change your ways

Willingly going into the sea when you couldn’t swim as much as a yard had always seemed like idiocy to him, but there’d been that time when they’d been celebrating taking a barque off of Cádiz and they’d gotten deep enough into the rum stores that a half dozen of them had ended up taking a tumble. The water had been degrees colder than the warmth working its way through his veins and over his skin now, but it had practically crawled with life. Water stuff reaching out of the depths – not sodding mermaid’s arms, although at least one sailor had claimed it was – twining around them, pulling them into a shivery embrace. Luckily ropes had been thrown overboard and all six of them hauled out, coughing and spluttering. Even if someone had done the same now, Mal suspected Krista wouldn’t have let him go, not ‘til she was good and ready.

Weren’t like he was in a hurry to rush outta bed either. The bit of him that had become attached to her – the emotional bit, mind you, not the parts that that locked them together top and bottom – warmed with everything else. Would he have been perfectly fine without Krista in his life anymore? You bet. Was he relieved she was back here and safe – and whimpering under him again? Absolutely. That truth wasn’t gonna be choked out against her skin though.

Krista was demonstrating enough of that as she nuzzled into him, lips tracing skin that was almost human warm now, flushed beneath a perpetual tan that’d been baked in him years before that cannonball had ripped the life out of him. Mal nosed at the tender skin in the centre of her chest, tracing his tongue over one escaped rivulet of blood and then he flopped back. He didn’t doubt she’d follow him. The bed might’ve been a generous queen, but it might as well have been a hammock for all the breathing room he normally ended up with.

Hazel eyes fixed on the ceiling as he caught his breath, sprawled in the tangled sheets, his hand brushing over the damp skin of his chest before Krista was turning into him, sprawling over his arm and wrapping a leg around him like he might even consider escaping. He hadn’t considered it, had he? His lips pursed at the thought, but her thumb was already trailing over his lower lip with that last taste of her. Mal hummed low in his throat, meeting Krista’s eye as he darted his tongue out to taste, brushing over her thumb before he took a nip, looking to having the colour glowing brighter in her cheeks (well, if there was enough blood left in her to make it happen, he hadn’t exactly been dosing it out since she’d come back).

It should’ve been bleeding obvious she’d been quiet too long, but he’d wrapped his hand around her wrist and was rubbing his thumb over her pulse, like he was checking just how much she had left in her. At the dragged out so, Mal let go, allowing her hand and head to settle in. Bathroom … not quite what he was expecting. ”A nautical theme,” he echoed back before he puffed out a breath. ”Like the early eighteen hundreds too. They were all about Nelson then.” The fact that the short arse had gone and got himself killed in battle hadn’t dimmed the enthusiasm any. He could bet that any mention of the ocean had Kitty choking, gettting Krista back hadn’t exactly changed her mind about him.

Telling her again about how he hadn’t been a pirate would’ve been a nuisance, but seconds later Krista was flipping the topic. It had never really been about the bathroom, or even moving in with Kitty. She’d just taken the slowest detour in the world, putting things out of her head in the whirlwind of getting her memories back, getting back here and picking up, letting them back in just when things had settled back into being good between them.

That thick feeling in the back of his throat wasn’t him. Mal swallowed it back all the same, settling his hand over hers like he could pat the thought away. He could …. Mal considered distracting her another way, but he was sighing instead, bringing his other hand up to rub her bare back. ”I thought it was better not to bring up bad memories, eh? Holdin’ on to them things is just gonna upset ya again. You’re safe now love.” It’d probably all end up contributing to the instability in Krista’s head, the house of cards that tumbled again and again when she got herself all rattled.

She wasn’t just going back to what happened after that final argument though. Krista wanted to rehash the past. Mal’s mouth pursed again, his chin dipping towards his chest. ”I apologise for that didn’t I?” He wasn’t sure if he actually had for either part, but he wasn’t gonna bet on Krista having a perfect memory. Shifting his hips on the bed, he tried to break Krista’s train of thought, at least far enough to shake the frown that started to pucker her brow. ”I’d never have left you there love. We been through too much together, ain’t we?” The L word had slipped out of her mouth plenty of times, but despite what welled up in his chest from time to time, he wasn’t pushing the word past the blockage in his throat (it wasn’t like he could ever love someone else, she’d said it after all).

”No!” Mal puffed, trying to lever himself up like it’d hammer home the point. Not since Krista had lost her shit over it anyway. He still had his snacks at the hospital but that wasn’t from anyone, not in the way she was picturing in her jealous mind. ”How many times, Krista? That was before me and you. I don’t make a habit of goin’ ‘round filimin’ myself with people.” A smart man didn’t open himself up for that sort of repeat bollocking. ”We are,” Mal puffed. The smile wanted to tug at his lips at the idea of Krista managing to do this with anybody else, but he held it back. He’d be lucky if she didn’t smash a chair and use it to kill him if he did. ”I promised ya, didn’t I? There’s one else but you, love. You want me to write it my blood? I will not sleep around.” It wouldn’t have meant anything more than the paper it was written on, of course, he wasn’t that sort of superstititious.

