Zelda tucked her head against Mr. Darrow's shoulder. If he was agreeing with her - or at least saying yes, she could like him - then why did she still feel so hollowed out?

Probably because he was going to die, or leave at the very least, and so tomorrow none of this was going to matter anyways. She was going to be alone, and he was going to have adventures, and everything was going to be just the way it always was.

"I promise," Zelda said, "No strange men. It's a deal."

---

  

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AMAZING set by MJ

"Good," Alfred said, looking over at her with a silly smile. The situation had gone from serious to ridiculous in a matter of seconds, and his legitimate concerns regarding her judgement when it came to games of the heart was dislodged by the realization that they were essentially cuddling in an empty bedroom and discussing, of all things, the possibility of her ending up in a similar situation with someone else.

Maybe there wouldn't be anyone else. Maybe her affection for him ran deeper than a superficial schoolgirl crush — or maybe it would at least prove to have a bit more staying power in light of everything that had happened tonight. That idea should have put him on edge, since it was exactly what he'd been trying to avoid last time they'd spoken, and something he'd been dancing around the idea of since seeing her tonight. He'd lost that train of thought, however, and in the moment it just seemed... sweet. He hadn't done anything to win her over (at least, not that he'd been conscious of doing), but here she was all the same. She could have just had a mild infatuation with the idea of a whirlwind romance, but maybe she actually cared. He had the sudden idea that she was probably the only person in England he might be able to explain the meaning behind all of his tattoos to without feeling self conscious.

He might regret it in the morning, but right now, he was glad she was here. Without really thinking, he moved in and kissed her again.

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

The smile, at least, alleviated some of her internal angst - it was goofy and very Mr. Darrow, the sort of expression that caused her to show up here tonight in the first place. Perhaps their agreement would have been the end of it - perhaps it should have been the end of it - but then he kissed her again.

Zelda kissed him back without even thinking, she smiled into it, and that pleasant buzzy feeling kickstarted in her abdomen. She didn't want to stop kissing him, necessarily, and would have scooted closer to him if it had started to even be possible, but after several beats Zelda needed to breathe.

"Should've seen that coming," she echoed.

---

  

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AMAZING set by MJ

Alfred recognized his own words being tossed back at him and grinned. "Maybe," he allowed. It wasn't an action he would have thought very in character for himself out of context, kissing her like that, but in this moment nothing in the world seemed more natural. She was adorable, he was drunk, they were alone, and his arms were around her. What else could have happened?

He leaned in to kiss her again and gave himself over to the sensation of her taste in his mouth and the warmth of her body against his — at least until a clumsy noise from across the room roused him from the revery and forced him back to reality. Someone was at the door, he realized. Probably someone who lived here, one of his officers, and the only reason they were still on the other side of the door was that they were evidently too drunk to navigate the complicated mechanism of the doorknob on the first attempt.

"Shit," he swore, trying to sit and forgetting exactly where he was until his head bounced against the bunk above him. They couldn't just sit there — this would look very bad for her, and while it wouldn't exactly ruin him it certainly wouldn't help him cultivate an atmosphere of respect from his officers when they set sail in two days. Merlin, he'd never hear the end of it if one of his men walked in on him necking Zelda Fisk.

"Apparate us to my cabin," he suggested, wrapping his arm securely around her waist. She would be just as keen not to be discovered, he imagined, and she probably at least had a wand on her, which made her infinitely less useless in this situation.

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Oh shit. In everything that had happened, Zelda had actually forgotten that they could be interrupted - that other people existed on this ship, and lived in this room, and probably would judge her if they found her making out with Mr. Darrow. The only thing that prevented her from freaking out - from utterly panicking - was Mr. Darrow's suggestion.

Her hand plunged into her pocket for her wand, and as soon as she locked onto it, the two of them apparated away from the bed with a crack!

...and crashed in an undignified manner on the floor of the captain's cabin. She started giggling as soon as they landed.

