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#Hot navy pilot come safe me
peacefxlmyko · 2 months
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dating apps dont work so its time to sit in a bar and lose that loving feeling
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cinebration · 8 months
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Too Slow For Me (Jake "Hangman" Seresin x Reader) [One-shot]
Premise: Of all the bars in all the world, Jake had to walk into yours.
Tagged: @abaker74, @ahopelessromanticwritersworld, @the-romanian-is-bae, @b-bradshaw, @alldaysdreamers, @bat-luna-cat, @solo2leo, @lucy-sky
Warnings: none
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Gif Source: topgundaily
When you were hired to work as a bartender for Penny Benjamin at her bar, you thought nothing of it. The Jake Seresin you knew, while an up-and-coming hotshot flyboy, would never make it to TOPGUN, not with his mouth and his inability to play well with others. Working in the bar would be safe, you were sure of it.
Until a year later when Jake walked through the door.
A shock of surprise blasted through you when you recognized his face across the room, heard the familiar sound of his voice. Like suddenly being doused in cold water, you shivered and felt your heartrate skyrocket.
There was nowhere to hide. As the only bartender on duty, you were obligated to stay behind the bar. You couldn’t run even as Jake crossed the room and headed directly to you.
Trying to quell the mounting panic in your chest, your skin suddenly unbearably itchy as sweat broke out beneath your armpits, you forced yourself to stay calm.
He stopped at the bar and leaned his forearms against it. “Two beers.”
He flashed a pearly white smile.
You felt as though you’d been punched in the stomach. Nodding jerkily, you faced away from him to find two beers and pop off their tops, your face burning.
He didn’t remember you.
You handed him the beers and wordlessly took the money he slapped down onto the countertop, everything within you screaming as you fought back the hot tears pushing insistently at the back of your eyes.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” he said, winking. “What’s your name?”
You quietly gave it to him. A faint crease rumpled his smooth brow.
“Don’t I—”
“Can I get two beers and a boilermaker?” another patron asked, raising their voice over Jake’s.
“Sure thing,” you answered with false cheer, scurrying away with relief to fetch the man’s drinks.
As Jake walked away to join his buddies, he glanced back over his shoulder as though to catch your eye, but you studiously avoided his gaze. Bitterness and pain flooded you as you kicked yourself for being stupid enough to think that working in a bar that catered to Navy pilots wouldn’t make you cross paths with him again.
Maybe, you realized, you had wanted to this happen. Maybe you had wanted the chance…
~~
When you first met Jake, he was fresh out of flight school and hadn’t earned his call sign yet. You hadn’t recognized that his confidence was arrogance and his ego was outsized even for an Navy pilot. You couldn’t see past the charm, his grin, and the mischievous green eyes.
You never expected Jake to even look at you. He seemed to like girls faster than the jets he flew, and you were decidedly not one of them. As you once half-heartedly joked with your mother, you were invisible, particularly to anyone who looked even half as handsome as Jake.
So when he approached you one night, teeth gleaming and eyes glittering in the soft lighting of the bar, cozied up to you, and invited you out to dinner, you could hardly believe your luck. You pinched yourself more than once through the night, so surreal it all felt.
He took you to a middle-grade Italian restaurant that was better than getting pizza and beer but not very extravagant. You didn’t mind, preferring the food to the heavier, richer foods of high-end restaurants. The conversation was stimulating, Jake’s charisma out in full force and the banter crisp and light-hearted. You had never quite so clicked with anyone as you did with Jake that night.
As the evening wound to a close, you were excited to see him again. Before you could say as much, he leaned in toward your ear and whispered, “Why don’t we get out of here?”
Your heart plummeted. Swallowing thickly, you pulled away and muttered, “I’m not…I don’t think so.”
He frowned. “Why not? I thought we were getting along great.”
“We were—are. But…not on a first date.”
He stared at you, the glimmer in his eyes fading. Shaking his head, he exhaled heavily. “You’re too slow for me, sweetheart.”
And he left you standing there, cheeks burning and your stomach roiling.
You hadn’t eaten Italian since.
~~
The night crawled. You exerted all of your energy trying to avoid looking in Jake’s direction or focusing on his voice as he crowed with his friends over winning shots at the dartboard or the pool table. You served drinks and faked smiles at everyone else that came up to the counter.
When the evening waned into the early morning hours, all that remained were Jake and his friends. You could hear the individual tick of the second hand of the clock over their laughter and raised voices, itching for it to be two a.m. so you could kick them out.
“Last call,” you finally yelled with relief.
Jake immediately sauntered over. You wanted to kick your own teeth out.
“Last round of beers for us,” he said, leaning against the counter.
Nodding, you counted heads and proceeded to collect the beer bottles.
“Don’t I know you?”
You froze, your heart thumping painfully in your chest. “No,” you answered. You popped open the first beer.
“Nah, I definitely know you”
You tried to pop off the caps faster, working furiously to hand them to him.
“Wait a minute…” He leaned forward, scrutinizing your face as you handed gave him the last of the beers.
“That’ll be thirty dollars.”
“You’re that girl. Italian dinner, no after party.”
Your cheeks burned. Ducking your head, you tapped the bar. “Thirty dollars.”
“Where’re the beers?” one of his friends called. “Hurry up, man!”
“How’ve you been?” Jake asked, frowning slightly as he dug around for his wallet.
“Why would you care?” you muttered, snatching the money from his hand. You scurried away from him to the opposite side of the room, hiding behind chores.
The group left before you had to kick them out at two. Relief made you slump into a chair with your head in your hands, your stomach slowly relaxing and releasing the knot it had been holding for hours. Somehow, Jake remembering you—or rather, how he had remembered you—was worse than him not recognizing you at first.
You took your time wiping down the tables and booths, stacking the chairs atop them so you could run a quick vacuum over the floor. The chores helped relax you, though bitter sadness lingered tartly in your mouth.
You locked up, debating how to tell Penny that you were quitting, and strode across the sand to the parking lot—where Jake and his friends had set up a stunt course with orange traffic cones, daring each other to do better as they screeched through the obstacle course. Cones went flying as each one clipped corners too hard or fumbled gear changes, the clutch grinding like a creature in the throws of pain.
You hesitated as you watched them, as you watched Jake laughing at his friends’ failures. Leaning against your car, you watched waited for his turn.
Climbing into the car, he revved the engine like he knew what he was doing and took off, burning rubber on the asphalt as he navigated the course. He clipped one cone, then two, before spinning out as a third snagged in the wheel-well.
Everyone laughed and talked shit as Jake climbed out of the car with a sheepish grin on his face. He shrugged it off and said, “Nobody can make this course, man.”
You pushed off your car, tossed your purse into it, and strode across the asphalt to Jake. He sobered as you approached, wariness diminishing the humor in his expression. You held out a hand for the keys.
“I wanna try,” you said.
A quiet ooooo rippled through the group.
“No offense,” he began.
You tore the keys from his hand.
“Uh, knock yourself out, I guess.”
“No way,” someone else said, shaking his head as you passed him to the car. “What’s a civilian gonna do? Total our car!”
You slipped into the driver’s seat and adjusted it before slamming the door shut, blocking out the naysaying crowd’s voices. Inhaling deeply, you glanced at the obstacle course, committing it to memory.
How’s this for fast? you thought savagely.
Kicking the car into gear, you shot forward into the opening of the track. With practiced hands, you shifted seamlessly through gears, the clutch almost purring with relief at not grinding. Coming up to the first pinched turn, you tore around it easily, the rear bumper of the car missing a cone by mere centimeters.
The thrill of the speed rushed through you, making the crowd and the circumstances drop away. You tore around the next turn, looked ahead to see that two scattered cones were a threat to your wheels.
Without hesitation, you slammed on the brakes, sending the car into a slide. Yanking the gear shift into reverse, you pivoted the car into another 180, sliding through both cones and whipping around to finish the last leg of the course.
You streaked through the other side, not a single cone touched in your wake.
Cheers thundered in the silence of the night as you killed the engine and exited the car.
“Un-fucking-believable!” someone shrieked. “Did you see that!?”
The only woman in the group was grinning, a “Niceeeee” hissing past her lips.
Jake trotted up to you. “That was—”
You tossed the keys at his chest. He had to scoop them off the asphalt as you strode across the parking lot to your car.
“Hey, wait a minute.” He hurried to your side. “I want to talk to you.”
“What for?”
He blinked. “I want to buy you a drink, catch up.”
You stopped abruptly, adrenaline still flooding your veins. You stared him directly, the first time you had been able to meet his eye all night. He took a step back under the force of your gaze.
“Why?”
“Because…you’re interesting.”
“I was always interesting, dipshit. You just didn’t stick around to find out,” you snarled.
You took off to your car, leaving him standing there. He tried to catch up, but you were too fast for him.
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say-al0e · 1 year
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Finally
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Rating: M | This is smut! No one under 18! Minors, DNI!
Summary: You have a rule; don’t pursue any of the other regulars at your favorite bar. Rooster is a regular and one night, makes you question why you ever thought that rule was a good idea.
Warnings: Protected PinV, oral (fem rec), drinking, consent is hot, pre-TGM (set in VB). (Anything else, just let me know and I can tag it)
Pairing: Rooster x fem!Reader
Word Count: 5.7k
Top Gun Taglist | Top Gun Masterlist
The little dive a few blocks away from your apartment had long since turned into something of a second home for you and your friends. Most Saturdays - if none of the girls had made more pressing pans - found you seated around a table near the door, empty glasses littering the sticky surface as you all decompressed after a stressful week. There was cheap alcohol, greasy food that was decent enough, and rarely any crowds.
Unlike other bars in the area, most of the people who filled seats on Saturday nights were your run of the mill regulars. Though the vast majority of bars in the area - new and old - seemed to cater to the large and ever-growing Naval population, the little dive never seemed to attract any particular clientele. 
There always seemed to be an interesting mixture of regulars scattered about each weekend. The ones you saw most were the small group of college students - eager to flash their new, real (they swore) IDs - a few couples, a few loners who drank quietly at the bar, and a group of, in the words of your friends, obscenely handsome men.
That description wasn’t wrong, the group was obscenely handsome, but you did your best not to stare. The bar was your safe haven, a refuge from the offense of a rough week, just as you assumed it was theirs. As such, you thought it best not to pursue any of them.
Things could get messy - the bartender had slept with a handful of one-time regulars who had since stopped appearing - and losing your favorite bar to a night that may or may not be worth it was the last thing you wanted. Avoiding them seemed practical, however, just because you decided that you shouldn’t didn’t mean you didn’t want to.
The group of men was never loud, no more so than any of the rest of the patrons in the bar, but there were moments of light that showcased their personalities. Their voices tended to carry on slower nights, when it seemed to be just your group and theirs, and you’d gotten to know a fair deal about them.
The most revolutionary piece oof information you’d gleaned from their conversations was that the one they called Rooster was the one who’d caught your eye.
Rooster - whose real name you never heard uttered by any of his companions - was at the bar most weekends. He was one of the quieter members of the group, usually choosing songs at the old jukebox in the corner and grinning as he nodded along, but never failed to laugh when the group lobbed half-hearted taunts his way. 
There was a boyish charm about him, despite his size and relative quiet, and it did nothing but make you wonder.
If anyone asked, you’d argue that the duality of him was what drew you in. He was easily among the tallest men in the bar at any given time, with broad shoulders and defined biceps. There were a handful of scars smattered across his skin and, every so often, a handful of bruises to accompany them.
The men he ventured into the bar were so obviously Navy, even without the uniforms but Rooster carried himself easily. The rigidity you’d come to expect from soldiers, pilots, and sailors - living so close to the largest Naval base in the world gave you plenty of experience with them - was missing entirely, replaced by gaudy Hawaiian shirts and a playful smile, and that was that.
Somehow, in only a matter of months, Rooster managed to capture your attention and kept you coming back for more, week after week.
Everyone seemed to notice.
Both sets of friends - yours and his - wagged eyebrows and snickered whenever your paths managed to cross. Endless amounts of whispering, begging you just to say hello to him, plagued you nearly every weekend and if you glanced at his table, you assumed he was being given the same treatment.
It seemed impossible that he wasn’t, given you seemed to have caught his eye, too.
Night after night, piercing brown eyes met yours across the bar. A soft smile, hidden beneath a mustache you would’ve deemed ridiculous on anyone else, was sure to accompany the warm gaze and, despite yourself, you’d grown to anticipate the shared glances.
That gaze, those eyes glittering even in the dim light of the bar, was the highlight of your night. That night was no exception.
Each time you took a cursory glance around the bar - gaze sweeping over the sticky bar top, the bright jukebox, the worn pool table, the wall covered in stickers and patches and signatures from patrons past - you always seemed to find your way back to him.
Over the course of the night, glances were exchanged - sidelong, flirty, curious - more frequently than ever. It reminded you that there’d always been something stopping you from taking him home.
The desire to keep yourself, and him, from losing your second home for a night that had no guarantee; the determination to avoid your friends’ knowing smiles and fond teasing, no matter how deserved; the desperation to keep from making a mistake by taking him home, even if it turned out to be a beautiful one.
Thoughts of what could happen - the bad, the good, the indifferent - plagued you each time you shared a glance with Rooster. As your friends sipped beer and wine and giggled about their respective partners, you allowed yourself to wonder.
There was no guarantee attached to a night spent with Rooster, however, there could be a future there. The happily ever after you quietly longed for, wrapped in an awfully tacky Hawaiian shirt and a mustache straight out of 1986, could await you. One night with him could lead to a future that saw your group of friends and his sharing a table and laughing over how long you danced around one another.
Alternatively, it could become a fond memory. There was no guarantee the intrigue you felt would last more than a night. It could end with an understanding that you were not meant to be and knowing looks shared in passing, never speaking of the night but silently agreeing to cohabitate in peace.
The worst option was the one that gave you pause. There could be heartache in a night spent with Rooster, hidden behind pretty smiles and soft eyes. The night could lead to a future in which the sight of those eyes would render you unable to step foot in your favorite bar. It could end in disappointment or hurt and that was the last thing you wanted for either of you.
Each scenario was one you’d considered at least a dozen times. Some nights, you spent the entirety of your time in the bar questioning ‘what-if’. It was why you’d avoided speaking to him, why you never allowed the glances to linger too long or the teasing from your friends to spur you into action, but something shifted.
That night, instead of allowing the negativity to take root, an unfamiliar determination took hold.
Three weeks had passed since you last saw him. During those three weeks, you wondered if he’d been sent elsewhere and you’d missed your chance. Upon realizing how devastated the thought made you, you decided that he was worth it. Regardless of what happened, you wanted to at least take that first chance.
Rooster seemed to feel the same.
There was a promise hidden in the warmth of his eyes - ask and I’ll follow, you won’t regret it - you’d never seen from him before. It had you lingering near the bar as your friends paid their tabs. You waited under the guise of patience, insisting you had nowhere to be the following day and knew they all had plans, but, really, you weren’t sure you wanted them to see you willingly offer yourself up to the man they’d been teasing you about for months.
Nothing about it was shameful, you knew that. Your friends had gone home with or taken home their fair share of partners - soldiers, sailors, pilots, baristas, musicians, artists, finance bros; you name it, they’ve slipped out of a bar with them, uttering a promise to share details upon next meeting - but this felt different.
Rooster felt different.
That thought would likely make you laugh later on - depending on the outcome of the night - but you were confident as he followed your lead.
As his friends paid their tabs, each pointedly ignoring your presence - though you knew they saw you, felt their curious glances even as you paid them no mind - and laughing, he snuck glances. With each one, the world seemed to stop to a crawl around you.
The chatter of the bar faded into an indistinct hum, a song that no longer mattered playing in the background, just as the neon lights behind the bar blurred into shapeless splotches. Rooster settled into the space at your side as he waited and warmth radiated off of him, even through the fabric of his gaudy Hawaiian shirt. You only hoped that he didn’t notice the way your grip on the bar tightened in an effort to remain upright.
For a few long moments, you kept your eyes on the shelf of bottles behind the bar, struggling to read the labels that only moments ago had been completely comprehensible, and pointedly avoiding meeting his eyes in the mirror. However, when the last of his friends stepped out of the bar and into the cool night air, Rooster turned to you.
“Bradley,” he introduced, finally answering the question you’d been pondering for months, the moment you met his eyes. His mouth curved into a soft smile, eyes shimmering and bright despite the dim light of the bar, and you had to force yourself to take even breaths as he offered his hand in greeting.
Bradley’s voice, clearer than you’d ever heard it now that it was directed at you, and lower than expected, rang in your ears as he repeated your name. It sounded perfect, as if he’d uttered it a thousand times before, and it was almost startling how his touch simultaneously calmed and electrified your poor stuttering heart.
It was difficult to remember the last time anyone had made you feel this way - if anyone had ever made your feel this way - upon first meeting but you refused to dwell. That moment was all that mattered and, for once, you were ready to take the night in stride.
With the weight of Bradley’s gaze sweeping over your skin, warm eyes roving the few expanses of exposed skin, heating you from within, little else seemed to exist beyond the present. There was no telling how long you stood, your hand clasped in his as you took the opportunity to study one another without the teasing of friends, before the moment was broken by the opening chords of Berlin’s Take My Breath Away.
Laughter, surprised but wholly amused, filled your ears as Bradley finally released your hand. “Fitting,” he teased, grinning as his gaze returned to meet yours. When you rolled your eyes, playful despite the heat rushing to your cheeks, Bradley’s grin only grew. “Are you heading out?”
“Was planning to, yeah,” you nodded with a brief glance toward the door. “Luckily, it’s a pretty short walk.”
Bradley copied the gesture, slow and understanding, as he searched your face for any hint that he’d gotten the wrong understanding. When he seemed to find none, he asked, “Let me walk you home?”At the raise of your brow, teasing, he shrugged. “It’s late,” he reasoned, “short walk or not.”
“Does the Navy encourage the buddy system or is that your attempt at chivalry?”
Despite the question, you gathered your bag and threw the bartender - who wore a knowing grin - a wave before turning to leave. Bradley waited just a moment, eager for your consent, and only followed when you tilted your head toward the door.
“What gave me away as Navy?”
The noise of the city hit you as you stepped out into the night - through a door held open by Bradley - but immediately faded into the background as he fell into step at your side. Just as you figured he would, he walked along the edge of the sidewalk closest to the street and turned to glance at you.
“I’ve lived in Virginia Beach for two years. There’s not much else you can be around here. Your friends are Navy so I put two and two together. ‘Sides, the call sign didn’t help,” you teased, grinning when he laughed and nodded his understanding. “Before we found out your friends were Navy, my guesses were either that, blue collar, or a former frat boy. But that could just be the Hawaiian shirts clouding my judgement.”
Bradley’s laughter was quiet, a little self-deprecating, but amused as he shook his head. He studied you for a moment, gaze sweeping your skin with a quiet intensity that made it difficult to keep yourself entirely together, before he turned his head to glance at the neighborhood surrounding you both. “You know, for those to be guesses, two out of three isn’t bad.”
For this to be the first time you’d actually gotten to speak to him, you found conversation with Bradley to be easier than you would’ve imagined. There was no hint of what you hoped the night would bring, only an easy banter that settled the erratic beating of your heart and calmed the nerves that prickled at your overheated skin. It reinforced the decision you were making and gave you hope that maybe, just maybe, this wouldn’t be a mistake.
“You were a frat boy? Let me guess, UVA or Tech. Unless you’re going to shock me and tell me you didn’t go to school in Virginia.”
With an easy grin, Bradley shook his head. “UVA,” he confirmed, eyes flickering to you. “You’re good. Are you always this right or am I just easy to read?” As you approached a crosswalk, Bradley took a moment to glance around at your surroundings before asking, “Which way?”
“Left at the light.” As you slowed to a stop, Bradley turned to focus the entirety of his attention on you. There was an honest curiosity there, eager to continue the conversation, and you were surprised at how willing he was to chatter on about nothing rather than rush you through the streets. “I went to UNC Chapel Hill. There are differences, obviously, but enough similarities that make it easier to see. Or maybe I just put on college-tinted goggles and never took them off. But even a broken clock is right twice a day.”
For a brief moment, the only noise was that of the city moving around you. The occasional car rushing past, the opening and closing of doors as you passed apartment buildings, the distant hum of conversations, but Bradley’s silence spoke the loudest. When you glanced at him, only to be met with a look of fond bemusement, you raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
Instead of speaking, Bradley took a step closer and lifted his hand to cradle your cheek. As he leaned in, he paused for a moment to await your consent. Brown eyes swept yours, searching for any hesitance, and when he was met with a nod, he pressed his mouth to yours.
The kiss was softer than you expected, less an impatient clashing of teeth and lips and tongue and more of an eager glimpse into the coming night, and you were met with a quiet laugh as Bradley pulled away.
“I would apologize for not waiting,” he began, eyes shining even under the dim orange glow of the streetlight and not sounding apologetic in the slightest, “but I can’t. I’ve been thinking about doing that for a while.” He grinned then, honest and endearing, and you felt your chest begin to ache as his eyes darted back to your mouth. Bradley stood still for a moment, gaze sweeping your heated skin, before he took a half-step back. He remained closer than he had and smiled as you blinked at his honesty. “Left at the light?”
“Yeah.”
Stringing together a coherent line of thought proved difficult - more so than you imagined it would when you decided to embark on this endeavor - so you offered no protest as Bradley began to move in the direction of your apartment building. He kept close to your side and you struggled to keep from sparing him glances as you wandered down the sidewalk. 
