The Pirate King Ch. 15

"Love," he murmured, and the shudder extended to encompass his words. "Brought you something." I felt his hand, slick with lube, passing over my cock and I arched into his touch. His fingers dipped into my crack and I whimpered with need. "Can you do something for me?" he asked me, his voice too light and still, somehow, that question was a command and I nodded and didn't bother to wonder what that thing might be because I trusted this man, trusted that he would keep me safe.

He leaned close to me, his breathe dusting my neck. "Good," he murmured into my skin, and I moaned. His finger was teasing my hole and I was panting, struggling with effort of not pressing against him.

Then he pulled back and I gasped, was lost without him, needed him, but something solid was being pressed into my hand I looked down and found a long, thick toy pressed between our hands. I looked up to find the Captain smiling down at me dangerously.

"Wanna watch you," he told me. "Wanna see you fall apart at your own hand. Wanna learn what makes you fuckin' lose yourself."

You, I thought, even as my body reacted to those words and my hand tightened around the toy. It was already slick for me, ready, and I could feel my stomach tightening in anticipation. I wanted this. I needed this.

"Baby," he murmured. My hand made it's way to my slick cock and he sighed, contented, as he watched me begin to tug on my length, my hand twisting and stroking. I was almost immediately lost in the sensations. His turned me so that he was pressed up against my back, his head tucked up against my neck. He dropped bites and kisses on my skin as he watched me go to work, unable to hold back. Then his hand was at my knee, opening my legs.

"Baby," he said again, an edge in his voice. A part of me noticed that he was semi-hard again behind me, but that part was very small. Most of me was focused on my hand, on his warmth. On the way his breath felt as he panted in time to my strokes, his heart rate quickening as my head fell back into him.

I found my hand bringing the slick toy to my hole, teasing myself. I let it rest there for a moment, enjoying the pressure against my most personal of spaces. What did I want? What did I need?

I didn't think. I simply pushed the toy into myself all at once.

There was pain, and it was incredible. I gave a shout, my body seizing, my back arching as the sea rushed through me all at once, my body screaming to accommodate this sudden invasion. Around me, I could feel the Captain breathing, hissing, but all I could feel was pleasure, pain, pleasure, pain.

Pleasure.

I waited only until the sharpest edges of the first wave passed through me before I began thrusting. It took only two attempts to find the angle that would send white-hot sparks spreading through my core; after that, I was lost. I was nothing but pleasure, nothing but the feeling coming into me from this toy, the breath on my back from the Captain, the twist of my hand on my cock. I was vaguely aware of a sound filling the room, a gasping, desperate noise; I realized with some sort of detached clarity that noise came from me.

Even in this non-corporal state, there was some part of me that was bound to my Captain. I held my orgasm at bay for as long as I could, sure that my pleasure was not my own, that he would want to control this. I wanted him to control this. But I did not have the words to ask. It was beyond me to craft thoughts, let alone syllables. I was growing desperate, sure that I would lose myself and pass beyond the control that he and I so blatantly adored when I heard his voice in my ear, ragged and dark and torn with desire; "Come now."

And I did. And my world exploded in darkness.

I think it was eternity before I came back down from the high he put me on. I felt him pull the toy from my ass; I felt his fingers all over my flesh, brushing and pressing and making sure I was solid, I was real. I felt his lips on the base of his skin. How shaky his breath was.

"Incredible," he whispered to me. "So incredible. Made me come again, baby." His hands pressed flat on my stomach and I obeyed this command, too, shifting back so there was no space between our bodies. "So fucking, fucking hot when you come."

The last thing I remember before my body shut down and sent me to sleep was his murmured voice, asking, "What the hell did I ever do to deserve you?"

Exist, I wanted to tell him, you love me and you exist, but I fell asleep before I could send the words past my lips and so I fell asleep with them on my tongue.

***

I stared balefully out into the morning sun. The small rowboat was making good time, Finn's hands sure on the oars, the Captain's voice sure of his direction.

He was wrong, of course. We were headed towards the main entrance, sure, but it was not the way we should have come in. I stared at the small inlet that we could have taken to circumvent the cavernous chamber we were headed towards, the main welcoming hall.

