#look how uncomfortable sameal is

[ask-the-friendly-ink-demon]

“you must be so lost and confused in this place, but do not fret for long my fellow prophet, the shpered is here to guide you to the flock, for the time of our salvation is at hand! soon our lord will hear us! he will set us all... free...” ---- @sammys-sanctuary @maxxicab

[seven--eyes]

I didn’t proofread this. Seosipian crack ship part 2

I returned back to the docks with only the Messiah’s safety report. The date, name, crew and other details filled out to the every space and checked every box. All except for the complete lack of anything to repair or improve on the great Messiah. And she was fine; yet something brave enough or stupid enough decided to plant itself on the bottom of the vessel. As it were, it didn’t want to come out either.

I brought my equipment with me this time. My rapier, my hand crossbow, some ropes and the miscellaneous. By the time I had myself together it was late evening; so I took even longer to get food and ales. It would be a long night.

I set all my things directly upon the edge of the dock. The alcohol I set a but further back because I’ll be damned if this thing were to snatch up hard earned alcohol. “Alright, big guy,” I greeted it with a huff upon sitting down on the docks and folded my legs underneath me. “What’re you doin’ so far from home? What are you?”

It make no kind of answer to me. The creature’s limbs continued to wave aimlessly beneath the surface. They reached upward for it, but never ever did they breach it. I watched them for some time, deliberating what to do. The thing moved so effortlessly and with great flow, there wasn’t the slightest ripple in the water.

“Are you tryin’a… blend in?” I asked it once more. I reached my legs over the docks and dangled my legs over the water. My heart dropped into my stomach in a sudden moment; the limbs moved directly underneath me. I readied for a fight with a reach of my rapier and bend of the knees, but it didn’t do anything. The limbs just continued to undulate where they were. But where they wagged just so happened to be below my shadow. Finding out I wasn’t in danger just made it fun, because swinging my legs made the tentacles follow my shadow like wagging a treat in front of a dog.

I took my rapier and prodded it. “So you’re obviously not trying to blend in. Are you hungry? Or just curious? Come on give me something to work with. Come out.” Each prod of the rapier it flinched away, but eventually it became numb to the poke, and starting wrapping around the end of the weapon. Dipping the whole weapon in, even more tried to grab it. Strangely gentle as they did. “Ok big guy, curious, then.”

Trying to pull the limbs out of the water with my rapier didn’t work. It avoided the surface and the sun like the plague. I even tried some mops from the Messiah, because the rapier might be too slick. And to no avail. Deciding to rip into dinner, I worked into the wrapper between me and the ham sandwich of my dreams. I grumbled, throwing the paper wrapper into the water. “How the fuck am I supposed to figure out what you are if you stay so far in the dark?”

One of the limbs reached for and pulled under the wrapper so quick, it actually made a ripple on the surface.

I froze. I looked to the sandwich. Wagging it over the side of the dock, I teased it, “Want some food?” I tore it in half, because I wasn’t so invested as to go without food today. Lowering the bread closer to the surface of the water, it mirrored my movements completely. But I never touched the threshold of the water, and so neither did it. I cursed at it. So I peeled off one side of the bread and tossed it in.

Like clockwork, one of the limbs snatched the piece and pulled it under. So far deep under I couldn’t see where it was yanked under, nor what kind of fucking beast ate it.

“I don’t like that. I don’t trust like that.”

And so I tossed in the lettuce. Same thing. I threw ham about 10 feet out from the dock. Same thing with frightening precision. Absolutely no splash or noise was made either; it was as silent as though nothing even happened.  “Yep. I don’t trust that.” So I ate the other half of my sandwich. I dangled my legs over the water just to watch the creature squirm. Dinner and a show.

“Sipian?” I heard a voice ring out. My shoulders jumped, and I pivoted to see if the voice matched the character. It did, and that’s what I was scared of.

Seosul stood, her feet shoulder width apart and her posture straight and tall. She didn’t have her dress blues on, not even the coat that she would pin her Admiral stars onto. The woman had joggers and sandals on, practically unrecognizable to me. I wish I could say that’s what caught me most off guard. She called out again, “Sergeant. Sergeant Sipian?”

Oh gods. I could feel my face going red again. I swallowed the ravenous bite of food down and coughed. In between my struggles to breath, I said, “I.. that’s me, ma’am. Good evening.”

“I… Good evening. I didn’t see you at work yesterday; what are you doing?”

“That’s ‘cause I didn’t go to work yesterday. But I uhh, I’m… I’m doing Donna a favor, that’s all. It’s nothing.”

She paused. Glanced over the surroundings. Like a moth to a flame, she caught sight of the octopus beneath the water near immediately. As though she was drawn to it. “Looks like a whole lot of something.”

“I’ve got it under control,” I said, as I shoved my face full of food.

Seosul chuckled. Pausing, and rubbing her arm. “Can I join you?” I glanced to the open planks beside me in response, and she sat there beside me. She swung her legs over the side in sync with mine, watching the limbs mirror her. The silence fell, and damn was it uncomfortable, but neither of us tried to break it. I noticed her trying to glance in my direction and read my expression, but her eyes never lingered on mine for more than a moment.

“Is… is there anything-”

Seosul accidentally interrupted me. “I was worried when I didn’t see you around yesterday.”

“Why?” I asked plainly.

She found the resolve to truly face me fully. “Well, I think we ended the night before last on a sour note. And when I didn’t see you and I couldn’t talk to you, I thought something was wrong.”

“More like a, uh, sweet’n’sour note.” I snorted. She wasn’t amused. Apparently it wasn’t the moment to be funny. “But um.. Yeah. Yeah it did. But it’s fine, you know. I get it.”  She didn’t move or respond, so I continued. “You know, um, this work is important to you, and… I can’t follow you where you’re going. You deserve that and that was…” The pressure in my chest snuffed out my breath. I paused, catching my breath and thoughts. “That was selfish of me. To make you feel like you had to choose between.”

