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thatone-brightstar · 1 year

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Cigarette smoke & Spices (Carmen Berzatto x fem!reader) One Shot

I made this account soley to post this cause this fucked up, broken man makes me FERAL, now i'll be on my way lol.

Word count: 3.6k

Summary: You have have gotten to know your neighbor Carmen a little too well.

You don’t know much about him. Not as much as you would like to, anyway. Just a name.

You know he arrives a little past midnight, with what seems like the burden of the world heavy on his shoulders. That despite his withering tiredness, he still steps carefully over your outstretched legs on the days he finds you too entranced in your book to move from the hallway floor.

He’s never asked why you’re there so late and in return, you never complain about the heavy metal music he likes to listen to until three in the morning.

You do wonder, though, what it is he does that always has him arriving in a grim mood, with the stand of a nervous animal, wounded and ready to slaughter anything in sight. In a city like Chicago, you can assume anything terrible, but the trailing scent of burnt sweet onion and spices that lingers under your nose, calms the thoughts of any illicit affairs. He doesn’t look like the type, anyway.

But then again, you don’t know much about him.

By the time you hear the elevator gears stop at your floor, your legs have gone numb between your weight and the hard carpet. You pull them from under you and stretch as far as you can with pointed toes to the wall in front of you. It’s a small hallway, so you don’t need to make too much of an effort for your skin to come in contact with the coldness of his door. You feel his heavy stomps vibrate through the floor, heavier than usual and without having to look in his direction you can tell he’s had a hard day. You smile. Those are your favorite.

You place your book by your side in sweet anticipation, pins and needles bite at your exposed legs through the skin. Soon, an ink covered hand invades your sight. The heat radiating from his body is almost enough to cauterize your fingertips as you glide them slowly across his wrist, down the back of his hand and into the cocoon of his calloused palm. You follow the vein in his arm with your eyes, how it travels up, up, up and nests between a strong jaw and neck. You can feel his impatient gaze burn into you and a smile teases your lips when your eyes finally decide to take a dip in the icy blue. He swallows hard, making your smile grow wider.

“Hard day?” you whisper, slipping your bottom lip under your upper teeth and enjoying the way his eyes flicker down to it.

“You have no fuckin’ idea…” Carmen answers in a heavy breath, then in a single movement, wraps his robust hand around your wrist and pulls you to your feet with little effort.

You don’t get time to react to the sudden change in perspective when you feel the hard door hit your back and the cold seep through your thin shirt, then his hungry lips hunting down your own with desperation. You swallow his deep groan, satisfied to finally find soft skin. He works his skilled fingers up the skin of your thighs, bunching your shirt around your hips while you struggle to turn the nob. Even though it’s late and your neighbors are probably asleep, you’d rather not give them a show. The door clicks open and the weight of his body pushes you both in, never disconnecting your lips. He kicks the door closed and strong arms wrap around your waist, hoisting you up and pressing you with his body to the nearest wall.

A whine mixes with the sound of sloppy kisses when you feel the hard denim of his jeans rub against the soaked fabric of your underwear and you pull him closer with your legs trying to replicate the feeling. He jerks his hips forward again to give you the friction you need, an almost painful emptiness burning at your core because he’s not nearly as close as you want him to be. With your eyes closed, you can feel his hands everywhere. Holding the back of your thighs, roaming your abdomen and tangled in your hair at the base of your neck where he holds you still. He leaves your heaving lips to pepper kisses on your exposed skin, wet and hot that once the air touches, makes goosebumps raise immediately.

“Wanna talk about it-?” You ask as you try to coax him into sharing what it is that burdens him, but he’s too distracted pulling your shirt over your shoulders to pay attention.

Your tits bounce with the rhythmless movements of his grinds and his patience shrinks even more as he latches onto the soft flesh, tongue covering every bit of your skin with messy licks that have you gasping for air. The room echoes with the obscene sounds sucking and your panting sighs.

“Couch or bed?” You hear him ask, breathless.

He’s digging his teeth over your collarbone, until the skin grows sensitive and red, a remnant you’ll wake up to when he’s long gone in the morning.

“Bed” you answer, too entranced in his torturous mouth to form clear sentences.

The hard wall is replaced by rough palms that keep you pressed to his chest as he maneuvers through the dark living room. Muscle memory guides him in the all familiar space, past your kitchen and through your bedroom door, to the bed he had grown accustomed to. You slide over it gently when he loosens his grip on your form, hair spreading around your flushed face while you wait impatiently for him to finish undressing. You stretch to the length of the bed, sighing as tension releases from locked joints and when you finally hear the metal of his belt ‘clinck’ on the wooden floor, you lift your head and stare at him through locks of messy hair. Your lip catches between your teeth at such a beautiful sight, him standing there all lean muscle and hard cock, glistening in anticipation and drawing saliva into your needy mouth.

You push yourself up to rest on spread out knees, inching closer to his immobile form, then wrap soft fingers around the thick velvet flesh. A shutter leaves his chest and his eyes close when you rake the nails on your other hand up across his hard abdomen and to the back of his neck. The soft flick of your wrist, paired with sultry kisses along his neck and chest, have him thrusting involuntarily into your fist and hands gripping tightly at the side of your hips. You brush your lips along his stubble, the prominent line of his nose and back down to bite his bottom lip.

“D’you wanna talk about it, Carmen?” You whisper again over his lips when you see the ever present frown above his brow hasn’t faded. His name tastes like sugar cubes in your mouth, making you smile at the way he reacts to hearing it from your lips.

Your grip tightens over his girth and you drag your palm slowly when he doesn’t give you an answer. His eyes open suddenly and the blown out look he gives you through hooded brows has thick waves of heat overwhelming your body.

“Do I ever?” He finally answers with a sighed laugh.

That’s the first laugh you’ve gotten out of him and you do your best to ignore the softness it brings to your chest. “Worth a shot” You say shrugging, then latch on to his waiting lips again and resume your hand’s movements.

A surprised gasp leaves your chest as his hands grope the back of your thighs to pull you forward, tilting your balance and making you fall on your back against the soft covers. His hands roam impatiently to your hips, pulling at the last piece of clothing covering you, only to throw it somewhere in the mess of clothes. With one knee resting on the mattress, he pulls at your ankles to have you closer, then leans down to press teasing kisses up your soft skin as he crawls over you.

His mouth travels in a messy line over your knee, thigh and hip bone, completely avoiding the prominent heat on the inside of your thighs. He yearns to do it, to rub his nose against your slit and taste you so deep that the tartness will linger heavy on his tongue onto the next day, but he knows he can’t. That sort of intimacy is only reserved for matters of the heart, for partners in love who know each other- body and soul-, and you two are anything but. So instead he focuses higher up, licking and nibbling at your breasts and the tender nipples that never disappoint to perk up when he exhales rapidly over them.

You tangle your fingers in the mess of his hair at the feeling of his knees pushing your legs open, then when the skin of his strong thighs begins to rub over your aching core, your nails dig into the sensitive scalp with a gasp. It’s soft at first, like he’s testing your reactions and as you plant your feet around him and push down to meet his actions with urgency, you feel his lips grow into a smile above your skin.

“Fuckin’ tease…” You mumble through gasps, the comment increasing the erratic movements that almost have you shaking over the surface of the bed.

A cry scratches your throat and you tilt your head back when his hand snakes down and applies pressure over it with his palm moving in circles. Your nails rake from his head to his shoulders and he moans over your chest, the skin overly sensitive and wet.

“Just put it in- already..” You whine and he laughs again. That’s two more than ever, but who’s counting.

“What’s the fun in that?” He teases with a heavy breath, but readjusts his position so your thighs rest above his and the thick head of his cock brushes over the hot flesh of your entrance.

He plants his hands by your head with his hanging low and eyes trained on the way you swallow his member as he sinks in inch by inch. The smokey scent from his golden hair and the sweet stretch of him filling you up has your head pounding from the rush of blood and ears only tuning into static. He feels incredibly hot above you, strong biceps caging you in between his hot skin and the mattress. You bite your lip to control the shameful moan trying to escape when he finally settles completely inside you.

“Fuck-” His eyes are closed and his breathing is ragged for a few agonizing seconds before he pulls back and rolls his hips into you again and again.

His pace is constant and firm enough that you wrap your hands around his wrists so the force of his thrusts don’t push you away. Still, you can feel him holding back when blown pupils meet yours and his movements falter down lightly. So you give him a little push by taking one of his firm hands and wrapping it around your neck, never letting your sight leave his.

“Jesus fuck-” He shudders with an exhale and a soft grin.

“Is that all you got, pretty boy?” You ask between pants and a similar grin.

His brows raise in surprise at your sudden teasing and he shakes his head in amusement. His eyes meet yours again, an indescribable gleam visible in the low light of your room and you’re about to question why he’s stopped moving, before he pulls out completely, takes his hand from your neck and effortlessly flips you - so that now your stomach is firmly on the bed. The sudden action pulls a squeal from your throat. You want to turn around to throw another remark, but his hand falls abruptly on the plump flesh of your ass and a guttural groan escapes instead.

“That what ya wanted?” He asks with an edge to his voice as he pulls the front of your thighs back and up, spreading your knees to the sides.

You’re barely recovering from the wave of pleasure his smack caused when a new wave hits at the roughness of two of his fingers plunging into exposed cunt. You’re groaning into the sheets and fisting the covers with all your strength as the bubble in your abdomen grows too quickly. One of his hands holds you hard against the mattress while the other works you into a mess of moans and high pitched gasps with dexterous fingers. He leans over you to kiss your shoulder blades and the dip of your spine, mumbling how good you look trembling under him.

“You could’a just asked…” He whispers while slowing down his teasing fingers, giving you a few seconds to heave in some needed air.

Your sweaty forehead rests over the disarranged sheets as blows of air rattle your chest, along with the pounding of your heartbeat. In the back of your mind, you register his hand rubbing along the length of your spread out thighs, then up to knead the plushness of your ass.

“Not so cocky now, huh?” His amused voice looms over you and his warm breath cools your sweat slickened skin.

You exhale a soft laugh, opening your eyes and tilting your head back to see his amused expression. “ I could be cockier, if only you helped…”

His grin grows as his eyes drink in the last drop of blue and his chest is now flat over your back, cock hard and throbbing against your ass cheeks.

No anticipation could prepare you for the moan that claws out from your throat the moment he slips back inside, with even more fervent energy. The new position has you somehow feeling him thick and hot against your stomach and the strength that he deposits into every thrust has you clawing at anything you can get your hands on. You don’t know where the ardent giggle comes from, but it’s there, accompanied by a shrill “Oh my fuck- Carm-!” that comes out more whinier than you would like. He groans into your neck at the desperate call of his name and how fucking good it sounds coming from your panting lips.

“God- so fuckin hot-” He mumbles into your skin, nipping the base of your neck with his teeth and pulling a shaking moan that fills him with pride. “Always so fuckin’ ready for me aren’t ya?”

You're at the mercy of the steady and harsh snap of his hips. Tears pick at the corner of your eyes and watercolors bleed together in swirls of blues as you claw at the covers while strong thighs slam behind you.

Your skin feels hot and cold at the same time and the constant gasps do nothing for the lack of oxygen burning at your lungs, more from him knocking out every attempt to breathe than from the grip he has around your throat. You can feel your pulse heavy on your clit, but before you can reach down to touch yourself, he pushes your back hard down on the bed with a grunt and slows down his movements to a stop.

His ragged breathing blows cold over your searing skin for a few seconds, then he pulls out and lays beside you on the bed, panting. He turns to see your amused expression at the sudden halt, then grins slightly for the fifth time that night.

“Shut up.” He says before you speak, like he just knows you're about to tease him over losing his breath during sex.

“I wasn’t saying nothing!” You joke and rest your head up your elbow, looking down at his tinted skin. “But you really should stop smokin’...” You add.

Carmen’s brow creases in confusion, then when you swing your aching thigh over his hips and plant your palms over his hard chest, his face turns to surprise. This is the first time in the months that you’ve been doing this, that you’re the one on top.

“How’d you know I smoke?” He asks with crystal eyes scanning your face and large palms rubbing up and down your thighs.

You shrug, taking his pulsing cock in your hand and giving it a few jerks that pull the air from his lungs. You raise on your knees and angle the glistening head to rub teasingly at your folds.

“You always smell like it. It’s kinda hot.” You respond, then sink down slowly to feel the mouthwatering stretch once again.

He groans, throwing his head back from the tightness the new angle offers, but then looks up to you again because there’s something about the way you’re looking at him that makes his chest ache. You dig your nails into his strong stomach as you raise up then fall back down on his length with a roll of your hips, always looking down at him through strands of messy locks. You continue at a slow pace, savoring how his tip seems to push against a special spot that has waves of tingles roaming down your thighs.

Your mouth hangs open as you speed up your movements and he meets you halfway with the strong snap of his hips and the firm grip on your waist. He pulls you into his chest at the same time his hands push your hips down and another involuntary high pitched gasp rasps at your throat. He swallows it down gladly as he devours your mouth with a seething necessity you hadn’t felt before and the constant push of his grip on your hips has you panting shamefully against his lips.

“Fuck- shit Carm, you’re gonna make me-” He thrusts his hips painfully hard that it knocks the words from your mouth.

You’re drenched in sweat and surrounded by the obscene sound of smacking skin and hefty smell of sex, but all you can register is the moaning, broad shouldered man underneath you. Wild sapphire eyes dance around your pleasure filled face and Carmen swears he had never found you more attractive than in this moment- sweaty, flushed and kiss- swollen. He doesn’t know what takes over him as he reaches up to caress your cheek, or where he gets the bravery to effortlessly flip you over so you’re back where you began- choking for any sliver of air that he pushes back out with his persistent thrusts.

“So fuckin’ beautiful-” He moans into your neck.

You claw at his back, scratches he knows will bring a grin to his usual cold features when he stares into the broken mirror in his bathroom tomorrow morning. You’re a mess of pleas and incoherent mumbling that can only be silenced by his feverish kisses as he cradles your face in his strong palms.

He feels the familiar tight and hot grip around his cock and a primal instinct to speed up his thrusts takes over him. You wrap your trembling thighs hard around his hips and swallow every groan that escapes his throat. You feel the bubble in your abdomen grow incredibly quick and tight until it bursts into waves of pleasure that have your toes curling and your back arching impossibly closer to him.

You don’t exist for a few wonderful seconds. There’s no up or down as you float through existence like a still feather. There’s only the weight of the man above you holding you like a lifeline. A fuck shaped moan cascades from his lips as he feels your walls spasm against him and the sensitivity is too much that he follows behind your orgasm after a couple more delicous thrusts.

Through your cloudy haze, you feel him break above you, the heaves that brush your neck and the thick liquid that fills you up as he comes inside you. His arms tremble slightly by your head, trying to maintain his weight and you could blame the intensity of the moment on your actions, but you snake your arms over his strong shoulders and pull him down to rest on your chest.

Despite the fact that you’ve been sleeping around with each other for the past few months, you can feel that something was different about this time, like a barrier had been broken or an invisible line had been crossed for both of you. You’re not going to ask, though. You’d rather bask in the post orgasm bliss that washes over you.

Carmen groans tiredly as he pulls out of you and lays by your side to see your relaxed face and closed eyes.

“We’re-uh- we’re gonna have to talk about it, aren’t we…” He mumbles with a small smile as he rakes his fingers through his sweaty hair, tired eyelids closing involuntarily as the weight of the excruciating day finally falls off his shoulders.

You hum softly, then feel around you for the covers that you gently drape over your naked bodies routinely. You both lay in a strange silence with eyes fixed on your ceiling, not a bad silence just… different.

“Yeah…” You whisper back and turn to bright blue eyes that finally lack the worn out and exhausted expression his rugged brows give him. “But it can wait ‘till tomorrow.”

You turn your back to him, adjusting the pillow under you.

A strong arm snakes around you over the covers that pulls you to a warm chiseled chest, you can feel his erratic heartbeats mixing with your own and you smile when soft lips graze carefully on the curve up your shoulder.

“Tomorrow.” He whispers back with the tenth smile of the night.

#carmen berzatto x reader #carmen berzatto x you #the bear fx #carmy berzatto #carmy the bear #carmy x reader #carmy smut #the bear tv #carmy berzatto headcanon #the bear headcanon #carmy berzatto imagines #carmy berzatto fluff #carmen berzatto smut #carmy berzatto smut #carmen 'carmy' berzatto

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one-piece-aus · 7 months

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Whumptober Day 10

Mihawk x Reader

"Are you alright, my dear?"

You lift your head off the ground, seeing black dress shoes and the ends of a black coat. You blinked a few times before you trailed your eyes up, finding a well-dressed holding an umbrella over both of your heads and holding a hand out toward you.

"You seem cold out here," the man commented on the obvious. "If you want, I can bring you back to my manor. Staying outside any longer won't be good for your health."

In all honestly, you were tired, your vision was still blurry. Numbness encased your body, you didn't know rain currently fell from the sky until it began hitting against the umbrella, and despite the cold, your torso felt flames burning inside. Obviously, your brain isn't functioning, so if you asked if the man before you is trustworthy, you'd get static.

With few options, because you couldn't make any in your foggy mind, you lift your hand to take his. He pulled your ragdoll body up and gently set your arm over his shoulder while his arm held your waist.

"Can you walk?" He inquired, glancing at you.

"I can't feel my legs," you said, demonstrating by attempting to take a step forward only for your leg to lose balance. You wished these pins and needles would go away.

"Ah, this won't do. Hold this." He handed you the umbrella, and though you tried telling him you wouldn't be able to hold it up, once you had it in your hand, he swifty picked you up bridal style and began carrying you down the stone pathway. "I do hope you don't mind me carrying you, not to worry, my manor isn't far."

"Thank you..."

"It's no trouble, really."

You adjusted the hold of the umbrella, since your hands were now resting on your stomach, the task no longer felt like a strain for your body. Warmth from the man started erasing the numbness that had encased your body and slowly your senses returned to you. Raindrops brought a peaceful atmosphere, and for once, you felt safe.

"If you don't mind me asking, how did you end up washed ashore on my island?"

"I was running from someone..." You gazed down, already uncomfortable from the resurfacing memories.

"I see," he said, taking note of how your mood shifted.

Whoever you were running from must've been bad enough to drive you out to sea in the Grand Line. From the lack of log pose and the rope burns on your hands, you probably got caught in a storm, and with no knowledge of being a sailor or knowing the chaos of the Grand Line waters, your ship sank and you ended up stranded here. You might have some other injuries that need to be taken care of, and you must be hungry-

"Hey..." You brought Mihawk out of his thoughts. "What's your name?"

"Dracule Mihawk."

"I never heard of such a name before," you said, turning your head to glance at him. "It sounds beautiful...Mihawk"

He hummed at your words, sparing you a glance. "Do you have a name?"

"[Y/n]."

"[Y/n]... it's an elegant name you have."

"I think this umbrella might have a hole..." you muttered, a small smile creeping on your lips.

"Hm? Why do you assume so?" Mihawk tilted his head at you.

"Because if I'm...happy now, why else would there be water in my eyes?"

Tag: @bookandyarndragon @roseoftrafalgar

#whumptober2023 #no. 10 #“Can't you see that you're lost without me?”#stranded #one piece #whump fanfiction #whump fic #whump writing #one piece scenario #one piece x reader #dracule mihawk #mihawk x reader #one piece mihawk #hawkeye mihawk #dracule mihawk x reader #x reader #no 10

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ohtobeleah · 2 years

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Mission Impossible // Bob Floyd

Summary: After Bob is picked to fly the mission with the Dagger team, memories of moments you both have shared together come flooding back—leading to a shock discovery.