I said nothing as we passed it by. I was no longer welcome in that space.

The Captain bade Finn wait with the boat. The steward was more than happy to oblige.

I wished I could stay with the boat. There was not much I wanted to do less than walk into that cave, than face that woman. But the Captain was already walking forward and so I had no choice but to follow him, keeping my frustration in my body, feeding my unwillingness to the sea.

I knew this place well, had been here many a time, and yet I was sure I had never seen it like this. The sapphires which gave the Lady her name shimmered with an internal life. I remembered the first time I had walked into this hall; I had thought it like walking into the sea crystallized, a chamber of the ocean frozen in place to examine, to be experienced.

I thought the same thing now but with significantly less wonder. The sea was the sea; it was meant to be experienced in all its mutable glory. This was nothing but an after image, a snapshot. A moment of the eternity that the oceans held. That I held.

We continued down into the earth until we reached a chamber with a small alter, sapphires glittering along its surface. I knew this was where gifts to the Lady should be left, so that you might garner her attention. My first time here I had brought a small pewter bowl of seawater. After placing it on the alter I had loudly proclaimed that if the Lady wanted more, she would have to come and get it.

I snorted at the memory. So young, so arrogant. So alive. I thought I much preferred myself in death.

I reached out to take the Captain's hand and found it shaking. I squeezed lightly; he had nothing to be afraid of.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked me quietly. I had instructed him to bring no gifts this time. We wouldn't need any; they wouldn't help anyway. It had taken quite a long time to get him to agree. Apparently, he still wasn't convinced.

But before I could offer any reassurances, the Lady arrived.

Her presence lit the halls, the sapphires glittering with new found power. The Captain gasped, his eyes caught on the shimmering walls all around us, feeling the ways this was new, this was different.

And then she spoke, and it was as if the cave became filled with light.

The gems gathered her sound, picked it up and amplified it, turned her words into a thousand different hues, a million different fractal reflections of her intentions. It was mesmerizing. It was terrifying. "Who dares enter my hall?" she called, and my sea responded with a quiver.

I felt the Captain try to slip down to his knees in respect and grabbed onto his arm. "No," I told him firmly. Not you. Not for her, not for any being. He met my eyes and I tried to tell him everything he needed to know with just that gaze. You are my world, I tried to tell him. You are my everything, and my everything does not kneel.

He nodded, slowly, his hand coming up to cover mine.

Around us, within us, the Lady of Sapphires continued to speak. "You bring no gifts, and still you come to me? Who do you think you are, daring to stand in my presence? I am a fractal of the sea, each and every moment of the world is known to me, I carry shards of the very currents within my - "

That was quite enough of that. "Hello, Cassandra."

There was a long moment of silence.

Then; "You."

And all the sapphires went dark at once.

***

I pulled the Captain behind me as I heard a door open further down the hall. I didn't want him to be between me and the ball of rage that would soon come hurtling our way.

"What the fuck is happening," he hissed, but I ignored him, instead watching the darkened hallway. Waiting.

Cass did not disappoint. She came flying down the hallway, only pausing long enough to loose one shoe from her small feet. She was only about five and a half feet, but coming at me like that, a shoe held aloft, her eyes burning.

She was terrifying.

"Cass," I started, but she was having none of it.

"You fuckingasshole." I winced as she hit me with the shoe, trying to fend off her blows with the hand that did not hold the Captain. "Three fucking years and you don't have the fucking decency, the fucking morals to send me a gods all damned message when you get back? You idiot! You imbecile! You. You."

I caught her wrist lightly, having decided I had taken enough physical abuse for one day. She glared at me and pulled back, shoe pointed threateningly at my face. "You asshole."

"I know," I said placatingly. "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry? You'resorry? You're fucking dead and you come waltzing in here, like nothing happened, like you haven't been dead for three fucking years, like I haven't been mourning for you, caring for your brother, who thought you weren't coming back, by the way, even though Sybil and I kept telling him you were dead, not gone, which to be fair he's can't see the fabric of the universe but still, he was a fucking wreck, babe, a fucking wreck and you did that to him, and then you come back, you come back into this realm and you know how I find out? You know how I fucking have to find out?"