“Um.. Feels like you’ve got it sorted out then.”

“Yeah. I do.”

Seosul leaned back and gestured her hands out, like she was trying to figure out her words, and somehow I would understand the more she motioned. “I just.. I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“I am and we are.” I lied.

She narrowed her eyes. “Are you lying?” Oh fuck. I just shoved the entire last fourth of the sandwich in my mouth to avoid replying after being caught so off guard. “You get red when you lie. What are you not saying?” She added, like sprinkling salt in the wound.

A stone weighed down in my throat. I cleared it. “I- maybe-- Sure, I’m lying,” I said, giving into the sting. “I understand why, you know. I know why we can’t. But at the same time… I- I never got your answer. I know why you can’t tell me the truth but I still want it. When I asked you what you really wanted, you gave me a half-answer. You gave me the textbook answer. Then you kissed me; telling me absolutely everything yet nothing at all. Leaving me with everything to think about.”

Bracing myself, I expected a larger response. In a split second, I imagined the dozen possible ways she could assume command presence in a heartbeat. How she’d tell me about respect and insubordination. About fraternization and “muddying the waters.” I imagined what I probably deserved to hear, trying to coax the truth out of her in such a confrontational way. But the moment of intensity in the air passed as though the wind swept it away. All that was left was this woman, calm and compassionate as ever. Her attention was far out into the sea, in thought. Serene, like the water itself.

“I don’t know.” She said.

My jaw locked up for a moment. “You… ‘I don’t know?’ you came all this way for an ‘I don’t know?’”

“I came here to know if you’re okay, Sipian. Not to know if I am.”

“Well, I lied then. I’ve it sorted, in a way, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy with how the pieces fell.” I wrung my fingers through each other. Threading out the locks in my knuckles. The tentacles ever swimming, carefree. Oblivious. It must be nice.

Her heavy heart and tiredness bled through her in the way she leaned forward over the water. “I’m sorry I don’t have an answer for you. I just...” she held her hands out in a gesture. Grasping out to the air like she was threading through the words in her head. She couldn’t find them.

Looking into her face, I sighed. “By Lechnka,” I muttered to myself, but fully intending for her to hear. “This was stupid. It was stupid of me to even ask.”  

“Sameal-”

I flinched in reaction to hearing my first name. It sounded as unusual as the first time it passed her lips, but cut deeper when I wanted nothing more in the moment for her to keep me at an arm’s length. To know me how everyone knows me. So I interrupted her before her breath caught, “I said this was fucking stupid. Go ahead and take all the time you need, so you can go leave me the fuck alone!”

I swung my leg outward in the fit, splashing my heel against into the water. Breaking it’s surface.

Not one, but three limbs erupted from the water and clamped around my calf, pulling me down with ferocious force before I could resist it. My back slamming into the docks knocked the breath out of me. It shocked enough pain through me, my reaction was more focused on forgetting the bruises in my bones. I rolled onto my stomach. I tried hooking my self to the wood, digging my nails into the dock. I clawed them into the rolls of the wood until my fingertips burned deep with splinters tearing into me. Before I could even fully roll, my legs were in the water and half my body was off the dock. “Fuck fuck fuck- Seosul!”

Admiral Anchor dove and reached for me. She knocked off everything into the water doing so, the rope tangling in the water and the rest sinking fast before I could try to grab anything. She clutched the back of my coat with enough strength for to keep me above water for another split moment.

“F-- I’ve got you!” She cried out as I felt myself slip further. “I’ve got you, Samael!”

Each thread in the cloth ripping sounded like a clock counting down. She was losing leverage. The pain in my hands singed, begging for me to let go. My right hand skid across a large wedge of wood, cutting open my skin right down the palm. I felt the warm blood at my fingertips and seep into the cracks of the wood. My nerves screamed and cried to let go, LET GO. I just glanced into her eyes as the clock counted down. They were so intense. Scared, because that’s what fear looked like one someone like Seosul. Then the clock hand hit it’s last toll, and I was hurled into the water.

I filled my lungs with every lick of air I could swallow. The thing pulled me down and down further until I felt sand dusting like clouds in the water. Through a tangle of tentacles, the bottom of the Messiah bobbed afloat the surface. Seeming a hopeless distance away.

This creature planted itself like a feral beast, palms into the sand. At first, it looked like nothing. Calm and uninteresting like the dark expand of the sea. Expressionless. Curious, almost. It watched my fruitless efforts to pull the tentacles off my thigh the same way a cat follows the movement of a piece of string. Playful. Amused. I angled my grip and tried to wedge the limbs off from the underneath, feeling the familiar sensation of pain throbbing in my hand to let go, let go, LET GO! And so I did. I yanked my hand back from the bulk of the constricting grip. Relief sighed through me as my nerves slowly calmed. However- blood shadowed my fingertips and center palm. Bright and twirling in the water waves like a ribbon in the wind.

Pearly white spots started to form all over the thing. Eyes and mouths breathed in life. Baring teeth and tongue. It’s pupils sharpened. Wooed by the fancy dancing ribbon just beyond the open wound in my flesh. In the second between my realization and this creature’s jaw snapping open, it slithered around me from the fingertip down to the shoulder blade. It tightened. It pushed my body outward, and pulled my wrist inward.

Fuck.

My opposite hand flew to my arm to brace it. My claws dug into the tentacle in a corkscrew around me. I felt the bones in my wrist pull. Then my elbow snapped. The muscles and tendons- every single one stretched taut like a million lines of string about to snap. I dug my claws in further and further.  I bit my teeth down, forcing myself to swallow the pain and keep it down. Keep it down with the last breath of air I’ll ever have. The blood rushing out of the tears in my arm pleading, crying for it to let go, let go, please let go. But it didn’t.