Word Count: 9.6k

Warnings: Angsty. Robert ‘Bob’ Floyd pairing. Some smut.

Author Note: Jesus I don’t know where this came from but I’m happy where we got with it. (Published 14.09.22)

Read Part One Here // Radar

“I love you so much—“ Bob's breath fanned across your neck, his lips hot against your skin as he pushed himself further inside you. A moan echoing off the dorm room walls as your eyes rolled, back arching as you dug your nails deep into the muscles of his back. Secretly? Bob enjoyed the pain you brought. The sensation. “God you’re beautiful—“

“Bob—“ you moaned, searching for his lips. “Fuck, faster.” It came out as a beg and oh boy, the way you begged for him had Bob seeing stars. He could feel the pressure building as the base of his shaft as he slipped himself in and out, a rhythm so unbelievably perfect it had you breathless. Bucking his hips. The crushing weight of his ribs still busted from his flight training mishap didn’t matter, not right now, not with how good it felt to be inside you. Not with how good it felt to be with you. “So close, fuck I’m so close!”

“Cum for me sweetheart, that’s it, cum for me—“

*knock* *knock* *knock*

A pool of drool had formed where your head met the pillow. Your mouth opened slightly as gentle snores filled the room. Exhausted could be an understatement, ever since Bob was discharged from the hospital you’d been by his side. The secret was out so was there any real point in sneaking around behind closed doors?

*knock* *knock* *knock*

The incessant knocking coming from the solid dorm room door had you coming to the surface from a very very good dream, groaning as you sat up. Your pyjamas clinging to your body, sweaty. Your hair a bird's nest upon your head, eye mask pushed up to your forehead. Dragging your feet reluctantly as you flug the door open with an annoyed sigh, half asleep.

“What!?” You groaned. Rubbing your eyes as you came face to face with Maverick. The marks Bob has left on your collar bones exposed. Deep purple’s littering your skin.

“Well I can’t say I’m surprised to see you here considering I went to your quarters this morning and found it abandoned.” Maverick teased as you came to the realisation this was Bob's room.

“Shit—“ you sighed, looking at Maverick as you tried your best to fire your systems. Sleep deprivation was proving to be no joke. “Sorry Pete I—“

“No need to explain, just—get changed and meet me and Admiral Beau in the command centre.”

“Yes Captain Mitchell.” You tried to salut, smacking your elbow on the door as you did so. Your humorous numb as it sent pins and needles up your entire arm. Holding it close to your body as you watched Maverick chuckle before walking down the corridor. “Fuck—“ you hissed, shutting the door as you let your back slide down it.

“You know what?” You heard Bob before you saw him. “Not one of your finest moments.” Bob cooed with a small smile plastered on his face as he stepped from the bathroom. His hair still wet as the towel he used to keep himself from being totally exposed hung low across his hips. “The secondhand embarrassment is radiating off you, sweetheart.” As he turned, you saw the claw marks you’d left on his back from last night. A shiver encapsulating your entire being for a split second at the memories. “What did Mav want?”

“Duty calls.” You gathered your uniform that had been flung across the floor of Bob's dorm, holding it in a ball at your chest. Clinging to the responsibility you had. “This was nice, but—“ You began to be a smartass. Bob catching your drift and deciding to go along with it.

“Oh yeah, totally—“ Bob played along. Coming to kiss you deeply. His hands lingering on your hips. “I don’t do the whole relationship thing either.”

“So just a one time thing?” You smirked, eyeing off the wedding band draped across his chest. Nestled perfectly between his dog tags.

“Hope you weren’t expecting anything more.” Bob teased, leaning in to cup your cheeks, drawing you in for one final kiss. His tongue slowly dancing with yours as he asked for permission to go deeper. Accepting the invitation you gave him with a small moan. Pulling back before he could get too carried away. It was always easy to get caught up with you, the love of his life. His better half. “Don’t forget to grab a coffee on your way out.”

“Bags that bad huh?” You chuckled, biting your bottom lip. Turning on your heels to head out. “Love ya!” You cooed . Opening the door before turning for one final look at your husband. “By the way?” You teased. “You definitely should have been skins.”

“Get outta here—“ Bob flung a pair of balled up socks your way as you closed the door to his dorm behind you, making your way up to the common area kitchenette. Rounding the corner in a flurry, you bumped into Rooster who couldn’t hide his surprise if he tried.

“Hot date?” He questioned as he sipped his morning coffee. Sitting at the small dining table you stood across from.

“Something along those lines.” You replied, feet padding across the flooring over to the coffee pot. Still holding your uniform balled up. “Got any sugar?”

“Top cupboard to the right— don’t let Hangman catch you.” Rooster reminded you. “He’s still out for blood“ the overbearing urge to demolish a pop tart suddenly overwhelming you, not usually one for a sugary breakfast, you couldn’t fight it. Pocketing the pop tart that sat lonesome and unopened for when you got back to your own dorm.

“I can handle him, god—what is his problem anyway?” You sipped your coffee as you began your journey back to your dorm. You’d return the coffee mug at a later date. “If Mav wants him flying this mission he’ll fly the damn mission, but it’s not my problem he doesn’t play well with others, that’s just my professional opinion.”

“I honestly think it’s more personal than professional, Radar—“ Rooster explained, yawning slightly as he leaned back in his chair. “He’s not used to not getting what he wants.”

“I’m literally married, Brad—he’s just gonna have to figure it out before he gets you all killed.” You groaned, walking off down the corridor just as Hangman made his entrance into the common areas. Eyeing you off as he walked away. “Not a word Seresin!” You pushed past time. Invoking a small chuckle from his stupid face.

“Big night there Radar? Didn’t think Bobby had it in him.”

“Eat my ass Hangman!” You shouted, Rooster couldn’t hold back his laughter as he spat his coffee back into his mug.

“Does she know that’s what I’ve been trying to do?” Jake smirked to Bradley as he walked over to the coffee pot, noticing something missing. “You owe me a damn pop tart Bradshaw—“

“It wasn’t even me!!”

————----

It came as a shock, you didn't know how to process the unimaginable, Admiral Beau had decided that without Iceman’s input, Maverick would be removed from helping the Top Gun class improve their still set, their training. It was bad enough Pete had just lost an incredible friend and colleague, but to now lose his job?

“With all due respect Admiral, I truly think that is one of the worst decisions you could make.” You couldn’t help yourself from speaking your mind. “These aviators really respond to Captain Mitchell—take that bond away and I’m not too sure how they’ll react.”

“Well it's a good thing I didn't ask for your opinion now isn’t it?” Admiral Beau chewed you out as you stood with your chest proud, uniform no longer a wrinkled ball in your arms after a long night spent between the sheets with your husband. “I brought you here to agree to the request you've been making, a time change to the mission.” You knew this wasn't going to be good, you certainly hadn't figured out an appropriate time frame for the pilots? “Four minutes–” Your heart sunk into the pit of your stomach, your eyes widened as you broke your position, stepping forward, your emotions running rampant. A sudden urge to want to empty the content of your stomach trickling up the back of your throat. What the hell was going on? Why were you dizzy and unstable?

“That's enough time for them to be fired upon? Are you trying to get them killed Admiral or are you dying of dementia!?” you hissed, very much stepping out of line. Trying to keep yourself held together. Maverick's hand came to hold your wrist tight, pulling you back. “These people have families–they aren't ready to fly this mission enough as it is and you wanna give the enemy the upper hand!?”

“As you keep saying OS, but they accept the responsibilities and risks this job entails.” Admiral Beau replied as he stood from his chair, leaning forward on his desk. “It was your job to get them ready.”

“Sir, they have to believe that this mission can be flown.” Maverick could see the tears threatening to spill from your waterline. This wasn't what you wanted. Not Four entire minutes. You were pushing for seconds, milliseconds. Not enough time for enemy pilots to take them out like sitting ducks.

“And all you've managed to do? Radar, is teach them that it can't!” Admiral Beau took incredible pleasure in chewing you out, but he took more pride in doing so before the Top Gun graduate’s.

It was hard to keep your composure as you stood before the Top Gun class once again in the hangar turned classroom. Bob could sense something was wrong the moment he looked at you and you wouldnt look at him. Standing reluctantly next to Admiral Beau, hugging your clipboard. What could have happened to change your entire demeanour within the space of a few hours since he saw you leave his dorm.

“Captain Mitchel is no longer your instructor, and as of today, there are new mission parameters courtesy of OS Spencer-Floyd.” Your heart sank when the Admiral pinned this on you. Bob sat up a little straighter in his chair when he saw your head sink toward the ground slightly. “The time to target is now four minutes, you'll be entering the valley level at reduced speed. No to exceed 420 knots.” you watched as Bob turned to look at Phoenix.

“Sir, won't we be giving their planes time to intercept?” you could practically see the concern oozing from Bob's expression.

“Well Lieutenant, you have a fighting chance against enemy aircraft– what are the odds of surviving a head-on collision with a mountain?” Bob went to speak, but the slight shake of the head you gave told him enough to know it was a losing battle. “You’ll be attacking the target from a higher altitude, level with the north wall, which will be a little harder to keep your laser on target, but you will avoid a high G force climbing out.”

“We’ll be sitting ducks for enemy missiles.” Payback leaned over and whispered just loud enough so you would hear to Fanboy. Both looking at you like you'd stabbed them in the back.

“There's no way the OS signed off on this?” Hangman interjected. “She wouldn't send dear old hubby up there against all those odds.” As much as you didnt appracted the tone Hangman conveyed? He was right, you haven't been a part of this. Not in the slightest bit. You wouldn’t have put Bob in that position, hell— you wouldn’t have put any of them in that situation. Not with everything that had to lose. This wasn’t what you thought being a Top Gun WOS would lead Bob, especially when it felt like you’d just become personally responsible for this situation. Bob's face had never looked more concerned, you hated how he looked at you right now. With confusion and anger, not with the passion and drive he had some years ago—fresh out of Top Gun.

“Well—“ you beamed, watching as Bob strutted towards you in his Ceremonial Naval uniform. “It looks like all that rice and ginger really paid off huh?” You chuckled, wrapping your arms around the man you loved as he ducked his head into the crook of your neck. Top Gun papers crumbled in his hand as he took you into his arms. “I’m so proud of you—“

“I never could have done this, any of this, without you.” Bob cooed as he kissed your cheek. His Top Gun graduation had seen Bob come out as one of the best weapons systems officers the Navy had to offer. You’d managed to use some PTO to witness the moment your fiancées Career truly started to take a turn. “I don’t think I’d be here if you hadn’t run into me all those years ago.” You could feel the heat rising in your cheeks as you reached out to gently take Bob's cheek in your palm, rubbing the pad of your thumb against his cheek. “Chasing you, falling in love with you, paid off.” Bob gave you too much credit when he was the one who put the effort in, who was the best at what he did. Kissing him over and over again.

“You were always gonna do great things Robert Floyd, I’m just so beyond grateful I get to witness you achieve them” you mumbled against his lips. “I’m so fucking proud of you—“

“I’m a Top Gun Weapons Systems officer—“ Bob beamed, jumping with excitement for a moment as he swept you off your feet. “Holy shit!”

“You’re in the big leagues now Baby!” You chuckled, Bob spinning you around with so much pride. “I’m almost nervous to have to work on missions for you—you know, if they ever actually post us together.” Bob didn’t care, he’d follow your orders any day, no matter what, no matter where.

“I’d follow you to the moon and back, just make sure I come home in one piece and we’ll be good.”

“Admiral Beau informed me of the sudden and drastic measures this morning, they go against my advice and council as Operations Systems Specialist.” you explained. “I've run the course, I've calculated all probability and factored in risk to reward ratios and without fail every time, it's a failed run.”

“That's enough Renee–” Admiral Beau hissed as you looked at Bob with so much desperation in your eyes. You didn’t want this—that all too prominent sickness pooling in your stomach once again, perhaps that pop tart wasn’t the most nutritious breakfast?

“I requested an extension of fifteen seconds to be added to the mission time, total time two minutes and forty five seconds–” you rushed to explain to the class that sat before you absolutely dumbfounded.

“Enough–!” It was like a ton of bricks had come down on you. Admiral Beau had had enough but you could no longer be a part of this mission if it meant sending people out against every odd in the book.

“With that in mind I can no longer in good Conscience propose my professional findings and wish to be removed as Operations Specialist from this mission effective immediately.”

“Renee!?” Bob stood from his chair, questioning what you’d just done. You couldn’t leave him on this mission like this—he trusted you, above anyone else, to keep him, to keep his team safe on this mission.

As you tried to resign from your posting, the monitor behind you began to beep. An F-18 signal appeared on the screen.Turning you couldn’t hide the smile that crept upon your face.

“Who the hell is that?’ Admiral Beau questioned sternly as he turned to you, shrugging your shoulders, playing dumb, you watched on as Mavericks voice came through the comms.

“Maverick to range control, entering point alpha– confirm green range.” He spoke confidently like this wasn’t a massive breach of security.

“Uh Maverick range control—uh, green range is confirmed. I don't see you on the event scheduled for your sir.” Range control responded promptly as Bob snuck up beside you.

“What the hell is going on with you!?” He whispered softly in your ear. “I’m starting to rethink ever coming here.”

“God if I had it my way neither of us would be here!” You sighed. “I’m in a very difficult position right now and I won’t be responsible for sending you all up there to die a pointless death—“ you whispered back under your breath, turning back to face to monitor as Bob's fingers gently played with yours. A small but fleeting moment.

“Well, I'm going anyway.” Maverick responded. Not a care in the world besides his team, his fellow pilots, his OS.

“Nice.” you whispered. “Stupid, but—“

“You didn’t tell him to do this did you?” Bob whispered in your ear as you smirked, turning to whisper in his ear.

“I would never break the rules— Lieutenant.”

“Oh my god you definitely did—“

“I’ll deny every knowing you if you snitch—“

“Mav has a death wish and you took advantage of that!”

“Yeah well at least it won’t be you who ends up dead!”

You and Bob went back and forth before you heard Maverick you cer the comms again.

“Setting time to target, two minutes and fifteen seconds.” Maverick confirmed as you set the timer for the class to see. Stepping closer to Admiral Beau you couldn’t help the joy in your eyes as you stuck it to him, handing him your clipboard with all your reports and trials attached.

“Two fifteen has proven thus far to be an impossible time.” You mentioned to Admiral Beau, “if Maverick flies this mission's simulation successfully, it will be with my most profound expert opinion that he flys mission lead.”

“You know what, I've just about had enough of you, Radar.” Admiral Beau groaned through his gritted teeth, the entire class looking at you for some miracle.

“With all due respect sir, this is what happens when you try and do my job.” You replied sharply. “Two minutes and thirty seconds is my proposal for time to target, don’t like it? They die, simple, but that better be a good enough excuse for their families to accept—“ you paused for a moment turning back to look at Bob. “But it’s not one I would—“

—--------

Time felt as if it stood still—the time between when Admiral Beau almost fired you for trying to quit and re-hiring Pete after firing him felt like milliseconds before you stood before the class on the carrier.

“It has been an honour working with you all.” You spoke softly, standing next to Maverick as he made his final division on who would fly. At this stage, you weren’t briefed on his decision because at that very moment even he didn't know. All you knew is that you wished it wouldn’t be Bob—not because he couldn’t handle it, but because you knew you couldn’t.

“It has been an honour flying with you. Each one of you represents the best of the best, but this is a very specific mission. My choice is a reflection of that and nothing more.” As Maverick spoke you could feel Hangman's eyes burning into you.

Unbeknownst to you, Jake had learnt to live and let go, he’d appreciated Bob without your knowledge—accepting his actions were probably a little dicky. He just hadn’t been able to catch you alone.

“Choose your two foxtrot teams.’ Admiral Beau asked. It was at this moment your heart sank, from both pride and nervousness.

“Payback and Fanboy–” Maverick spoke sternly, turning slightly to where Bob stood tall, nervous to hear his name called. “Phoenix and Bob–” you froze. Tears welled as you tried to hold it together. Fuck.

“And your wingman?” Cyclone asked once more before you were up for the final briefing. Trembling because this might be it. “This could very well be the mission that takes your husband away from you.”

“Rooster.” Maverick responded before he stood back. Watching as you approached the podium, fumbling with your papers. Clearing your throat that had become so dry it was almost unbearable.

“Your Target is a clear and present threat. A secret uranium enrichment site under rogue state control.” You stood before the selected few that Maverick had deemed ready to fly this mission. You couldn't help but to drown out the rest just to focus on the way Bob was looking at you. So much love and admiration for you. “It’s an underground bunker, tucked between these two mountains.” Being up a slide on the projector behind you. “Your path of ingress is heavily defended by surface to air missiles backed up by fifth generation fighters.”

Bob couldn't focus on anything but you. Not the importance of your briefing or the way you looked stone cold serious. Your words mumbled into one another as his brain fogged, his cerebellum flooding with memories.

Bob didn’t see you coming. He hung his head low as he manoeuvred his way through the busy mess hall. Clutching his lunch tray, Bob felt the sudden force of something that he clearly wasn’t supposed to run into sending him back in a clash and mess of jasmine rice and fresh ginger. His pre-flight meal completely covering him.

“Oh my gosh!” You dropped to your knees beside Bob, frazzled and completely overwhelmed with the situation you and your spatial awareness or lack thereof had caused. “I am so unbelievably sorry—“ Bob wasn’t sure if he couldn’t breathe because he’d had the wind knocked out of him or if he couldn’t breathe because you were probably the most beautiful women he’d ever seen before in his life. “Here let me help—“ you started piling the mess of jasmine rice up off the floor back onto the now empty lunch tray. The giggles and chuckles from passer byers echoed in your head as you felt the heat in your cheeks begin to rise from utter embarrassment.

“Radar didn’t pick up on the incoming target did it Radar?” One of the rookie fighter pilots teased as he walked by. “System malfunction or user error?”

“You know what? E.T, why don’t you eat my whole ass—“ you hissed. Invoking a crowd of ‘ohs’ and ‘ahs’. Sighing as you turned your attention back to Bob who couldn’t help but to stare at you like you were just the embodiment of all things beauty. “I’m such an idiot I can’t believe I—“

“I’m Bob—“ Bob pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose before he stuck his hand out for you to shake. “Robert, actually—but uh, everyone just calls me Bob.” For a second you let Bob keep his hand out, just before he pulled away thinking you weren't going to shake his hand. You did.

“Renee, um Radar—“ You introduced yourself, shaking Bob's hands softly before a gentle smile spread across his face in return. “I didn’t see you coming, you some kind of stealth pilot Bob?” You tried to keep the conversation going as Bob joined in on the cleanup.

“Weapons systems actually—“ Bob corrected, completely missing the joke. You couldn’t help but to laugh softly. “What about you?”

“Operations systems—“ you replied. “Uh well, again I’m really sorry I ruined your uh, bowl of rice and ginger?” Your statement turned into more of a puzzled question. Kneeling on the floor next to Bob. He could have sworn in that very moment you were his end game. He’d spend the next seven years of his life crushing on the girl that sat beside him in defence training, spend seven years loving the women who brought out the very best of him. Who knew him better than anyone else, who’d support and follow him to the edge of the world.

“I uh—I haven’t quite mastered the concept of not throwing up yet.” Bob admitted as he stood, holding his hand out for you to take, helping you up. Accepting you pushed yourself up off the ground. “Helps settle my stomach.” You didn’t respond as quickly as you would have liked to. You were too busy taking in Bob. His lips, his eyes. The way his glasses sat slightly crooked. You were hooked on Bob from day dot. He’d turn into your biggest supporter, your best friend—the love of your life.

