#hit points are 43! which isn't the best but that's good | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

echo-three-one · 3 years

Text

Chapter 43

The Road so Far

Carry on my wayward son

There'll be peace when you are done...

THREE Bullets

John Price

Hotel Lustig, Prague, Czech Republic

Price was actually worried about his snipers who fell at a reasonably tall height, but Nero was here even if he allegedly saw this one coming, he was getting desperate, and it was the perfect time to strike.

Price swung and unhooked himself from the harness, kicking a table on the process, using it for cover. The place was already filled with Nero's men, who were willing to waste their lives for his safety.

"Price! We're on our way inside the building! As soon as these huge waves of enemies are gone. Shit. Reinforcements from all directions!" Alex hissed, the sound of gunfire in the background.

"This is gonna take a while." Soap grunted.

"Just be careful out there Captain. Soon enough, we got your back." Roach assured as Price sprayed his bullets to the tangos, shaking as the bullets hit their bodies, slowly collapsing to the ground.

The captain quickly reloaded his rifle as soon as he ran out, thinking how he had already wasted a magazine in the first room. If this keeps up, it won't be doing well for him. Another problem is that Jack is in danger.

Groaning in a mix of anger and frustration, he quickly got up and advanced deeper into the hotel. If Nero would escape, the safest extraction area was the rooftops which were on the other building.

The lobby was already a mess. Enemies already utilized the hotel's furniture and fixtures as barricades and some are already hiding behind them.

"Fuck. I'm outnumbered! Nero is getting away!" Price roared, tossing a grenade as the hostiles panicked.

"So are we. Just hang on a little. We're advancing faster now." Alex said.

"Roach, as soon as I pop this smoke, make a run for it!" Soap's voice yelled as they began flanking towards the hotel.

Price clicked his tongue and checked on the hallway. It looked like the coast was clear, but as soon as he stepped forward, Nero's men immediately appeared at the end of the hall.

"Bloody hell!" Price cursed, sliding to cover as the enemies scattered and looked for cover as well. Nero must be already on his way out but as long as his exfil isn't around yet, there is still time.

"Do you see any aircraft nearby?" Price queried over comms.

"Negative. All reinforcements are via trucks. We're almost at the hotel!" Soap replied.

"Great. There's still hope." he muttered, peeking at the hallway and estimating his next move. After which, he made a run for it, shooting the enemies as he slid to the next barricade. Two down, a few more to go.

"Captain Price, we're inside Hotel Lustig." Roach said, as the sound of shattering glass was heard. They were already downstairs.

"Nero is on the west side of the building on his way to the rooftops. Try to catch up with him. I still have some bastards to blow off." he roared, shooting the remaining enemies in the hallway as he made his way to the next area.

The next hallway was already cleared as Price saw the three on the courtyard, shooting at those running on the open lobbies.

"Good job, team. Anyone got a visual on Nero?" Price asked as he ran across the building on his way to the rooftops.

"Negative on Nero. But I see a bird on its way here. Must be his exfil." Roach replied.

"Shoot it down!" Soap roared from the background as the three aimed their sights at the approaching helo.

"Shit nevermind! We're in their crosshairs!" Soap yelled.

"I'm almost out of bullets!" Alex yelled.

Price acted quickly, providing support to the open courtyard from his location. The three were already trapped as enemies slowly surrounded them.

He could already hear the whirring blades of the helicopter so he tried to advance further to the rooftops while providing support for his team to follow and cover after him.

"Fuck." He cursed as he ran out of magazines, tossing his rifle so he could lose weight and run faster.

Equipped with his trusty M1911, he surged through enemy lines, hitting them in the head as they were too busy firing at the courtyard. Each open window had mercenaries on each floor and Price did his best to clear out the third on his way to the staircase.

He could see them advance into the building which meant that they cleared the last of Nero's surprise attack.

He checked his pistol as he ascended to the rooftops, dust blasted through him as the gust of wind from the helicopter blew across the area. He couldn't reach the rooftops as his guards were pointing their guns at the doorway.

"Goodbye Captain Price. See you in the next war." He said over comms as the helicopter ascended from the hotel.

Price watched as it flew away from the rooftop, firing the last three bullets at it, hoping it could make a difference.

Then a small missile fired from below headed to the helicopter, hitting it with one shot. Price turned to the location of the missile trail where he saw Soap down below. Alex and Roach followed behind him as the helicopter spun uncontrollably in the air crashing toward their location.

"Get down!" Alex roared as they dove for cover as the plane crash landed back to the rooftops.

Jack

Hotel Lustig - Basement

The loud grumble of the building he was in shook the CIA agent awake, realizing that he was tied to a chair with a sophisticated bomb attached to his body.

His years of experience on these kinds of bombs were worthless as this model had it's wires hidden inside a very sensitive pressure plate. One delicate press and he's toast.

But that didn't stop him from attempting to escape. He wasn't going down just yet. He had to free himself here. And finish Nero.

He first met Nero on a mission. He was supposed to be held hostage for information but Gabriel messed up and let him escape. He was now beginning to realize how that wasn't a mess up. They found usefulness in each other and exploited their wealthy resources to mess up the world.

He squirmed his way out of the chair but it was no use, so he decided to bring the chair with him and ran up the stairs. He'd assumed the source of the fight was at the explosion and that meant that no one else would shoot him from where he's at.

5:49 the LED timer ticked as he awkwardly ran with a chair on his ass, hindering him from moving faster. He didn't know where to go, but the safest place to explode was outside, so none of the hotel would be destroyed. It should also be elevated, so there would be minimal damage to infrastructure, or maybe some of his allies were still here, and helped him defuse the bomb.

3:59. He could see smoke trailing from the rooftops. It looked like a downed helicopter. His eyes weren't able to identify the persons on top of it. But his gut told him it was Nero. He had to move quickly.

He slammed the chair to the wall, breaking the wooden furniture into pieces as a beep followed. He accidentally triggered the pressure plate as the timer blinked immediately to the last minute.

