perhapstomorrow | The bell has been raised from its watery grave...

Had it been just hours earlier, before the storm hit? Midnight would've been at Grey's throat for that incessant drumming. He's still a tiny bit irked by it as he stares out at the turbulent ocean, actually, and it's so tempting to just grab Grey's hands, maybe give him something else to handle...

Shaking the thought from his head, he stares back at the stoic giant for a moment, just examining his features, his build, all in silence.

Then he asks, "Who were you? Before... all this started?"

Are they actually going to do this? Heart to heart and talking about their feelings? Grey rolls his eyes but answers still: "A fisher. My father--" He pauses there. "Aidan's father was a fisher. We had a little boat."

He shrugs. "He was killed too."

"Hm."

Apparently that's all Midnight has to say on the matter, nodding to himself in silence because he could see Grey as a fisher. Aidan, too, given the selkie's withdrawn nature. They'd probably preferred being out at sea with no one else around, focused on their work.

Enviable.

Lost to his thoughts, he returns his gaze to the storm, watching as lightning arcs across the sky, briefly casting his face in harsh, white light. As is often the case with the mage, his eyes grow distant after a while, listening as the spirits whisper and clamor around him, wanting to be heard. It's quieter, now, with the storm, but they're never completely gone. Not without some help.

... He really needs to smoke, but his pipe and herbs are below deck with the rest of the crew's things. Damn.

And when the man falls silent again, Grey finds himself waiting for something. It's as if he didn't know himself what he wanted. Did he want Midnight to keep talking? Did he want him silent?

The lightning flashes and casts the mage's shadow on the floor. Grey sighs. Apparently they are doing this. The storm could take days...

"What about you?" he asks quietly. There's no comfortable connection to what Midnight had asked him before because they've just been quiet for so long. But no one ever blamed Grey for his brilliant conversational abilities.

The mage glances over with a confused stare before remembering what their conversation had been about. It quiets him further and he hesitates a moment before turning his gaze back to the window.

"... Apprentice healer," he finally answers with a little shrug. "My grandmother was ready to retire so she was training my friend and me to take her place. Then the pirates came and raided our village."

There's a bitter little smile that's illuminated with the next flash of lightning. "They took all the mages and killed the rest. You see, the ship wasn't big enough to take too many slaves. Then they decided there wasn't enough room for the crippled or elderly mages, either, unless they were wind or water mages. The prettier ones got put aside to sell later."

Grey's on his feet as Midnight talks, he passes the floor as he listens, drawing open a cabinet and pulling out a bottle of actually nice whiskey and two glasses. He holds the glasses side by side in his palm as he walks to Midnight, pouring them both a few fingers.

"You probably won't trust a pirate, either," Grey murmurs as he offers the glass, leaning his back against a cabinet beside the window.

That's a harsh start for a life.

"And then?" he asks, quietly.

The whiskey is met with mild surprise, but Midnight takes it with a little nod of thanks, idly feeling the cool glass against his fingers. He takes a sip, savouring the burn and the flavour of it, maybe deliberately delaying in answering, because he doesn't like bringing up his past. He hid in the jungle to get away from it, quite literally.

Another sip for liquid courage, and now Midnight keeps his eyes on the storm as he continues. "I saw what they did to mages that didn't obey. The one the first crew decided to keep, she was only a couple of years younger than me, and she punched one of the pirates when he tried to force himself on her. They cut off that hand as punishment, and then made me treat it so she wouldn't die. In the slavers markets, I saw mages with their tongues removed, or their eyes, to keep them docile. Some were gagged with all their limbs bound and dragged around behind their owners horses."

He could go on and on and on about all the horrors he'd seen, but he cuts it off and just answers coolly, "So I didn't fight, got sold to a pirate from Amyrria, where their nobles like to keep mages as manicured little pets. I stayed quiet, charmed the crew, sat pretty for them. Ended up doubling as the captain's private whore as well as pet mage. He used to make a good deal of money having me read fortunes when we came to port. Sometimes he'd reward his first mate by letting him lay with me for a night. Sometimes I'd be used as a bartering chip when he was cutting deals with others."

Draining the whiskey in one smooth swallow, there's a sharp little hiss as the alcohol burns down his throat, the lingering warmth pleasant and quick to rise to his cheeks. "One day things went too far and I lost control of my magic. Called on a hurricane and destroyed the ship, then got washed up onshore at one of the nearby islands. I sold off the ornamental chains they'd kept on me to buy passage as far away as I could, and spent the next few years in the jungle, which now brings me here, with you."

The glass is set down on the table, and Midnight finally looks to Grey, expression cold and distant as he asks, "Any more questions?"

Grey might hate mages in general. He might feel that they are all dangerous. But he doesn't hope this kind of fate to any of them. None at all. And while he might talk about chains and blockers, he would never do that. All the mages that work for him are never going to be restrained, unless they want that themselves.