The creature shoved me down into the sand and recoiled into a twist of tentacles with my arm from the bicep down. The dust thrown up fogging my vision, but offered me a slight cover. I reeled from the pain flooding into me as blood poured out. My heart felt like it’s next beat wouldn’t be enough. I rolled to my right. Sand shifted through my fingers. But something else lay in it…

My rapier. Like a sword in it’s sheath, the handle was jutting out of the sand, poised and shining silver.

I kicked myself forward those few inches as I reached for it. As luck would have it, I’m not fucking left handed. It’ll have to do. My touch grazed the edge of the handle but was swiftly robbed of it’s grip. The creature found me again through the sandy fog, and dragged me towards itself. Adrenaline flooded through me like a fire. The burst of terrible fear and energy shaking in me shot through me faster and harder than any lick of pain this thing just suffered me through. I wasn’t about to be torn limb from limb just yet. I felt around the sea floor for something- anything. And just as the creature pulled me from the sand, my fingertips grazed something else. The cork of a bottle.

I guess it’ll have to do.

I snagged the bottle. A line down the creature’s chest opened, teeth flaring out in large jaws, revealing the… Gross, deep, fleshy but vulnerable inside of it’s throat. Eugh. Tangling around my knee, one sudden yank pulled my right leg down it’s throat. With the momentum, I clobbered the bottle into the side of it’s ugly face, shattering the glass. It’s jaw shot open in a cry of pain, tongue flipping angrily. It eyes winced to the alcohol burn, limbs letting go of my legs.

Fuck yeah!

But the monster’s jaws clamped around my ankle. Oh fuck.

I planted my free shoe onto it’s shoulder, trying to pull my ankle free. Like barbs, any resistance just worsened the biting pain. The muscles started to tear again. Through gritted teeth, I glanced to the unshattered half of the bottle in my hand. I clutched it. Looking to the wild, watery eye in the side of it’s head, I turned the blades to the eye and pushed the shattered glass deep into it’s skull. The moment I heard a fatal crunch from the inside of it’s head, the same crunch quaked up my bones from the ankle up.

Blood spewed from it’s wound, and out of the mouth on it’s screaming maw. I twisted the bottle in the socket. Shoved it in a further inch for good measure. Before I could rip it back out, the beast pushed me away with a sudden, strong hit in my ribcage. The force squeezed the air from my lungs and forced it out my throat. I instinctively tried to breathe in and flooded my lungs with salt water.

Watching the bubbles rise, I saw how little of a distance they ran for the top of the water. I rolled my back around, facing myself to the surface. The moon faded in and out of brights and lows. I clawed for it, bringing myself closer to the surface moonlight, but the closer to the sky I swam the darker the world around faded. Trying to cough, anticipating the night air, I only swallowed more sea water. I felt my fingertips dry, a grip close around my palm. A yank and a gasp later, I hit the wood dock hard enough to jolt out a crack in my spine.

The vagueness in the feeling of muscles starved of blood made interpreting the sensations around me impossible. All I knew is that I was facing up. And… in the arms of someone. Against the navy night sky, the moon framed the face of Captain Anchor in silver. “Samael? Samael? Samael, please answer me, please, are you awake?”

Oh, how I wanted to answer her. I wanted so badly to reach up to her face and brush off the blood I’d flung onto it. Somehow, blood loss makes one very emotional. I wanted to apologize. But I didn’t, and I couldn’t. My muscles didn’t move when I commanded them to, my tongue didn’t articulate such, and my mind was slipping slowly from her. Into and out of black and red. My lungs couldn’t even lurch out the seawater. And so my jaw lodged open, anticipating a cough, a word, a breath- anything- and nothing came.

.

“I’m sorry I don’t have an answer for you,” I began, “I just...” I just feel scared. That’s what I wanted to say. I feel everything I know and want to be threatened by letting myself love you. I am used to being in control, and if I loved you, that would put me out of it. How do I explain that?

“By Lechkna… This was stupid. It was stupid of me to even ask,” The sergeant barked before I could answer.

Stupid, stupid. That word cut through me in such a vulnerable place and twisted the knife. “Sameal-”

Suddenly his eyes shot open and his entire posture shifted. He bristled in anger so quickly I didn’t even get my word out to stop it. “I said this was fucking stupid!” My gut churned as the knife twisted another way. “Go ahead and take all the time you need, so you can go leave me the fuck alone!” He roared, lashing out his heel in a kick into the water. The shadows of those limbs reacted in a split moment.

The dark tentacles spun around and tangled around his calf. They squelched and slithered in a gross sticky slim, immediately pulling him off the dock. His body crashed against the dock and his legs slid into the water. “Fuck fuck fuck- Seosul!” He panicked. I closed the distance between us as quickly as I could and latched onto whatever I could get my hands on; the back of his coat. But the position was awkward; the fullbody strength I summoned to keep him above sea level for even a moment drained too fast for me to realize it.

I saw blood gather around his hands. As he was clutching the splinters to anchor himself in place. He was desperate. “F-- I’ve got you!” My voice shuddered out. “I’ve got you, Samael!” I comforted, when I really, really didn’t have him.  I tried to adjust my fading grip. As soon as I did, my other hand shot open as his jacket ran through it.

A great splash threw up onto me. I blinked, squinting through the mist, to the outline of Sipian’s red jacket fading in the deep sea. Then silence. Then nothing. Nothing at all, and everything. My heart was thundering in my ears, pulse hammering the inside of my ribs like I was about to burst. My entire body shook with adrenaline. I couldn’t think straight. Everything happened so fast. I just… looked into the water. Could I have held on for a moment longer? A moment went by. No red jacket floated to the surface. Another moment, nothing. What the fuck was I waiting for?!

Stumbling to my feet like a newborn fawn, I clumsily walked myself through the options. My attention went to my surroundings and my person. All his belongings sank with him. I patted down my pockets and belt. I decided not to take my weapons today. Perhaps there was a tool, harpoon, or something a cadet failed to put back where it belonged. But no, I’m thorough. The docks were empty. Then a lock of my hair tickled my eyelashes. Fixing it, the realization of it, my heart quickened even more so. I had myself.

