#i got an order of whaler smut hot n ready

[two-crabs]

"Mine"

3.5k, m, maudlin/hester, pwp

The creaking of the window swinging open and then closed again made more noise than her boots hitting the floor. Outside, rain pattered and wind blew and dogs barked, but in the sparse guest bedroom of that fine old house, the only sound was breathing.   Maudlin thought it was a ghost, when they turned their head on the pillow, and saw the dark silhouette of a whaler against their window. Figures came to them in their dreams all the time, with black water pouring from their eyes, and hands groping violently at their clothes. They sat up, gasping, and rose almost to standing on the mattress, before they noticed the way she tilted her head, and held her hands in front of her.   “Oh…” Relieved, they slumped to their knees on the edge of the bed, their heart still pounding in their throat. “Hello.” 

Hester crossed the little room, pulling her mask up to rest on her forehead, and stopped in front of Maudlin, just barely not touching them. Maudlin, sitting back on their heels, looked up at her, blinking. 

“You…” they whispered. “Mr. Escobar said…” Dazed, not convinced they weren’t dreaming, they took her hands in theirs and started to pull the gloves from her fingers. “You had…a few days, still, on your, um…” 

When her hands were free, she rested them on Maudlin’s shoulders, her thumbs rubbing slowly back and forth over their collar bone. They were wearing an old nightgown, with a high collar and lace at the sleeves, long enough that it pooled around their splayed knees. It was so white and delicate that even in the dim blue light from the street below, the black shapes of tattoos were visible through the fabric. It was soft from wear, and they felt naked and exposed as they knelt in front of the heavy leather and oiled canvas of Hester’s uniform. 

“I…I got out early…” she said, sliding a hand up Maudlin’s neck. “On good behavior.” Hester smiled, and chuckled lightly, and at the sound Maudlin let out a breath they hadn’t realized they’d been holding. 

They dropped the gloves to the floor and raised one of their hands so it hovered near her ear. “May I, Miss Hester?” 

She lowered her chin and turned slightly, exposing the buckle at the back of her neck that held the mask in place. With one trembling hand Maudlin fiddled with it, tugging at the strap until it fell, heavy and damp with rain, into their waiting hands. They looked at its face for a moment, the glass eyes glinting in the dark, and a chill ran through them, the same as it had when they first noticed Hester in their room. For a heartbeat, Maudlin was holding a ghost. 

And then Hester’s hand was on their jaw, turning their face back towards hers, and the mask fell to the floor beside the gloves, discarded and forgotten. 

They brought their arms to rest at her sides, just above the heavy belt around her hips. Her sword, longer than one of Maudlin’s arms, dangled from it and reflected the low light around the room in wavering little dots. Maudlin reached around her, fingers shaking as they searched for another buckle. 

“You…got my present?” Hester asked, biting her lip. 

Maudlin froze, feeling their face go hot. They nodded, and their gaze fell from her face to her middle, to the line of her coat buttons, and the dip where her belt sat. They gave up on unfastening it and, head still bobbing dumbly, placed their hand, fingers spread, on her waist. Under their pillow, within arm’s reach, there was a salt-paper print in a little oval frame, of that beautiful, mythical stretch of skin. Somewhere, under the coat and the shirt and the trousers and the belts, there was her body. Somewhere beneath their shaking  hands there were hipbones, and the crease of her thigh, and her navel, and a starburst scar under her ribs. They could feel the steady rise and fall of her stomach as she breathed. 

Their own breath caught in their throat as Hester curled her fingers into the hair at their temple, the sensation pulling them from their reverie. Maudlin’s tongue went dry, and they could no longer bear not touching her. They turned their head into her touch, eyes closed, and caught her palm between a rising hand and their desperation. 

Maudlin felt more than heard Hester gasp as they kissed her palm—hungry, clumsy, needy. They held her wrist with the hand not firm against her side, and kissed the inside of it, feeling her pulse pounding. They turned her hand in theirs and brushed their lips over her knuckles, before pressing their open mouth to the smudgy purplish mark on the back of her hand. 

When they blinked up at her, Hester’s lips were parted, and her eyes were wide, pupils huge in the dark. She shifted on her heels a bit as she stared down at them, leaning forward until her shins knocked against the side of the bed. One of her hands was still solidly on Maudlin’s chest; the other she loosed from their hold, before placing two fingertips gently on their bottom lip. Maudlin watched her brows knit together, as if considering something, before she began dragging them back and forth, slowly. 

