„It's all mine...for a moment.“

Didn't want to dwell on how long the moment would last or what came after. Just let it hang. Her elbows were already halfway out of her sleeves when she remembered to add:

„Don't lean too heavy on the left wall.“ She took a moment – because it sounded funny. And she wasn't joking. „Don't wanna flip us over.“

If this really was a ship's hold – she wasn't sure if that made them crew...or cargo.

The robe slid lower, fabric puddling at her feet as she stepped free. Underneath, a plain linen band wrapped firm across her chest, and workworn underbreeches. Simple sleeping clothes. Comfort had its own kind of confidence. Luckily, the lighting was forgiving.

„Akmal's...“ She never finished it, lips sucking at the fresh nick in her forearm. Wasn't someone supposed to take care of the rusty hooks? She would get on someone's case about it in the morning.

What she couldn't suck away, she smeared away with the other hand. It wasn't enough to harm. But it did humble.

And then she laughed. At herself. Because what else could you do?

„...Need help?“ She asked, finally looking up at him.
 
For a moment — plenty, then?

He hummed a laugh at the vagueness of it, watching her slip out of her dress. Was she rushing? The heavy grey of his wadmal coat fell to the floor in a frump, disturbing the dust.

“ Left wall — “ He acknowledged without looking, having an eye for only one thing at present. “ Aye, got it. “ The knit about his neck went next, urged loose with an index and slid off with the twist of a wrist. Let it go as well to the tune of her wanton injury and laughter that struck a strange cord, an utter tonal dissonance.

Or was it just in line with the rest, the absurdity of tonight, the strange balance of awkwardness and ease. Thrill, desire and amusement simmered beneath the skin, fighting for purchase on his face that regarded her with something resembling admiration. Inspectorial, rowing over the exposed and unexposed inches, alighting on her mouth when she inquired whether he—

Needed help? He rose a brow at it, humbling his expression.

“ Maybe. “ Shrugged and stepped closer, as close as it was to be without touching. His head keeled, chin lifting as he indicated the collar of his shirt. Closed up for warmth.

“ How are you with buttons? “
 
She tiptoed to close the small gap. One arm came up, backhand brushing his cheek as a clawed finger hooked the edge of his jaw. Stayed there like she needed to brace herself. Really, she only needed to steady the wounded one. The scrape down her forearm still wept, threatening to turn his shirt into evidence if they weren't careful.

The other hand found the top button and pulled against it in a movement too precise to be struggle. Slow. One at a time.

„Careful.“ Mischief in her voice, and play in her tail – tickling just behind his knee. „or we'll get blood on your shirt.“

The smile didn't fade, but her eyes went quieter as she looked up at him. At this distance, she could smell salt and the sweat off them both. But there was also warmth there, somewhere. Underneath. This wasn't a story you could tell without giving something away. Maybe that was the way it should be.
 
Softest touches, the flow of water over a parched, stonewashed deck. A content breath blew out through his nose, deep from within the chest and warm for it. He narrowed his eye at the warning and the wound, undeterred, hand reaching to cradle her wrist.

“ We are not careful people, you and me, I don’t think. “ He stated with some conviction, bowing his head to lick the blood off in one long stroke. More bloomed out from the scrape as he looked at it, that inmost colour of hers feathering out on the trail of spit. He pressed his grip on it.

“ But this is my better shirt. “ Out of the two, as required by every ship of every sailor. Shoreworn. He spoke nonchalant, a tone of invitation and daring to it. His eye reflected much the same, pretend coyness gone.

“ Take it off me or spill on it. Your pick. “

Letting go of her arm, he leaned his face closer to kiss her on the mouth.
 
She could've slammed him into the wall. And the temptation was there as the thought rose in fire between her ribs. Fingers twitched in the learned way of a thing too good, too sudden. She wanted to grab the collar he'd offered, press him back until the wall creaked and the hooks rattled – and dare him to speak

But something stopped her.

You could call it fear. But that wasn't true. Not exactly. It was just a quiet whisper of danger. That if she pressed too hard she might break something. Break him. So she didn't – not when he'd braved spirits and worse just to come close. Not when his breath still tasted of her name.

So she just melted into the kiss instead.

Her hand stayed at his jaw, doing its best to stay soft. And failing. The other slipped beneath his shirt, to claim, to feel. His skin was warm and worn leather.

„Guess we'll ruin it slowly.“ She whispered against his mouth.

Her tail wound tighter around his shin lazily. Possessive, but tender in a way she didn't care to examine.

She allowed the kiss like she meant it. And went for another like she didn't want it to end.

Wanted to bite him, but didn't want him to bleed.
 
