[Her own world would not be kind to a man like Vane. There aren't many places that he could have managed, except maybe if he were kinfolk, living away from the bustle of the modern world. Not because she doesn't think he's capable, but civilization isn't just there, it's relentless, shaping the entire planet. Daphne knows it better than anyone.
So better to focus on his, a world that they can both, to a degree, understand, even if Daphne's perspective is as much out of a book as anything.]
If I came ashore and had you waiting for me, I wouldn't give a fuck about anything else.
[coming back to the island - for most pirates, not just him - meant finding a way to either relax or blow off steam as quickly and efficiently as possible, after days or weeks at sea with duty and death far surpassing pleasure. the brothel and the tavern bore most of the weight.
but if he was coming back to daphne, they'd manage both with each other.]
Might depend on my mood, whether I bothered to get you somewhere private first.
[he's definitely teasing her for that. let the whole island know that his woman is right here waiting for him, but her ecstasy would be for his eyes alone.]
You think I would let you just have me like that in front of all your men?
[She laughs a little, but it's not a cruel one. She runs her hand through his hair, to press it back over his ear.]
If I were yours, like that? They can all wonder what the captain's got that they don't, I wouldn't be a whore for anyone to look at.
[She's teasing, too, if it's worth anything right now. She loops one leg over his, and then moves a little to pillow her head with an arm, so she can look at him a little easier.]
I might want you but I'd make you take me somewhere. Maybe I would keep a place of my own.
[just in case there was any doubt, let her be sure that he would demand their privacy too, despite what the occasional trick of duplicity might suggest about him.]
Of course you'd claim something for yourself. One way or the other.
[would she be queen of nassau? probably not. she's enough like him, he thinks, ultimately wanting freedom more than power. she might have seen the island for the toxic thing it was and never bothered to try and take the chair for herself.
maybe he just likes to think she would have made him wiser, too.]
There would be rumors about you. You'd draw attention.
[The sex is incredible, there's no single doubt about that. But the way they talk to each other? The time that they soak in each other? That's what Daphne's living for, right now. This is just as good, hearing his gravely voice plot out a life for them that may be impossible but is still rewarding to hear about.]
That you're a witch. That I'm under your spell. It's always the same.
[he'd heard plenty of them about the woman that flint kept hidden on the island. there were many about eleanor, certainly more than he heard considering his own reputation with her.
although they attributed less magic to eleanor, having to deal with her directly day after day instead of mere rumors of her existence. so they mostly called her a cunt.]
But they'd see for themselves that we don't control each other. If I had to collect a few tongues first, so be it.
I think you just made me a little wetter, saying that.
[Here's the truth of it: Daphne is perfectly and completely capable of taking care of herself. She didn't fight her way to the top without that ability. She's a lawyer; dealing with rumors and wagging tongues is just a part of the game.
But another part of it is that sometimes, it's attractive, beyond attractive, to hear that someone would protect you, even if you could do it yourself. And the fact is that no one has really offered it; generally, Daphne has not been with possessive or protective men.]
You, offering to take someone's tongue for slandering me.
[he chuckles, sifting through her hair again, stroking the back of her neck.]
I'd rather nip it in the bud.
[let her worry about more important things than who's talking shit. he makes a good guard dog, when he chooses for himself to be one. and he would want it to be known that speaking ill of her in his presence would be just as ill-advised as doing it to her face.
he stretches out a little, making himself comfortable on the blankets beside her, loosely tangled with her warm body. as much as he enjoys the fantasy, he's feeling very comfortable in this moment, and curious.]
[She tugs some of the blankets up around herself, and around him too, moving so that she's curled with him, smiling a bit.]
My home?
[She has to think about it for a minute.]
It's hard to talk about home. I travel a lot, between New York and London, I barely spend enough time in either place to consider either of them home. I think if I had the option?
[She breathes in, and thinks about it.]
I want to be somewhere that people haven't destroyed. Sometimes I think of some of wild places still left, in Bengal, and think I could be at home there.
[he props his head up on his arm, very relaxed and deliciously warm beneath the covers with her, despite the cold winter air. lying here with her makes him even more eager to have a proper bed - something with a little more give than several layers of blankets on wood.]
Where are your people?
[her broader clan, perhaps, but also her friends or family, if that's how she prefers to answer. loved ones and the ones she chooses to keep within reach, for whatever reason she has.]