“How come I’ve never met you before?” dusting yourself off. Hoping the fact you had never noticed Bob before running directly into him wouldn’t come across as an insult—knowing then and there that you wanted to get to know him. “Did you just transfer?” The naval academy base in Lamoore wasn’t a big place—but when it came to Robert Floyd? He knew how to blend in. A wallflower tried and true. Deciding not to go with the truth of the matter which was:

‘No I just don’t stand out, I’m sort of easy to overlook.’

Bob lied.

“Yeah, yeah I uh, I just joined actually.” Rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “Honestly, I don't even know if this whole thing is gonna work out.” Bob sighed, doubting himself.

“Well, Bob—“ you smirked, pressing your lips together as you handed him his empty lunch tray. “Maybe we can try to make this whole thing work together?” You tried to flirt, Bob didn’t know how to respond.

“Haven’t you heard about the non-fraternisation rule for naval academy cadets?” Bob pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose once again. He could feel his heart about to explode in his chest.

“Oh yeah, I’ve heard about it—“ you chuckled. Taking in all that way Bob. “But I like to live on the edge.”

“Once your F-18 strike team crosses the border, Tomahawk missiles from the USS Leyte Gulf will launch a synchronised strike on the enemy's airfield here.” Your voice brought Bob back after he’d reminisced about the first time he’d spoken to you. Not knowing how such a small accident would change the trajectory of his life, his career.

“This will knock out their runway, but you’ll have to contend with any plans already in the air. The moment those Tomahawks hit, the enemy will know you're coming.” His best friend since that very moment, his wife, his soulmate. It was always you and would never not be you. Bob felt his emotions getting the better of him, realising quickly that this might be the one—the one he doesn’t make it back from.

“Your time to target will be two minutes and thirty seconds, any longer than that, and you will be exposed to any aircraft the tomahawks may have missed.” Bob loved you, he wanted to grow old with you and have a family. As he stood there staring back at you as you looked at him like there was not a single person other than him in that room—he knew. He knew you knew that this might very well be the one. And honestly? You couldn’t help but to think you’d sent him to his untimely death as you explained the final brief. Exiting the room promptly as your tears began to fall freely down your cheeks.

“This is what you've all been training for.” You heard Admiral Beau take over as you walked away. Bob stood waiting to be dismissed so he could run to you. Tell you everything would be okay because if you believed it he would too. “Come home safely.” Racing out after you Bob turned to look around to see which way you went, spotting Hangman in the process, needing one favour.

“Jake! Hey Jake—“ Bob called out as he raced after Hangman. “You got a second man?”

———————-

The flight desk was packed to the rafters. Men and women scrambling to their stations preparing the F-18’s for take off. But through the chaos of it all? To Bob? You stood out in the crowd. Never hard to find in a crowded room—his heart leading him to you always. With complete and utter ease. With his helmet tucked under his arm, Bob came up behind you. His flight suit adorning his body as his free hand snaked around the small of your back.

“I’m sorry—“ Bob had to shout over the noise. Turning to face him, you took a moment to drink in the sight of him. God he looked too good in his uniform. Bob kept a hold of you, his hand pulling you closer by the small of your back. Fingers dancing along the waistline of your skirt. “Here, I want you to hold onto this for me until I get back to you alright.” Bob took his hand away from where it had made its home on your back. Fishing out his wedding band from his top pocket. Holding your hand out you couldn’t stop the tears from flowing.

“If you don’t come back to me I’ll be really pissed.” You tried to smile, but all that happened was a small sob. “God dammit you better come home—“ throwing your arms around Bob's shoulders you held him tight as he held you. His own tears began to become hard to hold back. “That’s an order Lieutenant.” Pulling back to take one more look at your husband. “Get in, get out—“

“Get in, get out, get back to you.” Bob added, kissing your forehead before kissing your lips, softly, with so much passion. He needed one more taste of you just in case. His free hand holding your chin, keeping your lips pressed against his. “I love you so much, you have no idea how much I love you.” Bob’s voice was low as he let his forehead rest against yours. “You don’t know how badly I would rather give this all up to run away with you, this very second.”

“You’re a Top Gun—you were trained for this, but I can’t help but want to be selfish and just—yeah let’s run away.” You chuckled softly. “Somewhere far away.”

“Australia?” Bob questioned as he kissed you again.

“Not far enough—“ you responded, settling into the moment as Bob drew you in for another hug. “Please for the love of god come back to me.” Bob knew deep down it was unfair to make a promise he didn’t know if he could keep, but for you? He’d lie.

“I promise I’ll come back, in one piece this time.”

“Don't forget to watch your ribs alright—Dr Chris said—“

“Yo Bob! Hey man it’s time to go, get a move on before—“ your grip on Bob grew a little tighter, not ready to give him up. Turning to look at Hangman as he approached you.

“Mind your own damn business Hangman, I’m having a conversation with my husband here.” You hissed as you shot Jake a look, so much hurt, so many emotions as he walked over. Coming closer than you would have liked. Placing a soft hand on your shoulder—you knew.

“It’s time Bob—you gotta get going man.” Bob and Hangman shared an all knowing look, Jake might have been an arse but he knew, Bob needed someone to stay with you while he walked away, to hold you back because god he knew you’d run after him.

“You better get ready to be my all seeing eyes, need my Radar ready to go.” Bob tipped your chin to look at him. “Can’t do this without you—“ Bob kissed you one final time before he stepped away, you reached for his wrist as Jake stopped you, pulling you slightly back as Bob kept walking towards where Phoenix stood by the F-18.

“Jake! What is your problem let me—“ panic set in as your legs grew weak. “Let me go!” Smacking his chest you yelled. “Bob!! No—no no no no Bob! Bob please—“ crying, you felt weak, your legs gave out for a split second, enough time for Jake to have to pull you up. Never having seen you like this, he did the only thing he knew what to do. What he was trained to do.

“Hey—!” He hissed, straightening you up. “You don’t get to do this, you keep standing, know matter how rough the sea? You keep standing, know matter what you don’t give up because if he turns around and sees you giving up? What’s to stop him from accepting that he might not come home? Huh, pull it together—“

“God I hate you—“

“Not an issue, sunshine.” Hangman held you as you cried. Sobbing into his chest as his flight suit muffled your screams of agony. Of heartbreak. Bob turned around just before he climbed up the wing into his WOS seat. His heart was absolutely sinking into his chest. Hangman holding a thumbs up to Bob—he had this.

“I’m gonna be sick.” You coughed, pushing Jake away as you made a dash for the edge of the carrier, hurling your guts up over the edge. Jake coming to rub your back as he watched you experience something he hadn’t in a very long time.

Heartbreak.

“I can’t imagine what the two of you must be feeling.” Hangman cooed, trying his best to comfort you. “But I won’t stand here and let you spiral out of control OS—they need you.”

The sound of your gloves connecting with the boxing pads Bob wore echoed through your Garage turned gym in Lamoore.

“Who do these guys think they are!” You grunted. Sending a right hook Bob's way as he braced for impact. “So humiliating!”

“They’ll never know they need you until they’re asking for an Operations System Specialist to go over their mission reports.” Bob was more than happy to help you let out your frustration, your anger. Leading random combinations so you had something to focus on.

“I should have been a florist like my dad said—“ you scoffed. “What was I bloody thinking, join the Navy, serve your country— blah blah blah, you know what?” You paused, panting as you unstrapped your gloves. “It’s always been the blood men in the Navy I’ve had an issue with, it’s never been civilians or your average Joy flippin Blow.”

“Can we go back to the florist thing for a second?“ Bob teased. “You’ve killed every plant that’s ever flowered in this house—“

“That’s because you’re always deployed and I’m always working on base—“ you replied with a sigh. It was nice to have Bob around for a few days. “Okay so, what else is there?” You questioned, catching your breath as you took a sip of water, sitting down with your knees to your elbows as you looked up at Bob. “Kindergarten teacher? Honestly it’s probably on the same level as trying to teach naval recruits how to read Radar patterns, only the kindergarteners will think that’s cool and not ask me out.”

“Baker? Yeah—You do do a mean banana muffin?” Bob complimented you as he sat beside you, taking his boxing pads off. “Always miss those delicious little things while I’m deployed.” Laughing softly together you sighed. Bob always knew how to soothe your soul.

“Am I losing it?” You questioned. Letting your head drop after a hard day. “Should I just—honestly should I just change career paths?”

“Hey, can I ask you a question?” Bob interrupted. “I mean while you're tossing up a career change, may as well ask.”

“Sure, anything—“ you leaned in to rest your head on Bob's shoulder.

“Have you ever uh, ever thought about kids?” Bob asked softly, his own head had been filled with the idea as of late. Every time he woke up next to you, every time he woke up away from you. He’d never thought about kids before he met you. Was he ready this very second? No. But it would be nice to know if you were both on the same page.

“I mean, yeah—not in heavy detail or at great lengths but I’ve thought about it.” You admitted, twirling the promise ring Bob had gifted you on Valentine’s Day around your finger. This was uncharted territory, you wanted kids, one day, in the distant future.

“What’s the verdict?” Bob tried his best to pry an answer from you, bumping his side you smirked, trying to hide your giddiness. Suddenly like a teenager fresh out of high school.

“The juries still out, but I think it’ll just come down to the right time—with the right person.”

“Right person huh?” Bob cooed, leaning in to press his lips against yours softly. “What’s he’s like?”

“Someone who’s kind, caring, a little bit of a wallflower—eats ginger like it’s fucking carrot, man you gotta stop that shit.” explaining Bob’s personality to him you smirked, Bob softly pushed your head from his shoulder in retaliation. Laughing. “Think he’d be a great dad one day.”

“Well—all we need now is the right time? Because I’ve got my right person.”

“Ease off Lieutenant.” You sighed, wiping your mouth on your sleeve as you turned on your heels, you slid down the railing. Feeling off, dizzy. Fuck this feeling just wouldn’t go away, but you self diagnosed the problem as stress related. You were usually good on your sea legs. Jake doing the same as he sat beside you. “Just give me five minutes—“

“You know, you don’t always have to be strong, sometimes you just need to cuss, scream, or have a really good cry— but never, never get stuck there.” You fell into Hangman’s chest, his arm coming to wrap his arm around your shoulder. Shooing off anyone who dared come near you. “Pull yourself together Radar, and go back to being the bad arse Operations Systems Specialist you are— honestly, none of us would be as good as we are together without you.”

“When and why did you have to end up being a decent person?” You chuckled, rubbing your cheeks as you tried your best to stop the tears from flowing. “Jerk—“

“Bob asked me to look out for you, don’t think this is the start of some sort of friendship.” Jake smirked, standing, he held out a hand for you, helping you up as you dusted yourself off. “You go give ‘em hell.”

—-----

It was more than what you had bargained for, you couldn’t control your breathing, twirling Bob's wedding band around your dog tag chain, you took a deep breath in and out.

“Dagger one, away, Dagger two away. Dagger three away–dagger four away.” You reported to the team on the bridge before you saw the team of four F-18’s show up on your radar systems.

“OS, Dagger one standby check in.” Mavericks voice came through the comms, calming you as you repeated back your findings.

“Maverick, check in–picture is clear, recommend Dagger continue.”

“Copy, Daggers desencind below radar.” In the space of a few seconds, the steady blinking of your radar vanished, the four distinct visuals you had now gone, completely undetected by the radar system.

“Daggers now below radar, switching to E2 picture.” Flipping your signals over you brought up the locations of your Dagger squad once again, to see four planes moving at a steady pace kept your heart from exploding inside your chest.

“Enemy territory up ahead, set to arrive in sixty seconds, OS Dagger one requesting picture.” Maverick reported loud and clear in your headset.

“OS, picture clean.” You paused for a split second, knowing this one it, the final moment of no return. Holding your breath you closed your eyes tight, exhaling slowly. “Decision is yours, copy.”

“Copy–” Maverick paused before giving his final decision. “Dagger attack–” Signalling for the crew who were ready on the tomahawks, you gave your order, listening to the raw of the Tomahawks blast overhead.

“Tomahawks airborne, no turning back now.” You mumbled to Admiral Beau as he stood behind your station. Mavericks voice still clear as day through the comms.

“Daggers, assume attack formation.” A few seconds went past as you watched them change formation on your E2 system. “Daggers set, proceeding to target, two minutes and thirty seconds in three, two, one, mark.” You set your timer, as did Rooster, Phoenix and Payback. All synced. So far so good.

At the sudden and abrupt beeping of your radar, you turned around in your chair, sussing out what was happening before making a comms announcement.

“Daggers, OS here, we’re picking up two bandits, signal for two contacts.” Bob could hear the panic in your voice as you tried to play it cool.

“Where the hell did they come from?” Admiral Beau asked as you tried to get more of a visual.

“Long range patrol?” Admiral Bates tried to make an educated guess.”

“Radar, what's their heading?” You heard Phoenix ask as you scrambled to repeat your findings.

“Bullseye zero nine zero fifty, tax southwest.” You repeated. Trying to figure out what was going on.

“They’re heading away from us, they don't know we’re here.” Rooster chimed in. The comms opening up for everyone.

“The second those tomahawks hit the air base those bandits are gonna move to defend the target, we have to get there before they do, increase speed.”

“We got your Mav, don't wait for me.” Phoenix copied through the comms as you watched Maverick and Phoenix increase their speed. Rooster and Payback falling behind the timer. Your heart sank into the pit of your stomach, that bloody vomit sensation rising.

“Sir, Daggers two and four are behind schedule, time to target one minute and twenty seconds.” Before you could even take a breath you heard your warnings going off. “Tomahawk impact in, three, two–” A small victory in the grand scheme of things, but you wore a brief smile as the target was confirmed. “Impact, the enemy runway is destroyed.” noticing within an instant your radar blinked, the bandits changing course drastically.

“Bandits changing course to defend their target.” feeling the all too familiar feeling rising in your stomach you jumped from your seat, leaving your station. “OS requesting permission to leave the bridge, effective immediately, OS Stevens take the charge!” you gagged, cupping your mouth as you dashed off to the side, finding the nearest bathroom before dropping to your knees, emptying the content of your stomach yet again. Coughing and splattering as you did so.

“You’ve got that James Dean, day dream, look in your eye—!” You couldn’t hear how ridiculous you sounded over the music blaring in your headphones. Your pyjamas on, early night in ahead of you as you stood over the stove, heating up the leftover soup you’d gotten from the Chinese shop just a few clicks down the road. “Mm—no.” Tapping your right airpod to skip to the next song.

“What’s cookin, good lookin?” Bob teased as his duffel bag hit the kitchen floor, scaring you half to death as you let out a scream and turned with a shocked look plastered on your face. “Miss me?”

“Jesus Bob what the hell are you doing home!?” You grinned from ear to ear, running towards where Bob stood, jumping into his arms. You weren’t expecting him home for at least another three weeks. The house you shared together in Lamoore seemed to always be a little less homie whenever Bob was on deployment. “Why are you here? What the hell?”

“I got a new posting actually—“ Bob spun you around and placed you on the island bench of the kitchen. “Said I could take my shore leave now before I go.”

“That’s odd? I just got mine too? For three weeks from now?” You added, your legs wrapped around Bob' waist keeping him close. “We never get deployed at the same time?” It was an uncanny coincidence, every time you’d be stateside, Bob would be on some carrier somewhere. Whenever you were posted out to run operations for patrol boats Bob would be at home, stateside. “Where are you going?”

“I’ll tell you if you tell me?” Bob replied, kissing your lips softly as you cupped his cheeks.

“I’m going to Miramar—“ you said softly.

“Miramar—“ Bob said sadly.

With wide eyes you shared a look with Bob, something between worry, panic and excitement.

“Hang on, why are you going to Top Gun?” Bob asked, puzzled as to why they would want him back, but having you there added another question into the mix.

“Operations, something big by the sounds of it, heard they’re bringing in one of the best to kinda lead you guys.” You replied softly, your eyes taking in every inch of your husband. “Do you know who your partner is?”

“Not a clue, guess I’ll find out soon though, god are you really gonna be my OS?” Bob sighed, taking the piss. “You’re such a hard task master—“

“Ease off mate, you’re just jealous I don’t have to sit in the back seat of an F-18 with ginger and rice threatening to come up every five minutes—“ Bob pulled your head closer, his fingers gripping your hair as you hissed. The sting was worth it. So worth it.

“Fuck I missed you—“ kissing you with enough passion to knock you out, Bob asked for more as his tongue danced with yours. Soft moans escaping from the both of you as you worked to undo his belt buckle. “So much beautiful—“

“Missed you from the moment you left.” You whispered into Bob's mouth as his hands roamed your body, stripping items of clothing off your body as you did with him. Picking you up off the bench, you wrapped your legs around Bob's waist as he carried you into the living room—his lips never leaving yours. Dropping down to the lounge.

“I’ve had some many dreams, woken up some nights a mess because you’re all I can think about.” Ravaging your neck as his fingers snapped the waistband of your panties against your skin before slipping in. Wet folds coating his digits. “You're so wet, did you miss me as much as I missed you?” Bob questioned as he slipped his fingers inside your folds. Coaxing his fingers against your velvet walls. Nodding you moaned. So much pleasure already.

“So much—fuck so much.” Your hand was quick to find Bob's length through his boxer briefs. Bringing him a sense of relief as you worked him. Feeling him harden and grow in your grip. “Want you so bad, need you—“ you moaned as Bob removed his fingers from you. Coming to lick what mess you’d made of his fingers in front of you before sinking down to take your lips with his. Nails digging into his back. Obsessed with one another’s taste, one another’s touch.

“Right time?” Bob whispered with a smirk as he pulled back. Jumping up for a second to race upstairs to his bedside table. “Or not?” Bob cooed. Leaving the choice up to you. Not expecting the answer he got.

“Just fuck me Lieutenant.”

“Eye eye ma’am—“ Bob replied before he joined you on the lounge again. Forgetting everything he knew about protection.

Pulling yourself together, you washed your hand throurraly before returning to your station. All eyes were on you as OS Stevens returned to his corner and allowed you to slide back into work. Your eyes focused down on the E2. placing your headset on you heard maverick in your ear.

“Get me eyes on that target Bob.” You had made your return to the bridge just as they were all approaching the target.

“Target three, stand by Mav!” Bob shouted.

“C’mn Bob, c’mon–” you whispered to yourself. “C’mon baby you got this..”

“Standy by!--” The lock tone came through your comms loud and clear. “I've got it! Captured!”Bob shouted, with no time left to waist Maverick locked on.

“Taget acquired, bombs away!”

“We've got impact! Check! direct hit, direct hit!!” Bob's voice was full of joy, shock even as the target blew.

“That's miracle number one–” Admiral Bates stood behind your smirking as you tried to hide your smile, so proud, so unbelievably proud. Waiting for Rooster to finish the mission with a successful take out—which he did. You jumped out of your seat when he confirmed the hit.

“Bullseye, Bylleyes, bullseye!!!’ you shouted. The entire bridge cheered as you confirmed what they had all been waiting for.

“That's miracle number two Sir.” You chuckled to Admiral Bates, still standing behind you like a hawk, watching what you saw through all your monitors.

“Now they're in confin corner–” he replied sternly. His eyes never leaving your screens, your monitors. The pair of you listening in on what you could only describe as one of the most horrific surface to air missile attacks known to date.

“Radar warning, smoke in the air, Phoenix, break right.” Maverick shouted.

