Chapter Text
Marie doesn't know what possesses her. Perhaps it's the ale. It's almost certainly the ale. After the slight debacle with Vasco’s brother, well. She knows that sort of bravery hurts, so she came to the Naut barracks and offered, Want to drink and not talk about it? and they’ve certainly been getting down to that. But perhaps it's how easy Vasco is to trust: his wry, quiet curiosity makes her want to keep talking. Even when he was closed-off and eyeing her like she might bite him, or more likely look down her nose at him, she always wanted to try.
It begins like this:
She says, "Not that I'm not glad of your company, but… why don't you drink with your crew? They all seem so fond of you. And I know you miss them."
He looks at her a moment, and then away, into his tankard. "It's a good life, on a ship, if you accept what it is. But rank is part of that. Or at least, I chose that. It sets you apart, at times," he admits, and she's certain he wouldn't ever have said so much without the drink in him. "I suppose that's why I thought…. unconditional acceptance, without rank, without orders. Just an understanding of a bond." His voice is quiet, and there's still barely hidden pain in it. He looks down the bar, and she suspects it's so she won't see his face. "I… ignore me, de Sardet. The drink's gone to my head."
She tries not to stare. He's always seemed so… matter-of-fact, so low in his expectations. She naively thought he'd accepted it all before they ever met. But now she remembers the way his eyes lit up when he laid them on his family name, and her heart aches. "You deserve that," she says softly, and blames the ale. Perhaps they aren’t good enough friends for that sort of thing. And he says such earnest things, but always seems so uncomfortable when sentimentality is directed at him, as if he’s not used to it.
He turns his head sharply, and looks at her, and for a moment he looks like he’s been punched somewhere soft – and then it’s gone again, that careful calm in its place. That captain-surveying-the-territory, man-at-her-back-with-a-hand-on-his-poisons-belt wariness. She respects it, but she needs to get past it; she needs him to know, because such things should be obvious. Sometimes she forgets that not everyone had a mother, a cousin, who loved them. And because he's a good man, hard as he sometimes pretends not to be.
She pushes on, before she can lose her nerve: "Everyone wants to be accepted, to be loved. You deserve that as much as anyone. More than most, I might say."
For a moment Vasco just looks at her, eyes dark and thoughtful in the lantern-light – and then he swallows, and takes a heavy drink. He says, after a moment, "I have that. And so do you, I thought.” His eyes are on her again, that way that makes her feel a little… dissected.
Marie nods to try and find her bearings again, the way she has to around him more than anyone else. “My family? They’re wonderful. Well, my uncle has his duties, but my mother – “ She realises, then, all over again. She looks away, in case he’s watching her crumble under the weight of the knowledge. He always sees so much, too much. She inhales, and tries again. “My mother loved me very much. She was always a voice of reason. And Constantin is… the opposite of a voice of reason, but he bolsters me the same way. We’ve always cared for each other. Looked after each other. You know how it is.” A slip she wouldn’t have made were she entirely sober, and she feels like an utter thoughtless idiot.
Mercifully, he doesn’t pull her up on it. Instead he just says, “I’ve seen you together. It’s obvious how much you care about him.” He tilts his head and works his jaw just a little, clearly considering whether to say something, frowning. And then he leans on his elbow, and she knows he must have drunk a bit because usually he’s far less obvious about pretending to be casual. "But if I might say, it must be difficult, at court, having to keep up appearances. I don't know how you stand it."
She raises a brow, and says sardonically, "Really, captain?"
He tilts his head. "You have a point. Your crew are your family, when it counts, but you're still leading the ship. I don't blur lines too much with them. It wouldn't be right. I need them to respect me when we're in a storm."
"When you're ordering them about?"
He half-smiles, that brief little thing that carries so much, and nods. "But most of the people I speak to are my crew – we still look out for each other. The courtiers don't seem to do the same for you. It's more like…” He pulls down his hat, and grimaces. “...A nest of vipers."
She snorts. "Oh, it's not so bad. There are excellent cakes, fine wines, extravagant hats…"
"Still," and his eyes are sharp and curious, and she's never been able to lie well to him when he turns that gaze on her, "it must carry its own sort of loneliness. The court has never seemed to value things like friendship, or love." He looks into his drink. “Not that Nauts aren’t also careful about such things.”
"Oh, no. They don’t. Love is, on the whole, a terrible idea." Marie takes a sip from her tankard, and says against the rim, "You find the odd friend, or you study, or sometimes you throw yourself into parties. Or you ask one of those friends to take the edge off."
He raises a brow and she realises what she's said, embarrassment flooding her. She puts her tankard down with a swift clank.
She says, "Don't tell me you've never done it."
Still that sharp, dark look, but it's a little amused now. "What, because I'm a Naut?"
"No, because you're…" She waves a vague, despairing hand at him. Gorgeous, and charming when you want to be, and so good at everything else. It’s obvious.
Yes, he's definitely amused now, the bastard. His eyes search her face. "I'm...?"
The words fall from her mouth like grain from a broken bag – a small disaster that gathers momentum. "Well, anyone in their right mind would – not that that's some sort of, of proposition – but of course if you ever wanted to I'd be very happy to – oh by the Light, ignore me." She claps her hand to her mouth, then puts her hands over her eyes. "I'm never drinking again." After a long, silent moment, she looks up, grimacing.
Vasco is watching her with that quiet, dark curiosity, a brow raised, and yes, he’s still just a little amused. He says, "To answer your question, yes. There are those from other ships, and I've found the odd land-dweller.” He sobers, and says, “It's always easier with someone you know. Someone you trust to watch your back." His voice is quiet, and he’s still looking at her. No... assessing her, eyes flitting over her face in the dim light of the bar.
He can’t be – this can’t be – She stares back, and tilts her head. Waits for the half-awkward joke or something about how of course, he didn’t mean her.
It doesn’t come. He just watches her, brow still raised as if to say, Well?
Marie thinks her mouth opens. He follows that with his eyes too, and her foolish skin tingles like he’s just run a finger over her lips, and his eyes are back on hers and of course this is all some sort of elaborate – (Oh, it's in her head now, in the darkness behind her eyelids. The idea of how he might look under those linen shirts and those tight captain’s trews. What his fingertips would feel like on her skin, if his hands would be rough from a sword. If she could make him smile, really smile the way he does sometimes. If he'd still laugh with her. What he’d sound like when he lost control, if he’d let her see it – no. No no no no no no. That is a very bad idea. That is a terrible idea and he deserves better than her thinking all this. But by the Enlightened, he’d probably be – no, absolutely not) – some sort of elaborate joke. He can be as dry as her, sometimes.
She takes a heavy swig of her ale, and calls his bluff. “Of course, if you’re ever feeling lonely, it’s always a delight to have a dashing captain in my chamber.” She laughs, and it comes out too high, too… everything. “Not that I’ve had any. But there’s a first time for everything!” Yes, that laugh is definitely hanging on by a thread.
“I’ll bear that in mind,” Vasco says, dry as a desert, returning to his own drink.
She doesn’t know why it feels like she can breathe again.
Vasco wakes with an aching head and the awareness of having done something reckless. He lies there, squinting, and has a vague memory of de Sardet's eyes on his, dark and curious and hot – Tides. Now he remembers.
He’d dismiss it out of hand as a failed jest, or just the drink talking, but the look in her eyes – “anyone in their right mind would…” – would want to lie with him, apparently. “Not that that’s some sort of proposition,” she said, but the look in her eyes, the sudden heat in them, just for a moment, and the way she looked him over, like the thought of fucking him was suddenly real to her for a split second before she yanked herself back into her embarrassment…
And he was as bad. “It's always easier with someone you know. Someone you trust to watch your back.” Three steps from a proposition of his own, and from the way she looked at him with that surprised consideration, she knew it. He’s damn lucky she didn’t duel him for that. (No, she looked at him like that, and then said, “If you're ever feeling lonely…”)
Vasco gets up. He splashes cold water over his face and hopes it might shake him out of his thoughts. No, he's still thinking of her as he performs his ablutions. He shaves, the air cold on his skin, and tries not to eye himself in the mirror. Or wonder what she’d see if she were here, him naked in these quarters that would probably seem like a broom cupboard to her. ( “Anyone in their right mind would…” ) What would she think of the tattoos and scars he glimpses in the glass, the marks of a lifetime's sailing? They’re things he’s always been proud of, but he doesn’t know… he doesn’t know if a noble would think the same. Other bedpartners have found him attractive, and he knows he’s far from ugly, but none of them have been royalty. She’s spoken of the odd liaison, or at least implied it. They’ve all seemed to be with other nobles, fashionable and powdered. Perhaps that’s her type. (“Sailors?” he remembers the Countess de Veronne scoffing to her companion, as they watched everything being loaded into the hold. “They’re stringy and tanned like old leather. Perhaps if you like jerky.” And beside them, he carefully stood still and kept control of his face, hands behind his back.)
And yet he doesn't find de Sardet unattractive when she's in expensive silk, hair-tied and with those impractical block-heeled boots that make her taller even than him, or many of the men who wear them. Quite the opposite. She looks like this was what she was meant to do; it must be how he looks, the best days on his ship. She's straight-backed and strong, green eyes level, hair shining. Even her court smile is something to see. And yet she wouldn't be his usual type, either – not when she's at court, at least.
He remembers seeing her at the docks in Serene – knowing instantly that this was a client, his or at least some captain's. (He’d prepared himself for the inevitable, Where can I find the Sword-fish? or, I was given directions but all your boats look the same to me.) The fine cut of her clothes, the gold thread and the silk; the sharp noble face, a court portrait or an alabaster carving waiting to happen. The pallor, not due to illness or powder but the lack of having to work backbreaking hours in the sun.
And no princeling. The tide weighing on them and the day wearing on sharply, time spilling as sand from a shattered glass. He’d known he'd be killed if he'd lost the prince's son. A few tattoos and a rough accent make you the perfect scapegoat. He'd been told to look for a tall, leggy blond with a… startlingly jubilant manner. The woman before him was tall, yes, one of the tallest women he'd seen on the Continent. Leggy? Yes, though he’d tried not to notice it. The easy confidence of title was there. But her hair was the colour of mahogany, and there was a green mark of Tír Fradí wending its way from her jaw. And she’d looked wary. A fine face – intriguing, if you liked that kind of thing, but she was probably about to try and end his career.
She’d raised her eyebrows; one of the rare nobles that hadn't had dealings with his guild before? He’d waited for her eyes to scrape over his ink-scars, his jewellery, the judgement or the careful categorisation of beneath notice – and was surprised when her gaze met his, uncertain but… not without respect. Certainly not without curiosity. In return, he did her the service of not staring at her mark, the first he’d seen on the Continent.
("You know my first thought?" she told him, months later, after they'd found his file. "What an interesting man. Intelligent, too." And the blunt praise was strange to hear. "It's a shame that he hates me." She snorted.
Vasco had stared at her in confusion. "I don't… hate you."
"Oh, I know. But you didn't do the best job of showing it, those first weeks on land. Still, I would have been out of sorts, too."
Guilt rose so hard and so fast it threatened to sink him. "I didn't hate you then, either." His voice was softer than he’d meant it to be.
She only grinned at him. "I wouldn't have blamed you if you did. You'd been fired and shoved into my retinue."
“De Sardet…” He looked for the words. You were kind when I had no idea what to do with kindness. Also brave, and honourable. I couldn’t hate you for more than two minutes at a time . He took a heavy drink. “I’m glad you’re my friend,” he admitted.
Her face lit up in a way he hadn’t expected.)
He doesn't know when he realised how her face softens when she smiles. De Sardet, the prince's niece, with her severe face and her careful words – and her gentleness. Sometimes at camp she'll walk back from the river without her layers, shirtsleeves rolled up and fabric clinging just a little to her skin. He's caught glimpses of the odd silver scar on her hands, her forearms; the shape of small, high breasts; that swirling mark of the island on the swanlike elegance of her neck. Strength and scars and grace, the pink of her lips and the flush she gets sometimes after a fight… She's so pale. He wants to see how far that flush would stretch; wants to see where her mark ends, somewhere under the open collar of her shirt; wants to see wiry muscle and pale skin and the curves of her. Tides, he wants to see the rest of her. (In the privacy of his room, he bites his lip and finally admits it to himself. Best to feel it, get it out of the way, and put it aside.)
He remembers her telling Siora, after the healer was insulted by colonists, “What nonsense. You look beautiful. Your… branches are very elegant,” with that utter painful sincerity. Or telling him, “A fine coat!” with admiring eyes, asking him to turn for her after she'd made modifications. “ Anyone in their right mind would…” “a dashing captain…” So perhaps it's not about usual types at all. Clearly her interest must not just lie with other nobles. He's seen her eyeing his tattoos and the kohl round his eyes once or twice; she's subtle about it, and he's sure most of the time he hasn't caught her, but he always waited for the inevitable question about, Why? What does it mean? Perhaps those looks weren't just curiosity but… admiration. Desire, even.
…It doesn’t matter. De Sardet won’t be touching him. He won’t be touching her, either. It was an off-colour joke, nothing more. Best not to get dragged under by it. The trouble is… he wants it. He watched her consider him last night, and realised he was considering her back. It hit him, when she looked at him like she wanted him – her beauty, and her strength, and how thoughtful it had been of her to take him out for drinks that night, offering him a chance to forget his troubles for awhile. She's always so damn thoughtful.
His shaving done, Vasco turns stubbornly from the glass, and avoids meeting his own eye.
She was drunk, he tells himself furiously as he dresses. He sits to put on his stockings and a small voice in his head says, She knew what she was saying. And she wouldn't be drunk if you asked her now.
It's de Sardet, he snarls, and his mind responds, slyly, Exactly. It's de Sardet.
No. He shakes his head against the thought, and even that feels like letting it have too much power. She's your friend, you idiot. And she’s stuck with you on the road for months on end.
He flexes his hands against the supple leather of his gloves – the ones she made for him. They’re very fine. He checks his powders and poisons, the pouch of shot, his pistol – the pistol she gave him, her very first gift. It’s the best gun he’s ever owned. De Sardet bought it for him not long after finding his file for him, and he hadn’t known what to do, had wanted to repay her. He wasn’t used to receiving gifts, especially not ones so nice as that. She’d tried to demur, insisting that it was a gift, and then gave in and asked him for a story in exchange, and he had stayed late by her fire that evening, answering her questions, baffled and wary and rather touched.
Vasco likes her. She’s charming. She’s clever. She’s wickedly funny, and terrifyingly good to him, and she called him dashing. His mouth feels dry. Is it really so unreasonable to want a woman like that in his bed? He meant what he said: it is always easier with a friend. She’s been a good friend, and clearly, she wants him. He hadn’t known that. Truth be told, he hadn’t quite known he wanted her, either. But knowing it, having had both those realisations in quick succession…
Vasco grits his teeth and forces himself out of his reverie. Fully dressed, he leaves, slamming through his door too fast and then turning to lock it. He heads out of the bunkhouse and is almost blinded by the New Serene sun; Vasco tugs his hat down hard to protect his eyes, as if in doing so, he can screw his head on right. He's going to have to get over these thoughts fast. On the journey to the Silver District, preferably. He has to meet de Sardet at her house for the last discussions before they set off for nearby patrols. (Problems on the city outskirts, apparently. Nothing out of the ordinary. If anything, skirmishes and rampant cruelty are mind-numbing in how entirely ordinary they are.)
She opens the door to him, and her face lights up. It suits her. That doesn't help at all.
"Vasco!" she says, delighted. A lock of chestnut hair is falling onto her forehead from its neat tie-back; the rest of her is immaculate. She's wearing a waistcoat with some intricate sort of embroidery that would probably cost him half a year's wages, and her boots are polished with a stubborn optimism, despite the journey they're about to embark on. (It says something about her, that optimism, whether it applies to the grubbiness of footwear or people.) She looks good, but then, she always looks good.
He tips his hat. "De Sardet."
"The others aren't here yet," she says. "Tea?" She starts through to her parlour. That just gives him a view of her backside, the nip of her waist in that tight tailoring. It's a rather fine backside, but he's not normally considering it in this much detail. And that confident, long-legged walk… Tides, she's tall.
"I'd like that," he manages, and sounds reasonably calm despite his tongue feeling too big for this throat. (“You'd never believe she used to hunch!” Constantin said once, idling in the throne room. Vasco frowned and said, “What? Why?” and Constantin replied, “They used to tease her for it at court. Her height. Said it was inelegant, unladylike. My poor cousin just about used to fold herself in half.”)
I'd fold her in half, if she wanted me to. Vasco tries to kick that part of his brain into the hold. It's just that… unladylike? Inelegant? She's the perfect height to hold. She could tuck her face into his neck. And he wouldn't even have to duck down to kiss her – an inch or two, if that. It would be so easy. He could easily kiss her while he – Tides, less of that. He's her friend, and a decent man, normally. She deserves better. (Except he remembers, “Anyone in their right mind would…” and wonders if she's looked at him this way. If she's thought of having him, if she's looked at his face and his body. He wonders why that thought creates a pleased spark in his chest.)