[She tugs a little bit of his hair and starts to braid it, idly.]
My people.
[She smiles a little at that.]
There are seventeen Khan in New York, and twenty-three in London. Four hundred kinfolk, give or take, in the Mid-Atlantic. Jai Ayer is the asshole who controls Boston - he's taking care of my cousin Maia, under the assumption she'll marry him one day, but I don't think that's going to happen.
There are another six or seven hundred kinfolk in London, who mostly report to me, although when I'm not around they take their issues to my aunt Priya.
[She takes a deep breath.]
My mother lives in Los Angeles with my stepfather, and my little sister lives in Miami with her boyfriend. My grandmother is still in York.
Keeping it all together means having to give up the notion of stability. If I give up London to one of the other Khan or to the London Simba pride, then I can't go back. If I give up New York, Ayer will come and make life difficult for my kinfolk.
[She puts one arm over his waist, done with his hair. She just knows she wants to keep touching him.]
It's easier to travel, where I'm from. I can get to London from New York in seven hours, if I need to.
[when she tells him about her world, it's like her voice echoes faintly with the sheer size of it behind her, so much wider and yet infinitely more accessible than the one he'd recognize. it makes him wonder if he would even last in her world; even the tigers are playing games of politics. he's never been able to get the hang of it. negotiations were always jack's time to shine, and the longer they lasted, the brighter he did.
vane's certainly noticing similarities, between the two people that really matter to him in this place.
in any case. he knows quite well what a monumental task it is to bring leaders under one tent, whether literally or figuratively. it took the spanish gold - and vane's astronomically unlikely role as conciliator between flint and jack - to manage it on nassau. in the modern world, he can scarcely imagine the complications, and doesn't particularly want to, either.]
I envy you having the world at your fingertips. But not your responsibilities.
You would like some of them. Killing asura. Demons, is the best translation. Corruptions. Destroying vampires.
[But largely, she thinks he wouldnāt like it. She might call him lion but he would be a Rokea through and through, except heās far too attractive. Disdainful of humans and even of shifters and their politics, keeping to the oceans, destroying anyone who comes too close.
But she doesnāt want to think of him that way. As long as heās not a shifter she can keep him.]
I donāt even like some of my responsibilities.
[She says this next part because theyāre here, in bed (or something like it) together, because sheās easy with pleasure.]
If you were with me, we could take Boston. I would let you give me children. Weād have the fiercest cubs.
[hunting demons sounds fucking cool as hell. the vampires thing, less so, mostly because his limited experience with vampires here in duplicity has been largely inoffensive, so he's got no particular inclination to destroy them. maybe her world is different. demons, though, that goes without saying.
it's the mention of children that makes him quiet. like most pirates who came to the account young, he saw plenty of elders retire inland, take wives, father children. it was almost expected at a certain point, once a man had either stockpiled enough riches to satisfy himself or had simply grown tired of the smell of blood and gunpowder. vane himself could scarcely conceptualize such a thing - until he fell in love with eleanor, and thought for the first time that there might very well be reasons to build something that couldn't be taken by the sea.
that had been an ugly mistake and a hard-learned lesson, the half-formed aspiration killed in its cradle. but it doesn't really matter, here, with daphne conjuring up visions of a nonexistent future. she's talking about things that never could happen, even if he changed his mind.]
I don't know shit about children. [once again, his fingers curl loosely into her hair.] But I imagine you're right, either way.
[She seems unbothered by that fact. It's her duty to have children; she still lives in the kind of world where there is a village to raise a child. Being a shifter means a community that will congregate, make sure that anyone who is part of the family will be well-cared for. But that also doesn't matter, because here, she can't have children, and because she can't take him with her.
What he doesn't know: she's never thought of someone to be a father for a child of hers before. Not really, not since Asher. But she tries to not think very hard about him, in any case.]
[well. it's only fair, isn't it, that she should ask. but vane finds that it doesn't seem to matter to him much. it was so long ago, so far removed from where he ended up. and it's not like she has any of the context that would make admitting such a thing so fucking embarrassing.
still, it takes him a moment or two of silence to answer.]
Thought I did, once. It didn't last.
[he rolls onto his back a little, folding his arm beneath his head, but he keeps the other one tucked around her.]
[No one has said the name "Eleanor Guthrie" in Daphne's presence, so she truly is well removed from the context. She tucks herself in a little closer, and takes a breath.]
