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Love Drunk (Clark Kent)
Summary: You go a bit dumb and cock drunk one night in bed with Clark, and he initially has no idea what’s happened to you and is very concerned.
Warnings: Minors DNI. Dumbification, cock drunk, pet names, pinv, pretty much all filth.
Word Count: 1.6k
It takes Clark a long time to come to terms with the fact that that glazed over look in your eye, the wordless unintelligble sounds that are the only noise your mouth can make, the boneless flop of your limbs wherever he chooses to place them, is actually a very good thing.
At first, he’s worried, incredibly worried, when you can’t form your own name, when the only sound that comes out of your mouth is a broken half formed moan of his. He’s worried he’s gone too hard, too fast, hurt you in some way that his impervious body can’t possibly sense.
He stops so suddenly that the action alone is almost enough to jar you free, and in conjunction with the panicked but gentle rousing he engages in, you come to your senses very quickly.
“No I just… I’m sorry. That’s never happened before I guess I just got a little cock drunk.”
“C-cock drunk?”
“It-I don’t know. It happened to my roommate in college sometimes? She’d… come so many times in a row, or it would feel so good she’d kind of just… lose herself she said. She’d go all dumb like her boyfriend literally fucked her brains out.”
“I-“ He pauses for a long time. “And that’s a … good thing?”
“Yeah,” you laugh a little breathlessly, “it’s a very good thing… It feels good for me anyway. You don’t have to-you know you don’t have to fuck me like that if it’s a problem for you. I’m sure doing all the heavy lifting all the time isn’t fun.”
His lips twitch, and you know he’s fighting a smile. “Heavy lifting doesn’t really bother me. I could-I didn’t mind it I just… I was worried. You weren’t responding, and I thought…”
“You thought you’d hurt me.” It’s not a question. You know him well enough to know where his mind went.
“Yeah.”
“No, love.”
He’s hunching over a bit where he’s sitting on the end of the bed, and you push him back a bit, make room for yourself, curl up in his lap, and lay your temple to his chest. His arms wrap around your naked body instinctively, holding you tight to his bare torso, and you know it’s a comfort, a lifeline, he needs right now. Coming down from a spoiled high, reassuring himself that he didn’t hurt you, knowing he didn’t let you down. He needs to hold you close and feel your skin on his and tell himself he did good.
“You were perfect.” One of your hands works its way free of his tight grip around you, and you immediately sink it in his luscious curls. “So perfect you made me forget my own name there for a minute.”
“Okay…” He nods like he’s trying to convince himself you’re right. “Okay, good to know.”
You kiss his cheek, and now you’re the one biting back a smile. “If it happens again, know that it’s a good thing and you can keep going… only if you want. I don’t want you to feel like you have to if it’s a turn off.”
“It’s not… It’s not.”
———————————
There’s a slight puddle of drool forming under your mouth on the pillow, and you can barely register anything but the next cresting wave of pleasure that’s moments from crashing over you.
You’ve already come once rubbing yourself on his thigh, once with his mouth between your legs, once on his fingers, once on his cock, and now a you’re about to come a second time around him.
Your mind is starting to go if it isn’t gone already. You feel it, and you try to fight it remembering how scared he’d gotten the last time. But he’s just fucking you so good.
“I’ve got you, sweetheart,” Clark groans.
His hips roll into yours, and there’s the sound of skin slapping skin to accompany the feel of his gloriously thick cock sliding home between your legs.
You moan wantonly into the pillow and don’t even bother trying to stop more drool from leaking out of the corner of your mouth.
His hand knots in your hair, and he uses it to, incredibly gently, pull your body up off of the mattress. A long strand of saliva stretches between the pool on the pillow and your lips until it finally snaps halfway to Clark and leaves a wet trail down your chin and onto your neck. If you could control any part of your body, you might reach a hand up and wipe it away, but you can’t even manage to close your mouth that’s hanging open as your head tilts back against Clark’s chest let alone work either of your boneless arms.
When your back is flush with his front, his hands find their usual resting places — right on your breast, left on your hip — and hold you as close as they can while still giving his hips room to move.
“It’s okay.” Clark leans his head down so he can pant quietly into your ear. “You can come again. I’ve got you, sweetheart. I’ve got you. Let it go.”
“Cla-ooooh,” is all you can manage as your pussy squeezes around his cock, and you come for the fifth time that night.
His cock is stretching all of your walls, and it’s hitting every sensitive spot inside you like he’s memorized angles and degrees and done fucking geometry to find the best way to make your eyes roll back in your head. You don’t know how you keep breathing when his length bottoms out inside you, and if the blurred lines in your vision are any indication you might not be breathing.
“So pretty,” Clark sighs and buries his face in the top of your hair. “So good for me, sweetheart, you feel so good when you come so hard for me.”
You whine, lewd and loud and desperate. You want him to go faster. You’re overstimulated and cock drunk and incapable of coherent sentences to express that that’s what you want, but his hips are maintaining the same hard but steady pace he set when his cock first sunk into your pussy well over half an hour ago. It doesn’t seem like he’s even close to being done with you tonight — though that part you’re not complaining about.
“You have some drool on your chin there, sweetheart.” Clark notices.
He frees one hand from your waist to reach around to grab the pillow you’d dirtied, and in a flash the pillow is gone and only the pillowcase remains.
He’s still steadily fucking into you. His cock is slamming in with a hard snap of his hips and sliding out with a slow drag of every inch along your walls. If you were of a sound mind you’d ask how he was capable of coherent speech or observations or anything at all while you felt like this.
Clark gently wipes away the drool — still fucking smoothly into you. He even licks the corner of the fabric to help wipe away some of the dried bits that had stuck to your face from the pillow’s puddle.
“Better sweetheart?” He ruts into you, “All clean?”
You nod and almost choke on your saliva as you try to swallow down any more drool.
“Shh, shh,” Clark reaches around your body, and you make a noiseless high pitched keening sound as some part of your brain incapable of speech realizes where his hand is going.
His thumb brushes over your clit, and you nearly scream from the pleasure on your oversensitive nub, bucking wildly into his hands and forcibly changing the pace he’s otherwise consistently maintained connecting his hips and yours.
He frees your breast finally and grips your hip a little more firmly than a human man, a little more firmly than necessary. “Shh, shh, it’s okay. You can drool over me all you want, sweetheart; don’t hurt yourself swallowing it down. I know you’re a bit dumb right now.”
Your hips try to jerk again but can’t move in his grip, and your walls cease up around his cock in a spasm nearly as strong as an orgasm. Fortunately, Clark’s hips snap out of rhythm to ram his cock hard into you to enjoy every second of your pussy quaking. “Oh you like that?”
You nod, but you can’t really say more.
“You like being dumb, sweetheart?”
You nod.
Clark’s hips move a little faster. Your pussy is leaking so much around his cock that even being the thickest and longest man you’ve ever had — by a wide margin — he’s moving with so much ease now. You must be absolutely gaping open around him by now; he’s used you, stretched you, so long. You’re sure your pussy will look like an absolutely used slut tomorrow, and you kind of love it.
“I get it. You’re so smart all the time sweetheart,” he grunts, as his cock twitches inside you. “You can trust me. Shut your brain off for a while and be dumb for me.”
You don’t even feel the wave. It hits you full force all at once, as your eyes roll back in your head and you cry.
What happens next, you’re not really sure. You know it’s a very long time before Clark comes inside you and finally exhausts his near infinite stamina for the night, but you can’t remember any details of it beyond white hot pleasure intermittently rolling over you through a mind-numbing haze.
“Is it wrong to say I like you dumb?” Clark sheepishly asks the next morning. “Not all the time, just when we’re in bed together.”
You shake your head and burrow back under his arm into his side. And “Clark Kent you can fuck me dumb any time you want,” is the first thing you say after coming back to yourself.
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Hi this is just a PSA to new people in the fanfiction space that authors can in fact see what you bookmark their stories as on AO3.
That commentary is just as public as a comments. And it’s just as inappropriate to be rude to an author about a fic you received for free there as it is in comments.
(So you actually don’t need to go around tagging a bunch of stories as“meh” @/heeheed on ao3. It’s rude and we can see it and some of us have actually talked about it.)
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Love Drunk (Clark Kent)
Summary: You go a bit dumb and cock drunk one night in bed with Clark, and he initially has no idea what’s happened to you and is very concerned.
Warnings: Minors DNI. Dumbification, cock drunk, pet names, pinv, pretty much all filth.
Word Count: 1.6k
It takes Clark a long time to come to terms with the fact that that glazed over look in your eye, the wordless unintelligble sounds that are the only noise your mouth can make, the boneless flop of your limbs wherever he chooses to place them, is actually a very good thing.
At first, he’s worried, incredibly worried, when you can’t form your own name, when the only sound that comes out of your mouth is a broken half formed moan of his. He’s worried he’s gone too hard, too fast, hurt you in some way that his impervious body can’t possibly sense.
He stops so suddenly that the action alone is almost enough to jar you free, and in conjunction with the panicked but gentle rousing he engages in, you come to your senses very quickly.
“No I just… I’m sorry. That’s never happened before I guess I just got a little cock drunk.”
“C-cock drunk?”
“It-I don’t know. It happened to my roommate in college sometimes? She’d… come so many times in a row, or it would feel so good she’d kind of just… lose herself she said. She’d go all dumb like her boyfriend literally fucked her brains out.”
“I-“ He pauses for a long time. “And that’s a … good thing?”
“Yeah,” you laugh a little breathlessly, “it’s a very good thing… It feels good for me anyway. You don’t have to-you know you don’t have to fuck me like that if it’s a problem for you. I’m sure doing all the heavy lifting all the time isn’t fun.”
His lips twitch, and you know he’s fighting a smile. “Heavy lifting doesn’t really bother me. I could-I didn’t mind it I just… I was worried. You weren’t responding, and I thought…”
“You thought you’d hurt me.” It’s not a question. You know him well enough to know where his mind went.
“Yeah.”
“No, love.”
He’s hunching over a bit where he’s sitting on the end of the bed, and you push him back a bit, make room for yourself, curl up in his lap, and lay your temple to his chest. His arms wrap around your naked body instinctively, holding you tight to his bare torso, and you know it’s a comfort, a lifeline, he needs right now. Coming down from a spoiled high, reassuring himself that he didn’t hurt you, knowing he didn’t let you down. He needs to hold you close and feel your skin on his and tell himself he did good.
“You were perfect.” One of your hands works its way free of his tight grip around you, and you immediately sink it in his luscious curls. “So perfect you made me forget my own name there for a minute.”
“Okay…” He nods like he’s trying to convince himself you’re right. “Okay, good to know.”
You kiss his cheek, and now you’re the one biting back a smile. “If it happens again, know that it’s a good thing and you can keep going… only if you want. I don’t want you to feel like you have to if it’s a turn off.”
“It’s not… It’s not.”
———————————
There’s a slight puddle of drool forming under your mouth on the pillow, and you can barely register anything but the next cresting wave of pleasure that’s moments from crashing over you.
You’ve already come once rubbing yourself on his thigh, once with his mouth between your legs, once on his fingers, once on his cock, and now a you’re about to come a second time around him.
Your mind is starting to go if it isn’t gone already. You feel it, and you try to fight it remembering how scared he’d gotten the last time. But he’s just fucking you so good.
“I’ve got you, sweetheart,” Clark groans.
His hips roll into yours, and there’s the sound of skin slapping skin to accompany the feel of his gloriously thick cock sliding home between your legs.
You moan wantonly into the pillow and don’t even bother trying to stop more drool from leaking out of the corner of your mouth.
His hand knots in your hair, and he uses it to, incredibly gently, pull your body up off of the mattress. A long strand of saliva stretches between the pool on the pillow and your lips until it finally snaps halfway to Clark and leaves a wet trail down your chin and onto your neck. If you could control any part of your body, you might reach a hand up and wipe it away, but you can’t even manage to close your mouth that’s hanging open as your head tilts back against Clark’s chest let alone work either of your boneless arms.
When your back is flush with his front, his hands find their usual resting places — right on your breast, left on your hip — and hold you as close as they can while still giving his hips room to move.
“It’s okay.” Clark leans his head down so he can pant quietly into your ear. “You can come again. I’ve got you, sweetheart. I’ve got you. Let it go.”
“Cla-ooooh,” is all you can manage as your pussy squeezes around his cock, and you come for the fifth time that night.
His cock is stretching all of your walls, and it’s hitting every sensitive spot inside you like he’s memorized angles and degrees and done fucking geometry to find the best way to make your eyes roll back in your head. You don’t know how you keep breathing when his length bottoms out inside you, and if the blurred lines in your vision are any indication you might not be breathing.
“So pretty,” Clark sighs and buries his face in the top of your hair. “So good for me, sweetheart, you feel so good when you come so hard for me.”
You whine, lewd and loud and desperate. You want him to go faster. You’re overstimulated and cock drunk and incapable of coherent sentences to express that that’s what you want, but his hips are maintaining the same hard but steady pace he set when his cock first sunk into your pussy well over half an hour ago. It doesn’t seem like he’s even close to being done with you tonight — though that part you’re not complaining about.
“You have some drool on your chin there, sweetheart.” Clark notices.
He frees one hand from your waist to reach around to grab the pillow you’d dirtied, and in a flash the pillow is gone and only the pillowcase remains.
He’s still steadily fucking into you. His cock is slamming in with a hard snap of his hips and sliding out with a slow drag of every inch along your walls. If you were of a sound mind you’d ask how he was capable of coherent speech or observations or anything at all while you felt like this.
Clark gently wipes away the drool — still fucking smoothly into you. He even licks the corner of the fabric to help wipe away some of the dried bits that had stuck to your face from the pillow’s puddle.
“Better sweetheart?” He ruts into you, “All clean?”
You nod and almost choke on your saliva as you try to swallow down any more drool.
“Shh, shh,” Clark reaches around your body, and you make a noiseless high pitched keening sound as some part of your brain incapable of speech realizes where his hand is going.
His thumb brushes over your clit, and you nearly scream from the pleasure on your oversensitive nub, bucking wildly into his hands and forcibly changing the pace he’s otherwise consistently maintained connecting his hips and yours.
He frees your breast finally and grips your hip a little more firmly than a human man, a little more firmly than necessary. “Shh, shh, it’s okay. You can drool over me all you want, sweetheart; don’t hurt yourself swallowing it down. I know you’re a bit dumb right now.”
Your hips try to jerk again but can’t move in his grip, and your walls cease up around his cock in a spasm nearly as strong as an orgasm. Fortunately, Clark’s hips snap out of rhythm to ram his cock hard into you to enjoy every second of your pussy quaking. “Oh you like that?”
You nod, but you can’t really say more.
“You like being dumb, sweetheart?”
You nod.
Clark’s hips move a little faster. Your pussy is leaking so much around his cock that even being the thickest and longest man you’ve ever had — by a wide margin — he’s moving with so much ease now. You must be absolutely gaping open around him by now; he’s used you, stretched you, so long. You’re sure your pussy will look like an absolutely used slut tomorrow, and you kind of love it.
“I get it. You’re so smart all the time sweetheart,” he grunts, as his cock twitches inside you. “You can trust me. Shut your brain off for a while and be dumb for me.”
You don’t even feel the wave. It hits you full force all at once, as your eyes roll back in your head and you cry.
What happens next, you’re not really sure. You know it’s a very long time before Clark comes inside you and finally exhausts his near infinite stamina for the night, but you can’t remember any details of it beyond white hot pleasure intermittently rolling over you through a mind-numbing haze.
“Is it wrong to say I like you dumb?” Clark sheepishly asks the next morning. “Not all the time, just when we’re in bed together.”
You shake your head and burrow back under his arm into his side. And “Clark Kent you can fuck me dumb any time you want,” is the first thing you say after coming back to yourself.
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Love Drunk (Clark Kent)
Summary: You go a bit dumb and cock drunk one night in bed with Clark, and he initially has no idea what’s happened to you and is very concerned.
Warnings: Minors DNI. Dumbification, cock drunk, pet names, pinv, pretty much all filth.
Word Count: 1.6k
It takes Clark a long time to come to terms with the fact that that glazed over look in your eye, the wordless unintelligble sounds that are the only noise your mouth can make, the boneless flop of your limbs wherever he chooses to place them, is actually a very good thing.
At first, he’s worried, incredibly worried, when you can’t form your own name, when the only sound that comes out of your mouth is a broken half formed moan of his. He’s worried he’s gone too hard, too fast, hurt you in some way that his impervious body can’t possibly sense.
He stops so suddenly that the action alone is almost enough to jar you free, and in conjunction with the panicked but gentle rousing he engages in, you come to your senses very quickly.
“No I just… I’m sorry. That’s never happened before I guess I just got a little cock drunk.”
“C-cock drunk?”
“It-I don’t know. It happened to my roommate in college sometimes? She’d… come so many times in a row, or it would feel so good she’d kind of just… lose herself she said. She’d go all dumb like her boyfriend literally fucked her brains out.”
“I-“ He pauses for a long time. “And that’s a … good thing?”
“Yeah,” you laugh a little breathlessly, “it’s a very good thing… It feels good for me anyway. You don’t have to-you know you don’t have to fuck me like that if it’s a problem for you. I’m sure doing all the heavy lifting all the time isn’t fun.”
His lips twitch, and you know he’s fighting a smile. “Heavy lifting doesn’t really bother me. I could-I didn’t mind it I just… I was worried. You weren’t responding, and I thought…”
“You thought you’d hurt me.” It’s not a question. You know him well enough to know where his mind went.
“Yeah.”
“No, love.”
He’s hunching over a bit where he’s sitting on the end of the bed, and you push him back a bit, make room for yourself, curl up in his lap, and lay your temple to his chest. His arms wrap around your naked body instinctively, holding you tight to his bare torso, and you know it’s a comfort, a lifeline, he needs right now. Coming down from a spoiled high, reassuring himself that he didn’t hurt you, knowing he didn’t let you down. He needs to hold you close and feel your skin on his and tell himself he did good.