When the entrance to your building grew clearer, you swallowed the nerves you’d never felt bringing anyone else home and tilted your head to look at him fully. “That’s me,” you pointed out, gesturing to the building looming ever closer. “D’you wanna come in?”
There was little doubt that you were on the same page, both interested in the same thing, but you wanted to be certain. 
“If you’ll have me,” he agreed readily, head turning to meet your eyes as you approached the entrance.
With a nod, you reached for his hand and tugged him through the breezeway. Bradley followed along, hand warm in yours, and flashed you a smile each time you shot him a glance. Nerves filled the pit of your stomach - excited and anxious, eager and hesitant - as you climbed the stairs to your apartment.
To your continued surprise - though you should have expected it at that point - Bradley waited for you to make the first move as the door to your apartment clicked shut. Though he remained close, his hand still clasped in yours and eyes sweeping your face for any sign of hesitance, he gave you the power in that moment.
“Is this… can I?” Though you weren’t quite sure what you were asking, Bradley seemed to understand. He dropped your hand and, instead, reached for your hip to tug you a half-step closer.
The weight of his palm pressed to your hip, his fingers dipping beneath the hem of your top to brush at overheated skin, grounded you just enough to notice his hum of approval. In a moment of eagerness, you closed the gap and lifted a hand to the back of his neck to tug him forward.
This kiss, though just as pleasant as the first, was less patient. Though he gave you room to initiate, Bradley quickly took control of the kiss. He pressed himself impossibly closer, blanketed your body with his own as he stole your breath with each swipe of his tongue, and shuddered when you shifted your hand to rake through his hair.
In a flurry of movement, a little more frenzied than you’d expected but in no way deserving of a complaint, the outer layers of your clothes were shed in a heap near the couch. Bradley’s coat, tossed to the floor, followed by yours; your heels, kicked off near the hall closet, followed by his boots; there would be a trail for you both to follow upon his departure but, in that moment, nothing mattered outside of guiding him to your bed.
Warm hands caressed your skin, dipped beneath the fabric of your top and brushed the sensitive skin of your hips and stomach, as you tugged at soft brown locks. The pair of you stumbled down the hallway, Bradley eagerly helping you shed your clothes along the way, only for him to pull away from the kiss the moment you stepped into your room.
Those eyes - the ones that flickered to you every time you entered the bar, the ones that glittered even in the dim neon, the ones that captivated you from the very beginning - raked over your exposed skin and eagerly drank in the sight of you. Though your initial instinct was to hide, the cover yourself from his scrutiny, the sheer desire in the depth of his eyes left you unable to do more than allow him to have his fill.
“You’re so beautiful,” he complimented, gaze lifting to meet yours as his hands gripped your hips.
There was no hint of dishonesty in his compliment, only an earnest honesty that made your skin heat and heart flutter. “You’re one to talk,” you hummed, lifting your hand to trace the slope of his cheek. “You’re really fucking pretty, Bradley.”
It was easy to see that he didn’t believe you - or, if he did, he would’ve downplayed the compliment entirely - but Bradley simply brushed it off and dipped his head to return his lips to yours.
The kiss he pulled you into was searing, warm and eager as he pressed you back toward your bed. There was little else that needed to be said as he nudged you to lie back and settle into the center of the bed.
Bradley was eager. When he slipped between your spread thighs, large hands gripping the supple flesh to hold you open for him, he surged forward with no hesitation. He nosed at the juncture of your thigh, pressed a blistering kiss to the top of your mound, before he licked into you with reckless abandon. There were no tentative flicks of his tongue, no bored swipes that indicated he was acting out of some kind of obligation. Instead, he swiped the flat of his tongue through your folds and lapped at you like a man starved.
In the back of your mind, you wondered - only briefly, before your thoughts were wiped completely by the press of his fingers to your clit - how much better sex with him would be if he were emotionally invested. It was already better than most you’d had with committed partners and from what you were beginning to learn about Bradley, you could only imagine emotional investment would give him room to ruin you for any future partner.
Though his size could be seen as imposing, he was careful to keep the press of his fingers into your skin balanced. There was enough pressure to feel, enough pressure to ensure reminders of his presence would be left in the morning, but not so much that it caused you real pain. When your fingers tangled in his hair and tugged, he groaned openly as he pressed his face impossibly closer.
There was a charming eagerness to his desire, a willingness to give his entire self in the pursuit of your pleasure, and were it not for the insistent press of his fingers to your aching clit, your thoughts would’ve been sent careening down a dangerous road. Though you knew so little about him, you felt yourself growing increasingly attached and only hoped he would feel the same.
The press of his fingers, larger than your own and rough enough that you imagined he worked with his hands, had your stomach tightening and flames of unfettered arousal licking at your heated skin as you tugged at his hair. Bradley had yet to remove anything more than his jacket but as he pressed his fingers deeper, you imagined the preparation would be necessary.
One fear when deciding to take Bradley home was that you would be left wanting, forced to fake it and take care of yourself later, but that was abated by your fast-approaching release. It should’ve been embarrassing, just how quickly he was able to throw you over the edge, but your embarrassment was only drowned out by the awe at his ability to read you already.
“Bradley! I’m gonna -“ The cry of his name echoed in the quiet of your bedroom, mingled with the lewd sounds of him lapping at your dripping folds as his fingers worked in tandem with his tongue, but he seemed to understand.
Bradley relented, only for a moment, to urge, “Come for me, honey.” The directive was mumbled into your skin as his gaze lifted to meet yours and, for a moment, you lost the ability to breathe. Honey eyes, blown wide with lust and darkening with each swipe of his tongue, captivated you. “Wanna taste you.”
Everything outside of Bradley - the intensity of his gaze, the feeling of his hand gripping your thigh, the insistent press of his fingers into your dripping cunt, the drag of his tongue through your folds, the weight of him pressed against your body, the heat of him burning you from within - ceased to exist.
With a cry of the only word your lust-addled brain could recount - “Bradley!” - you came.
Bradley didn’t relent.
The warmth of him remained pressed against your body, the weight of his hand splayed across your thigh and the rough drag of that fucking mustache as he mouthed at the soft skin of your inner thigh. Each touch felt magnified, as if your senses had been dialed to a thousand, but there was no ounce of upset anywhere to be found, even as he smirked at you.
“Still with me, honey?” Bradley hadn’t struck you as a cocky man but he oozed confidence as he pressed slick fingers into your hip to keep you from moving away. He glanced up at you, still settled between your spread thighs, and waited patiently for your response.
“Fuck.”
At that, Bradley laughed. The look on his face was one you hadn’t expected - pride, sure, but almost something akin to relief that you didn’t feel capable of dwelling on in the moment. Before you could question it, however, he shifted to settle above you. “This still okay?”
“Yes,” you confirmed, voice catching in your throat as his lips pressed to the heated skin of your shoulder. “More than. Please.”
Bradley hummed, acknowledging that he’d heard you, and shifted to allow you to push the Hawaiian shirt off his shoulders before he returned to pressing kisses along the column of your throat. With each press of his mouth to your skin, you sank deeper into the plush of your mattress. 
Still, as you felt the fabric of the muscle shirt he’d worn beneath the Hawaiian shirt, you huffed. “It’s not fair that I’m naked and you’re still fully clothed,” you pouted, only half-confident the words came out as strong as you wanted them to.
With a laugh, Bradley easily lifted himself from you and made quick work of shucking the remainder of his clothing. His shirt, tossed into a corner to be found later, was followed by the rough denim of his jeans and, lastly, the soft cotton of his briefs.
The assumption you’d made - that the preparation of his fingers was necessary - was accurate. 
“Fuck me.” The exclamation escaped unintentionally, mumbled beneath your breath the moment you caught sight of him, and you could see the dusting of pink across his cheeks and chest as he ducked his head.
“I was hoping you’d let me,” he declared, laughing quietly as he leaned in to nip at the column of your throat. “Can I?”
The objects in your nightstand clattered as you rummaged through them blindly in search of the little box. It had been shoved to the back and nearly hidden behind a mountain of other items, but you triumphantly tugged a little foil square from the depths and handed it to Bradley with a grin.
“Please.”
Bradley readily tore open the foil packet and rolled the condom on. As he shifted closer, settled himself between your spread thighs and pressed a hand to your hip to help steady himself, you tangled your fingers in his hair. Though he’d worked you open with his fingers and tongue, there was still a slight pinch as he notched the head of his cock at your entrance and pressed forward.
Another kiss, heated and desperate, stole your breath as he seated himself fully inside. He was careful to keep his full weight off of you, though you wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him closer. After a few moments, when the slight pinch began to give way to a pleasant fullness, you shifted your hips and nipped at his bottom lip.
“You can move. Please.”
At first, the pace was slow and measured, an even rock of his hips. After a few moments, however, Bradley began to set a rhythm that stole your breath and had your nails digging into the skin of his shoulders. He pressed impossibly deeper, filled you in a way you’d never felt before, and managed to hit the spot that made you see stars with each drag of his hips. 
Every moan was swallowed but each sound only seemed to make him that much more eager to please.
The weight of his body pressed to yours, heavy but in the most pleasant way; the rough drag of his fingertips as he circled your clit, tight circles that had you questioning whether to chase the sensation or push him away; the insistent press of his hips, deeper and impossibly deeper with each thrust; the gruff of his voice, deeper and deeper with each curse that left his lips.
It all culminated into an end that hit you with more force than you could’ve seen coming.
This orgasm was significantly more powerful than the first, strong enough to knock the air from your lungs and send splotches of white dancing across your vision. Bradley pushed through, eagerly swallowed your cry of his name, and chased his own release on the heels of yours. 
When he came, with a swear and his forehead pressed to yours, he shifted to remove his weight from your body and laid beside you. As you both came down from your respective highs, you took a moment to study him.
In the dim light of your room, Bradley seemed even more beautiful. The slope of his nose, the curve of his jaw, the plush of his lips; now that you knew it all, had seen it and felt it and tasted it, you wanted nothing more than to give in to the urge to press yourself into his side. It was the post-release high, you knew that, but you were still half-convinced there was something more to Bradley than any other fling. 
However, after a few moments of silence, filled only with the sounds of your attempts to catch your breath, Bradley shifted. He leaned over to press another kiss to your shoulder, grinning when you laughed at the tickle of his mustache against your skin, before he pushed himself out of the bed.
With great difficulty, you hid the slight sting of disappointment as he began to gather the pieces of his clothing. “You can stay,” you offered, quiet voice sounding too loud in the near silence of the room. As you watched him search for his shirt in the chaos of your room, you added, “If you want.”
“Believe me, I would love to, but I’ve got to be at work in,” he paused for a moment, tapped the home screen of his phone, and grimaced, “three hours.” He stood and tugged on his briefs, followed by his jeans, before he turned back to you.
There was an honesty in his answer that served as something of a balm, a small glimmer of hope that he was telling the truth and would’ve stayed had the timing been different, so you nodded. “I’ll walk you out, then,” you offered as you climbed out of bed and wrapped a throw blanket around your shoulders.
Bradley walked slowly through your apartment, wasting a few moments of time as he gathered the few items of his that had been tossed throughout the apartment, before turning to you in the living room. Those eyes - those damn eyes that seemed to have an unexplainable power over you - met yours before he leaned in to press a kiss to the corner of your mouth.
It was just close enough to tempt you into turning your head - giving in to the newfound urge to sink into him, to revel in the way his mouth slotted against yours - but before you could, he pulled away and offered up his phone. There was no need for words, nothing of note to say as you tapped away, diligently inputting the number you hoped he’d call.
And then, with a smile and one final press of his mouth to yours - a promise to call you mumbled into your skin - Bradley turned to leave.
There was little doubt that he would reach out - he seemed so fucking sincere, so sweet, and you knew you would see him again, even if it was just in passing at the bar - but you didn’t expect to see an unknown number appear on your phone screen quite so soon.
As you padded into the kitchen in search of water, you tapped the answer button. “Just wanted to make sure you had my number, too,” Bradley offered by way of greeting, grin evident as you heard the thud of a door shutting behind him. “Just in case.”
“Just in case,” you echoed, grinning without restraint. “I appreciate it.”
“Just being chivalrous,” he declared, not bothering to hide his amusement. “But, now that I’ve got you, what d’you think about dinner on Saturday? Might have to miss a thrilling night at the bar but, who knows? Could be worth it.”
“Could be,” you agreed easily. “And they always say, variety is the spice of life.” Dinner with Bradley would be worth it - he’d already proven time spent with him would be worthwhile - and you felt your heart begin to beat just a touch faster at the prospect of getting to know him. “I think dinner sounds good. The company might not be all that bad either.”
“I’ll be on my best behavior,” he promised, laughing quietly as the sound of the city began to filter through the speaker. “I’ll see you on Saturday, then.”
“See you on Saturday,” you agreed, grinning as you leaned against the counter and felt a flurry of butterflies swirling in the pit of your stomach. “Have a good night, Bradley.”
“Goodnight, honey.”
In all of the scenarios you could’ve dreamt, few of them left you as giddy as reality. There was no guarantee that a future in which you and Bradley became more than you were in that moment existed but, regardless of where the future took you, you were looking forward to the journey.
_________________________________________________________________
Taglist: @lulu-noodles​, @holachicos, @getmyprettynameoutofyourmouth​, @withakindheartx​, @ssprayberrythings​, @verin93, @totalwitch2, @malindacath​, @alexparkxr​, @hangmandruigandmav​, @alexxavicry​, @calicokel, @jaymum​, @dracosluvbot​, @little-wiseone​, @specialk6802, @mandylove1000​
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Text
Imagine Dancing With Rooster In The Living Room
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Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw X FemReader
Rating: T
Warnings: Suggestive themes
Words: 710
Taglist: @mads-weasley​
(A/N:) I have never gone to see a movie 5 times in the theater before but this movie is just so dang good that I can’t stop going to see it. It’s so worth seeing on the big screen that you can’t help but go multiple times. It also is a big factor that I am absolutely obsessed with Rooster. So more imagines are coming girls! 
Today was one of those rare times where both you and Rooster had the day off. So while you both had time to go out and do things out on the town, both of you had decided that staying home and just enjoying time together alone sounded better. Now as you were cooking dinner while Rooster watched a baseball game on TV with one of the vinyl records playing in the background you knew that staying home was the best decision. You hummed to yourself while stirring the meat for spaghetti, making Rooster grin when he heard you enjoying the music. You were draining the pasta when the record stopped leaving the silence a little unbearable. Rooster liked to mute the TV when you were cooking cause he knew that you wanted to listen to music while you cooked.
“Rooster,” you called.
“Yeah?”
“Could you put something else into the record player,” you asked putting the pasta back into the pot and opening a jar of sauce.
“Yes ma’am I sure can,” he answered.
“Keep calling me ma’am hot shot and we might not make it through supper,” you teased.
“I won’t complain,” Rooster laughed flipping through box of records he had inherited. “What sounds good?”
“I’m feeling some Queen,” you finally answered trying to remember what was all in the catalog.
“News of the World?”
“You know it!”
Rooster tenderly removed the album from the cover placing it into the player and dropping the needle, “Your wish is my command.”
“Remind me to thank the Navy for your obedience training,” you laughed. He didn’t answer and you knew he was up to something before large hands were placed on your wrists and his lips attacked your neck.
“Navy ain’t got nothing to do with it,” he growled against your skin. “It’s cause I can’t help but be at your beck and call.”
“Are you that smitten aviator?”
“That and more,” Rooster purred taking the spoon from your grip ushering you to set the table so you could give your arms a rest from stirring.
With Queen still playing in the background while you both ate you discussed work. Rooster was excited to tell you all about the maneuvers he’d just learned recently. Despite being completely reckless Maverick was the best teacher for the group of pilots. He was happy to share all his experiences with the son of the man who had his back all those years ago. Rooster was like a sponge, soaking anything he could learn up to make sure that he had enough experience that when he did leave on missions he would be able to come back to you in one piece. You were happy to see him enjoying his job and taking time to be with the man who was like a father figure to him. 
Now as you both sat on the couch the game over listening to more music you soaked in Rooster’s presence. You leaned against him, head on his broad shoulder you sung the lyrics to Def Leppard’s Mirror Mirror. Rooster suddenly stood from the couch going to the record player deciding immediately what he wanted to hear. He placed the needle in the exact spot he needed. He turned, a smile playing on his lips while Eric Clapton filled the living room. Beautiful Tonight started playing soothing over your form when Rooster stepped before you holding out one hand. Lifting you from the couch his head rested on the top of your head, while one hand gripped yours tightly and the other resting at your swaying hip. 
It wasn’t your first time dancing with Rooster but the magic of just being held tightly never got old. According to Maverick, Goose had Carole wrapped around his finger and she had him wrapped in hers so it was safe to say that Rooster had you all both body, mind, and soul. You also knew that all of him was also all of yours. You nuzzled into his chest enjoying just being close to him. The song was coming to end when you looked up into Rooster’s eyes.
“Hey Rooster?”
“Yeah?”
“Take me to bed or lose me forever,” you grinned.
He chuckled kissing you deeply, “Show me the way home honey.”
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July 2022
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The majority of my reading used to consist of Supernatural and will most likely continue to be that. However, I've been trying to branch out a bit.
Some of my absolute favorite writers are writing for other fandoms and I have also discovered wonderful new-to-me writers in these various fandoms. To be honest, most of them will still likely be Jensen's characters. I mean, I am slightly obsessed 😬😏with the man, and that's who this blog is about.🥰 Yet, it is fun to find new interests and there are so many amazing authors out there to be discovered.
With that said, I will be formatting my rec posts strictly by fandom now, instead of by fic size. I will only note if the fic is a drabble (500 words or less) or part of a series if it is not mentioned in the title link. I welcome feedback on the change. Also, in the past, I have not included tags for the fic rec posts, but if you're interested, let me know. Or you can visit my Fic Rec Master Page.
Enjoy!
Many of these blogs and fics are NSFW-18+. Please honor any requests from a blog regarding no minors. I am not responsible for the content you choose to consume; heed the warnings for each fic.
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~Supernatural~
A Theory ~ @whispersandwhiskerburn. Author's Summary: smutty, someone in the fic is convinced that a wild theory is correct, and “Well… that was…. Where did that come from?” (Dean x Reader)
The Night We Met ~ @all-alone-he-turns-to-stone. Author's Summary: Years ago, Dean got hit by a memory spell. Ever since, even if Rowena fixed him, he gets weird absences; he suddenly forgets who he is and always runs away. There’s only one place he can go, one place he feels safe. To the night you met.
The End ~ @impala-dreamer. Author's Summary: None
The Lip Bite Thing ~ @evansrogerskitten. Author's Summary: His damn lip bite makes you crazy. (Dean x Reader)
Taste You ~ @there-must-be-a-lock. Author's Summary: Smutty Marked'verse standalone. (Dean x Reader)
~The Boys~
Territorial Pissing ~ @thoughtslikeaminefield. Author's Summary: A hot tip turns into a hot night. (5-part Series)
Old Habits ~ @wayward-and-worn. Author's Summary: Where does Soldier Boy go after he visits the Legend but before going to see Crimson?
Learning About the Perks of Feminism ~ @dean-winchester-is-a-warrior. Author's Summary: Y/N wants Soldier Boy badly. But she wants him on her terms. Can he handle her modern ways?
And You Don't Stop ~ @impala-dreamer. Author's Summary: None (Tell me about... Drabble)
G.B.A. ~ @impala-dreamer. Author's Summary: Spend the 4th with America’s first and greatest superhero (Drabble)
~MCU~
Devour ~ @cockslutpadalecki. Author's Summary: A mutual agreement, that’s all it is. An arrangement between friends. Except now that Y/N has acquired quite a taste for them, she doesn’t want anyone else. (Steve Rogers x Reader x Bucky Barnes-no Stucky)
~Top Gun~
Under The Radar-Masterlist ~ @princessmisery666. Author’s Summary: Being a navy pilot you expected to have your world turned upside down from time to time. Taking to the skies was the easy part, the lessons you learn on solid ground are the hardest. (The series is complete)
Under The Radar-Drabbles/One-shots Masterlist ~ @princessmisery666. Author’s Summary: Being a navy pilot you expected to have your world turned upside down from time to time. Taking to the skies was the easy part, the lessons you learn on solid ground are the hardest. (These are timestamps after the series end.)
~RPF~
When You Least Expect It-Part Twenty ~ @coffee-obsessed-writer. Author's Summary: After a hard breakup, Jensen decides to throw himself into organizing a Music Festival in Austin that is meant to raise money for a few of his most cherished charities and organizations. As he throws himself into planning it, he stumbles upon a spirited, undiscovered performer, who he convinces to come aboard to help plan and coordinate the event with him.
What transpires after that takes both Jensen and his new friend, by surprise. But when their respective pasts come back just before the event kicks off in Austin, they will both have to decide if the unexpected feelings are worth perusing, or if they should just walk away and go on with their lives.
Chug It ~ @waywardbaby. Author's Summary: The realization of kinks. (Jensen/Dean; Drabble)
Three A.M. ~ @impala-dreamer. Author's Summary: Jensen comes home late from filming The Boys and cannot seem to push away the bad day.
Behind the Trailer ~ @all-alone-he-turns-to-stone. Author's Summary: One afternoon, you go visit your boyfriend, Jensen on the set of The Boys. But when you’re there, you can’t help but flirt with a certain New Zealander actor. What happens next is you and Jensen behind his trailer, him teaching you who you belong to.
Unknowingly ~ @waywardnerd67. Author's Summary: Sometimes Jensen did things unknowingly that drove (Y/N) crazy.
