Chapter Text
Vasco’s hair is always longer than she expects when it’s loose. That’s the thought Marie finds herself having in the early-morning haze that’s not as far past dawn as it should be, staring muzzily at him. It was one thing to see him in camp on his way to the river, hair a little wild and in just a shirt and trews; those were only glimpses, perhaps a nod exchanged before he was gone. She’s always suspected that he prefers not to be seen this way – that he likes to keep himself neat and always look much the same: a star to guide his crew, or, she's sure he'd be more likely to say, part of the furniture, just like the worktables they carry with them. A step back, careful, like he so often is.
It’s entirely different to see him in her bed, face slack in sleep. And slack is never a word she thought she’d use about Vasco, an ever-attentive man who pretends to be relaxed at best, with half an eye on the room; not until he fell back against the pillows, panting, looking like he’d just been given a gift. She’d always hoped she’d eventually get to see him truly relax around her, sometime – she’s hoped that on some level since she set off on his ship, that first day. She just hadn’t thought it would be something that would make her wish she could paint. Or that it would be with her on his cock. (And the thought of explaining that to her former self, the woman who peered warily at the frustrated captain in Serene, is… well, that catches her somewhere between amusement and horror. She almost laughs, but that might wake him, and she’d sound like a lunatic. Though perhaps he’d see the funny side, too.)
She aches in a pleasant sort of way around the hips. For a moment she lies there, just feeling that, remembering last night – and then she rubs at her eyes, absentmindedly knuckling away sleep. She ought to move. She needs the privy and then possibly a cup of tea, to help her redraft her early-morning script that’s rusty from years of disuse. She just – hadn’t expected it, is all. Some part of her thought he’d be gone in the morning like a dream. And she hadn’t known the morning would suit him so well. But then again, everything does. By comparison, she’s sure she looks like a startled hedgehog.
He’s curled tight on his side, the hand that touched her now on the pillow, as if he can make all that willowy strength look small. His hair’s turned a dull gold by the early light sneaking in through her drapes, a lock in his face that flutters with his breathing. It rests over his nose, his parted mouth. She wants to stroke it away so she can see his face – get a proper look at the stubble and the way his eyelashes flutter. (Light, his kohl has gone from a careful smear to well and truly smudged.) She wants to touch him.
And so she does. She doesn’t realise until her fingertip has touched his skin, and she’s already shifting to tuck that damnable lock of hair behind his ear. He’s so warm. She watches her paler skin against his ink, almost mesmerised. Then she does realise, and snatches back her hand – but it’s too late. He makes a soft sound and shifts, head turning into the pillow and a hand reaching out – and his fingers close over hers. Always a good aim, even now. He blinks and squints at her – or at least half-does, face still against the pillow. For half a second she swears his eyes widen, as if he’s not sure how he found himself here either, but then he says, “De Sardet.” His voice is a soft rasp, and she hopes she’ll be able to hear it without flushing after this. Damn.
“Vasco,” she says, as if this is any other morning, or any other visit of his, and smiles. “I was just going to make some tea. Would you like a cup?” Not that that’s what she wants. She wants, has wanted since the moment his eyes settled on her and she felt it, to try for another round with this relaxed man in her bed. There’s a mark at his neck, one she doesn’t even remember leaving, bright against the ink. She wants to retrace it. But that’s probably too much to ask. He has places to be; they both do, surely there’s some meeting she hasn’t yet thought of –
His hand lets go of hers, swiftly, and she sits up, makes to get out of bed. But Vasco’s not thinking of tea – that’s clear from the way his eyes scrape over her as the sheet falls away, his mouth parting just a little. He drinks her in, and she feels it down her spine, lets the slow heat of it flush her face, her chest. His tongue darts out to wet his lips. “De Sardet,” he says, again, even rougher now – and then his hand is stroking down to her hip, tentative but with a certain purpose to it. “I thought the tea could wait. If you were of a mind.”
