The Pirate King Ch. 15

"Fuck," I said, and slammed my knife deep into its brain.

***

It would have taken us five days to reach the Vault of Sapphires. As soon as I knew where we were going I adjusted the route; I knew the fastest ways. I understood the best currents. The Captain frowned but allowed me this small control, knowing that my knowledge was sound. In that way, I cut down our time from five days to three.

Those three days were. Interesting. The crews were still struggling to integrate. Ichor was proving to be the most difficult, which should have been expected. The Russian and Sneg might have been odd, but Sneg at the end of the day was hard not to get along with, with their easy going nature and ability to turn anything into a less formal existence, and the Russian. I mean, most people still didn't know what to do with the Russian. But he ignored their discomfort and that seemed to help.

But Ichor?

The fact could not be ignored that most of them had seen his dead body, had washed his blood from the deck of the ship. He had been dead. He was back. It unsettled them in a way I had forgotten men could be unsettled.

I watched him move through the mess on our third day. We would reach our destination by nightfall, then make anchor and go to the Lady in the morning. That was the Captain's plan; I had seen no reason not to get this over with at night. When I had suggested that, the Captain had gone wide eyed and shaken his head.

"You don't know her," he'd said. "She rests on formality. I don't want to fuck something up and then." His hand tightened on my leg for a moment; I let him have his concern.

In the end, I knew there was no way this was going to go well.

"You gonna do that to us?" I was jolted from my thoughts by Finn's voice. He was giving me a hard look and I blinked at him, wondering what he might be talking about.

"Do what?"

"Make us. Turn us that way." He tilted his head towards Ichor's back as he left the mess as quietly as he'd come in. He ate in the riggings, or somewhere deep in the ship. I didn't know. I didn't ask. There were more important things to talk about then the setting of Ichor's table.

"Are you planning on dying?" I asked, perhaps too flippantly. There was a wave of silence over the table where I sat with Finn, Natch, Thron and Thron's friend Gret. Gret had been spending a lot of time at Thron's side, helping run interference with the Russian. I looked up at the discomfort, seeing the slight panic on each of their faces.

I put down my spoon. "You can simply ask me not to," I told them plainly. I would not bring back a man who wished to rest.

"Can we?" asked Thron in a voice that held very little trust. I turned my gaze to him and he fell silent.

It was a harder look than I had meant it to be. There was anxiety building within me at the thought of tomorrow, of facing this Lady of the Sapphires. I didn't want to do it. I really didn't want to do it.

But, here we were. And so I would have to. I sighed and turned away, frustrated at myself for letting my body be so controlled by another. "Of course. It works as a trade, anyway. The participants have to be willing. If you did not want to come back, you would not." It had happened to me before; a body sent down, none back. A simple apology from Dave, the body returned, the man gasping and choking on salt water and death.

"He wanted to come back? Like that?"

Natch's voice held a bit of wonder. His question surprised me. "What's wrong with him?"

There was instant backtracking. "Nothing, Ghost. Nothing, just." I watched him search for words. "He's just so different."

"So much," Thron supplied.

"Like he swallowed a kraken," Gret said. "Like he's got something else inside his veins instead of blood."

They all nodded at that, but Finn was looking thoughtful. "But that's just how you all are, isn't it?"

"Like krakens?" I asked, a little annoyed, a little amused, but willing to be distracted by this conversation.

"No," Finn was quick to say, even as Gret was saying, "You know..."

We all turned to him and he shrunk into himself for a moment before taking a deep breath. "Like, there are squids, and then there are krakens. What's the difference?"

Krakens were a different thing entirely. They were pearls from giant oysters that were sung to for a hundred years by a mermaid, then washed by ocean currents for another hundred years. The warmth of that ocean current decided the kraken's sex and coloring, the songs it was sung it's temperament.

"Krakens are like squid extra," Natch was saying. "One step up. Or. Sideways?"

Not at all, I frowned, but Gret nodded. "Exactly." He pointed at himself, then drew a circle around the table that excluded me. "We're squid." He pointed at me. "You're a kraken."

There was dead silence as the table waited to see how I would take that.

He wasn't wrong. I was a son of the sea. I had been born of the ocean herself. I carried the swells and tides inside of my very soul, within my veins, inside my breath. I was the sea; these were land boys. At the end of the day, didn't that make them a different thing entirely? Weren't they squid, and I a kraken, born not of their kind and yet mistaken for them constantly, confused until I showed my power?