“Emergency Jamison target three defending.” Phoenix replied sharply.

“Here comes another one!” Bob shouted, it tore your heart into a million pieces.

“Dagger one defending–” Maverick shouted, hitting his emergency flares. “Rooster status.”

“Oh my god!” You heard the panic in Rooster's voice as he entered the assault after making it safely over Coffin Corner. “Smoke in the air smoke in the air!”

“Break right Payback, break right!” Fanboy shouted from his WOS seat.

“Breaking right!” Payback confirmed as you tried to keep up with all the commotions coming through the comms. Tears in your eyes. “Oh my god here they go!”

“Coming up on your six Rooster!” Payback confirmed.

“Deploying countermeasures!” Rooster set off his flares, like pops in your ear. “Negative contact!”

“Dager one defending!” Maverick swung heavy into the direction of his wingman.

“Talk to me Bob!” Phoenix shouted.

“Break right Pheonix break right!” Bob's voice could not have sounded more panicked if he was trying. He knew you would be listening. “Nine o’clock! Nine o’clock!” it began all too much for you to keep up with for a moment, all the aviatoros voices compiling into one big mash of noise.

“Rooster , two more on your six!”

“Dagger two defending!”

“Payback, smae of your nose!”

“Dagger one defending.”

“Rooster, tally, tally.”

“Talk to me Bob!”

“On our six!”

“Phoenix break right!”

“Dagger two defending!” Rooster's voice was prominent in your ears. “shit i'm all out of flares.”

“Rooster, evade, evade.” you knew Maverick would lay his life on the line for Rooster. You'd like to think he’d do the same for Bob if it was him. Listening on, you felt hopeless, completely numb.

“I can't shake em, they're on me, they're one me!” pulling back the throttle, you heard Maverick let off his emergency flares. Flying over the top of Rooster as he did so to cover his wingman. You knew this wasn't going to end well. For a counter attack defence manoeuvre it was incredibly risky, and the reward was never that of a high ratio.

“Mav! No!” Rooster cried out. When explosions were heard throughout the bridge, you winced, closing your eyes at the dreaded shout sure to echo through your head for days after.

“Dager one is hit! I repeat, ``Dagger one is hit!” Phoenix shouted over the comms as you tried to process what had just happened and how to proceed, calling on every ounce of your training to get you through the next few minutes. To bring your husband and the rest of the team home safely. “Maverick id down–”

“Dagger one status?” Rooster's voice felt heavy, it seemed full of sorrow and anguish as it rang through your ears, your cheeks wet with tears. “Status, anyone see him? Does anyone see him– Dagger one come in–”

“I didn't see a parachute.” Payback explained. You couldn't breathe, your radar showing more bandits heading towards the dagger crew. Drawing every ounce of strength you had to make the radio callout.

“We have to circle back” You could hear the heartbreak in Rooster’s voice. It mimicked your own.

“OS, bandits inbound, single group hot. I recommend Daggers fly south.” pausing for a second you exhaled hopelessness. “One minute till intercept.”

“Get 'em back to the carrier–” Admiral Beau ordered, watching your hands shake as you zoomed in on your radar trying to see any other way around leaving Maverick behind. You knew Rooster would blame you, you knew this would give him a reason to blame you for Mavericks' untimely death, but as selfish as it was, you wanted your husband back and safe, in one piece, which at the moment, he was.

“All Daggers fly to ECP, you have bandits headed for you.”

“What about Maverick!?” Rooster hissed.

“Tell him there's nothing he can do for Maverick, not in a goddamn F-18!” Admiral Beau hissed at you.

“Dagger spare requesting permission to launch and fly air cover.” Hangman shouted from his position on the flight deck, turning to the Admiral you were on board with the idea, however, to your dismay, he denied the request.

“Negative spare–” you confirmed the denied request to launch.

“Launch search and research.” Admiral Bates commanded, only to have Admiral Beau go against his wishes.

“Negative, not with bandits in the air.”

“Sir! Maverick is still out there!” you shouted, it was bad enough you had told Rooster to stand down and leave his wingman, but not to not launch a search and rescue?

“We are not losing anyone else today!” The Admiral raised his voice at you. “ get them home now! Radar, that is a direct order.”

“Yes sir, Admiral Beau sir.” You gritted your teeth, swinging around in your chair.

“Confirming with all dagger units, you are not to engage, repeat, do not engage, return to carrier, acknowledge.” Your cheeks were sopping wet.” Feeling light headed as your head became increasingly heavy on your shoulders. “Ack-acknowledge Daggers.”

“Rooster, those bandits are closing, we can't go back.” You heard phoenix trying to talk some sense into Rooster when he didn't acknowledge you radio.

“He's gone Rooster, mavericks Gone–” Bob replied, it was the last thing you heard before your body couldn't handle another second, your vision tunnelling before complete nothingness took over.

—-----

“I’m sure it was just a mix of stress, anxiety and exhaustion, Lieutenant Floyd, nothing to be alarmed about at this stage but I highly recommend getting a few tests done when we’re back stateside.” Swain, the carrier’s resident medical officer explained. Leaning back in his chair as you came to with a groggy head. Bob holding your hand as he stood beside where you laid on the bed. “Some bloodwork, we wanna rule out pregnancy or any other conditions that might bring on sudden spells of dizziness and fainting episodes.”

“Uh—yeah.” Bob pressed his hips together as he nodded in response. The mention of pregnancy sparking his interest—Bob hadn’t heard you complain about period cramps or anything? He was sure you were late.But you would have said otherwise? Right? “Yeah sure thing, thank you sir.”

“Don’t call me sir Bob I work for a living—“

Swain chuckled as he removed his gloves. “I’ll leave you two be for a few minutes, just make sure she drinks that cup of Hydralyte and takes two Advil.”

Your vision was blurry at first as you tried to sit up. Bob held your hand as he helped ease you up slowly. Your first instinct? To draw him in for a hug. Wrapping your arms around his shoulders as he did so your waist. “Hi—“

“You’re back, thank heavens, I was so worried I’d never see you again.” You admitted. “And I’ve changed my mind, I never want to be your OS again.” You confessed. “I’ll never get that out of the back of my mind, god—not knowing if the next missile would be—“

“Hey, I’m here, I’m okay? It’s you I'm worried about?” Bob cooed, cupping your cheeks as he leaned in to gently kiss your lips. Something he thought he’d never be able to do again.

“I’m not overthinking this Bob, that was a close call, right? Too close.” You couldn’t tell at the time, but Bob would leave that carrier a changed man. Haunted and plagued with nightmares, he’d lie awake at night and hear the sounds of surface to air Missiles, he’d hear the sounds of defense flares and of course, he’d hear you cry for the man you could have lost. But for now? Bob would smile, he’d kiss your forehead as he took in the smell of your perfume. Subtle and floral.

“You know me, I secretly live for that sort of stuff—“ Bob pulled back, handing you the cup of blackcurrant hydralyte, taking it gracefully, you rolled your eyes as you took a sip.

“We’ll just as long as you don’t die for it.” You teased, mumbling into the plastic cup as you washed your Advil down. “I don’t know what I would have done if you didn’t make it come.” That all too familiar feeling came racing back to the surface as you cupped your mouth, dashing over to the sink as you emptied whatever was left in your stomach. The hydralyte coming right back up. Bob watched on with a puzzled expression, checking the date on his watch, just having a small but pressing hunch.

“Hey—uh, are you— um? Late? by any chance?” You coughed in response, washing your mouth out with water as you sighed. Standing on sea legs that had done nothing but fail you while being on this carrier. “Is there a chance—“

“Oh shit—“ you gasped. “Fuck, I am, I’ve been so worried about you and this damn mission I didn’t even realise.” You could feel your heart trying to explode out of your chest. “Oh god am I pregnant? Are we pregnant?”

“If you were, would it be such a bad thing?” Bob stepped close to you, his hand coming to rest on top of your stomach as he drank in the sight of you. The love of his life. “Right person? Maybe it’s the right time?” Kissing your lips, Bob softly let a moan escape as you deepened the kiss, arms wrapping around his neck. You smirked against his lips as you pulled back. The idea that you might possibly be pregnant not such a terrible one.

“Right person, right time.”

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~

Tags:

@kkrenae @lexhalstead3 @justanothermagicalsara @luckyladycreator2 @milesrooster @a-serene-place-to-be

#robert bob floyd #top gun maverick fanfiction #bob floyd angst #bob floyd fanfiction #bob floyd smut #bob floyd fluff #jake seresin angst #jake hangman seresin #top gun fandom #top gun bradley bradshaw #top gun rooster #top gun fic #bob floyd imagine #Bob Floyd fic #bob floyd x reader

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little-bloodied-angel · 3 months

Text

This morning I woke up and my right leg was screaming. The pain was so intense and brutal it was what woke me; I had to sink my teeth into my pillow and scream, too. Every cell from hip to knee is (yes, still) burning, liquid acid going through my veins; and the calf is strained and cramped and protesting the extra work as hard as it can.

I still had to use the bathroom; when I tried to stand up it buckled, like a lightning bolt went through it, and I went to the floor. Even just rotating in bed to get out was agonizing on my hip. My foot was numb, full of pins and needles for lack of proper circulation.

I limped there, dragging my leg behind, supporting my weight on the wall and gritting my teeth. The process of sitting down and standing up almost made me black out.

Over the sink, I looked at myself in the mirror and willed myself not to cry. When I came back into my room I caught sight of my medications on my bedside table, the myriad of pills I'll be taking for as long as I live. The Tramadol on top of them was mocking me, and I did cry then.

I remember everything my body could do. I remember flying. I remember the fall, too, the agonized animal screams that seemed to come from outside my body, the brutal audible SNAP of muscle and tendon, the bone against the hardwood, the hushed whisper-shouts of "get help -she can't move -she can't walk -god, her leg!"

The doctor's office and his placid smile as he told me I was "lucky" because my ACL didn't require surgery at the same time he delivered my death sentence, or what may as well been.

"A career in ballet is no longer an option for you".

I know he didn't understand how people who dance with the goals I did live and die for that dancing. He thought I was young and I'd find something else to do. I was young and a part of me died in that accident and I had to bury it.

I remember a different doctor, a different office, her worried face scanning my psychiatric history like she thought I'd kill myself right in front of her because of the diagnosis as she told me what I already knew.

"You have fibromyalgia. I'll prescribe medication to manage it, you have to be careful with it. But..."

But it'll never get better. You'll always hurt. It'll get worse. I already knew that. I just wanted someone to sign on it, because it turns out that when doctors perceive you as female, complaints of chronic pain tend to fall by the wayside, particularly if you have a history of mental illness. She took me seriously. She warned me about my leg, about what a flareup would do somewhere I'm already hurting all the time, and I kept myself from barking at her I fucking know, that's part of what it's been like for almost a decade because at least she believed me.

I mourned my body again, all the same.

I lay in bed gripping my thigh, trying to will the spasms down, trying to decide between yelling and sobbing, trying to figure out why: had I slept on it wrong? Was it the weather? It had hurt after walking too much on Monday, but not as much as I expected; a delayed reaction? It didn't matter, in the end; it wasn't going to take the pain away.

I thought of Izzy, as I tore my lips apart with my teeth to feel something that wasn't my damn leg. I thought of how real he felt, the tears and the screaming, the gritted teeth, the suicidal loss of identity. The loneliness. I thought of his stubbornness, his progress. How much both of those realities meant. How they thrashed it all, in one moment, and all but told us, the ones that feel like him, "when the desire to die comes back just do it. You've outlived what you were, so who you are has *had enough*", and my mouth tasted like blood for more than one reason.

He meant so much. He could have meant so much more. And we have to wipe the spit of this insult from our faces and carry on and accept it was part of a happy ending.

He might've forgiven it all; he was a character and you made him. I don't. I won't. I'm still here, with my pain and anger, and I refuse to die so the people who want me gone can live in peace. And I refuse to be quiet and accept that for a happy ending I should fade away.

If you can't understand this anger, at least don't insult me and others like me by telling us there's no reason for it.

I'm hazy with pain and aware that I'm rambling. But whatever I don't bleed in ink will poison me.

#me #personal #izzy hands #abuse tw #israel hands #israel basilica hands #negative #swearing #disability #actually disabled #chronic pain #blood mention #ofmd critical #ableism #our flag means death critical #suicidal ideation #suicide mention #tw suicide

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rinwritesfics · 4 months

Text

The Cabin

Plot: The day before Life Day, you and Wolffe are sent to a safehouse as you harbor feelings for each other.

Warnings: minor angst in the form of frostnip, a lead-in to sex but not full-on sex

Word Count: 2373 (I have no control, nor do I have any shame about this.)

Author’s Note: A fic for the Secret Santa Gift Exchange by @cloneficgiftexchange. @221bshrlocked, I really hope you like this! After reading the prompts, this wouldn’t get out of my head, and I’ve never been more of a Wolffe simp than I am now. The prompts are bolded.

This was the worst. You weren’t sure how you were assigned to this, but somehow, you were. And right before Life Day, no less. This planet felt like it was colder than the depths of space, despite it being impossible. But, as you looked at Wolffe, who was leading the two of you to a safe house for him no less, you started to wonder if it was possible.

The nice thing about being a civvie medic assigned to the army was the army seemed to take great care in the comfort of the civvie positions. But you could see they didn’t afford the troopers the same luxury. He was wearing his harsh weather kit, but it was thin. And if you were feeling a bit chilled, you couldn’t imagine how he was feeling as you both trekked through the blizzard.

“Keep up,” he said a bit gruffly through his helmet’s modulator, but the usual bite in his tone was lacking. Something was wrong.

“Commander.”

“Keep. Up.”

The bite was back, and worse than usual. Something was bothering him immensely, and it wasn’t you. You kept up as ordered.

He kept flexing his fingers as subtly as he could, but you caught it. It was in that action that your thoughts were confirmed. You had to move faster to get to shelter, before frostbite set in.

Commander Wolffe wasn’t one to bring to light his physical discomfort – even to you. According to General Plo, the commander listened to you more than any other medic. You figured it was probably because you were a civvie and not one of his brothers.

To your surprise, Wolffe turned back to you and let you catch up with him.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have taken that tone with you,” he said just loud enough to be heard over the wind.

“No apology necessary, Commander. You’re right, we have to keep moving.” You nodded, then gently patted his arm, keeping pace with your previous speed. The cabin started to show not far from you and you both sped up as much as possible through the flakes as they pelted you both.

Inside the small cabin, it was cold and dark, but there was no draft inside which improved things. You flipped on the breaker box, then the water heater, and turned on a lamp beside one of the chairs in the main room. As you went to check how frozen the fireplace flue is, you noticed Wolffe was examining the modestly-furnished place, but shivering a little more than you were.

“Commander.”

“Almost done,” he grumbled, still inspecting the cabin.

“It’s fine. Come here.”

He spun around to you. “Excuse me?”

“I’m a medic, and right now, I have concerns about your health. The general sent me along to ensure your health and safety during this time, and I won’t let you freeze to death, especially on the first night.”

He sighed heavily through his modulator, then pulled off the helmet and scowled.

“Gloves next, please.”

“Why?” he barked, then seemed a bit cowed.

“Gloves, Commander,” you said in a tone with patience that was thinning.

He grumbled again, then started to pull off his damp gloves. It was difficult, so you stepped in to help. The tips of his fingers were starting to turn pink and you pulled off your gloves to touch his hands and examine them.

“Numbness giving way to pins and needles?” you asked quietly.

“Yes,” he said, his tone a bit quieter.

“Toes, too?”

“Just cold.”

“Bear with me here.” You gently took one hand between yours, enveloping his fingers as best you could. They were very cold, even to you. You hissed, then said in a concerned tone, “Wolffe, why didn’t you say h-how bad it is?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Well, now I’m extra worried. The water heater will take a while to warm up and I have to prep the cold flue for a fire. There are very few options to fighting back this frostnip of yours right away, and I don’t imagine the rest of the openings of your armor are much better off compared to what happened to your gloves.”

He shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”

You added quietly, “Like hells you will. Go find some blankets and, I say this in the most professional way possible, strip off your damp clothing to wrap yourself in the blankets.”

He looked at you with an eyebrow raised and eyes wider than usual, then turned away just as his cheeks showed a bit more color. Considering his cheeks were probably flushed from some of the chill already, you shut down the idea that coloring could have been a blush.

You dug through supplies in the cabinets, then found a hairdryer amongst other items, and started to try to warm up the flue enough it wouldn’t spit back smoke when you lit the fire. After a few minutes, Wolffe’s scoff sounded behind you, and you turned to him. He was bundled in a couple blankets, carrying a couple more with him.

“A hairdryer?” he asked, a bit of disbelief in his tone.

“Yes, Commander, you ever lit a fire in a fireplace that’s cold?”

He shook his head.

“I’ve seen it. It’s thermodynamics as the cold air sinks -”

He held up his hand and you stopped. “I get it.”

You nodded and turned back to trying to warm the flue. “How are you feeling? Your hands starting to warm up?”

“Not a ton, but things haven’t gotten worse.” He walked over to the water heater and huffed a sigh. He read out the temperature to you, one that was good enough, and you told him to grab a bowl and run the faucet before filling it. The heated water wouldn’t be at optimal temperature, but it would be better.

He turned to you and said as he filled the bowl, “Why couldn’t we use the electric stove to warm the water?”

You paused. “Kriff.”

He chuckled. “Suppose I could’ve thought of that, too. Honestly, the fact you thought about the flue temperature is impressive.”

“As a medic, they teach about survival as well as everything else. Guess something stuck.” You smiled a little, teasing yourself for the most part.

The kitchen faucet stopped, and he fumbled a bit with the bowl in the sink. You set down the hairdryer and came over to help him get it to the table. He grumbled a bit about it, but didn’t say anything definitive.

After, you put on a kettle to boil water for the cocoa you found earlier. You were aware as he watched you… well, like a wolf as you moved about he small cabin, getting hot cocoa set before him and going back to the fireplace.

You started a small fire shortly after, relieved when the smoke starts up the chimney and doesn’t come back down. Putting a couple logs in, you let the fire grow a bit before heading back to the dining table to check him.

“How are the fingers doing?”

“Better,” he said quietly. Something else was bugging him, as the clipped, gruff tone was back.

“So what’s bothering you?”

He grumbled nonsense.

“Commander,” you said sternly.

He huffed. “I should be the one getting the fire going.”

“Why?”

“I’m the commander. I shouldn’t just be sitting and doing nothing.”

“Wrong. You’re under strict orders from the medic to get better. You’re healing. Commander, frostnip isn’t child’s play – it can cause actual damage, if I may remind you.”

“Well, don’t remind me,” he bit out, then looked ashamed.

“I know I’m not one of your brothers, but that doesn’t mean I want to see you suffer.”

He grumbled, “You’re a medic. Course you don’t want to see suffering.”

“It’s not just that, Commander. The 104th matters to me almost like family, okay?”

He looked up at you, a bit surprised.

“I know, I get it, I’m civvie-born. Or, what was it Comet called it…?”

“Nat-born,” Wolffe said quietly.

“Right, that. Not fond of that term because of how it reflects on you boys.” You grumble a bit, causing him to smile. “Anyway, I’m not like you boys, but I still care.”

Wolffe’s mouth dropped open, cheeks flushing a bit again.

“You okay, Commander?”

“Y-yeah.”

You look at him with concern.

“I’m fine,” he growled, then stood up from the table, leaving the bowl behind, then sitting on the couch.