"Fuck. I guess this is it." he muttered as he used the last ounce of strength he had and channeled it to his legs, dashing to the stairs up to the rooftops. At his age, he couldn't even have possibly done this, but then the whole world was on the line, he knew he had to at least try and do whatever it takes.

Alex, Soap, Roach and Price were knocked down on the floor possibly by the plane crash as he saw Nero, struggling to get up as he pointed the gun to Price.

"Goodbye. Captain Price." He muttered as he almost pulled the trigger, Jack bolted looking at the team that welcomed him one last time, smiling like nothing was on the line. He took his last second to look at Alex. Mouthing the words "Thank you, kid." as he saw the terror in his eyes as he yelled.

Jack hugged Nero tight as he pushed him off the building, letting him feel the slow vibration of the mechanism attached to him.

"Jack? How did you-?" Nero angrily muttered.

"I'm not going down without a fight. If someone's going down, it's going to be…"

[Next Chapter] : "The TWO of us, together."

Notification Squad my Beloved

@smokeywhalee @enderio @ricinbach @whimsywispsblog @samatedeansbroccoli @bumblingbee1

#alex echo 3 1 #john soap mactavish #horrayfic #john price #gary roach sanderson #whateverittakes

10 notes · View notes

thedanceofblades-blog · 7 years

Text

you had to walk into mine

// Closed and already completed with @swordwithoutsheath; just transferring it over from Google Docs in honor of Sunday. Here there be smut. And Mario Kart.

Katarina is a creature of habit. She shows up at the same coffee shop at the same time every two days, and she gets the same thing from the same barista. If the same barista’s flutist brother is there, she sticks around for a few minutes to listen, but that's the only real variable.

Today, she arrives early. She gets the same thing from the same barista, yes, but she actually sits down afterwards.

Yone gives her a suspicious look from behind the counter, but says nothing. She grins at him as though he had.

Honestly, she doesn't know if Yasuo is even going to be playing today. He did have a late night, after all—

(that moment of recognition, the pause after:

“This isn't… weird, is it?”

A sharp-edged smile, a dry voice just loud enough to hear over the music. “Do you want it to be?”)

—and no one would really blame him for wanting to sleep it off. But she hopes he'll show up, because he was flustered and cute and she has nothing better to do.

There's a nagging little voice that sounds an awful lot like Riven saying she probably shouldn't be trying to meet anyone outside of work that she met inside of it, but she technically knew him before (sort of, by name and Yone’s talk about him only), and also fuck it.

Mostly the second thing. Riv worries too damn much.

Yasuo is—well, to his credit, he's not so hungover that he can't drive, which means he's not so hungover he can't play. (Yone had left water and painkillers at his bedside, as if he knew exactly what his little brother had been up to the night before. Yasuo tries not to feel a prickle of shame at the thought.) So here he is, a flute case in one hand and a frankly massive water bottle in the other, wanting nothing more than to crawl back home and into bed and forget last night had even happened.

No such luck.

Right when he walks in, right at the two-person table near the door, ten feet from the stool where he plays, there she is. Oh, god. Yasuo isn’t sure if it’s the leftover regret of breaking his streak or the sheer discomfort that comes with the knowledge that the girl looking up at him over the lip of her coffee cup was giving him a lapdance not eight hours ago, but his stomach clenches and turns a little.

And here he thought that being hungover would be his biggest problem while playing.

To his credit, Yasuo is as polite as ever as he takes his place, nodding and bowing and smiling to everyone—including her—before he gets started.

The lights in the Bunny aren't exactly the best in the world, so she didn't get to see him blush last night. It's cute. He looks a little bit ill, but he's still cute.

Kat kicks her legs up underneath the table, resting her feet on the opposite chair to observe. Yasuo keeps his eyes either closed or away from her, which is a little disappointing, but she guesses she can understand. Some people give a shit about their dignity, or whatever it is that gets violated upon realizing that you know your stripper's real name.

(Not that it's that different from her stage name, but still.)

She watches his fingers. Damn, she thinks—and then realizes how long it must have been since she last got laid if she's getting fixated on them that easily. But it has been a while, and Riven can't give her too many disapproving looks because she knew him from before, okay?

Katarina stays until he takes a break. Her coffee's been gone for a solid five minutes, but she doesn't care so much about having an excuse to be there anyway, so it doesn't matter.

"Figure I might as well come watch you at your work," she says cheerfully as he goes for his water. "Return the favor."

Yasuo doesn't think he's blushed quite so hard since...

Well, since last night, honestly. He nearly spits out his water, covering his mouth with the back of his hand as if that will cover up the near-miss spray he almost hit her with, coughing around the throatful of water that just tried to jump into his lungs.

He wonders, with some horror, if she's literally trying to kill him.

"I, uh—fuck—" Yasuo interrupts himself with another cough, holding up a hand until the fit subsides. "I hope you liked it," he says, feeling more sheepish than he has any right to.

Beat.

"Uh. In--not in the same way that—goddammit." Well, this is definitely not the most successful conversation he's ever had.

It's been a long, long time since she got someone to do that. Maybe never, since the kinds of people who showed up at her workplace were usually a little more unflappable than this.

Of course, this wasn't exactly the Bunny now, and their conversational turn was a little different when she wasn't carefully three-quarters of the way naked on his lap. But whatever.

"Who's to say I didn't like it in the same way?" Katarina asks, all sly triumph, fingers fluttering on the side of her empty cup.

Yasuo can't really envision a universe in which someone would pop a boner listening to him play the flute of all things, but—well. Weirder things have happened in his life. He feels himself blushing a little harder regardless.

"I mean, I guess it's—it's possible, but—did you?"

That was definitely not the question he wanted to ask, and he certainly didn't want to say it in such an almost squeaky tone. Fuck his entire life.

Oh god. Oh god. That's adorable. That's the kind of adorable that makes her want to get out of her chair and squish him.