No Title ~ @bringmesomepie. Author's Summary: None (Jensen x pregnant!reader)
~Big Sky~
Show Daddy You're Sorry ~ @jawritter. Author's Summary: None (Drabble)
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tinyhousegirl · 2 years
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Grief
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Grief by @allyxstebo
Synopsis: Grief hit them all in different ways. They knew Carole was hurting, Maverick was spiraling. But nobody talked about Ice's quiet plummet into the darkness.
A/N: A short 1.7k drabble about Ice grieving Goose's death. Ice x Mav platonic, mentions of Carole, Bradley, Sarah. Like what you're reading? Buy me a brick!
TW: Major Character Death, mentions of blood, grief
---
Goose’s death rocked the world. He left behind a loving wife and a young son. He was just weeks away from graduating from the most prestigious Naval program with his best friend. The aviator would have had his choice of assignment, and had told Maverick he wanted to be closer to Virginia Beach where Carole and Bradley lived. Maverick would have followed him to the end of the world. But then the accident happened, ending his vibrant life abruptly.
Grief hit them all in different ways.
Carole clung to Bradley; the blond boy looked more and more like his father everyday. She made sure their photos of Goose were placed in such ways that Bradley could see them at his short toddler height throughout their home. The flag from the funeral was hung proudly over the mantle. She suppressed tears every time she saw it, but would never ever take it down. She fell asleep most nights clutching his dog tags.
Maverick flew a lot. He started flying as a solo pilot soon after he washed out of the Top Gun instructor program. He found it easier on his conscience to fly when he didn’t have a backseatter to worry about bringing home safely. 
Every day the grief became a little easier. Until one night.
Carole called him sobbing about three months after Goose’s death. Bradley had asked ‘who’s that?’ at a picture of Goose and Carole on their wedding day, when he had shaved the iconic mustache, and her heart broke. She didn’t want her baby to forget his father. Maverick had never dropped what he was doing so fast to make it across the country to be with them. 
He brought toy planes and photos of their time in the Navy to show to Bradley, and told the little boy about all of their escapades, PG and toned down, of course. Bradley fell asleep cuddling one of the planes, and Maverick held Carole on the couch as they both mourned their loss all over again. 
Every day the grief became a little easier. Until one night. 
Maverick was laying on the couch in the tiny one bedroom house he bought in San Diego. After a long day of flying, he didn’t have it in him to meet friends at the bar. Instead he dozed off while combing through a book on how to fix up a P-51 Mustang, the beautiful plane he was looking to purchase with his next Navy bonus. 
The dark haired aviator was so close to sleep when a heavy pound on the front door echoed in the quiet house. He peered at his watch - almost three in the morning. It was a hot Saturday night, he was sure it was some group of ding dong ditchers making their rounds through his neighborhood again. But the pounding continued.
He begrudgingly stood up and walked to the door, ready to scold whoever decided to disturb a Naval aviator on his weekend. What he didn’t expect to see was Ice, hair tousled, clothes a mess, and barely able to stand on his own two feet on the porch. His eyes were bloodshot and dilated, and Pete could smell the alcohol on his breath.
“Ice? What the hell are you doing here, man?” The blond pilot stumbled forward slightly, Maverick’s quick reflexes being the only thing to stop Ice’s face and the doorframe from making out. “Woah, man. You good?”
“I killed him, Mav.” The voice was quiet yet hardened. 
Pete’s eyebrows knit in confusion at the odd confession from his friend. “What the hell are you talking about? Did you fight somebody at the bar?” He had just seen Ice earlier in the day; they had flown most of their training simulations together. He couldn’t have possibly gotten in this much trouble since then?
The taller pilot’s whole body was shaking against Maverick’s steady arms. The breath coming out was even shakier as the pilot shook his head. “No, no, no. I-I killed him. It’s all my fault. I killed him.” 
Maverick let out an exasperated sigh. “Ice, you’re making no sense. Who did you kill?”
“Goose.”
Pete’s stomach dropped, the grief flooding his entire system with adrenaline. It was slowly getting easier to breathe day by day, but when the waves of grief came around, it just as easily crushed him under the weight of guilt that loomed in his shadow since July 29th. No amount of Naval documents proving he wasn’t at fault could convince him that Goose didn’t die because of his recklessness. He could never blink away the view of Goose’s lifeless body being pulled up to the helicopter. Couldn’t wash his hand raw enough to get the feeling of his blood off his hands. Couldn’t stop hearing the twenty one gun salute in the quiet of the night, ringing and ringing with the pounding of his chest when the nightmares would come in full force. 
Maverick opted not to respond, instead hooking his shoulder under Ice’s arm. He led the stumbling pilot inside to the couch, collecting his clutter of manuals and books onto the coffee table. The dark haired aviator grabbed a glass, filling it with water from the tap. Ice took the cup quietly, chugging it without a thought. The energy in the air wasn’t enough to sober him, and Mav could see the gears still turning slowly in his friend’s eyes. 
Mav leaned in, bumping shoulders with him gently. “Talk to me, Ice.”
“It was my fault.” Ice’s voice was barely a whisper, lost to the winds of the ocean air against the siding of the house. “I should have pulled away earlier, given you the shot. I killed him.”
“Ice, you read the reports. You didn’t kill him.” Maverick’s voice came out thick and slow. He tried to suppress the forming lump at the back of his throat, the tunnel vision forming around his head, the burning of his fingertips.
“To hell with what the Navy thinks. It was my jet wash. My mistake.”
Maverick could tell this was eating him up. In the few months that they had been training together, Ice became his closest friend, his confidante. You learned to not have any boundaries in the military. These men became your brothers, thicker than blood, and you’d do anything for them. Goose was his brother. Ice was, too.
“Why is this just now coming up? You went through this shit with me, why wouldn’t you say anything?” It’d been almost a year since the accident. God, a whole year. Ice had stood by Maverick’s side through the worst of it. He had convinced the stubborn aviator to at least try talking to a grief counselor, or a therapist, or the goddamn VA. Someone that could understand why Pete would wake up screaming in the barracks some nights. He went to a few sessions, but it didn’t compare to how therapeutic the skies became for him. Ice had caught him a few times having full conversations with Goose, as if the man was still in his backseat. His head was just so much clearer at 30,000 feet. “Ice-”
“Sarah’s pregnant.” A single tear ran down his cheek, prompting him to wipe it away immediately. “She told me last night.”
“Hey, that’s amazing news. You’ve been trying for a while now, you’re gonna be a dad!” Mav smiled, jabbing his elbow into his friend’s side lightheartedly, trying to get him to smile for the first time all night. 
“I orphaned a kid, Maverick.” The admission barely escaped his lips as the sob that followed took over. “I killed his father and I’m just supposed to carry on with my life and be present in my own kid’s life knowing what I did to Bradley? He’s too young. He won’t even remember him.”
“Tom, look at me.” Maverick ordered sternly. The use of his actual name got his attention. “Don’t go down this hole. Please. It doesn’t bring him back, but it’ll take you down with it. Don’t do that to Sarah, to your baby. Bradley will be okay. He’s still got us.”
Don’t do this to me, Maverick didn’t say, but the begging tone in his voice communicated it nonetheless. They’d both seen how grief could consume a man, tear him to shreds until nothing was left but an empty body. Some days getting out of bed was the hardest damn thing to do. Carole and Bradley had stayed in California for a few weeks with Maverick to grieve together, but they eventually flew home to Virginia and Maverick finally allowed himself to crash. He didn’t remember most of his one-month leave between the Enterprise mission and his first day as instructor. Ice couldn’t find him for a week, considered filing a missing persons report, and thought the worst. Until Maverick showed up at his door in a similar manner to the way Ice had tonight. It was the first time Sarah had officially met the man, and the Kazanskys took in the pilot without hesitation. They’d truly been his guardian angels.
It was Ice’s turn to bump his shoulder. “Hey, I know that look. I promise.” Maverick nodded, meeting Ice’s eyes finally. The bloodshot was fading, and only showed his determination behind his words. “I love you, Mav.” 
“I love ya too, Ice. I’m glad you came to me.”
The blond pilot suppressed the sniffle in his voice as he finally let a smile slip through the sadness. He couldn’t help but chuckle, the drastic realization of his life changing finally sobering him. “God, Mav, I’m gonna be a dad. How the hell am I supposed to raise a baby?!”
The aviators both laughed, talking nonsense way into the sunrise when Ice finally said his goodbyes to catch a few hours of sleep with his expecting wife. Maverick would wait a few hours before calling Carole, wanting nothing more than the four year old voice of his nephew to calm his soul. Maybe he’d tell Bradley about the MiG today.
Maybe the grief didn’t always get easier. But today he wouldn’t let himself fall back in that hole.
---
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hotdamnhunnam · 3 years
Text
Pacific Love
A/N: So this fic can be read as Part 2 to Pacific Rimjob, or as a standalone fic! This second part is based on the below request for some hot sex followed by comforting cockwarming with Raleigh, the fluffiest snuggliest version of Charlie 🥰
Pairing: Raleigh Becket x F!Reader Warnings: smut, swearing, dirty talk, your pussy serving as a home for Raleigh’s cock Requests: Request from @wayward-avenging​ + a separate request from @rayslittlekitten​
Word Count: ~1.7k
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“Still can’t believe you saved the motherfucking world.”
Your boyfriend sighs, with an exasperated blink of his blue eyes. Hates when you say it in that way, like he alone had saved the day. “We saved the world. Me and my girl.”
“You and the Gipsy Danger?” you reply, the name of his beloved Jaeger. The massive robot you two co-pilot together.
Raleigh heaves another sigh. He’s a fierce feminist, aware that women rarely get the recognition that they merit; the injustice of it makes him want to cry. That’s why he’s clearly so upset at your refusal to take credit.
Brushing a speck of dust off of the warm navy blue sweater he’s got on, you urge him not to sweat it. “Babe, I’m just pushing your buttons,” you admit, reaching to ruffle his blonde hair bright as spun gold and soft as cotton. At your touch you can already sense the energy inside him shifting. Letting go of his frustration as you gently fluff it out of him. “I know I had to carry all your problems, so it’s obvious that I’m the one who did the heavy lifting.”
He smiles as he melts into your hand then brings it down toward his lips so he can kiss it. “You know I’m glad the war is finished... but I gotta say I’m gonna miss it. Drifting.”
“Being in each other’s heads? Well, even better yet... we’ll always have our time together in each other’s beds.”
“That’s true,” he coos, stars in his baby blues. “I really like being inside of you.”
Who gave this full-grown man the right to be so fucking cute? It’s fucking rude. Your fingers wander toward his gorgeous golden mane again and comb tenderly through. “Of course you do. I like it too... and I love you.”
Throughout the war that you have somehow overcome, Drifting together had begun to feel like home. It felt like you belonged in his head even more than in your own. You were just better when you both were in that deep mind-melding zone. The two of you are more than just compatible; the bond you share is magical. It’s pure and powerful as hell.
And thankfully you know a way to bring that level of connection into the bedroom as well.
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***************
Sex with Raleigh Fucking Becket... is a trip to heaven on a one-way ticket.
You still recall and probably won’t ever forget—back in the days before the two of you had met—what all the other women gossiping throughout the Shatterdome had said: how this new guy walking around the halls was tall and good-looking and no doubt even better-looking naked, but probably a dud in bed. A pretty slice of plain white bread.
While he may come off as a teddy bear, with his soft fluffy hair, and eyes so big and bright you never fail to melt beneath his stare... so wholesome it’s really not fair... the truth is, none of those bitches knew shit. 
They didn’t have a clue, just what Mr. Becket could do. Neither did you—until he claimed you as his girl and put you through it.
True, Raleigh insists on sex within a context of mutual understanding and respect. Prefers softcore. Prefers the passion to feel pure, to let your hearts and souls connect. 
But that won’t stop his big heroic dick from fucking like a monster once he knows that you are ready to get wrecked. And all the hardcore kinks of yours... he’s more than willing to explore. 
By now he’s got a kink himself for dirty talk, and roughing you up with his cock—spanking your ass while he slams your cunt from behind and constantly reminds you that you are his filthy fucking whore.
That’s what he does tonight, fucking you up just right. 
He takes more pleasure and more pride, in pounding into you and plunging deep inside, than any earth-shattering war he’ll ever fight.
And so do you—the slick walls of your pussy squeezing tight, around his huge shaft as he plows it through, splitting you open wide... his cock may be the Jaeger as you take it. But this love is meant for both of you to make it.
The bed beneath you creaks and rocks, as Raleigh keeps slapping your slutty ass and railing you with his colossal cock; this wouldn’t be the first time that the power of his thrusts managed to break it.
Having literally saved the world gives you the right to fuck so hard you’ll probably fucking shake it. Shake the whole damn world. The wholesome hero and his filthy whore, his dirty little girl.
Now the war is finally over maybe someday he can flood you with his cum without protection and pump you full of a little baby Becket...
But you shouldn’t get ahead of yourself yet. That’s for another night. Tonight you’re still on birth control as he fills up your hole and hammers you into the bed. Tonight is all about making your man’s cock feel at home inside your cunt so wet, so tight—letting him wreck it, now the two of you have conquered this long fight... and then indulging in a long night that he won’t ever forget.
Once his thick hot cum paints your pussy, so deliciously juicy, your sex and his pulsing in sync in perfect ecstasy... both of you take a breathless moment to recover from the climax so intense and clear the shooting stars spinning around your heads.
Your co-pilot’s full body weight collapses down on yours and crushes you into the bed, so you can feel the muscles of his abs and chest, slick with his sweat, against your back so firmly pressed. He knows just how much you love that—it’s the best, this sense of being so closely connected, after any round of sex you’ve had, completely covered by your lover as you sink into the mattress. Being beneath him in this way makes you feel safe and loved and so alive after your senses get fucked dead.
Raleigh softly tilts his face to kiss your cheek, filling you with the love that gives you endless strength yet makes you feel so weak. Somehow you manage now to speak, reminding him of that one thing that he had said.
“Do you still miss the Drift?”
His cock inside your core is still as massive, almost just as stiff. Meanwhile his loving mouth curves up into a smile as it shifts from your cheek down toward your parted lips to seal them with a kiss. “There’s not a thing I miss. Not when I’m with you just like this.”
As if you weren’t already you are now convinced: Raleigh Becket is honestly a motherfucking Disney prince.
You drown in kisses for a few seconds—or minutes, or hours for all that you know, given that your perception of time always blurs in the sheer bliss of afterglow. Each kiss is soft and sweet and sensual and slow. 
His meat at last begins to soften where it’s buried deep inside you. Pulling out to shift position, for a sleepy snuggle session, is what he’ll usually do.
... But you have something else in mind, which you don’t doubt will feel divine. The thought of it excites you and you know that it’ll be nice for Raleigh too.
“Why don’t you stay,” you softly say, just as he starts to pull away.
“...Stay?” he echoes as he keeps his body held against yours tightly.
“Inside of me,” you murmur quietly. “Isn’t that where you like to be?”
His fully drained dick answers with a twitch. Throbbing against your inner walls and scratching a new itch. He’s catching on to the idea that you want to serve him as his cockwarming bitch.
Though Raleigh hates the thought of using you like some kind of accessory... on some level he knows that isn’t how it has to be. It can be comforting and pleasing for the two of you both equally, to keep him in your pussy, buried deeply.
And as he answers your question it’s obvious that he’s aroused beyond belief. “It’s home for me. If I could I would be inside you permanently. Never leave.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure the war is finally over...” you provocatively murmur. “So just go ahead and make yourself at home, soldier.”
You co-pilot lets out a growl of arousal and nuzzles your shoulder. “You sure?”
“Of fucking course. You know this pussy is all yours.”
“Mmm, that’s my perfect little whore,” he snarls, the words making your toes curl. “Who knew you’re such a dirty girl?”
“Um, you did, stupid.”
He masks his laughter and pretends to be insulted. “Now that’s no way to talk to the hero who just saved the world!”
“I’m sorry, sir,” you playfully answer. “Remind me that you saved the world and that you own my body, sir.”
Raleigh’s half-hard dick pushes inside you deeper than it already is as his full weight keeps pressing you into the bed. “Mmm, as if you could ever forget...”
Indeed as if you ever could, when his cock owns you so fucking good. 
You spend all night impaled on his wood. Alternating between cozy cuddling, with butterfly kisses and fluffy hair ruffling... and crazy hard fucking, with him stuffing you so roughly that you’ll surely wake incapable of walking... then cuddling again as his cock slowly softens. Changing up your position every so often, but never once loosening your cunt’s tight hold of him—all the while Raleigh stays buried inside of you just as he should.
Whisper words of love, though words are never enough. You both already know it, and show it... melding into one and the same person, your two hearts as one, beating in unison, just as every fiber of your being and his come undone in complete perfect sync every time you get off.
The war has never felt farther behind you, than now when he’s deep inside you. This is home and there’s such peace, in each release. Such pure pacific love.
While the bond that you forged and explored in the Drift was a gift... one that Raleigh will miss.. nights like this—this feeling of sharing in such absolute bliss—even after the war is finished, love unlike war has no fucking limits. And that’s the true gift.
This is the gift that will keep on giving for as long as you live.
***************
Hope you enjoyed this, and would love to hear if you did! 🤗💖
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swan-of-sunrise · 3 years
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Specs and the Flyboy (Chapter Seventeen)
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Summary: (Y/N) and Jack follow up on a new lead and make a startling new discovery.
Pairing: Jack Thompson X Reader
Word Count: 3k
Warnings/Disclaimers: None
A/N: Thank you all so much for reading! I hope that you enjoy!
Chapter Seventeen Kent, England (Previous Chapter)
“Now I remember why I enjoy living in Los Angeles.” (Y/N) grumbled, switching on the windshield wipers and squinting through the down-pouring of rain. “Don’t you just hate the rain sometimes?”
Jack shrugged beside her, his nose buried in a large map as he replied, “Yeah, I guess so. This rain’s pretty tame compared to the stuff we got in the Pacific, though; that was like takin’ a hot shower in the middle of a humid summer. Definitely not something I missed when I shipped back home.”
She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “You’re right, that sounds a whole lot worse. How much farther until the turnoff?”
“It should be coming up in less than a mile-urgh, sorry, kilometer, and it should be somewhere on your left.”
They continued driving through the rain, the comfortable silence between them only permeated by the sounds of the rental car’s radio signal cutting in and out. Their visit to the SFC had been more fruitful than either of them predicted it would; for one, they managed to steal an entire classified file detailing Michael Carter’s undercover mission within Hydra and for another, that file contained not one but two hidden messages. One was in the form of a code while the other had been written in invisible ink; as it turned out, the final code from ‘M. Carter’s’ file that had stumped (Y/N) for so long was actually a cypher for the code on their newly-acquired file. It had taken (Y/N) nearly a week of staring at various number and letter sequences to crack it, only to be left with straightforward coordinates that led directly to Gravesend, Kent.
Unfortunately, the invisible message hadn’t been quite as useful to them; (Y/N) and a slightly-disgusted Jack had used a candle to heat the urine-covered page and reveal a paragraph of code but no matter what she tried, she couldn’t decode it. She and Jack had poured over all her translation journals and brainstormed every possible style of code but it looked like nothing she’d ever seen before; the code didn’t even resemble any of the ones Michael had invented to conceal his intel. Maybe Peggy and I can work on it together once we return to the States, she thought with an inward sigh, frustrated that she couldn’t use the skills she’d spent years honing and perfecting to help further their case.
“You’re kinda quiet over there, Specs. Everything okay?”
Glancing over at the man beside her, (Y/N) nodded and gave him a fleeting smile before turning her attention back to the road, feeling her face beginning to warm at his concerned tone. “Just lost in thought, that’s all.”
Something had shifted between her and Jack after she’d confided in him about Freddie’s death; he’d been more considerate and thoughtful whenever they spoke, a far cry from the smug and self-assured man she’d first met all those months ago, and for nearly a week now they’d slept together in the same bed. They’d often joke that it was because their hotel suite was too drafty but (Y/N) knew that it was really because sharing a bed had resulted in the best sleep either of them had experienced in a long while. When their unspoken arrangement had first begun, she’d warned herself not to get used to it but she’d failed spectacularly in that regard; as much as she wanted to solve the case for Peggy’s sake, she was dreading the day when Jack would inevitably return to his old life as Chief of the New York SSR and she’d be left alone once again.
“You sure you’re okay? You’ve got that little line between your eyebrows that you only get whenever you’re worried ‘bout something.” (Y/N) looked over at him in surprise and he merely shrugged. “It’s another one of your tells, Specs, along with fidgeting your hands.”
“Geez, remind me never to play poker with you.” She chuckled to herself before looking back at the road. “I was just thinking about these coordinates. Why would Michael bother coding the coordinates of a small town like Gravesend?
Her partner shrugged beside her. “I’ve got no idea, but that’s why we’ve come prepared for anything.” He patted the shoulder holster that was hidden underneath his navy-colored raincoat; her own gun was tucked into her clutch, alongside her various lock-picking tools, her tube of 103-Forget Me Not lipstick and the camera-pen Howard had lent her before they’d left Los Angeles.
In no time, they reached the small town of Gravesend and the heavy rain had thankfully lightened to a faint drizzle as she parked the car. There weren’t many people outside but just to be on the safe side, (Y/N) and Jack walked arm-in-arm down the sidewalk, looking every part the happily married couple; their cover allowed them to easily observe and investigate the town without drawing suspicion, and to keep up appearances, they engaged in small talk as they walked but their focus was entirely on their reconnaissance…well, almost entirely.
