#sitting in my drafts for *months* and originally a DM to gf

[meli-writes]

Mechismo - No. 04 /// Hit List

(First) / (Previous)

The broken war-machine falls to its knees, embroidered with a hot-white trim in the three perfect holes of its precious, now-former, systems; spilled out, as black smoke, except for its heart.

That falls out after.

“Hey. Princess,” you say to her, brass hard-but-hollow, the used shells her imperial-blonde hair rushes into, as she breathes into the dirt pushed underneath painted nails, as boots tread on them before she can reach for her pistol.

“You,” she snarls, twisting on bent limbs. “Fucking asshole I’ll— Hey!”

You hoist her up at an elbow, till her few, furious trembles collapse into a copacetic dangle and watch a local, mouse-analogous species squeeze itself under some muddy shrapnel.

“Princess”, you mutter, “you wanna live. So you’re gonna yield to me, okay?” And that’s rhetorical, because ‘deathwish’ isn’t in her—

“Not a chance in His hells,” she shrieks, kneeing herself free, and reaches — not for her holster, which is still full — but for your face. Crack! You catch it after, bring it behind her back to lock in re-used, disposable cuffs. “I can… I can take care of myself,” she protests.

“I know. That’s the problem — I won’t let you hurt my people.” You yank her back, till she trips and is left leaning on you, “Now yield.”

“No,” she squeals, “why would I ever trust you again?”

You trusted me?

Fuck, Princess. You’re dense as tungsten-tips.

You baulk at her, unseen from behind, and reswallow the budding softness before she feels it, “Cos these guys will bleed you out for fun. And I’ll let them, if I have to.”

There’s a wet shuffle-over-fallen-log, the familiar pitter-patter of light, temperate rain on plastic poncho. Another hunter who’ll see her in a moment. So you rock her around, without mind to the furious look painted like camo on her face, and take her at the small of her back — and pull her into a kiss.

“Fuck— it really is,” the hunter starts to mutter, before the words catch in his throat.

You know him; too new not to take it by-the-book, not too dumb not to listen to you when it counts. “Sir, what’s happening?” he asks.

You have to make this count.

“What? She’s a pretty thing, ain’t she?” you muse, as if you’ve pinned her to the wall for nabbing extra rations, and not—

He’s got his rifle over his shoulder; tall-as-him, rounds as big as her cock; is too drilled to not be gentle with it. He’d seize up if you drew on him, and it’d take him too long to respond in kind. “I had a thing with her back in the royal college.”

“Uh huh — before you betrayed me,” she cuts in, and you will her to shut-up and wonder if she still loves fingers squib-loaded down her throat.

“Before they realised I was a saboteur, Princess,” you remind her, though her eyes look the same as the first time she realised it. “We were never on the same side.”

“Never on mine,” she hisses, her own heart fallen out too. “Trying to fake your own death and blaming it on me…”

You would fill into the silence, And it would’ve kept you away, and, Still you found me, if you weren’t aware of the audience, so stuff yourself with unload pride, “Offered to take you with me, didn’t I?”

She looks like she’s gonna cook-off, “You don’t know what I was—”

“Sir,” he reminds, and you look at him; realise he is gentle, because his rifle is kick-stood on the ground and you didn’t hear that. His hand rests on his holster, “She’s on the hit list.”

Pilots to be put down. Machines to scorch, so no one else can use them.

Pilots like assassins, in their bonded semi-mechs; merchant third-sons with an insecurity to smother in bodies and merc hires; and ex-noble fuck-ups with nothing left but what they can prove.

Pilots like her, who’ve seen the gun and are nuzzling into your shoulder so deep you can hear the little killer’s loose heart pressed between your chest and hers.

“Look— Fuck— I— I yield,” she whimpers.

You run a hand up her back, to rake through her hair and tip her back.

“Then scrap the mech,” you say past her, looking in her eyes and slipping to her that same fear, before swelling viciously upon her desperate sweetness, “I’m not done with this one.”

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