Sleeping Beauty

"Hastings," said Mr Cork as he came past, and Jacob turned to look at him. "What are you at, boy?"

"Just off to help Mr Hirsch with the straits, sir, more hands, lighter work and all that."

"Well, before you go off to Hirsch, get down to the captain's cabin and take measurements off of his right-most window, would you? He says it's rattling at night -- it's not leaking yet, and when we make port it might well be we reframe the whole thing depending on the warp of the wood."

"You want me to fasten it in place?"

"Fasten it if you can," said Cork. "We've the store needed to put in a new window, even, just so long as I don't have to hear the captain mention it another single goddamn time."

Jacob ducked his head to keep from laughing, but he nodded and grabbed a measuring tape and a square, jogging up the stairs and to the officers' quarters, walking down the narrow corridor. Loxley, the captain's secretary, wasn't anywhere to be seen -- he was above decks, taking notes as the captain did his inspections -- so there was no one to stop him from knocking directly on the door to the captain's cabin.

Making his way inside, he closed the door behind him, and he laughed when one of the ship's cats, a chunky little beast called Pyramid, wove around his feet and prrbted very emphatically until Jacob opened it up again and let her out. It was a bright, sunny day outside, and with the sun behind them the light shone in directly through the end windows and the side. The captain's desk was empty, his chair pulled slightly back from it and his papers held in place with a weight, his cup of tea still resting empty in place.

He hopped up the three stairs to the upper part of the decking, moving over to the windows and eyeing up the line of the window frames -- three of the four were perfectly parallel, but he could see the last was crooked, the central through-bar almost lining up but the bottom one slightly off.

Moving forward, he went to put his fingers on the hinges, pressing on all three of them from the top, the bronze cool under his fingers, then from the bottom, leaning in... And he heard a noise behind him.

It was a soft noise, quiet, breathless, a grunt of dissatisfaction, and when he turned around he had it in his head that it was Pyramid or Castle, except that it obviously wasn't either, because Pyramid had just gone and Castle wouldn't linger in a room where she was.

The captain's bed, Jacob realised, wasn't empty.

He stopped short, staring with his mouth open, because the noise of dissatisfaction had come because the body in the captain's bed had previously been enjoying the sun shining in through the windows and was now left cold, sprawled on their side with the sheet thrown loosely over their waist, the curves of their thighs.

The captain didn't have a wife, Jacob was pretty fucking certain. He'd have heard about it if he did, because there weren't so many captains that travelled with their wives, even on ships like this that actually carried passengers with them and had other women aboard.

He stood out of the way of the light again, moving to the right and then walking forward, and he stared at his -- yeah, his -- body, at the swell of his chest on each side, the delicate dusting of hair over his sternum. He was round-cheeked and had patchy hair on his lip and the sides of his jaw, gingery-brown curls on the pillow around him, and he had long eyelashes too.

He was naked, was the thing.

Sprawled on his side with the sheet over his waist, cheek on the pillow, there was the barest shine of sweat on his skin, glistening over the curve of his back where it dimpled just above his arse, a droplet glistening on a fat roll at his side. His hands twitched at his side with the desire to reach out and touch him, feel how warm his skin was -- no wonder Pyramid had been here, she'd probably been curled up in the quiet crammed in against this lad's neck or his side, judging by the grey and white hairs scattered around that didn't belong to him and weren't Captain Chisholm's, either.

He'd never seen this lad about, so it could well be he was one of the passengers and that the captain had just buggered him senseless and let him sleep it off, but he'd never thought Chisholm would be the sort for it.

Turning sharply away again, he went to the window and put himself to work as focused as he could, pushing his fingers into the slight gap where the wood had warped away -- he wouldn't even need to replace the whole frame, just the base of the window where it had chipped on the outside.

He rapidly noted down the measurements, kept glancing behind him to see that the lad was still asleep, and he was, looked perfect in his sleep, looked comfortable, looked entirely content.

Jacob had been two months at sea, and it would be another two before they actually made a proper port and he was able to go out for a few days, and it'd be months and months more before he was actually on leave. He was fucking beautiful, this lad, and whether he was a passenger or not, it was obvious Captain Chisholm had him for a reason, had him naked in his bed for a reason.