“I’m serious, Flyboy, I think it’s very sweet that you call your grandmother ‘Gam-Gam!’” (Y/N) insisted, watching as her partner’s blush deepened. The nickname had slipped out when he’d made an offhand comment about one of the houses looking like his grandmother’s, much to his embarrassment and her amusement. “Listen, would it make you feel better if you knew that I have a special nickname for my grandmother? If I tell you what it is, though, you’d better not blabber to anyone else in the office about it…”
Jack raised a challenging brow at her. “Okay, then. What do you call your grandmother?”
“I call her ‘Ram’, because when I was little I couldn’t pronounce certain letters very well.” Her own face flushed as Jack’s azure eyes twinkled with amusement. “There, are you happy now?”
“Yeah, pretty much. I just…” He trailed off, his expression growing serious as he nodded his head towards something in the distance. “I think we just found out why these coordinates are important, Specs.”
Furrowing her brow in confusion, (Y/N) followed his line of sight and nearly gasped aloud at what she saw; at the end of the street stood a sign that read ‘Attwell Airfield’ and an arrow pointing towards the right. “Well, I’ll be damned…” She looked up at Jack and quirked her brow. “How do you feel about a little snooping around?”
“You took the words right outta my mouth.”
When they were sure that no one was looking their way, (Y/N) and Jack made their way down the end of the road and turned right; they walked down the road for several meters before they came across a small path that led off into a line of trees and bushes. Exchanging a look, they followed the path and slowly made their way through the vegetation towards the direction of the airfield.
“Strange that an airfield was never mentioned in any of the files we got on Thomas Attwell,” Jack commented, his eyes scanning their surroundings for any signs of trouble. “You think it’s new?”
“It’s possible. If I were heading the new Secret Empire, I’d certainly want a private means of traveling.” Shrugging, (Y/N) ducked underneath a low-hanging tree branch and glanced over at her partner walking beside her. “It’s also possible that it’s been around for a while now. Thomas Attwell’s brother was an R.A.F. pilot during the war, remember? It could be family-owned, like the orangery back in Los Angeles.”
They continued their trek through the forest of trees, soon reaching the edge of the vegetation; careful to conceal themselves behind the trunk of a wide tree, they examined the airfield; it was on the small side, similar to descriptions she’d heard of the one Howard owned in New Jersey. The airfield’s hangar was only a few dozen meters away from the tree line but from their spot, it was impossible to see if any planes were situated inside of it.
Just as (Y/N) opened her mouth to suggest they get a closer look, two men dressed in tactical gear and holding rifles rounded both corners of the hangar; they passed by each other right in front of the building’s back door and disappeared around each corner. When she looked over at Jack, he was alternating between looking down at his wristwatch and back up at the corners the two guards had appeared from; without glancing away from his task, her partner quietly asked, “How fast can you pick a lock?”
“Between two and five minutes, depending on the type of lock.”
He nodded. “That’ll have to do. When I give the signal, follow my lead.”
The two of them waited with bated breath until finally, the guards appeared around the corners again. They remained still as the two guards disappeared from view, only moving when Jack motioned with his hand to go; they quietly hurried to the hangar’s back door, and (Y/N) knelt down in front of it to determine which tools she’d need while Jack kept watch beside her with his gun at the ready. It was a sturdier lock than the one she��d picked at Fieldman Family Orangery – obviously she’d need to use something better than a hairpin – but it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle. Hurriedly rifling through her crowded purse, she selected the appropriate tools and quickly went about picking the lock, her brow furrowed in deep concentration. After a tense minute or two, the door unlocked with a faint click; since she knew that their time was running out, she jumped to her feet and followed Jack through the doorway, careful to close the door shut behind them.
“Storage room,” Jack lowly stated, his gun at the ready as they crept between rows of plane components and mechanic’s tools; careful not to make any noise, (Y/N) pulled her gun and camera pen out of her clutch before cramming it into her raincoat’s pocket. “This way.”
He led them through the storage room and through an open doorway into a larger, less cluttered space; the cavernous room was nearly empty save for a row of large wooden crates, the sides of which were stamped with the familiar horse-and-vine symbol of the new Secret Empire. Once they made their way over to the crates, Jack holstered his gun and carefully pried the lid off of one of them.
“Looks like we’ve finally found all that stolen gold.” (Y/N) glanced up from the stacked and marked gold bars, meeting her partner’s gaze with a raised brow; he nodded and watched as she used the camera pen to take several pictures, replacing the lid while she tucked the camera pen into her other pocket.
The sound of approaching footsteps forced the two of them to hastily drop behind the crate, and they both held their breaths as a man called out, “Okay, this is the last of it; you guys go grab the others while I let the boss know we’re about done loading the plane.”
“C’mon, let’s move.” Jack quietly spoke as the voices and footsteps faded away, and they both hurried across the large room to a set of metal stairs; since they couldn’t go the same way the voices were coming from, they immediately climbed the stairs and ducked into the room behind the windowed door. When it was clear that they were alone, they lowered their guns and took in their surroundings; the room was on the smaller side, with a desk pushed against one wall laden with various radio equipment and papers, and across from it was a massive window. “All clear; looks like a radio room.”
Already reaching into her pocket for her camera pen, (Y/N) tiptoed to the desk and examined the papers strewn across its surface; there were several telegrams and documents but what instantly drew her attention was a marked map, the edges of which were filled in with sequences of random numbers.
“They’re loading it into a cargo plane,” She looked over to where Jack stood by the windows and met his concerned gaze. “All that gold’s gonna be headed somewhere real soon and I’d bet anything it’s going to Leviathan. We need to find out exactly where that plane’s going, fast.”
Careful not to disturb any of the papers too much, (Y/N) began snapping photographs of them with the camera pen. She was in the middle of taking a photograph of the unusual map when all of a sudden, the sound of a gunshot echoed throughout the hangar and was soon punctuated by the shattering of the radio room’s window, causing her entire body to freeze up in shock.
“Get down!” Jack shouted out and before she could even think to move, he tackled her to the floor and covered her body with his own as more gunshots rang out and glass rained down on them. Raising his head a few inches, her partner’s eyes frantically searched hers and his free hand shot up to shield her face from more shattering glass. “Are you hit?”
“I’m fine, but we need to go!” They both crawled over to the window once he rolled off of her, mindful of the glass while they both clutched their guns in their hands. Their backs were pressed against the wall and gunshots continued to ring out as (Y/N) got an idea. “You go back around to the hangar while I draw their fire!”
Jack didn’t look too happy about it but since there was no time to argue he nodded, keeping low to the ground as he made his way to the radio room’s door. She moved so that she stood beside the broken window and waited until Jack left the room to peek around the window’s edge and opening fire, managing to hit two guards before she was forced to duck for cover.
“Dammit, these guys just don’t quit.” (Y/N) grumbled to herself, darting around to fire off a couple more shots and moving back just in time to avoid the fresh barrage of bullets. She didn’t dare look, but she heard the sounds of a scuffle breaking out in the hangar below and assumed that it was Jack taking care of the guards. He certainly took his time there, she thought as she finally released the breath she’d been holding.
“Well, you’re certainly not who I expected to see.” Whirling around, (Y/N) raised her gun at the smirking dark-haired woman standing in the open doorway; the woman’s brow rose, seemingly unperturbed by the gun pointed directly at her chest. “That’s too bad, I’d hoped that Peggy and I would get a chance to catch up.”
A chill went down (Y/N)’s spine at her words and her fingers tightened around the handle of her gun. “Dottie Underwood. So, it’s true, you’ve begun working for the Secret Empire.”
Dottie smirked. “Begun? Oh, honey, we’ve been friendly for quite a while now, ever since they commissioned me to steal from a New York bank’s safety deposit box.”
“The Arena Club pin? The Secret Empire was behind that?”
The Russian spy rolled her eyes in obvious exasperation. “Yes, that’s what I just said. You SSR types are pretty dense, aren’t you?”
“Not dense, just very thorough.” (Y/N) held her gun higher. “Dorothy Underwood, you’re under arrest.” With a quirk of her brow, Dottie took a step forward. “If you take another step, I won’t hesitate to shoot you.”
“Do you wanna hear a secret, Agent (Y/L/N)? You’re all out of bullets.”
Squeezing the trigger of her gun, (Y/N)’s eyes widened in surprise when it only made a faint click. Dottie took full advantage of her shock, kicking the gun out of her hand and striking her hard in the stomach with her heeled shoe; (Y/N) flew backwards and landed hard on her back, and she scrambled to her feet as the Russian assassin moved in for another attack. (Y/N) blocked her punch and yanked her down before kneeing her in the torso. Recovering quickly, Dottie backhanded her face and grabbed her arm, flipping her over her shoulder and onto her back once again.
The wind was instantly knocked out of (Y/N)’s lungs and while she laid their coughing, Dottie stood over her with a taunting smirk on her face. “You’re too easy; Peggy would’ve at least made it a challenge.”
“We’ve got Thompson, Underwood, time to go!”
(Y/N)’s eyes darted over to the radio from where the familiar voice of Thomas Attwell had emitted, fear clutching at her chest as Dottie sighed in disappointment. “It’s been swell, Agent (Y/L/N), but I have a plane to catch.”
With a swift kick to (Y/N)’s side, the Russian assassin snatched up the papers on the desk and quickly fled the room; (Y/N) struggled to get to her feet and once she finally managed it, she clutched her stomach and limped over to the radio room’s broken window. There was a large cargo plane at the opposite end of the hangar, and she watched as Dottie strode up its extended ramp beside Attwell, who was carrying an unconscious Jack Thompson over his shoulder.
“No!”
Ignoring the pain of her injuries, (Y/N) hurried out of the radio room and down the metal stairs, stopping for a brief moment to grab one of the dead guard’s rifles before staggering into the hangar. The plane’s ramp had closed and it was already taxing down the runway; she aimed the rifle at one of the plane’s wheels and fired, cursing when the shot missed. In desperation, (Y/N) ran through the hangar as fast as she could but she was too late, for the plane had already taken off by the time she reached the hangar’s opening.
“Jack…Jack…” (Y/N) gasped out, her vision blurring with tears as she watched the plane disappear into the clouds; she felt something brush her foot and when she looked down, she recognized it as Jack’s fedora. Reaching down, she gently picked it up and after staring at it for several moments, she finally allowed herself to cry.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A/N: That ending though...wow. I’m sorry for the cliffhanger but I had to! Thank you guys so much for reading! If you haven’t checked it out yet, I created a Spotify playlist for this series and I’ll be updating it every time I upload a new chapter.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/21pWY7OiMFj8LaYpxhtVtW
Chapter Eighteen
“Specs and the Flyboy” Masterlist
Tagging: @nnon-it-up @fluffymadamina @remmyswritings @ourstarsailor @darkusangelus @josis-teacup @marvel-jackt-loki-buck @yeetyeetchickenmeat @sameoldbaby @theserenityspace @seeing-but-not-observing @supervoldejaygent​ @momc95​ @brooke0297​ @kinda-c0nfused​ @outoftheregular  @mads-weasley​
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cafffine · 3 years
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Rating: General Audiences Relationships: Chewbacca & Han Solo, Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker Summary: Taking care of three humans is stressful enough, but keeping them entertained? That requires an expert, and a very forgiving sense of humor. - Falcon ride to the beach from Chewbacca's pov 
“Chewie,” Luke wheezed, wiping tears from his eyes. “Please, please, one more time.”
“Alright, okay, leave him alone,” Han grumbled. “I think we’ve heard enough.”
“No, no, one more!”
Chewbacca reached over and pat Han’s shoulder. “I don’t mind, but you are kind to look out for me.”
Han rolled his eyes and tapped away at the navi-computer. “Whatever, we’re gonna be there soon anyway.”
Leia gasped for breath and pushed herself back into the seat she’d slid out of. “Hold on, hold on I wasn’t ready, oh stars.”
Chewbacca smiled and busied himself with landing preparations while the twin’s laughter died down. He knew it made Han nervous sometimes, but he liked when everyone rode in the cockpit, traveling was better as a communal effort.
Luke leaned forward and popped his head between the pilot seats. “Okay, we’re good, please, just give it your best shot.”
“I’ll try,” Chewbacca hummed. “But it’s not going to come out right.”
Han reached up and got the stabilizers warming. “That’s the point, they’re making fun of you.”
“Han, Han,” Chewbacca soothed. “You’re too tense, I think you should take a nap once we arrive.”
“Oh, sure, and karking burn to death?”
“I brought an umbrella.” Chewbacca gestured to the back. “You will be safe.”
“Chewie, please,” Luke whined.
“Okay.” Chewbacca nodded. “Give me a moment.” The chances of success were in the negatives, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t give it his best.
He hummed a few times to ready his vocal cords and clear his throat, this alone was enough to send Leia into a fit once more.
“You can do it.” Luke kicked his sister. “I believe in you.”
Chewbacca gave Luke’s little blond head an appreciative scratch, maybe he could do it.
“Take it slow,” Han advised. “It’s only two syllables.”
Chewbacca took a deep breath. “H-E,” he barked out, doing his damnedest to replicate the impossible sounds of basic. “L-L-L-L-OH.”
Luke shrieked and collapsed to the floor.
“No, oh Gods.” Leia shook her head, her eyeliner was starting to run. “That is too – I can’t handle this.”
“Good try.” Han had to turn towards the radio to hide his laughter. “That was a good try, buddy.”
“I think I’m getting better.” Chewbacca flicked off the shields and began redirecting power to engines in preparation for the end of their jump. “You should have heard me fifty years ago.”
“Why wasn’t I recording?” Luke moaned. “Wedge would lose his mind if I played that for him.”
Leia fanned her face and kicked her feet up on Han’s armrest. “I’m going to be thinking about that all day, that was amazing.”
“Buckle up, both of you.” Han tapped Leia’s foot. “And someone needs to put sunscreen on my back.”
Chewbacca raised his hand. “I’d be happy to-”
“No.” Han grimaced. “Anyone but you. Your fur always gets in it and – augh – no.”
“Sunscreen?” Luke flopped back into his seat. “There’s only gonna be one sun, how bad could it be?”
Leia tossed a bottle into his lap. “Bad. And if you don’t put it on, I’ll tell Threepio.”
“Rude.” Luke threw the bottle back at her. “I’ll do it when we get there.”
“We are here.” Han leaned back and braced himself as the Falcon snapped out of hyperspace and began gliding towards the bright turquoise of southern Glee Anselm. “Now put the damn sunscreen on, kid. You’re paler than me.”
“And don’t forget the tips of your ears,” Chewbacca added. He couldn’t imagine how terrifying it was for humans and their baldness. He’d left Han out in the sun for too long once and his shoulders started to peel the next day, it was a trauma he was still recovering from.
“Chewie, can you pull the map up? I haven’t been here in ages.” Han squinted down at the distant strips of sand and kicked the engine down to just above the speed limit. “Man, I hope we can find parking.”
Leia frowned. “If we had borrowed the Phantom from Hera like I suggested that wouldn’t be a problem.”
“Sweetheart,” Han bit. “If we’d come in the Phantom, there’d be no one to stop Lando from taking my ship-”
“Who cares?” Leia tossed her hands up. “Let him have it! Who takes a freighter this big to the beach anyway?”
Han whipped around; finger raised. “Look, if you two want to fly yourselves two kriffing systems over-”
“Oh, come on,” Luke groaned “What did I do?”
“-then you are welcome to use that pathetic little shuttle. But if you want me to get you there? We’re taking the Falcon.”
“Don’t argue, please, don’t argue.” Chewbacca reached over and gently guided Han’s attention back towards the window. “I’ll drop you all off at the entrance and park the ship myself.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Han muttered. “Don’t listen to them.”
“Them?” Luke squawked. “I haven’t done anything!”
“Shut up.” Leia threw the bottle of sunscreen back at his head. “It’s because he knows you’re on my side.”
“I am?”
“You are.”
“It’ll be fine,” Chewbacca assured. “Just message me where you pitch the umbrella and I’ll be there when I can.”
Han shook his head, still bitter about Leia’s betrayal. “I just don’t think we should split up. It’s winter on six of the planets in this system, the place is gonna be packed.”
“I’m very tall.” Chewbacca sat up straighter to demonstrate. “I’ll find you.”
“Hey, are we drinking?” Luke leaned forward again, ignoring Han’s annoyed glance. “I heard there’s a place near the lifeguard tent that serves Margaritas Shili style.”
“Like you could handle that,” Leia scoffed.
“Not me.” Chewbacca hit the switch for the landing gear. “I need to have a clear mind when I fly you all home, but you can enjoy yourselves.”
“What’d he say?” Luke asked.
Han chuckled. “He said go crazy.”
Luke thumped Chewbacca’s arm. “That’s why he’s my favorite.”
Chewbacca waited until the ship was stable, then took Han’s seat as the group began to gather their towels and tote bags. The sky outside was clear blue and the sand pure white, Chewbacca did not look forward to washing it out of his fur.
He couldn’t complain, though. They’d chosen a good day, the crowds were worth it. The sun was just direct enough to keep the water warm without making the sand too hot for sensitive human feet to walk on.
“I don’t care how good it is, do not pay more than twenty credits for parking,” Han instructed. “We are not a bunch of clueless tourists.”
“I know, I know.” Chewbacca waved him off. “I’ll find a good spot.”
“Thanks, Chewie!” Luke waved before skipping out into the sun, followed by his sister and a yawning Han.
“Don’t forget the umbrella!” Chewbacca called after them. “Han! The umbrella!”
“Yep, yeah, got it.” Han came dashing back up the gangway and snatched the folded umbrella off the table. “Thanks, pal.”
“You are welcome.”
Chewbacca waited to start the engine until he could see the three of them trudging through the sand and towards the water. Han was speaking angrily with his hands and Leia reached around him to bat Luke in the head with her inflatable doughnut.
Chewbacca was happy for them. “H-E,” he began, then shook his head, one battle at a time.
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timextoxhajima · 3 years
Text
CAPITAL LETTERS: Christmas Special
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BONUS TRACK: CHANGE YOUR MIND
Member: Juyeon
Genre: CHRISTMAS FLUFF AND A TINY BIT OF SMUT
Word Count: 2.3k words
A/N: Merry Christmas to all my readers out there! I hope you’re safe, warm and happy wherever you are! I considered writing a full-on smut for this special but decided not to, in the spirit of wholesome giving. I hope this will serve as a little token of appreciation for your patience in reading my work. <3
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My love, 
You’ve been away far too long now, I’m starting to feel like I’m forgetting your scent. How is it like over there? Is the weather kind to you? Are you eating well? I hope you miss me as much as I miss you.
Love, Juyeon
Your lids droop halfway down your eyeballs, chucking away the handwritten letter into your purse and looking behind your shoulder. 
“You are extremely dramatic for someone who’s been sitting right outside my office,” He pulls the door open and pops his head in. His hair is a new mixture of black with highlights the colour of clouds and it couldn’t have made him look better.
Your jaw drops open in pleasant surprise, eyes trying to process the sight before you. But then he walks in, and he’s very obviously hiding something behind his back. A squint forms on your lids and that playful tongue of his darts out to swipe across his lower lip, just moments before he lunges forward and pecks you on your lips. 
He doesn’t want you to hug him because he knows you’ll find some way to climb onto him and figure out what he’s hiding behind his back. 
“What, no time to rest?” Folding your arms, you raise a brow when he coyly walks backward into your sofa, careful not to crush whatever he was holding behind his back. “First, you come into my office looking like that then now you’re hiding, what, keys to your helicopter behind your back?”
“What’s wrong with looking like ‘that’?” Mischief creeps along his lips in the form of a smirk, cuing you to provide him with an exaggerated scoff. 
“You know what I mean.”
You can feel him watch you as you walk around to the back of your table, packing all your Christmas gifts from your colleagues into the shelves or drawers. 
“Well, aren’t you going to try and figure out what I got for you?”
“I’ll just wait until you can’t take it anymore. It’s not like you can hide that behind your back all the way till we get home, you need to drive.”
“Ugh,” Groaning in mild frustration, the friction of fabric against sofa tells that Juyeon removed himself from the furniture, the gentle footsteps into the marble floor getting closer to you. His presence is strong behind you, then both his hands travel around the side of your waist, under your arms, and presents you a Christmas bouquet of white and red roses with a gold wrap. 
You don’t bother to take the bouquet, but instead, you whip around and wrap your arms around his torso, resting your head in his chest. Juyeon chuckles, sinking his nose and lips into the crown of your head. You can feel him trying to tighten his hold around you despite the bouquet still being in one of his hands. 
“Thank you,” He releases you as you take the bouquet from him, his hands dropping to your waist. “Now I feel bad for making you wait outside my office.” 
“You did warn me,” The bouquet looks large when it’s in your hands, but all you do is stare and gleam at the flowers like it was gold. “Besides, watching you work is kinda hot.”
“Says you,” Looking up, Juyeon smiles not with his lips, but with his eyes as he leans forward. Providing you with a long, hard, kiss, Juyeon removes the bouquet from your hands, placing it on the desk behind him. Closing the gap between your bodies, he pulls you forward as he shifts back to lean against your desk, your thighs between his knees as your arms travel up his chest and around his neck. 
The pilot tastes like mint chocolate, of which you can assume was due to his habit of brushing his teeth after he ate.
“Yo, have you looked at the production details for the-- oh my God! What the--” 
Juyeon almost refuses to release you when he can recognise Sunwoo’s voice, though you’ve already panicked and broken the kiss. 