You walked over to him and sat beside him. “Commander, if something is wrong, I need to know.”

“Alright, alright….” He sighed. “But don’t laugh at me.”

You nod and wait.

“I think… I think I love you,” he said softly.

Your mouth dropped open. “Y-you do?”

He nodded, looking slightly uncomfortable. “Look, I know I’m your commander technically, but I couldn’t help it. You’re so kriffing persistent, in my brain all the time. Thinking about your smile, your laugh, how it would feel to kiss you in the snow….”

You smiled softly. “Commander….”

He looked at you, the pleading in his eyes catching you off-guard, as did the slight wince as he prepared for the worst.

You whispered, “Wolffe….”

The worry in his eyes vanished, replaced with hope.

“I… I have feelings for you, too.”

He sat up, then gently took your cheek in his hand. “Mesh’la… I want to kiss you.”

You nodded, then leaned forward and your lips brushed his. He cupped the back of your head in his free hand and he pulled you into the kiss. You both got lost in the kiss, letting the time you’ve gone apart melt away as you make up for it all. All the pain and longing disappear, leaving warmth and love behind in their wake. Eventually, you both pulled apart to breathe. He welcomed you into the blanket cocoon he had, holding you against his half-naked body. You blushed, but wrapped your arms around him anyway as you shared the blankets.

Wolffe softly said, “I know it’s a little early, but I think I got what I wanted for Life Day.”

“Oh, did you?” you laughed softly.

He nodded, a smile on his face. “I get to be with you. I’ve been trying to figure out how to talk to you about the possibility of us for a while, now.”

You smiled shyly. “Yeah? You wanted me for Life Day?”

He smiled softly. “In a way. It’s not a holiday song type of wish since you’re a person and not an object….”

You laughed. “That’s okay. I want to be yours, anyway.”

“You’re sure?” he asked hopefully.

You nodded.

“I want to kiss you again.”

“Yes, please,” you whispered.

His lips were warm compared to what you were expecting and you responded almost immediately. His hands rested on your waist and you moved closer to him.

He pulled back a little, then grinned. “I can think of a way that we can warm up more.”

“Why, Commander, what are you proposing?” you asked teasingly, then your breath hitched as his hand moved to the middle of your hip.

“Would it be too fast, or have we been pining long enough?” he asked in a dizzyingly gruff tone. This time, it was mixed with a bit of lust.

You grinned. “Pining long enough.”

He leaned in again, smiling, then kissed you, this time more passionately. The two of you leaned back on the couch, with you looking up at him, and he gripped your hip a bit tighter. His other hand, still a tad chilly, started to slide under your shirt, causing you to gasp softly into his mouth. He took the opportunity to kiss you open-mouthed, then move his hand higher.

“This okay?” he whispered into the kiss.

“Yes,” you whispered back. His lips were so intoxicating and you arched your back as his fingers traced closer to your breast. They finally landed over your bra and he started to caress the first curve. The touch was muted by the fabric still between you and you pulled back from the kiss to slip off your shirt and your bra. His eyes widened as he looked down at you, fingers gently touching the swell of your breast again.

“Wow,” he said appreciatively. “All for me?”

“Always has been,” you said softly back, causing a guttural groan from him, one that made your thighs clench. “Are we really doing this, Wolffe? Are you sure I’m the one you want?”

He nodded. “Yes. And something tells me General Plo planned on this happening, otherwise he wouldn’t have sent us alone.”

“Remind me to get him a gift basket when we’re back at the Venator,” you chuckled.

“Will do. Now, I want to show you how much I’ve wanted you for so long.”

You grinned, then pulled him back down into a kiss, ready for a long night of love and passion in front of the warm fire.

Bonus!:

The next morning, the blizzard finally calmed down, making it safe to step outside into the light flurries. You grinned at Wolffe and pulled him outside, both of you fully dressed in the clothes that dried by the fire. It was still chilly and the flakes immediately stuck to his hair, but you didn’t care. You pulled him to your lips and kissed him, surprising him. It wasn’t a big gift, but it was a start.

Pulling back after the long kiss, he grinned. “What is this all about?”

“You’d said you wanted to kiss me in the snow, so I thought I might make that a reality.” You smiled back.

The chuckle that escaped him was just as warm as the love you made last night. “Oh, mesh’la. That’s not what I quite meant. I meant playing in the snow and kissing you.”

“Why not both?” You bent down and scooped up some snow, throwing it at his chestplate. His eyes widened in mischief.

“You sure you want to do this?” he asked slyly.

“Will it get me kissed?” you tease.

He growled playfully and you knew you were in for it.

“Happy Life Day, Wolffe.” You grinned.

“Mm, happy Life Day, cyar’ika.” He grinned back before he got you back for the snowball.

#tcw wolffe x reader #tcw wolffe #clone fic gift exchange #lde23

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somebluemelodies · 5 months

Text

DAY TWO OF SPIDERBIT THEME WEEK STARTED BY @anonymous-dentist! :D SELECTED THEME: MURDER HUSBANDS (au slash something or other where purgatory happens later bc we were robbed of murder husbands plans) (i, uh… violence warning? murder husbands commit murder. i think this is one of the more interesting things i've ever written. you'll see why)

Their synergy is that of a well-oiled machine; quick yet eerily meticulous, like they’d done it together a thousand times already.

(Only one of them has. But the anger, the desire for blood and revenge from the other, is the perfect compensation.)

Their victims don’t stand a chance, one dropping to the floor right after the other with barely a chance to react.

The guard vaguely recognizes the man pinning him to the ground, whose arms are littered in scars new and old and whose clothes are stained with blood. A red and black dagger is held against its throat. They warned it, about this man. A potential threat, but not definitive.

Definitive, indeed.

The struggle only seems to make the man more pleased, laughing with a grin like the Cheshire Cat. The guard gets a few hits in with its baton, knocking him back, but he always comes right back, eager to fight. Eager to play. Eager to kill.

The other worker knows next to nothing about the other man dealing with it. But what’s more concerning is that they were wrong. There isn’t just one killer to be weary of. Since when was there two? Has it been two this whole time?

It’s this worker that’s the first of the two to go, the spider-hybrid above it playing no games with it, unlike his companion. The worker’s one and only attempt at self-defense is blocked with ease, and it watches as two extra sets of ruby red eyes open to stare at it, pupils as thin as needles.

(As if to say, you shouldn’t have done that.)

He strikes, and there are fangs piercing its neck. Immediately, it feels something coursing through its veins, numbing as its limbs feel as heavy as lead. The fangs are torn out of its white fur with no remorse, and the last thing it feels through coughing and sputtering is a spider leg piercing right through his chest. Digging.

And that’s that.

The guard sees it happen. And that’s the last thing it sees. Because the dagger that’d been shoved through its chest is pulled out and slicing against its neck, quick and efficient as it slumps to the floor, unmoving…

Cellbit climbs to his feet, lifting the dagger and swiping his tongue along the flat side of the blade, licking the blood clean off.

He watches Roier - his love, his husband - hold a heart without so much as flinching. If anything, the spider-hybrid seems just as pleased as he is, even if his expression is stoic, borderline angry.

(He knows how to read that man better than most people.)

Roier’s black sweatshirt is stained even darker still with fresh blood, hands covered in it too as he drops the organ carelessly, standing as well.

(Cellbit’s heart jumps, and he resists the urge to walk over, pulling him into a smothering kiss.)

It’s Roier who walks over to him first, finally smiling and looking evidently satisfied. Roier slips behind him, chin hooking over his shoulder, arms circling his waist as they both admire their handiwork.

“Que lindo,” the spider-hybrid murmurs.

The tone nearly sends a pleasant shiver down Cellbit’s spine. “Sim.”

Cellbit finally wheels around after a few moments pass, shoving his dagger away momentarily to cup Roier’s face and pull him into a bruising kiss.

His husband makes a surprised sound but immediately reciprocates, arms wrapping tight around his neck and deepening the kiss.

It tastes like blood; metallic and bitter and addictive.

(Cellbit’s heart hammers in his chest, and he’s never felt more alive.)

(Roier starts to understand the thrill, too.)

…

Two new bodies show up, mutilated and massacred as ever. But there’s a catch, this time. They don’t show up days apart; they appear on the same exact day, and the exact same place.

(And one of them is missing a heart.)

The dead Federation workers have been morbidly displayed on the quartz floor in front of the train station. Bloody symbols paint the pristine white floor crimson with another message, another clue.

Find it before we do.

Far away from the train station, in a tall, brooding castle on a hill, the island’s head investigator sits, carefully cleaning red off of his wedding ring as he and his husband strategize and plan out their next little date.

#one of my spider hybrid roier hc’s is that he has four additional ‘legs’#kinda like some variants of spider-man having retractable mechanical ones #but these aren’t retractable or mechanical he just keeps them hidden a lot #unless he’s fighting #bc they’re very useful for fighting #on another note i think i surprised myself with this one #it is one thing to talk about wanting spiderbit to make out covered in blood and admire each other #and it is another thing to write it #i have no further comment #qsmp cellbit #qsmp roier #spiderbit #qsmp #blue writes qsmp #a.d's spiderbit week

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kendrene · 1 year

Note

Avatrice + “Ineptly kiss cheek”

(Also I love your writing)

Ava never lingered much on the concept of water before Beatrice taught her to swim. She’s come to learn since that each body of water is different. Wind blows down from the nearby mountains and fluffs the surface of the lake with its touch. The public pool at the end of their street every single afternoon — weekends excluded — hosts a miniature tsunami; 3pm sharp, the end of daily kindergarten summer camp.

The stream they’re resting next to is overseen by gravity.

Ava spends a solid fifteen minutes crouching on the edge of it, watching water race downhill. Vortexes and whirlpools form where the stream runs deeper, foam laps at the bigger rocks. The stream sometimes forces a path through them, sometimes hops right past.

“Take off your shoes and come in!” Beatrice bends down, splashing a little wave in her direction. “The water is nice, I promise.”

“The water is cold.”

“If you come here I’ll teach you to fish.”

Ava frowns, making a mental inventory of everything that’s in the rucksack Bea had her lug all the way up here. Nope. No fishing equipment.

“We have no fishing poles or bait.”

“All you need is your hands, Ava.”

Beatrice is gonna teach her some kung-fu level shit. Hell yeah. She’s in.

Literally.

The water is cold, as the chill rising from it to sting Ava’s cheeks had her guess rightly. It’s colder than expected. She wades upstream to where Bea is waiting, the soles of her feet slipping over smooth rock until her flesh is solid pins and needles. The numbness makes it somewhat bearable to copy Beatrice’s stance, body braced against the swiftness of the current, but only just.

“Okay. I’m here. Now what?” Ava wiggles toes she can no longer feel and peers under the clear surface of the water. It’s like observing the world through a piece of warped glass; her feet still attached, but kind of the wrong shape. She wonders, briefly, whether they’re starting to turn a shade of blue. It’s a trick of the light, splicing through water. Maybe.

“The fish, do you see them?”

It takes a few moments for Ava to notice the first. Slim shape threading like a silver needle through a tapestry of water. There’s more; a school of them camped in the shade of jutting rocks a few steps away.

“So you want to make sure not to shadow the water.” Beatrice bends her knees slightly as she talks, shifts first one foot, then the other, careful not to cause any ripples. “Fish will notice and dart where you can’t catch them, if you do.”

Ava can see what she means, how she positions herself so that her shadow, while stretching big over the water at her back, does so away from where the fishes gather. “Once you’re in position, you wanna dip your hands in slowly. Like this.” Beatrice’s fingers break through the water tension, and she lowers her voice to a barely audible whisper. “And then—” Beatrice makes a scooping motion. The fish scatter. Except for the one that she’s holding, steady, with both of her hands. “Here.” She lets the fish go. “Now you try.”

Ava tries.

Again.

“Ava we should head back. It’s getting late.”

“Just one more try?” Ava’s legs are numb all the way to her thighs. Her hands are red, the skin of her fingers wrinkled from having spent so much time underwater. Her shirt is soaked through. “I swear I almost had the last one.” From the grassy streambank Beatrice looks at her, doubtful. “Please, Bea?”

“One last try.” Bea finally agrees, and Ava has to hide a quick grin. “I mean it Ava.” Beatrice adds, like she knows exactly what Ava is thinking.

“Okay. Alright.” Ava totters back upstream, shielding her eyes against the setting sun. Orange-soft light hits the water at an angle, making it hard to see what lies under the surface. Not that it makes much of a difference. Even when she could see the fish, Ava didn’t catch shit.

One last try. She pulls in a breath, holds it and feels her heart slow. Feels Beatrice’s gaze on her like a tangible weight, a hand cupping her cheek. Her whole face heats up, and to offset the sudden flush Ava plunges her hands in the water.

One attempt.

She’s got to make it count.

Something smooth and quick bumps against the curl of her fingers right as the day ends. Her hand closes, reflexively, pulling in and up the way Beatrice had shown her.

“I got it!” Ava lifts the squirming fish over her head with a laugh. “Bea, look! I caught one!”

“So I see.” Bea stands. Stretches. A smile teases at the corner of her lips, rivaling the setting sun for brightness. “You did good.”

“Don’t worry, lil guy.” Ava cradles the fish gently. “I’m gonna put you back into the water now. But first—” She brings the wriggling form to her face and kisses it quickly. “I kiss you goodbye.”

“Ava!”

“What?” Letting the fish go, Ava clambers out of the water. “Wait, are you jealous? Because I can kiss you, too, you know.”

“Ava, st—”

Before Beatrice can complete the sentence, Ava has reached her. She means the kiss to be just an innocent peck on Bea’s cheek, but her wet feet make the grass slippery. Ava falls forward. Beatrice catches her.

Ava kisses her right on the mouth. Neither of them break away.

Oh.

Fuck.

#warrior nun #avatrice #fishing au #switzerland era #my beloved #dren writes

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triplesilverstar · 2 months

Text

A valentines you weren't expecting

Rating: 18+ Minors DNI

Pairing: Vash X F!Reader

CW: Shared showers, wine drinking, chocolate, making out, massages, naked

Word count: 2.1K

A/N: A Valentine's day special where Vash points out just how much he adores you, even if aren’t aware it’s a day for anything special.

The first of four V day fics!

Sitting on the second bed with your rifle stripped for a deep cleaning you ignore the sound of metal on metal as what is clearly a key being slipped into a lock reaches your ears. The clatter of the knob turning and the hinges give an ominous creek as you lift the barrel to your eye and pointed toward the ceiling. It’s not the best lighting in the world yet the dim bulb still casts enough brightness to shine down the inside of the metal tube, highlighting the bore's rifling as you turn it slightly to look in between the groves as best as you can.

Still ignoring the other person as the floorboards groan under sure footsteps, your nose twitching as you notice what looks to be a few specks of sand in one of the grooves letting out a grumble of dissatisfaction.

“You’re still at it Mayfly? I’ve been gone for almost two hours.” At the sound of Vash’s docile tone, you find the twisting of your fingers halting. Two hours? The dull pain in your forearms from your earlier actions with your cleaning picks as you worked the built-up carbon around the chamber from the crevices. The sound of the clacking metal had been soothing, the repetitiveness easing your tremulous mind.

It had been a rough few days and easy to fall into such a trance. Habit. An old habit that allowed you to turn your mind off.

Now that you had broken from such a trance the strain between your shoulders and the stiffness of your neck from looking down at the pieces of your rifle strewn across your lap as you had worked making itself known. The dull pain of your blunted fingertips made you wince from the hardened flesh blunted over, maybe you were working too hard.

“I guess I was.” Pressing the tip of your nail against the stiff flesh of one of your fingers that you’re barely aware of the sensation except for the pressure against the skin. It’s been a while since you were so lost in thought.

“Hey” Your head snapping upwards to see a pair of bright blue eyes staring into your own no more than a few inches between your faces. How with all the creeks you had already learned were in the floorboards of this room had you missed him moving closer? “You really are out of it.” Lifting your rifle receiver from your grasp and laying in on the fabric beside you before gripping both of your hands and pulling you upwards. “I think I have just the thing.”

Moments like this you’re reminded Vash is much more than his appearance lets on, while your legs are numb and needles and pin shoot up your feet as they land on the floor with blood flow returning to them you don’t have to worry about falling over. Your legs might not want to support your weight but Vash’s hold on you is more than enough, even if you feel more like a newborn tomas. “Vash, I need to put my rifle back together.” A weak argument against whatever he has planned pulling you towards the bathroom that is attached to the room.

“I think you can leave it for a little bit Mayfly.” Another tug on your hands and you give in, a few more steps and you can feel more of the fatigue in your limbs and the tension in your back.

“If we have to run out of the room and I miss a rifle part I’m blaming you.” Muttering as Vash has you in the bathroom, finally releasing your hands and flicking a few knobs letting his jacket fall from his shoulders and laughing. The sound echoes around the smaller room and it makes something in your body relax, like being wrapped in a warm blanket.

“We both know you can strip and reassemble that thing in your sleep.” Teasing you as he fiddles with the water until he has it at a temperature he wants before turning back towards you. “Speaking of strip.” Dexterous fingers are quick to find the hem of your shirt and help you out of your clothes.

“Why do I think you’re up to something naughty there sunshine?” Questioning him as you helped delve him of his own clothes, humming in enjoyment as you trailed your fingers across his scarred chest. Vash still has his moments where he hates letting you see him like this, yet as your relationship has progressed he’s let down some of those walls. Letting some of that vulnerable side of him show and while you weren’t as nervous about your body you still respected his more bashful side. Vash has mapped most of your scars and you were well on your way to doing the same to him, the only difference was your body no longer had new ones added on a regular basis.

“It’s the farthest from my mind right now.” A twinkle in those pretty blue eyes as he takes one of your hands once more, helping you over the lip of the tub and under the hot spray. Sighing as the water pounds into your tired muscles as Vash has your back to the showerhead so you're facing one another, his hands trailing along your sides. “We’ve had a few rough days, Mayfly and I think you need a chance to relax. Just let me take care of you tonight.”

A quick kiss before his fingers are kneading the meat of your shoulders as the steam starts to fill your nostrils. Dropping your head to rest against his chest and letting Vash do just that. “Alright Vash. Just tonight.” As those nimble digits of his work along your tight muscles, you focus on the way some of the water sprays along his chest. Highlighting some of his scars and the way it washes down along his ravaged skin in streams.

As your muscles loosen under his tender ministrations Vash switches to cleaning your skin and helping you work the grime nd grit out of your hair making you laugh at the sensation of his fingertips dragging along your scalp.

“Want some help yourself there handsome?”

“Nope. I told you I’m taking care of you tonight.” Another quick kiss before Vash takes your place under the spray and cleans his own body and blond hair in almost no time before turning off the water. Refusing to let you dry yourself, his hands take extra care as he runs the towel along your skin letting his fingers linger in places as he works, and when he gets to your hands raising each to his lips and kissing the tip of each digit while sending you heart eyes that has your heart doing silly things in your chest.

Wrapped in the fabric with another towel hung around his waist he guides you back into the room and sits you on the bed not strewn with rifle parts before digging in his bag. A small triumphant “ha” from him once he finds what he’s looking for and you have to snort. It’s one of the tubes of lotion from the time when you and Vash had fixed one of the plants and then stopped a group of bandits from trying to steal it.

“Lay on your stomach Mayfly.” Rolling your eyes you do as he asked, letting out a small laugh as a small cup is placed in front of you. When did he pour that? A quick sniff and you lift yourself up to look at him with a raised eyebrow.

“You know I don’t drink often Vash.” He’s placed some kind of red wine in the plastic cup no doubt the best thing he could find in the room to hold the alcohol.