Katarina tilts her head, leaning her cheek on her hand, mischief glinting in her eye. "Maybe," she drawls. "If I said yes, would you check and make sure?"

Okay, the answer is no, because she's nowhere near frustrated enough to consider a musician doing musician things to be on the same level as porn. But this is more fun.

Yasuo's brain just sort of... flatlines for a solid three or four seconds. His jaw falls open and stubbornly stays that way for the duration, making him look like a blushing moron in front of this dangerously attractive woman staring him down.

Fuck.

"'m technically on the clock," he finally manages to stammer out. Good save, Yasuo. Good fucking save. Now she probably thinks you're an idiot. "Maybe later."

...He's not sure if that's any better.

Yeah. Yeah, she does think he's an idiot. But in a good way.

"Yeah?" Kat says, pointlessly hiding a laugh in the rim of her empty cup. "I'd tell you to buy me a drink first, but I guess you already did."

She at least has the decency to not say that part too loudly when the poor guy's brother is right there and knows what she does. Yone doesn't mind taking other people's bra money, but it would probably feel a little more awkward if he knew that some of it was his sibling's.

"I'm Kat, by the way," she continues. "Since we haven't been properly introduced yet."

Yasuo's mouth stays very, very dry no matter how much water he tries to drink, so he just... he just gives up on that. It's probably a side effect of the hot redhead coming onto him in a coffee shop of all places.

God, his life is weird.

He caps his water bottle, since it won't do him any good anyway, and clears his throat until he's confident he can actually talk again.

"Yasuo," he manages, and his voice doesn't crack or falter or even squeak a bit. "Nice to, uh... meet you."

Katarina almost considers going for a sarcastic handshake, but she's fairly certain that Yasuo could short-circuit at any moment. (She's not even doing anything to him right now. This isn't that weird, is it?)

She gives him a smile, a little nod of acknowledgement. "You too," she says with restrained mirth.

Katarina usually leaves receipts to languish in her pocket until the laundry melds the paper with the fabric, but she reaches into her pocket to pull out the one from the previous hour, stealing an abandoned pen from the next table to scribble her phone number on it. Because her life has reached that kind of point, she guesses. Life is short and he's hot.

Or something like that.

She folds the receipt into an actual, monetary tip, because she hates the people who consider flirting to be tipping just as much as the next person and she can only assume that a musician with no official etiquette has it worse than her, and she flicks it across the table in the general direction of Yasuo's chest. She misses, but the paper bounces off of his shoe, so that's close enough.

Kat gets up out of her chair, collecting her cup. "Now we're even," she says, and she turns to leave.

4:27 PM hey

4:27 PM this is yasuo

4:27 PM flute guy

4:28 PM uh. fuck. is this even the right number?

1631 hope it is

1631 depends on if you wanted to talk to me or not

4:32 PM ...

4:32 PM you could start by telling me if i'm right or not

1632 depends who youre trying to talk to

1632 :)

1633 this is kat. lol.

4:33 PM ちくしょう

4:34 PM you nearly gave me a heart attack

1635 want me to make it up to ypu

1635 and what does that say

4:35 PM 'goddammit'

4:35 PM ......dare i ask what you mean tho

1636 ill have to remember that one wont i

1636 feel like ill be seeing it again

1637 what do you think it means?

4:36 PM lmao, probably

4:36 PM well

4:36 PM considering how you were talking at the shop

4:37 PM something you'd put in overtime for

4:38 PM .....that wasn't a dick thing to say was it

1639 lol

1639 almost smooth. you dont talk to many strippers do you

1639 anyway i fuck for free. anything else is illegal

4:39 PM i try

4:39 PM sometimes i succed

4:40 PM *succeed, even. fuck

4:40 PM good to know i guess :p

1640 you suck sometimes? glad i ran into you

4:43 PM ......

4:43 PM not sure how to respond ot that

4:44 PM give me a minute to think up a decent comeback

1646 two minutes

1646 got anything?

4:47 PM ......nope

4:47 PM kat 1, yasuo 0

1647 damn right

1647 what do i win

4:47 PM ...

4:48 PM ; )

1648 ...go on...

1649 really dont leave me hanging here yas

1649 i have plenty of ideas if youre out

4:49 PM your ideas are probably better than mine anyway

4:50 PM shoot :p

1650 i wouldnt be so sure

1651 wouldnt say no to some role reversal of the other day

1651 but if you cant dance im sure we can come up with something

1651 strip mario kart?

4:51 PM you really don't want to see me dance, lol

4:52 PM .....explain the rules first, then we'll talk

1653 like strip poker but less boring

1653 whichever one comes behind takes something off

1653 ...lol

4:53 PM at the end of every lap or every course?

4:53 PM wanna be sure i understand the rules 100% before i commit

1654 depends how many tracks were playing

1654 amd how many layers you have on

1654 im not picky about how fast you lose to me

1655 and if you run out of clothes too fast we can always bet other things

1655 im also flexible on what those things are

1656 ... ;)

4:55 PM you know what they say about assumptions, kat

4:55 PM i am pretty damn good at mario kart

4:56 PM though i don't mind a bit of high-stakes gambling now and then :p

1656 is that a challenge, fluteboy?

1656 i like your ass anyway

1656 something tells me the feeling is mutual

4:57 PM ......you havent even seen it

4:57 PM (...yet)

4:57 PM and since its hot out, maybe by the course is better

4:58 PM that way it isn't over too soon :p

1658 dont worry yas i wont judge you for that

1658 we all get too excited sometimes

4:59 PM lmao

4:59 PM if you can manage to get me THAT excited over mario kart, i'll give you a dollar

5:00 PM .......or is that illegal

1700 think it's just betting at that point

1700 maybe give me a candy bar or something instead just in case

1701 when are we doing this?

5:01 PM good call

5:04 PM i'm free most evenings, so

5:05 PM you tell me

1705 well

1706 im free now and yesterday

1706 and the same next week

1706 mostly work evenings obv

5:06 PM you make a compelling argument

5:07 PM where do you live

5:07 PM and shoud i bring snacks/?