“Oh-- Jesus-- Didn’t I tell you to knock before you come in?” Sunwoo watches you try to pull yourself away from Juyeon, but he intertwines his fingers behind your back. His head is turned around and looking at Sunwoo with the widest grin on his face. 
“Since when the Hell did you tell me to knock?” Sunwoo raises his hand in a bid to greet Juyeon, who nods in acknowledgement. 
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Juyeon receives a gentle thwack on his chest. "Blame me."
"He's got a point, it's your office."  
"Whose side are you on?" 
"Ugh, I'll leave the production file here," Sunwoo tosses the glossy item onto the sofa Juyeon was previously sitting on. "Remind me never to touch your desk, like, ever."
"Bye, Sunwoo!" Juyeon calls out, pulling you closer and pasting his torso to your body. 
"Yeah, yeah, knock yourself out," Sunwoo's voice trails off as he walks out, shutting the door behind him. Your attention returns to Juyeon, eyes forming a squint again as you arch your back and look down at those playful eyes; eyes that looked like they belong to a five-year-old.
"Tsk! You--" Juyeon suddenly stands up and crashes his lips into yours again, your neck tilting upwards but resting in his palms as he cups your cheek. You can smell the breathy mint despite already tasting it, and the cologne that was wafting off his white button up top was gradually intoxicating your thoughts. The same way he was able to win you over with a gap of one year in between. 
Every muscle in his arms shifts under your fingers, the way he's kissing you feels like swimming in a pile of cotton and clouds and snow. 
He offers a soft moan before pulling away, brushing his thumb across your lower lip to clean off the smudged lip tint. "Ah," He touches his own lips. "Now everybody in your office will know we kissed." 
This time, you roll your eyes and let him kiss you on the forehead. 
Juyeon closes the car door for you, leaving you to admire the flowers in the bouquet as he walks around the vehicle. The car smells like him, and when he gets into the car, all you want to do is to jump on him and litter kisses all over his face and hug him and watch Christmas movies and--
"Again with your staring," The smirk he has on his face makes you want to barf because he's teasing with you, flirting, as if the two of you aren't already together. "Do I get to bring you to your next present or do you need more time staring at me?”
"Everything you're saying now is only making me think of when we first met." 
"How do you know I'm not doing it on purpose?"
The morning after you finally saw him again after one year.
Maybe it was the Christmas spirit that was getting to him, but you can't help but to look at him with the most done eyes you've ever given someone. 
"Alright, alright. I won't be such a prick now. We'll go, okay?"
"And where are we going?"
It takes you awhile to realise Juyeon was driving out of the city, away from the lights and further into the country side where snow collects in mounts and nobody would bother those white pillows. You would protest and ask him if he was trying to kidnap you, but all you can see is the way the snow sparkles under the street lights, the distant stars of Mars and Jupiter in the sky like a white dot in the navy canvas. 
The road ends and the vehicle comes to a stop. Juyeon gives you a secretive smile as he reaches behind and picks up a large bag, exiting the car while waiting for you to follow suit. The puffs that escape through your every exhale form tiny clouds as Juyeon holds your hand and walks down a slippery path. The both of you are tucked in thick coats and scarves and gloves but just having him with you feel so warm in itself. 
If you thought Juyeon bringing you on a helicopter ride was romantic, you thought wrong. 
The path among the trees open up into a huge space of white and blue, with the moon in the sky brimming its silver light down. 
Right before you was a frozen water body, a frozen lake. The low lighting is slightly difficult to adjust to, so by the time you've turned to Juyeon in pleasant surprise, he's gotten two pairs of skates out from the bag he took from the car. 
Juyeon pulls you to your feet after he helps you buckle your skates, and the ice below the blades pulls you nearer to him due to your lack of balance. His laughter sounds like a song by your ears, feeling his arms hold you up to your feet and his hands are on your waist to hold you still. 
Then, you are drifting across the cold space in his arms as he plasters himself to you, despite the many layers of clothing between your chests. Your head is in his shoulder, gently inhaling his scent off his coat though the snow should’ve melted it away. 
“You good?” 
A mellow hum thrums through your throat as a smile stretches itself across your lips. You look up at him, straight into those eyes of his that looked nothing short of your world. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
He pulls your beanie down over your ears, one hand still on your waist and yours around his torso. “I don’t know, you’re quiet.”
“I’m enjoying the moment,” Nestling your head back into his chest, it feels like heaven and pillows and clouds and marshmallows until he tells you it’s time to go. 
By the time you’re in the car, you’ve lost count of the number of times Juyeon has lost his words in your mouth. After dumping the skates into the boot, he pulled you into the backseat, for a few minutes battling the awkward fart-sounding noises of the leather before he has you straddling his lap. 
He’s looking up at you like you were a God, and it forces chills down your spine as you tilt your head to give him exactly what he wanted. 
“Ju--” A kiss. 
“Hmm?” Another kiss. 
“We’re not staying here all night--” One more. “Are we?”
He pulls away, eyes hooded when he turns his attention to your neck. “Of course not, I have more presents for you at home.”
“What? What else did you get me?” Finding his cheeks in your palm, you pull him back to face you. But all he does is nuzzle your skin with his nose, pressing kisses into the heart of your palm with his shadowed eyes watching you. 
“You’ll find out when we get home,” Your waist feels warm just as he circles your waist with his arms. “I’d stay like this with for longer if I could, pity a day only has 24 hours. That’s too little time.”
Ugh, what a sweet talker. 
“Okay, well... I don’t want to wait until the sunrises before I can drink hot chocolate and watch Christmas movies with you so maybe we should go.”
Juyeon provides you the tiniest pout, before he relents and quickly pecks you on the cheeks.
You couldn't decide what it was that decided you deserved a life like this. There must've been something you had done in your past life to be snuggled up against Juyeon's chest, both of you in matching pajamas and two mugs of hot chocolate with marshmallows bobbing up and down inside on the table by your feet.
The blanket was covering most of you, only up to his chest while his arms are wrapped around you. The light from the television is reflecting off his face and his eyes, the amber lighting of his living room making it all the more comfortable and cozy for you. The snow outside was billowing and yet you feel so far away from danger.
He smells like lemon from his body wash and his fingers that were interlocked with yours feel warm against your skin.
Juyeon's attention was unrivalled when he doesn't notice how long you've spent staring at his side profile. He was mindlessly fiddling with your fingers under the blanket and stroking the length of your calf that was over his thighs. The movie was some stupid rom-com he said he wanted to watch, and you let him, only because he watched horror movies with you whenever you wanted.
Resting your chin on his shoulder, the physical contact finally gains his notice.
"Why? Are you sleepy? Shall we call it a day?" He picks up the remote and pauses the movie, turning to his side to face you.
"I am, but we don't have to sleep now. It's not midnight yet."
Juyeon's little smile in the corner of his lips melt your thoughts through and through, his slightly damp white highlights against his lashes. His hand travels up to rub your ears, tips slightly cool.
"Who said we need to wait till midnight?" His arm comes round your waist under the blanket and pulls you into his chest, forcing you into more or less a cradled position.b
"I don't know, wouldn't it be nice to stay away till Christmas and then I get to kiss you the first second of our first Christmas together?" Goosebumps erupt all over your skin as you cringe over what you've just said, but Juyeon likes that kind of nonsense and he laughs into your lips when he plants a kiss to them.
"There's no need to wait for Christmas, princess," Cupping your cheek in his palm, he pulls away just slightly to finish the rest of his sentence. "You can kiss me anytime you want."
“Wait,” You pull away, thumb brushing across his lower lip as his breath hits yours. He playfully raises a brow, already not in favour of the gap between your faces. “What’s my present?”
He pauses, then reads your eyes. He knows you already know what the present is. 
“Me, for the rest of your life and mine.”
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wayhavnsfinest · 4 years
Text
Birthday Boy
I wrote this bad boy on our 1.5 hour round trip to get our new flooring. I apologize if there are any grammar and spelling errors. I wrote it on my phone. Here you go, I hope you enjoy!
Pairing: June x Female Traveler Universe: Andromeda Six
June is kind. June is tough. June is strong. June is soft. June has never had a real birthday party. You love June and when you mentioned how you missed your Mimi’s double chocolate cake she used to make on your birthday, he did his best to recreate it. Everything June does is with love. Which is why you want to return the favor. 
“Bash! Aya! Come here, I need your help!”
The pilot and mechanic come rushing to your aid.
“What’s up Navi?!” You roll your eyes at the nickname they gave you. It’s an inside joke. After remembering your past, the crew agreed to train you as the navigator to keep you safe. Which is how Aya and Bash came to refer to you as Navi. 
“Does anyone know when June’s birthday is?”
The two most boisterous members go quiet. Their silence is your answer.
“Would it be bad if we made one up for him?” You ask, you like to think you know June well, but the truth is that Aya and Bash have been with him for much longer. 
“Are you kidding?!” Bash grins. “He would love it!”
Aya preens at the idea. “If you can get Damon to take care of the cake, Bash and I can throw everything else together!” She pauses, “Which would leave you to distract him. Which I think you can manage.” She adds with a wink. 
You feel your face flush at her insinuation. 
Bash laughs at your embarrassment. “I’m sure Ry would love to take you shopping for that special something. You should have seen the little lacy thing she wore the other-OW!” He laughs and flinches at the barrage of attacks Aya is laying on his flesh arm. 
The three of you work through the night to plan the perfect party for June. When the day of the party arrives you take June on errands.
“I did not realize we had so many bags of laundry.” June says as he hoists a second bag of laundry over his shoulders. “I’m not mad about it though it’s a nice day. I’m glad we get to spend it together.” After walking a few minutes in comfortable silence you pass Oppo’s Club, causing June to speak up again. ”It’s finally starting to cool down. I bet Oppo is happy. Cooler days tend to keep their bar busier than hot days.” 
June prattles on about Oppo’s business model as the two of you walk back to the ship. On your way back to the ship you pass what appears to be a small farmer’s market. “Want to take a little detour and explore?”
 June very clearly wants to stop and explore and you can’t tell him no on a normal day. Much less on his made up birthday. “I’d love to!” 
June and you spend about an hour walking and sampling the local food and admiring the crafts. You’re eyeing a hand braided bracelet when you realize you never got June anything for his birthday party. 
You know Bash was messing with you when he suggested the lingerie, well now it might be the only thing you can get him. You spot a small clothing boutique tucked in between two run down apartments. Looking around, you duck into the store and browse its inventory. 
After a few minutes of what seems to be futile searching you do manage to find a few suitable gifts. However none of them scream “June”. You sigh and rub the back of your neck. What do you get your first friend on the crew/your boyfriend at some rinky dink hole in the wall shop? 
You wander around a little bit longer before you find what looks to be the perfect gift for June. After purchasing it you tuck it away into your bag and head out to find him. 
June smiles when you reach him.”Where did you go?”
“I wanted to explore a few of the shops.”
“You ready to head back to the ship? You know how Cal gets cranky when we stay too long in one place.” 
You nod and walk with him back to the ship. As you enter the ship the crew jumps out.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” 
June’s face goes from shocked to ecstatic!
“What is all of this?!” 
“Well, Navi wanted to throw a party and we all decided that it should be your birthday.” Aya elbows Bash. “Okay it was all Navi’s idea.” 
June turns to you. “You did this for me?”
“Of course.” You smile and kiss his cheek.
The crew parties well into the night. Damon did an amazing job on the cake. Aya and Bash killed it with the decorations and music. 
June turns to you with a look for pure adoration. “I can’t believe you did all this for me.”
 “I wanted to make your first real party perfect. I even got you a gift.” You smile and take his hand. 
“Oh? You really didn’t need to. I’m just happy I have you in my life.” 
Of course he would say something so sweet. “If you come with me to my room. I’ll show you.”
June’s eyes darken at the thought. The look he’s giving you makes you think you should have bought lingerie of some sort. You lead him to your bedroom, pulling out the small package you purchased earlier. You give it to him. 
June unwraps it gingerly. You couldn’t imagine his smile getting any bigger, but it manages to. He pulls out the digital photo frame. 
You smile sheepishly. “I thought you might like to brighten up your room with pictures. Well pictures that aren’t of Lizzie. NOT that Lizzie isn’t cute!”
June cuts you off by placing a searing kiss on your lips. The kiss leaves you breathless. “I love you”
“I love you too, Happy Birthday.”
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ultimateoptimus · 4 years
Text
SCUBA Princess-in-Peril
A Frogman Fubblegum Scenario by UltimateOptimus
Once upon a time one beautiful Summer day over the great waters between the Land of Ooo and the Islands of Man above one of the sunken Pre-Great Mushroom Wars cities known as the Drowned Cities and across the beaches of high Ooo, Finn Mertens and Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum, the Boy-Hero and his Candy Princess, High School Frogboy and Froggirl and both members of their High School's SCUBA Club, deciding to take a SCUBA diving class one Summer school day, in their sporty, sleek and cute Water Park swimwear and swim caps and their personalized SCUBA gear clad, are all-too-ready to take the plunge from their AI-piloted Candy Kingdom Liveaboard-class Flagship Dive Boat CKDB Princess AquaCola from Bubblegum's Candy Kingdom Navy with the Diver Down flags and buoys set up and the ship's AI Captain-Pilot ordered to follow the pair underwater into a SCUBA Diving Adventure - a "SCUBAdventure" as Finn coined the phrase - deep into the waters of the sunken Pre-'Shroom city.
For Finn Mertens, today's SCUBAdventure is the Boy-Hero from the Islands of Man in SCUBA diver training, facing his childhood fear of the ocean head on, full steam ahead - a hands-on exorcism of his own aquatic demon. For Princess Bubblegum, this is Pre-War history research and extra SCUBA diver training for the more experienced Candy Mutant Girl of the Candy Kingdom - this underwater adventure ain't her first SCUBA dive. For our young heroic lovers of Human and Mutant origin both, Finn and Bubblegum's SCUBAdventure will be a mathem-aquatic Summer Splash of underwater fun in the sun and a lovers' SCUBA dive to remember.
"But what's a fun SCUBAdventure without a little dance with danger?" Finn and Bubblegum thought and in pre-dive the Boy-Hero and the Candy Princess created a secret Rescue Frogman training mission to test Finn as Rapid Response Rescue Frogman-in-Training:
Step 1: At the secret signal when the time comes, the Frogboy and Froggirl would start the rescue drill and split up, with Finn making the extreme hazard zone of the Drowned City his AquaGym and Princess Bubblegum settling down below and turning off her OxyCola bottletank to simulate a real out-of-air emergency - as real as it gets, but not TOO real. Step 2: Soon as he recieves Bubblegum's out-of-air signal once her bottletank's completely shut off and she is hovering between the bottom and the surface, Finn drops the AquaGymnastics, swims up as fast as his fins can take him to and buddy breathes - shares his life-saving air - with Princess Bubblegum in a lightning SCUBA rescue. Step 3: Once the Rescue Frogman mission is completed, Princess Bubblegum turns her OxyCola bottletank back on and Finn and she break for the surface together slowly and always breathing out to avoid getting a bad case of the bends, inflate their rescue jackets halfway up and if need be switch to snorkels once they break surface.
The two heroes of Ooo suited and geared up for aquatic action, Finn and Bubblegum turn their air tanks on, pull their masks down on their faces, plug their regulators into their mouths and take their first deep breaths of processed air from the mouthpieces. The Boy-Hero and the Candy Princess step up with fins on their feet to the dive platform and get ready to take the jump deep underwater.
Princess Bubblegum (Through Snorkelator): *Haaaaah...* Ready to SCUBA dive, Finn? Finn (Through Regulator): *Haaaaah...* Am I ever, Princess Bubblegum! Princess Bubblegum (Through Snorkelator): *Haaaaah...* You know what time it is...
Finn and Bubblegum (Through Regulator/Snorkelator): *Haaaaah...* ADVENTURE TIME!
KERSPLASH!!! And "Adventure Time" the time-honored codephrase of action, like torpedoes, away Finn Mertens and Princess Bubblegum go, jumping off the platform in a giant stride and with a big splash SCUBA diving down, down, down underwater into the big, breathtaking subaquatic world of the Drowned City, once a bustling Pre-'Shroom War metropolis home to millions, just waiting for our heroic pair. Finn and Bubblegum breathe bubbly breaths on their regulators and enjoy the candy sweet taste of SCUBA tank air in every last breath as the Frogboy and the Froggirl in their sleek, sporty swimwear-clad forms kick their finned legs and swim around the towering submerged skyscraper-decorated neighborhood of the ex-city, Finn's blonde hair and Bubblegum's hot pink hair, both beautiful even under swim caps, flowing free in the water, complete with all the wreckage of what you would find in a typical city once the 'Shroom Wars were through with it.
Finn (Through Regulator): *Haaaaah...* Mathematical! Look at all those rad sunken skyscrapers in the City, Bubblegum! Princess Bubblegum (Through Snorkelator): *Haaaaah...* Yes, Finn. Even after the Great Mushroom Wars, this city is beautiful. Finn (Through Regulator): *Haaaaah...* I can make this Drowned City an awesome AquaGym just for math Frogboys like me to show you how much of a Hero I am to you! Princess Bubblegum (Through Snorkelator): *Haaaaah...* An AquaGym with a real history to it. A history I want to learn so much from. *Haaaaah...* Just stay together with me. And please don't drown on me. Finn (Through Regulator): *Haaaaah...* Roger. And if you dive into any trouble, I'll be swimmin' to your rescue, Princess Bubblegum! Princess Bubblegum (Through Snorkelator): *Haaaaah...* I pray to Glob you will, Finn.
So long as Finn, training as a future Star Frogboy of the Islands of Man and the Candy Kingdom and fighting his phobia on its home field in the Drowned City and Bubblegum, a veteran Star Froggirl of the Candy Kingdom on a Pre-'Shroom War history lesson on the city, stick together with each other as dive buddies in this SCUBAdventure, the pair of SCUBA diving heroes will be swimming in and out of today's underwater adventure just fine, still kicking and breathing, safe and sound in what began as and seems like a peaceful, safe, uneventful SCUBAdventure. At least THAT's what most other boring SCUBA divers would think this dive would go down.
The time came for Finn and Bubblegum to commence their secret Rescue Frogman training by secret signal.
Finn and Princess Bubblegum (Through Regulator/Snorkelator): *Haaaaah...* (Commence Rescue Frogman training.)
Finn tests his aquabatic skills and underwater Hero Heart as Frogboy by treating the ruined city like as he called it an AquaGym like the adventurous young Boy-Hero he is and Bubblegum swims to the Olympic-size swimming pool of the city's high school - littered with high school students' abandoned SCUBA gear and air tanks from the school's SCUBA class when the Wars hit Downtown - out of school spirit nostalgia and historical curiosity.
Bubblegum, about to demonstrate even veteran frogmen and frogwomen can and will make rookie mistakes (forgetting to bring emergency Spare Air tanks to name just one), signalling her OxyCola bottletank to shut down air and playing unaware her tank was slowly going empty... yet... plays around and rests sitting her pink one-piece swimsuit-clad butt on the bottom of the high school pool and take in the summer sunlit underwater urban sights of this sunken old city, make herself nice and comfortable before getting the SCUBA peril show on the road.
Princess Bubblegum (Through Snorkelator): *Haaaaah...* The Drowned City and the high school - complete with its history, all its students and their stories and lives before the War - is so beautiful with the summer sun shining on it. *Haaaaah...* I am ready. Signal to OxyCola bottletank: commence air shut down. *Haaah...* Ah. My air emergency alarm is triggered. *Haaah...* Time to play SCUBA princess-in-peril. *Haaah...* Three. *Haah...* Two. *Hah...* One. *Ha--** Action.
Bubblegum's loud sounding air emergency signal his call to action, Finn stopped mid-maneuver, remembering he needs to protect Princess Bubblegum, dropped his AquaGym training and take up the Rapid Response Rescue Frogman training, swimming to where Princess Bubblegum is, kicking his finned legs as hard as he is breathing into his twinhose regulator as he can to swim to the Princess' rescue in a trail of air bubble clouds from his heavy breaths out of his reg' - and pray to Saint Minato he swims there just in time.
Finn (Through Regulator): *Haaah-hooo! Haaah-hooo! Haaah-hooo!* PRINCESS BUBBLEGUM!
Princess Bubblegum, the more experienced SCUBA diver of the two, rapidly running out of air, takes a crash course in SCUBA safety, today's lesson being "ALWAYS keep your eyes on your air!" and plays the victim SCUBA diver part with authenticity dangerously approaching frightening like a reenactment of certain Pre-Mushroom War cartoon and movie SCUBA peril scenes when she felt her bubbly breathing through the mouthpiece of her snorkelator tightening - the first sign her OxyCola bottletank is almost closed. Bubblegum reflex-lays swimgloved hands to her bottlecap switch snorkelator, the pink mouthpiece in her mouth squeaking with each bubbling gasp, the snorkelator sounding like a drinking straw trying to drink from an empty pop bottle with every breath Bubblegum tries to draw. Princess Bubblegum is calm and collected as a veteran Frogwoman can be playing the victim in the drill. And well she must be: a drowned mausoleum of a Pre-War city at the bottom of the ocean is no place to get lost and run out of air in. Bubblegum sure would use breaths of air from the high schoolers' SCUBA air tanks if 1: they're still full, 2: didn't go unused for a good few generations and 3: she feels in the mood for breaking the simulation.