---

  

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AMAZING set by MJ

Side along apparition wasn't ideal in any circumstances, much less when he was already intoxicated, but he did manage to hold onto the contents of his stomach as the pair appeared on the floor of his office. She was laughing, and so he started laughing, too, even though he wasn't sure what was so funny. They were in the clear, though, as far as random interruptions and wandering eyes went, so that was something. He rolled onto his back and made an over exaggerated gesture of relief with one arm, and since he still had the other wrapped securely around her waist this had the side effect of pulling her over on top of him.

"That was close," he said, laughter subsiding into a chuckles as he reached up to run his hands down either side of her, as though he needed to physically ensure she hadn't left anything behind in the other room when they'd apparated away. He was almost entirely unconscious of the fact that this put his hands in close proximity to places they most likely shouldn't be: her shoulders, breasts, ribs, waist, hips, legs. Her clothing was on crooked, but he wasn't sure if that was the fault of the apparition or the crash into the floor or his pulling her over on top of him. "Are you alright?"

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Zelda dropped her wand to the floor next to Mr. Darrow, giving a delighted gasp-laugh as he pulled her onto him. His hands, running down her body, had restarted that warm feeling in her chest, and she grinned down at him. "I'm fine," she said, "I'm good."

Things could have turned out terribly, if he hadn't suggested apparition, or if she wasn't very good at it. Instead, she was here, literally on top of him, hair and clothes quite astray. Right now, though, she really didn't care about that.

"What about you?" Zelda said. She cupped the side of his face in one hand, as if to frame it for memory. "No splinchings?" Probably she would have noticed by now if he was bleeding profusely, but it was still polite to check.

---

  

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AMAZING set by MJ

"None," Alfred said, grinning up at her. He was tempted to laugh again, not because he had anything in particular to laugh at, but because her mirth was contagious. He liked the way she looked when she smiled so wide like that, and the sound she'd made when he'd rolled the two of them over. He liked being this close to her, too. Not that they hadn't been close down below decks, but this felt different. The tight quarters of the cramped bunk bed imposed a sort of necessity that they lacked when she was just leaning on him in the middle of the floor in an otherwise spaciously empty room; it made it feel as though they were more alone then they had been before, more intimate and more isolated. In a way he supposed this was far more isolated, because no one would be drunkenly opening up the door to his cabin looking for their bed. Well, probably. Drunken sailors could do most anything. Perhaps locking the door would be beneficial, just in case, but in order to do that he'd have to move and break up this moment they were having.

"It's a good thing you had your wand," he remarked, moving one hand up to push her hood out of the way. It had flopped down across her shoulder and was hanging between them, but he pushed it back into place behind her and then let his fingers linger on the arm beneath it. "I s'pose I should've had mine, but I didn't expect to need it," he confessed. Alfred rarely expected to need his wand, mostly because he'd survived in the wilderness for so long without one. If he couldn't solve a problem without the use of magic, he was more inclined to find a way to avoid it entirely than to come up with magical methods. And when he'd gone out onto the dock tonight, he had only been expecting to be drinking with his sailors and their families, not cavorting about with impressionable young women in abandoned bedrooms. Even if someone had shown up a few hours ago and told him the night would end up like this, he wouldn't have believed them. He had been enough of a prude to stay celibate through years of living in a village where the women didn't wear tops; he was hardly the sort to end up like this, and he wouldn't have had the faintest idea how to salvage the situation if they hadn't managed to leave before someone had walked in on them.

Somehow, though, he had ended up like this, and it occurred to him suddenly that the odds of someone walking in on them now were very slim. He glanced down from her face to her body before he could think better of it, and realized that the particular angle the two of them were at coupled with the disarray both of their wardrobes were currently in allowed him to see more than he probably should have of the delicate skin just below the neckline of her dress. He tried to shake the thought, and forced his eyes back up to hers, but the image lingered in his mind.