And perhaps squids looked at kraken and couldn't tell the difference either; perhaps only kraken knew other kraken from squid, understood just how different they were.

"Something like that," I told him. The table visibly relaxed.

"But the Russian isn't," Natch said. Thron and I both winced to have him brought up. Natch caught the motion and pulled back a bit, his next words softer. "I mean, he's different than you guys."

"I think he's mortal."

Thron surprised all of us. There was a moment of silence. I leaned into it gently. "Am I not mortal?"

The men all looked at me. Some of them gave me looks of askance, others barely disguised fear.

I shrugged. That was fair. "Sneg is a mortal."

Natch scoffed, causing Finn to start in fright.

"What?" he asked. "What are they? What's wrong with Sneg?"

"Sneg is mortal," I repeated.

"But not only," Natch put in.

"But not only," I agreed.

Finn did not look like he knew what to do with that.

Thron did. "Exactly," he said. Everyone looked back at him and he shook his head. "I mean. Like. Sneg is extra. Ichor is dead, or undead, or brought back from the dead. Or whatever. And Ghost is." He looked over at me, at a loss.

"The sea." I looked over, surprised to see it was Finn who spoke. "He's the fucking sea itself, lads."

I raised an eyebrow, smiling slightly at him. It had taken him long enough. Finn simply cursed and turned back to his food.

"But the Russian," Thron continued. "He isn't, you know? He just. Isn't."

Natch frowned. "I'm not sure I'm following."

Thron shifted. "Like. He's none of that. He's just mortal. Like us. Like us, and yet he holds his own with them."

"Somehow," Natch said slowly in the silence that grew after Thron's words. "That seems even more terrifying."

"You can hold your own with us," I reminded them. "You're sailing with us."

"As a crew," Thron said. He seemed to have spent a long time thinking about this since our last conversation, his the thoughts flowing easily into words. "I am not so arrogant to think that you would have come to me as an individual. Any of us as individuals. Or that I want to be alone with all of you guys. I'm not a god, Ghost. I don't belong in your company without the shield of others."

I shifted, uncomfortable with the accuracy of this pointed conversation. But I was saved having to make any sort of response by the sudden appearance of the very Russian himself.

"Brat," he greeted me. Sneg was at his side, smiling slightly. I nodded to them both, ignoring how the men before me shrunk back from their combined presence. In time this would become commonplace, I told myself stubbornly, ignoring what Thron had just laid out for me. In time their bodies would seem nothing but ordinary.

The Russian then turned his attention to Thron, who was doing his best not to blush merely from this man's presence. It was not working. I sat back in my seat and tried not to smile as the Russian bullied in next to me, putting him directly across from Thron. He spared a moment to glare at Gret, who had a hand placed somewhat close to Thron's.

Gret stood up and left the table.

"Ivan," I said reproachfully.

He ignored me, reaching over instead to place a small bundle in front of Thron.

"For your hands," he told the blushing man excitedly. "I have felt how they are cracked, and know how that is painful. This will keep them whole and soft!"

Thron, now blushing wildly at the reminder of their touch, carefully unbundled the package to find a small jar. It sat delicate in his hands, which were indeed cracked and worn. He existed in a salty world of hard work, wrapping ropes and canvas. It was inevitable.

"Thank you," he said quietly. Then he looked up and met the Russian's eyes, his own gaze filtered by his thick lashes. "If this makes my hands as soft as yours, I'll feel very happy indeed."

I watched, amused, as he carefully tilted his head and smiled a gentle smile that could have melted an icecap.

It had the opposite affect on the Russian. He froze, seized up beside me as he watched this violent man accept his gift with grace and sweetness and a touch of personalization that was just right. Absolutely perfect. His hands rubbed together once, twice, a self-conscious gesture not entirely born from anxiety but not entirely devoid of it either. Perhaps he was checking for himself the validity of Thron's words. Perhaps he was wondering at the idea that someone might think his hands soft, that this man might have been thinking of his hands at all.

The moment, as amusing as it was, went on quite long enough and began to make the rest of us uncomfortable. I kicked the Russian under the table to bring him back to us.

"Ah!" He jumped, his eyes finally leaving Thron's to leap to mine. I smiled, expected a scowl, or a frown, something to show his discomfort with what had just occurred but instead the strange man began to beam.

"Vse mesta v mire, i ti dal mne Tron," he said, then he grasped my face between his two hands and placed a very Russian kiss on my lips.

It was me who scowled after he left, annoyed with this man and his way of being. "And?" I asked Sneg, seeing them chuckling as they sat down.

But they ignored me, addressing Thron instead. "He's got it bad for you."

He was staring at the doorway through which the Russian had just left. His blush had not yet left his cheeks, making him look softer than he was, somehow. Or at least than he could be. "What did he say?"

Sneg smiled. "'Of all the places in the world, you gave to me a throne.'" They leaned on their hand, pushing their grin up farther with the meat of their palm. "That's what your name means in Russian, the way he pronounces it. Tron, throne."

Natch picked up Sneg's smile with ease. "You know what that means."

"No." Thron put his head down on the table.

Natch leaned forward, eyes sparkling. "That boy wants to sit on youbad."

"No," Thron repeated from where he hid under his hands, and as the men around him laughed and jibed it was possible to see his blush creeping up from beneath his collar, bright and violent.

***

"That man is still perusing Thron," the Captain told me as we got ready for bed that night.

I nodded. "He gave him a gift this evening at dinner."

"Fuck." I looked over and saw him struggling with a button. I couldn't tell if he was frustrated with the stuck piece of clothing or the Russian's relentless ways of being, but I could only help with one.

I came up behind him, pressing my body heat to his back. He relaxed instantly, my form pressing a sigh from his lungs as my fingers made quick work of the stubborn buttons. When his shirt was undone I pressed a kiss to his neck and made to step back.

"Don't go," he murmured, reaching back and taking hold of my head. I resettled into him, slowly pulling the cloth from his body. His breath caught as my fingers found and traced over his nipples, the air coming from his lungs so warm, so hot as he pressed it against my chin. I leaned down and gently bit his neck, causing him to moan.

"Undress me," he commanded lazily. Gently. I had never thought a command could be lazy, but this man was never what I expected and always what I wanted. "Need your fingers on my skin."

I kissed that skin he spoke of, feeling the way that made his breath catch. "Yes, sir," I muttered into his neck, and he moaned his approval.

I undressed him slowly, pulling first his shirt from his body, then taking my time at the ties of his breeches. He kept up a steady stream of approving noises, his fingers light on my hands and wrists, his voice pricking at my skin. When I had his breeches loosened I slowly pulled them down, my body dropping with them, my lips stealing slow kisses on each bit of skin I could find on my descent.

"Fuck," the Captain murmured as he stepped out of his breeches. He turned to find me kneeling on the ground, head tilted back to look up at him. "Fuck."

I smiled, hoping he would come back closer. His cock was hard, and I wanted it. I licked my lips to see it so close to my mouth.

That got me what I wished for. He closed the distance slowly, too slowly, but I didn't mind for I got to watch as he came closer and closer to where I wanted him, and I loved that. Loved the sight of him. The smell of him. The way his breath hitched when I licked my lips again.

His hand came down to rest in my hair, tugging at my scalp until I looked up at him. I gasped to see his eyes, so dark, so filled with love and lust. So ready for me.

"Love you like this," he told me. "On your knees for me. Mine."

"Yours," I repeated, and watched how that sent a shiver down his spine.

"Show me." His voice was little but a whisper. His fingers tugged me closer and my eyes were on his cock, the bit of precum gathering at its tip. "Show me."

"Sir," I murmured before opening my mouth and taking the tip of his cock into my mouth.

He tasted like salt, like the sea. He tasted like freedom and control and safety and just a little sweet. He gasped above me as my tongue explored his slit, gathering up every bit of his taste that I could manage.

"Fuck," I heard him mutter. He was pushing me down and I let him, loving the feeling of pressure on my head, the way that slowly pressed the loudest bits of the sea from my body. The way it quieted the parts of me that never seemed to do so on their own. My tongue continued its flicking movements over the ridge on the bottom of his cock, causing him to shudder and twitch.

As always, he pulled me up before I was content. My mouth popped off the end of his cock with a satisfying sound, but I was far from satisfied. I wanted more. I wanted to be handled with significantly less care, or I wanted to be handled with all the care in the world but I wanted it through the lens of danger, of roughness.