Maybe it would have.
[She puts one hand over his chest. A family: she tries to not go any further than that. She doesn't have baby fever and she doesn't really want it, but she thinks that if she spends too much time building that fantasy with Charles Vane, it'll end up breaking her.
So.
Something else. Anything else.]
Can I trade this shirt in for a different one?
[He doesn't have many clothes, she knows it, but she is going to keep one of his shirts close because, well.
[that makes him grin, tucking his head to nuzzle her hair.]
Absolutely.
[hell, he could trade her a shirt every time the scent of him starts to fade. he's already started carving out a niche for himself here, and over time it can only grow; the wardrobe will expand with it. she can have as many of them as she wants.]
But it'll cost you a pair of panties.
[duplicity took the last pair when he disappeared. can you fuckin believe that?]
[Her smile starts slowly, and then she crinkles her nose a little.]
Yes, okay.
[She levers herself up to give him a kiss on the mouth, and looks even more pleased now. She sits up and wrestles her - well, his - shirt off, and nuzzles in closer.]
You know, for a confession that this place forced on me, this turned out pretty well.
[She considers his face, and then moves to straddle him.]
Lay back.
[Why not treat him like a king? Why not give him what he deserves, when she can? He has a nice view of her tits from up there, and she leans down to kiss him, first, cupping his face in her hands.
She kisses him again, and then starts working her way down the length of his body, biting a little as she goes, sharp but not enough to draw blood. In the meantime she reaches between them and cups his cock in her hand, touching him lightly enough that she knows it's probably a bit maddening.]
Tell me how pretty I am.
[She's got that smile on her face, that one that suggests she wants some pure base flattery.
And she gets one nipple between her teeth, toying with it with her tongue like she would tease a woman between her legs.]
he answers that kiss with a low growl of desire, running his hands up her stomach to play with her breasts as soon as they're offered to him. she's moving out of his touch too fast for his liking, but it's fine, because she's headed in a very agreeable direction, and the hands that were molding her breasts are now in her hair instead, and he likes that almost as much.]
Beautiful.
[it's barely in response to her demand; had to be said because it's true. then her teeth catches his nipple and he arches his back with a hiss of pleasure, flexing his fingers in her hair.]
If I had you waiting for me, I wouldn't think of anything else.
[She runs her tongue over his nipple, and kisses down his ribs; she finds a scar that's particularly interesting and presses her mouth to it, and keeps working her way down.]
Keep talking.
[She likes the sound of his voice, especially when he gets aroused, especially when he so clearly wants her. She keeps kissing down his abs, enjoying that flutter of muscle, all the way to the juncture of his leg.
She works his cock with her hand, her tongue flat against the head for a second.]
Tastes like me.
[She says it so he remembers where it was, just a few minutes ago, before she takes him in her mouth, her head gripping the base of his dick, her hand just moving just a touch, just enough to make him crazy.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Is that how it would have gone?
[Her own world would not be kind to a man like Vane. There aren't many places that he could have managed, except maybe if he were kinfolk, living away from the bustle of the modern world. Not because she doesn't think he's capable, but civilization isn't just there, it's relentless, shaping the entire planet. Daphne knows it better than anyone.
So better to focus on his, a world that they can both, to a degree, understand, even if Daphne's perspective is as much out of a book as anything.]
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[coming back to the island - for most pirates, not just him - meant finding a way to either relax or blow off steam as quickly and efficiently as possible, after days or weeks at sea with duty and death far surpassing pleasure. the brothel and the tavern bore most of the weight.
but if he was coming back to daphne, they'd manage both with each other.]
Might depend on my mood, whether I bothered to get you somewhere private first.
[he's definitely teasing her for that. let the whole island know that his woman is right here waiting for him, but her ecstasy would be for his eyes alone.]
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[She laughs a little, but it's not a cruel one. She runs her hand through his hair, to press it back over his ear.]
If I were yours, like that? They can all wonder what the captain's got that they don't, I wouldn't be a whore for anyone to look at.
[She's teasing, too, if it's worth anything right now. She loops one leg over his, and then moves a little to pillow her head with an arm, so she can look at him a little easier.]
I might want you but I'd make you take me somewhere. Maybe I would keep a place of my own.