Oh. She shivers, heart swooping hopefully. His touch lights her up under her skin; she couldn’t stop herself from turning back to him if she tried. “Why?” she says, pulse speeding, “Did you have another idea?” She levers her legs back into bed and watches him watch that, hungrily: the sweep of his lashes, the way his eyes darken. Lying by his side, she stretches and relishes it, like warm sun after hours in the dark. She thought that this, too, might have worn off in the daylight. Apparently not.
He gets a hand behind her knee and pulls her closer, lets her leg fall over his hip, his hand sliding down her arm; he curves towards her like a flower in the sun. “I thought we might discuss routes to San-Matheus,” he says, but he’s leaning in and the end of the sentence is said against her shoulder. His hair tickles her skin, and by the time he’s kissing her neck, her breathing is far from unaffected.
“What’s there to discuss?” she quips breathlessly. “I know the coast road is longer as the crow flies, but cutting through the mountains is – oh – ” He sucks a love bite into her neck and she arches against him, relishing the sting of it as his hand slides up her thigh, his thumb brushing her pubic hair.
“Oh Vasco,” she sighs. His hand slips between her legs, cupping her gently, his fingertips stroking between her folds, running through the wetness already beginning to gather there. She’s still slick enough from last night that he’s able to enter her, a single finger breaching her steadily swelling cunt, and Marie moans aloud. He strokes her, his touch light and careful, and the pleasure goes rippling through her. Vasco cups her head in his free hand and kisses her deeply, his tongue slipping into her open mouth as she pants and clings to him. His finger is moving quicker inside her now as her body becomes ready, pressing deeper, and the pleasure grows from a ripple to a wave, surging over her like the rising tide. Marie clutches at his biceps, his shoulders, half-lost to it, her eyes closed, her back arching.
“I want to fuck you,” Vasco says, his voice gravelly with desire, his breath hot on her ear.
“That sounds – ah – lovely,” Marie gasps.
Vasco chuckles.
“What?” she says, smiling, but he simply crooks his finger deeper, and she cries out helplessly at the sudden ecstasy of it.
“Are you ready?” he asks her.
“Saints, yes.”
“Good.” He nips at her mouth and she chases the kiss as he pulls away teasingly.
“Come here,” she says, twining her fingers through his hair and pulling him closer. His mouth is hot on hers, deliciously hungry; he slips his finger out of her and strokes her lightly, running his fingers through the damp curls between her legs. Marie spreads her legs wider for him, and Vasco settles himself on top of her, bending his head to kiss her again, his tongue soft against her lips. He reaches down and takes himself in hand, rubbing the head of his cock against her cunt, wetting it in the slick of her arousal. Heat sparks across her skin at the intimacy of the touch; she grips his arm, catching her breath.
“You’re beautiful,” Vasco tells her, husky and sincere. She looks up at him through her lashes.
“You’re not half bad yourself, you know,” she says.
He raises a brow. "Thank you, de Sardet.” It's dry and fond and entirely her friend, and he’s still not inside her.
“Vasco, would you mind terribly…?” Marie rocks her hips, stroking herself against his cock. She probably sounds too breathless for the joke to land, but, “I was so looking forward to a repeat performance. Although we could go back to discussing maps if you – ”
He fills her in a single thrust.
“Ah! Oh Saints. That was ah, lovely, thank you…”
Vasco laughs outright; Marie grins up at him and curls her legs around him loosely, arching a little. His cock is thick and hot inside her.
“Always glad to oblige,” he says, his voice rough and breathy.
“Do oblige me by fucking me senseless then, if you please,” she says.
“How can I refuse,” he replies, and his words are joking but his voice is low and gravelly, his eyes hot on her face.
Marie is still trying to think of a clever reply when he draws his hips back and thrusts into her, and then she stops thinking at all. Pleasure roars through her, strong and sudden, and she cries out, arching under him. Vasco takes hold of her hand where it rests on his shoulder and puts two of her fingers into his mouth, sucking on them, that quick tongue of his stroking her sensitive skin lightly enough to make her gasp. Then he takes those wetted fingers and presses them to her cunt.
“Touch yourself,” he says. “I want to watch you come.”
