in the challenge, hair stuck to his skin from exertion, the glint of tenacity in his eyes. The stoic captain was fully alive, haki flaring from him in barely restrained focus, skin bright with sweat.

You switched to the defensive, knocking aside the attacks that came from him. You could move away, you could toss him again – did you do that just to feel him against you? – you had options. But just a moment.

One moment more.

To see that smile, and the light in those eyes.

[alannybunnue]

What if the reason for demigoddess!reader being so trusting is that she's never had to fear anything from the Ironborn?

Ironborn children grow up learning about their Drowned God and his curious daughter who's known to come ashore at times.

Every warrior prays to them before a raid for success, and every family prays to them so that their loved ones return safely from any journey.

Every beach on the Iron Islands has small clusters of beautiful shells and stones for reader to add to her collection.

All houses and castles keep an empty place at the table in case reader's curiosity takes her away from the water. If there are little children, she leaves particularly pretty shells or bits of coral for them as thanks.

She's visited and blessed some of the Greyjoys when they ascend to the lordship in the past. Those lords were looked upon as being lucky with successful raids and plenty of bounty.

Every Ironborn grows up feeling reverent towards their demigoddess and any sighting of her - whether it's seeing her swimming playfully with dolphins near the ships or her sharing a supper with a fisherman and his family - is treasured.

MY FAVORITE CHILD IS BACK-

No offense to my other babies...But i just love the demigoddess so much ;3;

And you are fucking right, the Ironborn are completely devoted to her father, so her presence is a divine honor 😐

That is why the Drowned God tells her to stay on the Iron Islands

But she never listen, because she wants more sea shells 😥

And then she sees something that makes her curiosity blows and she goes after it just so some motherfucking house can grab her and take her away (It's not always the Targaryens)

[adsagsona]

Closed starter for @sonoftartessos

Jared had always been a curious creature. He sometimes came too close to the landdwellers, but unfortunately it had been his brother who had paid the price. They’d been swimming together, having fun, when a ship came too close for comfort. Before they could make their way home, a net had closed around his brother pulling him up. Jared had screamed for his brother, but Shannon had told him to get out of there as quick as he could.

Jared now just looked at landdwellers from afar and rarely came on land. Once in a while his curiosity got the best of him and he went ashore for a little while, or spotted humans at a ship. Pirates, he remembered. 

On one of the days where he had come closer to the civilised world, a ship had sailed above him. Safe within the water, he just looked at it, heard the gunshots... sails and debris landed in the water and Jared dove deeper for his own protection. A few hours later he swam towards the surface where he almost bumped into a body floating.

“Pirate.” Jared grumbled in disdain and wanted to swim away, leaving the body for the predators. And then he noticed that the man was breathing. Reluctantly he pulled the other man with him towards the nearest small island he could find and pushed and pulled until the man was ashore. Breathing heavily from the effort, he sat up and rolled him over. Curiously, he poked and prodded a little.

[inazuman]

a sasunaru modern university nepo baby au <3 featuring all rookie 9 and big brother itachi, written with love by yours truly

[gumnut-logic]

John spun the polished wooden wheel of his ‘bird and relished as she responded ever so smoothly. The waters weren’t the blue of the deep oceans but they had their own beauty.  His right eye acknowledged the green-tinted turquoise, but his mechanical left eye saw so much more as it skipped across the spectrum in pure reflex. He couldn’t help but be captivated by the beauty of the world around him in such a rainbow of technological advance. Even seeing through the steel glass of Five’s forward ports.

Travelling this close to the coast also provided much spectator sport for the various different fish in the area. Gordon would no doubt be cataloguing in his lab.

The thought of Gordon was in itself somewhat depressing. His frogman brother continued to blame John for what had happened to Alan.

Not that John had any argument with that assessment. He was to blame, but it was unpleasant to see his brother suffering.

To see them all suffering.

Scott had dashed John’s hopes of their father’s assistance, but now the Commander was back on board, John could finally take some action.

Preparing his Thunderbird for long distance travel at speed was something he enjoyed and took great pride in. Virgil may be the mechromancer in their family, but John had his own skillset. His ‘bird kept them all safe and hidden. She served as their base as they travelled the seas and, on rare occasion, she could even crawl ashore.