Princess Bubblegum (Through Snorkelator): *Haaa-- hoo--!* OxyCola Level: Red... my air... *Ahoo-- fmmmfh--!* My air is running out... *Hfmmmf--!* I'm on my last breaths... *MmmmMMM--!* FINN! *FFFmmMMmmff--!*
Bubblegum, her snorkelator around her mouth squeaking, tightening more and breathing became very difficult, knows a routine SCUBA dive downtown would turn into a hazardous SCUBAdventure if you break the rules of SCUBA diving. These are her last breaths. The smart cookie frogwoman she is, Bubblegum knows "low air in tank" means "dive over" (and she didn't need her DiveComp to learn that) and called for Finn to swim his swimsuit-clad tuckus over to her and break for the surface together, slowly and breathing out on the way up to avoid getting down with the bends, inflating their rescue jackets and switching to snorkels once breaking surface with the CKDB Princess AquaCola on rescue pickup standby for them, starting with springing herself off the pool floor and kicking her fin-legging-clad legs up, up and away, hovering in the pool in wait for Finn to join her as escort for the way up in a slow and orderly fashion (easier said than done when the air in your tank's almost gone).
And then Bubblegum's snorkelator gave her one last breath of OxyCola she breathes in long and deep before calling it quits and going offline.
Princess Bubblegum (Through Snorkelator): (And now my one last breath...) *HaaaaAAAAAHfff--** Finn! *Aaah-hooo-ahoooo--!* Oh Finn, please swim with air in time! Please swim with air in time! Please swim with air in time!
Bubblegum gasped out in horror her very last hard bubbly breath out the snorkel part of her now useless snorkelator and is left praying for more breaths of air from her now turned off bottletank through the mouthpiece in her mouth, her prayers answered only by the vacuum in her closed bottletank with every breath she tries to take, the DiveCOMP on her wrist beeping out the out-of-air alarm loud enough for Finn to hear. And that can only mean one thing:
Princess Bubblegum ran out of air.
The one prayer Princess Bubblegum made - for Finn to swim to her with air to share in time - is answered by the guardian angel in light blue, blue and green SCUBA gear swimming along to Princess Bubblegum's rescue. And not a moment too soon.
Finn (Through Regulator): *Haaaaah-hooo! Haaaaah-hooo! Haaaaah-hooo!* Never fear, Princess Bubblegum! Your Rescue Frogboy guardian angel Finn is here swimming to your rescue!
Finn Mertens, heroic schoolboy frogman and boy SCUBA diver-in-training he is, a victim of the waters himself, wasted no time at all with becoming Princess Bubblegum's guardian Rescue Frogman angel, swimming full steam ahead, his bright light blue-blue swimsuit-clad boy-hero body slicing through the waters, kicking his split twinblade finned legs and breathing through his twinhose regulator as hard as humanly possible to Bubblegum at the sunken high school swimming pool, the young pink candy mutant girl in pink one-piece sports swimsuit and swim cap clad currently hovering in the SCUBA gear and air tank littered Pre-'Shroom Wars school pool sucking on her turned off snorkelator with both swimgloved hands on it, cheeks puffing up around her mouthpiece with each try to draw breath through it, praying for more breaths from her closed off OxyCola bottletank and kicking her fin-leggings floating in standing place above the pool floor to keep herself afloat, waiting for her boy-hero, Finn immediately having down pat Princess Bubblegum is out of air.
Finn (Through Regulator): *Haaaah-hooo! Haaaah-hooo! Haaaah-hooo!* You will be just perfectly fine so long as I am with you, my dear Frogwoman instructor. I know a veteran Frogwoman Princess like you isn't psyched out easy by a little out-of-air emergency. Please plug your snorkelator out and let me share my life-saving air with you, Princess Bubblegum.
Finn and Bubblegum connect their hands together and hold each other closely and tightly as teenage SCUBA divers like them do best, kicking their fins in place floating above the pool, both Frogboy and Froggirl making sure they are keeping their Frogman cool at all times in their secret Rescue Frogman out-of-air emergency simulation. Princess Bubblegum squeezes her swim gloved hand on her snorkelator and fastens her seatbelt for The Big One...
Princess Bubblegum: (This is it. My last hard gasp of OxyCola air. Since you asked so nicely, Finn...) *HaaaaaAAAAAAUUUM! POP! Fffblblblblblbl. Mmm.*
And with Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum, Frogwoman of the Candy Kingdom gasping in her last hard gasp of all the OxyCola bottletank air she can breathe into her candy lungs and cheeks from her shut off bottletank through her sweet-tasting clear pink plastic mouthpiece, straight out of her puffy cheeked bubbly mouth bubbling and popping Princess Bubblegum plugged her colorful red-white Cola-bottlecap-and-drinking straw themed snorkelator, leaving a now breathless Frogwoman Princess of the Candy Kingdom in an underwater high school swimming pool of the sunken Pre-Mushroom Wars metropolis. Bubblegum slashes her swim gloved hand across her throat, letting the Human Frogboy know the Candy Froggirl's air tank is out of juice and in serious need of air. Finn, knowing full well what needs be done as Rescue Frogman-in-Training, lays his swim gloved hand on his twinhose regulator and gears himself up for the rescue...
Finn: (This breath of air is just for you, Bubblegum.) *HaaaaaAAAAAUUUM! POP! Blblblblbl. Mmm.*
Finn Mertens, Frogboy of the Islands of Man gasps in one long hard breath of OxyBio backpack tank air into his young boy lungs and cheeks through his clear plastic mouthpiece and with puffed up cheeks and swimsuit-clad chest with a lungful of SCUBA tank air, out of his puffy, bubbly mouth bubbling and popping Finn plugs his futuristic-styled green twinhose regulator and swims up close and personal to buddy breathe with Princess Bubblegum, his SCUBA Princess-in-Peril.
Here's the funny thing about the "buddy breathe" part.
Princess Bubblegum: *Hmmmwfh?*
Frogboy Finn Mertens kisses Froggirl Princess Bubblegum in the lips, the human frogboy kissing precious, lifesaving air into the blushing bubblegum froggirl, Finn surprising Bubblegum with his "mouth-to-mouth" approach to buddy breathing - his Kiss of Loyalty and Love. Finn and Bubblegum soon hug each other in a tight warm loving embrace once her surprise makes way for relief and love, their puffy cheeked lips still connected to each other's and sharing their breaths of air, their personalized regulators floating below their mouths, their colorful sporty swimsuits colliding and connecting with each other, soft fabric brushing and rubbing, their swim gloved arms holding the two at the waists and finned feet kicking like the young SCUBA lovers they are.
The human frogboy loves the Original Flavor bubblegum taste of the candy froggirl he feels in his lips locked in hers in their bubbly kiss, he must face facts.
Finn and Princess Bubblegum: *Mmmmmmblblblblbl.*
Much as Frogboy Finn and Froggirl Bubblegum want to stay like this for the rest of their lives kissing underwater in each other's swimsuit and SCUBA gear clad embrace, Finn and Bubblegum, knowing all too well rules are rules and all good things must come to an end, decided they've kissed enough air into each other and broke the kiss with a big pop, bubbles of air leaking out of their lips with a buzzing sound by rule of "never hold your breath".
The human frogboy and the candy froggirl will treasure this underwater memory of theirs lovingly.
Finn and Princess Bubblegum: *Mmmmmm... POP! Blblbl.*
Frogboy Finn and Froggirl Bubblegum smile cute, puffy cheeked, bubbling smiles and signal OK at each other. The Rescue Frogman drill a complete success, Princess Bubblegum powers her OxyCola bottletank back up and twists the air valve open again. Frogboy Finn plugs his green twinhose Helper's regulator back into his mouth and Froggirl Bubblegum her freshly reopened Cola-themed snorkelator back into her mouth, the frogboy's and froggirl's waiting lips and teeth biting into his twinhose reg's and her snorkelator's clear mouthpieces and take a good breath.
Finn and Princess Bubblegum (Through Regulator/Snorkelator): *HaaaAAAUUUUH!!! Hoooooblblblblblbl! Haaaaah! Hoooooblblbl! Haaaaah! Hoooooblblbl!*
Frogboy Finn and Frogwoman Princess Bubblegum gasp in their first hard gasping breaths of SCUBA tank air through their regulator and snorkelator, clouds of air bubbles roaring out of the regs welcoming the SCUBA heroes back to the world of airbreathers, the human frogboy and the candy froggirl feeling good to be breathing with regulators in their mouths again after their Rescue Frogman drill - Princess Bubblegum especially from the looks of her blushing pink mask and snorkelator covered face, her cheeks puffing with every breath of OxyCola bottletank air she gasps in through her snorkelator with muffled sighs of relief before she returns to normal breathing.
Frogman Finn and Princess Bubblegum strike a fun-loving victory pose and signal OK to each other with regulator-covered smiles and happy laughter.
Finn and Princess Bubblegum (Through Regulator/Snorkelator): *Haaaah... hooooblblblbl...* Rescue Frogman Mission Accomplished! Finn (Through Regulator): *Haaaah... hooooblblblbl...* I hope you loved my mouth-to-mouth SCUBA rescue, Princess Bubblegum, my SCUBA Princess! *Haaaah... hooooblblblbl...* Your original flavor tastes mathematical! Princess Bubblegum (Through Snorkelator): *Haaaah... hooooblblblbl...* Why, thank you for your stylish rescue, Finn, my flawless SCUBA Champion! *Haaaah... hooooblblblbl...* I loved the taste of your kiss too!
Before the SCUBA diver heroes can make the ascent though, Finn and Bubblegum take one set of the SCUBA gear in the pool, mask, snorkel, fins and dive jacket each, one boy's and one girl's as mementoes to remember their SCUBA dive in the sunken high school pool by and pieces of Pre-'Shroom War history and leaving the rest and the air tanks be in reverence of the memory of all the students of this school, Finn stashing them in his green backpack (gotta love Cartoon Logic and Hammerspace).
Princess Bubblegum (Through Snorkelator): *Haaaah... hooooblblblbl...* And now, Finn, it's time for our emergency ascent back to the surface. *Haaaah... hooooblblblbl...* The Princess AquaCola is waiting for us topside. *Haaaah... hooooblblblbl...* I hope you and I have our rescue jackets ready! Finn (Through Regulator): *Haaaah... hooooblblblbl...* Aye aye, Princess Bubblegum! Emergency ascent it is! *Haaaah... hooooblblblbl...* Next stop: home sweet home, exit stage up! Rescue jackets at the ready! Princess Bubblegum (Through Snorkelator): *Haaaah... hooooblblblbl...* That's a wilco, Finn! *Haaaah... hooooblblblbl...* Emergency ascent! Rescue jackets at the ready!
The human frogboy and candy froggirl holding on each other for the swim up, Finn and Princess Bubblegum commence with their emergency ascent spring their finned swim sock-clad legs off the SCUBA gear and tank-littered sunken high school pool and swim up, up and away from the Drowned City's high school to the surface, the boy and girl slowly kicking their fins and breathing out bubbling from their regulators in their mouth to avoid getting a bad case of the bends on their way up, taking one last look at the sunken high school and its pool and the Drowned City it and its students called home below them as it shrinks from their view into the blue colored depths of the ocean in goodbye... for now... before refocusing their loving gazes at each other.
Higher and higher up Finn and Princess Bubblegum swam in their controlled ascent, their mask-covered eyes connected to each other lovingly, holding on each other tightly, kicking their swim sock-clad, fin-wearing legs slowly and surely, breathing out bubbly breaths of air from their regulators, their DiveCOMPs keeping track of their air level and ascent, the Drowned City and its High School now swallowed into the blue out of their view until they reach the halfway point between the City and the CKDB Princess AquaCola. And the human frogboy and the candy froggirl know what that means in their secret Rescue Frogman training as they reach with one hand for their SCUBA gear's rescue jacket inflator ripcords on their back...
Finn and Princess Bubblegum (Through Regulator/Snorkelator): *Haaaah... hooooblblblbl...* Emergency Rescue Jackets!
Frogboy Finn Mertens and Froggirl Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum with one mighty yank of the ripcords inflate their sporty, sleek and cute emergency rescue jackets, Finn's rescue jacket a green Stab Jacket Style Helper's Rescue Jacket with green Helper's Rescue Water Wings on his arms and Bubblegum's a yellow with red-white peppermint stripes Scubapro Stab Jacket Style OxyCola Rescue Jacket, the jackets opening up with a loud pop, wrapping Finn and Bubblegum around them nice and figure-huggingly tight and puff up with a loud hiss of air going into the jackets, making them cute and puffy not to mention safe. Frogboy Finn and Froggirl Bubblegum breathe their way out all the way in their Exit Stage Up.
Finn and Princess Bubblegum (Through Regulator/Snorkelator): *Ahooooooooooooooooblblblblblblblblbl!*
The human frogboy and the candy froggirl in their inflated rescue jackets blast off to the surface like underwater rockets, splitting the waters in a huge trail of bubbles out of their SCUBA systems and their regulators as the two SCUBAdventurers breathe out to avoid the bends on the way up.
And with a mighty huge splash, Frogboy Finn Mertens and Froggirl Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum break the surface of the great waters between the Land of Ooo and the Islands of Man, the brightly shining summer sun, the sapphire blue summer skies and the CKDB Princess AquaCola greeting them. Finn and Bubblegum, floating around like living buoys on the water surface in their inflated rescue jackets, take a few last breaths from their regulators before spitting them out, letting the regulator and snorkelator fall out of their mouths, gasping in breaths of surface air and laughing heartily in triumph and fun.
Finn and Princess Bubblegum: Ahahahahahahaaaah! Finn: Math me, we did it! We were REAL mathematical Frogmen down here, Princess Bubblegum! Princess Bubblegum: Yeah! Congratulations, Finn! You and I truly are mathematical Frogmen!
Their SCUBAdventure and Rescue Frogman Training ending with the human frogboy and candy froggirl passing with flying colors and SCUBA gear mementoes in the frogboy's backpack, Finn plugged his snorkel into his mouth, Princess Bubblegum her snorkelator in Snorkel Mode with the bottlecap dial turned to the snorkel into hers and the two frogkids floating in their rescue jackets take a dip back down underwater, take one last look at the big blue underwater world before heading home and swim a lap to the waiting Princess AquaCola's dive platform, working their swimming arms and fin-wearing legs out in the meantime. Once they reach the AI-captained diveboat's dive platform, Frogboy Finn and Froggirl Princess Bubblegum haul their swimwear and SCUBA gear clad bodies up out of the water, climb back aboard the Princess AquaCola's platform by its two ladders, take the snorkel and snorkelator out of their mouths and sit down on the platform to dry off and take a breather, the frogboy's and froggirl's emergency rescue jackets automatically deflating once out of the water, letting the air inside them hissing out and pack themselves back up into their Frogman rigs, the emergency jacket inflator in recharge mode 'til next dive, Finn taking the sets of salvaged SCUBA gear out of his backpack and into the diveboat's storage, giving the two and the rest of the Candy Kingdom something to remember their SCUBAdventure by.
And before our heroes order the diveboat's AI Captain to chart course for home sweet home to the Candy Kingdom full steam ahead, Frogboy Finn Mertens and Froggirl Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum end their SCUBAdventure fun-filled summer day by going out to see and soak in the rays of the beautiful shining summer sun hanging high in the sapphire summer skies at the CKDB Princess AquaCola's dive platform with each other for romantic company, Finn and Bubblegum looking forward to diving into more future SCUBAdventures - inviting more of their friends if they feel like it - and kissing each other in the lips again in a summer lovers' embrace.
The End
@fubblegummers @mrdifferentguy @kimonobun @atfubblegum @fubblegumappreciation @ppgxrrblove
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codewordpumpkin · 4 years
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A Very Denny Christmas
Merry Christmas, @heart4hawkeye​ !! I’m so sorry I couldn’t post this sooner! I don’t even know if you’ve ever watched Boston Legal before, but hopefully, you’ll enjoy this little fic nonetheless!!
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“Really, Reddington? Your Blacklister couldn’t wait until after the holidays? It’s Christmas Eve, for god’s sake.”
“I’m sorry, Donald, did you have something better planned? Well, don’t pout or shout just yet. If you’ve been a particularly good boy this year, you may just find a gift from Santa waiting for you at home… or on your doorstep if you’d prefer the illusion of security—I know the FBI loves that.”
Cooper’s brows furrowed as his temples began to throb. “Reddington.”
Red was adept at picking his battles.
“Denny Crane,” he said, as if the name alone was explanation enough.
“The CEO of Flamingo Corp.?” Elizabeth asked.
“The one and only.”
“I still don’t get how he thought that’d be a good name for an arms company,” Aram said from his spot behind his computer.
“Don’t try to get into the head of Denny Crane—it’ll only make yours ache.”
Hands on his hips, Ressler asked, “Is he the next person on the Blacklist?”
“Heavens, no! Denny is a dear associate of mine, and he is to remain untouched by you ham-fisted lot.”
“Get on with it, Red.”
“Relax, Harold. I was, as you so eloquently put it, getting there.” Brushing imaginary lint off his pristine vest, the infuriating man smiled blandly, reveling in the glares burning holes in his suit as he took his sweet time to elaborate. “The man has a memory of a goldfish, hence why he carries around a voice recorder everywhere he goes. That is the key to our next Blacklister.”
“Are you going to tell us who this Blacklister is?”
“All in due time, Samar. All in due time.”
“How are we going to get our hands on this recorder?”
“You mean, your hands. Really, Elizabeth, modesty doesn’t become you.” Before she could snap a retort, he continued, “Denny is hosting a Christmas party this evening. I am invited, as is my plus one, and I have no doubt we’ll have at least one server slipping on banana peels tonight.”
“All right, then,” Cooper exhaled slowly, “brief Agent Keen on her cover, and—”
“Actually, Harold, I was thinking Agent Navabi should accompany me this time.”
That caught everyone’s attention.
“And why is that?”
“Ah, well, I know how much Elizabeth loathes dressing up for these things, so I thought, why not give her a little break—”
“I’ll take a break once we get this over with, Reddington,” Liz said, trying to will down the flush spreading across her cheeks. She hoped the tinge of hurt in her voice had gone undetected.
Cooper turned to Red, an expectant look on his weary face.
“Well, then,” he nodded, clearly displeased, “you’ll need a dress.”
***
“Raymond!”
“Denny!”
Elizabeth watched with mild amusement as the two men exchanged an enthusiastic bear hug. With sparkling eyes and stretched cheeks, they greeted each other rather boisterously, falling into a chatter as if they had never been apart. She was certain they were speaking English, but for the life of her, couldn’t understand what in the world they were actually saying.
“Well, well, well, well, well, and who might this goddess be?”
The stout, rosy-faced man openly leered at her, scrutinizing her from the toes of her strappy heels to the top of her styled head, then dipping back down to gaze at her modest curves. She, too, took the time to scan his appearance, glancing at his expensive tux only fleetingly before zeroing in on the ridiculous headband that held a conspicuously tall sprig of mistletoe.
“Ah,” Red acted as though he had forgotten her very existence, “Denny, meet Elizabeth. Elizabeth, meet Denny.”
Smiling politely, she reached out her hand—which Denny immediately grasped, stamping a kiss just beneath her knuckles. “I’m sure it’s a pleasure to meet me, Lizzie,” he said so smoothly that, for a second, she thought she had misheard him. She also had to apply considerable force to tug her hand out of his stubborn grip. “Denny Crane.”
She wasn’t sure whether Red’s twitch was a result of Crane calling her Lizzie, or if it was because of his overly friendly touch. Either way, his reaction didn’t bother her. In fact, she could admit to herself, she rather liked it.
“Of course,” she finally responded.
Turning to Red, he said in a stage whisper, “You sly dog, still got the touch, eh? But, say… isn’t she a bit old for you? What say I take—”
“Keep your pants where they are, Denny,” Red cut him off, his smile no longer reaching his eyes. “Did I mention Elizabeth’s a vegan?”
She blinked.
Denny blinked.
“What the hell is that?” his associate asked, genuinely confused. “Listen, there aren’t many kinks I don’t know about, but kids today—”
“It means, she not only doesn’t eat meat,” he continued to lie, “she doesn’t consume any animal products at all.”
Gasping, Denny snapped, “Now why the hell would you do that? What, is she anti-gun, too?”
“Careful, Denny,” he warned gravely, “just the word g-u-n is enough to get her shaking in her heels. Point a water-gun in her face, and she’ll scream bloody murder.”
Where the hell was he going with this?
“A veggie and a communist! Where’d you pick this one up, Red? Los Angeles?” Before Red could respond, he waved a dismissive hand. “Well, whatever. You must keep her around for a reason…” He waggled his brows, then winked as if she wasn’t right there. Straightening his bow, he offered her his hand. “Care for a dance, sweetheart? I’ll show you just how well my body moves… Denny Crane.”
“Actually—”
“Sure,” she shot Red a meaningful look, hoping he understood what she was trying to convey, “I’d love to.”
Just before they left for the dance floor, Denny again stage-whispered, “There’s a g-u-n in my pants I’d bet my life she—”
“Denny—”
By then, the egotistical, borderline-predator flirt was too far away for him to strangle. Or gut. Or maim.
Trying not to let Raymond’s withering glare distract her from her task, she brought one of her hands up to rest on Denny’s puffed chest. “So, how did you meet Raymond?” she casually asked, doing her best to maintain a respectable distance between them—which was easier said than done, considering he was doing his best to plaster their bodies together. On the bright side, that meant he was too preoccupied to notice her wandering fingers.