"This is why you can't go running off at parties," he said, returning to this previous line of conversation less because he felt she needed any further chastisement in that particular area and more because he felt he needed to remind himself. He glanced back down, then up again quickly. "Someone might have thought..." he started, but he wasn't able to find any way to articulate the rest of the sentence. Any of the euphemisms sailors used were either far too crude or far too silly to fit the situation, but he was hesitant to pull out some romantic phrase like making love. In the end, it didn't matter anyway, because his willpower expired before his vocabulary options did. In one fluid motion, he brought his lips up to hers once more, while his hands found the uppermost clasp on her dress and began to undo it.

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

She was so charmed by his grin and his remarks that Zelda was, once again, somehow surprised when Mr. Darrow began kissing her again. Still, she returned the affections with nothing but vibrant enthusiasm. Her mind was wiped blank with warm delight and she was only clued back into reality by the gentle tap of his fingers against the clasp of her dress. This was the sort of thing that she shouldn't be doing. This was the sort of thing that no one should be caught doing - but they certainly were not going to be caught now. They made sure of that. She had apparated them to safety.

Besides, the thrill of it all had her legs feeling tingly.

Zelda ran her free hand up Mr. Darrow's side, fingers grazing the cloth of his shirt and finally settling on the buttons on the top. She did not have a good angle for this, but moving required, well - moving away, and she liked being this close to him. With fumbling fingers, Zelda began to undo the buttons at the top of Mr. Darrow's shirt. She wasn't thinking. She wasn't drunk, either - her buzz was now 'mild' at best - but all she could think was yes, and that she did not want to lose him just yet.

---

  

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AMAZING set by MJ

He was a bit surprised by how easily the first clasp came apart. Women's clothing always seemed so formidable and impenetrable from a distance, and it wasn't as though he had much first hand experience with it. He'd only ever undressed a girl once, and that had been over a decade ago. The handful of women he'd been with after his one drunken night in Boston had all been whores, and they tended to undress themselves. Inexperienced or no, he was getting through the closures on her dress at a steady clip, until the proximity of their bodies prevented him from going any further down. He broke away from kissing her long enough to pull the little cape away from her shoulders and toss it off to one side, and to glance down at what he'd accomplished so far. Her corset was visible now, in a long, narrow v where he'd undone her dress, but not much more in the way of skin.

It occurred to him that she might never have done this before. In fact, the odds were strongly in favor of her never having done this before, which meant that if he did work through the remaining layers of clothing he might be the first person to see her breasts. The idea sent a rush of nervous excitement through him. He leaned in to kiss her neck, while reaching down to put his hands on her hips and rock them back slightly. His goal was to change the angle between their bodies enough that he would have room to undo the rest of her dress, but he had also unintentionally created some friction between the two of them where her hips met his, which sent a rush of an entirely different variety through him. He let out a subtle and entirely involuntary gasp against the warm skin of her neck. He hesitated there with his hands on her hips, uncertain if he wanted to continue what he'd been doing with the buttons or leave his attention where it was at present. He couldn't have moved her body more than a fraction of an inch against his, but it had felt so good — and, he realized quite belatedly, had had an immediate physical effect on him, in that particular area.

It was impossible for her not to have noticed, he thought, with how close they were. Should he say something, or ignore it and hope she would do the same? It was a stupid thing to be embarrassed about, given the circumstances — and if they were really going to go through with this, it wasn't as though they could both ignore it indefinitely.

That was the first time in the course of the last few minutes that Alfred had really thought about what was happening, and what was likely about to happen, and his stomach suddenly sank. He'd been acting on impulse a moment ago, but could he really go through with this? Of course he could — his body was making it very clear that he could — but he really shouldn't, and he would likely hate himself tomorrow morning if he did. Not to mention how she would likely feel, in the clear light of day.

Alfred took his lips off of her and laid his head back against the ground, but that was all the distance he was able to put between the two of them while she was still lying on top of him, and he knew immediately that he didn't have the willpower to make her move; his entire body was thrumming from the contact.

"We were supposed to go dancing," he pointed out weakly.

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

There was something firm pressing against her abdomen, through the layers of clothes, although her layers had been considerably disrupted. Zelda arched an eyebrow as she wondered what, exactly, that firmness was coming from - but there was really only one option. Oh. She hadn't known, previously, that those did that.