1708 edgeview, building closer to the school, 405

1708 and i wont sayno

1708 ...depending

1708 but ill try anything at least once

Katarina throws on a shirt and comfortable pants after tossing her phone to the side, just in case Yasuo was living next door the whole time and can show up in thirty seconds. After a moment's reflection—she's sure she can beat him, because she's sure she can beat most people, but it might be close enough for her to want more than the minimum number of layers for decency--she hikes her shirt up and puts a bra on underneath it.

No socks, though. She doesn't want to look too prepared.

Yasuo doesn't really bother with anything fancy—after all, the whole plan is to just tear it all off one way or another anyway and god he can hear Yone silently berating him even as he climbs into his car—; just a clean pair of jeans, boxers, sandals, and the nearest clean T-shirt he can grab on his way out the door.

And a baseball cap, but that's more because it's sunny out than any sort of precaution. He's confident in his Mario Kart skills.

Finding the place is easy enough, thank heaven, as is bringing up the bag of miscellaneous snack food he picked up on the way.

Knocking... that's the hard part. This is a bad, bad idea. If he were thinking, he'd just drop the bag by the door and go back home, and then he wouldn't have to disappoint his brother when he walked back in their door.

...

He knocks.

Okay. Too long for him to live downstairs, but he's close. She'd assume the dorms if not for Yone... hmm.

Not that it really matters too much. Kat pushes herself off the couch, swinging the door open and grinning up at him. (God, he's taller than she thought. She hadn't really looked when he wasn't sitting down.)

"Hey," she says, stepping back to sit on the arm of the couch. "I hope you're ready to embarrass yourself."

God, she's short. He'd noticed that, somewhere in the back of his mind, in the coffeeshop, but... God, she's short.

Yasuo hoists the bag of miscellaneous junk food into the air, flashing a lopsided grin that shows much, much more confidence than he's actually feeling about this whole endeavor. He follows her inside, yanking the door closed with his ankle and dropping the bag on the couch cushions before following shortly after. "Please," he says. "Even if I don't kick your ass—which I will—I've got nothing to hide."

...That came out simultaneously better and worse than he had hoped.

Kat swivels on the couch arm, fingers quick to tug the plastic open to examine its contents.

Its contents are very colorful. They are also all labeled in Japanese. Unhelpful.

"Red one's mine," she says, nodding at the little basket of controllers as she grabs for the remote. The television flares into life with a fuzzy click. "I don't care about the other ones."

Yasuo helpfully empties the bag, picking out his favorites and laying them out in a row. The others he'd just sort of assumed she'd like, since he had no idea if an American stripper would be particularly fond of うまい棒. (He loves the stuff, so the bag is almost a third full of it.)

"I can tell you what everything is—if you want," he adds. Kat doesn't seem to be the sort to shy away from unfamiliar experiences.

The only other choice of controller seems to be black or blue. He takes the latter. "Ready to get your ass wrecked?"

...That was also the best and worst thing for him to say. He's on some sort of roll here.

Katarina picks up one of the packages he'd arranged. The picture denotes something round and pleasant-looking, maybe with powdered sugar involved; it's hard to tell.

Katarina raises an eyebrow at him. "On the first date, Yas?"

Yasuo raises an eyebrow right back. "We're playing strip Mario Kart," he points out dryly. "Not exactly a traditional first date by... anybody's standards, 's far as I know." Although who knows; Kat might just be weird.

He picks up his silently claimed controller and one of the うまいぼ, putting the latter between his thighs to unwrap it. "My brother is friends with the guy who owns the Asian market," he adds by way of explanation for all the Japanese food he's brought. "We get honorary employee discounts."

Kat nods approvingly. "Smart," she says, as if employee discounts are the only reason anyone would befriend a grocer.

She runs a cursory eye over Yasuo's attire. He took his shoes off already for some reason, leaving him about as clothed as she is. Worst-case scenario, the main part of the game would only take about seven courses (six, if he went commando).

...She set it to go through all of them anyway.

"Not traditional," she allows, "but I don't have to trust you to play strip anything with you." Kat pulls her hair out of her face and starts flicking through the characters.

Yasuo isn't sure if he's meant to laugh at that last remark. He does anyway, because it's kind of funny either way. God, where is his life going if he's started laughing at stripper humor?

He's just... not going to think about that, because otherwise he can hear Yone's berating voice in his head and that's the exact opposite of sexy.

Once he chases his brother out of his brain, Yauso quickly flicks to Luigi, because anyone who doesn't love Luigi is wrong.

"So," he says, taking a bite from his うまいぼ while he cycles through the vehicles, "aside from this—" he nods towards the screen—"what do you do with your downtime?"

This is the weirdest place to have a normal conversation. Not that that's going to stop him.

She almost, almost picks Toad just for the psychological warfare, but it isn't worth the speed hit. Daisy instead, then, just for the sheer hell of it.

"Besides this and bothering musicians?" she corrects him, lounging back on the couch as the first course loads. "A little of everything, I guess. You?"

Katarina nearly runs him off the road through sheer determination on the first curve. It sets both of them behind, but it's worth it.

"Used to do a little of everything," Yasuo says, biting off a chunk of うまい棒 before the course loads all the way in. Around the mouthful, he continues: "These days I'm stuck at college, honestly. 's amazing how much of a timesink that shit can be."

And that's about as much as he can say about himself without making himself balk. God, no wonder he hasn't had a date since he came to this country.

Katarina's lips pull into a secret smile. "I studied astrophysics and aeronautical engineering," she says, just to be a dick. "I know what you mean."

Not that she finished. But she doesn't have to tell him that.

He pulls ahead of her before a lightning strike hits. She pulls a face; might be a little more evenly matched than normal.

But that just makes it a challenge.