He sits, and carefully thinks about scrubbing vomit belowdecks, while de Sardet hangs the kettle above the fire and bustles about. She already had two teacups at the ready, he finds, with some amusement. He wonders if he's so predictable.
There's a knock at the door, a quiet one. Vasco listens and carefully doesn't reach for the pistol at his hip. He suspects it's… Yes, de Sardet hurries to open the door and that's her housekeeper, Cecile, poking her head into the gap. Cecile’s eyes flit from the two cups, to him where he's hovering close to an armchair, feeling suddenly guilty, then back to de Sardet. Cecile says, "Madame… biscuits?"
De Sardet’s back is to him, but he knows her well enough to hear the pleased raise of her brows. Especially when something sweet is involved. She says, with sparkling cheer, "That would be lovely. Thank you."
They're both sitting, tea poured, when the door opens again and a silver plate of biscuits is swiftly placed in front of them. He offers Cecile a small smile of thanks; she raises an assessing brow in response, the way she always does. Vasco's never sure whether the woman's uncertain of his intentions towards de Sardet, or whether she just thinks he'll track brine and mud onto the floor. Nobles make trade deals with his guild often enough. Is it really so unusual, a Naut captain sitting in a de Sardet’s parlour, sharing a pot of tea with her? It’s hardly the first time they’ve done this.
The door closes just as de Sardet makes a small, startled noise – a pleased one. He looks back to her swiftly as she says, bright as the shine on a glass, "Cecile brought my favourites!" The little colourful ones that seem to take about five weeks to bake, he thinks. He examines them, jotting a note in his mental ledger. She’s so busy, and sometimes, when she thinks he’s not looking, she seems exhausted. Best that she finds small moments to be happy. If he can help her with that at all... She bites into one and makes a surprised little hum, eyes closing. It's a soft, smoky noise. He likes it.
…Would she make that noise if he kissed her? The thought is a riptide that drags him utterly off-course. But that quiet little note of surprised pleasure, when she knows something will come but she’s still happy to have it – whether she'd smile into a kiss, smile at him afterwards – if it’d be the same, the sweep of her lashes as she opened her eyes again –
Not the first time you’ve thought of it, something in his mind whispers, and he shuts it up. Only once or twice. He takes his tea and drinks it swiftly, so he won't say something stupid. The heat stings a little, but it also helps centre him. He hasn't been a fool like this in a long time. He wonders if it's being landlocked, or just that it's too damn long since he's had any sex. (Too long in pursuit of his captaincy, too long putting the personal aside – family, new gear, having the odd night of fun, all things he said he'd allow himself later. No wonder his crew think – thought – he has a stick up his backside.) He's nearly twenty-five, not some idiot randy lad. But you don't meet someone like de Sardet every day, his mind whispers, traitorously.
“You know,” she says, dipping a second biscuit into her tea, “I passed some Thelemic preachers on my way here. They were round about your area.”
He raises a brow over the rim of his cup, trying to pay attention – especially when there might be a ruckus involved. “In the Port Quarter?” he says, cup held in mid-air in his surprise.
De Sardet nods. “They didn’t seem to be causing any trouble. Or seem to be particularly loud. At least they weren’t accompanied by any of the Luminis.”
“Hm.” He makes a note to keep an eye on that, and to ask around.
She half-smiles at him, and what the sunlight and shadows do to her cheekbones… there are glints of gold in her lashes, too. “You don’t seem convinced,” she says, amused.
"They like to say their god oversees our lighthouses," he adds, offhand. "That He keeps the flames burning." She always seems to like it when he gives these little unnecessary details, when he's the kind of sardonic that would get him glared at by Cabral. When he's… most himself.
She looks at him, half-amused and half in pained sympathy. "I bet that goes over well."
He says, dry enough he has to take a sip of tea afterwards, "I told a priest there would be rather fewer lighthouse-keepers if that were the case."
She grins, something conspiratorial and utterly unlike a diplomat in the shape of it. More like the friend who mocks Inquisitors and gets drunk with him. (And almost propositions him, apparently.)
With another sip of tea, he mutters, "And if that were the case, I'd consider converting."
A small, undignified noise, and he realises she's just snorted into her tea. She looks up at him above the cup’s rim, something bashful crossing her face. He feels his own smile creeping up in response.