"You don't have to answer my questions," he says tightly as an answer and picks up Midnight's glass again and fills it up, offering it back to the mage. "This is not an interrogation."

It might be hard to read it from his expression or tone of voice, but there's something a little softer in the captain now, more understanding. They share a similar tragedy in their past and it leaves a mark on a person. Grey isn't heartless. He recognizes pain where he sees it and can feel compassion in return.

"If you feel like your magic is getting the better of you, you come talk to me, alright?" he says firmly. "We'll figure out something."

There's a long moment of silence as Midnight stares up at Grey, silently sizing up the pirate in his mind. Then he finally smiles, shrugging off the cold and somber mood as he takes the refilled glass.

"Thanks. I don't think you'd like to help me with my magic, though," he comments, voice deliberately teasing and light. "You might find it... distasteful."

Grey rolls his eyes at the obvious reference to sex. Mages. He knows a thing or two about magic and how it works. Grey isn't someone who would hunt down a crazed mage without first putting down the research hours. He knows elements tend to mess with them, so storms and the likes tend to run their blood hot. But there's also the kind of madness that Midnight speaks of when he says he brought down a ship when he lost control. They need something to ground them.

But since the mage decides to make a joke out of it, he shrugs and tosses back his own whiskey before walking back to the cabinet to put the bottle away.

"I think you have enough volunteers for that." Don't you?

"Most of your crew are quite open to helping out, yes, though some have their hearts set elsewhere," he shrugs, knocking back the whiskey and giving a pleased little shudder at the refreshed heat. "But beggars can't be choosers, so I'll take all the help I can get."

Is it really that important for the mage to get himself full of dick? Grey doesn't quite understand the necessity but he doesn't question it aloud at least.

He also thinks he knows what Midnight means by having their hearts set elsewhere. His brother is blind, that much has been obvious to Grey for years and years. But he isn't going to gossip about that. It's not his business to talk about it. At all. All he wants is Aidan to be happy one day. It was quite hard to marry the girl they both wanted.

"Wouldn't tethering yourself to something help with brewing storms as well?"

There's a little wrinkle to Midnight's nose at that and he just shrugs again, looking back out to the window.

"Probably, but... Good tethers are hard to come by," he explains, keeping it vague for a reason. Because he'd seen how even mentally and emotionally unscathed mages back home had struggled to find the right tether, and village tradition meant those tethers were usually their spouses. Midnight doubts he's capable of finding a stable enough tether for how damaged he is, and he's not sure he'd want to inflict that responsibility on anyone, really.

Not sure he'd trust anyone that much, either.

"Does the storm look like it's quieting a bit, to you?" he asks, cocking his head and leaning forward against the window sill.

It doesn't seem like Midnight wants a tether. Grey's eyes narrow as he tries to figure out why, trying not to go instantly for the obvious, less admiring reasons that spring to his mind.

Maybe there's another reason for the mage not to want stability.

"Sure," he says as he looks out of the window. "But you're still not going out." Even if he obviously wants to.

The mage rolls his eyes and answers drily, "You've decided the course to take, we've had our heart-to-heart, and it's late. Unless you're expecting me to suck you off, darling, there's not much reason for me to stick around once the storm quiets, no?"

"The storm is not quiet," Grey says with a roll of his eyes. "Look outside, you're going to be swept off the deck when you step in there." Because the wind is strong and the waves wash over the deck all the time. There's a reason why the mage tied himself to the mast.

"Is there no other reason for you to do anything but dick sucking?" he finally snaps. "What exactly about my dick is so fascinating it needs to be brought up constantly?"

Grey honestly hasn't thought about his cock this much in ages. And the damn thing is starting to stir because of it. Damn this foolish mage and his potty mouth.

"I mean, the way you behave, it's as if you don't want it to be 'up' at all. And as for reasons..."

He sets his empty glass with an audible 'thunk on the table, the glass rasping hollowly over the wood as Midnight's fingers drag it along the surface a short distance, circling around it to gradually stalk closer to Grey.

"The reason I suck cock," he begins, the 'k' of 'cock' especially coarse and husky on delivery, "is because I like it. I like to suck cock. I like to bury my face in my partner's groin and have that thick piece of meat shoved so far in my throat that I might choke while all I can smell is their sex. I like to hear them lose control as I swallow them down and make a mess of myself, almost as much as I like to get fucked. It's raw, it's carnal, and it's so deliciously grounding, unlike any other sensation this body can experience, why wouldn't I fixate on it?"

He finally comes to a stop, leaning his hip against the table, smirking up at Grey, teeth digging into his lower lip impishly.

"Also, I'm very good at it. And I like that I can now choose whose cock I play with."

Grey's jaw tightens at the sound of that glass dragging across the table but he says nothing. Instead he listens to Midnight even if he honestly doesn't want to. And why he doesn't want to?