I stepped closer to the dock edge, overlooking it. Breathing hard, panting hard, my gasps escaping my lungs regardless of how much I yearned to hold a breath in. Thoughts and plans swimming in my head so quickly I practically felt drunken. My weight shifted. Jump, I willed myself. But what if he’s already dead? Jump, admiral. But this is suicide, admiral. Jump, Seosul. Even if he was dead, you owe it to him to try after those horrible excuses. My weight focused to the front of my toe and I robotically lifted my arms, readying them for breaching the water. They were shaking. Beyond my fingertips, the navy sea color transformed into a more heavily saturated color. Blood, oh Lechkna that’s so much blood. I gasped; there was something else. I reached my hand out to meet Sipian’s.

Clutching him with more force I previously thought I had, I pulled him from the water like a sailor overboard in a storm. I fell backward, catching his body against me. His entire body was limp, cold, and pale. As I reached for his right arm to pull him closer into my lap, there was no leverage to hook onto. His entire… his….“Si-Sipian-” I started, willing my voice to steady, looking away from his missing limbs. “Samael? Samael? Samael, please answer me, please, are you awake?”

His eyelashes were fluttering, but his chest wasn’t moving. Mouth agape in a silent cry. With his free arm, he moved it to my face. Before his fingertips came to my cheek, his arm dropped suddenly with a thud.

“Samael.” I called out to him more firm. No flinch, no flutter, nothing. He was unconscious. “By the fuckin’ sea gods,” I cursed to myself. I shuffled, ripping my belt from the loops of my pants and fastening it around whatever was left of the wound torn open. Fiddling with the buckle, my breathing steadied. I knew what came next, and I wouldn’t let any sense of muddying the waters to beat me into submission again tonight. I didn’t have the luxury to hesitate.

So I pinched his jaw between my fingers, tilting it back, and breathed life back into him. I laid one hand over the other, forcing a beat back into his chest. I cursed and cried for him to wake up. I took a breath in, but before I could try again, the sound of water hitting the top of the dock froze me in place. “You’ve got’tuh be kidding.”

One of those horrible, infected, beastly creatures was clawing itself onto the dock. It’s tentacles slithering across the top of the surfaces as though searching for a foothold. A single tongue from it’s mouth had blood pouring down it in waterfalls. An eye in it’s head was stabbed out, the cap of a bottle still sticking out from it. The okakapi reached out one tentacle for Sipian’s leg, but I crawled away with him in my arms. It roared at me. Saliva and blood splattering my all over. The sound piercing my ears and complaining, ‘I wasn’t finished yet,’ as it went again for my sailor. Swinging it’s limbs wildly, each hit against the dock grew increasingly in strength. By the time the creature pulled itself onto the wood, splinters were flying.

I balanced myself, staggering with Samael’s lifeless body. I crept backward. Attention facing the creature. Anger flooded my senses and veins, overtaking the panic. My emotion simmered at the surface, entirely prepared to somehow make that thing suffer for this. To make it hurt for this, even if my only tools were my bare hands. It was struggling to move across the dock, finding it’s feet and adjusting to perception without an angled eye. It’s teeth started to snarl and show, intimidating me in a standoff. Damn, did I want to make it hurt. Hand soaked in blood, staining my skin and sleeves, I clutched Sipian’s shoulder and brought him closer to my chest. I turned on my heel. I broke into a sprint in the other direction.

.

The fuzzy world slowly came into view. The first breath I took felt like pins digging into the inside of my ribs the more air I took in. Then those pins ripped back out upon exhale. I brought my hand to the widest point of my chest and pressed down, as though that would help. My consciousness was fighting tooth and nail to keep it’s foothold, but the pounding on the inside of my skull wished nothing more than to take another swallow of bloody ocean water and submit to the sea.

I heard gasps and questions. Some unimportant (probably) banter around me. Whoever the voices belonged to, I couldn’t figure out. The figures around me were cloudy and indecipherable. Every rising tone was another blow to my skull. But then one, the closest leaning into me… her rosy cheeks and bright smile shined through the clouds in my peripherals. “D...don...Donnf..” I choked out, and she nodded as I tried to acknowledge her.

“Mister- Mister Si- Don’t move, please! Don’t move, please. Just lay back down.” The cleric with the pretty pale yellow eyes gently pressed her palm to my shoulder, convincing me to go down and stay there. “You’re safe, just please stay still. How in the heavens is he awake, I gave him enough anesthetics and opiates to knock out an ox,” they remarked.

I squinted. “Fuck the opiates, can I have some whiskey?”

The pretty cleric’s demeanor dulled. “No mister, err, Sipian. I can’t give you whiskey. Please rest.”

“Damn it.”

I accepted my fate, and leaned my head far back into the pillow. The softness of my surroundings easing my aches and pains. The daggers stabbing at the inside of me had their edges smoothed by cozy company and soft sheets. Good thing; the strength to ask for alcohol was all I had. Strength in my muscles well spent. From the corner of my vision, Dollface was nudging me and making a gesture. She made a fist and held it to her chest, then made a circle over it again and again and again. Her breathing was horrifically shaky and in short bursts. But she kept doing it. I was confused, but then I understood; she was apologizing.

“Dollface,” I said as slowly as I could. “Don’t be sorry. It’s okay.” She shook her head side to side, and kept apologizing, with her fist pressed harder to her chest. “Dollface, please stop.”

The halfling signed ‘Sorry’ one more time. Then she just reached for her clipboard- the one I borrowed and ruined all the paperwork on it in the water- and wrote something. She turned it to face me, and it read ‘This is all my fault. I should have done the safety check myself. This never would have happened.’ This woman positioned it in front of me just long enough, then collapsed into my shoulder, grasping tightly onto me. She heaved like she was sobbing, but didn’t have the vocals to create the sound. So she just shuddered.