“You were perfect.” One of your hands works its way free of his tight grip around you, and you immediately sink it in his luscious curls. “So perfect you made me forget my own name there for a minute.”
“Okay…” He nods like he’s trying to convince himself you’re right. “Okay, good to know.”
You kiss his cheek, and now you’re the one biting back a smile. “If it happens again, know that it’s a good thing and you can keep going… only if you want. I don’t want you to feel like you have to if it’s a turn off.”
“It’s not… It’s not.”
———————————
There’s a slight puddle of drool forming under your mouth on the pillow, and you can barely register anything but the next cresting wave of pleasure that’s moments from crashing over you.
You’ve already come once rubbing yourself on his thigh, once with his mouth between your legs, once on his fingers, once on his cock, and now a you’re about to come a second time around him.
Your mind is starting to go if it isn’t gone already. You feel it, and you try to fight it remembering how scared he’d gotten the last time. But he’s just fucking you so good.
“I’ve got you, sweetheart,” Clark groans.
His hips roll into yours, and there’s the sound of skin slapping skin to accompany the feel of his gloriously thick cock sliding home between your legs.
You moan wantonly into the pillow and don’t even bother trying to stop more drool from leaking out of the corner of your mouth.
His hand knots in your hair, and he uses it to, incredibly gently, pull your body up off of the mattress. A long strand of saliva stretches between the pool on the pillow and your lips until it finally snaps halfway to Clark and leaves a wet trail down your chin and onto your neck. If you could control any part of your body, you might reach a hand up and wipe it away, but you can’t even manage to close your mouth that’s hanging open as your head tilts back against Clark’s chest let alone work either of your boneless arms.
When your back is flush with his front, his hands find their usual resting places — right on your breast, left on your hip — and hold you as close as they can while still giving his hips room to move.
“It’s okay.” Clark leans his head down so he can pant quietly into your ear. “You can come again. I’ve got you, sweetheart. I’ve got you. Let it go.”
“Cla-ooooh,” is all you can manage as your pussy squeezes around his cock, and you come for the fifth time that night.
His cock is stretching all of your walls, and it’s hitting every sensitive spot inside you like he’s memorized angles and degrees and done fucking geometry to find the best way to make your eyes roll back in your head. You don’t know how you keep breathing when his length bottoms out inside you, and if the blurred lines in your vision are any indication you might not be breathing.
“So pretty,” Clark sighs and buries his face in the top of your hair. “So good for me, sweetheart, you feel so good when you come so hard for me.”
You whine, lewd and loud and desperate. You want him to go faster. You’re overstimulated and cock drunk and incapable of coherent sentences to express that that’s what you want, but his hips are maintaining the same hard but steady pace he set when his cock first sunk into your pussy well over half an hour ago. It doesn’t seem like he’s even close to being done with you tonight — though that part you’re not complaining about.
“You have some drool on your chin there, sweetheart.” Clark notices.
He frees one hand from your waist to reach around to grab the pillow you’d dirtied, and in a flash the pillow is gone and only the pillowcase remains.
He’s still steadily fucking into you. His cock is slamming in with a hard snap of his hips and sliding out with a slow drag of every inch along your walls. If you were of a sound mind you’d ask how he was capable of coherent speech or observations or anything at all while you felt like this.
Clark gently wipes away the drool — still fucking smoothly into you. He even licks the corner of the fabric to help wipe away some of the dried bits that had stuck to your face from the pillow’s puddle.
“Better sweetheart?” He ruts into you, “All clean?”
You nod and almost choke on your saliva as you try to swallow down any more drool.
“Shh, shh,” Clark reaches around your body, and you make a noiseless high pitched keening sound as some part of your brain incapable of speech realizes where his hand is going.
His thumb brushes over your clit, and you nearly scream from the pleasure on your oversensitive nub, bucking wildly into his hands and forcibly changing the pace he’s otherwise consistently maintained connecting his hips and yours.
He frees your breast finally and grips your hip a little more firmly than a human man, a little more firmly than necessary. “Shh, shh, it’s okay. You can drool over me all you want, sweetheart; don’t hurt yourself swallowing it down. I know you’re a bit dumb right now.”
Your hips try to jerk again but can’t move in his grip, and your walls cease up around his cock in a spasm nearly as strong as an orgasm. Fortunately, Clark’s hips snap out of rhythm to ram his cock hard into you to enjoy every second of your pussy quaking. “Oh you like that?”
You nod, but you can’t really say more.
“You like being dumb, sweetheart?”
You nod.
Clark’s hips move a little faster. Your pussy is leaking so much around his cock that even being the thickest and longest man you’ve ever had — by a wide margin — he’s moving with so much ease now. You must be absolutely gaping open around him by now; he’s used you, stretched you, so long. You’re sure your pussy will look like an absolutely used slut tomorrow, and you kind of love it.
“I get it. You’re so smart all the time sweetheart,” he grunts, as his cock twitches inside you. “You can trust me. Shut your brain off for a while and be dumb for me.”
You don’t even feel the wave. It hits you full force all at once, as your eyes roll back in your head and you cry.
What happens next, you’re not really sure. You know it’s a very long time before Clark comes inside you and finally exhausts his near infinite stamina for the night, but you can’t remember any details of it beyond white hot pleasure intermittently rolling over you through a mind-numbing haze.
“Is it wrong to say I like you dumb?” Clark sheepishly asks the next morning. “Not all the time, just when we’re in bed together.”
You shake your head and burrow back under his arm into his side. And “Clark Kent you can fuck me dumb any time you want,” is the first thing you say after coming back to yourself.
#clark kent x reader#clark kent fanfiction#superman fic#superman smut#superman fanfiction#Superman x reader#superman x you#clark kent fic#clark kent smut#clark kent x you#david corenswet fanfiction#Superman#Clark Kent#clark kent one shot#Clark Kent oneshot#superman oneshot
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I have someone very specific in mind and it probably isn’t them but I can bet my ass this person (who claimed to support Isnotreal last time I checked) also voted for that expired cheeto.
HA! More than one imposter! Yo slide in my dm’s let’s compare notes!
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Sometimes I like to go back to the argument I had with that lady in November who swore Trump wasn’t going to take any of my rights away and see how much more of her pro-Trump content she’s deleted from her blog (All of it now btw. She’s masquerading as one of us)…
Which is doubly funny because she’s apparently become a big Superman fan in spite of the flashing neon sign in that movie that says Superman would hate you and think you’re a monster for what you voted to do to humanity.
… anyway if you make Superman content you should block her cause losing fanfics seems to be a powerful motivator for her
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I hear that authors pretty good. Yall should read her other stuff 😎
Who Did This To You? (Hangman)
Pairing: Hangman x Female!Reader (no use of y/n)
Word Count: 10.2k because I have no self control
Summary: In your most vulnerable hour, Jake 'Hangman' Seresin is the one to find you, and the one to ask you the ultimate question. "Who did this to you?"
Warnings: Mentions of Abuse and DV (NOT committed by Jake), nongraphic description of resulting injuries, a very one-sided bar fight, mention that a character is going to therapy, insults and confrontation by a past abuser. (This story is a who did this to you trope. While it is only dealing with the 'who did this to you' aftermath of what was done, please keep that in mind.)
Notes: This is just an excuse to write the who did this to you trope. This is self indulgence at its finest.
“Who did this to you?”
Your head shot up a little too quickly at the unexpected company, and the world began to spin all over again. With a groan, you laid your head back on the bartop, hoping the flat wood would help the world right itself faster.
You’d been lying there with your forehead pressed on the cool wood of the bar, sitting directly under an air vent, for the better part of thirty minutes. The Hard Deck’s AC was working overtime to keep the heat outside, and the rush of cold air blowing down the back of your shirt was doing wonders for your sore arms and back.
“Hurricane, who did this to you?”
You hadn’t been expecting anyone to be there. Everyone else was down at the beach. You thought you’d have some time alone to lick your wounds and cover your bruises and emotionally recover from what had happened that morning. Penny was too busy watching Maverick. The aviators were too engrossed in a new game Maverick had invented called dogfight volleyball, and the bar was technically closed at this hour. You thought you could slip by and start your shift sight unseen.
“Hurricane,” The voice was firm, but not demanding. Underwritten with a tone of concern that was very uncommon to that particular voice. “Hurricane,” it repeated.
You opened your eyes and rolled your head to lay facing the voice’s direction and made eye contact with Hangman.
You knew it was him before you turned, but for some reason you still did.
Backlit by the sun’s rays bouncing off his perfect golden hair with an open button-up billowing in the sea breeze, he stood in sharp contrast to your current state. Like an angel stepping out of heaven and into hell.
In some ways, this was your worst case scenario. Hangman was definitely not your favorite pilot and was very close to your least, and he was certainly not your friend. You were at best frenemies and even that was a stretch. The pair of you had been constantly bickering and making snide comments behind the other’s backs since practically the moment you made eye contact with each other. He intentionally made your life difficult behind the bar, and you rang the bell on him on multiple occasions.
He was responsible for everyone calling you Hurricane. You’d come crashing through the doors on your first day working at the Hard Deck with a torrential downpour following you in from outside. A drowned cat would’ve looked less soaked through and pathetic than you, and the moment Penny introduced you to the squad, he’d made a snide remark about the Hurricane you brought with you. The rest was history. It became like a callsign to them; your name long forgotten by most. The only pilot who didn’t call you Hurricane now was Bob, and it ground your gears just a little bit more every time you heard it.
On the other hand, this might’ve been the best case scenario. Hangman wasn’t someone who was going to make a big show of this. He wouldn’t rush down to the beach and ask for help. He wouldn’t fawn over you or ask you if you were okay a million times. He wouldn’t expect you to cry on his shoulder and incessantly pick at you until you broke down.
“Who did this to you?” Hangman took a step in from where he’d frozen in the door out to the patio.
His expression was like his voice, hard and firm with undertones of the worry that anyone would be feeling in this situation. Hangman wasn’t the nicest guy you knew, but you knew from the other pilots stories of the many times he’d saved their lives that he wasn’t evil, and you didn’t doubt for a moment that he’d at least be somewhat concerned even if he didn’t care particularly for you.
“You already know who.”
It was true. Devin had been in the bar about once a week for the last six months that you’d been dating. He’d made the rounds through the aviators, none of whom particularly liked him but all of whom had been polite enough not to say anything… except Hangman.
The second Devin left after his first introductions, Hangman had made his distaste known. ‘Something’s off about that guy,’ he’d said before the door even closed. Phoenix had teased him about being jealous that his snarky banter was no longer the center of your world, but you’d seen it for what it was. A combination of being angry he wasn’t the center of attention and looking to defy you at every turn that was a uniquely Hangman blend.
Hangman approached you slowly, taking one deliberate step at a time. Every step with such obvious forethought that it gave you the time and the option to back away. A detail you wouldn’t have expected from such an ego-centric man.
You didn’t back away. Hangman was a lot of things, most of them negative, but you could say with absolute certainty that you weren’t afraid of him. For all the times you’d yelled at him, you’d never been scared of his physicality, and for all the times he'd yelled at you, his hand had never so much as twitched.
Standing beside you, under the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights that threw your skin into sharp relief, Hangman had a full view of the damage.
“That fucker,” his voice was a harsh, raspy whisper, “I’m gonna kill him.” His hand seemed to lift of its own accord. Flat, open palmed and always within your line of sight, he reached up and stroked his fingers along your cheekbone with a feather-light touch.
“I already dumped him.” You don’t know why you felt like explaining yourself to Hangman of all people, but maybe it was the determination in his eyes. The way he stared down at your cheek like his eyes could will the twing of pain away.
Hangman gave a half-hearted, inattentive nod. “That’s certainly a start.” He looked like gears were turning in his head, like he hadn’t given up on his first idea.
A flood of memories came back to you.
‘The only active duty pilot with a confirmed air-to-air kill.’ Coyote, introducing Hangman.
‘We call him Bagman, cause he’ll kill anyone and get anyone killed. He doesn’t seem to mind.’ Omaha commenting on Hangman’s aim at the dartboard.
‘That’s his second air-to-air kill.’ Bob, telling you what he could about the mission they’d just come back from.
‘Hangman’s deadly in the sky. I wouldn’t wanna cross him.’ Rooster, finally being honest about what he thought of Hangman, after the blonde saved his life.
Hangman had killed before, and in his line of work, with his level of skill, likely would again. He definitely didn’t mean what he said, certainly not literally. He wasn’t about to rush out to his truck and go hunting Devin in the streets, but it wasn’t something he of all people would say entirely jokingly either.
You slowly sat up in your chair. The world was spinning less now. Whether that was because the nausea was finally passing or because Hangman’s hand stayed on your cheek, grounding you in the moment, it was unclear. “I appreciate your concern,” you hedged, “but really, I’m fine. I can handle myself.”
Hangman snorted and let his hand fall away. “Obviously you can; you already kicked his ass to the curb on your own. Doesn’t mean I’m not gonna kill him for good measure.” Hangman hopped up on the bar and swung his legs over.
You probably should’ve objected to his comfort level invading your workspace. Penny was very explicit that no one was allowed behind the bar who didn’t work there and even more explicit that that applied to all naval aviators. Somehow, though, you doubted Hangman would rat you out, at least not today.
“Are you going to tell Penny?” Hangman mozied around behind the bar, picking up a rag and tossing it over his shoulder. He was looking for something, but he didn’t seem inclined to ask. You weren’t any more inclined to offer.
It would’ve broken whatever moment was passing between you. Caring? Camaraderie? You weren’t sure, but there was certainly some level of understanding that remained largely unspoken.
Hangman found what he was looking for in short order anyway. He flipped open the ice cooler and pulled the rag off his shoulder, filling it with a scoop of ice and tying the ends.
“Not now,” you were disinclined to bring it up to Penny.
The Hard Deck was a Navy bar, and Penny had made a lot of powerful friends. Hell, you had a lot of powerful friends if you were willing to use them; one of them, or at least a powerful person who was willing to help you, was standing right in front of you. You could only imagine what would happen to Devin if you told anyone. All of it would be deserved of course, but you doubted most of it would be legal. And that really wasn’t what you needed right now, and you weren’t ready to have that conversation anyway.
“Hold this to your cheek. You wanna get the swelling down,” In a reversal of roles, he leaned against the bar in the place that was normally yours and offered you his makeshift ice pack.
You took it with a quiet, “Thank you.”
Hangman nodded with a thoughtful expression, watching your hand raise it to your cheek, “I’ll let you tell them in your own time, but you’re going to go to someone to help you through this until then… professionally.”
It wasn’t a question. He wasn’t leaving room for debate. It was an order as plain as any he got in the Navy.
You nodded wordlessly against the ice pressed to your face. It was a reasonable expectation, a reasonable request. You weren’t sure if you needed it or not, but you supposed that was the point. You weren’t sure. Better to go too soon than too late.
“Good,” Hangman sighed, seeming relieved, and pushed off the bar. His muscles flexed with the motion, bulging against the short sleeves of his open button-up shirt. They remained tense as he crossed his arms over his chest. His teeth gritted behind his closed lips. “I’ll keep him out of the bar.”
“Hangman, you really don’t have to-”
“He hurt you.” Hangman cut you off with a dismissive wave of his hand. He looked serious, deadly serious. “That’s all I need to know. He’s not welcome here anymore.”
Before you had the chance to respond, not that you were entirely sure how you would, Hangman’s eyes left yours, staring at something over your shoulder out towards the beach.
“Do you have any makeup for that cheek?”
Your head turned, and you saw the outlines of Penny and Mav, arm in arm, making their way back to the bar. “Yeah,” you replied, “But my shoulder is a different story. I need to go find…”
Hangman jerked his button up off his shoulders and balled it up, tossing it across the bar to you. “Go quick. Put this on.”
“Hangman, I-”
“Go.” Hangman urged, and you ran off before Penny could see the two of you.
—------------------------------------------------
Your phone kept buzzing in your pocket, but you didn’t have time to check it.
You thought you knew what it was. Phoenix demanding to know why one of Jake Seresin’s shirts was wrapped around your shoulders. Hangman’s weren’t as distinctive as Bradley’s, usually solid colors with a barely-there logo on the pocket. None of the guys had noticed you were wearing it, but you knew Phoenix had the moment she came back in from the beach. She’d shot you a disappointed, skeptical look and immediately begun whispering to Bob as they walked away with their drinks.
Penny hadn’t been much better. She hadn’t identified which pilots’ shirt it was like Phoenix clearly had, but she was two steps away from asking when the evening rush began to pour in without any sign of slowing down.
The Hard Deck was slam-packed, and none of the bartenders had a second to spare. The newest class of TopGun recruits were graduating within a week, and it seemed that everyone had turned out for the upcoming occasion.
The bar was crowded with faces new and old. All of the graduating pilots were scattered around, and most of their instructors had made their way in at some point. Some of the pilots had families, wives and girlfriends, who had flown in and accompanied them to the bar that night. There were more than a few old friends in town to visit or siblings using the graduation as an excuse to get away.
Even most of Mav’s squadron was there. Penny’s old flame had claimed a spot by one of the dart boards, and his lieutenants were all taking turns trying to dethrone Hangman as the king of darts. Normally, they would have migrated to the pool tables by now, but the bar was too crowded for even TopGun’s finest to leverage their way into skipping the line to have a game.
One of the soon-to-be graduates hunkered down at the bar, some asshole who was billing himself as the new and improved Hangman, kept snapping his fingers at you to try to get your attention from behind the bar. You were dangerously close to ringing the bell on him the next time he did it, and Penny’s fingers were clearly itching to do the same. Tragically, neither of you thought that was a very good idea. Tonight might’ve been the one night where it was simply too busy to ring the bell.
There were so many people you couldn’t see past the sea of bodies pressing in around you, and it was a miracle that you didn’t bolt from the claustrophobia.