In the time she spent contemplating that, Mr. Darrow moved away. Zelda remained, frozen, on top of him, with her cheeks burning.

"We were," she said. He was right. They were supposed to go dancing. And now they were - what? What were they going to do, what did she want to do? This was a loaded question -- her brain was starting to catch up with their actions, but her skin was on fire everywhere they touched. So she shunted the question off on Mr. Darrow:

"What do you want to do?" Zelda whispered.

---

The following 1 user Likes Zelda Darrow's post:1 user Likes Zelda Darrow's post
   J. Alfred Darrow

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AMAZING set by MJ

Alfred groaned lightly when she asked him. He knew what the right answer was, but he wished it wasn't up to him to make the choice. The universe seemed to have placed him in an impossibly difficult position. Why couldn't she have shown some sign of hesitation and stopped this without needing his input in the matter? Why did this have to be his decision?

Maybe because she was barely more than a teenager, and he was at least in theory an adult who ought to have known better. He was the experienced one, of the two of them, both when it came to the actual act of intercourse and to serious, long-term relationships (though the depths of his experience in either field were rather questionable). He should know better. He did know better. The problem was that he didn't want to do the right thing, and even as he laid there looking up at her his mind was working frantically to rationalize the decision he wanted to make, instead of the one he should make. It wasn't as though he'd tricked her or manipulated her into this; she clearly wanted to be here. She wanted to kiss him, and had made no objection when he'd started to take off her dress. So maybe she didn't know exactly what she was signing up for, at least not from prior experience, but if that wasn't going to stop her tonight it wouldn't stop her some other night, with some other man. How old was she, anyway? He'd been with a woman for the first time at nineteen, and it was hardly as though he'd turned in to some sort of depraved maniac as a result. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe the importance the English always placed on the act itself was really misplaced, like so many of the ideals he'd grown up with that had been challenged during his years living in the wilderness.

"Something I shouldn't," he admitted. He glanced down at her chest briefly and moved to slide one hand into the open front of her dress, cupping her breast. Her chemise still lay between his skin and hers, but the fabric was so thin that he could imagine very clearly what the sensation would be like if he continued to undress her. Another thrill ran through him as he caressed her. He wanted this so badly. Alfred looked back up to meet her eyes, but hesitated, biting his lower lip.

"Do you...?" he asked. He had no way to finish the sentence, but they both knew what they were talking about.

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

It was like she was frozen between what she should do and what she wanted to do.

She should roll of him now, get up, put her clothes back together, grab her wand, and apparate home. She should whisper into the darkness of her room "I almost did something stupid, Xena" and Zelda thought that her sister would actually listen, or have some input, because of that whole thing with her secret werewolf fiance. And they would talk and they would get over it, and then Zelda would have a whole new policy of not talking to boys alone at parties, or, hell, ever. She should wait to go to synagogue on Saturday and have a whole nice peaceful conversation with God and her dead mom about it, and then Mr. Darrow would be on his boat and it wouldn't matter anymore.

Or.

She could do what she wanted.

She could stay here with her skin feeling electric. She could go back to kissing him and they could follow this undressing to its natural conclusion; a conclusion that was even more tempting as Mr. Darrow cupped her breast. No one had ever touched her there before. No one had ever seen her like this before. With this buzzy feeling in her abdomen and her lips soft from all their kissing, and his firmness pressing up against her - well. She wanted it to be him.

"Yeah," Zelda said, "Yeah, I do," and leaned over to kiss him again.

---

The following 1 user Likes Zelda Darrow's post:1 user Likes Zelda Darrow's post
   J. Alfred Darrow

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AMAZING set by MJ

Alfred's body surged when her lips met his again. The physical reaction to what she'd said kicked in well before his brain had a chance to catch up with what was happening. He was returning her kiss immediately, with more force and urgency than the slow, tender kisses they'd been sharing in the stateroom down below, and his hands were working on the rest of the clasps on her dress. By the time he'd had a chance to think oh shit, we're actually doing this he'd pushed her dress back off of her shoulders, and his next conscious thought was I don't know how to get a corset off.

