DISCLAIMER: I don't own Black Sails. It is not my intellectual property. There is no financial gain made from this nor will any be sought. This is for entertainment purposes only.
Minor SPOILERS! Based on the comment Vane makes in S1E8 about remembering the first time he saw Eleanor.
Nassau – 1701
Eleanor Guthrie was not afraid of him. Even at the tender age of thirteen, that skinny, arrogant, little slip of a girl was anything but fearful. And she made sure he knew it. Despite being surrounded by dozens of pirates, murderers and thieves by trade, that tiny girl strut up and down those docks with an air of authority and purpose.
If she was at all aware of the danger in perusing such an establishment looking the way she did, she did not show it. Being a girl of her blossoming age and prestigious breeding, the beaches of Nassau were hardly an appropriate stomping ground for the young lady. Her appearance alone put her at risk on these shores, among these men.
Yet she seemed to pay none of it any mind.
She surveyed the shores, taking note of each ship and it's cargo in a small, brown leather journal. She carried herself like some kind of royalty, like she owned the whole Goddamned island and wasn't afraid to let anyone know it.
He wasn't entirely sure if she was merely naive in her youth, or just plain stupid.
When she noticed him watching her she did not scurry off or avert her gaze, as many often did when presented with a disposition as thoroughly imposing as his own. He had been marauding the open sea for almost four years. After having cast the yoke of slavery from his back, he'd set out to make something of himself, swearing never to kneel again. By eighteen, he had begun to earn quite the reputation for himself. A such, those who knew of him, usually had the good sense to fear him.
But not her.
Upon noticing his attention towards her, she only stood taller; lifted her chin just enough to further convey her lack of disturbance under his scrutiny. The look she cast in his direction was somewhere between a smile and a smirk, and he wondered briefly what it would be like to convince such a brazen girl to willingly submit to him.
Over the following few years he never gave the thought too much credence. She was the daughter of Richard Guthrie, a man with considerable power and influence in the commerce of the island. And thus, pursuing the fiery girl seemed more trouble than it was worth.
However, that was not to say he wasn't intrigued. That he didn't frequent her tavern or pay particular attention when she entered a room. Or that he didn't engage in most every opportunity he got to irritate her. She had a peculiar sort of allure, one that often became all the more appealing when he managed to rile her into a fit of rage or righteous indignation.
She was never afraid. She never once denied him challenge. She'd declared to his face that she feared nothing. That while men might lower themselves to cower before the infamous Captain Charles Vane, she certainly never would.
For whatever reason, that simple statement had struck him. Stirred something within him that felt suspiciously substantive. He didn't know why, and nor did he care to analyze it too closely, lest he discover something better left buried.
As time went on, he began to suspect that she enjoyed their little banters and flirtations almost as much as he did himself. Whether they were engaging in trivial flirtations or finding new ways to aggravate and harass one another, he had come to crave their interactions. Which in retrospect, would be his downfall. He knew that his fascination with her was ill advised, that nothing good could come of it. Yet even as he knew that to be true, he found himself caught up in her sick gravitational pull.
He'd speculated on more than one occasion that it was likely she'd become aware of his penchant for her. That she'd begun playing a dangerous game, and had found her hand to be exceptionally well advantaged.
A fact that irritated him to no end.
He began to notice her presence in his frequent haunts and wondered idly if she'd ever admit she was there to see him. Or if she would forever claim to be completing some menial task, continue feigning ignorance of his whereabouts.
He wasn't quite sure why such an admittance should even matter to him. Or even why she held such a particular appeal to him in the first place. Certainly it would be stupid of him to allow himself to entertain the notion that his affections toward her may not be entirely nonreciprocal.
It was foolish, he knew.
But he didn't stop it.
Nassau - 1706
Being five years her senior, he should have known better. He should have sent her away when she slipped into his tent that night. God knew he would have been better off had he tossed her out on her ass and headed back out to sea the first chance he got.
But he hadn't.
He'd watched passively as that eighteen year old girl sailed into his tent like she owned it. Like she hadn't just crept through a camp full of thieves and killers with little concern for the dangers or whispers that were bound to rise from such an indecent course of action.
He'd been sitting on a pile of pelts and pillows when she entered, and for a moment she simply stood just inside the tent. With her chin held high she surveyed her surroundings, his position within those surroundings, and his face. And whatever she saw there seemed to embolden her, to propel her into movement.
He watched with a bedeviled sort of awe as she stalked toward him, hiked up her skirts and lowered herself into his lap. He was sure this was another of her games. He laughed, his hands coming up to rest on her thighs as leaned back against the pillows. Damned if he was going to admit she'd rattled him.
He asked her what the hell she thought was was doing.
She only smirked and reached down between their bodies to tug open his pants and take hold of his growing length. His breath caught and she leaned down so he could feel her breath against his ear. Her voice was strong and steady, so sure of it's self.
"Enough games, Charles. You'll show me what all the fuss is about."
This girl would be the end of him, she would be his ruin. In that moment, he had never been so sure of anything else in his life. And as he watched her move above him, as she rubbed herself along the length of him, he was resigned to his fate.
Consequences be damned.
If this was the game she intended to set into motion, he would indulge her. He'd show her it was a game she could not win. They'd play at this game as they played at all the others. It was a fight for dominance, for control. For one to subvert the other, to gain the upper hand and sway the other to concede. It was a tangle of sweaty limbs and fevered touches, of passion and carnality long overdue.
It was his undoing.
Later, as she lay across his chest naked and spent, he knew he was lost. That this bewitching girl now had the potential and ability to lay him raw. Even as her fingers traced lazy circles across his hip and his lay twisted in her hair, he knew...
But fuck if he'd make it easy on her. If he was to burn, he'd make damn sure she burned with him.