Marg after marg. Old fashioned after old fashioned. Beer after beer. The line never seemed to stop, and it was taking its toll on you. Tonight was simply not your night.
“Go,” Penny’s hand touched your shoulder and made you jump, spilling some of the tequila shot you were trying to hand off. “I’ll clean that. You look like you need a break. Take five.”
Normally on a busy night, you would’ve protested, insisted you could hold down the fort and done your best to help Penny push through the rush, but not that night.
Your shoulders slumped in relief, and you ducked under the gap in the bar without much of a second thought, pushing your way through the people towards the door to the kitchen. There was a ‘broken’ stool by the door to the kitchen that was in fact not broken at all but had a sign taped to it that said it was specifically so it was open for when workers were on break. The seat provided some much needed relief for your aching feet and even more aching shoulders.
Shaking cocktails was really aggravating the bruises just beneath the button up wrapped around your shoulders, and you found yourself hurting almost twice as much as normal this shift. That might’ve been why you felt like you were moving in slow motion the whole time. That or the sheer number of people had simply made the task seem insurmountable.
You were just closing your eyes and leaning back against the wall when your phone in your pocket buzzed again.
It wasn’t really a conscious decision to check it, more habit than anything else. And really, you hadn’t expected it to be anything that bad. You hadn’t heard from him all day.
But there it was. His name. His name a half a dozen times over the course of your shift. Each text progressively more urgent and pressing than the last.
‘I’m still coming to pick you up from work.’
Bile rose up in your throat, and you suppressed the overwhelming urge to bolt. The room was suddenly too hot and too crowded, and there were too many faces. Faces you recognized and faces you didn’t. A wash of faces that was the perfect place for him to hide, to wait, to lurk around for the opportune moment to reveal himself.
You couldn’t do this, couldn’t deal with this. Not here. Not now. Not in front of all these people. Not alone.
You did the first thing that came to mind.
It was stupid really. You couldn’t explain why it occurred to you, why you acted on it so immediately, why you thought it was a good idea at all. It probably wasn’t; it could just as easily have backfired in your face as anything else. But your gut told you it was what you should do. Really, your gut didn’t so much tell you as wrench you in that direction with an undeniable force.
“Hey can I talk to you for a sec?”
Hangman was an easy man to find, even despite the crowd, strutting around the dart boards like he owned the place, which he very nearly did, rubbing the other pilots noses in his shots that were somehow better blindfolded than theirs were with sight.
You interrupted him boasting loudly to Fanboy and Payback about how he didn’t even need to practice. Perfect marksmanship just came naturally to him. The rest of the pilots were all gathered at the high tops near the darts boards, mostly rolling their eyes. They were having some kind of tournament, or rather a competition to see if anyone could take Hangman down.
Payback seemed almost too happy for the interruption, but Fanboy was a bit more perceptive, at least at the moment. Fanboy’s eyes darted away to Phoenix’s table, and you saw the jerk of his head when he caught her eye. Funneling the female aviator’s attention in the direction of what was unfolding.
You, wearing Hangman’s shirt since he disappeared for half an hour earlier that day, asking to talk to him alone near the end of your shift. You knew exactly what it looked like.
“Sure.” Hangman’s tone was completely casual, not giving anything away, but when his back turned on his companions, his eyes were burning. You quickly looked away from his gaze and led him from the group.
“I wasn’t checking my phone.” The words were tumbling out of your mouth the moment he was out of the others’ earshot. You didn’t even bite your tongue long enough to turn around. “He’s been texting me my entire shift. He was supposed to be my ride home tonight, and I think he might show up soon.”
When you faced Hangman, you knew the panic in your voice and in your eyes was painfully obvious. Now that you were semi-alone with him, with someone who knew, there was no hiding how much it jarred you. Your hands fumbled with your phone trying to show him the flood of texts you’d gotten, unnoticed, over the last two hours.
Hangman didn’t look down even as you turned the phone to show him. His jaw was already clenched; his expression was agitated, visibly angry. His eyes weren’t looking at you or the phone. They were searching the faces in the crowd similar to the way yours had only moments before though far more thorough. The honed, trained eye of a military fighter pilot meticulously picked through the crowd for its target, finding nothing.
“Could you…” You hesitated to ask. It was such a ridiculous request. Just yesterday, Hangman would’ve been your absolute last choice to be in this position with; you would’ve risked handling it alone before asking for his help. But here he was. The only one who knew. The first one you asked. “I’ll give you a round on the house for it. I just… Would you mind giving me a ride home? I don’t want to stumble on him alone.”
Hangman didn’t hesitate or pull his eyes from where they continuously scanned the crowd, as if his gaze alone was enough to keep a threat at bay. “No beers required, Hurricane.” The words seemed to be coming out of his mouth even as you offered. Like he’d already decided what he was going to do the minute you told him the problem. “Wait here a sec? I’ll handle it.”
Hangman walked the short distance over to the bar, glancing back over his shoulder at you every few steps like he was making sure you hadn’t disappeared, and flagged down Penny. Something on his face must’ve told her it was urgent because she forwent several regulars and big tippers demanding drinks to beeline towards him. He leaned over the bar and whispered something in her ear, gesturing back in your direction.
Penny looked concerned, and she nodded along with what Hangman was saying until he turned to leave.
“If Penny asks,” Hangman put a hand on your shoulder, a firm grip holding you to his side as he led you through the throng of people towards the exit, “a guy was bothering you, and I drove you home cause you were scared of him.”
“Not entirely a lie,” You mumbled, shifting closer into Hangman’s side.
No one tried to stop you. No hands reached out for you. No one called out your name. You made it through entirely unscathed. You could feel eyes on you, but they didn’t raise the hairs on the back of your neck. You doubted, highly, that they were Devin’s. More likely, Hangman’s squadron were watching him retreat from the bar with you under his arm without so much as a goodbye. More likely, they were plotting and planning the questions they were going to hound the two of you with the next time they saw you. More likely, Phoenix was pointing out to everyone that you were wearing Hangman’s shirt.
—------
“Does he have a key?” Hangman didn’t break the silence until he’d turned onto your block, until he’d brought his truck to a slow crawl, looking for your tiny, inconsequential cookie cutter house in a row of tiny, inconsequential cookie cutter houses.
Yours was pretty much the only house without a Navy flag or Navy paraphernalia of some description sitting in the yard or stuck to a car in the driveway. The neighborhood was not far from the Hard Deck which was not far from the base, and the tiny houses geared towards first-time-buyers were crawling with Navy pilots and newlywed military couples who wanted to live offbase.
You were on the second sidestreet, the third house on the left. Hangman already knew the way without instruction. Penny had conned every Top Gun pilot with a car into driving you home at least a couple times. And while Hangman was usually the pilot she was least willing to ask, he was also the only one who was guaranteed to always be sober.
His question came out very sober. His usual lilting, teasing tone had dropped off somewhere today and never fully returned.
“He did. He… he told me he lost it, but…” You both knew better than to believe that.
Hangman pulled into your driveway and flicked the truck into park and turned it off. “Tomorrow I’ll drive you to the hardware store, and we’ll change the locks.”
“You don’t have to…”
“Do you feel safe with him having a key?” Hangman cut you off. He was looking down at you with just a touch of condescension, so classically Hangman. Like he knew the answer already, like he knew you knew the answer already, and that you were silly if you pretended not to or refused him.
You knew where this was going, and you thought about lying, just to relieve Hangman of whatever false sense of duty or obligation he had imposed on himself by being the one to find you at the Hard Deck. But it was way too late. Hangman wasn’t stupid, but he was incredibly, irritatingly stubborn. And he’d already set his mind to helping you through this. “No.”
“Then tomorrow morning I’ll change the locks.” Hangman threw his door open and hopped out of the truck. It slammed closed behind him as he circled around to your side. You made to open your door, but Hangman beat you to it. “Alarm services are expensive,” He continued, offering you a hand, “but they make door jammers that have sound alarms on them at least, and my sister bought some cheap window versions a while back that I could help install.”
You took Hangman’s hand and dumbly followed him up to your door as he rambled on about extra door locks and doorbell cameras. All options that you could pick up tomorrow for him to put in.
“That’s too much effort,” You halfheartedly protested as you spun your keys around trying to find the one to your front door.
There really weren’t that many keys. There were a couple to the Hard Deck, one to the shed where Penny kept beach supplies, and one to Devin’s place that you hadn’t returned. They were all distinct shapes and colors, but you couldn’t seem to focus long enough to find the plain silver key to your own door. Maybe because you knew there was another one, exactly like it, somewhere across town at that moment.
“Not if it makes you feel safe.” Hangman leaned back against your door frame, his eyes skimming up and down your block as if he was still on alert in the crowded bar, still looking for signs of trouble, signs of him.
“Would you…” Your words trailed off as you watched his darting eyes. The question came bubbling up before you could stop it, before you even really thought of it. It was less a question and more a response to his vigilance, to the thought that his vigilance might be warranted and necessary.
“Would I…?” Hangman didn’t let it go. His eyes turned to look at you.
You chewed at your bottom lip, debating if it was worth asking, debating if it was necessary.
He probably thought it was, if his mannerisms were any indication, if his talk about alarms was any indication, if walking you to your door and watching your back were any indication.
“Would you come in?”
Hangman raised a doubtful eyebrow, sure you didn’t mean what those words usually meant.
“Not like that, it’s just… You’re right. He probably still has a key, and if we can’t fix it till the morning…”
Understanding seemed to wash over his face, and Hangman kicked himself up off the door jam. “If it’ll help,” he immediately conceded. “I’ll sleep on your couch.”
“It…” You hesitated, but only for a moment. “I think it would.”
The silence inside your home was almost palpable. It was late enough that going to bed wouldn’t have been awkward for either of you, but neither of you were tired. And neither of you seemed up to faking being tired just to get away.
Hangman sat on one end of the couch, and you sat on the other. At some point, you mustered the effort to turn on the tv. The local news was a quiet, bland drone of background noise cutting through the still air around the two of you.
You felt like you should say something. Maybe ‘should’ wasn’t the right word; maybe you wanted to say something. But either way you didn’t know where to begin.
You had only ever been alone with Hangman when he was dropping you off as a favor to Penny, times that were filled with snarky jokes and constant nagging from both of you, and earlier that day in the bar. You weren’t close. You weren’t friends. You were barely acquaintances. He was only here because he was in the right (or wrong, depending how you looked at it) place at the right time.
“Thank you,” That seemed like a good place to start. “For today, thank you.”
“You have nothing to thank me for.” Hangman countered quickly. His eyes stayed on the tv, though they were clearly out of focus staring at the screen.
“I do though. You could’ve told everyone.”
“You weren’t ready for that.” He added it under his breath, countering without cutting you off.
“You could’ve left me to finish out my shift.”
“Not with him coming to the bar.”
“You could’ve left after you dropped me off.”
“He has a key.”
“You could’ve turned and walked out the door when you first saw me at the bar.”
Hangman let out a heavy sigh, not of annoyance or exasperation but a sigh weighed down with duty and concern. “No, I couldn’t.”
Your eyes met his over the center of the couch, and a breath rushed out of your lungs under the intensity in his gaze.
—-------------------------------------
You woke up in your bed, mouth open, with more than a little drool pooling on your pillow.
You had no memory of falling asleep there, of getting into bed, of going to your room at all.
You remember being on the couch, talking to Hangman. You remembered the way his eyes, intense, open, and honest, compelled you to speak. The way you couldn’t bite back the story pouring from your lips. The story of Devin asking you out, of falling for him in those early weeks, of how he changed after you committed to him. The story of what he did that night, of his buddies who sat back and did nothing, of the jokes you heard the three of them cracking as you ran from the room.
You remembered Hangman crossing the space between you and putting a hand on your arm, how cautious he was touching you, how much time he left you to pull away, how gentle his touch was against your skin. You remembered throwing yourself into his lap, sobbing into his shoulder as he held you against his chest and rubbed soothingly up and down your back, whispering promises that that asshole would never hurt you again.
You didn’t remember anything after that. You must’ve fallen asleep in his lap.
Sitting up, you found the answer to your unasked question.
A folded piece of notebook paper sitting on the pillow next to you:
‘Thought the bed would be preferable to sharing the couch with me. If I’m wrong and you wake up in the middle of the night and don’t want to be alone, you can always wake me up. If not, I’ll have coffee ready for you in the morning. - Jake.’
As you read, his words the night before echoed in your head to the beat of a nonexistent drum as you read the note once, then twice, then a third time.
‘No, I couldn’t.’
You carefully folded the paper up and tucked it in the top drawer of your bedside table.
True to his word, Hangman was wide awake, standing in your kitchen pouring himself a cup of coffee when you walked out of your room.
“H-Hi,” you stuttered.
Last night, in the comfort of darkness, with exhaustion clouding over your mind and his arms holding you close, it had seemed the most logical thing in the world to open up to Hangman. And with the light of day glinting through the windows, with him dressed in the button up he’d wrapped around you the day before, with him lounging back against your counter as he sipped from your favorite mug, with an overconfident air that was too comfortable for any normal person’s first time in your home… It was odd to think that feeling hadn’t changed, that you still felt able to bare your soul to him, that you didn’t feel a need to run back into your room and get changed or freshen up, that you were perfectly comfortable being seen by him like this, a tired quaking mess with puffy red eyes.
Part of you expected to walk out into your kitchen to an epiphany that you’d made a horrible mistake, that Hangman was exactly as much of a cocky asshole as you thought he was two days ago. But the epiphany never came.
“Morning,” Hangman took a sip of coffee and set the mug aside. He looked casual, at peace, like this was just another day, like he’d done this a million times. “I’m ready to go whenever you are. I found the toolbox in the bottom of your coat closet. Hope you don’t mind. We’ll probably need a few things if we’re gonna do anything more than replace the locks.”
“Y-Yeah,” You grabbed a mug off the drying rack and crossed the room to pour yourself a cup of coffee from the pot beside him, your shoulder brushing passed his as you poured. “Sounds good.”
“Hey.” Hangman seemed to immediately pick up that something was plaguing your mind. He didn’t reach out for you like last night, quite the opposite. He took a step away and turned to face you, crossin his arms over his chest, “If you want to be alone, I’ll head out. I’ll go to the store, pick up the locks, and change them myself. You can have time to yourself if you need it.”
“No,” You immediately countered his obvious misinterpretation of your mood. “I-I don’t think I want to be alone. I’m just… antsy I guess.”
He didn’t seem to fully buy it, but he let your excuse hang. “Okay then, we’ll head out when you’re ready.”
—----------------------
All day, as Hangman worked around your house first changing the locks then installing alarms then fixing a window that wouldn’t lock and then righting a wobbly chair leg that had absolutely nothing to do with your safety, neither of you mentioned the note he left or you crying in his arms or falling asleep on his lap or his quiet ‘No, I couldn’t’.
—--------------------------
You made a vow to yourself when Hangman finally left your house late Saturday afternoon. You were never going to ring up his card at the Hard Deck again. It couldn’t really repay what he’d done for you, the feeling of safety he’d brought to you in what was probably your most vulnerable moment so far on this earth, but you knew he wouldn’t want anything more showy. Hangman loved being the center of attention, but somehow you knew he wouldn’t want attention for this.
True to your vow, the next Saturday evening, Hangman was on his third beer and had, unwittingly on his part, not paid a dime.
The Hard Deck was far less crowded that night. The graduating Top Gun candidates had all flown away, and only those currently stationed at the base, mostly Maverick’s squad, and some locals remained. A few dozen patrons milled around a room far larger than they needed with maybe a dozen pressed up to the bar. Most of the dozen fell under your responsibilities at the moment. Penny had, unintentionally, abandoned you not long before when Maverick had wandered in and taken up his usual stool.
Omaha and Halo, the first aviators to arrive, had claimed one of the pool tables early in the night, and the rest of the squad had started rotating through matchups. It appeared Fritz was on a hot streak, one that was no doubt about to end as his next opponent in line was Hangman.
All seemed right with the world. The constant buzz of voices, the crooning of the Goo Goo Dolls song that Bob had selected on the jukebox, the ready flow of beer to your usual patrons. Everything was fine.
Until the door opened one last time. Not that places of business ever ‘expected’ anyone because they hardly sent out invitations to come buy beer, but you really weren’t expecting anyone else that night. All the regulars were already inside.
The door banging against the wall as it was flung open was enough to draw your surprised eyes up to the entryway.
Face lit by the sun setting over the beach through the windows on the opposite wall, he was unmistakable as he marched into view flanked by his two buddies. They immediately began scanning the room.
Your breath rushed out of your lungs, exhaling in a gust that you couldn’t hold back any more than the wind.
No, no, no. He wasn’t here. He couldn’t be here. He couldn’t confront you here. He couldn’t corner you alone.
There was no time to think, no time to check with Penny if it was ok to leave your station, no time to get to the door or bolt out the back.
‘I’ll keep him out of the bar.’
It was your first instinct when you saw the text the weekend before, and it was your first instinct when you saw him that night.
“Hurricane?” Penny called after you as, without so much as a word in her direction, you ducked under the gap in the bar and made a beeline for the pool tables.
You barely heard her, and if you did, it didn’t register.
“Jake,” his real name leaving your lips was enough to draw most of his coworkers’ attention, all those in earshot at least. You grabbed his arm the second he was within reach, inadvertently clawing his skin with your nails as you pulled him up from where he was hunched over the pool table lining up a shot.
Jake laughed and shrugged off your arm before he even turned around and saw who it was. “Hey,” he rubbed at the red marks in his skin, “I was just…”
The words died on his lips when he turned and saw the panic in your eyes. It was brimming up inside you, overflowing and choking you off from every other sensation except the desperation for Jake to understand.
He knew better than anyone that there was only one thing that could make you look like that, feel like that. His head jerked up immediately in the direction of the door, as if he could sense the direction of the impending doom.