Well, he was going to figure it out. There wasn't any turning back now. Even if he'd had the desire or the willpower to do so, she was still kissing him, and his back was already up against the floor of the room. He couldn't get any farther away from her even if he'd been trying, and what he was doing right now was anything but increasing the distance between them.

The corset did eventually come off, but even in the moment Alfred probably couldn't have said how. Things happened so quickly that he barely had time to register them in his mind — or rather, he was too focused on the sensations to spend any time pondering other things. At some point they ended up moving to the next room and to the bed, because even in the heat of the moment Alfred couldn't imagine just pushing her down onto the floor so that he could climb on top. The clothes stayed where they'd been discarded, strewn at random through the two rooms, but he didn't notice. He wasn't thinking about their clothes, or anything, truth be told. Even when it was finally over (it wasn't as though he was timing it, but it seemed to last much longer than he typically did on *ahem* solo ventures — not that he was complaining at all), he wasn't able to hold on to much in the way of actual conscious thought.

After taking a moment to catch his breath, he disentangled his body from hers and lay down next to her. He was still drinking in the sight of her naked body, which seemed to glow pale and perfect in the flickering gaslight that spilled through the doorway from the next room. Was he supposed to say something? Probably so, but he couldn't think of what to say. The idea of forming words seemed like a monstrous burden and he was exhausted from the efforts the two of them had just expended. Instead, he nestled up as close as he could to her, wrapped his arms around her torso, and gently kissed her shoulder.

  

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER

Once they were committed, so to speak, things moved very quickly. The clasp on her corset was wrenched off onto the floor and once that was gone, it was much easier for Zelda to become undressed - and, then, easier for them to move from the floor to Mr. Darrow's bed. When he slipped inside her Zelda gasped out - it hurt and she hadn't expected it to - but with assurances that it was normal her alarm evaporated. The longer they were in motion the better it felt, as the ache inside her turned into something pleasurable and she was gasping for entirely different reasons. It was all punctuated with random thought; his hair is in his eyes turned to he's still a little clumsy turned to it's different now, what's happening?

What was different was, apparently, the end of it. Mr. Darrow slipped off of her and Zelda curled towards him. Sweat was rapidly cooling on what seemed like the entire surface of her body, and her chest heaved. No one had ever told her that sex involved so much physical effort. She draped her arm across his chest and stared upwards, at the ceiling. She should say something. She should say something. She didn't know what to say. She was tracing circles on his chest with one finger instead.

It took her a few minutes to muster up, "I guess I should maybe go home."

---

  

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AMAZING set by MJ

She had turned towards him and they were touching all over again, though without the tension that had seemed to hold them together like glue before. Alfred settled in to this position as though it were a new state of existence; the two of them on the bed could have been the entire world as far as he was concerned. It almost confused him when she spoke, and his brow clouded over at her words. Home.

"Oh," was all he managed. He didn't know what else to say. He almost asked Now? but realized it was a stupid question. It wasn't as though there was any alternative. She couldn't just stay here, despite how final and all-consuming their cuddling had seemed only seconds ago. She had to leave, and she had likely already been away from whoever had brought her here far too long to avoid suspicion entirely. Lingering would only make it worse, and it was already probably very bad. He didn't even know who she was here with. For all he knew, they might have started searching the ship for any sign of her already.

Still, it felt strange to disconnect from the moment so completely and so quickly. This wasn't some sort of business interaction that they could just shake hands and walk away from. He certainly wasn't eager to see her go, but he knew he could say nothing to make her stay.

"Should I walk you out?" he asked uncertainly. He didn't know where she was going, and whether it would make things better or worse for her to be seen with him after having been gone so long. The idea that she might apparate out of his cabin without using the front door hadn't even occurred to him.

The following 1 user Likes J. Alfred Darrow's post:1 user Likes J. Alfred Darrow's post
   Zelda Darrow

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MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER