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“Listen, don’t let this get to your head, you hear me?”
“Lizzie, Captain Lafayette, why did you drag me below deck? Everyone’s up there partying-“
“Can you shut your fishy mouth for just one moment?”
While the tone the Captain and her second in command took with each other seemed harsh, it was filled with nothing but appreciation. They talked like this to each other as a love language, sharp and witty quips disguising messages of ‘are you alright?’ and ‘I’m here for you.’
Caspian sat on a barrel against the wall, his thin whip-like tail swooshing gently around his feet as Lizzie guided him there. She’d grabbed him by the shoulder and (albeit gently) dragged him below asking to talk to him, but not mentioning about what.
Caspian’s faintly glowing blue eyes stared at her, neutral curiosity painting his expression. “Alright, I’m listening.”
Lizzie twirled her lip piercing with her tongue (a replacement of biting her cheeks), a little nervously grabbing Caspian’s hand and intertwining her hand with his slender, cold fingers. Her middle finger brushed over the steel-and-wire band ring that sat snugly on the Genasi’s ring finger, a matching gold on her other hand, her promise.
“Fuck, man, I’m not good at getting these feelings out,” she took a deep breath in, reassured by the gentle squeeze that he gave to her hand and his kind eyes. “Cas, Caspian, you’re a really fuckin’ good crewmate and I trust you with everything I have and am. In that scrap we got into yesterday when I saw ya barely miss that knife to your throat it made me stop ‘n think how much ya mean to me which as pirates we don’t have the luxury to always think about,”
She brought one hand up to his face, his wispy stubble tickling her fingers. “We could die any day, something terrible could happen whether it’s RAFT or an enemy pirate crew but as a captain I can’t let myself think too hard about that because I have to be strong for y'all. But I let myself think about it, just once, and I need ya to know how important ya are to me.”
Caspian rubbed her bandaged knuckles, a huge smile spread across his face in the dim light of the hallway. When he’d met Lizzie she was distant and cruel, an animal stuck in fight or flight mode. She didn’t let anyone in or any of her ghosts out…..but Caspian persisted. He said good morning and goodnight to her everyday, never flinched when she yelled or smashed things or locked herself in her room. She was a terrified little girl reliving the moments of fire and water consuming the only family she’d ever had everytime she saw the vast expanse of the ocean.
But Caspian held her the first time she broke down, held her sobbing, shaking shoulders as she told him how terrified she was that she’d never see her brother or her father again, terrified the world would hate her for who she was, terrified and tired of being angry all the time.
But Caspian would wait as long as it took to see her smile again. The Lizzie he’d met in a bar who danced freely, who defended anyone down on their luck and who was a navigator with a love for the stars like he’d never seen before. He’d wait for that Lizzie everyday until she came back to him.
And she did, it took a long time but she did. She calmed her anger down, learned to cope and to breathe and not let her fear turn her into a cornered and scared animal. She was a better person, and Caspian had waited for her the whole time.
He was about to express that, tell her how proud he was for the progress she’d made when she leaned in, pressing a kiss to his lips.
He was stunned, but leaned back into it. Her lips were soft and warm and he breathed in the sweetness of the kiss. He didn’t dare move his hands, simply enjoying the rare moment of affection and trying to ignore the thumping of his heart in his ribcage.
Caspian let her lead it, feeling his head spin as she pulled away. Woah.
He touched his hand to his lips, dark blue blush spreading across his face and distinctly onto his pale fins. Lizzie let the hand on his face drop, instead resting it on his knee. “Listen, this dosen’t mean I’m into you or anything, we both know I play for the ladies and ladies only,” if he wasn’t so stunned, he would’ve laughed.
“But I know you’re a big fan of all that huggy-kissy-smoochy gross stuff with John and Gillion and I think we both know how much I hate being touched, but I wanted to do something nice for you. I’ve never been one to let anyone tell me what to do with my relationships but I know what we have is different and I like that. Think of it as a kiss for the road, something to motivate you the next time someone tries to stab you in the neck.”
The Genasi felt like his brain was short-circuiting. He laughed a giddy laugh, his tail wagging back and fourth and he jumped off the barrel he was sitting on, enveloping the shorter woman in a hug. “You are a wonderful woman, Captain Lizzie Lafayette—“
“Yeah, Yeah, we both know you’re a huge sap, and I don’t get the big deal, you can get a kiss from anyone else whenever, what’s so special about mine?” He stepped back, keeping his hands on her shoulders.
“You thought about me. You’re right, I could kiss anyone else in my relationships, but you hate being touched and you hate holding hands or kissing but you did it for me because you know that it makes me happy.” Tears were welling up in his blue eyes, his sharp teeth poking out slightly from his smile.
“Legally you are my husband, I can throw you a bone every once in a while.”
He scoffed, wiping away the tears before they could threaten to spill. “That’s just fancy Lizzie talk for ‘Oooo Caspian you’re so cool and hot and cool and your the best co-captain ever and I want to kiss you memememe—“
She elbowed him in the side and he stopped, nearly toppling over. “Fine! Fine! I won’t do any Lizzie impressions—What I’m trying to say is exactly what I said when I offered to be your second in command and your husband so we could commit tax evasion: relationships are complicated. What we are is up to us, and no one can take that away, I love you.”
She paused, tilting her head up to look at his charismatic smile and snow-white hair that framed his face. “I love you too, Cas; and maybe if you don’t consistently forget to do your dishes I’ll give you more kisses.”
“Deal.”