"How?" I asked calmly, my fingers lightly running over the Captain's wrist. He had begun shaking as Cass ran towards us; he seemed to be calming down now, his body coming back under his control.

"Fuckin' Dave! He shows up here at my portal, all pissed off, and demands to know why I didn't tell him that my 'lover' was back in town." She snorted; behind me, the Captain started. "Do you know how fucking weird it feels to have to be told something by him? I'm the seer, babe.Me. And he's all, 'he's nameless now', and I'm all, 'well, fuck'. I mean, I guess that makes sense with you dead and all but still. I mean, gods. Nameless? You? With that fucking prophecy? Got me all flustered." She let loose a shiver that shook all her bangles, sending out a series of clinks that echoed through the chamber and sent light radiating out from our position. It took some concentration to keep my eyes on her rather than the light show. "Fucked up the spell I was casting for some poor fucking fisherman; by the way, do you know how fucked the fishing laws have gotten since you left? I've had to do all that work for myself, trying to keep the old treaties with the sirens, and don't get me started on the ways the witches down south think they have the fucking run of -" She stopped abruptly, eyes narrowing. "Who's that?"

I had been expecting this. Actually, I had expected this first. But all things in time. "This," I said, pulling the still slightly shaken Captain forward, "is the Captain."

She stared at him, eyes hard and blue as the sapphires from which she took her name. The Captain's hand tightened in mine.

"Oh," she suddenly exclaimed, sounding surprised. I raised an eyebrow; it was not every day that Cass was surprised. "Oh." Her face softened into a brilliant smile, and I found myself relaxing to see it. The worst was over; this was going to be okay.

Cass stepped forward briskly, enveloping the Captain in a business-like hug. "Well, welcome to the family. I'll go in and make us some tea, shall I?"

And just like that, she was gone, hopping on one foot to replace the shoe she still held.

The cavern was massive in its silence. I waited for the Captain to speak.

"What," he said, "the fuck."

I laughed softly, pulling his body tight to mine. "I'm sorry my love. Cass is..."

"A lot," he finished for me. "This is all kind of a lot." He looked up at me. Those dark brows were drawing closer together as confusion overrode surprise. "You know her?"

"I do." That had been obvious I had thought, but I supposed it was still good to talk about it.

Those brows drew closer still. "How?"

I took a moment to consider how to word it, then decided that there was no point in hiding anything. He was my world. This was a part of that; didn't he then deserve to know the full extent of it? "She's the mother of my child."

"Oh," the Captain said, sounding surprised. Then, again, a bit more subdued, "Oh."

Still I waited on him. This would be okay or it would not. I already knew which he would choose; it was just a matter of time until he arrived there with me.

"Well," he finally decided. "I guess we shouldn't keep her waiting."

I bent down to brush a kiss on his forehead before leading him through the hall towards the door that would lead to Cassandra's home.

***

Cass smiled brightly as we came through the door, her hands already busy with three cups of tea. "You still take yours with sugar, babe?"

I nodded, smiling back. "Dying hasn't changed me so much."

She snorted at that. I knew she would be able to see all the ways in which I was different, all the twists that had come undone. All the ones that had become wound tighter. "And you." She turned to the Captain and gave him a hard look, blue eyes staring out from her black skin just long enough to make him uncomfortable, then burst back into her smile. "Three sugars it is."

"I." The Captain stopped himself, shaking his head. "Thank you, that's most kind."

"Don't be silly, it's nothing. After all, we're family." She left the Captain blinking after her as she turned away.

"Family." the Captain repeated, his voice sounding careful. His body more of the same.

"Of course." She handed his mug to him, then mine to me. I kept my form touching the Captain's as I accepted the delicious brew; no one made better tea than Cass. I sighed deeply as I took the first sip. "You two are married, aren't you?"

The Captain choked on his tea. I slowly lowered mine, noting the twinkle in Cass's eye that told me she knew exactly what she had done. "Most people exist in this timeline, Cass." My tone was dry but level, my heart hammering in my chest. Why did this affect me so? I already knew this; I already had been told that this would be.