They shivered, dropping their hands back to her waist, gripping at the sides of her coat, trying to stop the tremors. The muscles in their legs were starting to ache from kneeling, and the collar of their nightgown was suddenly tighter and more itchy than before, and a piece of hair had fallen from its loose braid into their face—

And then Hester slid her two fingers into their mouth, and Maudlin’s mind went fuzzy and quiet. 

“Oh…” she sighed, and they made a sound that was almost a cry as they lapped at her, their lips sealing shut. Their eyes fell closed again, as she pulled her hand back, then pressed back in, petting over their tongue, knuckles scraping against their teeth. She tasted like leather and salt, a heady combination so dangerously familiar that for a split second they were back on the ship. 

But it was Hester under their hands, unmistakably. They had known her in the dark, in their nightmares; they knew the shape of her, even obscured by the uniform they worked so hard to unfasten.  They pawed at her coat, toying aimlessly with buttons and fingering the sturdy seams, until they  found the buckle of her belt. 

Maudlin tugged at the tail of it. 

Hester hummed and Maudlin tried to imagine what she saw: their lips, wet and pink, wrapped around her fingers; their eyelashes fluttering; the long, pale curve of their neck as they craned their head up towards her. They hoped they were beautiful for her.

They tugged the belt again. There was the sound of leather sliding against itself. 

“If…if you—” Hester began, breathless, before a metallic clattering cracked the stillness of the room.

 Maudlin flinched. Hester ducked, dropping into a reflexive crouch, wrenching her hand from Maudlin’s mouth so fast it made their teeth hurt. They both held their breath, before slowly turning to look at Hester’s sword, still tied into its belt, laying on the floor where it had dropped. 

Maudlin opened their mouth to apologize, but they were startled again by the sound of a firm, stern knocking on the wall of the adjacent bedroom. Still unmoving, they listened to the shuffle of slippers on floorboards, and the creaking of Auntie’s old bed. 

When they looked back at Hester, her hand was over her mouth, stifling a laugh, and Maudlin felt their cheeks flush at the sight of it. She sighed, and rested her forehead on the edge of the mattress, her shoulders shaking, chuckling silently. Maudlin, also shaking—always shaking—set a hand on the top of her head, and pet at her hair softly. 

Hester exhaled, long and slow, warm air against Maudlin’s bare knee, and then she stood, took their face in both of her hands, and kissed their mouth gently, still smiling. Maudlin’s hands were limp in their lap, finally relaxed. Whatever spell had kept them restrained and tentative had finally broken; they weren’t dreaming, it wasn’t a nightmare, it wasn’t a ghost. She was real, she was here. They let themself be heavy, and held, and kissed by the girl they hadn’t touched in nearly two weeks, the girl who had climbed in through their window just to do so. 

The girl who had tried to end a man’s life for doing the same.

At the thought, their breath caught in their throat, and the base of their spine tingled like a sleeping limb, making them shift and squirm on their knees. Hester pulled back slightly and looked at their face, before raising an eyebrow and lowering her lips to their ear. 

“On the bed,” she said, and then took two steps back, nudging her sword away with her heel. 

Maudlin frowned, shivering at the loss of contact. They glanced over at their pillow, rumpled and flattened, then back at her. “…Miss Hester?”

Hester also nodded towards the headboard. “M—” she started, then caught herself, clearing her throat. She smiled, and bit her lip, practically bashful, then tilted her head and batted her eyelashes at them. “Please…Miss Maudlin?” 

Warmth pooled in their stomach, and spread—to their chest, their groin, the tips of their fingers. Their eyes went wide, and Hester smirked. Slowly, she began to unfasten the buttons of her coat. She moved deliberately, to keep quiet, but the longer it went on the more it felt to Maudlin like an intentional tease. She held their gaze as she rolled her shoulders, almost languid, shrugging the sleeves off of one arm and then the other, letting it drop. Then she bent, untied her boots, and stepped delicately out of them as if they were nailed to the floor. When she stood up, still grinning, she gestured vaguely at the bed again, and whispered, “Go on.” 

Maudlin’s jaw was slack. They blinked, and looked dumbly around for a moment, before flopping backwards, clumsily untucking their legs, and propping themself up on one elbow, their pillow squished behind them. They kicked lamely at the sheet wrapped around their ankle, then stopped suddenly when they glanced back at Hester. 

They were distracted immediately by the soft beige shirt she wore, tucked into her trousers and undone one button past decent, with apparently nothing beneath it. She was giggling softly at their flailing, and rolling the cuffs of her sleeves up to the elbow. Watching this also felt indecent, so they focused again on moving sheets aside, and straightening their own clothes. Seconds later, Hester was hauling herself gracelessly onto the bed, climbing knee-over-knee around them. She settled carefully, kneeling with one knee between Maudlin’s legs, the coarse twill of her trousers rubbing against the inside of their thigh. 