“Why talk about that fat cat when we can talk about Denny Crane? Go ahead, ask me anything.” He continued before she could. “Why, yes, I’m very giving in bed. I’ll go down—”
“To the bar,” Red said, appearing from out of nowhere just as Denny was about to grope her ass. “There was a leggy blonde looking for you.”
“Leggy, you say? How many legs are we talking here? You know, my father once said that the best sex—”
“She won’t be waiting all night, Denny. I’d run as fast as I can if I were you.”
Was she imagining the threat laced in his words?
“We’ll have to continue this later, Lizzie.” Dropping her like a hot potato, he licked his lips and turned to dash. Looking over his shoulder, he bid, “Keep her warm for me, Ray.”  
Luckily for him, he was surprisingly fast.
“I got the recorder,” she quietly confirmed to Red, assuming that was the reason he had interrupted her dance with Denny. “I’ll just pass it to Ressler or Samar—”
“The song isn’t over yet, Lizzie,” he said, reclaiming his nickname for her with a glint of… something in his eyes, his voice.
With one hand in hers and the other low on her back, he encouraged her to fall into step with him, their movements easy and natural. But even when the song ended and changed, they didn’t stop, instead slowing further and sinking into the lulling rhythm of the music.
She wasn’t aware of when or how it had happened, but she belatedly realized just how close their faces were. A mere inch forward would allow her to graze her nose against his smooth skin, inhale the clean, unique scent of him. A little closer, and she would be able to taste the champagne on his lips. With a gentle pressure, a slight gasp, she could so easily—
They jumped apart at the sound of a loud crash.
It didn’t take long for them to discern where the commotion was coming from, as there was already a loose crowd forming near the bar—and at the very center of it was none other than Denny Crane.
He was standing across from a scowling man and a tall blonde woman…
Raymond and Elizabeth both had a feeling they knew what had started this mess.
“I didn’t proposition her. I just asked her to have sex with me,” Denny announced, as if that was a perfectly acceptable thing to say.
The man’s face flushed with a worrisome shade of crimson, and to everyone’s horror, revealed that he was seriously armed. Before he could do anything with it, however, a loud bang shocked everyone still.
On his previously unblemished pants, right in the middle of his thigh, was a bright blob of yellow… paint?
“Oops. Wrong one.” Bending down, Denny retrieved a small gun that had been strapped to his ankle. “Denny Crane doesn’t get shot at,” he yelled, aiming at the man’s other thigh and pulling the trigger without hesitation. “Denny Crane shoots!”
Chaos commenced as the two literally engaged in a gun fight. Bullets whizzed, screams erupted, glass shattered. People ran this way and that, tripping over dresses, abandoning stilettos, and doing their best to escape with their flesh in tact.
“I was a sniper in the Navy!… Or was I a helicopter pilot?” Now with a gun in each hand, Denny shot bullet after bullet, shouting as he ducked and spun. “I have an erection. Lock and load, baby! Denny Crane!”
“That’s our cue to leave,” Red said in her ear, practically dragging her by the elbow. On their way out, he released her briefly to stop Ressler from getting involved. Something on the ground caught her eye, and she used the few seconds she had to take it, attempting not to get trampled on in the process. “Lizzie. Now.”
This time, they didn’t stop walking until they were safely encased in the back of his car, Dembe driving them out into the night.
Keeping her stolen object carefully hidden, she turned to Red and smirked. “Well, that was interesting.”
“That’s one way of saying it,” he said, chuckling.
He leaned back, settling into the seat and closing his eyes. Knowing an opportunity when she saw one, she gripped the accessory from beside her hip and placed it on his head, refusing to move away as he jerked and snapped his eyes back open.
She didn’t give him a chance to question her.
She didn’t give herself the chance.
Not wanting to waste another second, she pressed her mouth to his.
The kiss was chaste, but it lingered—long enough for her to notice just how soft his lips were. And although she had always been more of a wine girl, she reveled in the fact that she really could taste the remnants of champagne, the crisp flavor blending with subtle, intoxicating notes that could only be described as him.
Finally, after seconds or minutes—time was irrelevant to her at that moment—she pulled back, still close enough to feel his radiating heat and sense his racing pulse. Just as his thumb had stroked the small of her back, she used hers to brush his lips, his jaw, before reaching up to flick the mistletoe hanging above them.
“Merry Christmas, Red,” she said, just as softly as her smile.
Pushing his tongue against the inside of his cheek, slowly gathering his wits, he tentatively reached for her hand and tangled their fingers together. “Merry Christmas, Lizzie.”
Neither of them spoke for the rest of the ride, but both knew that they didn’t need to.
Words could wait.
For now, they had each other.
Finally.
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dargeereads · 4 years
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COCKY HERO CLUB
Release Date: May 17, 2020
Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward are excited to bring you the Cocky Hero Club: original works from various authors inspired by Keeland and Ward's New York Times bestselling Cocky Bastard series.
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COCKY DUKE
BY ANNABELLE ANDERS
Mrs. Ambrosia Bloomington, now a widow, is ready to start a new life amongst Mayfair elites without the overarching reach of her late husband, Mr. Harrison Bloomington.  With her trunks loaded safely onto her own private carriage, she’s ready to face the world as an independent woman in Regency London.
She does not, however, bargain for cocksure Frenchman, Mr. Charles Cochran Bateman coming along and turning her very ordinary journey into the adventure of a lifetime.
She does not bargain for his laughter, his enthusiasm, nor his Joie de vie.
And blast and fiddlesticks, she certainly is not expecting to experience the sparks that charge the air between them.
And, it seems, apparently, neither is he…
ADD TO GOODREADS
Purchase Links
AMAZON US / UK / CA / AU Free in Kindle Unlimited ALSO AVAILABLE IN AUDIO CONNECT WITH  ANNABELLE ANDERS
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MOTHER CLUCKER
BY CAT JOHNSON
They say opposites attract, but in this case, they might just combust . . .
HEATHER
Hermosa Beach seems to be the place for throwing together unlikely opposites.
My rooster Rowdy and his new crush, Pixy the goat.
Me and the obnoxiously cocky cowboy from Texas . . .
But unlike Rowdy and Pixy, there’s no way I’m going to fall for David Strickland.
Nope. Not gonna happen. I could never be with a man so completely opposed to everything I believe . . . no matter how hot he is.
DAVID
There couldn’t be two people more different than the beautiful little tree hugger and rooster rescuer Heather and me.
We can’t agree on anything, except that we disagree on everything—some times more heatedly than other times. And believe me, things are starting to heat up between us, in more ways than one.
She's the last thing I expected to find at an animal shelter in California. But now I found her, I have no intention of letting her go.
I just have to get her on board with that plan.
ADD TO GOODREADS
Purchase Links
AMAZON US / UK / CA / AU Free in Kindle Unlimited ALSO AVAILABLE IN AUDIO CONNECT WITH CAT JOHNSON
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SECRET KEEPER BY CHRISTOPHER HARLAN
She was the fruit of a forbidden tree, but nothing in this world was going to stop me from tasting her.
My name is Dylan Murphy, and I work for the rich and powerful of an exclusive Manhattan building. Graham Morgan was my first boss, but soon after I was working with some of the most famous entrepreneurs, business moguls, and movie stars in the city. They trusted me because I always followed the cardinal rules:
Never betray secrets. And never, under any circumstance, get personally involved.
I’d never dreamed of violating my professional mantra.
Not until she walked past me.
The look we exchanged that night set my body on fire, and I knew right then and there that no matter the consequences, she was going to be mine. But she was one of them—off limits and out of my league, but she was the kind of woman who I was willing to risk everything for.
I keep other people’s secrets for a living, but the biggest secret of all might be my own.
ADD TO GOODREADS
Purchase Links
AMAZON US / UK / CA / AU Free in Kindle Unlimited ALSO AVAILABLE IN AUDIO CONNECT WITH  CHRISTOPHER HARLAN
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COCKY CAPTAIN
BY ELLIE MASTERS
Ex-fighter pilot, Logan Reid, is exactly the kind of man I despise. He’s a cocky jet jock, a former Navy Blue Angel, and full of all the arrogance that comes with being the best of the best.
I’m an ex-Zoomie, an Air Force tanker pilot. The rivalry between our sister services is nothing compared to that between fighter jocks and tanker pilots. We’re bitter rivals and I’m low-man (woman) on the totem pole
The last thing I need is to spend six hours at thirty-five thousand feet locked in a cockpit with the cocky captain. But I have no choice. I’m his co-pilot, and we’re taking the CEO of Montague Enterprises, and his family, on a mini-vacation to the Grand Caymans.
We have three days on the ground before we fly back.
Three long days in paradise and he wants to spend them all with me.
I have a thing for fighter pilots.
It isn’t animosity, exactly, but rather a deep-seated dislike. They get all the glory while the rest of us sit at the butt end of their jokes and wither beneath their ridicule.
I hate fighter pilots. There, I said it. I hate the arrogant pricks with a passion.
But after one look into those magnetic eyes, and the devastating wink which follows, I’m thinking of throwing caution to the wind. What harm can come from some innocent flirting? Besides, it’s not as if my job is at risk.
I’m not prepared for the air to sizzle when he’s close.
I’m not ready for our explosive chemistry when he touches my skin.
I’m not equipped for the fallout when our three days come to an end.
And I never expected to fall in love.
But all good things come to an end.
I wasn’t prepared when I walked away.
And I wasn’t ready for what came next.
He’s arrogant.
He’s cocky.
He’s determined to get what he wants.
And he’s refuses  to let this end.
He’s fighting for a forever…with me.
But, I’m not ready for our beginning.
He’s arrogant enough to prove me wrong.
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SEXY SUIT
BY J.H. CROIX
When I met Ryan, I might’ve been trying to break into his basement.
It was for a good cause. I swear. Also, my dog broke in first.
Ryan Blake is jaw-dropping handsome, wealthy & cocky. Not quite my type. By some miracle, he doesn’t call the police on me when he catches me trying to rescue my dog. He even fetches a doctor for me. Don’t ask why.
I don’t figure I’ll see him again. Then, I do. Then, he kisses me. Once. Twice. Is three times the charm? To be honest, I swooned at the first kiss.
All swooning aside, we are seriously opposites. I wear cowboy boots and skirts. He wears suits and ties. He’s all New York City. I’m a Southern girl looking for a new start. We even talk at different speeds.
The list of things I don’t expect from Ryan is long. I don’t expect him to think twice about me. I don’t expect him to nearly bring me to my knees with a look. I don’t expect him to be so much more than I ever imagined.
I absolutely don’t expect to fall for him. So hard I’m skidding sideways just to catch my balance.
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WICKED BEDMATE BY JENIKA SNOW
Getting fired and humiliated in front of everyone at my newly acquired secretarial job at Morgan Financial Holdings wasn’t how I’d seen my day going.
And then chaos—or maybe luck—ensured.
I was set up on a blind date, shocked that my former boss was giving me a month’s severance, and had the perfect interview lined up.
Maybe things were looking up for me after all.
And although finding a man should have been on the bottom of my to-to list, I couldn’t get Jason—the uber sexy blind date—out of my head. Sexy and confident—or maybe arrogant—he had me yearning for more with just a smoldering look and a smirk of his lips.
But when a night of drinking leads to getting in bed with him and having the wildest, most intense night of my life, I didn’t know if I should ask to see him again, or do the good old walk of shame.
And it’s when I walk into my interview the next day and come face-to-face with my prospective employer that the reality of my situation sinks in.
Because there, sitting across from me with that devilish smile on his face, that knowing expression of what we’d done the night before, is the one and only Jason, my supposedly one-night stand.
Looked like my humiliation wasn’t over just yet.
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LUCKY BASTARD BY KAYLEE RYAN
Emma
When my best friend Aubrey asked me to tag along to an event with her, I never could have imagined that it would be the day that my life changed forever.
He’s arrogant and demanding and doesn’t take a hint. Landon Barker, the quarterback for the Hermosa Beach Trojans, is a player on and off of the field. He’s got his sights set on me as his next play, but I see right through him. Aubrey says I’m overreacting, that I should give him a chance. What she doesn’t realize is men like Landon don’t fall for the girl next door. That’s not reality. She got her fairytale, although it was a long road. Not all of us are that lucky.
Landon
She’s a friend of our new kicking coach’s wife. When I ask Chance for her number, he tells me I have to find a way to get it myself.
Nothing when it comes to Emma has been easy. She’s the first woman ever to turn me down, and that won’t do. However, as time passes, it’s about more than that. It’s about her smile, her laugh, and just spending time with her. She thinks I’m a player, and she’s right. What she doesn’t know is that I play to win, and her heart is the ultimate trophy.
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COCKSURE ACE BY K WEBSTER
I’m a fighter.
At least that’s what my daddy always told me.
It’s in our blood.
Hard work, hustle, and a little Hennessey is the Reid motto.
He taught me to fight for everything I wanted in life.
Take down those who threaten the dream.
My dream is to marry the perfect man.
That man is my father’s best friend and I won’t stop until I have him.
And at Daddy’s wedding in Costa Rica, I plan to make that dream finally come true.
Then, my life will be smooth sailing.
Until a chance flight with an arrogant pilot throws me off course. 
Literally. 
Camilo’s decisions affect my future, and I can’t allow anything—not even a cocksure, ridiculously hot idiot—to stand in my way.
Problem is, he fights back.
Every battle I’ve won in life, he shoots down and exposes me for the fraud I am.
Trapped in paradise with my devilishly handsome nemesis seems like one of the seven circles of Hell…and, boy, is it getting hot around here. 
He’ll strip me of my armor.
Remind me of my past.
Force me to rethink my future.
And help me live in the moment.
Will he steal my heart too?
One thing’s for sure.
This girl won’t give up without a fight.
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CLUTCH PLAYER BY NIKKI ASH
Harper
I fell in love when I was sixteen. Landon was my entire world and I thought he would be my forever. But I was young and dumb, and with one error in judgement, I destroyed any chance of a future we could’ve had together, along with our hearts.
Twelve years later and I’m going through the motions of life, but not actually living. Which is why I let my friends, Bridget and Simon, set me up on a blind date. Turns out, it’s not so blind after all. Because the man sitting in front of me is the same man who’s held onto my heart all these years.
Landon
They call me a Clutch Player because I’m good under pressure and quick on my feet. I was also quick to fall in love. The first time it was with baseball, the second was with Harper. And for a short time I had them both.
Until I lost Harper and all I had left was baseball.
For years, I focused on my career. I had accepted that baseball was my one true love.
Until I saw her again. I never imagined we’d ever get a second chance, but now that she’s sitting right across from me, I know there’s no way in hell I’m going to let her go again.
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SEXY SCOUNDREL BY RAISA GREYWOOD
Carlina Perez is in way over her head. Unexpectedly jobless and fostering an exotic pet with an insatiable appetite, this pastry chef needs a new gig faster than she can whip up a batch of scones.  But when she’s tapped to serve as the personal chef to a haughty tabloid regular, she only considers the job out of sheer desperation. After all, Giorgio Acardi may be filthy rich and intoxicatingly handsome, but he’s also a first class scoundrel.
Giorgio Acardi has it all:  money, fame, an endless string of beautiful companions, and the respect of his colleagues and rivals. From the outside looking in, his life is perfect. So perfect, in fact, that he’s even got his eye on a new personal chef. She’s talented and gorgeous, and it shouldn’t make a difference whether she hates him or not as long as she does the job. But there’s something about Carlina that Giorgio just can’t resist, and he hasn’t enjoyed success by backing down from a challenge.
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Cocky Hero Club
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levyfiles · 6 years
Text
This is in answer to @mysterywheeze who requested I post this as a text post only tagging their bfu sideblog which of course I do not mind. Thank you for waiting for so long for this. I hope it’s what you wanted
---
Word: Alien
Genre: Horror Fluff
Word Count: 1564
The escape wasn’t even about timing. It was more for the fact that Shane had access to so many key cards, a job he hadn’t finished, a life he was leaving behind, and the knowledge that his superiors would think he did this for nothing.
Nothing was a pair of wide brown eyes that looked at him in terror through pale milky glass only weeks ago.
Now he’s hard wet skin in Shane’s arms, strangely built in faulty and fragile ways; those brown eyes are now half shut and dreamy from the fumes outside his tank. Shane takes each step down the damp, black tunnel with purpose, his footprints in the warm damp impressed by the weight of this theft; this rescue. Shane breathes condensation in the hot dark, looking down at him and tries not to marvel, to be distracted at how small he is, how silent he is in the haze of shallow breathing.
Strange to see him in silence when Shane will never forget how his voice sounded the first time he spoke.
It had been hard to hear him through the tank’s walls, but he’d screamed so hard and so earnestly around his feeding tube that it had to be like how music sounded, wailing words and feeling, just feeling sobs and fear. The officials back home used to say that music was supposed to be about love and Shane heard it when the specimen opened his mouth and uttered a twangy, wet slurring language with sharp edges. Just the shrill palpable agony sound of it alone and Shane knew.
There had been forty-five different rooms and five hundred tanks to clean in total with creatures in each one he had never seen before. While the silence, cool empty rooms,  fluorescent bulbs glaring down the hallways, white walls, and glass of the tank windows was some comfort to him, the idea of having no one to talk to had chilled him the most.
So Shane took his lunch break next to the one creature that hadn’t learned to stop screaming.
When he’d slipped on the gas mask to enter the tank, his eyes had still watered and through the haze the creature looked at him and he was beautiful. In life colour, and teeth long like a monster in the stories he’d been told as a boy.
And he screamed like Shane was meant to hear the love in his lungs.
Now Shane carried him through the lab’s threshold, out into the desert, orange and damp, one long route to freedom, knowing he’d need to cross the field of fungi. Hungry mushrooms without mouths that still tried to eat, mashed themselves to suffocating crumbs against your heels and skin trying to eat without teeth.
He knew the creature could breathe in this climate; there was enough water in the air that the burning gas that it was composed of, that made his fragile cage of a chest swell and contract as he gasped, would be their saving grace.
Shane made a soft crooning noise at him, felt appropriate like he’d saved a stray because brown eyes blinked past the tears from his coughing and croaked out a query in his language, red lips curving out the shaking words.
“I don’t understand you,” Shane murmured at him with a rueful laugh. “But once we get to the pod there might be a receptor that’ll translate those cute little sounds you make.”
He was babbling at Shane excitedly, still a little scared but looking around at the terrain curiously, glad to be free and Shane smiled until he quieted, damp head leaning against Shane’s chest. He knew he was safe and that meant everything to Shane.
The field of fungi crawled at them like it was waiting. Shane placed fingers lightly over the creature’s smooth soft lips, shook his head as he covered his eyes with his palm as well. “Don’t let the fungi in,” he told him, hoped he understood in some way.
The white crumbs began to swell up in piles as the fungi crowded Shane’s ankles, the folds of mushroom flesh stuck and clung as Shane stomped on them, trudged through the miles ahead of them to where the exit base was set. He could feel some of them touch his skin and he shuddered, but he kept his eyes fixed on his rescue, fixed on the feeling of surprisingly strong arms roped around his neck, tightening as Shane’s steps quickened.
The pod was an old model and Shane had only had to pilot one once to get to this base, but his focus was on two things. Peeling the mushrooms off their skin, watching with some morbid curiosity how the alien creature shook himself vigorously to get them off, made sounds of distress that sounded like an old man trying to make it up stairs, and looking around for a receptor.
His rescued alien made a lot of protest when Shane opened the needle in the receptor and jammed it in the place where he was sure his voice was coming from, but it was worth it to hear the sharp turns of his strange alien language become soft and intelligible with the first words he’d ever hear from him.
“What the actual fuck did you just stick in m--oh…” Brown eyes widened. “Oh, I’m...I’m speaking like you now. I can--”
Shane couldn’t stop grinning, felt like he’d been looking across a ravine at him since he met him, but now it was a closed distance. “Yeah, you can,” he breathed, closing the pod door behind him,
“You saved me,” He was breathless, and Shane marveled at the sight of his smile, spilling across his features, reaching his eyes in a friendly, affectionate squint. “Why…?”
Shane was lost for words. It wasn’t natural but he was on board for what it meant. To fall for an alien just because he was beautiful in every gesture.  “Tell me your name,” he said, reflexively, sharply. He had to know.
“Ryan.”
What a weird alien sort of name. Shane told him his name. Shane wanted to tell him he loved him, wanted to tell him he was going to protect and take care of him as long as he had to, but instead he said, “This pod will take you to your home planet, but you need to know its name. I didn’t check your file when I stole you so you’ll have to give the computer the navigation.”
Crestfallen. His face was so expressive. Ryan grimaced. “I don’t even know where I am now, how am I supposed to get back to…”
“If you like,” Shane began, trying to sound unrehearsed, trying not to make it sound so purposeful when all he wanted was to be with him, witness his existence. “I could go with you. I would help you. I know the circuits, know the planet names before the expressway to the outer unexplored places.”
“Unexplored…” Ryan echoed, looking at him. “What’s in this for you? I don’t want to drag you away from your home.”
“This isn’t…” It would be so hard to explain. The science behind it; the reason they’d take a creature like him, need to keep him to understand his genetic makeup. How people would freak out if they knew about him. All the secrets involved in keeping their studies to this remote planet so people back home would stay ignorant. Shane had known he was done with it, with his dumb government the moment he’d cracked the glass in Ryan’s tank. “This isn’t my home.”
Ryan’s hands came up over his face, ran through his strange shock of hair on the top of his head, touched lines Shane was curious about himself. “Then come with me?” he said, softly like he was doing something wrong.