You watched the lighthearted smirk that constantly plagued his lips fall away. You watched the light in his eyes cloud over in darkness. As his gaze went up over your shoulder to the door, where one of the three men with angry expressions and dark eyes spotted your back amongst the khaki uniforms and began moving.
Jake’s arm twisted in your grip and grabbed you by the elbow, jerking you unceremoniously behind his back. There was no time for pleasantries, no time to be nice about whatever he was about to do.
“Fanboy, stay with her.” Jake ordered over his shoulder to the nearest aviator. His gaze didn’t waiver from the three men approaching, even as he issued commands.
Most of the aviators in Mav’s squad were scattered around the room. Mav was at the bar talking with Penny and Halo. Fanboy and Coyote had been watching Hangman school Fritz, who was being hyped up by Payback. Rooster was at a table not far from the pool game talking to a pretty girl. And Phoenix and Bob were half spectating from their perch by the jukebox discussing something that had gone wrong in a training run that afternoon.
Fanboy caught you and held you up as Jake pushed you in his direction. “What’s going on?”
Jake didn’t answer. He side-stepped in front of you, half blocking you from view, and walked to the edge of the pool area. There was a buffer zone between himself and you. He was the first line of defense, and he was giving the second, Fanboy, room to react.
“You fucking bitch!” If Fanboy didn’t know what was going on before, he instantly caught on.
Fanboy’s arms tensed around yours. His back went rigged, as if a commanding officer had just called him to attention, and he curled away, pulling you back behind him and putting his body in front of you as a shield. Even with Fanboy hovering in the way, his body didn’t hide Devin’s eyes. They sought you out around Jake’s frame and over Fanboy’s shoulder; they found you huddled up behind the Navy uniforms and the fancy stars pinned to the pilots chests. No number of medals pinned to Jake’s chest could stop the chill that ran down your spine in response to the venom in Devin’s tone. You wanted to look away, but the daggers in his gaze skewered you in place, held you hostage.
You wanted to curl up and hide, preferably behind Jake... Well, preferably in a home far away from there wrapped in heavy blankets with many deadbolts between you and Devin with Jake vigilantly standing guard at the door.
Devin tried to walk straight past Jake, like he didn’t even see him. Jake wasn’t having any of it.
A thick, muscular arm stuck out across the length of Devin’s shoulders as he tried to pass, holding him back.
Devin wasn’t a very big guy. He was well toned, but he was no naval aviator. He was no Jake Seresin. Jake had about an inch on Devin, but his well built frame made up for their near identical height. Devin had never been one to hit the gym hard while Jake certainly was, and it showed. It showed in the way a single arm without so much as a brace didn’t move even as Devin walked straight into it.
If the rest of the bar weren’t looking when Devin shouted that you were a bitch, they certainly were when he glared up at Jake. “Out of the way you fucker!”
Jake getting out of the way was about the last thing you wanted to happen, and Jake seemed disinclined to oblige either. His arm didn’t move from where it blocked Devin’s path, even as Devin glowered up at him.
The staring match lasted only a moment before Devin, impatient as always, gave up and turned back to glaring at you. He shouted, unnecessarily loudly, across the minimal distance between the two of you, “You changed the locks on me?”
There was shuffling behind you and the sound of something clanging onto the pool table.
You couldn’t bring yourself to turn your head away from Devin, couldn’t look away, couldn’t let him out of your sight. But there was the sound of footsteps as first Coyote, then Fritz, then Payback came into range in your peripheral vision.
None of them knew what this was about, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out where this was going. And any idiot could tell whose side they would be on in a fight between Jake and Devin.
“She didn’t. I did.” Jake declared at a similarly loud volume, pulling Devin’s attention back on him, demanding Devin shift his focus off of you. “You got a problem with that, you take it up with me.”
Devin took a step back, finally abandoning his futile attempt to confront you in favor of squaring up to Jake.
As Devin stepped back, the trio of pilots stepped forward. Fritz approached first, joining Fanboy in front of you. Payback followed after Fritz, lingering halfway between him and Jake, a bystander ready to step in if things got out of hand.
Coyote, however, had no questions about how any altercation would go down. His hand came down as he walked up behind Jake, slapping down reassuringly on Jake's shoulder to let him know he wasn’t alone. Coyote flanked Jake at such a close distance that it made it impossibly clear that, if this turned into a fight, it would not be three on one.
It wouldn’t even be three on two for that matter. Devin’s buddies, who had crossed the bar with him had hung back a few feet, giving Devin the space he wanted to scream at you or confront you or whatever else he had been planning before Jake intercepted. The duo found themselves with two bar tables between them and Devin. One of which was, ever so unfortunately for them, occupied by none other than Bradley Bradshaw and his drinking companion.
Devin’s friends would be forgiven for not realizing that they were offering up the chance to divide the group in half. Bradley, per usual, wasn’t in his Navy uniform, and a guy in a faded Hawaiian shirt didn’t exactly look intimidating. At least not while he was sitting down chatting up a pretty girl.
Seeing the escalation Coyote invited, and flashing his eyes to where you cowered behind his squadmates, Rooster got to his feet with a slow, lithe push off the table in front of him and turned his back on Devin. Not even bothering to give the belligerent asshole, currently one on two against Hangman and Coyote, the time of day, he turned his entire attention to the backup Devin brought with him.
Never in your life had you been scared of any of the naval aviators, but there was something especially intimidating about the incredibly casual way Bradley put himself alone in a fight against two men. His relaxed stance, completely unbothered by the numbers game he was playing. His head, cocking to one side to crack his neck, and then the other.
“You the latest pilot she’s spreading her legs for?” Devin snarled up at Jake, completely oblivious to what was going on behind him and unconcerned by Coyote’s presence.
Jake was entirely unphased. His voice was calm and steady even as Devin’s got more and more red with each passing moment. “No, but I am a friend. And if you have a problem with her you’re gonna have to go through me…” Jake added as an afterthought, “And him,” jerking his head to Coyote.
“You think she’ll fuck you if you play hero?” Devin spat out the word fuck as if the thought of you and sex in the same sentence disgusted him. “You don’t gotta try that hard to get her to spread.”
Jake shrugged and casually dismissed the comment. “That’s really not my business or yours.”
“She is my business; that’s my girl.”
Devin jabbed a finger over Jake’s shoulder in your direction without looking away from Jake, and you instinctively shrunk further back behind Fanboy. Until you felt the material between your fingers, you didn’t even realize that your hand had reached up to fist the back of Fanboy’s uniform.
You didn’t know, logically, why you were afraid. Whatever Jake was doing, he was doing a marvelous job of keeping Devin’s eyes off of you. You were absolutely certain that Devin would have to knock Jake out to get to you, not that he could even manage that. You were also absolutely certain that even if he did, he’d still have to make it through Rooster, Fanboy, Fritz, Payback, and Coyote, not to mention the dozen Navy guys from other squads currently spectating who would jump in to assist, or Penny or Mav. There was just something about his finger pointing at you, accusing you, that made that feeling of helplessness bubble up inside you again, that made you feel pinned, trapped under his hand.
“I’ll do whatever I want with her.”
It was like Jake knew or could sense your growing bubble of fear. He leaned ever so slightly to one side, like he was simply shifting his weight from foot to foot, before standing back up straight in between Devin’s finger and you.
“Not anymore.” Jake declared firmly. “You’re already about a mile closer to her than I want you to be.”
That declaration made Devin’s lips twist up into something akin to a smirk. “I’ve been a lot closer to her than this.”
Jake’s shoulders tensed, and for the first time it seemed like Devin got to him. “I know exactly how close you got.” His voice darkened, and you could practically picture the look in his eyes, practically knew it by heart from the night you told him what Devin had done. “Where I’m from, we don’t treat women like that.”
Devin laughed humorously, heading tilting back to let the single tone ring out in the air. “Well we aren’t where you’re from. That’s my girl, and I’ll do what I want with her.”
You shivered involuntarily, like someone had dropped an ice cube down the back of your shirt. It sent a chill through you to think of Devin alone with you, doing what he wanted with you. You remembered what he did the last time he had that power over you. You couldn’t let it happen again.
“No,” It took a moment to register that Jake was the one snarling, not Devin, not even you. The word came out in a hiss between his teeth. “You’ll do what she wants. And right now she doesn’t want you here.”
For whatever reason, Devin was getting to Jake. The unshakeable, unflappable Jake Seresin was rising to a rolling boil under the surface of his skin, and there was nothing he could do to hide it. From the tone of his voice to the tension in his shoulders, to the way his fingers twitched in and out of a fist, Devin and what he was saying was under Jake’s skin.
Devin saw it; you could tell. You couldn’t see his eyes around the bodies between the two of you, but you saw his posture change, his stance open up and his chest puff out. He leaned in and sneered, “She needed to be put in her place. She looks better roughed up anyway.”
You felt their eyes on you. The squad. The whole bar. None of them were actually looking at you. None of their heads turned, but you knew every one of them was staring at an image of you in their minds. Maybe they all figured it out before. Maybe they knew when Devin walked in or when Jake escorted you home. Or maybe they didn’t know anything at all, but either way Devin just gave them confirmation.
Payback was no longer content to play the bystander. His shoes clicked on the floor, echoing in the silence that existed throughout the bar as Jake and Devin sparred. He flanked Jake’s other side, shoulder to shoulder with him as Coyote had been since the confrontation began.
Coyote didn’t move an inch except for the hand at his side that clenched into a fist.
Jake took a step closer. But for the inch of height difference, he stood nose to nose with Devin as he said, “Where I’m from, a man lays his hands on a woman, and you take him out back and put one between his eyes.”
Devin pushed up, must’ve stood on his tiptoes to do it, to close the gap with Jake, to put himself on the same level as the pilot. “She’s mine, you fucker.” Flecks of spit, visible even at your distance, splattered against Jake’s cheek. “Get the fuck out of the way.”
Devin’s hands came up and shoved Jake in both shoulders, hard.
Jake’s shoulders didn’t give an inch. His feet didn’t budge. His posture didn’t change.
Jake’s voice dropped low, so low you barely heard it. If a single soul in the bar had been focused on anything other than the confrontation at hand, if the jukebox hadn’t run to the end of its queue of songs and left the bar in silence, if any more distance had been between the two of you, you wouldn’t have heard the rough, guttural retort from somewhere deep inside Jake’s chest, “You’re really, really gonna have to make me.”
Without warning, Devin swung.
He was standing too close to Jake, almost chest to chest with the taller aviator. There was no good angle from which to strike, and his arm took a wide arc away from his body to get the necessary momentum and distance to hit at Jake with any force.
It was like it moved in slow motion, Jake’s head turned, his eyes following the direction of the swing as it approached his face.
You gasped and clung tighter to Fanboy, who blindly reached back to clutch your arm, pulling you in closer to him.
The fear, entirely for Jake, was also entirely unnecessary.
Jake’s head leaned to one side and effortlessly avoided the blow. Devin stumbled a couple steps to the side as his momentum carried him past Jake.
It gave Jake the space he needed to counter, not with a wide, slow hook around to the side of Devin’s face, but with a swift, firm uppercut to his jaw.
The connection sent a crack echoing through the bar, and Devin’s entire body went slack before he even hit the floor.
Coyote caught his arm before he could collapse, not that it did Devin any good to be under Coyote’s care instead of Jake’s. Coyote’s grip was so tight on Devin’s upper arm that you were sure it would bruise not just the skin but the muscles underneath.
Jake bent down over the other man and bent a finger up under his jaw. Devin’s head tipped up into Jake’s face without any protest and fell back to bob loosely to one side the moment Jake wasn’t supporting him any more.
“He’ll be out cold for a while.” Jake declared, glancing up to give Coyote a nod.
Coyote dropped his grip on Devin and let him crumple unceremoniously to the floor.
“Now,” Jake left Coyote to deal with Devin, stepping over the unconscious body on the floor as one might step over a puddle in the street. He ambled over to Rooster, whose presence had been more than enough to hold off Devin’s two buddies for the brief ten seconds of fighting, if it could even be categorized as a fight.
“Are you two,” Jake wagged a finger between Devin’s two friends as he came shoulder to shoulder with Rooster, “the ones she told me helped him out last week? Cause I gotta bone to pick with them too?”
“No, we didn’t!” The shorter of the two declared loudly. “Look, we don’t want any trouble.”
Jake’s head turned to glance back over his shoulder, and for the first time since Devin confronted you, you made eye contact with Jake.
His eyes were hard, cold, unfeeling. He wasn’t angry anymore. He wasn’t upset or worried or fearful or any of the other emotions you felt warring inside of you. The mask was back on, the unflappable exterior that only you had seen beneath before tonight. He wasn’t waiting for them; he was waiting for you. A good soldier, waiting for his orders.
Imperceptibly to everyone but Jake who was watching you like a hawk, you shook your head. This had gone on long enough already tonight. You just wanted it to be over.
“Well then,” Jake turned back to the two friends in tow. “Why don’t you take your buddy and get out of here?” Jake stepped close, towering over the shorter one as he added, “Tell him if he comes back round here to bother her again; I will spend the rest of my life making sure he’s too afraid to even look at another woman.”
Beside Jake, Rooster began casually cracking the knuckles of his fist one by one, presumably for emphasis.
There was a dull thud that drew the quad of men’s attention back towards Devin.
Payback was squatting over the unconscious man. He’d seemingly been rooting through the other man’s pockets. The sound of his wallet dropping back onto Devin’s back was the noise that drew the men’s eyes and everyone else’s watching as a result.
Payback was waving a credit card in the air in Jake’s general direction.
“Good idea,” Jake wandered over and snatched up the card. “Call it payback for disturbing the bar tonight.” Jake’s teasing smirk was back as he used Payback’s callsign. He abandoned the group to amble back towards Penny at the bar, and his absence seemed to break the tension.
The patrons, scattered around, all began slowly turning back to their tables. The conversation was quieter, hushed whispers that were no doubt mostly about the fight they’d just watched ensue, but their eyes seemed to have drank in their fill of the scene.
Under the watchful eye of Rooster, with Coyote and Payback standing by, Devin’s two friends draped their friend unceremoniously across their shoulders. Despite the struggle they were clearly having, not a soul offered to help as they stumbled under his weight out of the bar.
“I hope they have to drag him to the car.”
You jumped and turned your head to find that at some point in the chaos Phoenix and Bob had come up on the other side of the pool table as a last line of defense.
“Please, I hope they faceplant in the gravel.”
You let out a humorous laugh at Phoenix’s comment as your body finally slumped under the weight of the evening, resting back against the pool table with a huff of air.
“Are you…”
“Fritz, if you ask me if I’m okay, I will walk out of this bar right now.” You held up a finger to silence him.
You were not okay. You would be okay, one day; you knew that much. But that day was not today.
In the distance, like you were hearing an echo from the other end of a long tunnel, you registered the bell ringing for a free round. Your vision was tunneling too, but you could make out Jake was leaning across the bar, ringing the bell himself as he slammed Devin’s card on the bar in front of Penny.
Maverick, always present in front of Penny’s bar, slapped him on the back and whispered something in his ear, but Jake seemed, for once, thoroughly uninterested in his commanding officer.
His eyes, you thought, appeared to be focused on you. He left the bar before he even got his own free drink and headed straight back towards the pool tables.
Coyote and Rooster tried to talk to him, but he brushed him off. By the time he reached Fanboy, still awkwardly hovering in front of you, his destination was clear, and Fanboy slid right out of his way.
“Come on,” Jake held out a hand to you. “Penny won’t mind if you don’t finish out your shift.”
It wasn’t a tunnel you were looking through now so much as a camera, the lens zooming in and zooming out, narrowing and expanding your field of vision around Jake.
Jake, the only thing in the world right now that felt safe, that felt ok.
You numbly, clumsily, flung your hand out to grasp his, and as his fingers laced through yours you thought you might have a different answer to Fritz’s question, not that you’d ever voice it.
—————————————
“Thank you.”
It was about an hour after you and Jake had left the bar.
He’d walked you out the back door of the Hard Deck and down the beach for the better part of half an hour before the two of you wordlessly agreed to find a comfortable spot to sit down in the sand.
The silence had been more comfortable than you ever thought silence with Jake could be. Every time he’d driven you home from the Hard Deck, he’d felt the need to fill every available moment with some kind of noise, compulsively turning up the volume on the radio or making snarky, sarcastic commentary about anything that passed by the window. Silence was not Jake Seresin’s forte.
Yet the silence between the two of you had felt like a comforting blanket, wrapping you in understanding. He already knew what happened between you and Devin; the hard part of that explanation was over. He already knew why Devin was there that night, what must have prompted him to show up, what he was hinting at in front of the whole bar. He knew nothing else about you, but he knew this, knew every detail of the most painful moment of your life, and he accepted it without question, gave you what you needed without question, helped you without question.
“You don’t have to thank me for doing the right thing for once in my life, Hurricane.” Jake murmured. “It’s a nice change of pace.”
You wished you could deny that, say that Jake was a great guy, say that he always did the right thing or that he was a good man. But the truth was he often wasn’t. He was flawed, deeply so, rude when it was uncalled for, inappropriate when the moment was serious, lewd when he should have been respectful, confrontational when he should have been kind. He was as flawed as any other human being, maybe more so.
But when you needed him he was there. When no one else was there, he was there. And that, to you, forgave any multitude of sins.
“What did Mav say to you when you left?”
“What?” Jake did a quick double take, looking down at you beside him. “Oh,” He chuckled to himself. “He said, ‘Good man, no push-ups tomorrow when I shoot you down.’”
“Well,” you smiled, “I owe you a lot more than a few push ups.”
“You owe me nothing.”
You squeezed his hand, his fingers which had been laced in yours since he led you out of the Hard Deck, “How about a second chance? If I remember correctly we didn’t get off to the best start.”
Jake smirked, “Not a chance am I starting over. You’re still my Hurricane.”
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Knowing Your Limits (Clark Kent)
Summary: clark just doesn’t want you to get hurt. he just wants you to know your limits.