His lips were pink and slightly slick with spit and there was pinkness in his cheeks, too, and his eyelashes were just a bit lighter than the gingery-brown of his hair, more of a strawberry colour so that they caught the light and looked purely gold.

He crept forward, careful not to make any sound as his feet moved on the wood, not to let any of it creak, and he put out his hand before he could stop himself, hooking two fingers underneath the edge of the sheet and pulling it back.

The lad asleep in bed didn't even stir in his sleep, was still fully asleep even as the sheet was peeled back from his thighs and his calves, setting it aside. The lad had one leg back from the other, so Jacob had a perfect gaze between his legs, and he didn't see, like he was expecting, a plump cock to match his body.

Jacob stared, his lips parting as he took in the surprise between his legs -- underneath the neat little thatch of gingery-brown curls to match the ones on his head, he saw a fat red clit and a brightly pink pussy, one that shone in the sun coming in through the window. His nipples were a nice pink too, bigger than Jacob had ever seen, but he couldn't concentrate on them now, not --

"Fuck," he whispered, glancing up at the lad's face again, and he leaned forward slightly, trying to look better at the lad's face. His features were entirely slack, and they stayed like that even when Jacob put his hand on his thigh, just brushing his fingers over the damp skin at first and feeling the hair there, then putting his palm flat against it.

He was warm, plush, exactly the kind of person you wanted to sink against, sink into, at the end of a hard day -- if he was a girl, he'd do well in any brothel, and being a lad, even one with a cunt... Especially one with a cunt, he'd do no worse.

He was already a little bit wet even before Jacob sucked his fingers into his mouth and put them between his legs, touched them very carefully to the bright pink bud of his clit, pressed on it. It was warm, sank down against his pubic bone, and the lad sighed in his sleep, his legs parting further as he fell onto his back.

His jaw was still slack, his eyelids still closed, his head tipped to one side on the pillow, and Jacob just couldn't resist, stroked down the sides of his fat little cunt. Pushing with his fingers, his mouth went dry at the sight of his lips spreading, showing the openness of his hole with wetness glistening there.

His thighs, which were a creamy white colour, were marked all over with kisses and bruises, and Jacob swallowed at the marks on the insides of them, showing sucked-on and bitten-in marks from the captain's attentions, most of them red, a few of them purple or dark blue with bruising. He wanted to taste them himself.

He pushed and played over his clit, rubbing at it and swallowing back a quiet moan at the way the lad's cunt clenched around nothing at all, the way it winked delicately, a droplet of slick sliding down between his arse cheeks. Jacob kept glancing up at his face as he put his middle finger forward, traced the ring of his entrance and felt just how slick it was, heard the grunt the other man let out in his sleep.

He tasted --

Sweet. Musky.

He was obviously the captain's bedwarmer, obviously used to being fucked, so used to it that he responded this positively, this eagerly, even in his sleep, his thighs spreading further apart, his clit subtly jumping in its place. He swiped his finger through again, biting his lip at the wetness, the way the lad's cunt clenched down around him, so beautifully wet, so fucking --

He pushed down, sinking his finger right into him and feeling the way he yielded, feeling the way he just welcomed Jacob in, and a sweet, soft moan came from low in his throat but his head still didn't move on the pillow, he didn't roll over, his face barely changed.

Jacob couldn't handle it, the temptation right fucking there, open and easy and so obviously eager for it even though he wasn't even fucking awake, and he glanced to the door before he quickly unbelted his trousers, dropped his pants, leaned forward, knelt on the bed. It was a fucking soft bed, almost as soft and plush as the captain's bedwarmer was, nothing like the berth Jacob slept in at night that was as narrow as a rope, and he spared the barest thought for what it might be like to sleep in, even with a lad like this taking up half of it.

Just the tip.

Just the tip would be enough, his cock so hard he couldn't fucking stand it, but he just needed to sample it, just to feel that wet, tight heat around the head of his prick, and fuck, but it was so wet, so goddamn wonderful he sank his head in and whimpered at the tight clutch around him, the wonderful heat, the sweetness of it. His hands were on the lad's thighs, pressing and sinking into the flesh there, and he inched forward, further --

He choked out a noise when he bottomed out, overwhelmed by the heat encompassing him on all sides, the way that he clutched and squeezed around him, and it was just --

He didn't mean to.