He met the hand exploring his body as she had the kiss, leaning into it. She spoke of ruin so certain he hadn’t but to conclude she’d partaken in it many a time before — caused it, dealt it, kept walking into it, just watched it happen. Something about the way even her tail seized him, tender yet uncanny.

“ I’m an old man, darling — “ He broke off the kiss belatedly, muttering low to the inches of air as he ran his fingers along the curve of her side. “ Slow is all I do, these days. “

Resting his hand on her waist, he slipped down to his knees on the floor. Made a geriatric rumble of a groan on his way down for effect, tongue held betwixt his teeth that bared as if out of effort. The floor beneath him made much of a similar sound, worn and crooked and stiff at the joints. He wouldn’t glance up at her, sliding his hand towards the waistband of her unmentionables. Hooked two fingers there and pulled downwards.

Taking his merry damn time with it, as if savouring every new inch of skin.
 
The fingers at her edge tickled, but she was too old to flinch. That was for younger people, and it had been some time since she felt as anything other than old enough. She raised an eyebrow at his elderly performance but didn't interrupt.

She wasn't sure what she'd been before the kid. But she knew it was something different. Her hips were fuller now, her skin looser, a history written in stretch and give. She didn't shave down there, not anymore. No point. Just kept it cropped short for ease and comfort. Used to be...well. She was practical now. But he didn't seem to notice, or blink. Just looked like ruin and hunger both, and that would have to be enough. So she bit back the old man barb, and kept quiet. Took the compliment. Let him look.

Her tail swung wide and knocked over something metal in the deeper dark. The clatter spoke of tin – but she really didn't care enough to know what it said. She'd know come morning. If there was something to know. Then the tail curled again, slower. Because it was no longer grabbing a leg. It slowly reached out to the unfinished arm – the one that ended early.

Because that's what fire was. It took. Without asking which part of you had stoked the flame.

Her claws found the wrap at his head, catching the folds. A slow drag. She wasn't tugging...yet. But the threat was clear. A small promise.

„I might unwrap you next.“ Like she was asking permission, as the fabric slowly pulled away.
 
She was— trying at the parts he preferred to forget about. Ignored, as everyone save for children and some suspecting employer pretended to do, even if their notice was just all the clearer in how they forced their eyes to look at anything else. Or away altogether, for fear of being caught staring, attention catching on what their minds craved to make sense of. Something interesting, morbid curiousity? Actually seeing him.

The coverings were like an empty space, for everyone’s comfort. They didn’t like looking, unless it was to speculate, and he didn’t like being looked at or speculated about. It worked out.

Until it didn’t. Someone was getting plenty daring, but suppose it was expected. She had those eyes that liked to see things. And hands and manners that picked at wounds, whether she meant to or not.

“ You wouldn’t. “ He spoke it as one did a fact, firm and devoid of humour, even as she tugged. It would’ve been beneath him to pull away or stop what he was doing, so he didn’t. What was anything anymore, when he was already on his stupid old knees on the floor.

He let her underbreeches go before they were properly off, brushing his hand up along the inside of her thigh. Light and then less so, urging her legs apart. Not asking permission.
 
Her hands froze as soon as the words left his mouth. She could've shushed him and told him not to be afraid – as if that was how it worked. As if she had any right to. Arms slid down to grab his cheeks instead.

She didn't back away. But she wasn't going to force him, or his fear, to be owned. Vyn had no owners. So how could she ever press such a thing on someone else?

Pulled his head up. He could hide beneath rags and between her legs later – but now, this moment, he needed to look at her.

„You're with me now.“ Matter-of-fact. Because it was true. „All of you.“

And softer, but without any confidence lost:

„But I won't...until you ask for it.“

She would've spread wings, if she had 'em. But legs had to be enough. The fabric slid most of the way down before her own shift caught it. Neither nude nor dressed. Right at the edge.

„Slowly.“ She commanded.
 
He wouldn’t fight the invitation, gazing up at her in deadpan surrender. She was terribly attractive, and he imagined she was saying attractive things, the right things, but he failed to feel anything but a strange lurch in his chest. All?

What remains, you mean. Some old version of him may have retorted as much, all acid and bitter hurt. But there had never been any satisfaction in that, threadbare and ultimately uncomforting as lashing out towards attempted kindness usually was.

He would’ve been right, but so was she. This was less than there used to be, but it was also all that there was and would be. He had acknowledged that as the truth even back when he’d yet been unable to accept it. His lot — perhaps he had since, even if drink and getting cursed had a way of inflicting a man with irrationale and sentimentality.

Because what the fuck was his life, really? To remind himself of what it was in actuality at the acute present, he pressed his palm to the warmth betwixt her legs. Stared at her as he stroked over the hairs and the slit just to feel for it, watching that expression that’d gone from softness to commanding. He sure as fuck was with her, right now, in this wagon. No rivals, no distractions, none to save either of them, just the company of two. Was’t that enough?