Warnings: minors dni, pure filth, no plot, size difference, pinv,
Word Count: 602
Notes: just short plotless filth, so minors will be blocked.
“That’s enough.”
He catches you under your arms as you try to work what’s left of him into your weeping heat. He’s keeping you aloft a mere inch or two above his base, so close to finally taking all of him, so close to finally being filled to the brim with every inch he has to offer.
“I don’t want you to hurt yourself, baby. It’s okay if you can’t take it all. You feel just as good like this.”
“N-no I can do it.“ You're nearly breathless as you insist, “I can take it.”
He knows you can’t, not without hurting yourself. You both know it, but only one of you cares.
“It’s okay, baby,” Clark’s voice is soft and soothing, and his hands slide around your back to pull your chest flush with his. “It’s okay. You can try again next time.”
“Th-That’s what you said last time!” Your words are practically a whine, but you have no shame.
Neither does Clark. You feel his smile without seeing it, the way his cheeks puff out against your hair as his lips draw back from his teeth. He nuzzles the crown of your head in acknowledgment and loudly breathes in the warm cinnamon scent of your hair — his own shampoo you’d borrowed earlier.
“And I’ll say it next time too baby, if I need to,” He promises with a kiss to your temple.
You open your mouth to protest further, but a loud moan breaks up your words as Clark lifts his hips off the bed and rolls them into you, lifting you along with his hips so he doesn’t force that last inch or two inside.
“N-no fair.” You argue halfheartedly against his sneaky distraction, but take up his clarion call all the same. Your hands find their way back to their home — his shoulders — and you lift yourself up off of Clark’s length until the tip just catches at your opening.
Your thighs and calves ache in protest at the slow, controlled speed at which you lower yourself back down onto his length. They’re quaking almost as much as the walls of your heat, groaning almost as much as your lips.
It’s an agonizingly slow burn, but you know Clark prefers it this way when you’re on top. And not just because it keeps you from hurting yourself slamming down on too much of his length, which he loves to remind you is so hard it could actually spear into you if you’re not stretched and ready and prepared to take it all in.
It’s almost worth it not to when you stop yourself, just an inch or two from taking him all in, right where Clark stopped you before.
You witness his loving, affectionate smile this time as he leans back against the headboard for a better look at you.
“Good girl,” he murmurs. His thumb slides over your hip bone and down to the juncture of your thighs. “So proud of you… listening to me, taking care of yourself, knowing your limits.”
You whimper again because you don’t want limits. He certainly doesn’t have limits. But you bite back any verbal protest because his thumb finds your clit to reward you, and you can’t think about anything anymore when he circles it like that.
“One day sweetheart,” his voice rumbles, but you barely register the words as your hips start to rock back and forth with a purpose on his cock and his fingers, “you’re such a good girl for me. You take so much of my cock. I know you’ll take all of it one day.”
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Okay, soooo…. What do you think of a part 2 of Knowing Your Limits? 👀😭
… I could maybe swing that…. There’s a lot of new Superman stuff in my drafts today so I will be dumping a lot of fics onto tumblr in short order
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Knowing Your Limits (Clark Kent)
Summary: clark just doesn’t want you to get hurt. he just wants you to know your limits.
Warnings: minors dni, pure filth, no plot, size difference, pinv,
Word Count: 602
Notes: just short plotless filth, so minors will be blocked.
“That’s enough.”
He catches you under your arms as you try to work what’s left of him into your weeping heat. He’s keeping you aloft a mere inch or two above his base, so close to finally taking all of him, so close to finally being filled to the brim with every inch he has to offer.
“I don’t want you to hurt yourself, baby. It’s okay if you can’t take it all. You feel just as good like this.”
“N-no I can do it.“ You're nearly breathless as you insist, “I can take it.”
He knows you can’t, not without hurting yourself. You both know it, but only one of you cares.
“It’s okay, baby,” Clark’s voice is soft and soothing, and his hands slide around your back to pull your chest flush with his. “It’s okay. You can try again next time.”
“Th-That’s what you said last time!” Your words are practically a whine, but you have no shame.
Neither does Clark. You feel his smile without seeing it, the way his cheeks puff out against your hair as his lips draw back from his teeth. He nuzzles the crown of your head in acknowledgment and loudly breathes in the warm cinnamon scent of your hair — his own shampoo you’d borrowed earlier.
“And I’ll say it next time too baby, if I need to,” He promises with a kiss to your temple.
You open your mouth to protest further, but a loud moan breaks up your words as Clark lifts his hips off the bed and rolls them into you, lifting you along with his hips so he doesn’t force that last inch or two inside.
“N-no fair.” You argue halfheartedly against his sneaky distraction, but take up his clarion call all the same. Your hands find their way back to their home — his shoulders — and you lift yourself up off of Clark’s length until the tip just catches at your opening.
Your thighs and calves ache in protest at the slow, controlled speed at which you lower yourself back down onto his length. They’re quaking almost as much as the walls of your heat, groaning almost as much as your lips.
It’s an agonizingly slow burn, but you know Clark prefers it this way when you’re on top. And not just because it keeps you from hurting yourself slamming down on too much of his length, which he loves to remind you is so hard it could actually spear into you if you’re not stretched and ready and prepared to take it all in.
It’s almost worth it not to when you stop yourself, just an inch or two from taking him all in, right where Clark stopped you before.
You witness his loving, affectionate smile this time as he leans back against the headboard for a better look at you.
“Good girl,” he murmurs. His thumb slides over your hip bone and down to the juncture of your thighs. “So proud of you… listening to me, taking care of yourself, knowing your limits.”
You whimper again because you don’t want limits. He certainly doesn’t have limits. But you bite back any verbal protest because his thumb finds your clit to reward you, and you can’t think about anything anymore when he circles it like that.
“One day sweetheart,” his voice rumbles, but you barely register the words as your hips start to rock back and forth with a purpose on his cock and his fingers, “you’re such a good girl for me. You take so much of my cock. I know you’ll take all of it one day.”
#superman x reader#Clark Kent x reader#superman fanfiction#superman fic#superman smut#clark kent fanfiction#clark kent fic#clark kent x you#superman x you
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In This Life (Kraven the Hunter)
Pairing: Sergei Kravinoff x Reader
Word Count: 3.7k
Summary: He decided in that moment, he wasn't going to think of that other life; he wasn't going to wait to have her in the next life. He would have her in this one.
Warnings: None. This is safe and pretty tame fluff.
Notes: IDK I got it bad for ATJ for a minute and this came out. Be nice this was a notes app splurge... Oh yeah, no real names given to Reader but written in third person.
He didn’t know her well. At first, he wasn’t sure he wanted to.
When she showed up in the tiny camp near the airfield, young and naive and lacking any and all survival skills, he’d written her off as some thrill seeker in over their head. Apparently, she’d come into town — if a collection of barely a dozen families a thousand miles from civilization who had to receive everything by plane could even be called a town — while Sergei had been out on his last mission. When he asked about her, the locals knew that she spoke flawless English but only stilted Russian that made it difficult for her to communicate, that she was willing to work and learn the skills to survive out in the bush but knew none of them when she arrived, and that she had a wad of cash at the ready for anyone willing to help. One of the locals offered to introduce him. He declined. He didn’t need to know her because she wouldn’t be around long. Sergei had picked up his usual supplies on his back and started his hike out to his dome before the woman could even say hello.
The next time he flew back into the camp, she’d had a tent set up in town and was learning the basics of fishing and hunting from one of the local guys who was absolutely thrilled to be helping a pretty girl that wasn’t family. Sergei had barely spared her more than a passing glance, presuming the newness had yet to wear off. He let the local teaching her give the woman his first name, and he received hers in return, but that was the extent of it before he was gone in the wind.
The third time Sergei came home from a mission he’d admit that he was surprised to still see her there, discussing the theory of shelter locations with a pair of chairbound old timers in front of their shack near the airstrip. The old woman was a wealth of knowledge, one Sergei himself had picked for information when he first arrived. He went to join them out of curiosity more than anything. Was she really staying out here? He found himself giving his two cents when she asked about a certain ridgeline not far from his dome.
The fourth time he touched down she wasn’t there, but her tent was still up. His pilot told him that on the last supply run the woman had ordered all sorts of supplies for shelter construction. The locals told him she was hiking out like him, getting away from even this tiny pocket of human contact.
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The next time Sergei saw her, he was on a supply run back into town. He’d given himself a break from missions and needed to restock some things. She was heading in while he was heading out, and he’d decided to stop to talk to her. She’d set up camp on the ridge she’d discussed with Sergei not far from where he’d marked on the map.
Sergei didn’t tell her, but it was only about 4 miles from his dome and right on the edge of his mother’s land.
Before he knew what he was doing Sergei heard himself offering to wait for her. She wouldn’t be long; the pilot had already filled a pack for her — a courtesy they did not give Sergei. All she would have to do is swap her empty pack for the stocked one.
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“You know you could call me Anna,” she said to him with a smile. “Everyone else does.”
Sergei chuckled. “That’s not your real name.”
She raised an eyebrow in his direction but didn’t respond.
“It’s what they call you.” Sergei jerked his head back south in the general direction of the airstrip. “It’s not your name. I know a fake name when I hear it.”
The woman dropped her head and chuckled in that way that told him she was a little exasperated. “Okay then, tough guy, what’s my name?”
“I don’t think you want anyone to find that out, least of all me.” Sergei picked another nut from the pile in his hands and tossed it back into his mouth. “Let’s just stick with calling you Mily for now.”
“That sounds Russian.”
“It is.”
“Well I’ll have to work on my Russian and get back to you on whether I like it or not.”
Sergei chuckled. It had been a while since he’d laughed, even halfheartedly. It was nice. “Do. The town’s been moaning about your Russian since you got here. None of them speak English.”
“But you do… perfectly, I might add.”
“I grew up in America and England.”
Her eyebrows shot up, and she stayed quiet for so long that Sergei bothered to turn and look. “What?” He asked when he saw her expression.
“That’s the first piece of personal information I’ve ever heard about you, from anyone.” She explained.
She was right; the realization sunk in. He shouldn’t have told her that.
Sergei took another mouthful of nuts to give himself time to think. He couldn’t remember telling anyone here where he learned English or why. He couldn’t remember telling them anything personal about him, not even that his mother had owned the land he stayed on. The less they knew of him the better. The less she knew of him the better.
“Keep it to yourself.” He said, tone grave.
The woman nodded her agreement. “If that’s what you want.”
Sergei nodded. “It is.”
Silence fell over them as they ate and drank. The chirping of the birds in the distant trees and the babbling of the stream they shared the clearing with were all that broke the silence. It was beautiful, peaceful.
Sergei was relieved she didn’t feel a need to fill the silence, not the way his brother or most people from the city did. The peace and quiet could settle in for a while.
“We should both get moving.” He got up only after the sun began to touch the tree tops in the West. “This is where I have to split west.”
“Right.” She pushed to her feet and dusted herself off. “Thanks for the hiking buddy,” she smiled brightly at him. “It was nice to be able to talk to someone properly.”
Sergei only nodded.
“Don’t be a stranger!”
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Sergei had taken to studying her.
She liked people. It was odd based on her choice of location, though not an unexpected discovery based on her personality.
No one nearby knew her, and she didn’t own the land she camped on. No one brought her there or tied her to the place. She didn’t even speak the language of the country as a whole.
She wasn’t particularly outdoorsy; she didn’t have any of the skills to survive when she arrived. She was willing to learn and put in the work, but it didn’t have an active appeal to her.
She wasn’t a thrill seeker or an adventurer; she was slow and methodical about everything she did and supremely safe and cautious in her choices.
Sergei met her at the clearing every three weeks when they both went in for supplies and used the hike in and back to study her. He had theories, several in fact.
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“The shots you ordered are no good for hunting.” Sergei translated the rapid Russian Daniil was throwing at her. “It’s a slug, good for protection not hunting. You need buckshot.”
“Oh,” the woman was unsurprised, but she played it off well as she turned the box over again in her hand. “I must’ve translated poorly.”
Reaching down her she tucked the ammo into her pack and finished tying off the gun to the straps of her pack.
“Could you ask him to order the buckshot the next time the drop comes in?” She asked Sergei without looking up as she worked. “I don’t want to get the wrong thing again.”
Sergei eyed her for a long moment before he turned back to Daniil.
Daniil wasn’t Sergei’s favorite resident at the strip, a crass upper middle aged man who’d settled out here not long before Sergei to get away from some trouble he was in. Daniil wasn’t a great guy, but he wasn’t a piece of shit either. Daniil had been the one who offered to teach her to hunt all those months ago. He’d helped pick her gun one day when Sergei was out on work. Daniil would’ve known what rounds to order and would’ve gotten it right the first time. She must’ve ordered them on her own, separate from the gun or this mistake wouldn’t have been made.
Brow furrowed, Sergei repeated in Russian what the woman had said, and Daniil laughed.
The other man made a rather derogatory remark about how terrible the woman’s Russian was and how it must be getting dumber.
Out of the corner of his eye, Sergei saw the woman’s hands clench around the strap for a moment before she eased off and continued working.
“We all make mistakes,” Sergei mused to Daniil.
Two hours into their hike out of the strip, Sergei handed over the paper he’d been fiddling with since they left.
“What’s this?” The woman asked.
“A map to my home, Mily… just for emergencies.”
Sergei said no more about what he’d figured out and what he knew, and she said nothing more to confirm or deny what he suspected.
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They must’ve been powerful people, Sergei surmised. To send a woman with no connections and no interest and no skills this far out into the wilderness, they must’ve been truly terrifying. Whatever they planned to do must’ve been truly evil.
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It was twilight on a Tuesday with a thick layer of snow on the ground and winter fast approaching when she knocked on his door.
“Sergei! Sergei it’s Mily!”
He’d been expecting it for months.
She was an supremely rational person. She wouldn’t have come all the way out here if the danger wasn’t real. She wouldn’t have come out here as an overreaction to a minor threat. The threat was real and extreme, if not eminent.
When she’d first arrived she’d been out of her depth, but she’d clearly felt safe. She smelt so little of fear that it had taken Sergei time to even realize someone had chased her here. As the months had ticked by though, it had become suffocating. Fear seeped out of her every pore; anxiety and wariness ruled the day. But not paranoia, no her fear was warranted, like she knew her time was up and something was coming.
Sergei wasn’t even sure if she knew what had her on edge or if it was some baser, subconscious animal instinct that was telling her it wasn’t safe anymore, that she needed to run.
But she’d ignored it, she’d stayed, and now she was banging down his door.
“Sergei, please,” she threw herself at his feet, at his mercy, the moment he opened the door of the glass dome. “You have to help me.”
“Who is it?”
“There are men hunting me. I didn’t know where else to-“
“I know,” Sergei cut her off by hauling her to her feet and pulling her inside. “I asked who.”
“His name is Miles Warren. He-“
Sergei visibly tensed. His grip on her arm became painful. “I know who he is.”
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Miles was at the air strip. She’d taken to walking towards town while hunting with the compound bow Sergei had given her. A cautionary measure so she could have eyes on the airstrip and any incoming planes as often as possible. She’d seen his unique private plane come in to land, and she’d known immediately who it was.
Miles could only be here for one of two reasons: her or him.
She didn’t know that. She knew so little about Sergei. Since his slip of the tongue about his upbringing, she’d only learned what he’d wanted her to know or deduce. She only knew that he was capable, dangerous, and her best chance of making it out of this. When she’d seen the plane, she’d reasonably assumed that it was for her.
But Sergei was a threat to men like Miles Warren. He wasn’t yet an attacker of Warren himself. He’d given the man a wide berth while he investigated some of his more nefarious dealings — and nefarious they certainly were. When he came for Miles, he would only have one shot to get him without giving the other man an opportunity to cause massive collateral damage to the people, animals, communities he trafficked. If Miles was the kind of man Sergei thought him to be, he might want the opportunity to head things off.
“You were one of his girls?” Sergei handed her a cup of tea which she greedily accepted between her frigid fingers.
The fur slipped a little from her shoulder and drew Sergei’s eye down to remind him that she was in no way dressed for the approaching chilly early winter night.
She’d come here unprepared, hadn’t even gone home, had abandoned her hunt and run straight to him, followed his map to his door to whatever protection he could offer. From the pungent scent of her wafting off of it, Sergei would bet she’d kept the map with her always, a safety net to lean on when the fear struck her.
“I was his girl.” She clarified with a meaningful emphasis in her tone and her eyes.
Sergei nodded. Her assumptions were probably justified then. If she was Miles’s personal girl, he would want her back. “Did you see him get off the plane?”
She shook her head. “I bolted when I realized whose plane it was.”
“Would he come for you personally? Or will it be security?”
She pondered the question for a moment. “He’ll bring security. He would never come alone… and he’ll be here — as in at the plane, but I don’t know if he’ll hike out with them to find my camp.”
“How many people know where you camped?”
“Daniil and his brother helped me drag-“
Sergei cursed under his breath. There were men at that airstrip who would die before they turned over any woman, no matter how tangentially they knew her, to a man clearly hunting her. Daniil was not one of them. He wouldn’t do it for free, but a man like Miles could afford a fee.
“Stay here.” Sergei shoved to his feet and picked up his empty back beside the door.
“But-“
“I’ll be back in an hour. Don’t go outside. Stay under the counter if you hear something; they won’t be able to see it from outside. I’ll whistle when I’m back, so you know it’s me.”
“But…”
As an afterthought, he reached back and lowered the door to reveal his weapons stash.
“That’s…”
Sergei looked up and saw the shock and confusion coloring her face. Directed at So many things no doubt, not the least of which would be who exactly he was to have all of those weapons and to be this unphased by the situation.
“Stay here.” Sergei repeated again to get her attention. He tried to convey his meaning in his eye, his intent and how serious he was about his words. “No one at the strip knows where I camp or will think to look for it when they’re trying to find you; you’ll be safe here for now.” He repeated. “I’ll be back.”