“Donna,” I whispered, “Please don’t cry, please, I can’t see you like that.”

She pushed herself off of me. Her hand shuffled underneath the sheets for a moment, and she intertwined her fingers with mine. Wait- mine? I opened my eyes and focused them. My cold, bloodless fingers intertwined with her warmness. For a moment, I figured she was folding her hands together. My eyes followed the line from this cold, metallic hand. Down the wrist, forearm, elbow, and-- this was mine. She gave me her arm.

“Donna,” I said again, more firm this time. “You didn’t have t-”

And she pushed her finger to my lips. Hmm… Another cleric stepped beside my bed, opposite of Dollface. “Mister Sipian,” they started. “You lost a lot of blood. And there’s still severe, unhealed damage done to your arm. We are to monitor you while you recover, and we can find more permanent limb replacements from the Arcane Forge.”

I mumbled, not really wanting to hear anything right now. Which is why Donna was always welcome. The slightly less handsome cleric said some other things about not moving too much and getting some rest, the things I always get told. Somewhere in the haze of thoughts, I smacked my lips together and tasted the salt. I straightened up and reeled from the pain shooting into my right side. “I-- Hang on, where’s the Admiral? Where is she, how is she?”

The clerics looked at each other. “She’s quite alright, nothing happened to her,” said the pale yellow cleric. “In fact, I believe she’s gone to work.”

“Work… doing?”

“Finding out where the beasts came from, of course.”

[seven--eyes]

I literally wrote this over a span of about 10 hours over 3 days with 0 plan. its just a lot of dialogue with no plan, just crackhead energy and a lot of romantic subtext. anyways enjoy

I brought back my drink to the bar after a swallow of it. I clicked my claw against it, twitching my ear at the sensation of it’s ring. Hoping somehow, somewhere, I’d know what to say. And by an act of the sea gods, wouldn’t say it in the worst possible manner.

Perhaps my prayer had come true, as Seosul started speaking first. Hopefully without noticing how nervous I suddenly felt. “Anyway, what is all this about your old days?” She asked. 

Oh fuck. Damn it you useless sea gods, why’d you make me talk about this? I grinned wide and tried to laugh off my inhibitions, immediately chiming in, “One half of the good old days includes piracy, weapon and resource smuggling, theft or vandalism of government property, some politically related homicides, and a hell of a lot of unresolved, sexual tension. The other half of it is why I’m actually so notorious.” I gestured my hand out, waiting for the joke to land. It didn’t.  Because halfway through that, the bartender jolted and froze up. They very uncomfortably starting inching away at the mention of unresolved sexual tension. Prude. Seosul had a similar expression.

Captain tilted her head. “Is… Is that a joke or is there something worse than felony charges?” 

“All good humor is rooted in the truth.” 

“How the hell did Mr. Sparrow get around to hiring you?” She whispered, shooting me a look of deep fascination.

I shrugged my shoulders. “The Admiral is a good man, practically a miracle worker.” I mindlessly bounced my knee once I started getting into the conversation. “-But to be fair, most of my enemies and legal matters are in Eden. Pretty much the only enemies I ever made here at home is the Manta, and if they try to uproot the shitty things I have done, they consequently out themselves as well. So, checkmate.” 

Anchor switched the leg she folded over the other. She swung it gently. “It’s not like kingsguard care about anything outside royal walls or not arcane,” she rolled her eyes, then brushed lose strands of hair behind her ear. 

“It’s not like the Manta is intimidated by a single skinny street rat, either.” 

“-Or abiding by the laws and characters that make them less money,” she added again, mumbling into her cup. 

“It’s a good thing you make them a lot of money.” 

...Okay fuck, now that joke definitely didn’t land. She furrowed her brow and didn’t look me in the face. I swallowed damn hard. Then the silence fell, again. Fuck. I could swear I was slowly snapping this stool leg in half with how many bounces off the heel I wore into it. 

Anchor gulped down her drink way too quickly for how expensive that shit is. She grimaced. Then set her glass down, having enough of it’s bitterness. Maybe having enough of me, already. “I remember saying that was enough work talk.” 

“O-oh. Oh, yeah no I- yeah you’re right.” 

Her expression didn’t change. Sipian that wasn’t enough. That definitely wasn’t satisfying enough of an apology. Samael, say something quick. You dumbass, fix it. Look at her you killed the fucking mood. Bring the mood back you little street rat. 

“Sorry, uhh- Sorry, I hit a nerve, didn’t I?” 

She waved her hand. She blinked a few times and propped up her chin with her knuckles as though to shake off, if not outright try to forget, my inappropriate comment. Strangely enough, she didn’t say anything. Didn’t fight back the truth of my statement in any way. Something deep in her expression said she knew she couldn’t fight it.

I could feel my face going red. A tangle of words gathering my throat and weighing down my chest like a stone. I spoke before it could keep me down, “Soooo, uhh, So hah- I- do you? D-do have a uh, a,” I awkwardly coughed in the middle, “Do you have.. Are you- Did you have a good old days?” Anchor glanced to me, as though the question pulled her back into engaging with me. “You know, b-before I uh, before I got here.” 

Thank the gods; she actually chuckled at a thought she kept to herself. “Not really. I was always a good kid. Striving to be excellent at everything I did.” 

“Oh, I believe that,” I mumbled to the side. But completely intending for her to hear. Trying to make her laugh again.

Captain moved her hand from her face. She reached for her drink, but without the intent to lose herself in it this time. “I have a lot of family in the kingsguard. Like, just about all of’em became bootlickers, or the boots to lick. But my family’s competitive and narcissistic.” 

“I see… Neither of those things in you.” 

“You either become what people want you to be, or the exact opposite of it.” 