—holy shit. All right then. It occurs to Yasuo that he's even more out of his depth than he'd originally thought.

"God, now I feel boring," he says with a self-deprecating laugh. "I'm just studying music."

One of the 'bots sets off a squid, and Yasuo makes a strangled noise of annoyance. Not that winning or losing, in this instance, is a bad thing in either direction, but god, he's too competitive for this shit.

"You're cute," Katarina says. "You don't have to be interesting." (She grins afterwards, just to make sure he knows she's teasing.)

Yasuo is just a little too good for her to feel safe just chattering away, so she focuses on the game for a little while. On the third lap, as soon as she hits the longest straightaway, she—very quickly—leans over, kissing him in the hopes that maybe it'll make him wipe out somewhere.

Yasuo snorts. "Oh, believe me, I don't think I'm boring," he says. "Just my major. You have to be at least a level fifteen friend and pick all the right conversation options before you unlock my tragic backstory, sorry."

When she falls silent, he does too, eyes and focus narrowing until his mind is solely on the game. So much so that, when he feels her lips against his cheek, he honest-to-God doesn't notice for a second. When he does, he starts, glancing over at her in confusion—

—and falls straight into the drink. Fucking Lakitu bullshit motherfucking—

He watches her kart rush past the line and peels out of his shirt in a huff.

Katarina takes several seconds to examine the results of her ill-won victory, a smile spreading over her face. (Turns out fluteboy doesn't look bad half-naked. Who knew?)

"I don't know how that's going to work, Yas," she says. "I'm used to being the mysterious one with the sob story. I've even got the scars for it."

...Huh. Come to think of it, she wonders if he'd even managed to see them all—the lights in the Bunny aren't exactly conducive to noticing details, and Yasuo wasn't exactly looking too observant at the time. Oh well.

She turns sideways on the couch, draping her legs over his lap as she starts the next round.

Yasuo stretches a little for her, trying not to look too smug. There's something very flattering about being ogled by a woman who's paid to look good.

"Who says we can't both be?" he counters. "Not every scar's physical, you know."

That unexpected bout of deepness out of the way, Yasuo turns his focus back to the screen—or tries to, because suddenly her legs are stretched across his thighs and no. If she thinks she can use her feminine wiles to make him suck at Mario Kart twice, she's got another thing coming.

"Nice try," he adds, glancing at her sidelong.

Very nice. He should put that on a shirt.

"I don't know what you mean," Kat replies as innocently as she can. "If I were trying, you'd know." But since he can apparently be distracted—or at least startled or confused—by a kiss on the cheek, she doesn't think she'll have to really try all that hard.

The starting horn sounds. As soon as they pull far enough ahead of the bots for her to feel safe splitting her attention, she speaks again. "So what, we take turns brooding and being mysterious?"

Yasuo snickers. "Seems fair to me."

...god, he's starting to feel a bit nippy already. A part of him (the part that's thankfully getting a bit louder now than his own brother's concerned voice in his head) hopes that they start doing something a little more heat-generating soon.

(Fuck, this was a mistake.)

"Gotta say," he says, trying to ignore the goosebumps her air conditioning is causing, "I'm honestly impressed that that's what you studied. 's the sort of shit that always went right over my head."

Katarina nearly overcorrects her turn in protest. "Yasuo," she says, mock-stern. "Just because my father is MIA doesn't mean I need you to make dad jokes for him." Honestly now.

She sneaks glances at him every time there's an opportunity to do so without crashing. Sure, she'll probably be able to actually look at a lot more of him than just his chest if this goes well, but... still. It's the principle of the thing.

...Yasuo is just going to pretend that he meant that to be the most brilliant joke he's made in months, rather than just a happy accident in his second goddamn language. He grins broadly, giving a theatrical shrug.

This, unfortunately, coincides with a lightning strike followed by a red shell from one of the 'bots.

And a fuckton of a lot of swearing. He falls behind horribly, and all the determination and gritted teeth in the world do little to save him.

It's an awful way to lose, but all Yasuo gets is a sympathetic wince. Partly because he jerks to his feet and starts peeling his trousers off before she could even think of any other reaction, and that's just a little bit distracting.

Yasuo, Katarina is quickly realizing, looks very nice. "Wouldn't have pegged you for a flutist," she says, half to herself and without really realizing she's talking.

She doesn't know what her mental image of a flute player looked like, but it didn't coincide with the mental image of someone who knows what the inside of a gym looks like, somehow. (Although it's not like violins and strippers mesh in her mind, either, so she should really have known better.)

Yasuo gives her an absolutely baffled look for that comment. "What's a flutist supposed to look like?" he asks, all cool gone in face of total confusion.

Maybe he's just good-looking enough to have startled the sense out of her somehow. Not that that's likely, given her profession and how many men (and women, probably) she sees on a nightly basis, but... hey. A guy can dream.

"You're gonna lose one of these times," he mutters, shifting in hopes of keeping back the chill.

She folds her legs back over him as soon as he settles in. "I don't know," Kat says. "Scrawny, maybe." Honestly, she has no idea.

It's been a while.

She starts the next round, partly as a challenge to his last statement and partly to redirect the conversation away from how her brain has stepped away from the controls in celebration of the (presumptive) end to her dry spell.

He wins. She's not even entirely sure how he wins; nothing particularly catastrophic happened to her. He just ends up in front of her and nothing she does stops it.

"Hm," Katarina says thoughtfully, and pulls her shirt off without ceremony.

Yasuo snorts and rolls his eyes. "Flutists go to the gym too," he says. "Y'know. When we have the time." Between the café and classes, he doesn't usually. But he tries, dammit.

All thoughts of arguments briefly vanish in the face of Kat in actually decent light, all pale skin and pronounced curves and goddamn Yone is going to be so—

No. He's not going to think about his brother right now. Cross that bridge later. The current bridge is the slight arc of Kat's spine, causing her ribs to leave slight shadows in the cold light of the television. Yasuo forces himself to stop staring, though not before the sheer volume of scars across her sides hits brain and he starts to wonder, despite himself.