She sat stradling one of their legs, fingers grazing the hem of their nightgown, eyes scanning their body like she was planning something. Tense and trembling all over from anticipation and need, Maudlin lifted a hand and set their fingertips lightly on her forearm. 

“I have missed you,” they said, tracing shapes on her skin. “All…all of the time I am thinking of you…all day, all night, worried that…that you…”

Wordless, Hester took Maudlin’s hands in hers, lacing their fingers together.   Smoothly, slowly, in a way that betrayed her strength, she bent over them, hovering so their noses just barely touched. “Don’t worry,” she said, then lifted both of Maudlin’s hands to rest on the pillow above their head. “Don’t worry,” she repeated, and when she unknotted her fingers from theirs, they didn’t move. They were pinned where she placed them, where she wanted them. They could feel a stretch in their ribs every time they inhaled, and they were hyper aware of the thinness of the fabric over their chest. It was agony, having her so close and not kissing her, until it wasn’t—

When her mouth met theirs again it wasn’t chaste or gentle. It was like Hester fell into them, into a hungry, all-consuming kiss, and Maudlin craned their head up to get as close and as much of her as possible. She twisted one of her hands into the hair above their ear, the other rested flat against their chest, as if to hold them down. Hester bit their lip, then, and Maudlin keened, a high quavering noise in the back of their throat. At the sound, Hester rubbed the hand on their chest in small circles, palming over their nipple and tickling their ribs, petting at them in silent reassurance. 

Hester continued to pour over their mouth, Maudlin taking all she gave and returning it as best they could, until they were sure they’d be bruised in the morning. They arched needily up into her, mad with the conflicting desires to touch and to stay. All they could do was kiss her and revel in her solidness on top of them—and then the dim, warm, satisfying ache of being worked open was illuminated by a bright shock of pain. 

And Maudlin tasted iron. 

They yelped, and Hester pulled away, leaning over them, propped up on her elbows. Her expression was inscrutable—panic, thrill, a nervous kind of hope—and she breathed heavily, waiting for Maudlin to respond. 

Slowly, deliberately, they swiped their tongue over their bottom lip. It stung in the spot where Hester’s teeth had pierced their skin, but they did it again, lapping up the blood. Hester watched them, and when her eyes finally settled on theirs they swallowed, hard. This, they hoped she’d understand, was permission. 

Maudlin closed their eyes then, and tilted their head, lifting their chin and turning it to one side, until they could feel the tendons in their neck go taught. This—in the pounding of their heart, and the pit of their stomach, and the building heat of their groin—felt like begging. 

Hester went to work in an instant, sucking on the hinge of their jaw while her fingers tugged at the buttons of their collar. She was quick; they thought they heard thread snapping, and then her mouth was on them. First, the place where their neck met their shoulder, then the hollow of their collar bone, then the knot of their throat. She lavished every tight and tender place she could reach, before licking at the crook of their neck, blowing on it to send a shiver down their spine, and biting down. Hard. 

Maudlin moaned, shameless, unable to stifle themself anymore grabbing the headboard to stay where she had put them. Hester dragged her hands from their chest to their waist, nails scraping down their skin. One hand held there, thumb kneading into their hipbone, while the other pet down their thigh. Her fingers teased at the hem of their nightgown before rucking it up, gripping them by the back of the knee, and hitching their leg up over hip. 

Hester moved her mouth, down and to the right, a little closer to that spot where their pulse was so close to the surface, and clamped down again. Maudlin cried out, their back bowing off the bed, hips rutting up against Hester’s. They couldn’t tell if she had drawn blood or just marked them with another dark purple bruise, but both thoughts made them twitch

Her teeth were in their skin. The button of her trousers pressed against them. Her fingers dug into their waist. Their shoulders ached and their fingers cramped from holding their arms in place. They were stretched thin to the point of snapping. It hurt. It was perfect. 

Maudlin groaned again as Hester rolled her hips hard against theirs, and then they heard the sound of a wet suction being released, and Hester’s lips were at their ear.