I did the math. “So, your family hates you for becoming the other?” 

She grinned as though that was the right answer. It really shouldn’t have been; but it seems I had hit the nail on the head. “Not quite disowned or removed from the family. Just,” Seosul paused, and stuttered, trying to capture just how she felt about the so-called good old days. “...Just, um, the kind that says they’re proud of me and… Asks all the questions. Make all the double-edged comments. Invites me to all the weddings and gatherings. Because if they were to disown me or outright disrespect me, that puts them in the wrong. That makes them intolerant and unloving of me; the other. They have to always be right. They always have to have the high ground.” 

I didn’t notice at first but somewhere in there, I had stopped tapping my heel to the back of the stool. I scoffed. “Do you go? I mean who gives a fuck about the king’s dogs?” 

“I do see them only when I have to. They never see me, because I don’t invite them. But I still care about some of my little ankle-biter siblings.” 

My eyes drifted around the room. “Imagine that.” 

“Do you have siblings?” 

I gave her a look and slump of the shoulders that should have communicated everything. I tightened the grip of my drink, thinking to myself if I wanted to drown out my thoughts just at Captain wanted. But if she had restraint, so did I. “Not that I… Not that I know of.”

She leaned back and shuffled her legs. “Oh yeah, your mother, she’s in the uhh, pleasure- she was a… Yeah.” She squirmed like she had said the wrong thing. I could tell, she was the one bouncing her leg now. Her hand moved to her hair, pretending like she was fixing it’s appearance.

“A prostitute. You can say prostitute.” 

Seosul’s eyes filled with a precise dismay. I’d never seen so much emotion shift through her in a span of ten seconds. “A prostitute, yes.” 

In hindsight, I didn’t quite mean to stare at her like I did. I just locked eyes with her. Trying to figure out why the mention of my mother made her so… Uncomfortable. I doubt its because her mom was also a prostitute. Maybe it was because of me? But this is frankly the most tame conversation I’ve held with Captain in a long time. As the thoughts ran through my mind. I absentmindedly held my glass to the bartender- who was still terrified of me and my sexual tension- to refill. Seosul looked as though she deeply envied the bartender as they fled my immediate vicinity. Her posture shifted as though the fleeting hope of escape left with that busy employee. 

She chuckled once. “Did I say something in poor taste?”

“What? No, why would you think that? I just want to get fucked up.” 

Her confusion broke into surprise. “I- so you don’t- That’s just fine to talk about?” 

I made the same long uuuhhhhhh noise she did a few minutes before. This time not out of awkward conversation, though. I just don’t know how to make clever replies. “Yeah. It is.” I bared my teeth in a laugh. “I mean, you just said you could handle my history. You have been my Captain for a long ass time, hell you, Valor, and way too many privates have seen my ass, why does my mom being a prostitute make you bristle like a cat stepping in a puddle?” 

“Usually, people don’t sell their bodies when they’re well off.” 

“No, they don’t. My mom wasn’t well off.” I could tell that was not enough to add to the conversation, so I went on. “But she loved me like I was the center of the universe. Like I was gift straight from the gods themselves.” 

“It shows,” she mumbled. 

“It-a-what now?” 

“I said it shows,” she shrugged, finally engaging once more. She found a bit more power and confidence in her voice. As though what she was saying was deeply true, thus she said it without a stutter. “You have a lot of love to give. Like your mother.” 

I snorted, nearly sending a sip of liquor back out my nose or choking it down my throat. I propped my elbow onto my knee, angling my head back and to the side. Like I was presenting the line down my jugular to the collarbone, and inviting her to take a bite. My eyes sharpened and my brow eased. “I do have a lot of love to give,” I purred, putting on the deepest, stupidest smirk I’ve ever made in my life. 

Hook, line and sinker. Seosul gasped, held her breath... Then broke out into a laugh, reaching for her face to calm herself. “That’s not what I meant, come on! I meant you’re sweet!” 

I tilted my head to the other side like I was sizing her up. “I do taste very sweet,” I slyly commented again. Suggestive comments; the only thing I was good at, finally got the best laugh out of Captain tonight. 

“Sameal!”

That was enough of the sexy side eye for Captain. At least for…. Wait no. Nope, not completing that thought. I waved my hand, signaling to her I wouldn’t make another comment and she was safe now. She huffed heavily, relieved. I couldn’t help plastering a huge, proud grin across my face. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I had to.” I finally caught my breath. Looked into my glass. Then downed way too much of it in one gulp again. “H-hahh, oh fuck. Thank you though. No one really says that to me.” 

I felt a twinge of pain in the last of her chuckles. A slight melancholic sigh as something so special slipped from her lips. The stone-cold professional in her wanted a break. So, her smirk shifted into a smile. She decided then that the next thing to pass her lips was a drink. 

.

For the next few hours of the early evening, we quickly finished off our small simple glasses of unforgettable whatever. We questioned which was the best and fanciest drink to get, after. She settled on a minty mojito, requesting a bit more white rum than she probably should have had, in hindsight. A short drink with a deep taste, when you were a sailor trying to get drunk. I settled on a big, fancy, fruity, and probably way over priced margarita. Seosul asked me ‘isn’t that a woman’s drink?’ in a joking tone when I mumbled the name the Sweet’n’Sour Fusion Margarita. I was gonna promptly tell her to fuck off, but when the glass made it’s way in front of me all colorful in deep oranges and reds, I saw Seosul wishing she could have a sip. If I’m gonna be paying money to get fucked up, I might as well get a glorified smoothie while I do it. I might as well enjoy myself. I paid the check for the both of us, because if I were a gentleman that’s the kind of thing I imagine they do. But oh god, did seeing how much that glorified smoothie cost out of my wallet punch me in throat. No pain that the drinks couldn’t fix, though! 