"So," he says, partly to distract himself and partly to distract her so he can win more than just one race by the end of the day, "do you do strip Mario with all the boys, or am I special?"

"I could teach you how to dance," Kat says. "It doesn't take long once you get used to it." She's selfless, really.

She bites the inside of her cheek as she considers her reply, grunting her displeasure as she swerves away from a star-powered Wario straight into a green shell. "No one's seen me naked outside of work in a couple of years," she answers. "But don't worry. I'm not so desperate I lost my sense of taste."

He's relentless, sticking close to her, targeting her as specifically as he can with everything he can get ahold of the second she starts to catch up again... which never takes long, because they left the bots far behind midway through the first lap.

No one should be turned on by someone else's Mario Kart skills, and yet here she is. Katarina almost doesn't care when he zooms over the finish line first. Almost.

She leaves her pants untouched, reaching up to unclasp her bra and flick it at him in the hopes that maybe breasts will be more distracting than legs.

...It's colder in here than she thought it was. And Yasuo's eyes keep flicking between her and the screen and if she's feeling chilly than he must be feeling worse, right? There's no harm in continuing this later. It’s the selfless thing to do.

She breathes, biting down on her bottom lip before putting her controller on the back of the couch and sitting up. Yasuo jerks a little as she moves to straddle him, but it doesn't seem to be in protest.

"Call it an intermission," Katarina says, angling her hips and pushing down, her hands on his shoulders. She smiles into something that's almost a kiss. "Show me what you wanted to do to me yesterday."

—well then.

Yasuo has already gone this far. There's no reason to beat around the bush anymore, right? (Unless she's into that.) He puts his controller down on the arm of the couch, hands immediately moving to her hips, trying not to squirm under her at the sudden pressure. Shit, it's been too long.

"Wouldn't have thought I'd ever see the day," he says, kissing a line down the side of her neck, "that someone would get hot and bothered playing Mario Kart." First time for everything, he supposes.

He stops at her shoulder, frowning at the friction every time one of them shifts. There's still way too much fabric in this equation.

"You really want to see?" Yasuo asks, fingertips slipping (barely) beneath the waistband of her panties.

His mouth is soft and his stubble is scratchy and they both leave tingles in their wake. Kat's eyes are lidded, a lazy smile on her face, a shiver jolting down her skin as his fingers tuck themselves underneath her remaining clothes.

She very much likes what his voice does when it's quiet and challenging, she decides. (And she doesn't, as a rule, turn down challenges.)

"Mmhm," she answers. She laughs, arching her back to press closer to him. Her breasts graze his skin, just barely. "I'll try almost anything once. And you don't look nearly crazy enough to want the things I won't say yes to."

Really, though, the guy should work on his phrasing. If she didn't already feel like she had a good read on him, she would have worried he was using this as a lead-up to ask to shit on her or something.

Yasuo bites down on his lower lip, a lopsided smile crinkling his eyes. "I wouldn't worry about that," he tells her. "I have a rule—don't do the weird stuff until the second time." (Frankly, the question was less one to ascertain how kinky she is and more one to ensure she actually wants this. But hey, good to know.) "Makes it easier to get a feel for the other person, you know?"

He turns her, pushing her down onto her back on the couch. Her pants are quickly removed, and he starts to kiss a line down her body.

For a split second, Yasuo considers getting up and muting the television just so the end-of-race music will stop, because it may be the least sexy tune ever. But there's a gorgeous redhead under him, and he's gotten this far... He can deal with some cheesy music for a while.

Kat snickers again, wriggling against the cushions to try and get comfortable.

She wants to make a clever reference in return (because honestly, that was not among the fandoms she'd've assumed they shared), but what actually comes out of her mouth is: "I wouldn't mind getting a feel for you."

Which is possibly the corniest thing she's said in her life, and she will not apologize for it.

She exhales, watching him as she reaches down to pull the tie from his hair and brush her fingers through it. As he keeps trailing kisses down to her stomach, she internally laments her choice of underwear—not because Batman is ever a bad choice, but because it's very thick and comfortable cotton and she won't be able to feel as much until he takes them off.

Which will hopefully be soon. Kat squirms a little, her knees falling a little farther apart. (So he has more room on the couch between them, of course. She's just being considerate.)

Her controller slips off of the arm of the couch and drops onto her shoulder. She bats it away.

Yasuo has to draw back for a second, just to give her a Look for that line. "Now I'm not so sure about this," he says dryly, but he's quick to contradict himself by bending down again and kissing her pulse. His hands start to trace the lines of her body, enjoying the smooth warmth of her skin.

The controller clatters to the floor, which startles Yasuo a little, but he recovers quickly enough. And hey, he's already mostly tuning out that end screen music. Progress.

"What do you like?" he murmurs.

Her eyes are closed, her body slack against the couch excepting the tension under his hands as she moves into his touch. Katarina strongly suspects that part of her might be melting at the question.

Fucking charmer. She's keeping this one.

"Uhhm," she says. He's still wearing his hat. She takes it off because it's just unnecessary and she can't do much about his underwear from here. "Just--keep touching me." Katarina reaches for him, her fingers tracing muscle and tendon and bone, exploring him in turn. She can reach the waistband of his boxers, she finds, but not nearly as far in as she'd really like to.

"I take the lead enough at work," she says suddenly. "I like having it taken back."

Within reason, but she's not interested in the intricacies of language just at the moment. She cranes her neck and manages to get at the space between his shoulder and his pulse, kissing it, biting a small mark where it's easy to hide.

Oh, he can work with that. Yasuo turns his head slightly, giving her better access to his throat. A quiet sigh passes his lips—contentment and relief after so long in an empty bed. (Or couch, as the case may be.)

He kisses a line down from the hollow of her throat to her navel, glancing up and flashing a wicked grin. His fingers trail down her ribs to her hips, until his hand is braced comfortably on her thigh.