It was so much, in fact.

He let the gravity fall off him, corner of the mouth curling with the hint of a disarmed smile. His look dipped away and he pressed a kiss beneath her navel, then lower. He caught one of her hands cradling his face, slipping it down his neck and beneath his shirt through the wide open collar. Pressed those claws there, against the skin of his shoulder. Touch me.

“ Slowly. “ He agreed against her skin as he sunk a little lower, urging her to plant a foot on his thigh as he pulled her closer. To steady and offer room as he keeled his head to put his mouth on her cunt.
 
She nodded as he gave her own words back.

Her foot found his thigh, and pressed down, anchoring. One hand strummed his clavicle, off-key. The other laid claim to the skin of his back, clawed fingers etching the faintest script. Not the name he'd given her – but the one she'd given him.

Remember.

It wasn't a binding sigil. Not really. That was for paler things. But as the moment hung in the balance – it too had a name. And flesh would remember in pain what the heat might make it forget.

She didn't need to speak. The rest of her of her said plenty. The tail struggled with the correct shape, twitching with each new sensation. And then it shot out, whipping his shoulder, her calf, and finally the floor. Bruising them into flesh, into Wagonwood, into time.

Her hungry lean never fully steadied. Betrayed at the knees.

And whether it was him or her that ran down the thigh – she didn't care.
 
A quieter one, her. And he may have felt self-conscious for it, like he’d finally failed her when it mattered most, had the body he toiled upon not twitched as hers did. Where his tongue and lips weren’t, his fingers caressed and stroked in vague circles, pressing against the harder parts within the soft and malleable.

She tasted of a long day, warmer skin and something faintly sweet. Like a kiss, which frankly just tasted of spit and sometimes the bitterness of burned herb and whatever the last drink. A fragrant dive that even one used to breathing water couldn’t endure without surfacing for air, even if it was wet. If it was good, anyway.

His exhale left him in a strained huff, hot with a desire that boiled from his chest all the way down to his groin. Her touches on his skin, all of her in his mouth, sucked and eaten up — the front of his breeches was filling up with his cock, warm grey fabric growing taut.

Swallowing hard and drawing in a breath like a man bracing for a wave, he gripped the foot propped on his thigh and slid it on his crotch. Pressed it there, stifling a curse.

Thrice-fucked devils in a handbasket.
 
Her toes pressed further, claws lining the edges of it. Of him. The pressure grew more deliberate, a predator pinning down its prey. Slow enough that you could mistake it for mercy. Or time. But both were luxuries. Not ones she often got.

The tail had already played them both, played the Wagon, like a drum. And now her breath was starting to catch too loud. It made her check herself. Ears flicking toward the Wagon door. Just in case. Elum Wagons weren't known for thick walls.

They weren't much for foreplay, either. There was afterplay, if there was time. After the meal, after the Road allowed them to. And even then, it was rare. No – this quiet indulgence was a soft and stolen sin.

But tonight she'd earned a little wickedness. She could afford it.

So she twisted her heel, not too hard, just enough to put the fear of the Eight into them both.

„Are you asking me...“ Thought interrupted by breath. „To unwrap you?“

And all those teeth remembered how to be sharp.
 
She applied the pressure he’d invited her to with such vigour it pried a moan out of him, half agony half pleasure. For the weight and the shifts he could feel the throb of his nethers just for how furious it was, blood surging. The hard of the heel only encouraged it, his face soliciting and involuntary twist as his body shuddered, hips angling to feebly thrust against her sole.

The sound of her breaths made his heavier. At her prying words, his eye cracked open to look straight up at her. Dangerously, fuse of his patience ablaze and burning fast.

“ Yes. “ He hissed through bared teeth, a shark’s grimace against the mound of her cunt. He wouldn’t ask what he was agreeing to, well past giving a damn. The heat on his skin was burning, catching on his clothes that clung to what craved to be free.

Let her look. Whatever she wants.
 
No incense or ceremony, the pinch of her claw traveled up his spine – and just like that the head was bare. There was no time to get a proper look. Hunger consumed what little thought was left. And the smallest bits of light had to be focused on the task at hand. She could not quite reach all the buttons from her current angle – but she didn't want to push him away either. She unbuttoned what she could. Grabbing at his pits and tickling upwards.

„Arms. Up.“ It was not a request.

Foot stayed right there. Caught between desire to retreat and inflict.

Everything needed to go.

She didn't tear it off him, though she could've. So she burned instead – because anyone could take. Vyn wanted to be given. A small counterforce to how the world worked.

But fuck 'em all.
 
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