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"Wire."
"Heat."
That was all the words that passed between the two commanders before the blue-haired firebreather immediately slumped down next to the taller man on the deck of the Victoria Punk. There was silence beneath the moonlight shimmering over the sea, only crashing waves reverberating while throwing themselves against the hull was heard. Surging forward and resting his sleep-rustled hair on Wire's shoulder, Heat clapped his hand over his face and shook his head from side to side.
"I cried, man," Heat whispered from beneath his palm, peeking out through a small partition of his fingertips, "Like, immediately after fucking tonight." Wire turned his head, peering down at the scarred face of his oldest friend in confusion.
"One: this is not where I thought that was going, and why must I always be the one involved with your sexcapades? And two,” Wire questioned, cocking his brow up in interest with a smirk blooming over his face, “Like, 'the ghost of a whimsical tear' because was so long since you've had a good, hard lay, right?” Heat shut the crack between his fingers, softly shaking his head in mortified embarrassment.
"Nah, man. Heavy sobbing," he whispered with a warmth flooding his chest and blooming in his ears. "Like, really heavy sobbing. Like a child with a scraped knee, sobbing. Blubbering, heaving, and snot everywhere, sobbing."
"Oh, shit." Wire snorted at first, his expression turning to alarm as he looked over his friend, "Was it that bad? Are you alright? Are you hurt?" He nudged Heat off his shoulder, prodding him and poking him to lighten the mood while still remaining a little concerned. Heat removed his hands from his face, rubbing his eyes before using the back of his hand to swipe at his nose.
"No, no. Nothing like that, man."
"Oh?" Wire poked Heat once more with his jesting smile rising steadily to rest in the creases of his eyes. He clasped Heat's wrists to draw them away from his face, asking him with curiousity ebbed in his deep baritone, "Then why were you crying?"
Sighing out softly, Heat clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes at his taller friend. Circling his wrists to remove them from the playful grip, he toyed with the hem of his sleep pants while enjoying the sounds of the waves continuing to roll and thunder against the wood of the deck.
"It didn't feel like 'fucking', you know?" he nodded, peering over the rails of the Punk towards the ocean. "It... I... We..." Heat struggled over the words before settling on the phrase with a hardened resolve, "It was like... Okay, we were cuddling, right?"
"Right," Wire echoed back, settling in and leaning forward on the bordering frame.
"And then we were chest to chest, right?" Heat nodded along, gesturing with his hands in front of him to make sense of the situation. Using his hands like marionets to depict the exact act, Wire tilted his head to the side to make sense of what was occuring.
"Right...?" Wire furrowed his brows in confusion, “Just cuddling and chest to chest. Go on.” Heat shook his head and took an extended breath in before releasing it out. Turning to bring his eyes on Wire's, Heat felt the earlier emotions return to him with a partial teeter in his chest.
"Everything was so close. Like, there was no other movement besides my cock being inside. Hips rolling really slowly, lots of kissing, and just being really fucking close-close," he confessed in a single breath, "Just… kissing while everything was touching and really lazy and soft… You know? Like, that's it. Just… close…?"
"Right."
"It just... It felt... I felt..." Heat tried to find the words, instead only finding the same phrase repeating over before he would ever admit to saying it. Before he could wrap his tongue around the words, Wire stole them from within him.
"You know they call it ‘making love’ for a reason, right?" Wire suggested offhandedly. Heat nodded softly before looking out towards the sea, his bottom lip beginning to quiver again as he recalled those moments shared not long before.
"Yeah, man," he sighed as quietly as he could manage while the emotions continued to rise with the swell of the sea, "We made love. It was soft and vulnerable as hell, and I just… cried."
"You cried after you waited a bit? Until they fell asleep, right?" Wire prodded his friend, stepping closer and peering out at the ocean. Heat coughed and looked down at his bare feet beneath his sleep pants, curling his toes on the wood in shame.
"Nah, like, immediately after we both finished," he confessed, "Only thing is, any time they gave me assurance, holding me and shit, and letting me know it's okay, it just made it so much worse. Like, I was trying so hard to be ‘macho’, you know? I'm a pirate. Hells, I'm a ‘Kid Pirate', for fuck sake. I'm a commander. I've been through hell. I've had my face ripped open, and fire forced in-.”
“-You’re also a man, Heat. And one of the strongest I know.” Wire reached forward and clapped his hand on his friend's shoulder, thumbing over the tattoo stemming from his neck onto his forearms. “You have been through hell, it's true. You've never known gentleness, kindness, softness - and that's all that you got to experience until just now.” Moving from a caress to a playful punch on his skin, Wire chuckled at his friend's gloomy smile while he continued, “You are entitled to your own feelings on what being ‘macho’ and ‘masculine’ means to you, but I think your little bedmate enjoys your vulnerability. Why don't you return back to them, hm? Apologize for leaving their side just now, maybe give them head, and then you talk about it with them?”
“Yeah,” Heat smiled, playfully feigning pain at the punch from Wire before giving him one of his own, “I'll do that. Thanks, man.”
“Go fuck yourself, Heat,” Wire retorts with the Kid Pirate love expression, “And while I enjoy our little chats, please stop including me in your sex life conversations without giving me a bit of forewarning. It's giving me sex-envy, for fucks sake.” He snickered as he playfully chastised him, knowing that this would not be the last time Heat involved him in his relationship wins and woes - just like the other thirty-plus members of the Kid Pirates. He was their comfort ‘go to’ with sex conversations, not really sure why he was, but he was always happy to help.
“Go fuck yourself, Wire,” Heat responds in a similar way, smiling up at the corners before quipping back, “I'll find you someone at port in a couple days to set you up with. Take all that sex envy out on them, hm? I'll bring my 'little bedmate' along with me so it's like a double date.”
Turning back to make his way to his assigned quarters, Heat contemplates the way your body moved with his. Your smile on his smile, your breath with his breath, your bodies touching on ways he had only ever read about in sappy romance novels he hides from his crewmates. Lips brushing, hands tangled in hair, thighs meeting, highs only ever chased slowly and softly as your hearts beat as one: you were his everything, and this vulnerability threw him. He didn't think he, as a scarred and maimed Kid Pirate, had the capacity to love - yet here he was, a man consumed and losing control of himself over the most intimate he had ever been with another person.
Wire shakes his head at the departure of his friend, only offering the earlier sentiment that began this conversation between himself and the blue haired commander.
“Heat.”
“Wire.”