We hung around the Deep Serpent a while longer. The hint of alcohol and a wish to have a fun night somehow brought down the walls and introduced us to the rest of the place. I pulled some folks into a bet that whoever won a short poker game would get their next round of drinks paid for. And when happy hour was over, and dwarven folks had their deep glasses of foaming beer and cider low, it was an offer they couldn’t refuse. As expected I folded fucking immediately. Too much pressure. Too many eyes on me that were expecting me to be smart. But I wasn’t who I had my bets on. 

Seosul was as cool as a cucumber. Even as her face glowed a gentle red and the evening got darker in contrast, all she did was take off her coat and pull up a chair. She had shifted into serious-mode now, and it took more than threat of buying for drunken dwarves to waver her. 

I sat behind her the majority of the game. Eyeing her strategy, acting like I was learning something. Twirling my fruity drink around with a flick of my wrist like a middle class and middle aged divorced woman, noble mother of 3 king’s dogs. “Oh, you sly dog.” I couldn’t help but comment unprompted, thinking about literal dogs in golden armor. 

“You’re distracting me.” 

I chuckled, leaning back onto the two legs of my chair. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” 

I watched the game of cards unfold, or fold, hell I had forgotten what they were playing at some point. All I can clearly remember at how good my drink was. Somewhere between finishing the drink and licking all the salt around the rim, everyone tossed their hand of cards to the table and glanced to each other’s. I rotated my head around to read each batch. I found myself wondering whether an ace was higher than a king or not. But what I do remember is that one of the dwarves took his cards, grabbed his buddy’s glass, and shoved his cards into his half-full mug. 

“I told you this was a terrible idea!” the dwarf barked. I smirked when he flicked his furry hand free of the ale. And the cards. 

Seosul giggled all giddy and full of pep as she scooped up the pot of gold in the middle of the table. “Oohoh, yeah. Sam, can you get me one of those sweet’n’sour things?”

As she turned to me to speak, she caught me right in the worst possible position with the glass and my tongue pressed up against the broad side of it. I lapped up the salt. Acting like nothing was wrong. “Um. Sure, but I kinda spent all my- holy shit!” I nearly dropped my glass trying to catch the coins Seosul shoved towards me. I fumbled with them for a second. I counted, then recounted. She’d given me back double what I’d paid at the bar. I think I scrambled to and from the card table faster than a recoiling rubber band. 

“Thank you! And thank you, fellas.” Anchor pinched her index and thumb finger around the stem. She instinctively reached out for me after she pocketed the rest of the gold pieces. Then she stood up. “Have a great evening.”

I clutched her palm now that I had it. My heart dropped and so did my sense of balance. As she stood up towards me, I wavered backward in the other direction before I could decide against it. My claws dug into the table as I fell- digging splinters into my palm and pulling the entire thing topside. Drinks went everywhere. Even Seosul tried to catch the front of my shirt- missing! I swiped for hers and caught it by the tip of the claw. I couldn’t help trying to pull myself to my feet. The sudden yank made her lurch forward. So far forward, she bent at the hip, trying to keep her balance. I saw out of the corner of my eye that she didn’t fail to keep her drink upright, but I was peering through the strands of her hair.

I blinked. I locked my jaw, biting down so far into my own teeth, I could feel them shatter any moment. Captain had her face right up to mine. Her arctic blue hair dangling around the side of me like blinders. Those fancy, piercing sunlight eyes widened. Frozen for just a moment. As was I. She was even more enchanting up close.

“Um.” Seosul finally said, her voice clear and true, despite the angry dwarves just beyond the locks of her hair. She cleared her throat. Like she didn’t know what to say after the ‘um.’ Captain hovered her hand over my chest- and my lungs pressed in anticipation- and forced me to stand.  “My margarita,” she complained, “Sam, um, you should… Watch where you’re going.” 

My elbow felt like it was stuck into place, and needed some grease to set it free of the rust. I tried to breathe, and was a little too surprised to think about what I was saying, but what I came up with was, “I was watching where I was going, and where I was going had you on the other side.”

“Aww, ouch, Sam.” 

Fuck, Sipian you did it again, fuck dude fix it! “No- I- That’s a good thing! Hell I’d want you sweeping me off my feet instead of Gantu or big man Sparrow!” Too much fixing Sipian, too much!!

Seosul just mumbled a confused, ‘what in the great hell,’ as she stepped out of the puddles of ale and kicked her boot. The dwarves behind her, empty pockets still fresh, collectively roared more loudly than the blast of a cannon at point blank. “Hey, if you’re tryin’a harpoon the girl, just do it away from us, and make sure you’re the one on top!” One called out. “Err if you’re skinny all over, let a real man do some logging!” A second guy said. The rest of the dwarves guffawed to each other, slapping their leather armor knees or the shoulder of the lad beside them. Another pointed out how red my face had flushed out. Suddenly, they laughed harder at me than at objectifying women. So that was… a plus? I knew how to be laughed at. But Seosul...

“Excuse me?!” Captain snarled. She turned on the ball of her heel quick. I instinctively snapped to attention when I heard her tone like that, and somehow so did the dwarves. She gave them a side eye, deciding that was enough of a threat. God, I wish that were me. She batted her eyelashes a few times, cooling off. “Maybe we should go.” 

I still felt like my whole body was jammed up, my bones lodging into place and refusing to move. Even as my now drenched pants from the thigh down made my fucking shirt-stays stick to the inside of my thigh, I was rendered immobile. “Okay.” 

The woman took her coat from the chair, flicked her hair and head back, then moved to the door. When I didn’t first follow, she stopped. She came back a few steps. She hooked her arm around mine; the frozen one. Her pulling felt like a deep sting as my muscles eventually moved, but the farther along the room I got, the more decided I liked it. We stepped outside. The clamor and partying of the Deep Serpent died down when a wall stood between me and them. 

“Seosul, your-”

“What?” She snapped, a little too quick and stern. She breathed in one more time, then corrected herself. Her tone lowered. “What..?” 