She gave him a wordless, almost mechanic, nod of agreement.
Sergei grabbed a knife and slipped it into his belt before closing the weapons away. She knew where they were and saw the whole process. She could get one if she needed it, but he doubted it would come to that before he returned.
He was expecting more of a fight from her about him leaving, but she either didn’t have the energy to put one up or presumed he would be safe. Probably both.
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Sergei returned in 45 minutes with his pack and hers strapped to his person filled with clothes and personal belongings from her camp.
He’d never been there himself, but he remembered her choosing a location, and he could follow her scent easily enough.
Without her or anyone else slowing him down, he’d broken into a full sprint there and back. He didn’t know how long it had taken her to get from the strip to him or how long it would take Daniil to cave or Miles to find her, and he wanted to beat Miles there.
She didn’t have much; her camp wasn’t nearly as sophisticated as his and was mostly a hut she’d built herself. Sergei packed away most of her clothes and everything that looked to be of personal or monetary value. He trashed the rest like an enraged bear tearing apart the camp.
When Miles was gone, he promised himself he’d help her rebuild something better.
She greeted him with an expression of utter relief and possibly even joy, and Sergei didn’t have the heart to take that away from her by telling her that he’d spent several minutes destroying everything she’d built.
“You’ll stay here till this blows over.” Sergei deposited both packs on the ground.
The second he was free of them, she flung herself at him.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” her face burrowed into his shoulder as her arms tightened around his neck.
Sergei was still for a long moment, stunned by his first non-violent human contact in almost a year. It took half a minute or more before he overcame the shock enough to return the gesture.
“You’re welcome, my Mily.”
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“You’ve heard of the Hunter...”
It was the dead of night, and only the stars in the East were breaking up the inky black sky. A storm was rolling in from the West, hiding her favorite constellations as she looked up through the glass dome with a sense of longing that went far beyond the superior view afforded by Sergei’s camp.
She was easy to talk to – Sergei lamented – easy to open up to. In another life, a life without a lion or a drop of blood or a hunt, he could see things with her being very different.
Taking in her innocent, wide-eyed wonder as she stared up at the stars, he almost wished things were very different.
“Yes, but he’s just a myth,” she brushed the comment aside, not deigning to look back down at the earth. She was far away, far away from this place, far away from him.
Maybe it was wrong to take that from her.
“Miles used to tell us he would hire the Hunter to track us down if we ever escaped,” she spoke softly, as though not to disturb herself, “that he would-would come and-and…”
Her head lowered, eyes staring straight ahead at the door before she turned to look at him. She’d realized what he meant, while she talked to him from wherever she was off in her daydream.
“You’re…”
“I’m not hunting you, my Mily,” Sergei vowed. Absently, he brushed a strand of hair back behind her ear. “I’m never going to.”
She swallowed around a lump in her throat, “D-Did he… Did he try to…”
Sergei shrugged. “If he tried, I never knew. I have… people… who screen these things. I don’t hunt women, not for men at least. They know that. They wouldn’t have bothered me with it.”
A borderline hysteric laugh escaped her lips before she could bite it down. “I-I ran to Siberia to hide from you. I ran to you because I was scared he’d brought you.”
Sergei’s mouth quirked up at the corner. Yes, he could see the humor in that. “It’s a good thing I’m on your side then. You’re terrible at hiding from me.”
Her lip wobbled between her teeth as she bit down hard to hold everything in, but it didn’t last. Only a moment later she was falling back into the pile of furs on his bed and cackling.
For the first time in years, Sergei smiled for someone other than his brother.
“Y-You!” She stretched to the top of the bed and grabbed a pillow, swinging it around to bat him in the chest for all the good it did. “I can’t believe I was scared of you! You’re making jokes!”
Sergei batted the pillow away harmlessly, and it skittered across the floor almost to the door.
She didn’t give up at one, and she grabbed another pillow from the head of the bed, rolling her feet over her head to get to a better position behind him before she took another swing.
Sergei laughed, small but genuine, as he caught the pillow and held it this time. They wrestled for mere seconds before she found herself on her back under him, pillow stretched tight across her wrists above her head, holding her defenseless under him.
Her chest heaved, a combination of the effort to wrestle him and the laughter still tumbling out of her at intervals when she had the breath to manage it.
Sergei smiled fondly down at her, and that certainly didn’t help her catch her breath.
“Aren’t you glad I’m on your side?” Sergei’s eyes flitted up to her wrists, held hostage by one of his hands.
“Y-Yeah,” She smiled up at him, unhesitating, infinitely trusting, and it broke something in his chest.
Damn that other life. He wanted it.
Sergei’s eyes trailed down to her lips and lingered there for a moment until he watched them part in a sharp inhale of breath completely unrelated to her previous exertion.
His eyes flashed back to hers, and he saw only curiosity, interest. For a moment, he fooled himself into thinking there may have even been hope.
His free hand reached up and caressed the length of her face, trailing from her forehead to her temple to her cheekbone, down along the soft round skin of her cheek to the sharper edge of her jaw.
“Mily, my Mily,” he murmured, more to himself than her before he closed the distance between them and let his lips find her in this life.
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Sergei slipped out of bed in the dead of night. A chaste kiss brushed against her cheek the only sign of his otherwise silent departure.
Miles was dead by morning.
She was his. He finally learned her real name.
#sergei kravinoff#kraven x reader#kraven x you#kraven the hunter#sergei kravinoff x reader#sergei kravinoff x you#kraven#kraven the hunter x reader#kraven the hunter x you
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Nothing worse than going to a concert and realizing a musician you’ve been listening to religiously for a while is really hot.
It changes things.
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@littlebirdygirlywriting I see you and your recs list that brought this on and I love you
Who Did This To You? (Hangman)
Pairing: Hangman x Female!Reader (no use of y/n)
Word Count: 10.2k because I have no self control
Summary: In your most vulnerable hour, Jake 'Hangman' Seresin is the one to find you, and the one to ask you the ultimate question. "Who did this to you?"
Warnings: Mentions of Abuse and DV (NOT committed by Jake), nongraphic description of resulting injuries, a very one-sided bar fight, mention that a character is going to therapy, insults and confrontation by a past abuser. (This story is a who did this to you trope. While it is only dealing with the 'who did this to you' aftermath of what was done, please keep that in mind.)
Notes: This is just an excuse to write the who did this to you trope. This is self indulgence at its finest.
“Who did this to you?”
Your head shot up a little too quickly at the unexpected company, and the world began to spin all over again. With a groan, you laid your head back on the bartop, hoping the flat wood would help the world right itself faster.
You’d been lying there with your forehead pressed on the cool wood of the bar, sitting directly under an air vent, for the better part of thirty minutes. The Hard Deck’s AC was working overtime to keep the heat outside, and the rush of cold air blowing down the back of your shirt was doing wonders for your sore arms and back.
“Hurricane, who did this to you?”
You hadn’t been expecting anyone to be there. Everyone else was down at the beach. You thought you’d have some time alone to lick your wounds and cover your bruises and emotionally recover from what had happened that morning. Penny was too busy watching Maverick. The aviators were too engrossed in a new game Maverick had invented called dogfight volleyball, and the bar was technically closed at this hour. You thought you could slip by and start your shift sight unseen.
“Hurricane,” The voice was firm, but not demanding. Underwritten with a tone of concern that was very uncommon to that particular voice. “Hurricane,” it repeated.
You opened your eyes and rolled your head to lay facing the voice’s direction and made eye contact with Hangman.
You knew it was him before you turned, but for some reason you still did.
Backlit by the sun’s rays bouncing off his perfect golden hair with an open button-up billowing in the sea breeze, he stood in sharp contrast to your current state. Like an angel stepping out of heaven and into hell.
In some ways, this was your worst case scenario. Hangman was definitely not your favorite pilot and was very close to your least, and he was certainly not your friend. You were at best frenemies and even that was a stretch. The pair of you had been constantly bickering and making snide comments behind the other’s backs since practically the moment you made eye contact with each other. He intentionally made your life difficult behind the bar, and you rang the bell on him on multiple occasions.
He was responsible for everyone calling you Hurricane. You’d come crashing through the doors on your first day working at the Hard Deck with a torrential downpour following you in from outside. A drowned cat would’ve looked less soaked through and pathetic than you, and the moment Penny introduced you to the squad, he’d made a snide remark about the Hurricane you brought with you. The rest was history. It became like a callsign to them; your name long forgotten by most. The only pilot who didn’t call you Hurricane now was Bob, and it ground your gears just a little bit more every time you heard it.
On the other hand, this might’ve been the best case scenario. Hangman wasn’t someone who was going to make a big show of this. He wouldn’t rush down to the beach and ask for help. He wouldn’t fawn over you or ask you if you were okay a million times. He wouldn’t expect you to cry on his shoulder and incessantly pick at you until you broke down.
“Who did this to you?” Hangman took a step in from where he’d frozen in the door out to the patio.
His expression was like his voice, hard and firm with undertones of the worry that anyone would be feeling in this situation. Hangman wasn’t the nicest guy you knew, but you knew from the other pilots stories of the many times he’d saved their lives that he wasn’t evil, and you didn’t doubt for a moment that he’d at least be somewhat concerned even if he didn’t care particularly for you.
“You already know who.”
It was true. Devin had been in the bar about once a week for the last six months that you’d been dating. He’d made the rounds through the aviators, none of whom particularly liked him but all of whom had been polite enough not to say anything… except Hangman.
The second Devin left after his first introductions, Hangman had made his distaste known. ‘Something’s off about that guy,’ he’d said before the door even closed. Phoenix had teased him about being jealous that his snarky banter was no longer the center of your world, but you’d seen it for what it was. A combination of being angry he wasn’t the center of attention and looking to defy you at every turn that was a uniquely Hangman blend.
Hangman approached you slowly, taking one deliberate step at a time. Every step with such obvious forethought that it gave you the time and the option to back away. A detail you wouldn’t have expected from such an ego-centric man.
You didn’t back away. Hangman was a lot of things, most of them negative, but you could say with absolute certainty that you weren’t afraid of him. For all the times you’d yelled at him, you’d never been scared of his physicality, and for all the times he'd yelled at you, his hand had never so much as twitched.
Standing beside you, under the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights that threw your skin into sharp relief, Hangman had a full view of the damage.
“That fucker,” his voice was a harsh, raspy whisper, “I’m gonna kill him.” His hand seemed to lift of its own accord. Flat, open palmed and always within your line of sight, he reached up and stroked his fingers along your cheekbone with a feather-light touch.
“I already dumped him.” You don’t know why you felt like explaining yourself to Hangman of all people, but maybe it was the determination in his eyes. The way he stared down at your cheek like his eyes could will the twing of pain away.
Hangman gave a half-hearted, inattentive nod. “That’s certainly a start.” He looked like gears were turning in his head, like he hadn’t given up on his first idea.
A flood of memories came back to you.
‘The only active duty pilot with a confirmed air-to-air kill.’ Coyote, introducing Hangman.
‘We call him Bagman, cause he’ll kill anyone and get anyone killed. He doesn’t seem to mind.’ Omaha commenting on Hangman’s aim at the dartboard.
‘That’s his second air-to-air kill.’ Bob, telling you what he could about the mission they’d just come back from.
‘Hangman’s deadly in the sky. I wouldn’t wanna cross him.’ Rooster, finally being honest about what he thought of Hangman, after the blonde saved his life.
Hangman had killed before, and in his line of work, with his level of skill, likely would again. He definitely didn’t mean what he said, certainly not literally. He wasn’t about to rush out to his truck and go hunting Devin in the streets, but it wasn’t something he of all people would say entirely jokingly either.
You slowly sat up in your chair. The world was spinning less now. Whether that was because the nausea was finally passing or because Hangman’s hand stayed on your cheek, grounding you in the moment, it was unclear. “I appreciate your concern,” you hedged, “but really, I’m fine. I can handle myself.”
Hangman snorted and let his hand fall away. “Obviously you can; you already kicked his ass to the curb on your own. Doesn’t mean I’m not gonna kill him for good measure.” Hangman hopped up on the bar and swung his legs over.
You probably should’ve objected to his comfort level invading your workspace. Penny was very explicit that no one was allowed behind the bar who didn’t work there and even more explicit that that applied to all naval aviators. Somehow, though, you doubted Hangman would rat you out, at least not today.
“Are you going to tell Penny?” Hangman mozied around behind the bar, picking up a rag and tossing it over his shoulder. He was looking for something, but he didn’t seem inclined to ask. You weren’t any more inclined to offer.
It would’ve broken whatever moment was passing between you. Caring? Camaraderie? You weren’t sure, but there was certainly some level of understanding that remained largely unspoken.
Hangman found what he was looking for in short order anyway. He flipped open the ice cooler and pulled the rag off his shoulder, filling it with a scoop of ice and tying the ends.
“Not now,” you were disinclined to bring it up to Penny.
The Hard Deck was a Navy bar, and Penny had made a lot of powerful friends. Hell, you had a lot of powerful friends if you were willing to use them; one of them, or at least a powerful person who was willing to help you, was standing right in front of you. You could only imagine what would happen to Devin if you told anyone. All of it would be deserved of course, but you doubted most of it would be legal. And that really wasn’t what you needed right now, and you weren’t ready to have that conversation anyway.
“Hold this to your cheek. You wanna get the swelling down,” In a reversal of roles, he leaned against the bar in the place that was normally yours and offered you his makeshift ice pack.
You took it with a quiet, “Thank you.”
Hangman nodded with a thoughtful expression, watching your hand raise it to your cheek, “I’ll let you tell them in your own time, but you’re going to go to someone to help you through this until then… professionally.”
It wasn’t a question. He wasn’t leaving room for debate. It was an order as plain as any he got in the Navy.
You nodded wordlessly against the ice pressed to your face. It was a reasonable expectation, a reasonable request. You weren’t sure if you needed it or not, but you supposed that was the point. You weren’t sure. Better to go too soon than too late.
“Good,” Hangman sighed, seeming relieved, and pushed off the bar. His muscles flexed with the motion, bulging against the short sleeves of his open button-up shirt. They remained tense as he crossed his arms over his chest. His teeth gritted behind his closed lips. “I’ll keep him out of the bar.”
“Hangman, you really don’t have to-”
“He hurt you.” Hangman cut you off with a dismissive wave of his hand. He looked serious, deadly serious. “That’s all I need to know. He’s not welcome here anymore.”
Before you had the chance to respond, not that you were entirely sure how you would, Hangman’s eyes left yours, staring at something over your shoulder out towards the beach.
“Do you have any makeup for that cheek?”
Your head turned, and you saw the outlines of Penny and Mav, arm in arm, making their way back to the bar. “Yeah,” you replied, “But my shoulder is a different story. I need to go find…”
Hangman jerked his button up off his shoulders and balled it up, tossing it across the bar to you. “Go quick. Put this on.”
“Hangman, I-”
“Go.” Hangman urged, and you ran off before Penny could see the two of you.
—------------------------------------------------
Your phone kept buzzing in your pocket, but you didn’t have time to check it.
You thought you knew what it was. Phoenix demanding to know why one of Jake Seresin’s shirts was wrapped around your shoulders. Hangman’s weren’t as distinctive as Bradley’s, usually solid colors with a barely-there logo on the pocket. None of the guys had noticed you were wearing it, but you knew Phoenix had the moment she came back in from the beach. She’d shot you a disappointed, skeptical look and immediately begun whispering to Bob as they walked away with their drinks.
Penny hadn’t been much better. She hadn’t identified which pilots’ shirt it was like Phoenix clearly had, but she was two steps away from asking when the evening rush began to pour in without any sign of slowing down.
The Hard Deck was slam-packed, and none of the bartenders had a second to spare. The newest class of TopGun recruits were graduating within a week, and it seemed that everyone had turned out for the upcoming occasion.
The bar was crowded with faces new and old. All of the graduating pilots were scattered around, and most of their instructors had made their way in at some point. Some of the pilots had families, wives and girlfriends, who had flown in and accompanied them to the bar that night. There were more than a few old friends in town to visit or siblings using the graduation as an excuse to get away.
Even most of Mav’s squadron was there. Penny’s old flame had claimed a spot by one of the dart boards, and his lieutenants were all taking turns trying to dethrone Hangman as the king of darts. Normally, they would have migrated to the pool tables by now, but the bar was too crowded for even TopGun’s finest to leverage their way into skipping the line to have a game.
One of the soon-to-be graduates hunkered down at the bar, some asshole who was billing himself as the new and improved Hangman, kept snapping his fingers at you to try to get your attention from behind the bar. You were dangerously close to ringing the bell on him the next time he did it, and Penny’s fingers were clearly itching to do the same. Tragically, neither of you thought that was a very good idea. Tonight might’ve been the one night where it was simply too busy to ring the bell.
There were so many people you couldn’t see past the sea of bodies pressing in around you, and it was a miracle that you didn’t bolt from the claustrophobia.
Marg after marg. Old fashioned after old fashioned. Beer after beer. The line never seemed to stop, and it was taking its toll on you. Tonight was simply not your night.
“Go,” Penny’s hand touched your shoulder and made you jump, spilling some of the tequila shot you were trying to hand off. “I’ll clean that. You look like you need a break. Take five.”
Normally on a busy night, you would’ve protested, insisted you could hold down the fort and done your best to help Penny push through the rush, but not that night.
Your shoulders slumped in relief, and you ducked under the gap in the bar without much of a second thought, pushing your way through the people towards the door to the kitchen. There was a ‘broken’ stool by the door to the kitchen that was in fact not broken at all but had a sign taped to it that said it was specifically so it was open for when workers were on break. The seat provided some much needed relief for your aching feet and even more aching shoulders.
Shaking cocktails was really aggravating the bruises just beneath the button up wrapped around your shoulders, and you found yourself hurting almost twice as much as normal this shift. That might’ve been why you felt like you were moving in slow motion the whole time. That or the sheer number of people had simply made the task seem insurmountable.
