suit of cups | vii

Those first three years, Hawkins and Faust split navigational duties based on what they learned from you, Hawkins from learning to sail with you and Faust from a two-week intensive that threatened to unravel your friendship. They made do with functioning compasses and reliable sea charts, but with you aboard, it was truly smooth sailing.

You were popular with the crew. Why wouldn't you be? Intelligent and beautiful and brimming with humor that Hawkins lacked. The Grudge Dolph had never been so full of laughter. On more than one occasion, Hawkins felt taken back to to those alchemical debates between you and Faust, on the margins of something he understood but couldn't get his hands around. That was when he brooded in his room, staring at his cards, bewildered.

Because there were also the nights where you pawed at his door like a cat, then stretched coyly across the width of his bed asking to see what he read that day, and the two of you argued past midnight between his methods and yours, and sometimes it ended with you straddling his waist on the mattress and kissing him dumb before you flounced down the hall again in a frustrated huff.

"Do you actually dislike reversals," Hawkins would say, "or are you just repeating what we were taught?"

"Yes, I think they're limiting and unrealistic for divination, which isn't fortunetelling, anyway, it's confirmation bias and—"

Rinse and repeat.

It was so very juvenile and so very intoxicating. Being in the galley kitchen with you the next morning made him hot in the face, the pair of you waking up later than anyone else like you weren't critical to determining the ship's course. Faust eyed the two of you like you were making kittens, which Hawkins would very much prefer, but you simply had too much to say. His complement, the sun shining on his moon, articulate and infuriating.

The night he turned the tables, he hovered over you, his hair a curtain around your face as he braced his hands on his headboard, your knees splaying open to hold him.

"Finally," you'd said with a contented hum, licking your way into his mouth.

You still had your opinions and complaints after that, but he found you lost your train of thought if he sat you on his lap and kissed you again and again, sweeter and briefer than what you sought from him, because you really seemed ready to eat him alive.

"Captain" was a cloying, evil word on your clever tongue to the point he considered ordering you to stop saying it. When it came to navigation, you only ever called him his name or "you," but "captain"...

You said it when you left dinner early, pressing your tits against his arm. You said it when you scolded him for his thin shirts, licking your lips like a carnivore. And you squealed it behind his hand as he folded your legs up on his bed, murmuring by your ear to please move into the captain's quarters if only for its thicker walls.

But in daylight, you treated Hawkins the same as ever, serenely ignoring the few of the crew's crude jokes. You poked at his warabide as curiously as you studied his straw dolls and followed his instructions as he taught you basic knife combat. For lack of a proxy, he simply layered his vulnerable areas in straw, and your blade harmlessly slipped between the fibers once you were satisfied you wouldn't hurt him.

One afternoon of sparring, you landed your would-be deadliest blow to his gut after palming his crotch with a wicked grin on your lips.

"You better not try that again," he said weakly, panting as he laid on his back on the ship's gym floor.

"On you, or anyone?"

Instead of taking the bait, he let himself ask what haunted him. "Where did you learn to be such a menace?"

You held out your hand to help him up, and he grasped along your forearm. "I don't know what you mean."

"I think you do." He didn't step back, instead bringing your hand back to where it was, half-tented from your teasing.

Your eyes darkened with mischief. "Here?"

"You started it."

To his shock, you sank to your knees, unbuckling his belt as you went. "Oh—"

You giggled. "You're kind of innocent, captain."

"Aren't you?"

"Hmm." You breathed him through his underwear, and he thought he'd die. "Three years is a long time. You haven't been busy?"

He grunted what he thought was a clear negative. You were all he thought of when the rare urge took him, your sighs and choked little noises before he left you in his childhood bed, how you quivered as you took him and cooed encouragement and thank you's.

"You mean this is all mine?" You kissed the side of his length as it sprang free, looking up at him through your dark lashes.

"Yes," he hissed.

"Interesting," you said conversationally as you started pumping his cock in your hand. "I have a lot to show you then," before slurping his tip into your mouth.

It didn't last long.

Your mouth was hot and inviting, your lips too soft, and you hadn't even taken him to your throat when he spurt and splattered against your tongue. You were so surprised you released him, letting him cum all over your pretty face and neck.

"Fuck," you whispered.

"I'm," Hawkins started, "so sorry, I—"

You licked your lips and moaned quietly as you swept globs of fluid from your skin with your fingertips and sucked them clean, and the sound was somehow more indecent than any full throated cry he drew from you at night.

Hawkins all but dragged you to the bath like an errant beast while you protested you only needed to wash your face, that you didn't mind, that you liked it, which was so beyond his understanding he avoided you the rest of the day, even taking dinner in his room while he, again, conversed with his cards instead of you, like Faust so damningly observed all those years ago. In lieu of the mink, Temperance advised him against the extreme course of never looking at or touching you again, so he knocked on your door.

"What are we doing?" Hawkins blurted as it swung open.

"Hi, Hawkins," you said smoothly. "Would you like to come in?"

Sex was usually reserved for his room and larger bed, so he had no expectations for what tonight would bring, even as you wore a short bathrobe this late that confirmed you'd walked around with traces of him on your skin until now. You wore silver glasses at this hour that glinted more like jewelry, and the ink on the side of your palm told him you were in the middle of some work.

"I can come back later."

You stepped close and snaked your foot around his calf, like a shepherd's crook. "Come in."

Even though he came here with a bone to pick with you, he got a sense of being in trouble that you sometimes instilled in him. It usually had to do with him sulking like this or some technical imprecision on his part, celestial or nautical. Hawkins sat on the edge of your bed with his hands fisted on his knees while you leaned against your desk, arms crossed, which unfairly pushed your breasts up and nearly out of your robe. He swallowed.