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[just in case there was any doubt, let her be sure that he would demand their privacy too, despite what the occasional trick of duplicity might suggest about him.]
Of course you'd claim something for yourself. One way or the other.
[would she be queen of nassau? probably not. she's enough like him, he thinks, ultimately wanting freedom more than power. she might have seen the island for the toxic thing it was and never bothered to try and take the chair for herself.
maybe he just likes to think she would have made him wiser, too.]
There would be rumors about you. You'd draw attention.
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[She leans back, sighs, and watches his face.]
What kind of rumors?
[The sex is incredible, there's no single doubt about that. But the way they talk to each other? The time that they soak in each other? That's what Daphne's living for, right now. This is just as good, hearing his gravely voice plot out a life for them that may be impossible but is still rewarding to hear about.]
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[he'd heard plenty of them about the woman that flint kept hidden on the island. there were many about eleanor, certainly more than he heard considering his own reputation with her.
although they attributed less magic to eleanor, having to deal with her directly day after day instead of mere rumors of her existence. so they mostly called her a cunt.]
But they'd see for themselves that we don't control each other. If I had to collect a few tongues first, so be it.
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I think you just made me a little wetter, saying that.
[Here's the truth of it: Daphne is perfectly and completely capable of taking care of herself. She didn't fight her way to the top without that ability. She's a lawyer; dealing with rumors and wagging tongues is just a part of the game.
But another part of it is that sometimes, it's attractive, beyond attractive, to hear that someone would protect you, even if you could do it yourself. And the fact is that no one has really offered it; generally, Daphne has not been with possessive or protective men.]
You, offering to take someone's tongue for slandering me.
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I'd rather nip it in the bud.
[let her worry about more important things than who's talking shit. he makes a good guard dog, when he chooses for himself to be one. and he would want it to be known that speaking ill of her in his presence would be just as ill-advised as doing it to her face.
he stretches out a little, making himself comfortable on the blankets beside her, loosely tangled with her warm body. as much as he enjoys the fantasy, he's feeling very comfortable in this moment, and curious.]
Tell me about your home.
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My home?
[She has to think about it for a minute.]
It's hard to talk about home. I travel a lot, between New York and London, I barely spend enough time in either place to consider either of them home. I think if I had the option?
[She breathes in, and thinks about it.]
I want to be somewhere that people haven't destroyed. Sometimes I think of some of wild places still left, in Bengal, and think I could be at home there.
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Where are your people?
[her broader clan, perhaps, but also her friends or family, if that's how she prefers to answer. loved ones and the ones she chooses to keep within reach, for whatever reason she has.]
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My people.
[She smiles a little at that.]
There are seventeen Khan in New York, and twenty-three in London. Four hundred kinfolk, give or take, in the Mid-Atlantic. Jai Ayer is the asshole who controls Boston - he's taking care of my cousin Maia, under the assumption she'll marry him one day, but I don't think that's going to happen.
There are another six or seven hundred kinfolk in London, who mostly report to me, although when I'm not around they take their issues to my aunt Priya.
[She takes a deep breath.]
My mother lives in Los Angeles with my stepfather, and my little sister lives in Miami with her boyfriend. My grandmother is still in York.
Keeping it all together means having to give up the notion of stability. If I give up London to one of the other Khan or to the London Simba pride, then I can't go back. If I give up New York, Ayer will come and make life difficult for my kinfolk.
[She puts one arm over his waist, done with his hair. She just knows she wants to keep touching him.]
It's easier to travel, where I'm from. I can get to London from New York in seven hours, if I need to.
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vane's certainly noticing similarities, between the two people that really matter to him in this place.
in any case. he knows quite well what a monumental task it is to bring leaders under one tent, whether literally or figuratively. it took the spanish gold - and vane's astronomically unlikely role as conciliator between flint and jack - to manage it on nassau. in the modern world, he can scarcely imagine the complications, and doesn't particularly want to, either.]
I envy you having the world at your fingertips. But not your responsibilities.
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[But largely, she thinks he wouldnāt like it. She might call him lion but he would be a Rokea through and through, except heās far too attractive. Disdainful of humans and even of shifters and their politics, keeping to the oceans, destroying anyone who comes too close.
But she doesnāt want to think of him that way. As long as heās not a shifter she can keep him.]
I donāt even like some of my responsibilities.
[She says this next part because theyāre here, in bed (or something like it) together, because sheās easy with pleasure.]