You were just closing your eyes and leaning back against the wall when your phone in your pocket buzzed again.
It wasn’t really a conscious decision to check it, more habit than anything else. And really, you hadn’t expected it to be anything that bad. You hadn’t heard from him all day.
But there it was. His name. His name a half a dozen times over the course of your shift. Each text progressively more urgent and pressing than the last.
‘I’m still coming to pick you up from work.’
Bile rose up in your throat, and you suppressed the overwhelming urge to bolt. The room was suddenly too hot and too crowded, and there were too many faces. Faces you recognized and faces you didn’t. A wash of faces that was the perfect place for him to hide, to wait, to lurk around for the opportune moment to reveal himself.
You couldn’t do this, couldn’t deal with this. Not here. Not now. Not in front of all these people. Not alone.
You did the first thing that came to mind.
It was stupid really. You couldn’t explain why it occurred to you, why you acted on it so immediately, why you thought it was a good idea at all. It probably wasn’t; it could just as easily have backfired in your face as anything else. But your gut told you it was what you should do. Really, your gut didn’t so much tell you as wrench you in that direction with an undeniable force.
“Hey can I talk to you for a sec?”
Hangman was an easy man to find, even despite the crowd, strutting around the dart boards like he owned the place, which he very nearly did, rubbing the other pilots noses in his shots that were somehow better blindfolded than theirs were with sight.
You interrupted him boasting loudly to Fanboy and Payback about how he didn’t even need to practice. Perfect marksmanship just came naturally to him. The rest of the pilots were all gathered at the high tops near the darts boards, mostly rolling their eyes. They were having some kind of tournament, or rather a competition to see if anyone could take Hangman down.
Payback seemed almost too happy for the interruption, but Fanboy was a bit more perceptive, at least at the moment. Fanboy’s eyes darted away to Phoenix’s table, and you saw the jerk of his head when he caught her eye. Funneling the female aviator’s attention in the direction of what was unfolding.
You, wearing Hangman’s shirt since he disappeared for half an hour earlier that day, asking to talk to him alone near the end of your shift. You knew exactly what it looked like.
“Sure.” Hangman’s tone was completely casual, not giving anything away, but when his back turned on his companions, his eyes were burning. You quickly looked away from his gaze and led him from the group.
“I wasn’t checking my phone.” The words were tumbling out of your mouth the moment he was out of the others’ earshot. You didn’t even bite your tongue long enough to turn around. “He’s been texting me my entire shift. He was supposed to be my ride home tonight, and I think he might show up soon.”
When you faced Hangman, you knew the panic in your voice and in your eyes was painfully obvious. Now that you were semi-alone with him, with someone who knew, there was no hiding how much it jarred you. Your hands fumbled with your phone trying to show him the flood of texts you’d gotten, unnoticed, over the last two hours.
Hangman didn’t look down even as you turned the phone to show him. His jaw was already clenched; his expression was agitated, visibly angry. His eyes weren’t looking at you or the phone. They were searching the faces in the crowd similar to the way yours had only moments before though far more thorough. The honed, trained eye of a military fighter pilot meticulously picked through the crowd for its target, finding nothing.
“Could you…” You hesitated to ask. It was such a ridiculous request. Just yesterday, Hangman would’ve been your absolute last choice to be in this position with; you would’ve risked handling it alone before asking for his help. But here he was. The only one who knew. The first one you asked. “I’ll give you a round on the house for it. I just… Would you mind giving me a ride home? I don’t want to stumble on him alone.”
Hangman didn’t hesitate or pull his eyes from where they continuously scanned the crowd, as if his gaze alone was enough to keep a threat at bay. “No beers required, Hurricane.” The words seemed to be coming out of his mouth even as you offered. Like he’d already decided what he was going to do the minute you told him the problem. “Wait here a sec? I’ll handle it.”
Hangman walked the short distance over to the bar, glancing back over his shoulder at you every few steps like he was making sure you hadn’t disappeared, and flagged down Penny. Something on his face must’ve told her it was urgent because she forwent several regulars and big tippers demanding drinks to beeline towards him. He leaned over the bar and whispered something in her ear, gesturing back in your direction.
Penny looked concerned, and she nodded along with what Hangman was saying until he turned to leave.
“If Penny asks,” Hangman put a hand on your shoulder, a firm grip holding you to his side as he led you through the throng of people towards the exit, “a guy was bothering you, and I drove you home cause you were scared of him.”
“Not entirely a lie,” You mumbled, shifting closer into Hangman’s side.
No one tried to stop you. No hands reached out for you. No one called out your name. You made it through entirely unscathed. You could feel eyes on you, but they didn’t raise the hairs on the back of your neck. You doubted, highly, that they were Devin’s. More likely, Hangman’s squadron were watching him retreat from the bar with you under his arm without so much as a goodbye. More likely, they were plotting and planning the questions they were going to hound the two of you with the next time they saw you. More likely, Phoenix was pointing out to everyone that you were wearing Hangman’s shirt.
—------
“Does he have a key?” Hangman didn’t break the silence until he’d turned onto your block, until he’d brought his truck to a slow crawl, looking for your tiny, inconsequential cookie cutter house in a row of tiny, inconsequential cookie cutter houses.
Yours was pretty much the only house without a Navy flag or Navy paraphernalia of some description sitting in the yard or stuck to a car in the driveway. The neighborhood was not far from the Hard Deck which was not far from the base, and the tiny houses geared towards first-time-buyers were crawling with Navy pilots and newlywed military couples who wanted to live offbase.
You were on the second sidestreet, the third house on the left. Hangman already knew the way without instruction. Penny had conned every Top Gun pilot with a car into driving you home at least a couple times. And while Hangman was usually the pilot she was least willing to ask, he was also the only one who was guaranteed to always be sober.
His question came out very sober. His usual lilting, teasing tone had dropped off somewhere today and never fully returned.
“He did. He… he told me he lost it, but…” You both knew better than to believe that.
Hangman pulled into your driveway and flicked the truck into park and turned it off. “Tomorrow I’ll drive you to the hardware store, and we’ll change the locks.”
“You don’t have to…”
“Do you feel safe with him having a key?” Hangman cut you off. He was looking down at you with just a touch of condescension, so classically Hangman. Like he knew the answer already, like he knew you knew the answer already, and that you were silly if you pretended not to or refused him.
You knew where this was going, and you thought about lying, just to relieve Hangman of whatever false sense of duty or obligation he had imposed on himself by being the one to find you at the Hard Deck. But it was way too late. Hangman wasn’t stupid, but he was incredibly, irritatingly stubborn. And he’d already set his mind to helping you through this. “No.”
“Then tomorrow morning I’ll change the locks.” Hangman threw his door open and hopped out of the truck. It slammed closed behind him as he circled around to your side. You made to open your door, but Hangman beat you to it. “Alarm services are expensive,” He continued, offering you a hand, “but they make door jammers that have sound alarms on them at least, and my sister bought some cheap window versions a while back that I could help install.”
You took Hangman’s hand and dumbly followed him up to your door as he rambled on about extra door locks and doorbell cameras. All options that you could pick up tomorrow for him to put in.
“That’s too much effort,” You halfheartedly protested as you spun your keys around trying to find the one to your front door.
There really weren’t that many keys. There were a couple to the Hard Deck, one to the shed where Penny kept beach supplies, and one to Devin’s place that you hadn’t returned. They were all distinct shapes and colors, but you couldn’t seem to focus long enough to find the plain silver key to your own door. Maybe because you knew there was another one, exactly like it, somewhere across town at that moment.
“Not if it makes you feel safe.” Hangman leaned back against your door frame, his eyes skimming up and down your block as if he was still on alert in the crowded bar, still looking for signs of trouble, signs of him.
“Would you…” Your words trailed off as you watched his darting eyes. The question came bubbling up before you could stop it, before you even really thought of it. It was less a question and more a response to his vigilance, to the thought that his vigilance might be warranted and necessary.
“Would I…?” Hangman didn’t let it go. His eyes turned to look at you.
You chewed at your bottom lip, debating if it was worth asking, debating if it was necessary.
He probably thought it was, if his mannerisms were any indication, if his talk about alarms was any indication, if walking you to your door and watching your back were any indication.
“Would you come in?”
Hangman raised a doubtful eyebrow, sure you didn’t mean what those words usually meant.
“Not like that, it’s just… You’re right. He probably still has a key, and if we can’t fix it till the morning…”
Understanding seemed to wash over his face, and Hangman kicked himself up off the door jam. “If it’ll help,” he immediately conceded. “I’ll sleep on your couch.”
“It…” You hesitated, but only for a moment. “I think it would.”
The silence inside your home was almost palpable. It was late enough that going to bed wouldn’t have been awkward for either of you, but neither of you were tired. And neither of you seemed up to faking being tired just to get away.
Hangman sat on one end of the couch, and you sat on the other. At some point, you mustered the effort to turn on the tv. The local news was a quiet, bland drone of background noise cutting through the still air around the two of you.
You felt like you should say something. Maybe ‘should’ wasn’t the right word; maybe you wanted to say something. But either way you didn’t know where to begin.
You had only ever been alone with Hangman when he was dropping you off as a favor to Penny, times that were filled with snarky jokes and constant nagging from both of you, and earlier that day in the bar. You weren’t close. You weren’t friends. You were barely acquaintances. He was only here because he was in the right (or wrong, depending how you looked at it) place at the right time.
“Thank you,” That seemed like a good place to start. “For today, thank you.”
“You have nothing to thank me for.” Hangman countered quickly. His eyes stayed on the tv, though they were clearly out of focus staring at the screen.
“I do though. You could’ve told everyone.”
“You weren’t ready for that.” He added it under his breath, countering without cutting you off.
“You could’ve left me to finish out my shift.”
“Not with him coming to the bar.”
“You could’ve left after you dropped me off.”
“He has a key.”
“You could’ve turned and walked out the door when you first saw me at the bar.”
Hangman let out a heavy sigh, not of annoyance or exasperation but a sigh weighed down with duty and concern. “No, I couldn’t.”
Your eyes met his over the center of the couch, and a breath rushed out of your lungs under the intensity in his gaze.
—-------------------------------------
You woke up in your bed, mouth open, with more than a little drool pooling on your pillow.
You had no memory of falling asleep there, of getting into bed, of going to your room at all.
You remember being on the couch, talking to Hangman. You remembered the way his eyes, intense, open, and honest, compelled you to speak. The way you couldn’t bite back the story pouring from your lips. The story of Devin asking you out, of falling for him in those early weeks, of how he changed after you committed to him. The story of what he did that night, of his buddies who sat back and did nothing, of the jokes you heard the three of them cracking as you ran from the room.
You remembered Hangman crossing the space between you and putting a hand on your arm, how cautious he was touching you, how much time he left you to pull away, how gentle his touch was against your skin. You remembered throwing yourself into his lap, sobbing into his shoulder as he held you against his chest and rubbed soothingly up and down your back, whispering promises that that asshole would never hurt you again.
You didn’t remember anything after that. You must’ve fallen asleep in his lap.
Sitting up, you found the answer to your unasked question.
A folded piece of notebook paper sitting on the pillow next to you:
‘Thought the bed would be preferable to sharing the couch with me. If I’m wrong and you wake up in the middle of the night and don’t want to be alone, you can always wake me up. If not, I’ll have coffee ready for you in the morning. - Jake.’
As you read, his words the night before echoed in your head to the beat of a nonexistent drum as you read the note once, then twice, then a third time.
‘No, I couldn’t.’
You carefully folded the paper up and tucked it in the top drawer of your bedside table.
True to his word, Hangman was wide awake, standing in your kitchen pouring himself a cup of coffee when you walked out of your room.
“H-Hi,” you stuttered.
Last night, in the comfort of darkness, with exhaustion clouding over your mind and his arms holding you close, it had seemed the most logical thing in the world to open up to Hangman. And with the light of day glinting through the windows, with him dressed in the button up he’d wrapped around you the day before, with him lounging back against your counter as he sipped from your favorite mug, with an overconfident air that was too comfortable for any normal person’s first time in your home… It was odd to think that feeling hadn’t changed, that you still felt able to bare your soul to him, that you didn’t feel a need to run back into your room and get changed or freshen up, that you were perfectly comfortable being seen by him like this, a tired quaking mess with puffy red eyes.
Part of you expected to walk out into your kitchen to an epiphany that you’d made a horrible mistake, that Hangman was exactly as much of a cocky asshole as you thought he was two days ago. But the epiphany never came.
“Morning,” Hangman took a sip of coffee and set the mug aside. He looked casual, at peace, like this was just another day, like he’d done this a million times. “I’m ready to go whenever you are. I found the toolbox in the bottom of your coat closet. Hope you don’t mind. We’ll probably need a few things if we’re gonna do anything more than replace the locks.”
“Y-Yeah,” You grabbed a mug off the drying rack and crossed the room to pour yourself a cup of coffee from the pot beside him, your shoulder brushing passed his as you poured. “Sounds good.”
“Hey.” Hangman seemed to immediately pick up that something was plaguing your mind. He didn’t reach out for you like last night, quite the opposite. He took a step away and turned to face you, crossin his arms over his chest, “If you want to be alone, I’ll head out. I’ll go to the store, pick up the locks, and change them myself. You can have time to yourself if you need it.”
“No,” You immediately countered his obvious misinterpretation of your mood. “I-I don’t think I want to be alone. I’m just… antsy I guess.”
He didn’t seem to fully buy it, but he let your excuse hang. “Okay then, we’ll head out when you’re ready.”
—----------------------
All day, as Hangman worked around your house first changing the locks then installing alarms then fixing a window that wouldn’t lock and then righting a wobbly chair leg that had absolutely nothing to do with your safety, neither of you mentioned the note he left or you crying in his arms or falling asleep on his lap or his quiet ‘No, I couldn’t’.
—--------------------------
You made a vow to yourself when Hangman finally left your house late Saturday afternoon. You were never going to ring up his card at the Hard Deck again. It couldn’t really repay what he’d done for you, the feeling of safety he’d brought to you in what was probably your most vulnerable moment so far on this earth, but you knew he wouldn’t want anything more showy. Hangman loved being the center of attention, but somehow you knew he wouldn’t want attention for this.
True to your vow, the next Saturday evening, Hangman was on his third beer and had, unwittingly on his part, not paid a dime.
The Hard Deck was far less crowded that night. The graduating Top Gun candidates had all flown away, and only those currently stationed at the base, mostly Maverick’s squad, and some locals remained. A few dozen patrons milled around a room far larger than they needed with maybe a dozen pressed up to the bar. Most of the dozen fell under your responsibilities at the moment. Penny had, unintentionally, abandoned you not long before when Maverick had wandered in and taken up his usual stool.
Omaha and Halo, the first aviators to arrive, had claimed one of the pool tables early in the night, and the rest of the squad had started rotating through matchups. It appeared Fritz was on a hot streak, one that was no doubt about to end as his next opponent in line was Hangman.
All seemed right with the world. The constant buzz of voices, the crooning of the Goo Goo Dolls song that Bob had selected on the jukebox, the ready flow of beer to your usual patrons. Everything was fine.
Until the door opened one last time. Not that places of business ever ‘expected’ anyone because they hardly sent out invitations to come buy beer, but you really weren’t expecting anyone else that night. All the regulars were already inside.
The door banging against the wall as it was flung open was enough to draw your surprised eyes up to the entryway.
Face lit by the sun setting over the beach through the windows on the opposite wall, he was unmistakable as he marched into view flanked by his two buddies. They immediately began scanning the room.
Your breath rushed out of your lungs, exhaling in a gust that you couldn’t hold back any more than the wind.
No, no, no. He wasn’t here. He couldn’t be here. He couldn’t confront you here. He couldn’t corner you alone.
There was no time to think, no time to check with Penny if it was ok to leave your station, no time to get to the door or bolt out the back.
‘I’ll keep him out of the bar.’
It was your first instinct when you saw the text the weekend before, and it was your first instinct when you saw him that night.
“Hurricane?” Penny called after you as, without so much as a word in her direction, you ducked under the gap in the bar and made a beeline for the pool tables.
You barely heard her, and if you did, it didn’t register.
“Jake,” his real name leaving your lips was enough to draw most of his coworkers’ attention, all those in earshot at least. You grabbed his arm the second he was within reach, inadvertently clawing his skin with your nails as you pulled him up from where he was hunched over the pool table lining up a shot.
Jake laughed and shrugged off your arm before he even turned around and saw who it was. “Hey,” he rubbed at the red marks in his skin, “I was just…”
The words died on his lips when he turned and saw the panic in your eyes. It was brimming up inside you, overflowing and choking you off from every other sensation except the desperation for Jake to understand.
He knew better than anyone that there was only one thing that could make you look like that, feel like that. His head jerked up immediately in the direction of the door, as if he could sense the direction of the impending doom.
You watched the lighthearted smirk that constantly plagued his lips fall away. You watched the light in his eyes cloud over in darkness. As his gaze went up over your shoulder to the door, where one of the three men with angry expressions and dark eyes spotted your back amongst the khaki uniforms and began moving.
Jake’s arm twisted in your grip and grabbed you by the elbow, jerking you unceremoniously behind his back. There was no time for pleasantries, no time to be nice about whatever he was about to do.
“Fanboy, stay with her.” Jake ordered over his shoulder to the nearest aviator. His gaze didn’t waiver from the three men approaching, even as he issued commands.
Most of the aviators in Mav’s squad were scattered around the room. Mav was at the bar talking with Penny and Halo. Fanboy and Coyote had been watching Hangman school Fritz, who was being hyped up by Payback. Rooster was at a table not far from the pool game talking to a pretty girl. And Phoenix and Bob were half spectating from their perch by the jukebox discussing something that had gone wrong in a training run that afternoon.
Fanboy caught you and held you up as Jake pushed you in his direction. “What’s going on?”