A wave of half-startled fondness nearly capsizes him. He almost forgets, when she's politely interested or stone-faced with fellow diplomats – and then she'll catch his eye, something a little fiendish in the glint of her gaze, and there, that's his friend. He knows patience – he's a captain – and he's had a good first mate to help endless meetings go faster, but this is something else. Perhaps it's being off a ship, or perhaps it's just… the way of her. He doesn't know. Whatever it is, it makes the ache where his ship used to be easier to stand.
He says, measuredly, “Nauts on remote islands, with little company except for a great lantern, can be… strange.”
“Stranger than ones who captain ships?” Her tone is utterly mild.
He raises a brow. “...Well done, de Sardet.”
She grins fiendishly at him, then crosses one leg neatly over another and takes a sip of her tea. He doesn't know why he's watching the movement until he realises – his mind's strayed to the length of her legs and easing them around his waist, the strong muscle of her thigh under his fingers. Or putting them over his shoulders: going to his knees on her elegant rug and inhaling the scent of her, her toes curling against his back –
She always looks after everyone else, but this once, he could look after her, and not just by deflecting a blade in a fight. She doesn't seem to mind the look of him, and he uses his other skills for her often enough. He could make her feel… Usually he’s more disciplined than this. He thanks the sea for his layers and tries not to shift in his seat. But the idea of patient, gentle de Sardet finally letting herself go and for once taking what she wants, taking it from him…
No, none of that, or she'll ask him why he's getting hard discussing the Port Quarter. He loves the sea, but not quite in that way. And just because she would be happy to , just because she looked at him that night like she was imagining him in her bed, the possibility suddenly real to her, it doesn't mean – it was probably just a joke. By the tides, has it been that long since he's got off?
A knock at the front door pulls him from that thought, thank the stars. De Sardet puts aside her cup and jumps to open it, and finds Kurt and Aphra on the other side. Vasco takes a drink from his cup, and nods to them, carefully trying to put aside his thoughts. Irrational as it is, he has the horrible feeling that if he thinks anything impure around Kurt, the man might sense it and kneecap him.
It helps, company: it dilutes the heady closeness of her, helps him put last night in the past. Besides, he has more to worry about. An hour’s walk out of New Serene, a few teeth-gritted fights with a squad or two from the Red-Gold Regiment, and an unfortunately deep look into one Thelemic bishop’s greed later, they’re all covered in blood and panting. There’s nothing like politics and a cheap, unnecessary slaughter to destroy a man’s libido, Vasco thinks.
Kurt grimaces at the sight of two dead Inquisitors and a lieutenant. “Was a time the Guard had some honour left. You get used to power-hungry idiots trying to use you as a cosh, but this… this shouldn’t have happened. You shouldn’t have had to talk them down. I know the Reds are different, but… not that different.” He crouches and checks his hapless comrade’s pockets. He mutters, “And glad as I am not to have had to fight them, if a Blue-Silver patrol had turned tail like that, we’d never have heard the end of it.”
De Sardet looks miserable, then furious. “It shouldn’t have taken that long. Why did I have to say anything?” She glances around to them, though the question mostly seems rhetorical. “Their orders were nonsense. Inhumane nonsense. We shouldn’t have had to show them that.” Her voice is crushed. Sometimes she hides it better – but it’s one thing fighting those with malicious intent, and another fighting cannon fodder dragged into their schemes. Sometimes Vasco forgets how new to any true battle she is.
Petrus gives her shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. “You did your best, child.” Somehow, the man’s even avoided getting blood on his boots. Vasco tries not to take that as a metaphor.
She says, her voice the kind of careful, quiet calm that means she’s utterly furious,“The village wasn’t even fighting them. They would have slaughtered…”
Vasco puts a gentle hand on her arm, grounding. Sometimes all people need is a reminder. “But they didn’t,” he says, “and that’s down to you, M – ” Her cousin calls her Marie and she lights up, and Kurt did once, during a hard fight, but the man’s known her a decade or so. Everyone else always calls her de Sardet. It’s probably too much. He changes it quickly to “ – my friend.”
She doesn’t seem to notice, thank the stars. She shoots him a grateful glance. “We find who’s giving the orders, and they’re not doing it tomorrow, either.”