Tagged: KRISTA MAY * Word Count: 1107

Of course she didn’t know who Nelson was. The Americans had barely stuck their noses into the war – barring the occasional privateer that they’d given a bollocking when they’d crossed paths – and that meant that the years of kicking French arse hadn’t happened. The only things Krista had heard about maritime history at all had come from him and even then he wasn’t sure she’d caught every fourth word. All she was concerned about was him and undoubtedly she thought that an ocean theme was gonna make him feel right at home in the new apartment that Kitty wouldn’t want him within a thousand yards of.

Given that he’d tried to snack on her best friend when Krista wasn’t there, it was a wonder she hadn’t warned him off of ever going near her again. This sort of stuff pinballed around Krista’s head until it struck a nerve and then, like now, it all started to pour out of her mouth. Mal stared down at it, wondering how soon would be too soon to kiss her and cut off this whole train of though. He frowned faintly, it was only delaying the inevitable. Eventually the pinball would hit again and Krista would light up with that little burst of outrage over what had stayed unresolved between the two of them. If only Pierre had been a little more selective in which memories he’d brought back.

Rats.

He tried the tip-toe method first, putting her feelings first – he didn’t get so much as a coo of appreciation – then he went for the distraction and wouldn’t you know, it was the one time Krista didn’t want it. It took a real effort not to thump his head back into the pillows with a sigh. The only way to handle this was to go through the discussion.

Mal puffed out a breath, dipping his head slightly to nuzzle at her hair. ”I am sorry for it, love,” he muttered. One single apology probably wouldn’t do much to slice through the Gordian knot of bother in the pit of Krista’s stomach, but it’d be a start. ”Then that means somethin’, don’t it,” Mal said lightly, lifting a hand to slip a finger beneath her chin. The wheels might start spinning behind her eyes now, throwing up smoke as she tried to figure out what he meant.

Those cogs were obviously smoking hot and now he was getting the edges of his temper fried on them. This was all his fault again and his lack of care towards her was grounds for the roasting he was about to get. He hadn’t been loyal enough, hadn’t been monogamous enough with who he had in his bed or who he’d had his fangs in – even though he’d cleared out all the blood in the mini-fridge except for hers and those sodding juice boxes were still taking up half the room in there. Was anything gonna be enough until there was a ring around Krista’s finger and he was risking going up in flames in a church because she’d wanna be married in the eyes of God for an eternity?

She frowned as he went to lever himself up, as though his little tantrum wasn’t as valid as hers. ”It was before we set down the rules though, eh?” He might as well have handed over all his meals to her and let Krista feed him like some baby reliant on the bottle. Anything outside of what she got to control she’d probably have poisoned, just to teach him a lesson. Mal darted a glance towards the fridge, just in case she’d got that in mind.

He froze as she finally started to smile – unsure if she was like the madams at the bawdy houses, luring him into a false sense of security with a smile before one of those hard hands cracked across his cheek. Krista wasn’t staring, planning her aim though, she was darting a look away. Mal narrowed his eyes at her, his lips pursing faintly as he tried to fathom it out. After a moment she seemed to settle back in, fumbling her way down his chest to grip one his hands. He squeezed it lightly, feeling faintly embarrassed – these days it was too hard to tell if it was his feelings of hers.

Him calm down? The laughter was definitely restrained this time. It was rich coming from her. The fact that she was more bothered about him trying to take a nip of Kitty’s blood than she was about him dipping other parts of himself into the professor was just as funny. How did he avoid getting whiplash with the way she flipped back and forth about his worst crimes?

”And what did she say to that?” Mal asked slowly. She’d probably pout about him jumping straight to that part of what was telling him, but it was the salient point, wasn’t it? Settling back into the pillows, he tried to look recalcitrant again, like a kid who’d learned his lesson over dipping his hand in the cookie jar. ”I wasn’t blamin’ you,” he started, ”I was just sayin’ what happened.” Krista would’ve immediately seen herself as a victim though.

Giving her hand another squeeze, he dragged them both up to his chest and settled them over his heart. Mal stroked his thumb over the back of her hand, sighing heavily. ”Sorry you felt that way, love. Not many vampires are used to having to be … monogamous with how we feed. It’s a learnin’ curve, and it took me a while to get used to it. I swear on my life, it’s not somethin’ you’ll have to worry about again. You want me to apologise to Kitty too?” If Krista had been likely to stake him just a few minutes ago, Kitty would be a thousand times more likely to do it – and she wouldn’t cry over it later the way Krista would either.

Tagged: KRISTA MAY * Word Count: 993