“How – oh! How can I refuse?” she pants, and obeys.
He feels just as good inside her this morning as he did last night – less needy, less desperate, but the slow, easy pleasure of a golden morning passed in bed is no less enjoyable than the fierce heat of their first night together. Marie lies with her legs curled over his hips and lets him fuck her, gently at first, then harder as she shudders and moans beneath him, her fingers rubbing quick little circles over her cunt. When she opens her eyes at last, she finds him staring down at her, his pupils dilated, panting as he thrusts into her.
“Vasco,” she gasps, getting his name out in between the little cries she can’t seem to control, and he groans at the sound of it and thrusts into her harder, deeper, the muscles bunching in his shoulders with the effort. She can feel herself growing tighter around him, and the pleasure in her is a trembling flame, growing stronger with every thrust of his cock and every stroke of her fingers.
“I’m close,” she tells him, her voice a fine thread of air pulled out of her. “Light, you feel so good – ”
“Ah, storms, fuck – ”
And she comes so hard she sees stars, her eyes losing focus as she shudders violently beneath him, his cock and her fingers dragging the climax out of her. She’s sure she’s crying out but she can’t hear it, lost as she is in her pleasure. Vasco’s cock twitches within her, spasming deep in her cunt as he comes a breath behind her with a cry that she feels in her bones.
By the time Marie regains her sense of hearing, Vasco has bent his head to rest in the curve of her neck and is kissing her skin slowly, lazily, his mouth soft on her throat. She can feel his heart slowing against her breast, bit by bit. Marie puts her arms around him, feeling a fine sheen of sweat under her palms. She’s out of breath, and her heart is beating almost as fast as his.
“Vasco,” she murmurs.
He just sighs.
“That was so good,” Marie tells him.
“A satisfactory repeat performance, then?” he asks, his voice as dry as it is breathless. She can feel his cock still in her, twitching a little with the aftershocks of his climax. Her cunt is doing the same around him. She curls a leg over the back of his thigh, stroking his skin with the sole of her foot.
“Oh, I’d say so. Although if you have any thoughts on potential improvements, I’d be delighted to hear them.”
Vasco huffs a laugh. “I think I’ll need a bit of a breather first, De Sardet.”
“Next time, then?”
He grins against her neck. “Next time.”
Slowed as her mind is by sex and the feel of his skin against hers, she only realises what she's presumed – that he's agreed – a moment later. And that she's smiling stupidly at the ceiling. Something startled and light fills her chest, like air. She tells herself firmly that that was the afterglow talking, and there will be time to examine it later. Perhaps when she doesn't have a very attractive Naut captain inside her.
She does, in the end, make him tea. They sit on her bed together, Marie in her robe and Vasco comfortably cross-legged with the matter-of-factness about nudity that comes from a lifetime on ships; he sips from bone china while she tries not to stare. A captain through and through, he’s exactly as terrible at lazing as she is – they bonded in surprise over early mornings, when camping together – but he's seemed to accept that they have things to discuss, so she gets to keep him a little longer. She just hadn’t expected to be having the discussion with quite so much of him.
Unfair is what she’d call it, if he were a cruel man. They have a plague to get on with curing, and she has a meeting with a minister later this morning – she can’t stay in bed all day and neither can he… But he seems one part oblivious to one part (more likely) amused, eyes occasionally straying to hers.
They've taken tea together a few times over the past several months; she's invited him into her parlour to ask about plans for their journeys together, or… simply to ask him about his voyages. To see if she can prise out of him stories of lands across the sea and the bravery of his crew; if she can understand just a little more of him. And on rare nights, he'll say yes, and sit by her fire with her, letting her pour him a cup of tea, wryly wondering why she likes to ask him so many questions. Smiling at her, eyes shining in the firelight and showing that he doesn’t mind too much. This is far from the strangest meeting they've had, even if they’re not usually having them in her bed, with her robe hastily tied and her leg folded under her.
“So,” she says, telling herself not to count his tattoos or perhaps ask if she can trace them with her tongue, “was this a one-off, then?” She takes a genteel sip of tea.