He hadn't fucking meant to do any of this, hadn't meant to do this at all, and he certainly didn't mean to get his cock all the way into the lad's beautiful open cunt and lose himself immediately, lose hold of himself and just fucking come.

The noise that had come out of him was a fucking squeak, and now he knelt over the lad with his cock buried in his beautiful pink cunt, and he breathed heavily, staring down at him, at the round swell of his belly and the twin swells of his fat tits -- a man's tits, very much a man's tits no matter that it was a cunt between his legs -- and his slack, sleeping face, the peace writ on it.

His cock was pulsing, balls squeezed up tight, and it felt wonderful, felt fucking sublime, had just come on too fast, but really, what was the point in being ashamed when he wasn't even awake to know?

Pulling back, he quickly pulled up his trousers and belted them up again, and he scrambled a little in his hurry to throw the sheet back over him and go down the stairs, across the floor. The lad turned over in bed, putting himself into more of the sun shining in through the window, but he didn't move after that, just stayed still.

He couldn't believe he'd just done that.

He --

Probably shouldn't have.

* * *

"Lluw?" called Ian as he came into his quarters, and he leaned forward to look, expecting to see Lluw sitting up by now, but he wasn't. He was still in bed, sprawled on his belly, although to his credit he was awake and actively conscious, his nose buried in a book. "Going to get up and dress any time this century?"

"Come the turn of it, maybe," said Lluw, and he looked like an angel bathed in the last of the afternoon's warm sunny light, bathing under it, and Ian softly sighed as he surveyed the expanse of his back, the glorious curve of Lluw's arse cheeks, his shoulders. There was a little valley down his back, showing the line of his spine, and reaching out he drew his finger down over this valley before following one of the offshoots, tracing the crease made by a roll of fat.

Lluw giggled, then laughed, squirmed as Ian pressed his fingers in and tickled him properly, kicked out his beautiful, delicate feet, slapped at him, kneed at him, but ineffectually, and not in a way calibrated to demand an actual stop.

When Ian did stop, Lluw rolled onto his back and looked up at him, smiling beatifically, his eyes glittering.

"You are very lovely," said Ian. "Do you know that?"

Lluw's smile was radiant and self-satisfied as he said, "Mmm... Yeah."

Ian chuckled, put his hand over Lluw's when Lluw placed his hand on Ian's waist.

"Did you fuck me?" he asked, and Ian frowned down at him.

"I have done," said Ian. "Many times, I have."

"This afternoon," said Lluw.

"I've been on duty since the early morning, lad," said Ian, perplexed, and Lluw hummed, his expression thoughtful as he fell back onto the mattress, his legs falling open. Ian looked between his legs, then frowned, reaching between them and feeling where he was wet and open, recently used. "Who'd you have in here, Kant?"

"You tell me," said Lluw, yawning against the back of his hand. "I woke up with someone's come leaking out of me, and I figured it couldn't have been you -- I'd have felt it, if it was you. Whoever it was, they obviously rode me very gently or had very little to them, because I slept like a fucking baby."

A cold and burning rage had settled in Ian's chest, a particular awareness that someone had been in his cabin, that someone had been in his rooms and more than that, had been in his fucking boy -- none of his men would fucking dare to come into his quarters without his permission or Lluw's invitation, which meant it had been one of the passengers or one of the crew.

"Oh, don't," said Lluw, and he twisted his hand to grip at Ian's, tugging it down between his legs, and Ian chuckled as he assented, slid two of his fingers into the lad where he was open and ready and eager. "Don't be angry."

"Don't be angry?" Ian repeated quietly, arching his eyebrows. "Don't be angry that some wee cunt has been in here and plundered you as you slept? What sort of fucking pervert would do that?"

"I'd like very much to find out," said Lluw, and sighed in pleasure as Ian slid his fingers smoothly forward, sinking in to the second knuckle and then to the third. He rocked down onto Ian's fingers, letting out a breathless noise, his eyes fluttering shirt. "Will you beat him?"

"I'll fucking kill him," said Ian, and Lluw opened his eyes for the purposes of frowning up at him.

"No," he said sternly, "don't do that. Beat him -- and let me watch. Or, would you fuck him?"

"What are you talking about, Lluw?"

"Instead of beating him," said Lluw, leaning forward and sinking down onto Ian's fingers, "you could fuck him. Couldn't you? Bugger him over your desk? That would be a better punishment than a beating, anyway."