“Auntie…” she whispered, panting. “You…hush, she’ll—she’ll know—”

Maudlin would’ve laughed if they’d had the breath for it. Auntie knew. Auntie knew everything. And why should Hester care, living the way she did, if someone knew? Why should Maudlin, living the way they had for so long? If it were up to them at all they would have written it in the stars: Miss Hester Montgomery, The Most Beautiful Woman in the Empire, Has Spent The Night in My Bed. Let Auntie know. She already knew—

 Auntie knew—

“Auntie…” Maudlin gasped, turning their head towards Hester, knocking their noses together. A few stray hairs, loosed from Hester’s low bun, tickled Maudlin’s face. “She…she said to me, that day…”

Hester brought a hand to Maudlin’s cheek, and wiped a tear from below their eye that they hadn’t realized was there. “I know…I started this,” she said, smiling. “But I—” she swallowed, almost laughed. “I don’t…really want to talk about Auntie… right now.” 

Maudlin didn’t move, just breathed for a moment. They burned, their whole body trembling, humming, close. “That day,” they began, voice wavering. “When you…t-to the Abbey…” 

Hester dropped her gaze to Maudlin’s chest, her brow furrowed.

“She said that…you did it…b-because…” They were bare against her, their limbs around her body, their blood in her mouth. They felt themself blush. “Because you did not want…want anyone else to, t-to—to—”

Hester kissed them, then. It was slow, but not hesitant. Just thorough, curious, comforting. When she pulled back, her eyes were dark. “It’s true,” she whispered, lips still brushing Maudlin’s. “I don’t. I don’t want—I don’t like…the idea of…” And she shrugged. 

Maudlin’s tongue was heavy in their mouth. They wanted to kiss her again. They wanted to hold her. They wanted—

“S-say it.” Their voice sounded ragged, broken, even to their own ears. Hester’s eyes narrowed. “Please.” The muscles in their stomach quivered. “Please, Miss Hester—”

“I don’t like—” Her voice was clear, and firm, and thrilling. “—the idea of someone else touching you—” She dragged her hand down the length of their body again, then slipped it under their nightgown, bunched at their hip, and returned to the center of their chest. Her fingers brushed over their nipple, and they shivered. “—like this.” 

Maudlin threw their head back, shaking all over. “Again,” they breathed. “Again, a-ah—” Their hips jerked as Hester returned her mouth to the place on their neck that she had already sucked raw and sensitive. 

“I don’t want” she said, between teasing nips at their skin. “Anyone else. To touch you.” She palmed at their chest, skin against skin, finally, finally—

“Ag-ain—a-gain—” Maudlin’s leg around her waist tightened, heel digging in to the small of her back, thigh shaking, toes curled. 

The hand that had never moved from Maudlin’s hip pressed them into the mattress, impossibly harder, and Hester leaned as far forward on the knee between their legs as she could. Her face hovered over theirs, noses touching. “No one else.” Hester said, kissing the side of their beared throat, the underside of their jaw. “No one touches you. You’re—this—” Their nightgown was pushed up even further, crumpled above Maudlin’s navel. The fabric of Hester’s trousers against them was rough, almost painful. They bucked against her, desperate for it. “Is mine.” 

At that, Maudlin made a strangled, sobbing noise in the back of their throat, and came undone beneath her. 

They wrapped their arms around Hester’s shoulders, unable to keep them still any longer, and clung to her, gasping into the crook of her neck. Hester smoothed her hands down their sides, then up their aching arms, and through their hair. She kissed them lightly on the cheek, and the temple, punctuating each one with a whispered, “Mine.” 

After a little while, the fog cleared from Maudlin’s mind, and their body stilled to just its baseline tremor. Slowly, they raised their head and pressed their mouth to the side of Hester’s throat, feeling her pulse against their lips, breathing her in. They moved one of their hands, then, under the collar of her mostly-unbuttoned shirt, and ran their fingers over her chest. 

Hester grasped their hand, and brought it to her mouth instead. She kissed their knuckles and laced her fingers with theirs. “Tomorrow,” she said, pulling the rumpled sheets up over them both. “Later,” as Maudlin kissed her neck. “Soon,” she laughed. “When…when Auntie’s not home.”

Maudlin whined and pulled her even tighter against them, smiling, rubbing a hand down her back. “This is…a torture to me…you know this, yes?” 

“I do know this, yes.” 

“Okay…this is good.” Maudlin yawned. “At least…at least you know.”

There was a long silence, then, and Maudlin thought that Hester may have drifted off, curled against their chest. Her breathing was slow and even, and they could see their bedsheets rise and fall with her shoulders. They smoothed a hand over her hair, still tied back, and wanted nothing more than to loose it. She shifted slightly.

“Go to sleep…Maudlin…” she said. 

“You will…you will be here? In the morning, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Yes. Good.”

“Good. 

“Good.”