But for the majority, she was simply their home.

Even when Gordon left food scraps on the floor.

Again he was thinking of his younger brother.

A sigh as he angled to dive a little deeper to avoid one of the newer steam crafts with a much larger draw than the older ships.

“John?”

He startled as Eos strode onto the bridge.

“What do you think of this arrangement?”

He stared at the automaton. She had obviously been into Virgil’s spare parts locker again. His engineer brother would likely soon appear outraged yet again. But this time it appeared she had had a little more success is finding what she was seeking.

Unfortunately, the result required John to avert his eyes. His artificial eye whirred in its socket, flicking through the spectrum until it settled back on normal sight. “Eos, if you so choose to wear an anatomically correct body, you will need to clothe it.” While she was still the deep gold of brass and the silver of steel, she had obviously taken some time to form the metal into a good simulation of the feminine body. “Mere decency requires it.”

“Really? I shall take that as a compliment.” The metal woman actually spun on the spot, cackling. Yet again John found himself questioning his past choices.

He hadn’t drunk a drop of alcohol in the year since waking up with a hangover, one cursed by god, to realise he had invented, in his drunkenness, a creature that had nearly seen the death of all of them.

Scott was still wary of Eos and the automaton kept well away from the Commander fearing he may tear her limb from limb out of spite.

John doubted he would. He had given his word, after all. But it didn’t hurt to have a little threat in the creature’s life if it helped keep her under control.

And then there was Virgil.

It was always Virgil.

The mechanic become engineer born mechromancer was the centre of all of this. John had suspicions that perhaps his brother’s fingers had been involved that night. Virgil had been as drunk as he, yet took no blame for what was obviously an artificial life form.

Spark lit fingertips were capable of many things. His brother had proven that with Gordon.

Memories of those early days still kept him up at night.

Their fish brother should have died. Both legs gone, innards messed up enough that he couldn’t feel what he had lost.

But he had survived long enough. Long enough for Virgil to craft in metal. Enough for his brother to lay those sparking hands on that broken body and do whatever it was he had done.

Scott refused to speak of what happened and he was the only one with the pair of them at the time. All that John knew was that their eldest brother had had to carry Virgil from the room and that the mechanic had been laid up for over a week afterwards.

But Gordy was breathing.

Their brother clung to life long enough for his broken body to heal. He would never regain his legs, but Virgil soon fixed that as well.

Gordon’s gait was very recognisable as his mechanical limbs propelled him smoothly wherever he wanted to go.

Virgil refused to talk about it anymore than Scott, and Gordon claimed he did not remember.

John was caught between his need to know and the blessing of still having his brother.

The brother who currently hated him.

“John, why aren’t you looking at me?”

“Because you are indecently dressed, Eos. If you choose to sport a female body, you will need to cover it.” He toggled a number of switches, checking the communication relays he had launched into high altitude on approach to New York the previous week. The mechanisms were high enough to be hidden from all but the most sensitive instruments, ie. International Rescue’s, and yet still provide the necessary connections with London and the sister cities of their agency network.

“What is the point in that? How will I show what I’ve created if I have to cover it up?”

“Become a seamstress.”

She paused at that and tipped her head to one side. “That is an interesting thought.” Another pause as she obviously processed the concept. “I will need fabric.”

“Speak to Virgil.”

“Oh.”

Her tone was entirely suspicious. “What?”

“Um, I don’t think Virgil likes me at the moment.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“I may have borrowed something I shouldn’t have.”

“Borrowed?” He tried not to sigh. This was a far too familiar story. Apparently, John would need to delve into his supply of Jamaican coffee again.

“Acquired.”

“Can you put it back?”

“Not really. It is bolted on here.” He looked over in reflex and was rewarded a view of her metal posterior.

He shut his eyes and hoped their detector equipment would warn him if he was going to hit anything. “Eos, please put some clothing on.”

As if to emphasize the moment, there was a sudden bellowing roar that had a distinct baritone to it from elsewhere on the ship.

In response, Eos scuttled out the door, very much the automaton more than the graceful woman her new shell claimed she was.

Another sigh.

Apparently, he had two brothers who now disliked him.

The sooner they started on this expedition, the better.

-o-o-o-