“Your glass.” I raised a brow to her. Shooting a glance between her and the untouched margarita. 

“Damn. Hang on, let me go back and apologize and-” 

“No,” I protested. “Keep it. It’s your drink and a funny souvenir.” 

Seosul gave me the look. The expression she always has when I say something dumb. This time though, it softened. This time, she actually did something a goody-two-shoes Admiral of the fleet wouldn’t do. As calm took her over, her shoulders dropped and her shoulder width stance buckled into a feminine poise. Without another thought, she tasted the overpriced, fruity Sweet’N’Sour Fusion Margarita.

I grinned, facing the open night air. Welcoming it against my still burning face. “I’ll make some street reputation- no, notoriety out of you yet.” 

Her lips pulled into a smile. Rolling her eyes, as though she was signaling to me that I really wasn’t. “Is that what you were trying to do, here?” 

She caught me off guard. “What do you mean; Make you notorious? No. Not unless you want me to, that is.” 

“No, silly. I mean,” she drawled on, her tone annoyed but her sly smile the opposite.  “Were you trying to bend me over the barrel?” 

Oh, by the sea. No amount of overpriced, fruity, sweet’n’sour adult drinks could have numbed the punch in the gut that question carried. My tongue worked faster than my respect. For myself and for her. “What do you mean?! Bend yo- No! I mean, no that wasn’t why. At all.” Seosul’s eyes squinted upward, listening closely. She didn’t seem satisfied as she took another sip. So my tongue worked faster. “I never would do that, ever. That’s fucked up, and not the good kind of getting fucked up. I would never do that to you, you’re my- our Captain! Or to anybody. N-not really,” 

And then the pressure built in my chest to the point I couldn’t bite it down;

“Not unless you want me to.” 

I saw the grip on her drink squeeze. My hands flew to my mouth to cover them, and her eyes followed me. Her head tilted up. That was what surprise looked like on a person like Seosul. Her voice hushed in a way I had never heard before. “Sameal, I-…” She brought her glass back to her mouth, but hesitated and lowered it as though the mere smell of it deterred her. She repeated, “unless I want you to,” pondering quietly to herself.

“I didn’t mean that.” I blurted out and regretted it. “I mean, I do mean that. But not precisely in that way! I didn’t ask you out to get you drunk enough to have sex with me. I would never drink with somebody to hurt them.” I continued, regretting it but still going. “But it’s like, that wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen with you. W-without the liquor.”

“You were doing pretty good until that last part.”

“Come on, Captain. Look at me, I’m not exactly anyone’s first choice,” I chuckled, gesturing to myself. Hoping that might’ve been enough joke with too much truth.

“Samael.” She purred my name. Softer and more calm than everything she whispered before tonight. “You’re sweet. I’m thankful I got to know you more closely tonight. But we’re two very different people. I’m getting promoted tomorrow, and you know how fraternization, um, muddies the waters.” 

“I know that.” 

She took a few steps from the Deep Serpent door, into the night street. I followed like I had to. “Then you should already know what I think about that.” 

Something in my heart was brave enough to word what I believed. Maybe it was the liquor, maybe it was the adrenaline, maybe it was how her frame seemed to glow in the moonlight. Hell maybe it was the fucking shirt stays. “I… I know what you should think, but not what you actually think.” 

Her faced angled. “Two sides of the same coin.” Seosul gently nudged her half full glass into my hands. She rolled her shoulders back, pushing her hands down the sleeves. She buttoned it all the way to the top while she spoke. Even the top ones. “I care a lot about the crew. I care a lot about the branch, and about you. Which is why what I actually think doesn’t matter.” 

Every word she tacked on added more heaviness in my heart and weakness in my knees. I couldn’t help but look away from her, as much as I wanted to honestly see her. I felt her step forward, closing the gap between us. She didn’t force my attention or to move. But I could tell how close she was regardless of how deeply I focused on the pavement between my toes. I smelled the slight hint of mint on her. 

“Can I get a taste of that sweet’n’salty Sipian?” 

“I… what? Sweet’n... S-sure,” I agreed, reflexively moving my hands to give her back the margarita. Before I could get back it into her palm, she slipped her hands around my neck and below my jaw. Her thumb greatly suggested my head to raise with a small press, and when I did she leaned in to kiss me.

Captain closed her eyes, I could hardly decipher through her heavy bangs. She slid her lips across mine, teasing the smallest peck of a kiss. But when I registered the taste and aroma of her, I opened my mouth and slicked my tongue across her bottom lip, circling back into her slow smooch. Even someone as stone cold as Captain Anchor didn’t resist that. She hung around for a moment longer. Inevitably, she gasped faintly when we separated. She blinked a few times, leaning back and standing up tall. Then she tucked her hands back into her own bubble. I immediately yearned for the warmth of them.   

I didn’t ask any questions. Seosul then took her glass, without a word. Only with an exchange of glances. Like she was commenting, ‘thanks for the taste.’ As she fixed her bangs and turned to leave, I felt my muscles tightening again. Like a fight or flight response, but both of them at once, so I just froze. Haven’t a clue for how long. All I knew in that moment is that I wanted some more of that mint. And some more of Admiral. 

...I can get more mojitos. 

.

I strode home in my sticky, half-drenched dress pants with my sticky, half-drunk self. I stuck my hands far into the pockets. Feeling some of the leftover gold she gave me. And I took my hands back out. The walk home was painstaking, but it was less painful that desperately calling Malphas Heat at what the fuck in the morning. I wandered the explorer base and in the courtyard. Lingering for a few minutes too long, because I wanted nothing less than the morning to come. I made it to the barracks. Found the first available, sorta clean bunk. I pulled myself into it. Sleep. Close your eyes. Stop breathing so much. Okay fuck, wait, take the pants off. Take the shirt stays off. Okay. Now we’re talkin’. Sleep. 

Just sleep it off.