“Humor me.” Laughing before tugging the towel from around your form, his dry lips following the curve of your spine as he blazes a familiar trail down, kissing every vertebra as he goes. “I have a plan for it for later.” Taking a sip and blinking as the weight of the wine hits your tongue, it’s heavy on your palate and you find yourself curious as to what he might have in store for you.

A small gasp escapes you as the cool lotion is dropped on your skin before slowly warming as his flesh hand starts to work the cream into your upper back. His prosthetic trailing along your side, touch light and you shiver from the dual sensation of warm and cool racing along your body. Vash is slow and methodical as he works from the outside of your back and towards the center until just the skin along your spine remains bare.

Another searing line of kisses from his lips before both thumbs are pressed against the dry skin. The nails of both move down slowly on the outside of the bone framing the ridge of your vertebrae. Your breathing slows as his warm breath washes over your skin, you don’t have to look at him to know he’s staring at the twin lines of scar tissue that run parallel to one of the most important sections of the nervous system.

A reminder of what was done to you, the most vivid of all your scars from the experiments you had been an unwilling participant in. You know it’s also the set Vash is most fascinated by, the set you’ve often woken up to feeling his fingers tracing compared to the ragged one on your chest near your heart.

Almost reverent in his adoration of this one set. You know he’ll never say it, but you often wonder if it makes some small part of him happy. The things that were done to you allow you to share in some of his experiences, to live as long as he has. If he does you also know he hates that part of himself because he feels he doesn’t deserve any happiness and you had to go through that pain for it to be possible.

“Sunshine?” A brush of the smooth metal of his thumb before he starts moving again.

A soft whisper of your name before you feel the prick of his hair followed by his forehead being placed against the space between your shoulder blades. “I love you.” A few wet drops hit your skin and you know he’s crying at the admission, placing the cup on the nightstand before reaching back to try and touch him.

“And I love you Vash.” Catching one of his upper arms and pulling along it until he gives in to letting his hand intertwine with yours. The two of you stay like that for a while, just listening to each other's breath and the sound of movement outside as the town slows down, dusk falling just outside the curtain blocking part of the window. A shiver eventually pulls both of you from your musing. “I might be getting chilly” you admit as Vash removes his body from above yours. “Did you have anything else planned?”

“Yea.” He wipes at his eyes with the heel of his hand before leaving the bed, pulling his sleep pants on before opening a paper bag on the table.

“Donuts?” you question, watching the shifting of his tousled blond locks as he pulls over a silver wrapped item before moving closer with your own sleep clothes. Letting you dress yourself before pulling you into his lap on the bed.

Tearing the package and placing a small dark brown object on his tongue, closing the distance to kiss you sensually. The pressure light as your lips glide across one another's before you part your lips letting his tongue sweep past and the taste of cocoa explodes in your mouth. Humming as you deepen the kiss, sharing the piece of chocolate as the two of you make out.

As Vash pulls away the small sliver long gone he reaches for the discarded cup taking a sip of wine before going in for another kiss. It makes more sense now, as the wine pairs well with the dark chocolate Vash acquired. “I don’t think you noticed but today is a celebration of lovers. So I wanted to show you how much I adore you.”

You smile pulling him in for another kiss. “Next time I guess it’s my turn.”

Neither of you say anything else as you keep passing small bits of chocolate between one another with sips of wine in between. It’s an enjoyable evening and when you fall asleep tucked into Vash’s embrace warm and secure you know his love is the greatest gift you don’t deserve.

Back to Masterlist for the series

#vash the stampede x reader #vash the stampede #trigun stampede #trigun #twink writes #Bullets Bandits Ghosts & Typhoons #tristamp #vash x reader #vash x you

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chvnnie · 2 years

Note

Hi, I'd like to request something for Case 2.5

It is tomorrow for me haha.

Can I please numbers 18 & 24?

Dom!Bang Chan

No degradation please.

Thank you :)

"it's tomorrow for me" please i'm cackling. only letting the pre-entry slide because it's you, bby.

case 2.5 masterlist/rules

dream come true

bang chan x reader

genre: smut - MINORS DNI

wc: 1.4k

warnings: dry humping, dirty talk, clit play, chan is such a fucking tease.

prompts: 18 & 24 - bold and italicized

There’s something seriously wrong with morning people.

How can anyone enjoy this time of day? Waking up before the sun sounds absolutely miserable to you; sure you have more time in the day, but is it really worth it? You’re not sure you understand the hype around it. Waking up early just makes you grumpy, especially when you don’t have to.

When your body decided to wake you up at 5:30, it wasn’t really that annoying. Your alarm wouldn’t go off for another three hours, you can just go back to sleep. It was kind of frustrating when five minutes passed and you were still awake, but you could just blame it on the dream you had. It was very…stimulating, keeping your mind a little active. No biggie. Should be drifting off any minute now.

Five turned into fifteen. Fifteen turned into thirty. By 6:15, the sun was starting to peek over the horizon and your frustration had skyrocketed. You feel exhausted, but no matter how many times you fluff your pillow or flip in bed, your body refuses to let you rest.

That damn dream. It’s plaguing you; every lewd detail replaying in your mind. The way he grabbed you and pinned you to the shower wall, the soft kisses placed on your lower belly as he got on his knees for you. The feeling of his fingers molding against your skin as he pried your legs apart-

Fuck. It’s too hot under all these blankets. In a fit of frustration, you kick them off, letting the heap pile on top of your fiancé’s sleeping form. Chan grumbles a bit, stirring as he rolls onto his side, but doesn’t fully wake. He does seem a bit restless, though; eyebrows furrowing as he unconsciously pushes the covers back in your direction.

Good. You hope he’s restless, especially after the stupid dream version of him left you hanging and craving the tip of his tongue.

There’s no use wallowing in bed, both sexually frustrated and exhausted. Might as well start your day. Begrudgingly, you roll out of bed and head to the bathroom. Maybe a cold shower will bring you down to earth.

Standing directly under the head, you squint your eyes shut and let the icy water roll over your skin. Goosebumps erupt over every inch, lips trembling from the sting of the cold. And yet, your body still feels warm — a fuzzy, static like feeling in between your legs pricking you like little needles. A beautiful portrait of frustration, desire, and pain swimming through your system.

Honestly, fuck your subconscious for that dream.

You lost track of how much time was spent in the arctic, turning off the water once your lips went numb. Now bundled in your cozy robe, you stand in front of the sink, blankly staring at yourself as your toothbrush vibrates in your mouth. It’s a bit soothing, eyes fluttering shut at the gentle motion. Humming happily, you let the exhaustion flood your body, a balloon of excitement in your belly at the idea of going back to bed. Finally. Finally, you can sleep again.

The bathroom door opens abruptly, scaring the sleep back into the corner of your mind and jolting you back to life. With narrowed eyes, you watch Chan slowly walk into the room, fists rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Good morning.” He says with a yawn. “You’re up early.”

Yeah and it’s all your fucking- “Couldn’t sleep.”

With a sympathetic look, he moves towards you, placing a soft kiss on your cheek. “I’m sorry, honey.”

It’s unintentional; you’re tired and horny and still annoyed with the stunt he pulled in your dream. You don’t mean to roll your eyes and move away from him. Really, it’s an accident.

There’s a quick flash of hurt across his features before it’s hidden, covering the emotion up with a laugh. “What did you dream about that has you so fussy, baby?”

Chan knows immediately that he hit a nerve. The way you freeze for a beat before dropping your toothbrush back in the holder, avoiding his gaze as you make your way to the door.

“Woah, woah.” He grabs your arm, pausing your escape. The cocky grin he’s wearing sends a new wave of annoyance to your core, tingling on its journey down. “Come on, what went on in that head of yours last night?”

“It’s nothing, Chan-“

“You’re such a bad liar. Was it about me?” You look away from him, glancing at his feet. Got ya. “Hm. And what did I do in this dream?”

One of the things you love about Chan is that he reads you like his favorite book. There’s never any guessing when you’re upset and overthinking — he knows without you even having to say it. When you struggle to express your emotions, he’s steps ahead of you, finding the words that seem to be lost.

In this moment though, you fucking hate it.

Resisting little, you let Chan pull your body closer to his. His hands fall to your hips, pushing you against the bathroom counter and lifting to place you atop of it. Slotting himself between your legs, he begins to toy with the belt of your robe. “Come on, baby, fill me in.”

If it was hard to think before, it’s even worse now; how are you supposed to process anything when your fiancé is dressed in only his boxers, the outline of his growing erection so close to your center. “J-just…things.”

Chan hums as he tugs on the tie, letting the front of your robe fall open. His hands slip inside it, leaning forward to press warm kisses against the cool skin of your neck. “You can do better than that.” The low whisper sends a delightful chill down your spine, back arching into his touch. “Tell me what made my girl a little bratty with me this morning.”

His hands ghost across your upper abdomen, dangerously close to your breast without even touching them. The frustration is out of orbit, thighs clenching with a want you need fulfilled. You spill every detail of your dream, words getting breathier as his kisses become firmer, bits of teeth peeking through and piercing your skin.

When you’re done recounting what’s been agonizing you the entire morning, Chan chuckles against your neck. “That’s what’s got you all pent up?”

Whining, you hook your legs around his waist and bring him in. “S-stop teasing me, Channie-“

“Why?” He nips at your ear, hands traveling down to your hips to pull them flush against his own. His hard on is pressed against your bare core, the gentle pressure making your eyes roll back as you hold back a frustrated cry. “It’s so much fun.”

Bodies tangled, Chan uses his grip on your hips to roll them up and down his length. The friction is beautiful, the tension rolling in waves off your body from the languid movement.

But still. It’s not enough to ease it. Not after all you’ve been through this morning.

“Chan?” You whimper out, trying to add more pressure to the roll of your hips. The grip he has keeps them light, barely brushing against your center. “Will you touch me? Please?”

Pulling his head out of your neck, his kisses move to your jaw line. “But baby, I am touching you.”

God. He’s so fucking frustrating. You feel like you’re going to explode, body aching and begging for him to just do something more. “N-not enough.”

His lips finally reach yours, catching them for a kiss that melts your frozen body. Moaning against his lips, you tangle your fingers in his hair, keeping the kiss locked in. Unlike the movement of your hips, the kiss is needy and frantic, like you’re unable to get enough of each other.

A harsh tug to his curly locks makes Chan break the kiss, deep moan echoing off the bathroom walls and spurring his hands to dive in between your bodies. When his thumb nudges the tip of your clit, you suddenly forget why you were so pressed about waking up early to begin with.

“Good?” Chan chuckles, biting your lower lip to make your moans increase. “Is this what my sweet girl wanted?”

You can’t even speak; brain fuzzy with the pleasure you’ve been craving for hours now. Instead, you tug on his hair hard, yanking it back and giving you access to his neck.

As your teeth and tongue run across the veins of his neck, Chan increases the pressure on your clit along with the speed. “Make a fucking mess on my boxers, and we’ll see about making your dream come true.”

#stray kids smut #skz smut #bang chan smut #chan smut

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aconflagrationofmyown · 1 year

Text

A Whole Man is Hard to Find - chapter 12

An Elvis Presley Fanfic AU

I posted the AO3 link before and thought why not plop the chapter here as well. Much love ♥️

“Now, now hear me out, it’s a sensible plan but it’s got a major catch.” Elvis mumbled into Bean’s withers and got a derisive snort from his horse in return, “Nah, don’t call me a coward boyo, I’m just sayin Nevada Territory is a long ways away, Lord knows what’s even out there. What if there’s no water, huh? What would you do then?” Beans just nuzzled his leg with his impossibly soft muzzle, “Yeah, you’d look to me to get ya water but I’m not the Almighty, I can’t make something outta nothin, and then you’d die on me like er’ybody else, yes you would, don’t argue the point, you would. These are the things ya gotta think of before ridin into the sunset like you suggested. Sunsets can fry ya up, ya do know?”

Beans stretched his magnificent self lazily as he laid on his side, hoofs kicking out and shuffling round the hay they were both sat in. Every time his horse nearly drifted off to sleep he’d startle awake as if Captain Presley’s constant, four hour long monologue of romantic, spiritual and monetary woes intrigued him too much to snooze through. Or maybe it was the way the Captain’s hand would stall in its petting when he really got himself worked up recounting one betrayal or another. Either way, Beans would then shake his mighty neck in Elvis’ lap until Elvis remembered what was truly important in life and went back to braiding his mane.

“I know, I know I keep you shut up in here all the time and death in the great big desert sounds nicer than another day here, I know, I know and I’m sorry. I’m rather shit at taking care of anybody, aren’t I? Keep ‘em alive and fed but are they happy? Hell no, don’t know a single happy person or horsey in my acquaintance. Would you be happy in the desert Beans, hmm?”

Elvis let his head fall back against the rough wooden post he had his back against. He heard shuffling in the adjoining compartment next to the stables, in the boiler room, and in a few minutes voices raised.

Hymn sing. Had to be dawn by now.

His right leg was numb where Beans rested the weight of his neck, his mouth was dry as dust and his hands shook with chill, but he felt sober, rational, as much as he ever was which had always been a matter of contention with folks -was Elvis Presley naturally mad? Beans said he was, Beans said it was nothing to take to heart either. Beans understood him, except about the logistics of eloping with nothing but a horse and the shirt on your back. Beans was an idealist who didn’t think about where hay and water and the next brushing down would come from. Beans had never had to go in and apologize to a lying woman for being cruel to her. Beans didn’t know what it was like to love somebody ya didn’t really know.

Elvis ignored the pins and needles in his leg and gave himself five more minutes on the stable floor. Besides, he wasn’t finished with the braiding and you can’t leave a pretty fella like Beans half undone.

Five minutes turned to ten and he wondered idly if now that his pulse no longer ricocheted in his skull that perhaps he might catch a wink of sleep.

The swish swish of a skirt displacing hay caught his ear and he opened his eyes, raising his head to find Sister Rosetta approaching gingerly through the hay and dung, moderating her usual commanding gait as she picked a path across the stables, balancing a jug and greasy brown bag such as confectioners used.

“You sweet woman.” he murmured as he spied her goodies and she startled a little at him being awake, then smiled in gratification at the clear eyed greeting he gave her.

“How are you feeling, Captain?” she asked, gently kneeling down at Bean’s head and reaching for his shoulder.

“Lil better.” he assured her but his voice sounded like a croak.

“Did you manage any sleep?”

“No.”

“You need this.” she pushed the jug in his hands and he greedily drank down the melon water in it, his shakes calming for a minute. “And you’d best eat a little, so as to keep your strength up and your temper down.”

He wasn’t hungry but they both knew that wasn’t the point. He had removed himself from you last night in a bid to regain some fraction of sobriety and rantional before hearing a confession he was pretty certain he could recite beforehand -verbatim. But it had seemed the wise, kind, just thing to remove himself until he could hear it in a steady frame of mind. Even if it had felt a little cold to close the door on your tear stained face and “Elvis, Elvis please, don’t go!” echoing down the hall after him as you scratched at the door, sounding every bit the child he used to play with.

The half gnawed biscuit stuck to his throat and he had to gulp in more water to force it down. That alone took energy out of him. He flicked idly at the rest of it, tearing pieces and fiddling with them till they crumbled before they could reach his mouth.

“You are going to go to her, aren’t you?” Sister Rosetta asked and he was too tired to play dumb or tell her to mind her own. In fact he could use some womanly advice at the moment.

“Yeah.” he whispered.

“Jerry sent me to find you,” she went on, “the Colonel was about ready to break down the suite door, thinking you were in your room and unconscious since no answer came out. One assumes Miss Beaumont has either fainted inside or simply won’t deign a reply.”

“Oh Lord!” he exclaimed making to rise, puffing in effort to extricate himself from under Bean’s sturdy neck.

“Before you go,” she laid a delaying hand on his arm as he brushed off the hay from his trousers, “I’m not one to divulge a trust, and what that little woman told me as I dressed her last night was in strictest confidence despite her emotion, but seeing as how I have a sense you are about to make a very heavy decision in her regard, I think it excusable that I tell you a secret in her favor.”

“What’s that?” he whispered, fear and hope warring in his eyes.

Ten minutes and the damn brute still pounded on the suite door, rattling your overwrought nerves with every barrage and fruitless clamor of Elvis’ name. “My boy, my boy” again and again in that loathsome accent. You sourly hoped the Colonel’s deafening assault against the hinges stemmed from fear that he’d overdrawn the bank of life and killed his cash cow at last, as he truly almost had. You sat at the rickety vanity chair, not a bit of your outfit touched since the Captain had left you hours ago, only your boots taken off and the pretty pistol from them laying cold and heavy in your lap, pointed at the quivering door. If you were to be killed or rejected or taken to prison, you might as well have it done in the prettiest dress you had ever worn, bought by the kindest man you’d ever known. And if you killed Parker with the pistol Elvis had won for you, there was a poetic justice to it, even if he wouldn’t give you time enough to explain it.

Suddenly, there was quiet behind the door. Then the murmur of voices. You stood up and tip toed to it, pressing your ear to the wood in hopes to catch a snippet of conversation or a clue as to who had pacified Parker. You could not hear the voices clear enough, you could not make out if the pitch belonged to Elvis. You strained and held your breath, closed your eyes and tried to focus on the murmur outside, to give you some hint if he was coming in or not, if he was even there. If he was even alive.

A rattling from the famous shutters covering the windows opposite startled you out of your skin. You yelped and spun round, back pressed to the door and pistol raised at the hidden intruder currently picking the shutter’s lock after raising the window with remarkable quiet. The shutter kicked open and in streamed early morning daylight, painting a golden backdrop behind Elvis as he crouched in the window sill, hands raised and a look of pleasant surprise on his face,

“Don’t shoot, please don’t shoot.” he actually laughed.

You dropped the pistol to the floor in your shock, needing to clutch at the door handle lest you crumple to the ground on seeing him again, looking remarkably alive and whole, “I didn’t know it was you.” you explained hoarsely.

“Course, course.” he nodded, “Good girl, be it anyone else and I do expect you to blow their heads off.” he looked you up and down and took in the gala finery still laced tight and the pale color of your face, the way you stared dully at him as if you had not expected conversation to be made. Neither of you had done any sleeping, it would seem. He cleared his throat and shifted his weight on the sill, “May I come in?” he asked gently.

You frowned in confusion, “Of course.”

“Thank you.” he murmured and let himself down, knees creaking as he straightened out. “I went round the deck on the back way so as not to get caught, whole damn crew is after me with one thing to tell or ask. A-a-and I wanted to get here first.”

He was alive and stutteringly polite and your exhausted heart did not know what to make of it. While he looked like hell in many ways, he carried himself soberly, only dead beat weariness detectable in his red rimmed eyes. You had some flicker of hope that maybe he’d hear you out. A whole night to prepare and you still had no set speech, but you had an idea of how to begin it.

“I don’t deserve it,” you settled on as beginning while wringing your hands, more a gust of breath than a true voice coming out your throat, “but would you be so good as to hear me, as there was something I wished to tell you last night, and it can no wait.”

“I’ll hear ya out.” he replied gravely, his eyes had not met yours since he stepped down from the window into the room, they kept roving from the bed to the vanity to the double rataan doors. There was not an unstoried inch in the whole suite. “But first, you’ll hear me out, no, no really, you must.” he put his hand up as you went to protest and you folded meekly, too scared and tired to risk angering him. “Move dear, I wanna see that we’re alone for this.” and he motioned you away from your place by the door as he strode up to it and unlocked it with his key, flinging it open.