If you were with me, we could take Boston. I would let you give me children. Weād have the fiercest cubs.
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it's the mention of children that makes him quiet. like most pirates who came to the account young, he saw plenty of elders retire inland, take wives, father children. it was almost expected at a certain point, once a man had either stockpiled enough riches to satisfy himself or had simply grown tired of the smell of blood and gunpowder. vane himself could scarcely conceptualize such a thing - until he fell in love with eleanor, and thought for the first time that there might very well be reasons to build something that couldn't be taken by the sea.
that had been an ugly mistake and a hard-learned lesson, the half-formed aspiration killed in its cradle. but it doesn't really matter, here, with daphne conjuring up visions of a nonexistent future. she's talking about things that never could happen, even if he changed his mind.]
I don't know shit about children. [once again, his fingers curl loosely into her hair.] But I imagine you're right, either way.
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[She seems unbothered by that fact. It's her duty to have children; she still lives in the kind of world where there is a village to raise a child. Being a shifter means a community that will congregate, make sure that anyone who is part of the family will be well-cared for. But that also doesn't matter, because here, she can't have children, and because she can't take him with her.
What he doesn't know: she's never thought of someone to be a father for a child of hers before. Not really, not since Asher. But she tries to not think very hard about him, in any case.]
I suspect I'm not very domestic.
[She looks up at him, then.]
Did you ever want a family?
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still, it takes him a moment or two of silence to answer.]
Thought I did, once. It didn't last.
[he rolls onto his back a little, folding his arm beneath his head, but he keeps the other one tucked around her.]
If it had been you, maybe it would have.
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Maybe it would have.
[She puts one hand over his chest. A family: she tries to not go any further than that. She doesn't have baby fever and she doesn't really want it, but she thinks that if she spends too much time building that fantasy with Charles Vane, it'll end up breaking her.
So.
Something else. Anything else.]
Can I trade this shirt in for a different one?
[He doesn't have many clothes, she knows it, but she is going to keep one of his shirts close because, well.
She likes them.]
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Absolutely.
[hell, he could trade her a shirt every time the scent of him starts to fade. he's already started carving out a niche for himself here, and over time it can only grow; the wardrobe will expand with it. she can have as many of them as she wants.]
But it'll cost you a pair of panties.
[duplicity took the last pair when he disappeared. can you fuckin believe that?]
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Yes, okay.
[She levers herself up to give him a kiss on the mouth, and looks even more pleased now. She sits up and wrestles her - well, his - shirt off, and nuzzles in closer.]
You know, for a confession that this place forced on me, this turned out pretty well.
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No way in hell is this city gonna fuck with you at my expense, tigress.
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Now you're just softening me up for a blowjob.
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I wasn't. But if you're offering....
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Lay back.
[Why not treat him like a king? Why not give him what he deserves, when she can? He has a nice view of her tits from up there, and she leans down to kiss him, first, cupping his face in her hands.
She kisses him again, and then starts working her way down the length of his body, biting a little as she goes, sharp but not enough to draw blood. In the meantime she reaches between them and cups his cock in her hand, touching him lightly enough that she knows it's probably a bit maddening.]
Tell me how pretty I am.
[She's got that smile on her face, that one that suggests she wants some pure base flattery.
And she gets one nipple between her teeth, toying with it with her tongue like she would tease a woman between her legs.]
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he answers that kiss with a low growl of desire, running his hands up her stomach to play with her breasts as soon as they're offered to him. she's moving out of his touch too fast for his liking, but it's fine, because she's headed in a very agreeable direction, and the hands that were molding her breasts are now in her hair instead, and he likes that almost as much.]
Beautiful.
[it's barely in response to her demand; had to be said because it's true. then her teeth catches his nipple and he arches his back with a hiss of pleasure, flexing his fingers in her hair.]
If I had you waiting for me, I wouldn't think of anything else.
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Keep talking.
[She likes the sound of his voice, especially when he gets aroused, especially when he so clearly wants her. She keeps kissing down his abs, enjoying that flutter of muscle, all the way to the juncture of his leg.
She works his cock with her hand, her tongue flat against the head for a second.]
Tastes like me.
[She says it so he remembers where it was, just a few minutes ago, before she takes him in her mouth, her head gripping the base of his dick, her hand just moving just a touch, just enough to make him crazy.]
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