Vasco nods, pats her arm, and then goes to check over the other Luminis. He says, “I suppose when you think your orders are from a god, you don’t question them.” Petrus shoots him a dark look. “Present company excepted,” he tosses over his shoulder as he crouches to check through the pockets of the other dead Luminis. He muses, sorting through coins and a little chewing tobacco, “More powerful than an abstract god is the thought of being killed if you disobey.” He throws a pointed look back to the bishop; he doesn’t actually have any issue with the man, who seems more sensible than his fellows, but that personal yoke is one that Vasco suspects he has more experience with than Petrus. He pulls out what is a bloodstained, ragged note, but legible all the same. He opens it to read, then grimaces. “As we suspected. Bishop Lucentis.”
“The man could at least be subtle in his arrogance,” Petrus grumbles.
“Another attempt to take the village, a day from now.” Vasco reads through it swiftly, then passes it up to de Sardet. “We ought to bring this to Síora.”
She nods. “She knows the clan chief.”
And then they set off once more. Sometimes, being de Sardet’s friend is nearly as exhausting as being her enemy. Watching her break herself against the rocks of people’s cruelty is… He trails at her side and wishes, not for the first time, that he could at least offer her something to lean on. More than gallows jokes at the Luminis' expense and telling her, over and over, that at least she tried.
That part is simple – it’s later, when disaster is averted once again and there’s a bishop in prison, jammed in there after a good fight, and a messenger is running a note to the Mother Cardinal… They’re all exhausted, high on adrenaline and a rare success and knowing that more people aren’t going to die, that it was damn close but they’ve all survived and others will, too – She grins at him, flushed and panting, all sharp teeth and glittering green eyes, strong and dangerous and bright with victory – Lust hits Vasco like a kick in the stomach, all over again. He swallows.
Damn it.
…And de Sardet is looking at his throat, his mouth. The briefest glimpse before her eyes flit to his, but just for half a moment, he thinks he sees…
He looks away swiftly, before he can't.
Vasco takes off his boots, and tries not to feel like he's run in a circle. They did a lot of good today. …But he's ending the day the way he started it: in his bunkhouse room, and he's still thinking of her. He slumps exhaustedly to sit on the end of his bed, and thinks of that smile. Maybe she’d smile at him if - No. It was a joke, that was all. A drunken joke. Sliding off his stockings and trews, he tosses them aside. He’s unlacing his shirt, half-asleep, when the thought sneaks into his head.
Would she let him call her Marie?
His eyes open to glare at the ceiling. He doesn’t know when he started doing that, in his head. Even their friends call her de Sardet, but when she stops to sniff flowers and grins at the rain despite the effect it’ll have on her fine silks, or takes a friend to a tavern because he just watched his hopes for a family crumble… he isn't thinking de Sardet , not then. He wouldn't be thinking it if he were kissing her, touching her, making her smile so wildly at winning him. He tosses aside his shirt and lies back, closing his eyes… And thinks of doing the same beneath her, her hands on his chest. He frowns as pieces of a drunken daydream come back to him. He remembers, vaguely, lying here last night, wanting her touch, wanting –
Her bursting through the door right now, shutting it behind her, her eyes alight –
“I couldn’t wait,” she said. “I’ve been thinking of you ever since we parted.”
“De Sardet?” Vasco asked, surprised to see her. He sat up a little.
“Call me Marie,” she said, and then she was on him, kissing him fiercely and pushing him back down onto the bed, her mouth hot on his, and Vasco moaned –
He grimaces, skin prickling with embarrassed, aroused heat. Ridiculous, even for drunk. But tides, what he thought he saw in her eyes in that brief second after the fight, or that night in the tavern… He tries not to presume anything in case of misinterpretation, but the desire in her eyes looked real. Her words - she so often hides truths too blunt to say in a tone of humour. (A noble reaching for his sword and her saying in a tone of bright steel, “I don't think that would be a good idea.” Kurt trying to demur on a gift, asking her why, and her faux-indignant laughter. “Because you're one of my dearest friends and I'm fond of you.” )
“If you're ever feeling lonely, it’s always a delight to have a dashing captain in my chamber.”
…This is going to drive him mad, the wondering. It's going to get him killed. Storms, he's going to have to ask her. Most likely she'll tell him politely to piss off and learn to understand a joke. But if she meant it, and he doesn't ask? Perhaps she's been as frustrated as he is. Perhaps he can let her relax for a little while, let her lean on him, even if it takes his hands and his cock and his mouth. And at least he can fuck this madness out of his system.
Vasco falls asleep thinking of that mischievous glint in her eye, and her hands on his skin.