“Of course. The pod is small but if you sit close with me, l-let me hold you, we can travel safe together.”
He received the gift of an amused glance and a swallow. Ryan drew near him, like it was nothing, like he had become accustomed to the touch of their skin together, strange as it felt and pulled Shane close by his arms before settling between his legs a bit awkwardly in front of the navi board.
“Dude, as long as you’re taking me home, I’ll let you do anything you like.”
Shane tried not to melt into a subspecies like substance when the bones of  Ryan’s back curved against his chest and a hand rested on his leg for balance. “Noted,” he said and wondered why Ryan smelled so good; salty and like water. It was different than carrying him; it was like Ryan was tucked against him in an intimate embrace; he couldn’t possibly know he was flexible in a way that made Shane like a piece of him. He locked the pod door and that immediately triggered the rumble of its fusion engine.
“What’s the planet name,” Shane mumbled, pointing at the navi screen. “Say it to the speaker so we can find out if it’s even in this sector.”
Ryan had intertwined their fingers, done it the shake of the fusion engine had startled him. He held tight like Shane was the compressor restraint device he might have used if he was alone.  “Ok. It’s…” he leaned forward and his lips touched the speaker. “...it’s called Earth.”
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izumitate · 6 years
Text
moonbound
kurodai week day 3: partners in crime
A space opera AU! Featuring scrappy Nekoma pirates, a decade long enemy-ship, and Daichi’s readiness to fight everybody in the galaxy. Content warning: contains mentions of violence and bodily harm.
Kuroo can feel his knuckles blanching white as he clutches at the armrest of Shibayama’s seat. His navigator is leaned so forward he looks like he might pitch right into the console at any moment, but Kuroo doesn’t want to disturb him while he’s calculating their best escape route with only his eyes, seconds before they need to make a decision. Ahead, the towering spires of Kamomedai’s financial sector stand jagged and crystalline, and will come away barely untouched when their ship finally collides with one of the armored glass walls and shatters into space debris.
“Lev, pull up! Pull up!” Kuroo hisses when he can’t take it anymore, but his pilot just laughs.
“It’s fine, captain! Not until Shibayama says so.” He turns them effortlessly around the next ‘spherescraper but continues his low course, skimming the skyline.
The only thing on their tail right now is the persistent first cruiser that caught them speeding out of the slums, but Kuroo knows from the klaxons sounding outside that it’s only a matter of minutes before an entire police battalion takes after them.
“Okay,” Shibayama finally says, pointing at the next monstrous crystal obtrusion on their right. The magnitude of its size is a step up from the others; must be a central bank for the planetside elite. “Lev, put on a burst of speed to get to the other side of that bank, and once you’re there, ascend as fast as possible. There’s a ton of floating condos up by the stratosphere, but you can handle it, right?”
“Of course I can!” Lev punches the accelerator and they shift violently forward, careening around and out of sight of their pursuer. He does exactly as Shibayama says, taking them almost vertical as he slams their ship up, up, up as fast as this engine can take them – which reminds Kuroo that they need to get a patch job done as soon as they’re back in the rogue quadrant – even as the sound of patrollers gathers behind them.
But Shibayama is right, as usual, and when Lev takes them into the overladen golden clusters of the floating apartments that only the richest can afford, their tiny ship flows through the maze of arches and gardens with ease, Lev’s skills weaving them without trouble out of the tangled airpark. They take the chance to finally put on the thrusters and break out of Kamomedai’s orbit while the police are mired in the gilded complex below.
Once free, Lev gives the rest of them a brief warning before putting on speed, so they’ll be well on their way to another star system by the time the police leave the planet. That, combined with the best cloaking system that underworld credits can buy, should keep them safe long enough to make it back to home base.
“We’re free and clear, team,” Kuroo calls to those below deck. By now Akane and Kai should’ve gotten Inuoka’s scrape taken care of; it was a minor injury, which means they don’t have to bother stopping by any outpost on their way back. “Headed home.”
“Sounds good, captain!” comes Akane’s voice echoing against the steel walls before she begins scolding Inuoka for getting up too quickly. Yaku’s voice joins the din and soon the whole ship is clattering with noise again, just the way Kuroo expects it to be.
Outside, the barren expanse of space between here and the safe haven of the unbound territories is comforting, as is the quiet. Nothing but stars to light their way back.
--
Nekoma calls the ramshackle colony of Spring Heights their home, though during most cycles their ship is home enough for the crew. Spring Heights is the most ironically named planetoid on this side of Andromeda, and it’s a hub of underworld activity. Kuroo rarely takes a job before first running it by his information network planetside, because who knows what kind of nonsense you could get embroiled in alone with some unknown party in the outer reaches. This is a lesson he learned long before he had his own people, when he was still a kid running jobs for some two-bit privateers who’d survived on luck instead of smarts. A broken leg, a crater canyon, and three gunfights later, Kuroo had realized he wasn’t working with anyone he hadn’t chosen himself anymore.
Nekoma is the team he built from the ground up with Kenma, who is the only thing more constant in Kuroo’s life than the call of the endless dark, the cosmic dust in his veins. He trusts them with everything, and it’s part of the reason why he never decides alone whether to take on a new job. This time around, he gets word from Johzenji that there’s a job specifically requesting to employ Nekoma; it comes down from Misaki, so Kuroo’s tempted to take it just on principle, but that’s the kind of messy thinking that gets people shipjacked even if she’s one of the most reliable info brokers he knows.
He agrees to meet the client out at Sumida Outpost, located on the outskirts of snake country because he knows that even though Daishou hates his guts, and even though he’s a dirty, thieving bastard, his territories are always well-defended and nominally hospitable toward others of their profession.
As usual, most of the crew stays behind under Kai’s command, busy with everyday tasks like sprucing up the ship and fencing their goods. Kuroo takes their secondary ship with Kenma, Yaku and Yamamoto, and they head off for the grungy, scorpion-ridden tavern Yaku favors at Sumida.
Even before they land Kuroo gets a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach, but it’s different from his flight instinct. There’s a spark of danger in the air, though he could also write that off as the dissatisfied static that always buzzes around dry, end of the road towns like this.
The tavern is dimly lit as always, and filled with the sounds of cards shuffling and deals being made. The smell of tobacco and ale and burnt meat hang heavy in the air, and it’s difficult to see through the veil of smog as they make their way toward their usual corner table next to the blown out window. The person seated there is staring out at the dunes that stretch on and on in gray and tan bands to the horizon. Kuroo can’t make out any details of their client’s face until he’s close enough to touch.
“Hello, captain. It’s been a while,” says the calm, terrifying voice of Imperial Vice Admiral Sawamura Daichi a split second before the air clears and Kuroo can make out more than his silhouette shrouded in tavern smoke. It doesn’t speak well to Kuroo’s preservation instincts that his first thought is damn, just as hot as I remembered and not danger!!
“Shit,” Yaku curses, hand jumping to his gun faster than Kuroo can say a word. At least one of them is still on it. Yamamoto shifts immediately in front of Kenma, fully prepared to shield him from any harm with his own body. But even though Kuroo’s body is reflexively poised to spring away, his heart remains steady. The Imperial Navy might be the scum on the bottom of a comet hopper’s shoe, but he’s known Sawamura for over a decacycle now, and he knows that the man would never initiate an attack against one of Kuroo’s subordinates unless he had made certain to kill Kuroo first. There’s a degree of integrity in him that most Imperial officers don’t possess.
Sawamura makes no move to stand or draw to fire; instead, he raises his hands in a gesture of surrender. Around them, activity in the tavern continues, no one disturbed by this turn of events the way Nekoma is, which Kuroo supposes either speaks well for the situation, or it means everyone in the building is going to die. Even out here in the boondocks, the name and face of one of New Miyagi’s best military commanders is known and feared, so why isn’t anyone else surprised to see him?
“If it helps put your mind at ease, Yaku-san, I came unarmed. You can check if you want.” And he looks down at his waist, folding his hands casually atop his head. Yaku wastes no time flipping open Sawamura’s coat and patting him down.
“He’s not lying,” Yaku says, but one hand remains at his holster and his eyes never leave Sawamura even as he backs away. “But I don’t trust him yet.”
“That’s fair. But I didn’t call you out here to hunt you down,” Sawamura tells him. He gestures at the bench on the other side of the table. “Please, make yourselves comfortable. I actually really do have a job for you.” No one moves.
“Forgive me if I find that a little unbelievable, vice admiral. Seeing as the last time we met you gave me a good bonk on the head for my troubles, and strafed most of the left side of my ship right off,” Kuroo says mildly. His eyes flick down to watch the way Sawamura’s mouth twitches into a quick smile before he tries to look neutral again.
“If I remember correctly, you gave me a nice parting gift too, Kuroo-san.” He reaches up to tug aside the right sleeve of his dusty tunic (and isn’t that a look, Sawamura Daichi out of that crisp uniform and dressed like a meteor rat like the rest of them) and bares the long sword burn Kuroo left him with two cycles ago, back on one of Tsubakihara’s lesser moons.
“It looks good on you?” Kuroo tries to sound remorseful, but it had been one hell of a fight that he probably would’ve been laughing his way through if his crew hadn’t been scrambling all over the deck, desperately putting up patch shields where they could. Even now he can remember with perfect clarity the taste of adrenaline and dust against his clenched teeth as he finally knocked Sawamura off the roof of their ship to be bubbled back to his own fleet. Crazy bastard hadn't let up on Kuroo for a second, even if it meant almost getting fried by one of his own ships’ artillery. Then again, Kuroo has no room to speak. He’d almost dragged them both down into a death marsh during a knife fight once. “Rugged. Everyone digs a good scar.”
“Yeah, my whole unit wolf-whistles every time I walk by,” Sawamura says with a roll of his eyes.
“Well, can you blame them? You’re too handsome to be wasted in your line of work. Come take a walk on the wild side. We’re prettier and we have more fun.”
Sawamura laughs when Kuroo winks at him. “I suppose one of those statements is true.”
Just like that they’re bantering again, the way they always do before one of them inevitably draws a weapon. Kuroo can sense Kenma’s sigh long before he hears it.
“What kind of job could you have for people like us?” Kenma asks, sliding back into view, even though Yamamoto still has an arm held protectively out in front of him. He watches Sawamura with what looks like a disinterested face, but Kuroo knows better. He’s intrigued, albeit still on his guard.
“Honestly, ‘people like you’ are the only ones I would trust with this. I need a certain skill set – one that Nekoma’s proven to excel at – and I need a group of people I can...I don’t know if trust is the right word, but let’s go with it for now.” Sawamura sits forward looking briefly at each of them in turn. “I know we have a long, volatile history, but it’s also exactly why I think you guys are the people I need to hire for this job. Because I know what your boundaries are, and I know I can count on you not to fuck me over where it counts.”
He looks directly at Kuroo when he says this, and there’s a plain honesty in his eyes that leads Kuroo to finally take a seat across from him, elbows up on the sticky tabletop.
“Alright, that’s enough buttering up. I’ll hear you out. What’s the job?”
“I need to get into Datekou. And I need your help to do it.”
He’s met with silence.
Probably because what he just proposed is beyond insane. The others must feel as shocked as Kuroo does, and it seems for a second that even the rest of the tavern conversation lulls when the name Datekou is spoken aloud. It’s a cursed shroud that settles over their table, instantly dampening the already tense mood.
“Wait- wait a second,” Yamamoto sputters first. “Are you telling me you want to hire us for a jailbreak? From the Iron Wall?”
“Yep. That is exactly what I want.”
“This is a setup,” Yaku announces. “You’re goading is into accepting your highly illegal mission then busting us once we get there. Now, what I’m confused about is why you didn’t pick something that wasn’t a blatant suicide mission.”
“That’s another fair assumption, but I give you my word that I’m completely serious. I didn’t come here to entrap you.” Sawamura flexes one hand, clenching and unclenching in an exercise of control, clearly trying to suppress some emotion as he keeps his voice even. His eyes are incandescent as he continues.
“They have four of my crew locked up in there, and I want them back.”
“Your crew? On what grounds? The Karasuno’s an Imperial ship,” Kuroo says in confusion. Not that the empire’s navy is in any way a stronghold of morality, but for government dogs, the crew of the Karasuno are better than most. Honorable where honor still counts. He can’t imagine they’d have done anything worth being court martialed for.
Sawamura’s laugh is pure bitterness. “The Karasuno was an Imperial ship. Now it’s being junked for scrap. Those of my crew that the court couldn’t frame for treason they reassigned to the outer rim fleet. The cloud skimmers. Ougiminami, Kakugawa. Chidoriyama. They scattered my team, my family, across the stars, and they locked up the rest behind the Iron Wall. I’m taking them back.”
Kuroo swallows down the parched itchiness in his throat at this news. It’s not like Nekoma could ever be friends with a naval crew, but there had always been a kind of mutual respect between themselves and the Karasuno, and this is nothing he ever would have wished on them.
“Well, shit, Sa’amura-san, what the fuck did you do to get your entire ship obliterated?”
“You know me,” Sawamura says, his smile vicious. “Stayed a little too honest. Didn’t look the other way when they insisted. I kept on pushing, kept on playing even after I should have folded.”
“But you never fold,” Kuroo says ruefully.
“No, I don’t,” and it might be the only time he’ll ever sound like he regrets it. “And I still don’t plan to.”
It’s not just simple posturing. After enough encounters, there are a few things Kuroo would say he and Sawamura can tell about each other. One fact is that they share the same tenacity, for better or worse.
This asshole really means it: he would walk right up to the Iron Wall armed with only his black market gun and military issue sword and it would still be Datekou’s mistake for standing in his way. But all logic says that despite Sawamura’s damnable perseverance, he’s dead if he tries whatever idiotic plan he’s come here to talk Nekoma into.
“That’s your prerogative, and I don’t expect any less of you, really, but. Fuck, Sawamura, you know we’re fucked if we take this on, don’t you? Everyone knows that Nekoma’s the best at infiltration that there is, but we’re thieves, not soldiers. We move cargo, not people. And we don’t take a job like this no matter how lucrative. I’m sorry, but I don’t think we can do this.”
Sawamura nods once, understanding. Then he sighs, sounding truly regretful.
“I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to do this, but I think I’m going to have to call in that favor.”
Yamamoto sucks in a harsh breath, and the others fall still. Kenma’s hand twitches at his side, resisting the urge to reach out to Kuroo’s arm. Kuroo himself just rests his hands together on the table and bites his lip once before nodding as well. He might have figured.
Out here, in the lawless territories, on the husk planets fit only for rogues and mercenaries, a life saved is a life owed. And Kuroo knew that when Sawamura inevitably cashed in on that favor he wouldn’t take it lightly, even if he wouldn’t demand outright that Kuroo sacrifice his life for him.
“You know that only promises my service, not that of Nekoma, correct?” Next to him, Kuroo can feel his crewmates tensing, but they all know better to say anything. They know they can’t talk him out of this one.
Sawamura brought Kuroo back from death’s edge once, at the cost of his own arm and half his jaw. Both parts had been grafted back on with the best medi-tech the empire could afford, but it’d been a total shitshow for a while there, the two of them stranded alone on the ice and iron hull of a downed Inarizaki starfighter. Kuroo only remembers fever-dream flashes of the event, too far gone on whatever the foxes had gassed him with as he shoved Alisa and Fukunaga into the last escape pod. Sawamura found him lying barely conscious on the stern of the ship, and rescued him from being slaughtered by one of Inarizaki’s automated guards. Fucking fox militants and their stupid fucking robots.
“C’mon now, Kuroo, I can’t you die at the hands of the Federation. You’re pirate scum, but you’re still an Imperial citizen,” Sawamura told him, hitching him higher on his back and trundling on through the blood and shrapnel splattered snow.
“Like fuck I am,” Kuroo mumbled out, too woozy to banter.
“Save your breath until you’ve got enough brainpower for a witty comeback.”
Sawamura carried his useless rag doll body all the way to the outpost where they could hunker down until help arrived. Kuroo thought they would be safe there: it was converted from a shrine to a makeshift waystation, all stone walls and steel fixtures, but it had been overrun with more Inarizaki infantry automatons. They fought off the droids at great cost, and the last memory Kuroo has of that desolate place before waking up under Kenma and Kai’s watchful guard is of Sawamura, his face a mess of jagged flesh and his left side drenched in blood, cutting down another advancing automaton before it could reach them.
Kai told him later that Sawamura hadn’t even bothered to send a perfunctory ship after them when they came to collect Kuroo. He’d simply waved them off, saying that Kuroo owed him now, and hobbled into the hold of his lieutenants to be rushed back to the medbay of the Karasuno. A full cycle passed before they met again, and they avoided the topic altogether, choosing to mock each other about overcompensating with their weapons, which of course led naturally into trying to shoot one another again.
But Kuroo has never forgotten that debt, and apparently, neither has Sawamura.
“I know. I would never ask you to risk them. Under any other circumstance I wouldn’t ask you to risk yourself either; you could say I’ve developed a strange interest in keeping you alive.” He offers Kuroo the slightest of smiles, and it almost makes him look sad. “But for my crew I would do anything.”
“Understatement of the centicycle. Alright, Sawamura-san, you have me at your disposal,” Kuroo says, finally leaning back in his seat to relax. If he’s going to die like this, then he might as well enjoy the time he has left in the universe. This is a fool’s errand, he knows, but on the one in a million chance they pull any of it off, well. It’ll be the adventure of a lifetime.
“If my captain is in, then so am I,” Yamamoto says quietly, and Kuroo looks sharply over at him.
“No, that’s not your decision to make. Nekoma isn’t a part of this deal.”
“Yeah, it is, Kuroo-san. If you’re in, then I’m in. That’s how it is.”
“Don’t be stupid, I’m not risking any of you for Sawamura’s death wish-”
“Do you like pretending to be an idiot, or did that bonk really knock some of your sense out of you?” Yaku says, an irritated line cutting into his forehead. “This is a job for Nekoma. You accepted it. Therefore, we’ve all accepted it. Kenma?”
Kenma, the usual voice of reason, just gives Kuroo a tired shrug. “Kuro, we’ll take the offer back to base to discuss, but you know you won’t get anywhere without the rest of us. Tora’s right. If you’re taking the job, then so are we. Is this acceptable?” he asks Sawamura.
“No complaints here. I came to hire Nekoma, after all, not just Kuroo. Though you personally occupy a special place in my life,” Sawamura says dryly, running a thumb across the graft scar running along his cheek.
“In your heart too, I would hope,” Kuroo says automatically, still hung up on the thought of getting his whole crew annihilated over a clearly impossible feat. But the conversation is already moving on without him.
“Before we commit to this, I wanna be sure we know what we’re really getting into,” Kenma says, sliding onto the bench next to Kuroo.
“Of course. Ask away.”
“Strategy, logistics, personnel – are you willing to leave it all up to us?”
“I trust you to do whatever needs doing, yes. And I’ll finance whatever you need me to, on top of your payment.”
“Okay. This will take some time to get together; they’re not on death row are they? Good. One last time, I need to check. Are you absolutely sure you want to do this? Even knowing you’re more than certain to die?”
Sawamura doesn’t waver in the slightest. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
“You’re already lucky your men are just imprisoned instead of up for execution,” Kenma warns. “But if you try this, they won’t pardon you again. Ignoring the fact that it’s virtually impossible to get into Datekou, let alone get back out – even if we somehow miraculously succeed, you’re dead the second any of you ever set foot on Imperial territory again. You’ll be worse off than even we are.”
“I know, and I don’t care. They lost me the moment they took my crew from me.”
“What happened to you?” Yaku asks abruptly. “They took your men, took your ship, but for someone like you- the less you have, the more dangerous you are. Why would they let you stay around?”
“Divine intervention, I guess you could call it. An old friend on the flagship Seijou pulled me for one of his smaller ships, and I’m too fucking decorated for the empire to just throw me to the wolves. They want me to waste a few years before they can reassign me to a frontline ship and hopefully get myself killed on some nameless moon in the middle of nowhere. I figured I would do them the favor of getting out of their hair before then.” He says it matter of factly, like he decided this life-changing course of action over tea one day.
“And cause an intergalactic riot in the process?” Kuroo asks, impressed by how far off the deep end Sawamura has decided to dive in one go.
“Why not? I’ve always been committed to justice, not order, captain. The empire has made it clear to me they do not value justice, so I’ll take it into my own hands.” There’s that shadow again, the one that lingers behind Sawamura’s brown eyes whenever he carries the weight of more than just himself. Kuroo can only see it when he’s really looking for it, but there’s something that lurks in the corners of Sawamura’s soul that’s just as dangerous as the rest of him, albeit in a different way.
“You know, I always thought you’d make one hell of a pirate. It’s good to know that assumption wasn’t misplaced.”
Sawamura laughs, some of the darkness in his gaze ebbing away. “Funny, I always thought you would have excelled in the navy. Odd how fate works sometimes, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think it was fate that brought you to us today. I think you just take a kind of sadistic pleasure in fucking up my plans for a carefree life, vice admiral.”
“I’m not going to lie to you by denying it, captain.”
It’s kind of fucked up that Kuroo missed this, the dance of words they’d perfected in between trying to stab each other. It’ll be strange, adapting to a new relationship built on more than banter and the chase, but if he’s being honest with himself, he’s always wondered what it might be like if they spent more than thirty heart-racing minutes with each other every time they met. Might as well find out before he dies.
With a grin, he extends his hand across the table, holding just a second too long after Sawamura accepts the handshake. “Alright, Sawamura-san, let’s get your team back.”
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