Seemingly satisfied that there was no one lurking, he shut it again gently and locked it once more. He picked up your pistol from the floor, putting it and the key on the dresser, his discarded overcoat flopping atop it. You now stood where he had by the windows, and he took to leaning on the dresser in his shirtsleeves, one hand rattling out a nervous staccato rhythm on its shiny top, while the other shielded his smarting eyes from the light.

Every time he looked at you it was as if his voice dried up, he wished now he had left the shutters closed, so as not to be tempted to make an inventory of the year’s toll on your face before he could get out what he needed to say.

“It’s come to my attention,” he cleared his throat gratingly, “that, that, I,” he coughed again and then straightened up, taking his hand down from his eyes and giving you the courtesy of meeting your startlingly famillair eyes, a penance for his sins he thought, “that I owe you a heartfelt apology for my horrid behavior last night.”

“You needn’t-“ you assured him in a hurry,

“No, no, I-I really must say I’m ever so ashamed, and I’m sorry.” his fingers stippled faster, “For all of it. Handlin you so rough a-a-and I dunno what all I threatened but Sister Rosetta informs me I’m an awful sorta man, t-t-to ya, and I’m sorry. I’m real sorry-“

“What did she say?” you paled, and made an aborted motion to go to him before thinking better of it, “I didn’t complain of you to her! What did she-“

“She said enough.” he ignored you gravely, “She said enough and I recall enough that I-I-I am real sorry for it, and I want you to know I didn’t mean it, that weren’t me in my right mind. I never,” his voice shook and his hand flew up to his mouth to force his lips to stop their trembling, he went on after a minute, “I’d never in a million years want to see you nothin but loved and cared for, none of that awful shit I said.”

You swallowed hard, torn between holding your peace, taking his unexpected gentleness to heart and using it to bolster your failing courage to confess, or assuring him that savage as he had been in his jealousy, you were not so deeply wronged as he thought. You were not so good as he yet maintained. You had wanted him, too.

“And for that…thing…with the Binder fella,” he interrupted your thoughts as he looked over your head, unable to keep eye contact, “I’m sorry to have embarrassed you like that. A-a-and for anything else I’ve omitted, i-I-i‘m real sorry.”

His sins were nothing, all things considered, not when measured against what you had done against him, and you felt a fool being made to listen to the apologies of a man who knew you had wronged him deeper.

“Are you -mocking me?” you asked in confusion, unable to make sense of it.

“What?” he startled, “No! Hell no, I-I-I’m very sorry. I’m askin ya to forgive me, if you can.” he added, giving you that strangely effective look from under his lashes.

“There’s nothing to forgive.” you muttered.

“There is, goddamn it!” he pounded his fist on the dresser top and you flinched, “Those days of you putting up with no good men and bastards are over, I’ve told you that! Now why won’t you listen to me? I done told you before to slap the next fella that was disrespectful to you! Why didn’t you?”

“I did.” you cringed backwards.

“You did?” he repeated comically, then looked spooked at the notion he had forgotten more of last night than he thought, “You slapped me last night?”

“Yes.”

“Well -good, good that’s, that’s good.” he rubbed his jaw nervously.

“Can I say my piece now?” you asked, timid and impatient all at once.

“Yes.” he agreed sullenly, leaning back against the dresser again, “Though we needn’t engage in dramatics or a listing of your goddamn family tree nor a drum roll reveal that you are who you are.” your heart pounded in your throat and you watched as his soured mirth turned shrewd, “Cause I know exactly who you are, Cricket.”

The shock you voiced at hearing that old nickname drop from those once familiar lips sounded closer to a sob gusting out than any word, forced out by melancholy sentimentality and a shaking relief at being known. “Oh Elvis.” you whispered, unable to think a damn thing except ‘I’ve missed you, my old friend’.

“Must've been real hard not to laugh every time you felt me trying to puzzle together why Savannah Beaumont would look so shockingly like the late Miss Maddy Hodgkins.” he went on, his cold tone and the bitter twist to his mouth stamping out your initial relief, “Bet you barely held it together every time I looked at you, asked you bout your folks, my folks, made goddamn fervent love to you, and only you knowing I was bein’ had every fuckin second of it.”

“No!” you wailed, and shook your head frantically, “No, no it wasn’t -I, I was only shy and terrified, it had been so long I didn’t know you any more!” you pleaded with him.

“You once told me you’d lost all your friends when MY women died.” he jabbed a finger at you, “What was that but a goddamn joke? MY women? That was your sister! Your mother! Those were your folks every bit as much as mine, more in fact. And my mother too, who loved you dearly a-a-and you stood there and lied about it! Said I was the one with the greater grief! Hell, you told me anythin I wanted to hear, this whole goddamn time I thought you understood and you did, oh you did but you played it, every step of the way, every hour or the day you played it.”

“No.” you moaned, “No, not, not after-“

“After what?” he demanded fiercely.

“I don’t know when! Helena maybe, or the bath, I don’t know, but I-I, when I stopped being scared, I stopped lying about, about, about the things that mattered!” you stammered.

“Oh?” he mocked, “Tell me, Miss Hodgkins, what things matter to a woman like you?”

“You!” you near screamed at him and that shook him out of his derision. You watched him swallow hard. “You, I have not lied in any of my sentiments in regards to you.” you swore solemnly, “And there has not a single passing moment I did not regret my choice to lie to you.”

He squinted hard at the full, formidable, womanly shape of you and the glare of sunshine behind you, and it was near unbearable to reconcile it all. He wanted to cry and fight and scream at heaven for making it all so warped. That this sweet child of memory should be so cruel and beguiling a lover. He had left you behind him one day a barefoot child and not thought of you since. You were stuck there, grinning and muddy in a daffodil patch, waving him farewell. His mind had buried you there, you couldn’t be the woman who saved him and goaded him and cared for him and stirred his blood.

“I’ve got this memory I’m tryin not to recall but,” he spoke up after a heavy silence, “but it’s got ya in pigtails, tooth missin so your words whistle when ya talk, barely coming up to my hip ya were, and you’re fussin over my scrapes and I-I-I shoulda seen it. Shoulda seen it the minute you couldn’t even manage to hide behind your fear that mornin I first l-I, ya just had to tend to me didn’t ya? God, I shoulda seen it, seen that lil girl in you, but see, no, no. That little girl was supposed to grow up and cause her father a little worry and her mother much pride and she was gonna make a feisty wife for some good man and she was gonna be good! Life was gonna be good to her, she was gonna have it good. She, she, she, she’s not you. She’s not this!” he swooped his hand up and down your rumpled glamor. “Not even life would be so cruel.” his voice broke and he sobbed, “God wouldn’t be so cruel, not to her.”

“Captain,” you hushed him, an impotent hand stretched out to stay his heartache though you dared not take the liberty of touching him, bewildered by the turn this had taken, “you needn’t lose your faith over this, over her. She’s happy now, can’t you see that? She has you, if she has you, then she has it good, life has been good to her at last.”

He took his fingers from his eyes and drug them down his cheeks, stretching his face into a wane pantomime of his exhaustion. “I’m sorry that I did not take more care to search for you when I returned to Memphis,” his voice shook terribly, “that I accepted your death. What’s one more? -I had thought when I heard, seemed like the world was gettin cleansed of all that I’d loved and all my kin. I just, I didn’t think of ya then. ‘Cept that, least you’d been spared growin old in this cruel world.” he laughed, mirthless and sharp, “God! God!” he screamed and thudded his fist against the dresser with each invocation.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered again, “I’m sorry but I’ve done alright,” you soothed, “I’m alive and I am here. I’m safe here, you’ve given me that!”

“Done alright?” he repeated in disbelief, “You’ve lived a lie and you’ve done murder and been sold and been defrauded and you’re so fucked in the head from it all you think that fallin in with me is a goddamn heaven sent reprieve. Ha! Fuck!”

“You didn't deserve what happened to you either, what you had to do to be here now, but I don’t see your faith crumpling in the face of it.” you struck back, miserably.

He shook his head as if trying to shake out your logic from his ear canals.

“You needn’t have lied! My god, not to me, not to me!” he looked like he was pleading with you now, as if you could go back in time and choose honesty. “I’m your, your, -Elvis.” he whispered, defeated, as he thought of all the times you’d called him Captain, never used his name even when he’d needed to hear it, even from the stranger he thought you were.

“Even if, upon being bought at a auction block, I had been tempted to tell you, to trust your hideous reputation with so demanding a truth I-“ you balled your fists and pounded them against your hips in futile frustration at your inability to impress upon him your rotten form of sincerity, “even then, Captain, I would not have been speaking much of a truth! You can call me by my given name all you wish, you can sentence me to any judgment you see fit with it written in damming ink but the truth remains that I have not answered to it in nigh on a decade! A decade! All this time you have been playing at whatever life you call this circus I have been embodying a corpse! I did not concoct this lie to hurt you, I was nearly a child when I took it on, and all I have learned of life has been in Savannah Beaumont’s skin. Who I am now, who you found in that brothel was no more the child you knew than the next whore.”

“That can’t be,” he whispered like he personally found it insufferable that you should have no recollections as clear as him, “that can’t, you must -you do- remember some of it.”

“A little.” you agreed. “But it is as if it happened to someone else. And I had not thought of it, of you as I remember you, until that afternoon in Helena. I am not myself and I am not miss Beaumont but, I-I,” your lip shook so badly you had to pause, salty tears running onto your tongue, “I I-I , or rather you, gave me the one firm notion of who I am. I am your Rosey.” you said simply, “And even if you no longer keep me, I’ll be yours all my days now you’ve made me into someone at long last. Can’t be undone, once someone’s born you can’t send them back. You cannot! Don’t, please don’t take that from me.”

You stretched your hands out to him, begging him to hear you. Understand. He looked at you through a sheet of black hair that had fallen across his forehead and into his glittering eyes. He was terrified he’d not met a mate but a mirror in you, and he didn’t know how to tell you his own soul was cracked beyond repair. The stupid, glimmering hope that maybe you were still repairable had him gentling his expression and murmuring in tender warning lest you come nearer,

“I need a reason, Cricket, give me a reason for all this, the lies, not to me but the world.” he sniffed hard and pointed towards the chair at the vanity, “Sit down dear, you’re shakin.” he commanded gently.

Obeying took you further away from him but you found it easier to breathe with the distance, and sitting felt a little less like standing before a firing squad. He was still being kind and it gave you hope for this last little test of his limitations. You forced your hands to uncurl and lay limply atop your lap. “They were going to blame Savannah Beaumont’s murder on an innocent freedman.” you summarized simply, relief palpable from sharing the weight of that truth that had been carried alone for all these years. “Not by accident or any proof, but because one of their own had done it, and they did not expect a soul to appear in his defense. They did not expect Savannah Beaumont to show in court and exonerate her supposed murderer.” it was your turn to laugh mirthlessly.

Elvis had taken to breathing out his mouth, his weeping having clogged the other route. His bottom lip shook with every inhale. “Who is ‘they’, honey?”

“Memphis City Council, a judge who was in on it, even the Secretary of State, I was later informed by Mr. Moore.”

“Why, why would you though-“

“I was asked.” you whispered simply, “The whole plantation came to the front steps and begged me to step in her place, for his defense and to keep Belle Mead. It was so outlandish it worked, all the women folk had been reclusive, none recognized her by sight save my father, the overseer. He pointed her out for slaughter in her own foyer. So you see, with the entire plantation swearing as my witnesses, those councilors looked like fools.”

“Bet you felt real clever.” his voice was flat but his eyes showed a memory of the precocious little girl you had been.

“I had a brief moment of elation when they ceded that the coloured man was to go free.” you bit your lip savagely, “Yes, yes it was very clever and I thought maybe heaven had blessed my efforts, to protect them and the place. That was before I learned the price.”

His squint eyed stare lifted and he looked suddenly gentle, worried, fearful, “And what was that?”

“My father, sir.” you stuck your chin out and smiled bitterly, “I killed my father, by my testimony if not by my own hands. You see, I had seen the murder, I saw Savannah be beaten to death by a Carpetbagger working for one of those northern investment firms, he stated his name and his occupation on the front steps as he crowed over taking away the roof and floors and last shred of hope we had. My father was with him, made me go and rouse the young heiress dying of consumption to make her come downstairs and cede the family property in person. Savannah came downstairs, sure enough,” he watched your eyes waver and then unblinking your mind went far away, “she came down and plopped all those due taxes in his hand. He’d been over hasty. My father said she was gonna die anyway, they could wait the two or three months the tuberculous needed to finish the job. No heirs to the place, it would be auctioned. But the man was in a great hurry, so many appointments, so many business ventures. I’ve never seen something so, so sudden, so unprovoked. Before or since. And when I went to stop him, I got a pair of hands around my throat for my trouble, and my father telling me over that demon’s shoulder that I could live if I would just cooperate. You may recall that is one thing I was never very good at.”

His laugh was watery and forced. This was familiar territory now, not that he knew this story, but he and countless others had lived their own version, peppered always with corruption and bribery. He nodded for you to go on, finish this, like the last death stroke to a dying pet.

“The man I meant to accuse, the man who did the deed,” was on this boat, was his friend, “he was nowhere to be found, but they had the freeman in his stead. There had to be a culprit, I had gone into that courtroom in a flurry of shock and applause only to find no one to accuse. Save one. One who had nearly let me die at the hands of a brute, who’d held me back as he turned Savannah’s brains to a melon.” you realized you’d picked your fingernail bloody when it smeared on the white silk in a pinkish stain, you met Elvis’ eyes and found him looking about as hollow as you felt, “So I told them my father had done it, for he had done enough. And you should have see the Judge’s look of relief at having scapegoat.”

“I bet.” he muttered.

“I thought I had not done such an abominable thing as it took two witnesses to hang a man and there was only me.” you began to plead, the weight of unconfessed guilt finally tumbling free. “I thought he’d only be confined!”

“But they offed him in prison, didn’t they?” he murmured in realisation, “Mr. Moore said so, but you knew why. You knew it was so they could cover the tracks of their botched scheme.”

“Yes,” you scrubbed under your nose miserably, “and they covered mine while they were at it. A mercy, that is what they called it back on the Plantation. A kind act of Providence.” you scoffed, “And so it was for all of them. Nearly ten years I lived the lie of a damned woman so they could be free, unbothered, diligent, prosperous even -once we had worked ourselves to the bone for it. And at times,” you stared hard at the floor, all of it out now, nearly all of it out, “at times I fancied God may have forgiven me, understood me, took into account the good I’d done. But, believe me, I never felt sure of it until you, you were forgiveness and reward and understanding all at once. Now I think you, after this, or life without you, that would be the cleverest judgment ever imagined.”

Sunbeams, reflecting off the river's surface, were dancing and cavorting and intertwining along the polished wood of his floors, slicing golden and playful through the rich carpets near his feet. It was the farthest your eyes could make up his figure as he stayed leaning against the dresser like a man cast up from the sea onto a rocky beach. Your eyes retreated to your own feet, pink toes sticking out from under silk. You stuck a toe out to catch a sunny fairy dancer, all it did was cast a shadow. Your lip wobbled in disappointment, then fear as the precious silence was cut by the heavy clunk of his boots closing the distance, a faint tinkling of spurs suggesting he gave some thought to fleeing in the night. As he came close and closer you watched as he trampled the sunny dancers on the carpets and then on the wood and then dark, worn cavalrymen’s boots were beside your pink toes, just short of crushing them, too.

You thought then of the princesses and the queens you’d read of who held their heads high when the executioner's ax sliced quick and cruel. You did so wonder where all your strength had gone. If you swayed forward one tiny bit you’d have your face pressed to the warm planes of his lean belly, you’d be anchored to the earth again. It was as if you spoke it into existence,

manifesting your weakness, suddenly it was a fact, your nose buried in the body warmed cotton of his shirt, the unmistakable poke of wiry hair separated by fabric coming to the fore at the wet ghost of a sob from your mouth. If you had any strength you would have wrapped your arms around his hips and clung. You wondered if his loneliness was so strong he’d take even a wretched sort of company like yours.

Your body nearly convulsed with the strength of the shudder that ripped through you when his warm hand engulfed your jaw, gently but inexorably tilting your face away from his body and up, upwards to his face, to the mirror of his feelings and my god, his face was morphing ceaselessly and his eyes churning in tormented unsurety until he saw yours. Yours was the look of a woman in pain, resigned to losing the man she loves. He would know that look, he had put it on Maddy’s face when he’d gleefully gone off to war and then found she’d had the right idea all along, nothing awaited him but strife and a dreadful weight of loss.

Here was something he could mend, could fix -that was his own intention with you all along, wasn't it? When had he gotten sidetracked and fell in line with you saving him instead? You were sent for him to mend, to forgive too, it seems, -if he could wipe away the bitter taste of seeing himself in you. That weak and sickening feeling of undeservedness in forgiving some part of his own wretchedness if he were to forgive yours. His hand spasmed against your jaw in his inner struggle, tan and elegant fingers digging into creamy plushness. To forgive you would be to forgive himself, to forgive what was necessary. What was necessary. He had never been ashamed of what he had to do, but my god he had not forgiven it. Suddenly that seemed very cruel, very childish, very lonely. He bent down, blue eyes locked on yours, closer and closer, his gripping palm searing your cheek.

He meant to say something, some absolution or assurance, but he could only choke and heave on his breaths as he bent and descended. And then his lips were slotted against yours, vigorous and unmistakably intentional. A kiss, searing and deep, his hands gripping your skull, bending your delicate neck back as he devoured you from above. A kiss of life it felt, this first interaction of your real self with another soul, and to be met with want and unashamed gusto? Your arms grew strong again and you grabbed him to you, elongating your body in your seat to push back into the kiss. Back and forth you two were grappling and kissing and plunging into the other's mouth, a near constant fight of “no, no, no you too! you too must know you are wanted!”

The chair creaked with the force of your passions, his knee pressed to the seat between your legs and you squeezed the muscle between yours, engaging every part of yourself in pouring out your devotion. He was shaking once he pulled away, just far enough to heave in necessary breaths and grip onto the back of your chair for support instead of snapping your shoulders. Your head lolled back, faint without his support. You gazed up at him dazedly, feeling small and nostalgic as he loomed over you. You savored it. Your hand, on its own accord it felt, raised to his face and you touched the gorgeous curve of his cheekbone, trailing down his jaw, his throat and down, down to his collarbones and the heaving width of his chest. You spread your palm out over the tacky skin guarding his heart.

“Is this really you, Cricket?” he took a shaky hand from the chair back and hovered it over your face, the face of a woman, the face of an old friend. He blinked rapidly. Clever and brutal and beautiful you were to him all at once. “Oh, you, you, you -you terrifying, magnificent, irresistible creature.” he thundered, hand descending to your throat and pulling you back in for another kiss.

“You see,” you gasped between his plush lipped assaults, “you see what kind of men I am used to? You see why I though I should fear you?” you had to know he understood, you had to get the whole of it out. He was pouring into you the very strength to land the final blow.

“Yes, yes I do.” he panted into your mouth, nearly crouching over you in your chair as not only his mouth but his body sought yours, “Gimme their names, and if there’s any left I’ll make ‘em scream for ya.”

“One of them is aboard.” you whispered into his ear as he attacked your neck with fervor. He went stock still. His lips pulled away from their suction listlessly. His hand tightened round your neck then dropped. He stood up in confusion.

Bleary eyes blinked down at you as his exhausted mind tore through possibilities and came up with nothing but a sinking feeling of being had.