She flashed that smile at me and collapsed into a seat, swinging a towel over her shoulder and propping her feet up on the table. In all her kitchen glory, she looked the opposite of homely. "Boring," she told me. "Absolutely boring." Then her eyes traveled back to the Captain. "Besides, the fates have you two twisted up so tight it doesn't really matter if you take your vows. You're already connected, doesn't matter if you say the words."

My hand found it's way to the Captain's. He was standing very still beside me. "We still will." His gaze flashed up to me, unreadable in it's darkness. I smiled back at him and squeezed his hand lightly, the action as much for me as it was for him. "If you want to."

I knew he would. Sybil had told me. Still, I found myself surprisingly nervous to have the question of this laid out there so baldly.

He squeezed my hand back. "Are you asking me to marry you?" he asked, his voice light and he sounded so casual, so easy but his eyes remained dark. Demanding. I found myself unable to repress the shudder the sound shook from my spine.

"Yes," I told him, and he stared at me with such intensity that my very soul quaked.

"You need names to marry, you know," Cass interrupted. I turned to glare at her; just because she knew how this would end did not mean it was okay to take away my own resolution. She shrugged off the sea in my eyes and looked to the Captain. "You'll have to give up your precious protection."

There was a hint of anger in her voice as she said that, and the Captain's eyes snapped up to her. "You don't need protection from a dead man."

"Oh, ho, big talker," Cass replied quickly. "And who the fuck is going to kill -" She froze, seeing the expressions on our faces. Slowly her feet came down from the table, her eyes tracking over our bodies, ending on the our hands still entwined.

"Oh," she said, sounding less than pleased. "Fuck."

"You knew this was coming," I said, not sure it was true.

"I knew you were going to die, find a gay lover, and then show up at my doorstep claiming you're going to kill Dreyfus?" She stared me down.

I shrugged. She was the seer, not me.

"It's not a claim," the Captain said, his voice hard in the space between Cass and I. "Dreyfus is the one - "

"Don't you lecture me, boy. I know what he fucking did." Cass's eyes were blue and sparkling and filled with their own light as they landed on the Captain. His hand tightened in mine. "But that isn't the only reason you're going back to kill him, now is it, Captain Already Nameless?"

The Captain tilted his head back, his jaw set. Cass and he stared each other down for an uncomfortable few seconds.

"Cass," I said, making my voice fit through the cracks this encounter was putting into the space between us. She snapped her gaze to me, angry and engaged, but I merely smiled. "I brought you some things from Sybil."

That instantly melted her, as I knew it would. "Well, hand them over!" I tightened my grip on the Captain's once more before letting him go to move over to Cass.

She took the small tube greedily, opening the cap and spilling rolled papers onto the table. I signaled the Captain to come over and take a seat with us, pulling him onto my lap when he came close enough. He made a noise of surprise, casting a glance at Cass, but she was engrossed in her task of sorting through whatever it was Sybil had sent her. It took some time but he settled against me, close enough that I could feel his heart, his breathing. The way he calmed for me.

I pressed my face into his back and breathed him him, let him surround me, consume me even as I was the one taking his essence into my body. My arms tightened unconsciously around him and he responded, his fingers pressed against my forearms.

"I was serious," I told his back. I said nothing more. I knew he would still be thinking of the words I had said to him, that Cass had drug from our future.

"I know." He was silent for a moment. "It sounded like it was a done deal already."

"It might be." Was that a bad thing? Did he not feel the same as I did? My stomach was tensing, my mind fighting to keep my hands from doing the same. "I was told this would happen."

"Fuck." He paused again, apparently thinking this over. Then; "Do I have a choice?"

I didn't answer. I didn't know; it was possible that he didn't. Worse, it was possible that he did, that he would take that choice and run with it until I was nothing but salt spray to brush from his hair. My hands tightened further, trying to get him to stay. To be with me.

Mine, I thought possessively. Unfairly. Mine forever.

"Fuck," I heard him mutter. He shifted in my lap and my arms fought to hold him, tried to keep him still but he made himself slippery and who was I to think that I could ever contain him? His hands came up to face and I tried to pull away, unwilling to let him see how vulnerable this conversation had left me, how dangerous he was to me but his hands were tight and his fingers were a demand all on their own and I knew he wanted me to look at him and I.