And just like that, the guardedness is back. “Would you like it to be?”
She knows what it took him to come here, to ask at all. It’s time she repaid that. “I’d like to do this again. Perhaps somewhat regularly.” She gives him a tentative smile, and then goes back to her tea.
“I’d like that,” he says, words few and voice the sort of soft that tells her that is a severe understatement.
Oh. Her heart squeezes in her chest. It was such a pleasant surprise to wake up this way, it was so good to enjoy a friend, and… she'd like it again. It's a small thing she can live without, but she'd like it. She likes sex. She likes him – spending time with him, laughing with him. It makes sense.
She tries, “You could knock for me again, at the same time?” Swallowing, she says, "And if you don't knock, I won't – I told you, I won't hold it against you."
He frowns a little, putting the tea on the bedside table. "I'll probably have been held up at the docks."
She tries to draw in a breath, to be sensible and disguise the sinking of her heart. "Even if it's not that – even if you've changed your mind – I still won't…"
His hand on her face halts her words: it’s still warm from his cup and strokes over her cheek, thoughtfully. "I think you underestimate just how much I want to fuck you," he says, dryly, eyes firm on hers.
Her eyes widen. "...Oh."
He huffs a laugh, whether at her or self-deprecatingly she isn't sure. Perhaps both. As if it should be obvious, as if she should just take for granted that he wants her, that he wants to be here. Oh, she's glad she asked him.
Marie swallows, and says, "There's something I forgot to mention. I meant to be a better host, but I got… a little carried away." And she smiles bashfully at him, but he doesn't laugh at her, just smiles in return like he knows the feeling. (Storms sink me, breathed in desperation, and the way he plastered himself to her – yes, he knows.) She takes a heavy swig of tea before she puts it aside, as if it will magically transmogrify into rum, and perhaps stop him running out of the door while thinking she's some sort of pervert. She doesn't know why embarrassment is creeping up on her now; sex has always been one of the few things she's been utterly matter-of-fact about. Perhaps it's because she's out of practice, or perhaps it's just that… he's her friend, and that means more than she can say.
She pauses, and pulls out the bedside drawer of her more intimate inventory, staying matter-of-fact even with the pounding of her heart, and gestures airily. "I'd meant to offer you any of this."
That curious, shrewd look over, like he's just examining supplies in one of their makeshift camps; strange to see in her bedroom. And usually he's a lot less naked. He leans forwards and… oh no, she's staring at his arse again. Not helpful. Stranger still, when he pauses and comes back with her harness in one of those strong, inked hands. Ah. He asks, "Is this what I think it is?"
She licks her lips. "I had a friend, a couple of years ago. Nathalie. It was an arrangement rather like this one, actually. She liked when I took her."
He doesn't take his eyes off her, and she feels her throat go dry as he says, "Next time? I could bring the oil."
It takes her a moment – and then her mind catches up, like a carriage crash in a narrow street. (Him spread out beneath her as she takes him, pulling her closer, thighs trembling; or him clinging to the headboard, all that strength taut as a bowstring, and crying out while she's behind him –)
"De Sardet?" he says, at her silence.
"On you?" she asks, softly.
There the wariness is again, creeping into his eyes, his face, and no. They can't have that. He doesn’t deserve to be ashamed, he’s… He says, "Unless that would be a problem."
Problem isn't the word.
"No," she says, too breathily. "Not a problem at all."
And now he realises. He watches her, amused but with something darker glinting in his eyes; something she recognises from those moments after the kiss in her parlour, from when he had his fingers inside her. He’s found something out about her, and he likes it. "I see," he says, drily.
She swallows. Something about him always compels her to too much honesty, but now, more than ever, it's important. "I admit, I've never done that with a man. But the logistics can't be so different."
He snorts. "You're an intelligent woman, de Sardet. I’m sure you’ll work it out." Said the way he remarks on things so often, a wry little aside here and there, a comment at her back in a village – not, usually, in her bed, talking about how best she should fuck him. (It occurs to her that surprised as she was by this side of him, she never expected him to be quite so… himself.)