"Are we in a relationship?"

You tilted your head thoughtfully, like a crow considering a morsel. "Of course. It's all relationships."

That was one of your stock phrases when you tried to teach Faust astrology, that planets' positions relative to one another were more interesting than their individual placements.

"Don't give me that. What am I to you?"

"Too many things." Hawkins was glad you didn't let such a melancholy, ominous phrase hang in the air when you continued, "You're my captain. My partner in everything. Learning. Sailing. Bed. All of it."

"But..."

"'But?'"

Hawkins exhaled and massaged his brow with his fingertips. "If someone else, like Faust or your cadet or one of the men approached you..."

You guffawed a laugh. "Faust?"

"If another man. Or woman—"

"Not that there's many around here," you said pointedly.

"Would you sleep with someone else?"

You looked at him seriously. "No."

He sighed in relief. "And would you have any feelings if I..."

"You wouldn't. You haven't."

"You're right."

"Does it bother you that I have?"

It was his turn to consider you. You were so vibrant and curious, a star walking on earth, abandoned by her counterpart that he couldn't fairly be upset. Besides, "One of us has to know what we're doing."

"That's another thing." You actually seemed to hesitate, which he didn't think you ever would around this topic. "Your bathing."

"My bathing," he repeated. He didn't expect that.

"I know you've always been like this," you said, "and do I think it's compulsive? Maybe, but I'm biased because I have dry skin and think too much is bad for you. But!" You physically shook yourself from your tangent. "How do you suppose your partner feels when as soon as you're done you need to scrub yourself clean?"

"Well, it's..." He stopped.

"Sex is gross," you conceded. "Of course it is. It's sweaty and if it's any good there better be some body fluids. But it's also natural. And I worry about you being... I don't know, repulsed?" You winced at yourself. "If you want to stop, we can. It's okay not to like sex when you feel like you should. I know I'm pushy. I kind of—"

"No," Hawkins said forcefully, standing up. "I like it. I love it. With you."

You sighed in relief. "Show me."

He closed the distance in your small room with just two strides, and you preemptively tilted your head up to meet his gaze, spreading your legs so he could stand close. You squeaked when he smoothed his hands up your thighs to grab your ass and carry you, pinning you to your nearby bookshelves.

"Holy shit—" you breathed. You made no contact with the floor at all, completely at his mercy, and you hooked one ankle around his waist for stability. He groaned feeling how wet and hot you were, your short robe no barrier at all.

"I can't believe you let me have you like this," he murmured as you undid his pants, a repeat of this afternoon, but more frenzied, more desperate. You pumped his cock a few times before guiding it to your entrance, spreading your lips with your other hand and hissing at the stretch of his thick head. "Careful—"

"Don't wanna. Need you."

Need you.

"I don't want to hurt you—"

"No, I'm ready, I—" You whimpered. "I've been so wet all day. Because of you. I k-kept touching myself."

He held back, controlling the pace, and you whined and thrashed your head against the spines of your books. "You're so spoiled."

"And whose fault is that?" you said hotly. "It's not fair. I missed you so much—"

"Missed me?" he said through his teeth as he buried himself deep. You moaned loudly. "Or missed my cock?"

"You. Both. Both, captain, fuck—"

"And you've had enough to compare?"

"You said it didn't bother you!" you shot back, and Hawkins rolled his eyes.

"I think this is called dirty talk, isn't it?"

"Oh—!" You gasped as he rolled his hips, a slow and sinful grind. "Yes—!"

"I asked you a question." He was confident enough his his core strength and his thighs to take one hand and lightly slap your cheek as he held it. "Hmm?"

"No one—no one's like you," you sputtered as you threw your arms around his neck, your hands wandering along his back, and you looked at him like he was someone new. He felt like someone new. Your partner, your only one.

"What? No one's as big?"

You bit your lip, and he thumbed it out harm's way like he did back them, holding the digit there as you spoke in a pout. "Fuck. No, I've had—thicker—" The thought of some faceless other man stretching you even more almost made him lose composure. "Like that, captain—slow—deep—"

All the while, because you drew his attention to it, he was more conscious than ever of the sweat on both your chests as you clung together, the slickness between your legs that almost made him slip out, how your walls hugged him and pulsed deliberately based on your smug little grimace when he choked at the feeling, the drool pooling in your mouth and on your tongue as you panted like an animal, and he kissed you meaning to drink it in. And it wasn't dirty; it was all you, all the two of you, mixed together, like you were supposed to be.

Your fingers found their way to his scalp and wove into his hair, and he moaned against your mouth at the slight tug to his roots, and you smirked audibly in his ear as you sucked at the skin behind it. "That's it, captain—good boy—" At that, Hawkins took on a new pace, and you squealed as he somehow drove you higher against the shelves, his arms hooking under your knees as he opened you like a book. "Captain—!"

"Cum," he growled against your skin. You moved your fingers from his crown to your clit, rubbing vigorously, sloppily.

"Yes, captain—"

"You test me. Every day—"

"I know, I know—oh—oh!"

His own release came first, again, and he didn't feel ashamed with how you tumbled on after, clamping down like you savored every last drop of him. You hummed lewdly, scratching at his scalp again like he was a dog, and as he softened inside you he thought he wouldn't mind being yours when you took such good care of him.

As Hawkins smoothed lotion on your skin after your first shared bath, you grumbling about its redundancy, he kissed your ankle reverently. "Thank you," he said, running his thumb over the top of your foot.

"For?"

"Guiding me."

It was open-ended, endless, like he hoped your life together was.