Is he waiting for encouragement to continue? Is he teasing? Is he just being a little shit? The answer is yes.

Katarina happily takes advantage, exploring his neck with her lips and tongue until he moves too far down to continue.

Not that the loss hits her too hard given where he ends up. She looks down at him—flash of heat at his smirk, the hollow feeling between her legs deepening—and she waits for just a second to see if he's going to do anything else.

He doesn't. A muscle in her thigh twitches under his palm.

"What," she asks (and no matter how hard she tries to make her voice sound irritable it refuses to do it), "are you waiting for an invitation or do you need me to explain where everything is?"

"Oh, I've been around enough to know where everything is, don't worry," Yasuo tells her with a snicker. He kisses below her navel, shutting his eyes as he inhales the scent of her. (There's nothing all that poetic about it; nice soap and the general smell of her apartment linger on her skin, with an undercurrent of something he can't quite put words to. It's something he won't admit he missed about... this.)

It takes a hell of a lot of scrunching, but Yasuo manages to position himself (mostly) comfortably between her thighs. With a sultry look that he hopes doesn't betray what he's about to do, he purrs "いただきます" and promptly gets to work before she can react.

She's heard that before. She's heard that before, but her underwear is finally off (okay, dangling from one ankle, but that's close enough for her right now) and maybe flutists are a repository of innuendo for more than just fellatio or maybe she's just incredibly wound up but the instant he ducks down she stops being able to think for a few seconds.

"Oh," she gasps. And then, when she figures out where she knows that phrase: "oh god you didn't just," and then a breathless and hitching laugh.

Terrible joke or no, Kat shudders, trying to grind up against his tongue. A low sound rises to her throat and she bites her lip on it, returning one of her hands to his hair and experimentally giving it a gentle tug.

Yasuo chuckles, though he doesn't move back at all, keeping his focus (mostly) on Kat and her pleasure. It's been a while since he's done this, and he's out of practice, but he still remembers a few tricks.

One hand reaches up, massaging her breast while the other keeps hold on one of her thighs, and he groans quietly, letting the sound rumble against her skin.

She wants to say something. She wants to say something clever and sexy and encouraging, something that could adequately convey how incredibly fucking glad she is that he showed up in the Bunny and was cute and wasn't weird about anything, and that he proceeded to take everything else completely in stride.

None of her cooperates. Her eyes slide shut, her spine arching awkwardly as she tries to move closer to his mouth and his hand at the same time. Kat does manage to wrestle her throat into submission, but only gets a hitching whine out before it closes.

Her leg slips sideways in her bid to splay out for him as much as she can, her heel thunking off of the couch entirely.

And onto her controller, where it had managed to skitter away out of reach.

The endgame music cheerfully replaces itself with the fanfare announcing a new round and Katarina curses, trying to sit up before realizing how very much she can't.

...oh, fuck. Yasuo jumps up, letting go of her and scrambling as fast as he can to grab his own controller. "Next time we do this—" this extremely specific thing that he never anticipated doing, let alone enjoying this much—"I may have to tie you up before we actually start anything. I don't want to lose on Rainbow Road because I'm too busy eating you out," he says dryly.

Though that would make for an interesting game for them to play. One of them plays bots while the other... distracts them. He might just have to suggest that after they're done with this race.

She misses the initial speed boost by grabbing the controller too late, but so does Yasuo, so at least there's that.

Katarina's laugh is raspy and uneven as they round the first corner. "Most people wouldn't consider that losing, Yas," she says. "But if you really want to tie me up, I won't stop you."

Internally, she revels a little (a very little) at next time.

Neither one of them is playing as well as they ought to—Wario actually ends up in first place for a few seconds, much to her consternation—but it's still frighteningly close. She wins, sort of, but she really only pays enough attention to that to realize that it gives her some kind of permission to take the rest of his clothes off.

But she pauses the game first this time, and she puts the controller on top of the television where it can't throw itself underfoot, and then she goes to crouch onto the floor in front of the couch and help him out of his underwear.

Even his dick is pretty, Kat thinks almost angrily. Or maybe she just thinks it is because she desperately wants it right now.

Settling down onto her knees, her hands resting on his hips, Katarina leans forward—fair's fair, even if she doesn't have anything (arguably) clever to say beforehand—and gives his cock a preliminary lick. Just a little, just with the tip of her tongue, to see how he feels about it.

Yasuo considers, briefly, shooting back with something clever, but he's far too focused on both the game in front of them and the one they've made for themselves to actually say anything aloud. And then her nimble fingers are pulling down his briefs and fuck it's such a relief to have his hard-on not constricted by the cotton that he unconsciously lets out a breathy sigh before she even touches him.

And then.

This is the sort of thing he would have had dreams about as a teen, Yasuo thinks distantly. A bright-eyed redhead kneeling between his thighs, pupils blown and face flush, the bright red of her lips and tongue and oh fuck.

Yasuo grips the couch cushions, his head falling back as he groans. It's been way, way too damn long.

Katarina grins, not that Yasuo can see it at the moment, deciding that that's enough encouragement for now. She moves her left hand from his thigh to loosely wrap it around his cock, circling it with her tongue before sucking the head into her mouth.

She watches him through hooded eyes, stroking him slowly, scratching the curve of his hip gently with her fingernails. Turnabout, she reasons, and moans deliberately around his cock so he can feel it.

Fuck. She doesn't have the patience for this. Kat pulls off of him, pushing her hair out of her face.

"I have a bed if you're interested," she says.

Yasuo gives a full-body shiver, eyes refusing to stay open no matter how badly he wants to watch her. Fuck. Forget his teen self, his present self is going to be having dreams about this for months.

He almost complains when she pulls away, but she makes her offer before he gets the chance. All his previous doubts fade away, as does all his self-control. "Please," he says. (As does his dignity too, apparently.) "Any longer on this couch and I think my spine might snap," he adds, to recover from the vague embarrassment of devolving to begging so quickly.