Because it makes his damn dick respond to the imagery, his heart thrum in his chest with the demanding boom of a war drum. It's been ages since he's felt like this, his breath short and neck heating at the thought of the mage on his knees on the floor, that stupidly annoying mouth of his stuffed full of dick.

His expression doesn't change. But the heat in his eyes tells a story of its own as he glares at Midnight. He doesn't say anything, just sits very still and ignores the erection he's building, his eyes never shifting from the mage, intense and dark.

The mage's eyes are both amused and heated on seeing the interest in that glare, then they glance down at the front of Grey's pants, his tongue sneaking out to do a quick lick over his lower lip. Then he's looking back up with a little wink.

"I bet I could make you cum harder than you've ever done in your life, sweetheart," he croons, making a point of leaning just a tiny bit into Grey's personal space. Just to push the man further, just to see those feathers get ruffled.

They're like some characters in a book. The bear slouched on this chair like a lazy king and the little minx circling, biting and biting.

Grey refuses to correct his posture that has unfortunately put his dick on display, his backward stretch and his parted legs. He can live down a hard-on that is making itself known very visibly too. No, he's not a small man by any measure.

He still doesn't say a single thing, just stares at the mage, irritated. It's pointless to deny the desire he feels. It's practically singing in his blood. But that's not enough of a reason to ask for it. Not even if that mouth and that tongue that flickers in it makes a rush of heat wash over him with each calculated flirt the mage puts on the table.

Clearly pleased at Grey's reaction (and wow, that is... big, perhaps as big as Al's, even...), Midnight coyly lets his head drop to one side, eyes deliberately flicking down at the pirate's prick.

"I like it when men grab me by my hair, you know," comes the deliberately husky purr. "I even like it when they use that grip to fuck my face, to make me choke on their cocks. Maybe you'd relax if you did that to me, hm? Have me down on my knees, right here, in front of your chair, while you pull on my hair and make me take your cock in. You look big... I might even suffocate on it, but you'd probably want that, wouldn't you? To make me shut up and instead give you pleasure?"

His eyes finally flick back up to Grey's face, and there's a slight flush to the mage's cheeks, now, his own prick stirring with interest at the images he's conjuring in his own mind.

"Would you like that, darling?"

Grey's hands fist where they rest on the arms of the chair, his shoulders draw tight and for a moment his eyes close tightly as Midnight keeps talking. It's hard to breathe through his nose, his lungs need more air.

The mage knows exactly what he's doing. He seems to know exactly how to evoke mental images that will haunt Grey for ages.

He doesn't reply in words, but one of those hands shoots out and grabs Midnight his mentioned hair, a tight hand fisting in it, pulling the mage in close until he has no other option but to climb onto Grey's thighs, straddle his lap.

Apparently they're doing this... He doesn't know when he decided so. He probably didn't.

The mage lets out a surprised little noise, eyes widening briefly before he catches himself. Then that pleased little grin is back and he climbs the pirate's lap, straddling the strong thighs until their groins are just barely held apart from each other, his hands settling on the chair back on either side of Grey's head.

"Giving into the filthy mage so soon, captain?" he teases, lips hovering a short distance from Grey's. "Thought you wouldn't want anything from a used whore like me."

Grey's mother was a whore. He isn't at all bigoted or judgemental about sex in general. It just... bugs him that this little mage seems to be so eager to spread himself all over the place. He wouldn't need to do that if he'd just...

"You never shut up, do you?" he asks with a voice gone at least an octave lower, rumbling out of his throat as he pulls the mage closer by his curly hair. His attractive face is even attractive close up and Grey lets out an irritated growl as he kisses Midnight hard on the lips.

Midnight laughs quietly as he's dragged into the kiss, not at all mocking or mean but just genuinely enjoying their situation. His fingers tighten their grip on the chair as he kisses back with a little growling purr, giving no quarter as the pirate tries to invade his mouth.

Grey tastes like whiskey and smells of the sea, sun-soaked canvas and ropes, clean sweat and the faint tang of gunpowder and steel. It's a familiar smell. At least there's no blood of whipped slaves on his hands, or the odour of rusted iron manacles.

The mage leans in closer. His thin chest presses to Grey's and their cocks follow suit, hips fitted together tight as Midnight begins to grind them together, slow and dirty. Usually the contact makes his magic seem distant, ignorable.

Right now it feels electrifying in the best way possible. It surges through his veins, potent and alive, as natural as breathing. It wants like a living thing, to burrow into the pirate, to sink down deep and tie him to it.

Midnight ignores it in favour of focusing on the kiss, learning the contours of Grey's mouth with a pleased moan. The storm rages on outside, but all he can hear is the creak of Grey's chair under their combined weights, the rasp of the pirate's hands in his hair on his clothes on his skin.

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more made up places wooooo

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