"And I have you," she says, brightly.
He half-smiles, with that quiet fondness of her making a joke on the road that he likes. "And you have me."
She shifts onto her knees, placing her hands on his shoulders. She says, with mock-solemnity, "You're right. We shall muddle through this together."
That knife-sharp grin; he puts back the harness and his hand runs up her thigh, creeping under the hem of her robe. "For the good of New Serene?"
"For the good of her legate, absolutely."
He grins, all teeth and his eyes crinkling under the tattoos, the way she so rarely sees; the sort that always makes her want to pause and commemorate it, perhaps put it in her journal to note down what caused it, so she can do it again. The sight of him wild-haired and amused in her bed would probably be enough for some to write one of those Naut fetish novels. She almost understands it. She always likes to make him laugh, perhaps even more than the sex. If she had to choose. Which she'd rather not.
Somewhere faintly outside a bell rings, and carts clatter. He looks aside, as if he can see through the curtains, and sighs. "I've a meeting with my admiral soon."
She takes her hands away, because she has to stop touching him sometime. "Is she giving you back your ship?" As much as it would sadden her to see him go, she can't help her excitement for him slipping into her voice.
He looks back to her sharply. For a moment he blinks at her and she recognises this expression, utterly, from their conversations – she’s taken him-off guard. And yes, there it is: when he's startled and endeared and trying not to show it, his smile is in his eyes. But there's something softer, darker in it this time, his lips parting. His eyes search her face. For a moment, she’s certain he's going to kiss her… And she wants him to. The thought hits her, sudden and so strong she has to breathe through it. Saints, she wants him to.
He doesn’t. And perhaps he saw her thought on her face, because he shifts and takes back his tea. He's right. It's probably best to get back to the normal rhythms of their friendship as soon as possible, so as not to make things awkward. "She's considering it," he says, instead, and finishes the cup. “Once our mission is done, I suspect.” His eyes drift, already planning, as they do so often; navigating the perils of internecine Naut politics rather than the sea, this time.
She puts her previous thought down to a moment of madness and shifts away from the warmth of his body, his earnest eyes. She swears, these things wouldn’t happen if he’d put some clothes on. “Well, we’ll all miss you.”
Once again, that surprised, almost pained look, as if kindness isn’t something he’s had much of in his life. And something questioning in it. Of course he clearly hears the I'll miss you. He stares at her over the rim of his cup. Puts it aside and says, “Thank you, de Sardet.” Then he sighs. “I have business at the barracks before the meeting. And I’ll never set out to sea again if I’m not on time.”
He stands and starts the hunt for clothes, and she spreads her limbs out on the bed, enjoying the space, idly watching him. Her expression probably looks like a Thelemic pamphlet on the perils of lechery. Marie doesn’t much care.
She stretches and says, “I, meanwhile, am catching up on paperwork before Constantin calls for me. Thrilling.”
He looks over his shoulder as he pulls on his cuisses, eyes briefly running over her again, and… oh. He could have a page of the pamphlet too. “I’m sure.”
“Your hat’s still on the stand, I think. And your gloves are where you left them.” Where he all but tossed them in his haste to get his hands on her. “I can see you out, if you’d like...”
He shakes his head, swiftly. “You don’t have to do that.” He shrugs his coat on and pauses, turns back to her. “De Sardet?”
“Mm?”
“Thank you for...” His brows crease, just for a moment. She hears the hesitation and almost frowns; it’s so rare to find him without his words. “...Our time together.”
She grins. “That’s one way of putting it. Good luck with your admiral.”
The swift sight of that sharp smile, and then he’s nodding to her and is closing her bedroom door. She hears the front door soon afterwards, and relaxes back into sheets still warm from his skin, trying to steel herself for the mountain of paperwork on her desk.
She’s halfway through a certificate for a vendor, the paperwork pile on her desk rather smaller, when she looks up and realises, Oh, by the Light, I fucked Vasco.