It occurs to him, when he wakes up blearily under a pile of frankly unreasonably soft blankets (under the watchful eyes of at least ten different plastic Stargate characters, judging him from her bookshelf), that he hadn't bothered to actually kiss Kat on the mouth before he started kissing her in other places. That... has to be some sort of record. He's not sure if he should be proud or embarrassed.

The first thing Katarina is aware of upon waking up is someone else's limbs wrapped completely around her body. It's actually really, really impressive.

And very warm. And there is no way to get out of the cage of arms and the leg hooked over her thighs without waking up the owner of said arms and leg. Which she doesn't think he deserves, really. If he were bad in bed, she would absolutely wake him up, but... well, but he wasn't. So she's stuck.

At least she can reach her phone, barely. So there's something.

It takes twenty minutes, but Yasuo finally stirs, his arms tightening experimentally before he seems to figure out what she is and what she's doing there. She turns her head, but can't quite do it enough to look at him.

"Morning," she says. "If you let me up I can make you a coffee or something." Because as much as she likes it when Yone breaks through his customer service face to give her a look of concern or disappointment or growing dread, even she thinks that waltzing into the café with his bleary-eyed, sex-and-then-shower-and-then-sex-in-the-shower-itself-and-then-sleeping-in-a-stranger's-bed-rumpled brother in tow would be a bit much.

"Morning," Yasuo mumbles, his voice scratchy from sleep. Lazily, he cranes his neck down to kiss the crown of her head. (If her mouth weren't still too far away, he'd go ahead and fix the little problem that now won't stop nagging at the back of his mind. Damn it.)

It takes a few seconds for her offer to crawl through his ears and into his sleep-addled brain. When it does, he disentangles himself—with some considerable effort—and flops onto his stomach, face buried in a pillow.

"Coffee's'nice," he murmurs. Warm mattresses are even nicer.

Katarina snickers to herself, stretching the kinks out of her spine now that the human octopus has finally freed her.

He could have worse nighttime habits, though. At least this isn't inconvenient enough not to be a little bit cute. It's not really a point against him.

She doesn't bother putting her clothes on when she leaves the bedroom; her blinds are down if not closed, and there's no way anyone could see much from the street with the floor she's on. (And even if they could, she might consider the morning light slanting through the slats to be worth it.) She's between trips to the grocery store, so it's not like she'll burn her tits on wayward bacon grease or anything.

Kat's coffee maker hasn't seen as much use since she discovered the cafe, but it gurgles into life with only minimal grumbling and produces its mostly adequate product in short order.

And then she realizes she has no idea how he likes his coffee, so she just puts the pot on a pizza pan with some milk and a bowl of sugar and an extra mug and wanders back into her room.

She carefully places the sheet next to his shoulder. "Coffee," she says by way of conversation, and starts attacking her own cup.

Yasuo rolls over like a log on a slope, and makes a noise similar to one too. With a grunt, he pushes himself up until he's sitting propped against the wall, taking the cup in one hand and the pot in the other. "Thanks," he mumbles, still half-asleep despite his best efforts. He pours in an almost—almost—embarrassing amount of milk with a paradoxically small spoonful of sugar, stirs it, and fairly chugs the whole damn thing, scalded tongues be damned.

He's been a university student for long enough now that this is just his routine at this point. ...Minus the naked redhead, though that is a nice bonus.

"Sleep well?"

Katarina reaches up to pull her tangled hair away from her shoulders, smiling at the ravenous way he downs the coffee.

"No other way I could sleep after that," she says—testing the waters, mostly, seeing how comfortable he is with what they did after the initial lust has faded.

She scoots to sit next to him, their shoulders touching as she sips her coffee. "You?"

Yasuo glances at the carafe, idly wondering if there's enough left for him to have another cup, or if that would be rude. After a second's deliberation, he decides that fuck it, might as well.

"Can't argue with that," he says with a lopsided grin. "Probably the best night's sleep I've had since..." He wrinkles his nose. "Since before I started school. Damn."

Another drink of coffee, this one much less ravenous. Yasuo glances at her sidelong. "Guess I should be thanking you," he adds.

Kat grins into her mug, more pleased than she feels like admitting. Smug? Smug works.

"I can think of a few ways you could thank me, if you're taking suggestions," she offers, taking a moment to drag her eyes down his body like she hadn't spent a good chunk of the previous evening examining it in detail anyway. "If you wanted to make this a regular thing, just to blow off steam..."

Yasuo lies back a little, casually sipping his coffee. He's pretty sure she's seen enough of him up close that she doesn't need to scan it quite like that, but who is he to deny the pretty redhead who practically gave him breakfast in bed—and after a night like that? He's pretty sure there's some phrase about horses that applies here.

"All right, Commander Shepard," he says, cracking another grin. "Seems fair to me."

Her heart honest-to-God skips a beat. He didn't, she thinks. He doesn't. He can't. Is the Japanese translation that weirdly true to form or was the first thing he did upon coming to America to just play fucking Mass Effect?

Either way, he deserves so much better than her. Damn.

Kat laughs—a surprisingly natural sound, startled and delighted. "Is this your favorite spot on the Citadel, Vakarian?"

Yasuo grins, laughter easily bubbling up in his throat. "Starting to look that way, Commander," he says, leaning over to bump his forehead against hers before finally—fucking finally—kissing her on the lips.

(This is fast becoming the weirdest, most specific roleplay he's ever done. And honestly, at this point, he can't bring himself to mind.)

Katarina kisses him back cheerfully, reaching with the hand not occupied with her cup to find the tangle of his surprisingly soft hair. His mouth tastes more of coffee than of morning breath, which she appreciates, and--wait.

"We didn't do that yet, did we?"

#you had to walk into mine #au: battle bunny #x: ready for trouble? | (interactions)#p: starting at the end | (yasuo x katarina)#swordwithoutsheath #x: my pleasure | (nsfw)

3 notes · View notes