"Sir," I said carefully, my lips already pressed up against his head again. He paused, just barely willing to let me speak. I took the moment and asked for what I wanted.

"Let me go further."

He paused. I could feel his hesitation in the hand he had in my hair. "You'll choke."

A shiver passed through me. "Yes," I told him, my eyes moving up to meet his. So dark. Growing darker by the moment. "I will."

"Fuck." The hand in my hair was growing tighter. My scalp was singing, screaming, my cock aching with pleasure. "Fuck."

"Please, sir," I begged him as he tilted my head back further. I knew he was looking at my neck. "Please."

"Please what?"

"Sir," I told him automatically, but he was shaking his head.

"Tell me." He voice was low, cold. It made my soul shudder in anticipation. "Tell me what you want."

I licked my lips. It was one thing to think of this, to dream of this. It was another thing to speak of it aloud.

"Tell me," he commanded, and my defenses crumbled for him.

My eyes were caught in his, falling into his endless gaze. "Please let me choke on your cock," I heard myself beg. Watched the way those words made his gaze go even darker, made his eyes flare with desires that I wanted to pour down onto my skin.

"Fuck," he muttered, and then he was pressing me down again.

This time he did not stop. There was a moment of panic in my body as his cock nudged at the back of my throat, as my flesh rebelled and I gagged, but the Captain merely tightened his grip in my hair and continued his control and my body gave to him, gave in to his desires as it always would. His cock slid down my opened throat and then he was completely in me, I held him within me fully and I wanted to gasp at the pleasure of it, at the feeling of his skin and hair pressed against my nose, the smell of him, the feel of him, but I couldn't breathe and so I just made a small noise which caused the Captain the jerk his hips.

He held me there, breathless, controlled. His. Then he pulled back and did it again and again and again.

He pulled back at one point and looked down at me, those dark eyes blown out with the power of all the things he was doing to me, all the things I was doing to him. He noticed my hand on my cock and smiled a smile so dark I thought I would pass out.

"Are you touching yourself?"

I managed a nod.

He leaned in, his teeth scraping my ear. I shuddered. "Stop. Your pleasure is mine." My cock twitched from those words alone, my body desperate in its wanton needs. "Lock your hands behind your back. Fingers to elbows." As I complied, his next words sunk right to my gut where they twisted around with pleasure and anticipation and lust. "And if you come from this anyway, I'll never let you do it again."

I half moaned, half whimpered and he laughed this strained sort of laugh, his fingers tight in my hair, his words tight in my stomach and then he was gone, towering over me perfect and powerful and mine, all mine. I had a moment to sit with the power of desire he had gifted me before he was guiding my mouth back to his cock.

He fucked my throat, and I loved it. I loved the feel of his power around my head, in my body. I loved the way it became almost impossible to breathe. I loved the way he shocked salt water from my eyes and forced my body to become the thing he wanted, the way my cock was rock hard and aching and my hands were locked and there was nothing I could do and when he came deep in my throat I moaned my pleasure and his fingers tightened so much I thought he might pull my hair from my scalp.

He pulled back slowly, dragging the taste of him over my tongue. I wanted more; I needed more. I was achingly hard, my body vibrating with pleasure and need. "Sir," I all but whined, my fingers digging into the flesh of my arms. I needed his touch; I needed to touch...

"Been so good," he crooned. His fingers caught my chin and pulled my gaze up to his. The sight of his eyes pushed a noise of pleasure right out of my body, sent it spiraling out into the room. I might have pulled the cum from his body, but the darkness was all still there, if not more so. "Go lay on the bed," he commanded me, his voice low and slipping under my skin like so many needles. "I've got a present for you."

It was hard to stand with how my body insisted on shuddering so violently, with how his words turned my core to jelly, but somehow I made my way to the bed. I sunk onto the sheets, relieved to be off my feet but now finding myself with a strange quandary. Was I allowed to touch myself?

Could I not?

My fingers were skittering over my hipbones, my breath fast and light, by the time the Captain came back. He smiled as he sat beside me. I was too far gone to return the expression; I was combusting, atomizing, sublimating. He was making me into steam, into ice. I shuddered as his hand landed on my shoulder.