"I'm not in the habit of buggering my sailors, Lluw. That's what you're for."

"I thought I was here because I'm beautiful and lovely and you like to look at me and touch me and sink yourself into me after a terribly long day," said Lluw, and then moaned when Ian responded by curving his fingers in and pushing at the roof of his cunt, putting pressure there. He spread his thighs wider, tipped his head forward against Ian's upper arm, sliding one hand around his arm, touching the back of his elbow as he rocked on his knees, thrust down against Ian's fingers. "I thought I was, mmm, here because you loved me."

"I don't think I love you enough to bugger one of my sailors."

"Yes, you do," said Lluw simply.

Ian opened his mouth, closed it. "I expect he's ugly," he finally went on dryly. "I should have him fucking hanged, not let him off with a beating, let alone a buggering."

"I hope he's thin," said Lluw dreamily, clenching around his fingers. "I hope he's skinny enough that when you sink your cock into his arse I can feel it through his belly. I hope he sobs his eyes out." He said all this very calmly, with a sort of gentle serenity that made Ian's blood run cold, but for all his blood was cold it did rush downward, his cock hard in his trousers, straining.

It was difficult not to adore Lluw, really -- he was beautiful, of course, but what was easy to love about him was the ease with which he carried himself, the way he lounged, the way he slept so many hours of the day, the way he laughed, the way he enjoyed things. Ian loved the lad to pieces, but it was easy, at times, to think of him as in-line with Pyramid and Castle and whatever the rest of the young cats aboard were called. He was cat-like in the way he stretched, the way he craned into someone's touch, the way he relaxed and melted into you or all but purred when you rested your head against his chest.

Who was Ian to deny him anything?

"And if he is ugly?" he asked coolly. "If you lay eyes on him and haven't the slightest interest in my buggering him?"

"I'll still watch you beat him," said Lluw sweetly, and Ian twisted his fingers in him, making him whine before he sat up on his knees and pulled Ian down to kiss him, pulled Ian on top of him so that Ian would mix his come with the stranger's already dripping from him. "Will you fuck me?"

"Yes," said Ian, and dragged his teeth down the side of Lluw's neck, down toward his chest, sucked at one of his nipples and chuckled at the way Lluw arched, spreading his legs wider, clenched down on his fingers. "Whatever you want, lad. I always give you whatever you want, don't I?"

"Mm," hummed Lluw, and pressed his chest up into Ian's mouth for more.

* * *

"Hastings," growled Woodsley, and Jacob jumped up from his bench, staring at him, his hands at his side. "Report to the captain's office, now. He wants to see you."

Dread formed like an iceberg in the base of his stomach, sudden and cold and incredibly heavy, and he swallowed hard but then rushed to do as he was told, rushing down the corridor. He just wanted to get it over with, wanted to go in and get beaten and get told precisely what a nasty little cunt he was and to told he'd be cut loose once they made port again, just wanted it to be over and done with.

Wanted it to be over so badly, in fact, that he forgot to knock.

Throwing open the door, he tripped over the jamb as he came in, and almost fell onto the ground as he came inside. He stared across the room at Captain Chisholm, who was sitting at his desk with a pen in his hand, and at his cabin boy, who was dressed in shirt and trousers with a silk banyan overtop, belted around his waist.

"I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that he doesn't knock either," said Captain Chisholm witheringly, and Jacob bowed his head and stared at the ground.

"I'm so -- I'm so sorry," he said. "I'm so, I'm so sorry, I didn't think, I didn't mean to -- I never -- "

"Close the door," said the cabin boy cheerfully. He had a warm voice, and when he smiled, dimples showed in his cheeks.

Jacob swallowed and obeyed, pushing the door shut.

"And lock it," he added.

Jacob's hand trembled, but he did as he was told.

"He's thin," commented the cabin boy. "Don't you think, Captain? Isn't he thin?"

"I suppose," said Captain Chisholm.

"And passably handsome," the cabin boy went on. "Not pretty and not remarkably attractive either, but not ugly."

Jacob rubbed at his arm, feeling his eyes burn with threatening tears, and then he went on, "I'm so sorry. I know I can't possibly apologise eno -- "

"I'm bored of that now," said the cabin boy loudly, and looked to the captain. "Well? Aren't you in charge, aren't you going to ask him?"