Again . “What’s this?” he asked in a low and wounded voice, “Some goddamn riddle? Gonna quote some scripture and tell me ‘thou art the man’, hmm? Do you mean me?”

“No, my darling!” you sprang up from the chair and clasped your arms around his middle, pulling him close, “no, no never you!”

“Who then?” he asked wary, stiff in your embrace, watching as you fought with which expression to donn while delivering the truth. “No pandering or fudging now, goddamn you! Who?”

“Your benevolent colonel is the murderer, sir.” you got it out and the relief it gave you was soon replaced by dread as he looked very much as if he knew what you meant but did not agree. “Colonel Parker is the one who ought to have been hung in my father’s stead, but his contacts, your contacts, saved him. Made him vanish from the reach of justice. Ask Mr. Moore, he’ll tell you of it. The strange case of the vanishing man.”

The Captain’s eyes flitted over your face contemplatively, trying to see if he could yet define which expressions of yours were lies, truths and half truths. You had proven shrewd, and he could forgive you for that, but trusting you? That was a bit much to ask, right and good as it felt to have your arms around him. At worst you might be vindictive over the Colonel’s distaste for your presence aboard. More likely, or what he hoped was more likely, your head had been turned by the event, your memories muddy, recollections bending under the horrid strain of it. One tiny reminder and suddenly you thought you had your culprit, one stout foreigner was as likely to earn your accusation as the next.

He knew how it worked, an entire portion of his own life’s memories were very resolutely kept under lock and key, only when the Colonel hinted or Scotty accused did a searing flash of some nauseating recollection flash vibrant and unbearable across his mind and he was quick to shove it down. Many times over the years as he passed through the streets he thought he saw faces of men from hazy memory who were always faceless until they weren’t. The men had been strangers, blameless of the horror with which he recoiled from them on the sidewalk. He had learned the mind keeps back what it needs in order to go on, but it’s a delicate wardenship. He no longer recoiled from innocent pedestrians, and one day you too would grow strong enough not to suspect every foreigner of being the man who haunted your dreams.

Something of this thought process must’ve shown on his face since you began grasping at him frantically again, even as you kept a moderate tone when exclaiming, “You don’t believe me.”

“Honey,” he began, trying to keep his own voice light and pacifying as he patted your cheek, “I-I-I didn’t say that. It’s a lot to process, alright? Just, calm down and yeah, calm down, sit down.”

You let him back you towards the chair and sat yourself down again with childlike compliance. You kept your hands on his hips, loath to be separated after the emotional upheaval of the last few minutes. Every gentle touch and kind word of his had you startled, so certain had you been of his inability to forgive. After some amused deliberation on his part, looking from your hands on his trousers to your fretful face, he sat himself in your lap, sideways, as he had last night. The crushing weight of him was welcome, as was the sweet grin he gave you as he wiggled into a comfortable recline. You buried your face in his chest and tried to bite your tongue, allowing him a minute to ponder what you said. You tried to focus on breathing, on his gentleness and the heavy thud of his overworked heart beneath your ear. He rubbed your arms over the rough lace of your sleeves, just holding you and letting himself be held, biting his tongue as well.

“What on earth am I to do with you, child? Hmm?” he murmured into your hair at last.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” you observed again, miserably, forgetting why you cared now you were being stroked and petted.

“I-it’s not like that, honey, really it’s not. Time and pain -they muddle things, darlin. And I’ve known that man for the better part of a decade and now -here you come wantin me to believe somethin entirely uncharacteristic of him. This fella you’re after, why he weren’t with you for more than a few minutes! And I’ve had an entire decade with the colonel. So no, no, it ain’t a matter of believin it’s a matter of actin on it. And I can’t just act on it yet. I can’t.”

“I’m not after anyone!” you insisted, “And I don’t except you to trust me implicitly after all i've done-“

“-well that’s real sensible of you.”

“-don’t joke! Please don’t!” you begged, “I’m not after anyone, he is after me! He sat in that carriage last night and threatened my life and Cal’s!”

“What’s that now?” he pulled away so he could look down at your face and study you closely. You figured he thought he had mastered some trick to tell if you were lying or not. You were not, you had run out of lies, for good.

“He knows me, he admitted as much! And threatened Cal if I were to expose him to you!” you watched the Captain as he bit his lip and studied you, a thousand different puzzle pieces swirling in those stormy eyes, “Elvis I wouldn’t be so impertinent, so insistent that you believe me after what I’ve done if it weren’t so dire.”

“This is why you told me to watch the boy.”

“Yes! You have, haven’t you?”

“Calm down honey, yeah, checked him last night and then charged Jerry with the same. He’s fine. Now, you say the Colonel said he knew ya?” he pressed the point.

“Yes.”

“Well, darling don’t ya think,” he worried his bottom lip between his fingers and gave another moment to formulate his theory, “ain’t it likely he meant he knew who you were, that you were responsible for killin the dug up Yankee buried in your arbor? -speakin of, that case will rain down a heap of investigations on my head.” he added in a disgruntled mumble.

“No I- I don’t think he meant that.” you sighed, stroking his thigh absently, “it was all very metaphorical and shrouded but the threat was real! He knows me.”

“We don’t know what he knows!” Elvis grunted, “No, no you can’t hand me riddles an’ shit and say that you’ve been found out. You existin on this damn boat is enough reason to piss the colonel off, makin’ you a purser was sure to send him into a rage. I was hoping to give a few weeks to cool him off but then, sweet baby Jesus, you just had to have a Yankee buried in a shallow grave behind the house! Look honey, I’m real sorry he was an ass to ya but you aren’t the first, and I’d think a lil knife wielder like yourself wouldn’t be so shook by it.” he tried to tickle your neck but you reared back, you fear stoked by his maddening nonchalance.

“He threatened Cal!”

“Tell me what he said, word for word.” he asked, patient but in the manner of a professor about to explain that it isn’t the math that is wrong, but your own calculations.

You focused on his hand swooping up your arm in its comforting pace, the grounding weight of his body in your lap, the musky smell of him after a night of revelry and no soap. “He said he knew about your little causes,” you began, “and that Cal was a bright boy and that he suspected that if anything were to happen to him I’d be crushed. He then suggested that were the boy to witness some untoward behavior of the Colonel’s he counted on me to tell Cal that he did not see what he thought he saw.”

“The hell does that mean?” his eyebrow quirked in frustrated bewilderment,

“It was a threat! To put me off confessing to you.”

“You got all that outta…all that.” he waved his hand around.

“Do you not?” you cried.

“I dunno what the hell to make of it!” he declared, “After all, you two are the only ones aboard the damn boat carryin on in metaphors. You don’t see me an’ Jerry talkin in goddamn parables whenever it’s time to drop the anchor chain. A-a-and it ain’t no reason to start dreamin up threats and makin up fuckin history that you don’t share with him!”

“I didn’t make it up! You don’t have to believe me then.” you huffed resignedly, “But for god’s sake spare an eye out for Cal.”

He could see you were in a state about it, and that alone assured him you were not creating a narrative against his partner for mere vengeance sake. Your muddled little mind truly believed your own tale and he knew the Colonel well enough to fully accept that the fellow had probably tried his damndest to scare you off. This had been a long-standing habit, the Colonel running off women who got a little too comfy, domestic, protective of Elvis and he’d been successful up until now.

There were the occasional cases when Elvis himself had finally ground down their patience to nothing, and then they had gone. And that was that. Loyalty to your stalwart, though deceptive, attachment to him made Elvis more inclined to give some credence to your fears, if not your narrative. But it wouldn’t do to be hasty in a judgment of the situation, not with a cotton filled head like his own this morning.

“I’ll look into it, I will.” his tone suggested that this was the end of the discussion, his gentlemanly soothing only serving to drive you near batty with his seeming insouciance, “Now, how bout breakfast?” his grin was bright and you wanted to scream in frustration over it, “I can’t overemphasis how badly I need a half a dozen eggs and some sausages to mop up all that tonic and the maudlin display we just engaged in. Gonna take some grease to counterbalance that shit. Whadda ya say, hmm?”

“I’m not really hungry.” you admitted, watching him in a heartsick daze as he clapped his hands and rose from your lap, the topic of your greatest secret and terror shelved in favor of breakfast.

“Well, that’s cause you’re laced up within an inch o’yer spin. Get up dear, let’s give ya your stomach back.” he wagged his finger in command for you to give him access to your back lacings. “Y-you don’t mind me doing this after…ya know -after last night?” he added very softly when you turned your troubled face towards the window to give him access.

You flung your hand behind your back and grabbed one his own, bringing it over your shoulder to kiss his knuckles.

-I spent most of the night weeping over the fact I could have been a mother at this moment if I’d just allowed you- seemed too heavy a confession after all he had sustained this morning, so you held your peace and kissed his knuckles, savoring his heavy exhale that ghosted against your neck. As he worked on your fastenings you thought of that first night aboard, how tall and strong and virulent he had seemed. The way you’d braced and waited for ravaging, the way he had hummed a hymn instead.

“That first night,” you whispered, cool air hitting your back as more and more of the fancy dress began to slip off your shoulders with each of his tugs, “I thought you were going to take me, every day after I’ve been wondering when you would. And I went from dreading to wanting it. Because I’ve realized I was wrong, you’re no stranger, you’re still you.” the dress fell to your ankles and you yanked open the fastenings of your corset, taking the first full breath since last evening. You used it to tell the him, “I still love you. After all this time, I learned that I still love you, how could I not?”

Not a peep of sound came from behind you at this admission. Strangely this felt like the greatest confession of all, acknowledging you loved him. Peace came with having said it. You shucked your bloomers with more haste than decorum, leaving you in just your shift and turned to face him.

The bow of his lip was trembling in an effort to keep his mouth firm, blotchy red splashed across his face and that old pinched look around his sapphire eyes that betrayed an effort not to let the gathering tears spill. He hadn’t expected love. Not for the way he was now. A sentimental fondness and a perverse interest perhaps. Not love. Captain Presley was as little like the Elvis of your memory as Cricket was akin to Rosey. He had not expected to be loved for it.

“Child-“ he warned in a rough voice, stepping backwards.

“Elvis,” you stepped out of the pool of fabrics and followed him, hands outstretched and latching into his forearms, “I love you, I do, please, please look at me!”

Looking at you was to look at a woman, ripe curves faintly veiled through finely woven linen, cherry dark nipples always peaked when close to him, that mouth he’d taught and that throat he’d used and that face that belonged to a dead girl. He shook his head and turned his face away.

“Elvis, call me Rosey.” you demanded, fingernails biting into the meat his arm and he shuddered from it, “Please, I’m not a child, please don’t muddle this up, it’s me! Me!” you took his hand and tried to pry the stubborn fist open, to bring his hand to your breast in that old familiar way, “Please touch me.” you settled for that, voice trailing off in a whine.

You sounded like a child, desperate and petulant. If he’d just touch you would know you were forgiven. You needed him to touch you. In that way. That particular way that only he had. “You can’t teach me a language then tell me not to speak it!” you accused.

“D-don’t! I know but I-, please don’t-“ his voice sounded so near a whimper when he finally spoke you let go of his arm from pure, maternal instinct that somehow you were hurting him, “I will, if you ask me I w-w-will d-do anythin ya ask, I’ll t-t-touch, so please don’t. Please d-d-don’t ask me that. N-n-not now. N-not yet. Please, darlin. I-I-I just…” he scrubbed his face viciously, “I just want some goddamn breakfast.” he cried out into his hands.

“Of course!” you repented your selfishness ardently, backing away from the bed you’d chased him to in your wantonness. “Breakfast yes, yes, you need food. Rest, too.”

You couldn’t bear to stay staring at his shaking form and those elegant hands as they covered his face, you turned and hauled out the first sensible frock in the wardrobe and a day corset with it, intending to dress and leave him in peace. He had borne enough. And he knew you loved him. It was enough for now, it had to be.

You heard him crossing the room, away from you towards the door and your head swiveled to watch, fretful that he was leaving without another word. He opened the door with lethargic clumsiness and poked his head out again, “Bill, what’re you doin out here?” his tone was full of surprise at finding his friend in the hall, “Be a good fella an’ fetch Rosetta for me!”

“EP, you gotta listen to me, Mr. Schilling sent me to fetch you!” you heard Bill Black explain from the hall, “Says a couple of government officials are aboard and the Colonel's been giving orders to unload half the staff from the boat! Bastard just told me I won’t be needed for the coming trip, something bout not needing a House where we’re going? The hell does that mean? It’s pandemonium up there, boss.”

“You been drinkin, Bill?”

“Wha-? No man, really, all hell is breaking loose up there without ya, been trying to find you for the last hour. Thought you weren’t in here last night.”

“Who gives a damn where I was, none of y’all’s business.” Elvis snapped, “Well go on now, ya found me and delivered your message, go on and tell Rosetta to come down and dress my girl. And if Crudup doesn't have breakfast ready in fifteen minutes I will rethink his position aboard. Go!”

He shut the door with a pointed briskness and thunked his forehead against the wooden panel. He was going to need more tonic in order to endure whatever fresh hell today had in store. His stamina couldn’t take it at this rate. First few hours of the day had shown him that he’d spent that past month violating a childhood friend, how could it possibly get worse? He had a sinking feeling it could.

“You don’t need to bother Rosetta or yourself, I can dress on my own -go eat.” you whispered, already in the process of yanking up your own laces behind your back.

“No you ca-“ he turned round and his expression morphed comically from sullenness to an impressed admiration at the way you managed it solo with practiced deftness.

“I’ve been dressing myself all my life till I came aboard.” you admitted, and you saw his face fall and he rolled his eyes.

“Course ya have.” he muttered before starting to shuck his own party clothes hastily, hopping on one leg and strewing the materials about as he searched for fresh linens, “I want her down here all the same. Want her to keep an eye on you, and I want you to cooperate. You hear me?” he barked, wheeling round on your as he shimmied on fresh trousers -you couldn’t help but notice that he was finally flaccid, “If you’re sorry and if you really give a single shit about me, you’ll behave and you won’t do nothin rash, yes?”

“Yes.” you swore vigorously.

“Swear it!” he insisted, tucking in his shirt tails.

“I swear.”

“J-j-just try to stay outta trouble and d-d-don’t get killed on me, alright?” he begged, as he shrugged on a rather demurely embroidered waistcoat -silver fleur de lis on cobalt this time-, “If what you say is true, then I can’t do a damn thing about it right now, do you understand that? I can’t do nothin, my hands are tied and if I try anything hasty then we lose everything, got it? So if you wanna help, you’ll let me do it my way, test him as I tested you, and you will keep playing your part. Didn’t hurt you to do it all this time, what’s a little more, hmm?”

That stung but it was warranted. Bereft of his touch or the warmth of his spend in your mouth or the explicit admittance of his love, you were left to find contentment in his compliment of your impressive deceit. It would have to do. It was far better than you expected or deserved.

“I understand.” you murmured.

“Good.” he muttered, fully dressed now and with a hand pressed to his stomach as he tried to regulate his breathing. He picked up your dropped pistol from the sideboard and walked over to you, that same stalking gait he had when he came and kissed you earlier, but now he kept a respectable distance. “And keep this on ya,” he said, “just know, if you shoot my friend, ill not only be mad as hell but I’ll be in so much goddamn trouble with the law I might as well turn myself into the police right now, you understand?”

“Is he really so powerful?” you took it with a solemn nod, “Everyone nearly ignored him last night!”

“Liking and being beholden to are two different things, honey.”

“And to which camp do you belong?” you asked with a sad smile. He gave you one back.

“Both, I reckon, never was stupid enough to test it.”

“So he threatens you?” cold and bitter validation settled in your gut.

“He don’t have to.” he raised an eyebrow at you, “I-I-I wouldn’t speak of this to anyone else, but since you’re on the damn warpath and since you already know so much, I-I-I think you know…” his voice trailed off and his eyes flitted away from your face to, “Darlin, you gotta understand, men who’ve been where I’ve been, we don’t pull ourselves up and manage all this alone. Without him I wouldn’t have a cent to my name or the ability to hold my head up in the street. I don’t know how to disentangle that obligation, never wanted to before, not really. And I don’t know how to now, not now that I’ve got all these people who depend on me keepin on the course I’ve set. There ain’t no court of appeal! I’m sending Scotty down to Memphis to free daddy but I’m sending him with a fuckin chest of gold instead of legal arguments cause that’s the only language those damn judges speak. And that gold won’t come without what the Colonel does. And he could skip one month of payin them and arrangin contacts with them and off I go to prison -it’s simple as that, darlin. He don’t need to threaten me, he ain’t my enemy. We’re both two outsiders trying to squeeze the better folk.”

His mouth turned up in a winsome little smile, trying to prompt you to understand, but those soulful eyes were glazed and hopeless. You understood, you truly did, and it made you angrier than you’d ever been. “I’ll hold my peace.” you murmured.

He took a great breath in his relief at your submission and rubbed his eyes, “We’re gonna need him for Daddy and for the case of your Yankee buried in the arbor, we’re gonna need him real obligin and generous, you understand?”

“I’ll behave.” you insisted.

“I-I-I know it’s hard to let go, honey,” he conceded softly, as he stepped away, “but we all done things we regret, even the colonel. Maybe him more than most, but he’s done a lotta good.”

“He gambles the money you give him to do good things with.” you laughed scornfully, “And as for his job you think he does so well -Scotty says he’s keeping your father imprisoned.”

“Sweet Jesus, of course he does, he’s always had a chip on his shoulder over him.” Elvis groaned, “I’ll thank ya to behave yourself as promised, to mind your own business and to refrain from listening to Mr. Moore, ya hear me?”

If the Captain were not so exhausted and hoarse you were certain he would be shouting at you by now, his hands shook by his sides all the same.

A knock on the door saved you from a full outpouring of his wrath or the rash decision to press your point.

“What?” Elvis yelled at the harmless intruder through the door.

“There’s a Mr Binder coming up the gangplank, sir, Mr Schilling told me to send for ya!”

You and Elvis stared at each other with wide eyed horror for a good few seconds upon hearing this, both curious if the other fully remembered all the events of last evening.

“I could speak with him in your stead!” you gasped out, heartsore for him, “You need breakfast.” you added as if meals were not commonly skipped by adults weighted with responsibilities such as his.

“Sweet Rosey.” he murmured and your expression perked up hopefully at the affectionate moniker. He let out a ghost of a laugh at how easily pleased you were, “Nah, nah I’ll handle him, then I’ll eat breakfast. Ya never know, the delightful Mr Binder might have my girl’s pardon with him.” he pointed out cheerfully, though his expression suggested he doubted that to be the case.

You gave him a watery grin in return, feeling a fool for continually underestimating how easily he could multitask, how effortlessly he wore his own mask, provoking you with his unperturbed geniality when he was plotting his own rebellion all the while. It had been so long since you’d had a comrade in scheming, forever trusting only your own company on the plantation, that meekness and trust when the stakes were so dire was hard to manage. But you could see now that while he did not include you into his thoughts, Elvis was not so benign as he appeared.

“Godspeed then.” you commended him, chipper tone hiding the fear of knowing full well that Mr Bidner might be just as likely arriving with an arrest warrant.

Hands on your hips, dressed in sensible cotton with that familiarly brave grin on your face -he thought he must’ve known who you were all this time, just couldn’t stomach it until a month’s worth of gentle touches and cheerful care had somehow worn him down to this magnanimous fool who was about to risk his life to get you that pardon.

#elvis fanfiction #mine #a whole man is hard to find #austin butler elvis #elvis x you #elvis fanfic #elvis imagine #elvis x reader #elvis presley

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