Jake didn’t answer. He side-stepped in front of you, half blocking you from view, and walked to the edge of the pool area. There was a buffer zone between himself and you. He was the first line of defense, and he was giving the second, Fanboy, room to react.
“You fucking bitch!” If Fanboy didn’t know what was going on before, he instantly caught on.
Fanboy’s arms tensed around yours. His back went rigged, as if a commanding officer had just called him to attention, and he curled away, pulling you back behind him and putting his body in front of you as a shield. Even with Fanboy hovering in the way, his body didn’t hide Devin’s eyes. They sought you out around Jake’s frame and over Fanboy’s shoulder; they found you huddled up behind the Navy uniforms and the fancy stars pinned to the pilots chests. No number of medals pinned to Jake’s chest could stop the chill that ran down your spine in response to the venom in Devin’s tone. You wanted to look away, but the daggers in his gaze skewered you in place, held you hostage.
You wanted to curl up and hide, preferably behind Jake... Well, preferably in a home far away from there wrapped in heavy blankets with many deadbolts between you and Devin with Jake vigilantly standing guard at the door.
Devin tried to walk straight past Jake, like he didn’t even see him. Jake wasn’t having any of it.
A thick, muscular arm stuck out across the length of Devin’s shoulders as he tried to pass, holding him back.
Devin wasn’t a very big guy. He was well toned, but he was no naval aviator. He was no Jake Seresin. Jake had about an inch on Devin, but his well built frame made up for their near identical height. Devin had never been one to hit the gym hard while Jake certainly was, and it showed. It showed in the way a single arm without so much as a brace didn’t move even as Devin walked straight into it.
If the rest of the bar weren’t looking when Devin shouted that you were a bitch, they certainly were when he glared up at Jake. “Out of the way you fucker!”
Jake getting out of the way was about the last thing you wanted to happen, and Jake seemed disinclined to oblige either. His arm didn’t move from where it blocked Devin’s path, even as Devin glowered up at him.
The staring match lasted only a moment before Devin, impatient as always, gave up and turned back to glaring at you. He shouted, unnecessarily loudly, across the minimal distance between the two of you, “You changed the locks on me?”
There was shuffling behind you and the sound of something clanging onto the pool table.
You couldn’t bring yourself to turn your head away from Devin, couldn’t look away, couldn’t let him out of your sight. But there was the sound of footsteps as first Coyote, then Fritz, then Payback came into range in your peripheral vision.
None of them knew what this was about, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out where this was going. And any idiot could tell whose side they would be on in a fight between Jake and Devin.
“She didn’t. I did.” Jake declared at a similarly loud volume, pulling Devin’s attention back on him, demanding Devin shift his focus off of you. “You got a problem with that, you take it up with me.”
Devin took a step back, finally abandoning his futile attempt to confront you in favor of squaring up to Jake.
As Devin stepped back, the trio of pilots stepped forward. Fritz approached first, joining Fanboy in front of you. Payback followed after Fritz, lingering halfway between him and Jake, a bystander ready to step in if things got out of hand.
Coyote, however, had no questions about how any altercation would go down. His hand came down as he walked up behind Jake, slapping down reassuringly on Jake's shoulder to let him know he wasn’t alone. Coyote flanked Jake at such a close distance that it made it impossibly clear that, if this turned into a fight, it would not be three on one.
It wouldn’t even be three on two for that matter. Devin’s buddies, who had crossed the bar with him had hung back a few feet, giving Devin the space he wanted to scream at you or confront you or whatever else he had been planning before Jake intercepted. The duo found themselves with two bar tables between them and Devin. One of which was, ever so unfortunately for them, occupied by none other than Bradley Bradshaw and his drinking companion.
Devin’s friends would be forgiven for not realizing that they were offering up the chance to divide the group in half. Bradley, per usual, wasn’t in his Navy uniform, and a guy in a faded Hawaiian shirt didn’t exactly look intimidating. At least not while he was sitting down chatting up a pretty girl.
Seeing the escalation Coyote invited, and flashing his eyes to where you cowered behind his squadmates, Rooster got to his feet with a slow, lithe push off the table in front of him and turned his back on Devin. Not even bothering to give the belligerent asshole, currently one on two against Hangman and Coyote, the time of day, he turned his entire attention to the backup Devin brought with him.
Never in your life had you been scared of any of the naval aviators, but there was something especially intimidating about the incredibly casual way Bradley put himself alone in a fight against two men. His relaxed stance, completely unbothered by the numbers game he was playing. His head, cocking to one side to crack his neck, and then the other.
“You the latest pilot she’s spreading her legs for?” Devin snarled up at Jake, completely oblivious to what was going on behind him and unconcerned by Coyote’s presence.
Jake was entirely unphased. His voice was calm and steady even as Devin’s got more and more red with each passing moment. “No, but I am a friend. And if you have a problem with her you’re gonna have to go through me…” Jake added as an afterthought, “And him,” jerking his head to Coyote.
“You think she’ll fuck you if you play hero?” Devin spat out the word fuck as if the thought of you and sex in the same sentence disgusted him. “You don’t gotta try that hard to get her to spread.”
Jake shrugged and casually dismissed the comment. “That’s really not my business or yours.”
“She is my business; that’s my girl.”
Devin jabbed a finger over Jake’s shoulder in your direction without looking away from Jake, and you instinctively shrunk further back behind Fanboy. Until you felt the material between your fingers, you didn’t even realize that your hand had reached up to fist the back of Fanboy’s uniform.
You didn’t know, logically, why you were afraid. Whatever Jake was doing, he was doing a marvelous job of keeping Devin’s eyes off of you. You were absolutely certain that Devin would have to knock Jake out to get to you, not that he could even manage that. You were also absolutely certain that even if he did, he’d still have to make it through Rooster, Fanboy, Fritz, Payback, and Coyote, not to mention the dozen Navy guys from other squads currently spectating who would jump in to assist, or Penny or Mav. There was just something about his finger pointing at you, accusing you, that made that feeling of helplessness bubble up inside you again, that made you feel pinned, trapped under his hand.
“I’ll do whatever I want with her.”
It was like Jake knew or could sense your growing bubble of fear. He leaned ever so slightly to one side, like he was simply shifting his weight from foot to foot, before standing back up straight in between Devin’s finger and you.
“Not anymore.” Jake declared firmly. “You’re already about a mile closer to her than I want you to be.”
That declaration made Devin’s lips twist up into something akin to a smirk. “I’ve been a lot closer to her than this.”
Jake’s shoulders tensed, and for the first time it seemed like Devin got to him. “I know exactly how close you got.” His voice darkened, and you could practically picture the look in his eyes, practically knew it by heart from the night you told him what Devin had done. “Where I’m from, we don’t treat women like that.”
Devin laughed humorously, heading tilting back to let the single tone ring out in the air. “Well we aren’t where you’re from. That’s my girl, and I’ll do what I want with her.”
You shivered involuntarily, like someone had dropped an ice cube down the back of your shirt. It sent a chill through you to think of Devin alone with you, doing what he wanted with you. You remembered what he did the last time he had that power over you. You couldn’t let it happen again.
“No,” It took a moment to register that Jake was the one snarling, not Devin, not even you. The word came out in a hiss between his teeth. “You’ll do what she wants. And right now she doesn’t want you here.”
For whatever reason, Devin was getting to Jake. The unshakeable, unflappable Jake Seresin was rising to a rolling boil under the surface of his skin, and there was nothing he could do to hide it. From the tone of his voice to the tension in his shoulders, to the way his fingers twitched in and out of a fist, Devin and what he was saying was under Jake’s skin.
Devin saw it; you could tell. You couldn’t see his eyes around the bodies between the two of you, but you saw his posture change, his stance open up and his chest puff out. He leaned in and sneered, “She needed to be put in her place. She looks better roughed up anyway.”
You felt their eyes on you. The squad. The whole bar. None of them were actually looking at you. None of their heads turned, but you knew every one of them was staring at an image of you in their minds. Maybe they all figured it out before. Maybe they knew when Devin walked in or when Jake escorted you home. Or maybe they didn’t know anything at all, but either way Devin just gave them confirmation.
Payback was no longer content to play the bystander. His shoes clicked on the floor, echoing in the silence that existed throughout the bar as Jake and Devin sparred. He flanked Jake’s other side, shoulder to shoulder with him as Coyote had been since the confrontation began.
Coyote didn’t move an inch except for the hand at his side that clenched into a fist.
Jake took a step closer. But for the inch of height difference, he stood nose to nose with Devin as he said, “Where I’m from, a man lays his hands on a woman, and you take him out back and put one between his eyes.”
Devin pushed up, must’ve stood on his tiptoes to do it, to close the gap with Jake, to put himself on the same level as the pilot. “She’s mine, you fucker.” Flecks of spit, visible even at your distance, splattered against Jake’s cheek. “Get the fuck out of the way.”
Devin’s hands came up and shoved Jake in both shoulders, hard.
Jake’s shoulders didn’t give an inch. His feet didn’t budge. His posture didn’t change.
Jake’s voice dropped low, so low you barely heard it. If a single soul in the bar had been focused on anything other than the confrontation at hand, if the jukebox hadn’t run to the end of its queue of songs and left the bar in silence, if any more distance had been between the two of you, you wouldn’t have heard the rough, guttural retort from somewhere deep inside Jake’s chest, “You’re really, really gonna have to make me.”
Without warning, Devin swung.
He was standing too close to Jake, almost chest to chest with the taller aviator. There was no good angle from which to strike, and his arm took a wide arc away from his body to get the necessary momentum and distance to hit at Jake with any force.
It was like it moved in slow motion, Jake’s head turned, his eyes following the direction of the swing as it approached his face.
You gasped and clung tighter to Fanboy, who blindly reached back to clutch your arm, pulling you in closer to him.
The fear, entirely for Jake, was also entirely unnecessary.
Jake’s head leaned to one side and effortlessly avoided the blow. Devin stumbled a couple steps to the side as his momentum carried him past Jake.
It gave Jake the space he needed to counter, not with a wide, slow hook around to the side of Devin’s face, but with a swift, firm uppercut to his jaw.
The connection sent a crack echoing through the bar, and Devin’s entire body went slack before he even hit the floor.
Coyote caught his arm before he could collapse, not that it did Devin any good to be under Coyote’s care instead of Jake’s. Coyote’s grip was so tight on Devin’s upper arm that you were sure it would bruise not just the skin but the muscles underneath.
Jake bent down over the other man and bent a finger up under his jaw. Devin’s head tipped up into Jake’s face without any protest and fell back to bob loosely to one side the moment Jake wasn’t supporting him any more.
“He’ll be out cold for a while.” Jake declared, glancing up to give Coyote a nod.
Coyote dropped his grip on Devin and let him crumple unceremoniously to the floor.
“Now,” Jake left Coyote to deal with Devin, stepping over the unconscious body on the floor as one might step over a puddle in the street. He ambled over to Rooster, whose presence had been more than enough to hold off Devin’s two buddies for the brief ten seconds of fighting, if it could even be categorized as a fight.
“Are you two,” Jake wagged a finger between Devin’s two friends as he came shoulder to shoulder with Rooster, “the ones she told me helped him out last week? Cause I gotta bone to pick with them too?”
“No, we didn’t!” The shorter of the two declared loudly. “Look, we don’t want any trouble.”
Jake’s head turned to glance back over his shoulder, and for the first time since Devin confronted you, you made eye contact with Jake.
His eyes were hard, cold, unfeeling. He wasn’t angry anymore. He wasn’t upset or worried or fearful or any of the other emotions you felt warring inside of you. The mask was back on, the unflappable exterior that only you had seen beneath before tonight. He wasn’t waiting for them; he was waiting for you. A good soldier, waiting for his orders.
Imperceptibly to everyone but Jake who was watching you like a hawk, you shook your head. This had gone on long enough already tonight. You just wanted it to be over.
“Well then,” Jake turned back to the two friends in tow. “Why don’t you take your buddy and get out of here?” Jake stepped close, towering over the shorter one as he added, “Tell him if he comes back round here to bother her again; I will spend the rest of my life making sure he’s too afraid to even look at another woman.”
Beside Jake, Rooster began casually cracking the knuckles of his fist one by one, presumably for emphasis.
There was a dull thud that drew the quad of men’s attention back towards Devin.
Payback was squatting over the unconscious man. He’d seemingly been rooting through the other man’s pockets. The sound of his wallet dropping back onto Devin’s back was the noise that drew the men’s eyes and everyone else’s watching as a result.
Payback was waving a credit card in the air in Jake’s general direction.
“Good idea,” Jake wandered over and snatched up the card. “Call it payback for disturbing the bar tonight.” Jake’s teasing smirk was back as he used Payback’s callsign. He abandoned the group to amble back towards Penny at the bar, and his absence seemed to break the tension.
The patrons, scattered around, all began slowly turning back to their tables. The conversation was quieter, hushed whispers that were no doubt mostly about the fight they’d just watched ensue, but their eyes seemed to have drank in their fill of the scene.
Under the watchful eye of Rooster, with Coyote and Payback standing by, Devin’s two friends draped their friend unceremoniously across their shoulders. Despite the struggle they were clearly having, not a soul offered to help as they stumbled under his weight out of the bar.
“I hope they have to drag him to the car.”
You jumped and turned your head to find that at some point in the chaos Phoenix and Bob had come up on the other side of the pool table as a last line of defense.
“Please, I hope they faceplant in the gravel.”
You let out a humorous laugh at Phoenix’s comment as your body finally slumped under the weight of the evening, resting back against the pool table with a huff of air.
“Are you…”
“Fritz, if you ask me if I’m okay, I will walk out of this bar right now.” You held up a finger to silence him.
You were not okay. You would be okay, one day; you knew that much. But that day was not today.
In the distance, like you were hearing an echo from the other end of a long tunnel, you registered the bell ringing for a free round. Your vision was tunneling too, but you could make out Jake was leaning across the bar, ringing the bell himself as he slammed Devin’s card on the bar in front of Penny.
Maverick, always present in front of Penny’s bar, slapped him on the back and whispered something in his ear, but Jake seemed, for once, thoroughly uninterested in his commanding officer.
His eyes, you thought, appeared to be focused on you. He left the bar before he even got his own free drink and headed straight back towards the pool tables.
Coyote and Rooster tried to talk to him, but he brushed him off. By the time he reached Fanboy, still awkwardly hovering in front of you, his destination was clear, and Fanboy slid right out of his way.
“Come on,” Jake held out a hand to you. “Penny won’t mind if you don’t finish out your shift.”
It wasn’t a tunnel you were looking through now so much as a camera, the lens zooming in and zooming out, narrowing and expanding your field of vision around Jake.
Jake, the only thing in the world right now that felt safe, that felt ok.
You numbly, clumsily, flung your hand out to grasp his, and as his fingers laced through yours you thought you might have a different answer to Fritz’s question, not that you’d ever voice it.
—————————————
“Thank you.”
It was about an hour after you and Jake had left the bar.
He’d walked you out the back door of the Hard Deck and down the beach for the better part of half an hour before the two of you wordlessly agreed to find a comfortable spot to sit down in the sand.
The silence had been more comfortable than you ever thought silence with Jake could be. Every time he’d driven you home from the Hard Deck, he’d felt the need to fill every available moment with some kind of noise, compulsively turning up the volume on the radio or making snarky, sarcastic commentary about anything that passed by the window. Silence was not Jake Seresin’s forte.
Yet the silence between the two of you had felt like a comforting blanket, wrapping you in understanding. He already knew what happened between you and Devin; the hard part of that explanation was over. He already knew why Devin was there that night, what must have prompted him to show up, what he was hinting at in front of the whole bar. He knew nothing else about you, but he knew this, knew every detail of the most painful moment of your life, and he accepted it without question, gave you what you needed without question, helped you without question.
“You don’t have to thank me for doing the right thing for once in my life, Hurricane.” Jake murmured. “It’s a nice change of pace.”
You wished you could deny that, say that Jake was a great guy, say that he always did the right thing or that he was a good man. But the truth was he often wasn’t. He was flawed, deeply so, rude when it was uncalled for, inappropriate when the moment was serious, lewd when he should have been respectful, confrontational when he should have been kind. He was as flawed as any other human being, maybe more so.
But when you needed him he was there. When no one else was there, he was there. And that, to you, forgave any multitude of sins.
“What did Mav say to you when you left?”
“What?” Jake did a quick double take, looking down at you beside him. “Oh,” He chuckled to himself. “He said, ‘Good man, no push-ups tomorrow when I shoot you down.’”
“Well,” you smiled, “I owe you a lot more than a few push ups.”
“You owe me nothing.”
You squeezed his hand, his fingers which had been laced in yours since he led you out of the Hard Deck, “How about a second chance? If I remember correctly we didn’t get off to the best start.”
Jake smirked, “Not a chance am I starting over. You’re still my Hurricane.”
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Val Kilmer was and will always be a legend, and the beautiful thing about his work is that it was iconic and monumental to people like our parents when he was young and saw a rebirth with our generation through movies like Top Gun Maverick that allowed his movies even outside of Top Gun to find new fans and garner further, much deserved respect even decades later.
RIP Iceman
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I downloaded the Quinn app because Jamie Campbell Bower (no further explanation needed).
But I know tumblr is dropping the ball because what do you mean there isn’t an entire fucking fandom built around some of these guys voices.
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who cares if he’s too old, he has eternal beauty due to his vampire powers. i need to see more of that man. can you imagine the edits? ugh.
You’re so right. Fuck it make him Haymitch.
(But also. Imagine the DILF edits. Imagine young Haymitch annoyed with his dad cause all the girls are thirsting over him.)
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He’s too old to be Haymitch.
But he could be a dilf. Or an older brother.
I need Jamie Campbell Bower in the Haymitch Hunger Games movie. I don’t know how. I don’t really care how but somehow.
He’s got Twilight. He’s got Harry Potter. He’s one away from achieving Holy Trinity. (And he already has the distant fourth place in Mortal Instruments.)
He’s one away from being God.
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